Building An AI-Enabled. Tech Integrated. Marketing Powerhouse | Erik Huberman

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #240 we welcomed Erik Huberman, Founder and CEO of Hawke Media based in Santa Monica, CA. 

Since Erik & his team launched in 2014, Hawke Media has swiftly risen to become the fastest-growing marketing agency in the U.S., now valued at over $150 million. 

Erik's vision for Hawke Media has always been to revolutionize marketing, and they have achieved this with their AI-enabled and tech-integrated approach. 

They proudly serve over 4,700 brands worldwide, including industry leaders like Red Bull, Casamigos, Verizon, Crocs, and Barstool Sports.

In this episode, Erik and Adrian chat through the Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback. Plus share some of the ideas that his team think through on a daily basis to build world class customer & marketing focused experiences.

**Episode #240 Highlight Reel:**

1. How Hawke disrupted the antiquated space of marketing & advertising.
2. Leveraging marketing data from 8,000 agencies to make real time decisions
3. Acquiring other agencies to help speed up growth velocity 
4. Shifting back from remote work to in office or on-site with customers
5. Investing in Los Angelas based Angel City FC women's soccer team

Click here to learn more about Erik Huberman

Click here to learn more about Hawke Media

Huge thanks to Erik for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring his work and efforts in pushing the marketing, customer experience & customer success space into the future.

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Are you looking to learn more about the world of Customer Experience, Customer Success & Revenue Operations?

Click here to grab a copy of my book "The Four CX Pillars To Grow Your Business Now" available on Amazon or the CXC website.

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Transcript

CXChronicles Podcast 240 with Erik Huberman, Hawke Media Founder & CEO

Adrian (00:00:00) - All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of the CXChronicles podcast. I'm your host, Adrian-Brady Cesana. Super pumped for today's guest, guys. Today we have one of the very few repeat guests, Mr. Erik Huberman, founder and CEO at Hawke Media, coming on the show to share his story with you. Erik, say hello to the CX Nation, my friend. 

Erik (00:00:24) - It's good to be in the few. 

Erik (00:00:27) - It's good to be back. 

Adrian (00:00:27) - You're on the short list, brother. You're on the short list. 

Erik (00:00:29) - Love that. 

Adrian (00:00:30) - Number one, absolutely, several years ago when you were on the show, you were already crushing it, and Hawke was already crushing it. You and I had a couple conversations over the last few weeks, man, and I was pumped to get you back on the show, because the things that you guys are doing from the time that you were last on CXCP to today is just night and day. 

Adrian (00:00:46) - And then, more importantly, some of the things that you guys have expanded in your service offerings, the things that you're doing for your customers, the things that you're doing for your employees, the things that you're doing with your partners, right? Like, we've had the privilege of being partnered with Hawke Media here at CXC. There's just so much to catch up on, brother, that I needed to get you back on and let us rip right through all this stuff again. 

Erik (00:01:06) - Let's do it. 

Adrian (00:01:06) - All right, cool. So, Erik, why don't we set the stage like we set the stage for all these episodes. Let's just spend a couple minutes, for some of our listeners that didn't get a chance to meet Erik Kuberman the last time on the show or don't know about Hawke Media, spend a few minutes, man, just kind of setting the stage and sharing your story and your background and some of the stepping stones that you've been just maniacally focused on as you've been building Hawke over these last several years. Sure. 

Erik (00:01:27) - Yeah, I started Hawke almost 11 years ago now, after building and selling a couple e-commerce brands and then just seeing that the marketing ecosystem was completely broken. Like, if I sit in a room with entrepreneurs, there's never a single entrepreneur that hasn't had a bad experience with a marketer or marketing agency. It's kind of bizarre, but it's because there's no regulation. There's no barrier to entry. Anyone can say they're a marketer. I literally just dealt with this where someone that knows me well was like, I'd love to work with you. 

Erik (00:01:51) - And by the way, we are intentionally cost effective, but I'm thinking I might just hire some like fresh out of college marketer to see if they can get us started. I'm like, would you do that if it was like, think about that as heart surgery. I think I'm just going to hire someone fresh out of college to do my heart surgery. 

Adrian (00:02:04) - No, thank you. 

Erik (00:02:04) - When you understand the stakes here, like, are you trying to build something successful or not? You would never do that. Now, the thing is you've got to make, you also want to make it cost effective. So I built Hawke because I wanted to be the best at what we do, but really easy to work with. And so that was, you know, I wouldn't say the actual mission statement, the mission statement's marketing world domination, but the real intent was that. And so started building and thankfully, you know, 10 years later, we've got about 250 employees. 

Erik (00:02:36) - We've managed over $3 billion in ad spend. And we've, what else has happened? We built our own AI system that we started building eight years ago. That's digesting about 8,000 companies, marketing media and revenue data in real time and able to train AI on what's going on so that we can make adjustments in real time with that. Like this would take weeks of analysis for an individual to do. We can do it instantly. So leveraging AI the way it's supposed to be. And thankfully we called, we knew that it was coming. 

