#431: How To Be Royally Successful w/ Alex Levin of Regal.io
Alex Levin is a CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert. Prior to Regal.io, Alex was a product manager at Personal and Thomson Reuters, and then joined Handy (acquired by ANGI in 2018) as an early employee. At Handy and then ANGI Alex led growth and marketing. Alex grew up in New York and received his BA from Harvard.
Chapters/Timestamp Jumps by Otter.ai - Otter referral link https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
Entrepreneurship, life advice, and personal growth. 2:27
Domain names, business names, and branding. 7:15
Using AI to personalize marketing outreach. 12:17
Education, parenting, and food waste. 15:10
Customer service and automation in business. 20:43
Customer loyalty and advocacy in marketing. 26:43
Guest's calls-to-action
Episode sponsored
by Search-and-SEO-first optimized AI writer, ZUPYAK, promo discount coupon code - ZUPYAK.COM → promo code → SWEAT
by no-code, drag-and-drop website builder, SQUARESPACE promo discount coupon code https://squarespacecircleus.pxf.io/sweatequity
by call tracking, CALL RAIL, promo discount coupon code https://bit.ly/sweatequitycallrail
by LINKEDIN PREMIUM promo discount coupon code - 2 months free! https://bit.ly/sweatequity-linkedin-premium
---
Sweat Equity 🔗s
Hosts’ Eric Readinger & Law Smith 🔗s
---
Wanna help Sweat Equity without spending a dime? Sure, we’re the #1 business comedy & comedy business podcast on earth, but we can always practice Kaizen, aka continuous improvement. Please? We’ll be your BFF! Hook us up by
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ REVIEW
WRITE a quick hitter sentence in the review
Smash SUBSCRIBE
SHARE with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family members you love and the fam you don’t like talking to
#sweatequity #entrepreneurship #comedy #entrepreneur #business #girthyroi #69b2b #sweatequity💦
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 0:02
sweat equity podcast the number one comedy business podcasts money in the world
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:09
question on this episode whenever
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 0:12
our guest Alex Levin, that right out leavened bread hit hard some dough unliving, unleavened bread, whatever. You know if you want to check that video out we're big time on Vimeo. Big time Vimeo. Yeah, remember that platform? Huge on there. Yeah, remember, go watch the video or we're putting on YouTube a little bit later after it comes out on iTunes Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, Amazon music. I hurt radio. Whoa, yeah, yeah. This episode is sponsored by Ziyech. The first the first search optimized AI writers. What is it's a very simplified content writer. I've been using it to crush out blog posts for clients for my own business. For my own website. Z up ya que and guess what? You want to get the hook up power. If you hear me? Well, you get a promo. promo code discount if you put in sweat. S W. E a T like sweat equity. Yeah, like keep sweat. Yeah. They are so enthralled with their podcasts. They wanted to be a sponsor. Yeah. If you want to be a BFF of the show. subscribe to the podcast you wrote
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 1:34
hottie tottie in the fucking notes. Are you kidding me?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 1:37
That's been there for I have to oral forget. If you want to be our BFF Sorry, sorry, subscribe to the pod rate five star. It was a little short review. Share the show. And let's get this not party started. cold sweat
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 2:20
listening to the sweat equity podcast. Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 2:27
So all right. Hello. We were almost very cool. But
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 2:30
yeah, we almost cut bait.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 2:33
Just trying to finish the last call of the day. It's all good. You guys are we going on? Gotta gotta get this going. The shirt. No sleeves. No, you know, sunglasses.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 2:45
Yeah. I mean,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 2:46
we're down in Florida. You know, in our future so bright. Sometimes we gotta we gotta wear some sunglasses. As the rapper said. Yeah, we're we are rolling. We don't do any kind of pre interview or anything. We just, we try to be efficient for our guests. Alice? Alex, why don't you tell people where to find you what you're about, give them your intro. So we don't have to butcher it.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 3:13
Thank you for having me. So my name is Alex. I'm the founder and CEO of regal. And we're a product for outbound contact centers. So we provide phone and SMS tools for outbound contact centers, reach customers, convert them drive more revenue. If you want email me, you can reach me at hello@regal.io or just go to regal.io and see more about remote.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 3:37
Wow, given the email out boldly. I mean, it's not what your phone number, it's not a 11 at
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 3:45
you know, at every company I've also always had a but you know, I sort of give a shout out publicly so I know it goes to like a different inbox. So that's not my, my like day to day mental.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 3:56
Well, I want to hear about regal and how you found it and everything and when to lead go to market teams. Were two questions we got to ask up front. One. Have you listened to this podcast before? I've not actually okay, that's that's normal. Yes. Yeah. People come into it blind. What are the number one? Comedy business podcast in the world? Yeah, maybe ever. Or admirably? Yeah, because there's
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 4:27
