B (2:58)

I think that's about how many followers I got in all of 2024. So kudos to that really fast growth. So where you are an expert, I feel, is this B2B content. And that's where I want to start, which is what are the key elements to a B2B content strategy?

A (3:20)

All right, so the very first thing you need is of course to have the proper business strategy because a lot of clients come to me and they want to start content right away, but they don't have the correct icp. Messaging positioning, you know what is very important in product marketing as well. So this is really, you need to nail those foundations first. After that, you need to turn this business strategy into a content strategy. Okay, so that's the second step. So what I do usually is for example, the messaging strategy, I turn it into content pillars. So those are the topics and also the subtopics that I'm going to use in the content strategy. So I do a series of things for my clients, for myself as well within this content strategy and then you move on to content plan. So this is the third step and in the content plan it's simple. You need to plan your distribution. You need to know what formats you will use. I have this authority first framework that I can explain after. And you're just going to plan at least like two weeks of content. And it's very important to do that because you will create connections between all the pieces of content.

C (4:36)

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A (6:44)

and then you start creating. So here it's all about the skills, right? So copywriting, design, video editing, then distribute, then repurposing. And repurposing is actually very important. So we can talk about that as well. That's the overview of the process.

B (7:00)

Awesome. I think that's the framework for our next 30 minutes. Let's start at the very top, which is you need to have a sound business strategy. And a lot of listeners to this podcast, they're product managers, they're growth people, so they're very familiar with this. You need a strong business strategy and from there they'll often create their product strategy. So what does a content strategy look like and how does might it differ from a product strategy?

A (7:28)

It's actually, it can feel similar to a product strategy. The only difference, I mean the main difference is we will not focus only on the icp. We will also focus on the audience. Because your product has to talk directly to your icp, right? Because they land on your landing page or your homepage, you're trying to persuade them to buy. But in content, especially on social media, you need also to trigger some engagement, not only from your icp, right? Because otherwise you would, you would put out like only technical content, really specific, you will not get the engagement and so you will not be able to reach this icp. So in the content strategy, it's very important to tailor it for the icp, of course, so answer their questions, their problems, their objectives, their motivations, but also think about the audience and for the Audience, you can like broaden a bit the scope, but you still need to focus on authority and expertise as well. And then it's a series of like in product marketing, it's a series of steps that you need to complete. So positioning, like content posture, tone of voice, these kind of things. Then the messaging, so the content pillars, as I explained earlier, then you need to find your enemy. So your arc enemy, who you're going to fight in your content. And this is very important actually. And then you have, yeah, you have the point of view, you have the narrative. So you need to think about this during the content strategy.

B (9:04)

Okay. And what is like the best format for a content strategy?

A (9:10)

The format. So the template I use is in notion and it's in my course as well. So for example, my students, they have access to the notion and they have questions, they need to answer those questions. And at the end they have a full page which then can be used to create content. So it's a bit like it's a star, it's your North Star that you will always follow. When you are creating content, you think, does it match one of my content pillar? At least you go to this document and you check if it really matches your content pillars. So that's really the format, really simple.

B (9:47)

Awesome. And how often do you update a content strategy?

A (9:51)

Yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, it depends on the stage of your company. Because the goal of content is to rely on the repetition effect, right? Because you need to repeat an information many times before you actually positioned in the market. So if you are a late stage company, you should not change a lot, you should keep it for like two years. But if you are like really early stage prep before product market fit, you need to iterate so you can be flexible on the content strategy. Especially if your company pivot totally, you need to adapt. So it's more like assess it every three months, six months, iterate a lot. And if you are like medium stage, like around 1 to 5 million dollars of revenue per year, you can reassess it every year. For example,

B (10:44)

that's some generic guidelines. Strategy step one, that's the content strategy. From there, there's the content plan. A lot of product managers, they'll analogize the plan to your roadmap. So what, how do you think about a content plan? You know, there's even within product there's schools of thoughts. One thought is like you need to be kind of broad where you have the metrics that you're going after, the types of problems you're solving. Another school of thought is like, be very specific. These are the specific posts you're going to write. These are the specific features you're going to build. What is the right way to format a content plan?

A (11:20)

So to answer, first you need to understand the concept of customer journey and then the content journey. So basically what you need to do is analyze what happens before someone buys your product. You can identify patterns, you will never know, like for everyone, exactly how they sell, but you can identify patterns. When you identify those patterns, you start to feel and see what they need to see to buy. Right. I need to see a demo, I need to understand the pricing. And then you have the list of things they need to see. Based on that, you can create your content plan. So some content will be more to discover your point of view, other ones will be to prove that you are an expertise with case studies and so on. And then so you list everything that you need to create. You put it inside your content plan and based on that you have something very, very specific. So think about a table on Excel or Notion, and each line is one piece of content. And then you have the columns. And inside the columns you say, what is the content pillar? For example, one of my content pillars is the new B2B marketing playbook. So I put this inside the column. Then you have the format. Is it a carousel? Is it a YouTube video? Is it a YouTube short? And so at the end you have, let's say 20 lines and you are ready for production. You are ready to actually produce the content. So to answer, it's very specific, very specific.