Erik (00:02:59) - So we were able to get ahead of it and actually build something there. And then we started investing nine years ago off the balance sheet into marketing tech, e-commerce tech, commerce enablement. And now we've got over a hundred portfolio companies and we're owners in the ecosystem, which also forces our marketing team to be, to be innovative. Like they have to use new tools, new assets, new, we talked about heatmap.com. And when it comes to CX, like we invested in them, they're an incredible tool and they're ramping. 

Erik (00:03:25) - They are just growing like crazy because it's an incredible platform. And I don't say that because I'm an investor. Frankly, I'm an investor because I can say that. And it's either that we go and look at dozens of tools a week and then every once in a while we find one. And, you know, once every month or two, we go, wow, this is actually really interesting. And we dive in and usually end up investing. And so between all of that, we've been able to build, you know, again, a huge portfolio of investments. 

Erik (00:03:49) - We're actually an owner in the women's soccer team in LA, which yesterday announced that Bob Iger bought the majority, making it the most valuable women's sports team in the world. A lot of fun. Other things happening that we believe in the ecosystem. 

Adrian (00:04:02) - Were you a big soccer fan, man? Were you a big soccer fan yourself? 

Erik (00:04:05) - Big wouldn't be the word. I wouldn't consider myself big in a sense. 

Erik (00:04:09) - And here's why. 

Erik (00:04:09) - Like I'm not the guy that wakes up at 6 AM to go watch, you know, Manchester Unit U. I have friends that are big fans. And so I can't count myself as a big fan. What I thought was women's soccer, as far as women's sports goes is awesome to watch. 

Adrian (00:04:22) - Absolutely. 

Erik (00:04:23) - I hate to be disparaging, but like, other than, you know, a Caitlin Clark, like WNBA isn't as aggressive as the NBA. Like it's, you're not seeing the crazy dunks and all that, but with women's soccer, the finesse and the, like, there's just, it's such a great spectator sport. I did enjoy playing soccer. And then on top of that, I do believe like, there's more women in the world than men. The fact that there's not really any successful women's sports from a monetary standpoint is kind of crazy. 

Erik (00:04:49) - And you've got the U S that other than this last world cup has been dominating. You've got the world cup coming to LA in 2026. And then the main crux of why invested the founders, Julie Ehrman is a rock star. Karen Ortman is a close friend and also a rock star. And then the third one, I don't know that well, but as Natalie Portman. So when you see these. 

Adrian (00:05:08) - That's extremely dope. 

Erik (00:05:09) - Yeah.

Erik (00:05:09) - to start something and I have the opportunity to invest. I was like, I don't care if this makes me any money. This is gonna be awesome. And now, I mean, on paper, it's done well. And I've also, since I invested, I had my daughter, who's almost two years old. 

Adrian (00:05:20) - Nice, man, congrats. 

Erik (00:05:22) - Thank you. And I've got the two seats locked in for like six years behind the women's bench. 

Adrian (00:05:26) - That's fantastic. 

Erik (00:05:27) - My daughter's still, we took her to a game this season. She's still a little young. It's a little bit of a transition. But I'm guessing starting next year. 

Adrian (00:05:33) - Oh, she's gonna love it, dude. 

Erik (00:05:34) - She's gonna love it. Yeah, so it was a lifestyle play that turned into a really cool investment. That's a whole different story though. But like the point being like, we've really tried to build into an ecosystem. And now you mentioned like the acquisition side. We found that, When I started Hawke, there were 24,000 digital agencies in the US. Okay. I'd say 99% of them struggle, whether they're actually not good at what they do, or it's just hard to run a business and they fell into it. Like there's no barrier. 

Erik (00:05:58) - So all of a sudden, people wake up and they're running an agency. And we went and then accelerate that in 10 years later, there's not 24,000 digital agencies in the US, there's 90,000. And so you see that stat and I'm like, well, that's either competition or total addressable market. And so why don't we look at this as an opportunity to partner with all these guys. We've built something that has become the, we were rated by Digital Marketing News, the top performance marketing agency in the country last year. 

Erik (00:06:25) - Like we've got about 100 awards that we've won. Like we've got a whole litany of things that have made it, like we've built a profitable business that is, sustained that we've never raised money for. Why don't we go take that model to all these other guys and find a way to partner up. And so at this point, we've acquired 17 companies. And we continue, like we have three under contract right now we continue to grow that because we found that like, we joke, it's like almost a reverse franchise model where it's like, you've started it. 

Erik (00:06:52) - And now we're gonna give you the infrastructure versus here's the infrastructure and I'll start it. And it's worked really well. We've ended up with amazing partners and teammates and things like that. And we've grown the company really big with that as a piece of it. And so that combined with the AI enablement which also creates efficiency for all these acquisitions and the tech infrastructure that we bring to them, it becomes a powerhouse in that sense. So that's been the vision. 

Erik (00:07:17) - We've just hit that point where like everything's clicking and now we're going into kind of acceleration mode. 

Adrian (00:07:22) - I love it. Erik, so number one, thank you for sharing all that, man. It's absolutely fantastic. A couple of just quick thoughts before we jump into the pillars, but like, number one, you just nailed it brother. Like if you guys with the Hawke AI platform and your ability to literally canvas or scan or to assess thousands of different things that are happening, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't work, seeing where agencies struggle, seeing where agencies are killing it and they seemingly don't have any issues. 