this is like when I go talk to my mother in law, she says she won a triathlon and I need to ask her where she the only one in her age group for the triathlon? Are you guys the only one in that category of
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 4:36
causes did You're a genius do and
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 4:43
like my father says he got second and I go, Are you playing tennis? Like is it that kind of conflict? Right? Exactly. Yeah,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 4:49
exactly. There's no one else in the genre. But we've we are category killer.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:53
Yeah, most people don't like to dive in like that. Call us out. They just let it slide. They assume there's competition. I appreciate it good. Although,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 5:03
Look, man, we love it. He didn't get to where he is by not thinking like that. Right. The other question we ask everybody that comes on for the first time, what advice would you give your 13 year old self? Oh, yeah. Hard you didn't take any life advice? I thought we were just a bunch of Florida Hicks coming on. Yeah.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 5:27
Florida, my co founder, the Florida concussion caller that?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 5:31
were cut out shirts and everything you think hit you hard, man. I got your right in the soul. Yeah, what advice would you give your 13 year old self? It can be anything but he travelled back in time. You're in a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure telephone booth. You come out, you grab yourself by the lapels.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 5:51
I'm wondering, should we be putting a time limit on this question for people like you'll have 30 seconds.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 5:56
I don't know. I'm just I'm vamping. I'm formulating. I'm vamping a little bit. So he has a little time what do you think?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 6:05
And it's just you, whoever you are, you're in a phase where it's so awkward. And there's so much like pressure on yourself to go out and do things, whatever it is that you'd like in life and you want to do in life. And I think like looking back, I wish I had known that sort of the process matters more than the result. As long as you're going and doing things and you know, learning about new stuff and making sort of new friends and moving forward, like you're gonna be fine. Like, you know, this idea that like, oh, a door closes and my life is over. It's just not real. Like, you know, one door closes, another one opens, everything's fine. Like, I've made enormous mistakes in my life. But in the end of the day, like you get through it, and it's fine. I think, as a 13 year old, like, you just don't have the perspective to understand that. And you know, as you get through life, you realize like, yeah, it's not, you know, everything's gonna be okay.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 6:53
So that's your answer. That's what you're gonna tell yourself.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 6:56
That's what I'm telling myself. Yeah. Good.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 6:58
Well, you speak you. So I guess I would be like, that's a lot of information. I don't know what this means. What
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 7:06
is 13 year old?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 7:08
Well, what Yeah. Were you entrepreneurial as a kid? Did you? What kind of family did you grow up in? What was the environment?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 7:17
Yeah, I mean, my father ran a small business. So that definitely gave us a lot of perspective at the dinner table of sort of, you know, buy low, sell high, like what actually happens day to day, like the ups and downs of hard parts about running a business. You know, we had little things that we did on the side, but never started a real business, for sure. And then I went to work after school for tech businesses. I think I understood pretty early, that there was something magical in tech businesses where you can have a very small group of people, building something, doing something that impacted a huge number of people. And that's the sort of leverage of technology, right, instead of having to go and install windows in every single home, which is hard to scale. By using technology, you can instantly go have impacts on lots of people. And so I've been through this now, a couple different times. And then this is actually the first time my co founder and I are the founders ourselves. And so while we've seen it, and we've been sort of number two, we've never actually been in that seat. And that's a whole other experience.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 8:13
Yeah, you were a product manager at Reuters. Right. Also, handy, which was acquired by Angie. You know, Angie's list handy, the Not, not the handy you use? Not that?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:31
No, the food stores, the jack shack, the food stores, like handy,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 8:36
I'll tell you, how many jokes have you heard. Part of this thing's
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 8:39
very amusing. So the founder of that company was Irish. And when he was getting married, side knew in Ireland, so all of us was over there for his wedding. And we're getting in the car and telling him where we're going and what we're doing. And the taxicab driver was like, seriously, like, that's the name of your company. So first of all, like they all like love that show. But even worse is you know, in the States, and anytime they wrote about him in Ireland, they'd always say, oh, so and so it runs this big company that you know, does handy jobs and like those grandmother was convinced first of all, that he was either some sexual deviant or that he was like the world's greatest like tinkerer and handyman ran the technology business that like served all these customers. So like people had a very weird impression of him.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 9:26