B (12:56)

Okay, so there must be some amount of art and science that goes in, in between the content strategy and the content plan plan. What are the data points? What are the qualitative feedback places that you're looking to figure out? Okay, this is what goes in the plan.

A (13:16)

It's mainly qualitative, honestly. So to map the customer journey and to understand the way they buy, so who buy, why they buy, how they buy and what they buy. For this you need to run interviews, obviously. Okay, so the content plan really relies on the interviews. So mostly like qualitative insights. And then let's say you start your content plan, then you create, you distribute. To update your content plan, you need to have a feedback loop with your audience. So basically you will analyze the engagement, the results, the leads, the revenue, everything. And based on this, you will update your content plan to be as efficient as possible. This is like basic growth marketing, like always iterate based on the feedback.

B (14:10)

Yeah, yeah. The one thing that I think might be a little different from growth marketing is what you mentioned around needing to get some engagement from your non icp. And so I imagine in the metrics that you're looking at, you want to look at impressions, engagements, visits and then revenue. You know, maybe you have a step in there for conversions as well if you have multiple types of products, so you have like these five or six steps. But actually thinking about your impressions and your engagements isn't just a vanity metric because you actually need that for the algorithm.

A (14:52)

I know it's in my opinion, it's not a vanity metric. A vanity metric becomes a, I mean a metric becomes a vanity metric when you give it the wrong importance, when it doesn't have the right role. Impressions, engagement, like likes, profile views or like retention. Everything is useful, but it's not the North Star metric. Your, your objective is not to optimize for that. Most of the time your goal is either to optimize for revenue or for brand awareness, let's say, or mainly I call it authority because sometimes if you have time, you can optimize the first year for authority and then you can go into more like a conversion mode, revenue and so on. So you can like rely on only authority content for one year and then go into like revenue. But I don't think there are vanity metrics. And after that it depends on the channel as well. For LinkedIn I really look at the impressions profile views, the clicks on the links in my profile. So it's bitly and then the sales, because for me it's really easy. I sell a course, so the attribution is quite easy, even if most of the sales come from emails actually. But I can talk about this later.

B (16:15)

That's a really interesting insight you just mentioned, which is that most of your sales come from email, even though a lot of people would have known you via LinkedIn. Talk a little bit more about that nuance.

A (16:26)

Well, first of all, I don't invest a lot of time and energy and money into attribution. I have other things to do like creating content. You see what I mean? So this is secondary, but I saw a direct link between when I send an email and within the next hour I get like more sales. So I know that people know me from LinkedIn but I share more in depth information about my course inside the email. I share testimonials, I share a bit more about the narrative, why I built it, why I mean, why I built the course, a bit about my story, what I did before. So I think they take a Bit more time to read and then they think, okay, I will check out the landing page. And then the landing page converts slightly with a slightly higher conversion rate. This is my, my theory, this is my guess.

B (17:25)

So you have written about in the past that there isn't really a funnel, but maybe is there a funnel where it's like LinkedIn to email to course?

A (17:36)

No, it's more like a content ecosystem. And at the end, if you want to call it a funnel, at the end there is always the landing page where they can buy the course. I was opposed to the funnel thing because I think it comes from the go to market tools that made us think that the sales was a linear sequence. You know when you're going into like a sales, an email software and you have, you know, the first email, second email or third email and you, you like, okay, I will push this information here and then this and we have to buy at this email or I will call them, you know, the, the typical linear sequence. I really don't believe in that for Most of the B2B products I believe in. You need to build your authority, you need to show your expertise at scale. You need to increase the trust of your audience and prospects, build this content ecosystem like you're doing with your podcast. And then you need to have a demand capture system. Let's call it this way. For me it's simple. It's a landing page with a stripe checkout because it's a course. But it can be a bit more complex for other types of companies. Yeah, yeah.

B (18:57)

I imagine for some of the companies you work with, like SaaS companies, they often have like a ebook or a webinar or something they have like intermediate before the purchase.

A (19:08)

Yeah, I, I think that makes sense. I'm not against gated content, honestly. I like gated content because it makes sense. We have their email, we can enrich Gmail, know a bit more about who they are, what is their company, and then maybe even do some warm outreach. So I, I'm, I even like the scoring systems. So if you're able to spot intense signals or content engagement, like if they liked your post, if they downloaded more than two documents, if they joined like more than three webinars, you can like think, okay, this person is interested by our product so I want to reach out to them. And this is called walmartreach and I think this is very powerful. The thing that is not good is it's, the difference is really simple. It's a small difference is when they download the ebook, don't Reach out to them like the next email and ask for a demo. You see, because this put them in a linear sequence and this doesn't really work. So you need to put them inside your content ecosystem instead. This is the way I see things.

B (20:22)

One of the things I noticed, for instance, when I have high ticket products or I just recently did an India tour and I would often hear people tell me why they came to my events. These are all paid events. It was because they interacted with me online, whether it was through a DM or a comment. So how does that fit into the ecosystem?