Adrian (00:07:45) - Number one, that's a major competitive advantage. But the other piece of it is this, you just made a comment. It's super common guys in the business world for certain leaders, certain founders, certain executives to be able to get a company from point A to point B but then to get from point B to C and C to D and bringing a company from 10 million to 25 million to 25 to 50, 50 to 100. Those are often different skill sets. They're different experience sets. To your point about the heart surgeon. 

Adrian (00:08:10) - Yeah, you're not gonna have somebody that's gonna literally still inside of medical school, just learning about cardiology, just learning about the cardiovascular system that's gonna be able to go in and do some, you know, ridiculously complex advanced heart surgery. That's just not how it works, right? So like the fact that you're beginning to leverage experience, leverage what's working in the marketplace, plus on top of it, the TAM is growing, right? 24,000 when you started this thing, now you're at 90,000. 

Adrian (00:08:32) - You're at 90,000 potential targets and all these potential future partners, future customers, all that stuff. That's fantastic, man. I just think it's amazing. I had to look it up too, real quick. It was literally episode 61, Erik. Episode 61, we had you back on July 16th of 2019. So we literally are two days off, man. Two days of five years. 

Erik (00:08:52) - This is fantastic. Five year anniversary. 

Adrian (00:08:52) - Happy anniversary. 

Erik (00:08:54) - Five year anniversary. 

Adrian (00:08:55) - And we're gonna make that shorter, Mr. Huberman. 

Erik (00:08:56) - We're gonna be bringing you back on. 

Adrian (00:08:58) - But let me jump into the first pillar of team. In those five years, and you just kind of gave a bunch of different information and updates. What's changed with the team, man? Like you mentioned 250 people on the team. You mentioned new partners and a whole chain. What's changed with the team over these last five years? Or what are some of the big investments that you've been able to make? 

Erik (00:09:15) - Yeah, I believe in 2019, we were 126. So the team's doubled, but the company's grown a lot more than that because we found efficiencies and all of that. You know, what's happened since 2019? There was this sort of odd period in the world. 

Adrian (00:09:32) - That was weird to stop the whole damn world for a little while. 

Erik (00:09:35) - We went fully remote with COVID, which I never wanted to do. And then COVID hit and we did it. And after three months, I was like, oh, this is working great. And went fully remote. Fast forward two years later, we caught a sort of mid 22. I went remote doesn't work. It works when everybody had trained and got to know each other in office and then went remote. Now it just gets mercenarial. Like it's like everybody's here for a fucking paycheck. They work as little as possible. Not everybody. 

Adrian (00:10:01) - I understand. 

Erik (00:10:02) - I understand. 

Erik (00:10:05) - More, let me put it this way. It's like, they don't have anything other than tasks sent to them and a paycheck, generally. There's no relationship built. There's no camaraderie. And you can do as much as you want over Zoom. It's not... 

Erik (00:10:18) - doing it. And so mid 23, we got a small sort of training wheels office, as I called it, to start bringing some people back in. And then 20 or literally a month ago, we took over headspace, the meditation absolute office and beautiful, awesome, very cool. 

Erik (00:10:32) - And we've basically all new hires are going to be an office, we're not making people that were already remote come back in, where we're encouraging it and not not in a pressure way, just more of like, yeah, working in the office with the head of sales, head of marketing, head of in the CEO, you're probably going to get some benefits, like the proximity thing, meaningful, and you're going to learn more, etc. So but yeah, we realized hiring people remote is really tough. 

Erik (00:11:00) - People that were not hired remote that grew in the company and then went remote not as bad. They kind of get it. But they're but I will say their ability their ability to expand and grow I've seen limited to like, and it's something that I will try to work with them on. But it's a shame because there were people that were on a rocket ship up until 2020. That did pretty well in 2020 and 21. 

Erik (00:11:20) - Also, because of the market conditions, but the moment things got a little tougher in 22 in the economy, there hasn't been as much like ability to pivot because they're not here brainstorming with us. Well, let's try this. Let's try that. Let's do that. So that's, I'm in office advocate through and through and you I wouldn't have said that three years ago, I was totally down to be remote and loved it. And personally, I you know, I spent a month working from the bottom of a ski resort and then snowboarding every morning. 

Adrian (00:11:44) - Which one? Where were you? 

Erik (00:11:45) - Where were you riding? Powder Mountain in Utah. And then I did a month in Cabo San Lucas and woke up and surfed at sunrise every day and then went to work, which I it's funny. I surf in Mexico a lot. I grew up surfing in Ventura. I have never literally never surfed in Los Angeles. 16 years, the past 16 years, just because the water is colder. 

Erik (00:12:06) - It's crowded. 

Erik (00:12:07) - Like, I've never felt like I want to go deal with that. 

Erik (00:12:09) - Yeah. 

Erik (00:12:09) - But so I could technically wake up and surf at sunrise here. But Mexico just was nice. 

Erik (00:12:14) - Right. 