Yeah, no, I mean, I love the name has sticking power
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 9:33
stick to the page power.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 9:34
I feel like I have I wrote about
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 9:39
the domain actually from a German company doesn't do what you think they sell cell phones because in Germany a handy is a social
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 9:46
interest. Oh, I'm
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 9:47
gonna use that. Yeah,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 9:48
I mean, yeah, you're really you're went to Germany, which is probably sexual deviant capital. Maybe Japan. I
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 9:55
don't know. Or yeah, comedy. They love jokes.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 9:58
Oh, yeah. Real good crime.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
We'll just boisterous
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 10:02
then I don't think they get sarcasm from what I understand
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 10:05
no robot people.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 10:07
Yeah.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 10:09
Chris is going to buy that that domain and just sort of the process of going through that.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 10:14
Tell us about it. We got time. Well, I
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 10:16
mean, you can imagine, I guess a little bit, right. So to your point, you know, we we, at the time it didn't know in the domain, and have to start figuring out who owned this and like everyone assumed it was pornography or something like terrible. And it turned out as the cell phone company, and you know, we had to like, explain to them why an American company that had nothing to do with cell phones, and they thought it was probably something to do with sexual deviants wanted to buy this because, you know, we did it anonymously. They didn't know what our company did. And so I think they were worried that they're going to sell it to somebody who's going to create a very strange website.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 10:47
I'm curious, what was the price tag on it? Because the domain brokerage thing is kind of interesting to me, I feel like you can it's cybersquatting of sorts a lot of people are doing.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 10:58
Yeah, can be I can neither confirm nor deny exactly the amount. But as soon as it's between 500,000 and a million dollars.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 11:06
Oh, those, like take
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 11:09
different brand names. So I'll give you a funny story about our corporate name. So regal.com is owned by GM. It turns out not real cinemas, Regal, Regal. And I emailed them at some point and said, hey, you know, we'd love to have this domain, and the response, and I kept emailing him no response. And finally, I called, you know, every Friday for a couple of Fridays in a row, that head of their domain, management group, and champion answer one day and I said, Hey, I'm Alex, I'm trying to inquire about the strategies. Oh, I know who you are. Turns out like GM had been like spinning up a whole group to think about whether they should allow us to buy this domain name in response. So it's a perfect big company thing without responding to me. They went to, you know, six people's worth of work for a couple of months to decide whether to give it to us or not still under consideration, but we don't own the domain yet.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 11:58
I liked that tenacity, though, that's like, hey, every Friday, I'm gonna annoy this lady, no matter what. And she was
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 12:05
happy to talk to me. I just couldn't believe that they had done six people's a word without telling me oh, yeah,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 12:10
that's definitely like corporate read.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 12:14
All the way like, didn't nobody thought to email the man back? No.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 12:18
And as you're a founder of if anybody needs the real website, regal.io. Just as a reminder,
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 12:26
we'll regal that AI also, redirect. So you know, if you're into that kind of thing?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 12:30
Are you guys implementing AI? Or are you just promoting an AI that isn't really AI, like a lot of people are.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 12:38
But what happened in our case, sort of funny, when we started the business, largely, the principle was that we were using customer's sort of behavior to personalized model the outreach for these large brands. So you know, we work with so far in AAA, and your old employer, you know, based on what they know about you, they're trying to make sure that the outreach is relevant, we're having the right message that reaches the right channel the right time. And we always knew that AI could accelerate that aim and do it better. But it was quite difficult to use some of that technology. So we said, forget it. So now with the new large language models, it's actually accelerated the roadmap in that area significantly, because all of a sudden, we can do it quite easy. So I think companies that are trying to build something an AI from scratch, that's hard. But if you have an existing set of customers have existing workflow, and you can say, How do I use AI to make it easier for them to do X, Y, and Z? That's great. So for our customers, it's just, you know, how do we use AI to make their lives easier, and reach more customers, so on and so forth?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 13:35