A (20:47)

I think that's very important, especially for high ticket products. As you said, my previous company, we went from zero to $1 billion of revenue with, in 14 months with content and social selling. So content on LinkedIn newsletter and we were invited to podcasts and then we were just engaging in comments and in direct messages on LinkedIn mainly. This was super helpful. And then I, yeah, I, I thought about it a lot and I thought that social selling is a central piece of your content strategy. When you are in the revenue mode, when you're like, okay, I want to generate revenue now I have enough authority. You need to invest in social setting, otherwise you are wasting opportunities. Why? Because some people, they love your content. They might even think, oh, I could use their product or I could go to their events or I could use their agency, but they are either too lazy to contact you or they have some ego and they think, oh, they should contact me, I should not contact them, or they have other things to do so they forget about it. You see, there is a long list of things that explain why they don't contact you when your content is good. So you should invest into social selling in order to capture those opportunities for

B (22:18)

people who don't know what is social selling?

A (22:21)

Yeah, social selling is a complex word for something very simple. Social selling, it's four steps. First, you need to decide on your positioning. So how do you want to be perceived on a specific social media? Second, you need to publish content about this expertise. Third, you need to engage with others in your network, with your icp, with your audience and, and fourth, you need to trigger conversations inside DMs, so direct messages. You should see LinkedIn as a giant event, a conference where you can go to talk to people directly. You see what I mean? So yeah, this is social selling in a nutshell.

B (23:11)

And how do you manage DMs? What's your approach to DMs? I've personally as a content creator sometimes been in DM Overwhelm, where I just have to declare bankruptcy and stop responding for a few days. How do you kind of manage them?

A (23:25)

Yeah, you have so many ways to do it. Some people, they do an auto, auto response like, hey, I'm too busy. You can send me an email here or you can add me on WhatsApp for me. I just batch it every day, like 30 minutes. I have a time. And you know, it's. It's really easy. Sometimes it doesn't feel like you're actually working. You are on your. By the pool, on your, on your phone. You just reply DMs. This is what I do, like every day. Yeah, I batch it.

B (23:57)

Nice. By the pool, on the beach, enjoying life.

A (24:01)

I live in Thailand. That's why I can do that.

B (24:05)

Okay, you convert people via DMs. You're analyzing the metrics of your posts. I think the next important element is having a strong offer.

A (24:17)

Yes.

B (24:18)

What is a commoditized versus a proprietary offer?

A (24:22)

So if I can give you an example for the agency model, so it will be very clear for you what is a commoditized offer? Imagine you launch an agency and your agency is a marketing agency. And you say, okay, we are selling websites, SEO. We are seeing landing pages, Google Ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn and podcasts. And you sell everything. And sometimes you even say, okay, and if you need help, we can hire a virtual assistant for you. You see what I mean? So you are selling like a bunch of small products that can be found anywhere else. So if your prospect comes, come to you and they feel like, okay, I can buy this website from someone who is specialized in websites. Same for SEO, same for LinkedIn and so on. And so that's why you become a commodity. You sell a commodity because it's not unique, it can be found anywhere else. Now, on the other hand, there is the, like a proprietary offer. This is something that you designed with a framework that you developed, a system, a technology, something that is unique that you built. And because of that, you cannot find this offer anywhere else. And then in order to make it a bit more shiny, you need to have some framing. Naming. Framing is like give context why they need to buy this offer. The narrative, the problem you're solving, the enemy. And also you need to have naming because if you just have a random name, it's. Yeah, it's. It doesn't trigger enough curiosity. So for example, in the course, I mean, online education, you have a lot of competition. So for my previous course that I just launched, I chose to compete. Talk about my framework that I used for me that is called the Authority first framework and this, you cannot find it anywhere else. If you go to my competitor, they will not talk about this specific framework because it's only me that built it. So I built a narrative around this. And this is why my offer is unique. It's not better, it's unique. I mean, it's not better, it's different.

B (26:52)

So the idea is in a red ocean market, whether that's social media marketing or that's courses for building your B2B content, you want to come up with an offer that is unique, that can't be put into the same bucket, that can't be compared to others. Easily.

A (27:12)

Yes, especially in the SaaS industry. Courses for agencies, it's a bit different. Agencies. If you have a lot of case studies like you, you can prove that you can bring a client from A to B. This is more powerful than having a unique offer. Let's say I can bring your LinkedIn ads revenue from 20k a month to 50k a month. This, on its own it's not, you know, it doesn't sound so unique. But because you have the case studies to prove it, that proves that you are unique because you have a framework that is, that can deliver. So if you have a lot of case studies, that's okay. But for SaaS product and courses, it's very important. Even if you have case studies, a

B (28:03)

lot of people listening would be with SaaS products. So talk a little bit more about a strong offer for a SaaS product.

A (28:11)

I think it's more about the problem for SaaS products is the positioning. They are trying to be all in one, all the time. They feel like we need to do more. So our clients will feel like, oh, I can do all, everything with this product. I think for the beginning it's not the right strategy. You should focus on one specific segment or one specific ICP and analyze like all, all the time, every day. What are their problems, current limitations and objectives. And based on that, you build your features. This is product marketing, like 101. I didn't invent anything, but it's more about building your offer around the current needs of your specific segments. And when you do this, you create a sub niche and inside this sub niche it's much easier to serve it because it's your sub niche. So yeah, I think that's the right process.