Erik (00:12:15) - Yeah. So like and then worked from a place on the beach in Mexico for a month. So like it's I benefited fully from the idea of remote. But then when it's time to buckle that back down in the economy and things get a little harder and you don't have the tailwinds, totally ready to buckle that back down. I think people are still getting their head around that in terms of society. 

Adrian (00:12:31) - You know, Erik, I'm going to be honest with you, man. I've heard more and more and more of our guests on CCP saying the exact same type of thing. Number one, the world is back to normal. 

Erik (00:12:39) - Right. 

Adrian (00:12:39) - Knock on wood. The world's back to normal. But number two, the analogy that I keep using as I hear more and more and more of this type of talk, I think about the champions, the best championship sports teams are the best businesses on planet Earth. It's the it's the it's the day to day hand to hand combat, hand to hand collaboration of best bands in the world. Best show me. Show me the best band in the world. It's banging up platinum albums by doing it. 

Erik (00:13:02) - Come on. It's ridiculous. 

Adrian (00:13:02) - It's spending time together. It's feeling each other out. It's learning. 

Erik (00:13:05) - And what it is is I so one of my brother's friends told me this the other day and it was like because my brother's nine years younger and it was just such a highlight. He's like, yeah, you know, I'm working remote right now, which means I get to go garden during the day, walk my dogs, hang out. And he's like, I know that's going to be short lived. And it's like, that's exactly the problem. Like you're not spending the eight hours of work that we're traditionally spending buckled down. 

Erik (00:13:26) - And again, when there's downtime, it's not what else can I be doing right now? 

Erik (00:13:29) - It's I'm going to go hang out. I'm the same way, by the way. This is not a jab at employees. 

Adrian (00:13:33) - It's a human thing. 

Erik (00:13:34) - It's a human thing. Yeah. 

Erik (00:13:35) - Yeah, exactly. 

Erik (00:13:36) - If I'm working from home, that's why I liked getting back in the office. 

Erik (00:13:38) - If I'm working from home and like literally my 11 o'clock just canceled where it's 10 o'clock right now. So my 11 a.m. canceled. 

Erik (00:13:44) - So I went, okay, well, I'm going to go if I'm home, I'm going to go hang out with my daughter. I'm going to go walk the dog. I'm going to go jump in the pool. 

Erik (00:13:50) - Yeah. 

Erik (00:13:50) - In the office. You know what I'm doing now? I'm going to go down and talk to my head of marketing. 

Adrian (00:13:53) - You go find the next thing to do. A hundred percent. 

Erik (00:13:55) - Yeah. 

Adrian (00:13:56) - There's a, there's a different spend of time. There's a, there's a different sense of what efficiency really equals. And then on top of it, here's another thing to people that people forget this, but like the remote world's great too. I'm not I love it, but like nothing beats being in an office or being on the floor, whatever, whatever you call your, your workspace. You see things, man, you see people coming in. You see, you see, why are those four people in that classroom meeting? 

Erik (00:14:18) - Wait a minute. 

Adrian (00:14:19) - Why is the marketing and the sales? What's going on? 

Erik (00:14:22) - It's not even a management thing. 

Erik (00:14:23) - It's so they talk about this too. 

Erik (00:14:25) - It is a mental health thing. So work raises your cortisol naturally. Obviously you're stressed. Like it's, it's stress not in the overt way, but like you're stressing yourself. You're thinking hard. You're working even if you're not fully stressing. 

Erik (00:14:37) - Uh, you know what lowers cortisol? Human interaction. So like that little break that I'm going to get after this to go down and shoot the shit with someone or go bust the chops of one of my sales guys. Both of us are benefiting literally mental health that way. So you want to talk about the mental health crisis, maybe because it's all, we're all closed off in a fucking cave right now versus hanging out with each other. 

Adrian (00:14:56) - Like we're literally biologically built to do what we were supposed to be doing from the get go. 

Erik (00:14:59) - Yeah. I love it. 

Adrian (00:15:00) - Um, Erik, talk about, let's jump into the second pillar of tools, missing a bunch of awesome stuff going on with teams and just the changes and the investment and the growth. That's all fantastic. What's changed with tools, man, over the last five years. And with the, I got it, I'm going to call this one out. Just so you pick on this one, but 17, almost 20 plus companies that have been acquired. I know for a fact from all the M&A things that I've been a part of working on in my career, 17, almost 20 

Adrian (00:15:20) - Technology tech stacks. When you're buying companies, you're slamming things together. That's number one. That shit gets hard. It gets difficult to figure out how to stitch all these things together. I'd love for you to spend a couple minutes talking about what your experience has been, what the Hawke experience has been as far as tools go right- more tools. Have there been things that you have omitted and gotten rid of? 

Adrian (00:15:38) - Are there a fewer short list of tools that you've really comprised the tech stack out of that you're gaining some of those additional efficiency? Spend a few minutes talking about tools, man. 

Erik (00:15:46) - Yeah, I mean. 

Erik (00:15:47) - Number one is Hawke AI. Again, we started building that in. I think it was 2016,, but we, yeah, 2015 or 16.. And that number one: that's saving like half the data analysis time that we have to do in marketing. So that number one: when we acquire integrating that- and we just did it- we were able. We also. It's great for clients, too, to see what's going on in their marketing, and so we're actually now able to replace a lot of our clients' tech stack when they come in and go. 

