How to Create Experiences that Make Customers EXCITED to Talk About You
Patrick McFadden • July 3, 2013
For businesses (small businesses especially) the impact of advertising in newspapers, magazines and outdoor media is fading. People are overwhelmed with information and are slowly learning to tune out traditional ads. But, wait there is great news! People don’t tune out the recommendations of their peers, friends, and network.
In fact while consumers can:
- skip your ads with on-demand
- listen to podcasts without ads
- fast forward through ads
- send your email to the spam box
- turn the channel on your ad
- avoid your call and
- toss your flyer.
They don’t ignore their friends. Research has shown that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. The word-of-mouth of customers will make a new book a best seller, turn a “independent film” into a box office hit, have a waiting list at a restaurant or have parents lining up at toy stores to buy that limited edition. And word-of-mouth will help you sell your products and services—if you know how to create it.
Remarkable is where is starts. Remarkable means something worth making a remark about. It’s about building things into your product or service that are worth talking about. Not about adding marketing or hype to your product or service at the last-minute, but understanding that if what you’re offering isn’t remarkable, its invisible.
If someone chooses to talk about your product or service, I then call that a “referable experience” because that’s what we share, our experiences with a product or service. How it made us feel? Every experience that makes a customer excited to talk about you has some combination of the following ten elements:
- Surprise —a referable experience always exceeds our expectations.
- Anticipation —anticipating a referable experience is almost as good as the experience itself. As you think about it, you begin to get present to it.
- Resonance —a referable experience touches the heart. It resonates at a deep level. It sometimes causes goosebumps or even tears.
- Transcendence —a referable experience connects you to something transcendent. Suddenly, you experience purpose, or meaning.
- Clarity —a referable experience creates a moment when you see things with more clarity than ever before. You suddenly “get it” in a new way. (This is my favorite)
- Presence —a referable experience creates timelessness. You aren’t thinking about the past. You’re not even thinking about the future. Instead, you are fully present to what is happening now.
- Universality —a referable experience is nearly universal. Almost everyone will experience it in a similar way.
- Evangelism —a referable experience has to be shared. You can’t contain it. You immediately begin thinking of all the people you wish were with you.
- Longevity —the shine never wears off a referable experience. You can experience it again and again without growing tired of it.
- Privilege —a referable experience makes you proud in a good way. You feel good about being associated with it. You feel privileged, as if you are in an elite group.
These ten elements are included in your effort to make good on what you promise and what you deliver.
I recently visited a restaurant that had this promise, “The Coldest Draught Beer In Town!”. Now there’s a few elements at work here. First, is the anticipation of downing not just a cold beer, but the coldest draught beer in town. Secondly, if they deliver on their promise you’re going to tell your friends about the coldest draught beer in town and that is the element of evangelism.
Question: What element(s) does your product or service have?
Everyone is scaling outputs. Almost no one is scaling judgment.
Ask anyone in tech where AI is headed, and they’ll tell you: “The next leap is reasoning.” “AI needs judgment.” “We need assistants that think, not just answer.” They’re right. But while everyone’s talking about it, almost no one is actually shipping it. So we did. We built Thinking OS™ —a system that doesn’t just help AI answer questions… It helps AI think like a strategist. It helps AI decide like an operator. It helps teams and platforms scale judgment, n ot just generate output. The Theory Isn’t New. The Implementation Is. The idea of layering strategic thinking and judgment into AI isn’t new in theory. The problem is, no one’s been able to implement it effectively at scale. Let’s look at the current landscape. 1. Big Tech Has the Muscle—But Not the Mind OpenAI / ChatGPT ✅ Strength: Best-in-class language generation ❌ Limitation: No built-in judgment or reasoning. You must provide the structure. Otherwise, it follows instructions, not strategy. Google DeepMind / Gemini ✅ Known for advanced decision-making (e.g., AlphaGo) ❌ But only in structured environments like games—not messy, real-world business scenarios. Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), Microsoft Copilot ✅ Great at answering questions and following commands ❌ But they’re assistants, not advisors. They won’t reprioritize. They won’t challenge your assumptions. They don’t ask: “Is this the right move?” These tools are powerful—but they don’t think for outcomes the way a strategist or operator would. 