B (29:14)

Who are some SaaS companies who have done a good job of finding a sub niche and creating specific positioning?

A (29:23)

I think everyone is talking about this example but LB2B is a good example. Our B2B. So why so first they solve a very specific problem. I know who is visiting my website in the US only so I can. And I get a push notification so I can contact them directly. Second, they have, what can I say, a very specific way and a specific segment. So this, at least they started from this. Now I think they're going to add more features and for the retention and for the revenue. But you know, this is very specific. I feel like if I subscribe to this product, I will not have an all in one tool, but at least I will have something efficient for this specific use case, for this specific need. So I think they did a great job. I also like Tela, which is a competitor of Loom. I think the, the offer, it's, it's almost the same. It's more, the positioning and the way it's, it looks more techy, it looks more tech. So I, I feel they did a great job this way as well.

B (30:39)

How do you Tela.

A (30:42)

Tela? Yeah.

B (30:43)

T, E, L L A.

A (30:45)

Yes.

B (30:46)

Okay.

A (30:47)

That's.

B (30:47)

Yeah, I think a, I think a really good example, slightly higher in scale than RB2B which I think RBB is maybe like 5, 10 million ARR. If you're talking about like the 20 to 30 million ARR products. I really like Lemlist because Lemlist is positioned as. Of course you have so many cold email sequence tools but we are number one in deliverability and personalization. So if you really care about those things, you should come to us. And I feel like they have really strong awareness around that sub niche that they're targeting as well. Specifically, you know, small and medium sized businesses. You don't see Nike or Coca Cola using Lemlist but you see every small SaaS using.

A (31:33)

Maybe they do. We don't know.

B (31:34)

Yeah.

A (31:35)

Actually, so it's a French founder and I followed the story since I think the beginning. They started with Facebook groups. So you were in the. I was in the Facebook group and they were sharing tips to do cold email. Then the founder. So Guillaume built his personal brand. Then he built, I mean he invited his colleagues, employees to build their personal brand. They did a lot of LinkedIn. They have a content hub on their website. They now have a place in Paris where they make events. They are very good at marketing as well. And especially content marketing in my opinion. So great products, great content marketing and a strong link between content and product as well. I give you a link, an example, when you go to their content hub, they teach you in a university, how to send cold emails and the CTAs inside the blog articles makes total sense. You see what I mean? And also when you go to the lemwarm tool, it's part of Lemlist or Lempire now you go on. It's a tool where you can check your deliverability and of course you receive the results and then you get not an upsell but an invitation to do a free trial for Lemnis. So it's very powerful. It's a strong content ecosystem. I'm going to post about them soon by the way.

B (33:12)

Yeah. If people want to hear more. Guillaume was on the podcast about three months ago and we did a 6,000 word deep dive in the newsletter. It's a really good case study. And then I think in the higher ARR you have, I think HubSpot as a really good example, kind of sticking with the team theme of like marketing and sales SaaS. So HubSpot, I think it's like 500 to 600 million ARR now for their CRM and I think what's so interesting about their positioning is like it's free, at least at first and it's great for small and medium sized businesses and it can do most of what Salesforce you want Salesforce to do, but at a fraction of the cost and it doesn't have the advanced scary features of Salesforce that you would never use anyways. So I feel like that's another example of really tight positioning with a tight niche.

A (34:03)

I think it's a HubSpot that invented inbound marketing as well, or at least made it popular. So they built a strong narrative. But that was a long time ago in the marketing space, like 12 year or 14 years even. Long time ago. And by the way, I don't know if I told you, but I'm more specialized in early stage B2B businesses because it's so different actually. Like HubSpot versus like below $1 million of revenue or below 5 million. So different, as you know.

B (34:42)

Yeah, we definitely learned that at Apollo where I was VP of product, where you can't just take HubSpot's playbook and apply it. You have to right size it for the size of company that you are. And that's where I want to go next is what is the right team to put in place to execute.

A (35:00)

To execute content. Your content strategy. So what I advise is first think about your content strategy and your distribution strategy. Where are you going to distribute content? Depending on your target audience and based on that you can hire if it's possible to do it this way, even if it's freelancers. Why? Because if you need to do LinkedIn infographics or if you do need to do a podcast, or if you do need to do like live events or YouTube videos, it's not the same skills, it's not the same social media psychology between YouTube and LinkedIn. So different. X and LinkedIn so different as well. Not the same skills. So you need to think about the strategy first. And after what I would say, it's pretty standard. Honestly, a content strategist. So content strategist is a content marketer, but someone who has a marketing mind and then can brief people who have technical skills. Because at the end of the day you should not ask a marketer who is specialized in strategy to write copy. Copywriting, it's not like just throwing words on a Google Doc and then put it on LinkedIn or even YouTube. You need to have something, you need to have someone who is very good at copywriting. And the same for design. If you want to have powerful content, you need to invest in design as well, in my opinion. And video editing, you can hire people who are external freelancers. So you can have different type of video producers, editors, I mean, who can do different types of content. YouTube shorts are very specific, very powerful. But if you want to do an ad or a webinar with like some cuts, this is different as well. Yeah, in a nutshell, there's a lot

B (37:04)

of people that I think end up on this team very quickly. Right. You have your content strategist, you have your infographic designer, you have your copywriter, you have your shorts editor, plus you have your ads long form editor. Those were just five you mentioned. I think probably a six. You need to think about is do you have a VA managing your DMs? And maybe a seventh, if you're going beyond just one or two channels, you might need specialists for specific channels as well.