So would it be fair to say, you know, when you're founding a SAS or tech company, I don't know what you would, I guess, declare it you're filling a need. And the need really, from what I could gather, just by kind of very looking at very quickly was you're kind of bridging that gap between SMS and other outbound. So that it's all in one journey for the outbound kind of marketing is that fair to say, with some automation basically,
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 14:04
what happened is everyone who shops online now expects that of the rest of their life online, but in things like you know, health care, insurance, education, a website's not enough and so the customer who's deciding what to do for their next four years of school needs to still talk with the brand. And what we the gap we fill is how do we make sure that that customer and not brand can have a good conversation about it and drive to an outcome? And so you know, we use SMS and phone mostly because those are the main channels. But you know, one day could be holographic heads up display, we care less but the channel is we care about that connection happening in the right context, the right moment so that you know that customer can feel like one in a million when it was a local little school and you went in and they treated you very like a special person. You felt that what's happened online a lot of the times as brands treat everybody the same, and you don't feel that same level of personal service. I think we're trying to bring In the level of questions read was back even a huge scale.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 15:03
It's not the special person school that you were just talking about earlier where you get pulled out of class so you can read slower.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 15:10
Yeah, it was all fair. I was telling him different. My daughter tested very well. And I was like, I always feel like the end of Forrest Gump. Where he's like, not, he's not done, but me, like, Thank God, thank God. Thank God, they got my ex wife's academic prowess. And it's because my ADD was off the chain and then I they were the chain, they read a, they would shuffle you. If you're a bad reader at the school, I went to shout out to St. Mary's Episcopal Day School, if you couldn't read well, which I couldn't, and I was by myself most of the time. This Accelerated Reader program. And I remember the teacher would always get frustrated, because I'm so bad at reading out loud. So anyway, that's
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 15:57
weird. They call it celery. It goes to Montessori. At the Montessori program I've been told they don't teach. The kids teach themselves to read.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 16:05
Yeah, I don't like that shit. Yeah. You're, as you say, your kids went there. You went to a Montessori?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 16:12
Oh, my kids are in a Montessori program. And they don't in Montessori, they don't teach reading. They sort of It's a emergent property out of electronic ordeal soup of kids playing with each other. Yeah.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 16:24
I can be taught either way on that part of me goes that's just lawless. And we need we need order. Yeah. For her. But part of me is like, all the kids that
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 16:36
go into Montessori, you know, they're not, you know, they're usually a little bit smarter. So maybe they figure it out? Or is that where the AI comes in? Yeah,
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 16:47
I think what ends up happening is the parents ended up teaching it because that's
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 16:51
that's the whole you know, the whole point of schools. You know,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 16:53
I'm guessing you got talked into that. By by your
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 16:57
look, I love the Montessori program. Overall, I think this is just one area that they
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 17:03
Yeah, they're gonna re examine that in a few years. I bet.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 17:06
Yeah. Now, where are you zooming in from right now? What city are you
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 17:10
in right now? Actually, in Colorado? So I are. We're based in New York. I grew up in New York. Our offices actually like two blocks from the house I grew up in, which is crazy, real. Colorado. And so I'm out here at the moment, which is beautiful Colorado.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 17:25
Yeah. What part of New York though, did you grow up in? That's interesting.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 17:28
I grew up on 29th and Broadway. So
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 17:31
you're one of the rare success stories of Manhattan kids grew up there. I feel like the read I get from a lot of New York comics is they tell me the kids that grew up in Manhattan, like drug addicts, they're doing coke by like, eighth grade A lot of the time or something. Yeah.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 17:46
But I mean, they always have a golden parachute. Usually. That's,
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 17:49