Erik (00:16:12) - All that data shit, you're paying way too much money for it's cost effective, like everything else we do, and we can now take all that over and give you visualization into it and how you're performing against the market, which no one else can do. Yeah, and then you know, in core softwares we use HubSpot like we tried Salesforce for a couple of years. I fucking hate them and everything they stand for. 

Erik (00:16:33) - Not talking about Benioff- no problem with Benioff- but like the culture at Salesforce- I've had a few interactions with them over the years- now I just don't get. They don't care about their customers like I don't like that software. It's cumbersome, it's expensive and they're not helpful. I'm not a fan. Same thing with NetSuite, had the same kind of experience where this sucks and it's over built and it's not easy. And so we went from QuickBooks and HubSpot to NetSuite and Salesforce and then, after our contract was up, went back. 

Adrian (00:17:06) - Well, right back. 

Erik (00:17:07) - Yeah, exactly, and we love QuickBooks and HubSpot, are both great companies, love their platforms and that's what we put everyone on from that side of things. And then usually it's like, you know, things like Sprout Social that we're leveraging or like that's where it depends on the acquisition of what part of the marketing stack they're focused on. We'll see if we have tools that are using. Sometimes we keep their tools. 

Erik (00:17:26) - We've had a couple of situations recently where it's like we like what you're using better than what we're using, so we'll use that A lot of times. These M&A deals, most of the time we're winning something. I mean every time we're winning something like even you know, we acquired a great Amazon agency that I like the way that they build better than we do. 

Erik (00:17:41) - It's a little harder upfront but they end up, like with a real skin in the game in a way that like is actually doable, in the way that they balance retainers with, you know, RevShare and I'm like this is just flat retainer and I'm like I actually like how you built this out. Like it does create a little more risk, but we can be a little more selective with who we take on. And also like then it's we all win together. Like you can do that in certain ways and not in others in a way that actually makes sense. 

Adrian (00:18:03) - So that's really cool. I was going to ask you, too, if there's been one or two pleasant surprises. So, with all the different companies that you've been able to bring on board, to the Hawke, to the Hawke platform, one or two interesting surprises about technology you just mentioned, there's been some that you've actually liked more than what you had. What were like one or two surprises that, like you want to share with our listeners. 

Erik (00:18:20) - Yeah, the biggest one was we acquired a Normal Bear, which is the like go-to agency for Jacuzzi and their dealers and brands and, yeah, real big manufacturer kind of businesses, and we looked at their data stack for Jacuzzi and went: wait, Hawke AI is better than all this and cheaper. Why don't we just switch you over here and charge you this? We were able to immediately switch 23 of their dealers over and continue to sell, and that highlighted the portfolio vision that we've created. 

Erik (00:18:47) - Because we're an agency, we wanted to be able to see all our clients in this thing. And then we realized, oh, if we leverage this for franchises, private equity funds, venture funds, anyone with hold codes, anyone with a portfolio of brands, this can be really compelling, and Jacuzzi was the first one to go. This is amazing and we're like great, so that like opened up, frankly, a whole new growth stream and revenue stream for us. And now we're signing a ton of different franchises onto Hawke AI that we didn't even think about that channel before. 

Adrian (00:19:11) - That's fantastic. I got to imagine, too. There's a benefit of being able to bring all these different businesses onto your platform, showing them what you guys are using, what type of tools and technology you're leveraging. Getting immediate feedback. Obviously, some of it's going to be good, some of... it's going to be ugly, but like it's got to be. It must have expedited or increased the velocity of being able to know exactly what's going to work or exactly what everybody's going to do or exactly. 

Adrian (00:19:32) - That's a huge benefit that many of our listeners- if you don't have an opportunity to get feedback on a regular basis, that's a big difference for you guys at Hawke Air. Being able to get other practitioners- other people that understand the space, they understand marketing- they found their little niche portfolios or their niche customer targets- 

Adrian (00:19:48) - that must have been able to really kind of throw some gas on the fire of Hawkeye to kind of expand with it. 

Erik (00:19:54) - And that's the thing. I like the guys we're acquiring are all profitable, successful agencies. These are not. We're in the dumpster fires. So it's like these are smart people that we're partnering up with that even though I tell them like just because we are obviously a lot bigger than all the companies we're acquiring, but it's like that doesn't mean we're smarter. There's a lot of luck involved in success and a lot of other things. There's timing. There's frankly motivation like there's a lot of other pieces. 

Erik (00:20:16) - So sometimes they come in and they're like, this is all broken. You should change the way you do it. And a lot of times we try it. Sometimes they're wrong and we break something, but that's the nature of the beast. And sometimes they're right. We end up with a whole new process that is works out really well. 

Adrian (00:20:28) - So I like to add on to everybody likes to everybody likes to see the big flashy shiny now situation. Don't forget, brother, you've been working on this thing for 11, almost 12 years, like exploring, iterating, pitching, pivoting, figuring out what the fuck you're going to do with all these different. 

Erik (00:20:44) - I think it's important to know for every business owner. It never ends. 