A (37:36)

Yeah, or you. This is one option, honestly, you can take. Another option is you take one person who does everything but let's you give them only one channel and you buy them a course, for example, so they can learn and then they can apply. But the point that I want to make is don't underestimate copywriting, honestly and design. Because if you hire content strategies, that is only good at strategy, like the right ideas, the right content pillars, positioning, messaging. But then when it comes to production, they don't know how, they don't have the mindset and the skills. This will not get enough results. So you need to invest in the skills as well. Copy and copywriting especially.

B (38:25)

Yeah, I almost think of the content strategist as kind of like a product manager for content, where they need to work with designers, engineers, in this case, they're visual designers on copywriters. They're not writing code and producing product designs, but they still need that ability to give feedback to push the designer and the copywriter when they think it's not good enough. Even if they're not the ones producing the work.

A (38:50)

Yeah, definitely. And they need to make sure that the copywriting matches the tone of voice and the positioning of the company. Very important.

B (39:00)

So there's also this theme that we see a lot of people want, which is founder led sales. Okay, how does that come into the picture? How could a founder who has so many other things to do execute on founder led sales?

A (39:18)

Honestly, for an early stage company, founders, they are here to generate revenue, in my opinion. So if posting content generates revenue, there is a direct link. You know, it's a syllogism, a simple syllogism. So if they are early stage, they should do it and they should write the content or at least go on calls where there is a copywriter, a ghostwriter who listens to the calls and then write with the tone of voice. So this is for the content part and for the DMs. I understand. If you are able to do it as a founder, you can batch it like every two days, you do 30 minutes and you connect with potential buyers. You network as well. If you have a routine this way, that's the best in my opinion because it's a revenue channel and your goal is to generate revenue. So I think you should do it. But then you can optimize, as I said, ghostwriter if you need or someone to help you with the DMs as well. We call them setters.

B (40:30)

Yeah, setters say more.

A (40:34)

Yeah, so it's mainly in the course industry and coaching industry. You have setters and closers. So basically first you publish content, you analyze the engagement, you have setters that will. I don't do this, but some people do. It's. You will send DMs to people who engage and then the goal is to set an appointment to send to a video call on Google Meet or Zoom and then the closer is here to close the deal. And it's possible to have a team that is on commission. A lot of startups don't know that, but course creators, they have sales team who are only on commissions. No Fixed salary.

B (41:22)

What is the rough commission? 10, 20%. How does, how do you determine that?

A (41:27)

So for the closer, it's 10% most of the time, depending on the size of the deal. If it's a 1 million doctor, I don't think it's 10%. Maybe. But if it's 2000, yeah, it will be 10% because a closer will not work for less than €200 per sales, honestly. And then you have a setter, so setter is different. You can pay them by appointment. So if you bring me one qualified appointment, I give you, let's say €50 or $50. Or you can pay them with a fixed salary or you can do a team of the setter plus the closer and you give them a commission as a team as well. So they work together and they don't compete. You know, like, hey, I sent you 20 calls, you didn't close any. And the ones and then the closer say, yeah, but they were not qualified. You know this, this is so basic in marketing and sales.

B (42:25)

Is there any technology that can help you track, for instance, who has liked your posts and who you should be sending DMS to? Or does this all get done by hand?

A (42:35)

So as I said, I'm mainly focused on early stage, so I know this is not possible for big, big teams and big companies. But I recommend to do it by hand and to have. It's not about the tool, it's about the discipline and the consistency. Because doing it one day, it's so easy. But if you have to do it every day for one year, this is the hard part. So if you can do it 30 minutes per day or 30 minutes every two days, checking the engagement profile, viewers, sending DMs, that's the best because you can really, how can I say, adapt the messages to your vision, to your tone of voice and so on.

B (43:20)

What are the most common mistakes companies make in setting up these teams?

A (43:28)

So they send too many automated templated and random messages that are pitch slaps like, hello, Akash, I saw that you have a podcast. You should use this tool because you know, it's so direct. Actually this one makes sense, so it's okay. But sometimes it's hello, I see you have a business. Are you ready to leverage the power of AI in order to grow your company? You see what I mean? I receive like 10 per days like this, honestly, and emails as well. So automated templates, not personalized, too direct, too salesy, pitch slaps, those are the keywords that you need to avoid.

B (44:19)

You don't want to Pitch slap. So what does a really good cold message look like?