that's, like anywhere, there's a huge variety. There are kids that took advantage of, you know, education and, you know, things that they had in life and their kids that didn't. But you know, I think what's wild is like, literally our office like looks into the apartment I grew up in.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 18:05
That's wild. Oh, man. What was the the small business your dad had?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 18:11
So like steel service center. So basically, they bought they bought steel from steel mills internationally, they look like, you know, huge toilet paper rolls. Have you ever seen like how steel is shipped, you know, they're like 10 feet high. And then they in the United States process it so they cut it into certain pieces or color and laminate it and sell it to manufacturers, the United States that would make anything from an auto part to decorative tin with that steel.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 18:38
Sometimes it blows my mind the supply chain stuff, how many times it goes through a different entity, and then they sell it for this month, and everybody's still making money. And they're crazy.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 18:48
Well, I think about that with food waste. Yeah, you know, when your your kids waste, they're the biggest perpetrators in wasting food. And so it's like, I tried to explain to them, it goes through all these things to get to here. Right? And if you can, please eat it, because this is the thing that's actually good for you. And not gushers you know, like, right, even that has
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 19:11
got so shocking to me is on one side how incredible it is that they can give you fresh fruit any day of the year. On the other side, why they can't make a tomato, the taste good 24 You know, whatever hours a day,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 19:22
right? But you gotta quick. You got them, though.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 19:25
How can they not like you know, there's like a month period every year that just ended. We're like, tomatoes are incredible. And then the rest of the year tomatoes are terrible. So somebody just needs to solve this problem. And like make a real tomato every three months of the year.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 19:38
I agree. I hate tomatoes, too. I don't like them on my burger gets in the way.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 19:42
Tomatoes. He didn't say he hates tomatoes.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 19:44
I'm saying 11 months out of the year. He's not a fan of him and Yeah, but he's still buying. I don't know, tomatoes little overrated. If I'm if I'm doing if I'm doing a vegetable chart,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 19:56
they won't be on it because they're not a vegetable.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 19:59
Yeah. So Oh yeah, if they're fruit, you're right. If they're fruit, pineapples number one if we're going to do it let's do power ranking.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 20:06
Okay, my mango mangoes first for me. Mango. Yeah, hell yeah, mango.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 20:12
Alex, what's your number one?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 20:14
Decide on this one. Unbelievable.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 20:18
Yeah, dude mangoes the past what are you talking about? Have you had a good? Pineapple? Yeah, pineapples, it's up there. I like pineapple. A lot as much as Mango. Mango. Pineapple does weird stuff to your like, your taste buds?
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 20:35
Oh, what you mean? It makes it? Flavorful, radiant? Light. Not
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 20:40
as much as mushrooms high. Good. Right. I don't want to get mushroom pineapple.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 20:46
You didn't think we're gonna have to rank your favorite fruits did yeah, this is this is what you went to Harvard for? So back to Regal, what, what are you? What's your why? What's your What are you passionate about with this company? You know, because it's a way different experience when it's your baby. You know? Yeah, so
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 21:05
my co founder and I, for years help, you know, build consumer businesses online. And I think still, like we love that part of what we like about, you know, Regal is that, you know, we're still working with one of these big consumer businesses. So we get to sit down with, you know, new online banks and new online life insurers or schools or whatever, and help them think through, you know, how are we going to create the best possible experience for customers online. And so certainly, like part of the fun is like building a company, we are just, we'd like that aspect of building something new for sure. That's fun for us. But part is also getting to work with all these customers doing sort of cool new things online that no one's ever done. And so that's like, very sort of enthralling every day. I think, you know, a lot of founders, you know, they sort of focused on the wrong things they care about, you know, how many employees they have as a measure of success. Like, that's not success, right. Success in the end is if like, we were able to do something really good for your customers, and they drive value. And if like the, you know, the team, a small team, you have a really powerful team, and you're really having fun working with them. And so I think we've been very discerning about who we hire careful about that. And it's part of what we've enjoyed the most.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 22:18