Adrian (00:20:47) - It never ends. 

Erik (00:20:48) - There's no finish line unless you're actually retiring, selling, whatever, but like no point where this is felt like I've never, I haven't had a point at Hawk Media where it's just like it's all working perfectly and it's all stable. If it's a moment that happens, I break it because I want to grow. So it's just, it's non-existent that like you reach a point and if you have motivation to keep going, that it's just like it works. Also the other thing I've learned is like the idea that you're going to hire a bunch of people to run the thing for you. 

Adrian (00:21:16) - Also a fallacy. 

Erik (00:21:17) - Like no one's ever going to care as much as the owner, like the worst, and I don't mean that again. Similarly, like not a bad thing. It's just like the worst case for my employees. If things go up, as they go find another job, meet that to them, it's six or one half a dozen to the other. Like they might like it here, but they just have to go find another job. They like, for me, it's everything. 

Adrian (00:21:35) - It's everything. 

Erik (00:21:36) - I'm going to care a lot more than anyone else, naturally. Even if they do care a lot, even, you know, overindex care for people that are employees, that is their worst case scenario. So you just have to remember the reality of the situation in that sense. 

Adrian (00:21:48) - I love it, man. And you know, I heard this analogy the other day, but you're right, man. The work and the effort and the constant iteration, it's never going to end. It's almost like you're chipping away at a fricking hundred foot wall, brick wall, and you don't know how deep it's going to go. But that's the difference. And then by the way, the companies that end up exponential growth, they're the ones that figure out how to conquer that wall over time. 

Erik (00:22:07) - It's like I'm working no less than I did 10 years ago, and I have a much larger, I was seven people when we started. But also my wife, who's a senior executive private equity fund, and she's working just as hard as I am. 

Erik (00:22:18) - Yeah. 

Erik (00:22:18) - So it's like, but that's the thing. The fallacy of like, oh, I'll just put it on auto drive. Like there's a very rare case when you can find a CEO to maybe run your company for you. But the last person that told me they had done that was two years ago. I was jealous. They were like, yeah, we found a CEO. He's running it. I'm hanging out on my ranch. A year later, the guy had embezzled all the money in the company. The company was bankrupt. 

Adrian (00:22:38) - There you go. So keeping the eyes and the hands on it. That's something that every one of us is entrepreneurial. 

Erik (00:22:41) - I look at my PNL several times a day, my bank account several times a day. It's honestly unhealthy, but I still. 

Adrian (00:22:48) - You know what's funny though? I tell that to some of my friends that have a W-2, they're like, what do you mean? You're looking at your bank account every day. It's like, dude, have you ever built a business from scratch? Have you ever had to manage multiple clients? 

Erik (00:22:58) - Have you ever had a bunch of- Have you ever been a day before payroll and you're like, I hope enough cash comes in. 

Adrian (00:23:03) - Literally. Yes, dude. Yeah, many times. Yeah. Our friends with W-2s, those are things that they don't have to worry about, my friend. I'd love to jump into the third pillar of process, man. So same type of vein with the tech. 

Adrian (00:23:14) - Five years has passed by, all of these different changes, but you as a personal leader, man, you as a customer-focused business leader, I'm asking more like Erik here, and obviously all the learners come from Hawk, but with all of these different gains and all these wins and all these challenges and all the losses to you along the way, brother, over the last five years, what have been some of the things that have shifted in your executive mind around how you're managing process this day and age? 

Adrian (00:23:35) - As everything's gotten bigger and more complex, you just said that the stakes have never been higher. How have you kind of changed some of the ways that you think about managing process within your business, or what are some of the expectations you have for your executive leadership team around how they're managing process? 

Erik (00:23:52) - It's making sure that they all have, talking to them about their strategy and what they're focused on and what their KPIs are and what the timeline expectations are and all that so that you know that they're managing it and having a team of executives that I trust that are great. We have a great executive team. So it's knowing that my head of services is working on making sure we eliminate churn in every way we can. And that doesn't mean, and the part of this is, again, this goes back to you don't get to take your foot off the gas. 

Erik (00:24:16) - We had a conversation yesterday about some of the holes I'm seeing in that side and what we should fix and strategizing together because I see a lot of leaders do this. They were like, well, I told them and now we'll see what they do. It's like, fuck you. The result is on all of us. If my company's not successful, I suffer. So I'm going to go help and work with my execs, not just say it's your job, not mine. 

Adrian (00:24:40) - So 

Erik (00:24:41) - I have weekly calls with all my executives. We talk through their main KPIs and how they're tracking and where I see, and then it'll usually spark a conversation around, okay, well, this is what's happening. Our churn number has improved drastically over the past two years, and I still want it to do better. So I'm like, well, I'm seeing this trend and the reason we're losing clients. That means to me this, do you agree because you have more visibility? Yes, I do. Great, well, how do you think we fix that? Here's how I think. 

Erik (00:25:05) - He's like, and how that conversation went was like, I like that, and to be transparent, what we talked about was I'm seeing clients don't understand the real value we're providing sometimes. Like we're doing well on the numbers where everything's moving in the right direction and they go, hey, we have this other shiny object agency that oversold us that we're gonna go try out, not realizing what they're gonna lose by just switching, thinking it's a commodity in some ways. 