A (44:25)

The good message are linked to the content when it's warm. Outreach. So if someone engage or, or visitor profile, you can thank them for doing what they did and then you can ask them a question and if they reply, you can ask another question. And this is called a conversation. And then when you want to push the conversation forward to a sales opportunity, it's more about sending the right resource. So first you need to ask the permission like, hey, I see you have this company doing this revenue. We worked with a similar client and we helped them to. If it's a SaaS, we help them to centralize their podcast system. I don't know. And then they. You say, I have a case study that I just created. Do you want to receive it? So let's see if it helps you. If they say no, you don't send it. If they say yes, you send it. And if it's really tailored for them, they have higher chance to say yes, send it to me please. And then you can insert some CTAs inside the resources to a call or you can also talk about this resource. Hey, did you see part number three? This is what you should do. And this is what really worked for our other clients. So do you want to give it a go? Are you going to do it? And then yeah, it's just like being able to do this conversation, which should be natural. If it's not natural, you have a problem with your product, I think, or with your offer.

B (46:05)

So I heard three key takeaways. One, it's not cold outreach to begin with, it's warm outreach based on engagement and you tie it back to the engagement. Two, you think about creating a conversation before you go to your ask. And three, you develop what I often call a work product, but you call the case study, which is some sort of evidence that you can help them, that has value for them just by opening it.

A (46:35)

It isn't just a cell on its own. Yeah, exactly. A great summary. Yes.

B (46:40)

Okay, that's the high level overview onto B2B content. We raced through the main elements. The area I want to shift to next for the conversation is LinkedIn. Because you're a master of LinkedIn and you help a lot of companies grow on LinkedIn. What I want to start with is what are the types of posts that work well on LinkedIn and how do you think about rotating between those types?

A (47:09)

First, you need to understand that great content is unique content. I will explain so if I can find what you are Talking about anywhere else on Google or with Genai, why should I read this piece of content? So the cornerstone is creating unique content. So you need to have sources of insights that are unique or that belong to you. Whether it's building public information from your products, information from interviews, specific analysis that you. Did you see what I mean? Unique insights will create unique content. Unique content will create curiosity. Curiosity will create engagement. Engagement will create engagement and grow your business. I can finish this process later in the conversation. So you need to have unique insights and then you need to format those insights, right. So you have so many different options. In 2023 carousels on LinkedIn were doing so well. So I was publishing like three or four carousels per week. Then I started infographics. But then after like too many people were doing infographics so it reduced, I think in June. No, I'm in September 2023, every infographic I was doing were getting like 100,000 impression, all of them you see. So I know it's, it's decreasing. Now you have videos, so it's more about. So you have to find the right formats to express to explain your insights. But it's more about, honestly, it's more about the unique insights that you are sharing. Does it make sense?

B (49:06)

That's exactly what I learned. And people will probably notice this with my content is I usually have done an interview or I have done a research because you can't get that out of gen AI. You can't get that on Google. And I think that is the core of good content.

A (49:22)

And some people say, yeah, gen AI can give a lot of good insight, but by definition gen AI cannot because they will analyze what is available in their database and then based on that, they will give you what is the most common answers. You see what I mean? So you will, by definition you will get something that is publicly available, that it's. You will get the average answer. Then you can optimize your prompts and so on, but at least you should optimize your prompts based on the database that you fed to your, to your AI. At least do that. So you can base your content on insights that you've created, but you put in the AI.

B (50:08)

How much should people be using AI to create content? Like you said, you know, you do your original research, you do something unique. Do you then feed that to the AI and if so, what AI?

A (50:20)

I don't use AI for copywriting or for design or for video editing. I think it's not so good so far. I get better performance for Me and my clients with like a person doing. Doing it. But I like AI in the behind the scenes. A good use case is to build a knowledge center with AI. So you will go interview everyone in your company with during a call and you have a recording of the call and then you do a transcript. You need to have the right questions, obviously. Then you do a transcript. The transcript, you organize it, summarize bullet points and put it inside your database. And then you have a knowledge center. So this is a good use case for AI. It's just AI is your ghostwriter because it turns conversations. You can do this with a podcast as well. It. So it turns conversations into a knowledge center.

B (51:21)

So you don't recommend using Claude to come up with a draft or anything like that?

A (51:27)

No, I don't recommend.

B (51:30)

What's your process for creating carousels? Because carousels can be a lot of work.

A (51:37)

So I can talk about my repurposing system after, but my carousel are really based on. On my repurposing process. I'm a designer. I've been designing stuff for like eight years. I'm a Canva designer. I know the Photoshop and Illustrator designers don't like Canva. And the way I do it is I always use the same first page, my face to attract the eyes. A title straight to the point, like a. A cover of a book, and then a small image that triggers curiosity because it's the hook. The hook has three roles. First, trigger curiosity. Second, give an overview about what is going to happen inside the carousel. And third, this is very specific. Make them want to click View more or to go to the next page. So the hook needs to cover those three parts. Then you have the context slide. So the context slide is, as the name says, to give context about what you're going to talk about. Right? So you can say where you got this information, why are you talking about this, why it's important, what problem are you going to solve? And then you have two choices. First one, you can do a list. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and up to you. I did one with 99 points. The carousel was like 105 pages. But I can explain after how I did it in like I did it in like 20 minutes. I can explain how. And the second choice is you can more like use a copywriting framework for your carousel. Like the PAS framework Problem Agitate Solution or BAB or ADA is not so good for content, but CPF as well. You have some copywriting frameworks like this that I use for carousels. What are BAB and cpa BAB is before after bridge. And you can even do BABPB before After Bridge projection. So at the end you say, imagine what happened. You picture the dream outcome. Really? And CPF is Claim prove filter. But this is more to sell. I have a claim. I can help you go from A to B, with B being the dream outcome. I will prove that I have. I know how to do it. I've done it before for someone else or for myself. And F filter, you will be able to do it only if you meet those criterias. A, B, C. So the filter makes people think, okay, this is legit. He's not selling this to anyone. And they will also feel concerned. Oh, I am concerned. I fit this description.