Well, especially because you have the product side, you also have your own marketing side, which I assume use your own product for. Maybe we should sign up and see see what happens, see what automation journey we're on. But like, yeah, I feel like, a lot of founders do that as a Dix Wait, and contests are we got this amount of employees, it's like, Well, to me, that feels like wait, that feels like a liability that feels like something you have, you have to actually care for them and make sure that they're paid. But it doesn't mean you're lean. It doesn't mean like it's efficient. Yeah.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 22:53
That's a terrible measure of success.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 22:56
Yeah, look at you know, the $20 billion with whatever, 20 employees, so it can be done. But you know, very unusual business that's able to do that.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 23:07
Yeah, it's really hard to find 20 unicorns, I guess, as I would call it, but I my big question for this platform is so with, there's a lot of text rules coming out a lot of like laws and stuff. How do you? How do you get a? What is it DM? DMC? Is that what's called the get right, is that the right acronym? There's so many
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 23:33
going and see what happens like how many letters can you say before you hit the right comment as well. So there's there's a couple there's the the TCPA is the rules around like making sure somebody gives you permission before you start sending them text and calling them. And then there's like the federal do not call this, which you can put yourself on if you don't want somebody to cold call you. So there's a number of different rules. But by and large, though, we don't, we're not anywhere close to the greater. So there there are companies historically that would like you know, basically buy your phone number, and do all kinds of terrible things. We have not touched that business. We work with brands where customers are coming to the
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 24:11
table with intent. And they allow
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 24:13
AAA as a good example, right? You're becoming a member of AAA because you see valid a pretty member though, right? There's millions of other members and so you know, if every time you call, they don't remember who you are, every time they call you they go oh, wait, let me read you the same script I gave everybody else every time they call you. You go, I told you last time I have a truck, not a you know, not a certainty. If that keeps happening, you as a customer are going to have a worse and worse experience. Right. So overall, like what we care about is making sure that these brands are able to have like much better experiences with their customers. That's the core piece of it.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 24:51
Yeah, so that you know anybody that is talking to them on the phone, it gives them the cheat sheet of like, okay, I know all I look I just had the word I was I got a bunch of IKEA stuff, right? And it was all messed up fried from shipping. And so I had to get on the live chat to do it hung up on me, like the live chat hung up on me. It was like, Ooh, we're experiencing bear stuff. Stuff. That's terrible. And I did download the chat. I did copy and paste it. I didn't do this five times,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 25:19
oh, that's the worst. You just got to keep tight. I've learned to just copy and
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 25:24
then they know, then then they got then they go, Oh, we're out of stock. We can't send you replacement stuff. You have to talk to us in 24 hours, I'm like, can't you put me in the queue already hung up?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 25:35
Can you just make a note, on your end, maybe for
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 25:39
a long time, companies believe that I was taught this for years, that customer service was a call center. And the goal was to digitize as much of it as possible. And then when you try to reach them deflect the inbound, and push you into other channels that didn't require humans. And that was the goal. And I think what companies have realized is you can't keep going in that direction, right? All that does is degrades the customer experience so much that even in the end, the customer wants to leave. So you have to look at it differently and start saying what are the moments in which I can invest in the experience for this customer such that when I invest $1, I get $2 back? Right? Could they have done something in that moment that had turned you from not just somebody who wanted to do a return but somebody who for life, or was bought IKEA or sold everybody else in their life? That IQ is the greatest thing ever? Probably. But they just they miss that opportunity? So you know, yes, like we have there are their compliance sort of frameworks. And we are the ones that make sure that our customers fit within those compliance frameworks and don't break walls for sure. And in the end, that's much better for customers, because it keeps them from having lots and lots of spam. So yes, we do all that. But more important is this other piece of again, how do you treat customers like royalty, you know, rethink what you're doing and think about how the things we're going to do to increase the customer LTV instead of looking at each customer interaction as a call center,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 26:57
or who I liked that slogan, and they're treated like royalty Regal, I got it. Now you got it. Now I get the crown.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 27:09
Like there's a step and repeat and the whole thing.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 27:12
Well, it says, you just have a benchmark study, I see this in the announcement bar on the top of your site, it says regal delivers 547% ROI, which is amazing.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 27:24
charge more that sort of tells me yeah,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 27:27
