Digital Reset is Here (Thinks Out Loud 461)

May 15, 2025
Tim Peter
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, E-commerce, Marketing, Personal, Podcast, Strategy

Cover illustration of Tim Peter's new book, Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech available now on Amazon.

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This is a slightly different episode than usual, and, to be honest, slightly more self-promotional than usual, too. You see, I am very excited to share the news that my new book, Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech is now available.

This has been a labor of love over the last few years, informed by my experiences working with clients to drive direct revenues and lower the cost of customer acquisition. In this episode episode of the podcast, I focused on some of the lessons you can learn from the book, as well as why it matters for your business.

I hope you take a moment to check it out. I’m thrilled to be able to share the book with you. And thanks for your continued support.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you.

Digital Reset is Here (Thinks Out Loud 461) — Headlines and Show Notes

Show Notes and Links

You might also enjoy this webinar I recently participated in with Miles Partnership that looked at "The Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT: What It Means for Tourism & Hospitality" here:

Free Downloads

We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:

A Modern Content Marketing Checklist. Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.
Digital & E-commerce Maturity Matrix. As a bonus, here’s a PDF that can help you assess your company’s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, we’re here to help if you need it. The Digital & E-commerce Maturity Matrix rates your company’s effectiveness — Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving — in 6 key areas in digital today, including:
- Customer Focus
- Strategy
- Technology
- Operations
- Culture
- Data

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Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud

Recorded using a Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

Running time: 10m 11s

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Transcript: Digital Reset is Here

I’m Tim Peter. Welcome to the show.

This is going to be a slightly more self-promotional episode than I usually do. I hope you’ll stick around though. I think it’s worth your while and worth your time.

I’ve been talking about my upcoming book for the last couple of months and I am beyond thrilled to tell you that it’s now available. Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech, has been a labor of love of mine for years. It’s built from real world experiences with clients all around the world over the last 14 years of consulting and the last 20 plus years of my career.

I’d like to take a minute to tell you a little bit about the book and why it matters for your business right now.

This is episode 461 of The Big Show. Let’s dive in.

Since starting my business 14 years ago, I’ve been focused on driving down the cost of customer acquisition for my clients. My initial clients were all in the hotel space, though we’ve branched out over the years into other travel businesses, financial services, software as a service and other tech firms, along with some manufacturers and the like who wanted to learn what we’d done for other people.

What initially surprised me as I worked with these varying types of businesses was that the same challenges came up again and again. Big Tech companies like Google and Meta and Amazon and Microsoft continually put themselves between you and your customers. They put up gates and then charge you tolls to reach your customers. Almost regardless of industry, almost regardless of your product or your service or what it is you offer the world. That’s why I use the phrase “gatekeepers gonna gate” so often. It’s what they do. It’s just built into their nature. Sure, some of the specifics change from time to time, but the overall picture is fairly constant.

One of the reasons is embedded in the very nature of the internet itself. It just kind of works this way. You see, your customers don’t want to go from place to place to place, constantly hunting for the information or people or products or services that they need. They just want to go to “the one” that has all the answers” — and certainly no more than a couple of places. You know, they might pick two, they might pick three, but they’re not going to pick ten.

The companies that collect the things your customers want to find, the things that matter to your customers, they get more traffic, they get more data, and ultimately, they get more power.

That’s how we end up with:

Google dominating search
Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn dominating social connections
Amazon dominating e-commerce
Apple and Google dominating mobile apps and as a result, mobile operating systems
YouTube and TikTok dominating video
Chat GPT in Google dominating artificial intelligence (at least today).

That power, that control, that being the place your customers go to gives them the ability to put gates between you and your customers and then charge you increasing tolls to talk with them. That’s what they’re going to do every single time.

And that’s why it’s time for your digital reset. That’s why it’s time for this book.

The book isn’t just about the problem though. That would be, well, a really stupid book, right? “Everything sucks. Good luck with that.” I would not do that and I certainly wouldn’t encourage you to read a book that did.

Instead, I also tried to put together a playbook for how you can bypass Big Tech, how you can learn the lessons others have learned to connect directly with your customers, to build a sustainable brand, and critically, to develop a sustainable competitive advantage for your business.

I’d like to share just a couple of points about how you do that right now.

It starts with having the right mindset. Your digital reset takes action, sure, undoubtedly, and the book absolutely offers a variety of actions you can explore. Again, I want this to be a useful book.

What’s also true is that it starts first with believing that you can bypass Big Tech and that you can build direct connections with your customers. Actions that you don’t believe in will fail. I’ve seen this so many times over the years. You you try something, “it doesn’t work,” and I’m putting air quotes around that, and you walk away from it. You know, “Well,” you’ll hear, “we need to go back to the gatekeepers again because, you know, it didn’t work.”

No, absolutely not. No way.

I am telling you, I’ve seen this so many times that you can compete and win against the biggest, most dominating companies in history. You can bypass Big Tech. I’ve seen it. My clients and I have done it.

Some of the lessons will be familiar to long time listeners of this podcast. You know, don’t be surprised when you read how “Content is King, Customer Experience is Queen, and Data is the Crown Jewels.” Those play a key role in your digital reset. Those play a key role in the digital reset. They’re critical.

At the same time, those ideas are expanded and supported by a complete framework for building a modern brand using digital, a complete framework for driving down your cost of customer acquisition.

More importantly, the book’s lessons apply even as new entrants show up like ChatGPT or Perplexity or TikTok. Even as those folks try to grab their seat at Big Tech’s table, we know this is going to happen. We know people will want to be the next king of the hill. And the book shows that while individual members might come and go, Big Tech is forever. We have to assume that will always be true. And because of that, the book shows what you can do to bypass Big Tech, no matter who’s part of that club.

In short, Digital Reset is all about you and how you and your business can succeed today, tomorrow, and 10 years from now.

I am so excited to share it with you. I’m so thrilled it’s out in the world. You you can find the book on Amazon or visit the link in the show notes to get there. I genuinely hope you’ll check it out. And I genuinely hope you’ll embrace its lessons because I want to see you succeed. And I know that you can.

Show Wrap-Up and Credits

Now, looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week.

I’m willing to bet that you might know someone who would benefit from what we’ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Has somebody come to mind? Why not send them a link to the episode? Let them know what you think too. Let’s keep the learning going for everybody we know.

You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 460, as well as an archive of all of our past episodes, by going to timpeter.com/podcast. Again, that’s timpeter.com/podcast.

And, of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I would genuinely appreciate that.

Thank you so much for listening today. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to tell you about something that I’m super proud of and that I hope you get to enjoy.

I want to let you know of course this show wouldn’t happen without you so we will be back with a new episode next week. But until then, please, be well, be safe, and as the saying goes, be excellent to each other. We’ll see you soon.

Tim Peter

Tim Peter is the founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates. You can learn more about our company's strategy and digital marketing consulting services here or about Tim here.

Digital Reset is Here (Thinks Out Loud 461)