Erik (00:25:30) - I'm like, so I think we need to start highlighting on every call we have, all the things that we're making an impact, all the wins that we're gaining, even though if the wins are small, I still want us pointing at the wins because I want them to get into the idea of like we're helping them win and we need to change that communication versus here's your Excel report, here's the numbers, what do you think? Because then it feels like a commodity. 

Erik (00:25:50) - So we need to change the way our service team is talking to this and start talking about how we're winning all the time. And he went, yeah, no, I actually like that. Let me put that together and like run with that. That's the kind of dynamic. And so when you talk about process, he goes and turns that into a process and a training system and all that to make sure that we're now actually doing that and creating accountability around that kind of communication. But the strategy is coming from a conversation with us. 

Erik (00:26:12) - Sometimes, sometimes he's just running with stuff too. 

Adrian (00:26:14) - Yeah, I love that. You know, what that makes me think about, man, is we're not at 11, 12 years like Hawke, but with CXC, we're approaching the four-year mark, right? And you know, you're someone that I've looked up to and someone I've checked in with multiple times over the years in terms of just some of the things that you went through building Hawke. 

Adrian (00:26:28) - Big game changer for us at CXC with our clients was introducing the notion of our CTA management, our call to action management, meaning the first year or two, when we were just getting started, we're just finding customers, we're trying to figure out how to start working with different customer-facing teams. We weren't good at literally articulating and mathematically displaying the CTAs that were number one, being identified, number two, being acted upon or being put into action, and then number three, being completed or being literally resolved. 

Adrian (00:26:56) - And the minute that we started showing CTAs in a different type of fashion, where month over month or phase over phase or engagement over engagement, we started showing what the value was that CXC was bringing in that engagement. Things started to change tremendously in terms of just a value perceived perspective. Second of all, you tip a bunch of CTAs that have high priority with high projected ROIs, guess what becomes easier? Extensions, getting extended engagements, getting the next contract, getting the next several months of work. 

Adrian (00:27:25) - And then over time, the CTA management became another way that we started to create something that was almost increased the appetite or fueled the need for CXC, or it really clearly showed the value that our working sessions with teams, our assessments, our audits were doing as a game changer. And I wish somebody would have told me that earlier. And maybe that's for some of our listeners who say, well, no shit, just do that from the get-go. But like, point is, it's building upon wins, learning from losses. 

Adrian (00:27:53) - Guys, this is the way that you start to get faster, quicker, sharper, tighter, and just doing a better job with your clients and with your customer work and with your team too, by the way. EX and CX, it goes the same damn way. It's the same way that you start to get better at employee retention. It's the same way that you get a happier cultural workplace, all that stuff. It's the best way you get more people like Erik and Adrian that they want to work on this business as if it's theirs. That's how fricking important it is to them. 

Adrian (00:28:15) - Or that's how big of a deal it is that they want to continue to have a part or have a hand in building something truly incredible. 

Erik (00:28:22) - Agreed. 

Adrian (00:28:23) - Okay, let's jump into the fourth pillar of feedback. You know, this is my favorite one, Erik. I want you to tee up. Let's break this into two pieces, man. Actually, three pieces, because you're in a different position and I was thinking about this today when I was getting ready for us to jump on, but I'd love for you to kind of just spend a minute or two talking about how Hawke has kind of changed or evolved over the last five years with managing its customer feedback. So that's number one. 

Adrian (00:28:43) - I'd love for you to maybe share a similar type of example with the employee feedback. You just shared a bunch of awesome ideas that you're now doing with your executive leadership team. And then the last one, partners, man. I think when me and you first met each other and when I first became exposed to Hawk Media, I don't know that you guys were, I knew you had a handful of strategic partners, it's not like what your team has built today, my friend. 

Adrian (00:29:01) - You've got a fully built, robust channel and partner side that's probably fueling a bunch of extra leads, a bunch of extra opportunities and a bunch of extra revenue each year. I'd love to just kind of spend some time kind of parsing out how you've thought about your customer, your employee and your partner feedback. 

Erik (00:29:14) - It all comes down to one thing, teaching people to be direct. Because people, I don't know, like it's gotten worse in society, not better the past decade, but like when it comes to employee feedback, from top to bottom, bottom to top, be direct and be a good listener too. I had this debate with one of our executives yesterday where I was giving him feedback that had been come to him direct and they didn't feel like he had heard it, so they'd mentioned it to me. And I was like, I'm going to tell you. And he got defensive. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. 

Erik (00:29:43) - You don't get to get defensive when you're getting feedback. You get to take it with a grain of salt.

Erik (00:29:46) - but you need to listen, digest it, understand where it's coming from, because we all want the same thing here, and I don't want to hear defensiveness. Like you gotta, so it's receiver and giver need to be able to just be direct, non-emotional, and I know that's hard for a lot of people, but like you gotta learn. 

Erik (00:30:04) - And like the same thing with clients, we want to ask, it's hard to ask clients for feedback because sometimes it's not good and people are hesitant, so we have a whole MPS system and getting client recommendation and that side of things to understand how our clients are performing. We also have, frankly, a whole AI system monitoring client communications to see if we're actually spotting trends that could lead to a problem. 