B (54:55)

So how did you manage to do a 99 page carousel in 20 minutes?

A (55:00)

It's really simple, no magic trick. Before that I published 10 carousels which were 10 tips and I combined them. That's it. That's the trick. It was just copy paste of the slides because I always use the same formats so I can do that later on. So the content I'm creating now, I have a system to make sure that it will be useful in three months, in six months, and so on. And I even plan to take everything and package it into a book. So everything is when I produce one piece of content based on one insight, the insight will have 50 different formats or at least 30 will have different angles. You know, it's all about repurposing.

B (55:52)

Can you explain your repurposing system in more detail?

A (55:55)

It will be a bit long and complex, but it relies first on the knowledge center, so you don't waste time like thinking, you know, like finding the insights and so on. Second, you need the right ideation process to go from insight to idea and then idea to the post itself. Then you need to have a feedback loop system to analyze. It's more a routine than a system, to be honest. You need to analyze the results. Then you need to have repurposing routes. Routes as in path. So for example, a LinkedIn post, a winning LinkedIn post has a great chance to become a winning newsletter. A winning newsletter can become a winning YouTube script. YouTube script can become 10 shots and 10. And then if the whole process is doing well, I create a product or a big piece of content. So this way I don't waste my time on an insight that no one cares about. You see what I mean? Because some people say you should start from a long ebook, but imagine you take like 20 hours writing it and then no one cared about it. So that's why I do it this way. First, short form, I call it the expand process. And this repurposing process, this is what I teach in my course because it's a method, it's a methodology. It's really step by step. Yeah.

B (57:30)

So you start with. And it sounds like the most important unit is really the LinkedIn post.

A (57:36)

Yes, definitely. Or you can start from tweet X as well, because it's very fast. So you can test one insight on X and then create a LinkedIn post, then a carousel, then an infographic, and then, as I say, newsletter, YouTube.

B (57:55)

And I find that the X algorithm is a little more forgiving. With LinkedIn, if you have a dud of a post, it's like, all right, this is gonna be a drag on your next few posts. With X, I feel like it's like, no worries.

A (58:07)

Yeah, yeah, It's a tough game, honestly, on LinkedIn, but I don't know X a lot. I have like 500 followers. I just post sometime. Because you have to choose at some point, especially if you are alone. You need to choose your. I chose to Double down on LinkedIn and now I have YouTube as well with 5,400 followers. Something like. Or 4,500. Yeah, yeah.

B (58:33)

YouTube growth is the harder than LinkedIn is what I found.

A (58:37)

When you are a LinkedIn creator, you go to YouTube, you feel like you are seeing in 3D for the first time. Because on LinkedIn, you only write and design at most. But when you go to YouTube, you need to have the script, the video production, camera, lighting. You need to improve your tone of voice, your pitch, your speech. Then you have the editing, then you have the copy, then the thumbnail. That thumbnail, by the way, should be done at the be. Oops at the beginning. So, yeah, it's like seeing in 3D for the first time.

B (59:13)

Let's go deeper on infographics and Canva. Since you are a Canva designer, if somebody was, you know, I would say, like most people, they're like, okay, at Canva. They might have 10, 20 hours into it. You have, you know, thousands of hours. What are the tools, techniques, features that you're using in Canva to make your graphics look so good?

A (59:35)

It's. It's not about Canva, honestly. It's about design rules. If you. Let's. Let's say this way. If you want to start designing infographics first, it's the foundations of design margins. I know it sounds like, what margin? Is it that useful? But product designers Designer know what I'm talking about? Margins. It's very important. Second, fonts and colors, very important as well. I saw some good infographic with horrible colors and fonts that were like handwritten style. It was really hard to read or too small. You know, this type of. So those are the foundation of design. And then you have shapes. You need to master shapes as well. Because actually everything you see in design or around you as well is it's just shapes. A line that can become. If you put four lines, a square, then if you change it a bit, a triangle. So that's why you need. That's why you need to master shapes. And when you have the foundations, you can start creating style. Because styling, it's like in music. If you don't know how to play, you cannot. I see you have a guitar behind you. Is it just to be cool? Are you really?

B (61:04)

I played it a lot more before I had kids than after.