2. Who’s Actually Building the Thinking Layer™? This is where it gets interesting—and thin. Startups and Indie Builders Some small teams are quietly: Creating custom GPTs that mimic how experts reason Layering in business context, priorities, and tradeoffs Embedding decision logic so AI can guide, not just execute But these efforts are: Highly manual Difficult to scale Fragmented and experimental Enterprise Experiments A few companies (Salesforce, HubSpot, and others) are exploring more “judgment-aware” AI copilots. These systems can: Flag inconsistencies Recommend next actions Occasionally surface priorities based on internal logic But most of it is still: In early R&D Custom-coded Unproven beyond narrow use cases That’s Why Thinking OS™ Is Different Instead of waiting for a lab to crack it, we built a modular thinking system that installs like infrastructure. Thinking OS™: Captures how real experts reason Embeds judgment into layers AI can use Deploys into tools like ChatGPT or enterprise systems Helps teams think together, consistently, at scale It’s not another assistant. It’s the missing layer that turns outputs into outcomes. So… Is This a New Innovation? Yes—in practice. Everyone says AI needs judgment. But judgment isn’t an idea. It’s a system. It requires: Persistent memory Contextual awareness Tradeoff evaluation Value-based decisions Strategy that evolves with goals Thinking OS™ delivers that. And unlike the R&D experiments in Big Tech, it’s built for: Operators Consultants Platform founders Growth-stage teams that need to scale decision quality, not just content creation If Someone Told You They’ve Built a Thinking + Judgment Layer™… They’ve built something only a handful of people in the world are even attempting. Because this isn’t just AI that speaks fluently. It’s AI that reasons, reflects , and chooses. And in a world that’s drowning in tools, judgment becomes the differentiator. That’s the OS We Built Thinking OS™ is not a prompt pack. It’s not a dashboard. It’s not a glorified chatbot. It’s a decision architecture you can license, embed, or deploy— To help your team, your platform, or your clients think better at scale. We’ve moved past content. We’re building cognition. Let’s talk.
In every era of innovation, there’s a silent bottleneck—something obvious in hindsight, but elusive until the moment it clicks. In today’s AI-driven world, that bottleneck is clear: AI has speed. It has scale. But it doesn’t have judgment . It doesn’t really think . What’s Actually Missing From AI? When experts talk about the “thinking and judgment layer” as the next leap for AI, they’re calling out a hard truth: Modern AI systems are powerful pattern machines. But they’re missing the human layer—the one that reasons, weighs tradeoffs, and makes strategic decisions in context. Let’s break that down: 1. The Thinking Layer = Reasoning with Purpose This layer doesn’t just process inputs— it structures logic. It’s the ability to: Ask the right questions before acting Break down complexity into solvable parts Adjust direction mid-course when reality changes Think beyond “what was asked” to uncover “what really matters” Today’s AI responds. But it rarely reflects. Unless told exactly what to do, it won’t work through problems the way a strategist or operator would. 2. The Judgment Layer = Decision-Making in the Gray Judgment is the ability to: Prioritize what matters most Choose between imperfect options Make decisions when there’s no clear answer Apply values, experience, and vision—not just data It’s why a founder might not pursue a lucrative deal. Why a marketer might ignore the click-through rate. Why a strategist knows when the timing isn’t right. AI doesn’t do this well. Not yet. Because judgment requires more than data—it requires discernment . Why This Is the Bottleneck Holding Back AI AI can write. It can summarize. It can automate. But it still can’t: Diagnose the real problem behind the question Evaluate tradeoffs like a founder or operator would Recommend a path based on context, constraints, and conviction AI today is still reactive. It follows instructions. But it doesn’t lead. It doesn’t guide. It doesn’t own the outcome. And for those building serious systems—whether you’re running a company, launching a platform, or leading a team—this is the wall you eventually hit. That’s Why We Built Thinking OS™ We stopped waiting for AI to learn judgment on its own. Instead, we created a system that embeds it—by design. Thinking OS™ is an installable decision layer that captures how top founders, strategists, and operators think… …and makes that thinking repeatable , scalable , and usable inside teams, tools, and platforms. It’s not a framework. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not another playbook. It’s the layer that knows how to: Think through complex decisions Apply judgment when rules don’t help Guide others —human or AI—toward strategic outcomes This Is the Missing Infrastructure Thinking OS™ isn’t just about better answers. It’s about better thinking—made operational. And that’s what’s been missing in AI, consulting, leadership development, and platform design. If you’re trying to scale expertise, install judgment, or move from tactical to strategic… You don’t need a faster AI. You need a thinking layer that knows what to do—and why. We built it. Let’s talk.