I'd like to dig into that. But it's one of those things where I've been reading stuff against customer loyalty, that it's overrated a lot of ways I would say, you're in the pro category of that, you know, to have customers that are loyal and advocate.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 27:46
It's just you never know who which guy has a podcast that's gonna go on there and talk about his experience at IKEA. Is
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 27:54
you on x now x you on tweet? I don't know what it's the new like,
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 27:59
we're gonna Twitter, we're gonna
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 28:03
pick that?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 28:05
Or do you X on x? Like, I don't understand how we tweet
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 28:08
on Twitter. I knew and I say that, but we don't ever
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 28:11
as of a week ago, you can still get a Twitter and it's still twitter.com. Yep. Still is still it's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he doesn't care. I mean, that's, that's like a side piece is seven other huge companies about fucking space. That's a free speech, passion project, I think but, you know, what are your thoughts on customer loyalty and customer advocacy, people talk a lot about marketing, sales funnels, they talk about all the way to acquisition, they don't really talk about the after effect is, is what you're doing part of that customer feedback loop that really does increase that loyalty and advocacy of customers for your for brands?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 28:59
Yeah, look, we give brands the tools to be able to build those programs. And we do see much higher, you know, sort of retention and customer loyalty. I think beyond what we do, though, I think it's how to put it, the customer expectation around advertising has changed drastically. But they don't want a big brand, just telling them what the brand thinks, right? They don't want the brand coming in saying, hey, you know, by target, because we're target right? They'd much prefer somebody that is in their social group, or friends of a friend. Right? So like, relatively closer, the social group, who says, you know, I went to Target I had this experience, here's what it meant for me. And you know, even though that's a paid influencer, all of a sudden that feels much more authentic to the customer, and it leads to a much better engagement. So I think that's shift from a world where advertising just spoke up people to this sort of way of sort of be more ingrained in your life. It's either you know, it's an SMS so it's more personal, right? It's, you know, an Instagram you know, within you know, what your friends are doing. I think like, that's a big shift. And some brands are doing that well, and making sure that they get more people creating user generated content target being one of them, that tends to do it well. And other brands are Yeah, not taking advantage of it. And you know, maybe, but like being example of somebody who did it really wrong, and it's crushed their business.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 30:18
Yeah. Well, yeah, that that one's the funniest to me because they make fun of Anheuser Busch, or InBev, for that gaff, and it's like, then they threw the, what was it, the owner of the agency that they hired? And she was like, I thought, I thought this would be like, cutting edge. Wow. You've never had a Bud Light in your life. Like you're not the demo.
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 30:44
Yeah, no, I'm not making a comment about the original campaign. They tried to start engaging with influencers, then the execution from there led to user generated content being created against them, and ultimately, sales getting crushed. So like they weren't able to control the advocacy of their customer base. And so I think like, you know, these brands that are smart today are shifting from sometimes it's called shifting from sort of rented media to own media, you know, they're shifting from a world where you go on LinkedIn, and you put it on LinkedIn, LinkedIn chooses who should should throne to, to roll the work, I have a direct relationship with X customer, and I can get in a conversation with them or show them a video or do whatever, in a way that's much more personal and direct and we can build that relationship together and the advocacy together.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 31:26
We'll never do rent to own media, because that's a rip off.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 31:30
Never pay that I'm
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 31:30
still paying a couch for 2530 grand. Alex, anything else? You want to get off your chest before we skedaddle?
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 31:42
No, I mean, I think you know, best of luck to you guys and your new endeavor. And, you know, being the number one business comedy podcast in the country. I can't
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 31:50
tell if he had a good time or not.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 31:53
I like that. You called it a new endeavor.
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 31:55
Yeah. We're on episode 431. He is doing the seven year plus,
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal.io, Entrepreneur, and Go-To-Market Product Expert 32:01
I thought I thought my joke was okay. No, you're
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, Stand Up Comedian, Sweat Equity Host, and President of Tocobaga Agency & Advisory 32:04
good, man. Appreciate you coming on regal.io If you want to check it out, if you want to email him directly, it's a@regal.io or hello@regal.io. Thanks for coming on. Thank you.