Adrian (00:30:25) - Very cool. 

Erik (00:30:26) - So it might be nuanced that none of us would have spotted in an email, but AI can. 

Adrian (00:30:30) - Yeah, for sure. 

Erik (00:30:32) - That's helping a lot too, and that's called sturdy AI. And then, yeah, and then on the partner side, it's the same thing. We just have to be really direct with what we need from them. We're hoping that they are with us, and we ask and we kind of push for it, but it's just creating a direct line of communication, and I don't mean direct, like nothing in the way, but like being direct is, I think, a huge cultural need if you want to be efficient. And Rick, what's his name, Rick Dalio talks a lot about that in Principles. 

Erik (00:31:00) - I think he calls it radical candor, but it's really just, yeah, being straight and direct. It's amazing how much fucking time is wasted not being direct. 

Adrian (00:31:09) - 100% of it, beating around the bush, giving people half stories, or being gossipy instead of me being like, yo, you pissed me off. 

Erik (00:31:17) - I need you to fix this and this, going, God, that guy pissed me off. Like, and I've called out even recently, where it's a constant massage of trying to get this, where gossip will come to me. And I'm like, does that person know? Is the fucking subject of the conversation know that everybody's pissed off? Because if not, you all fucking failed. And that's literally, that's me being direct. I'm like, you have failed at your job if you are not telling the person that you have a problem with that you have a problem with them and trying to work it out. 

Adrian (00:31:45) - The deeper I've gotten into this journey with CXE and the more incredible, successful people I've met, I'd argue that one of the biggest singular traits that all of them possess is their ability to be candid AF on a regular basis. Number one, life is short. Business is hard. Team building is hard. Finding new customers is hard. You know what makes all that harder? Not being direct and blunt. And then on top of it, you're doing a disservice to your customers. You're doing a disservice to your team. You can bring this to the family level. 

Adrian (00:32:14) - You're doing a disservice to your husband and your wife for not being clear about, hey, I thought we had an expectation set like XYZ. Let's talk about that stuff. 

Erik (00:32:21) - Yep, and frankly, my wife and I have a really good shorthand with that because early on, I am this way, I'm naturally direct. So early on, it was a little like too blunt and then she got used to it. And then she came around. 

Erik (00:32:35) - Can you tone it down a bit? 

Erik (00:32:35) - Yeah, now it's sometimes I feel like I'm looking in the mirror and it's almost a little too harsh where I'll be like excited about something. You're like, that's not a good idea. I'm like, what the fuck? 

Adrian (00:32:43) - I love it, man. Real quick, so Sturdy AI, you just mentioned briefly. They're friends of ours. Joel Passan was on episode 189 of CXEP. He's a close friend of my business partner, Tony. That's fantastic. Joel's an awesome dude. Met him at Big Ring in Washington, DC a few years ago. We keep in touch regularly. Super cool tool. So for our listeners, go back, check out CXEP 189 and learn more about what Erik just talked about. Joel and the team at Sturdy are building an incredible technology. And they're doing this, and you just nailed it, Erik. 

Adrian (00:33:08) - You've said this a couple of times in today's episode. Leveraging AI to do things that used to take humans too long or too expensive or too hard, or there was a small camp of people that had the expertise to actually know how to do the analysis. Now we just train logic to do it faster, tighter, sharper for us. And then humans come into play and figure out what the hell to do with the next steps. Right? Erik, this is fantastic. But before we wrap up, a couple of things. 

Adrian (00:33:32) - One thing, and I'm gonna put you on the fire seat here, but fire round question, but What is one or two big things that you are absolutely going to continue to invest in, not just for this year, but moving forward into the future? It could be across all the pillars. It could be new teammates, new tools. One or two things that you are like maniacally gonna continue to invest in. 

Erik (00:33:52) - I just put the deck together. Aqua hires and doing the strategy of M&A, our Hawke AI system I'm gonna double down on, and then organic growth and other tools. We're gonna invest in other tech. Technology is where we're gonna win on the marketing strategy side. We have great people already. Technology is where we become efficient, where we get better, where we get better outcomes, and then scale on the agency side. 

Erik (00:34:15) - That's it. it. 

Erik (00:34:16) - That's it. 

Adrian (00:34:18) - Love it. Listeners, please hit pause right there and go rewind to what Erik just said, because every one of us should be thinking about different iterations or different types of versions of what we can bring into our own business, our own team. Erik, this is a pleasure as always, brother. Before I let you go, you know the deal. Where can people find out more about you or get in touch with you, Mr. Huberman, and where can people get in touch with your incredible team over at Hawke Media? 

Erik (00:34:37) - Easy, Hawk Media is just hawkmedia.com, H-A-W-K-E, media.com. And then I'm on every social channel, at or slash Erik Huberman. Love it. 

Adrian (00:34:45) - Erik, thank you so much for joining Seekers Chronicles Podcast. It's been my pleasure, and I'm looking forward to chatting with you again real soon, my friend. It's been my... in real soon, my friend. 

Erik (00:34:51) - Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.