A (61:07)

Okay. But I think you know what I mean. It's like, if you don't know how to play, you cannot create a crazy song that will change the world of music. It's the same design. First, the basics. Then you need to create your own style. So I have my own style. As you can see, the color palette is pastel. So it's light green, light yellow, light blue. And then you have the darker version. And this creates consistency across all my pieces of content and my website as well, my guides and so on. So you need to create your style this way. Your visual identity. And then it's about condensing the information into the infographic. So this is something that I learned, actually, when I was working at the embassy. It might sound random, but when you are in an embassy, you create reports, for example, the ambassador or for the ministry or foreign affair, and they don't have time to read your blah, blah, blah. You see what I mean? You need to be concise and you need to be straight to the point and talk only about the key information. So I learned this skill there. I had like a manager who told me, no, this is too much fluff. You need to be straight to the point. So now when I read the text, it's easier to summarize it. So to conclude design basics, then creating your visual identity and then being able to condense and to summarize the information to get all the fluff. So you have the precious meat of the content.

B (62:54)

So do you write all of the content yourself? You don't use AI for any of that, because some of your infographics Have a lot of text in them.

A (63:01)

Yeah, I don't, I don't use AI. I write it all myself.

B (63:05)

Okay, and then how do you think about pairing it with text? Because your infographic is going to appear with a hook, then it's going to have post text after that. How do you think about what goes in the infographic? What goes in the hook? What goes in the main post?

A (63:20)

So this is something specific that I teach in my course as well. Is the combination between the infographic and the post should not be random. You should not like create the infographic and then, oh, I need to create a caption and then write something. It needs to be the opposite of the infographic. I give you an example. If you give the solution in the infographic, talk about the problem in the text. See what I mean? So you have the full picture by only reading this LinkedIn post. And this is how I made posts which were like, I think I don't remember exactly, but 1.4 million impressions and then shared everywhere. I saw some people on stage, they were in the US sharing my infographic on the big screen. So many people stole them as well without mentioning me. And yeah, this is how you create a strong infographic.

B (64:24)

How can someone write hooks like you?

A (64:28)

Hooks? So you mean the. So as I said earlier, there are the three walls that I said and then hook writing. Honestly, it's cutting the fluff. It's the most important active voice. Be straight to the point, remove adverbs, use numbers. If you can use short words. You know these kind of tips like straight to the point. And all your posts should be straight to the point as well. Actually a good post is your audience is at point A. You need to bring them to point B. All your posts and you should not zigzag in between. You should create a straight line so we know where you are bringing the audience.

B (65:24)

Do you use hook templates or look at your prior hooks? That worked well.

A (65:29)

Yes, I do this now. I need to invent new hooks. I created one that a lot of people used as well. It's okay, honestly, it's part of the game. It was a conversation between me and my ICP. So it was CMO2 dots and he was saying like, yeah, content doesn't work for us. For example. And then it's me2dot and I quote. This is because you didn't try this three step process problem. And then I introduced the solution. This is why people click view more and you have the infographic with that explain the points or that give more Details. So this is a banger combo. You see what I mean? It's like you get a lot of clicks, you get a lot of screenshots, you get a lot of sales shares. Yeah.

B (66:22)

How do you make sure that a two line hook like that appears before show more.

A (66:30)

Actually it never change. I think for me it's always the same. It's one line short, one jump a line and another short line. That's it. I've always done it this way.

B (66:44)

Two short lines on mobile. I imagine sometimes people are only seeing the first line then, right?

A (66:52)

Uh, I'm not sure.

B (66:54)

That's what I've noticed. That's what I've noticed sometimes depending on how short that line is and depending on how tall your infographic is. But your infographics, they tend to be in that like 8 1/2 by 11 page portrait style, right?

A (67:09)

Yeah. Taller because you have more real estate. Because if it's like in ads, I was doing ads before so I know how to like centralize information the right way. You need to have the right format and to position the text in the. How do you call this? The way people look at information. Like you have the Z, you have the. From top left to bottom right. You need to study this before you do the infographic.

B (67:41)

Yeah. The Z or the F pattern seem to be the most common.

A (67:45)

Yeah, exactly.

B (67:47)

So they got the hook. They're using like you maybe a two line hook structure. Maybe they're inspired by one of your hooks. What comes after that,

A (67:56)

by the way, on the hook? The best is you should become the hook. It's not a punchline. You should become the hook. Like, ah, I see your face. Um, honestly the best content I see these days is. It's from Greg Eisenberg, I think his name is. Do you know he was at his advisor for Reddit, something like that. And he doesn't use any of anything I shared. He's just like straight to the point. But he's the hook. When I see his post, I know I'm going to learn something. You see what I mean? Because he's so hands on with his business, he knows what he's talking about. Then you know, I read his stuff, I know I'm going to learn something. This didn't answer your question by the way. So what happened after the hook? Right. Honestly, there is only one rule. Don't create a deceptive hook. Don't create a deception. I mean don't create. Sorry. Don't create like you promise something and then you don't provide it. Just after it's like, hey, I'm going to give you the four roles to become rich. And then. Ha ha. No, I was joking. Yeah. You cannot get rich in four roles. This is a very obvious example, but this is what I mean. It's like if you promise something in the hook, deliver what you promised. You see what I mean? And then you need to structure your content. You need to make it brief, short sentences, a lot of bullet points. Yeah. This kind of advice, make it schemable. That's how we call it.

B (69:57)

How important is finishing kind of your sentence in one line? Because if you look at the content of like Jasmine Allitt or Lara Acosta, all of their sentences fit on one line. Should people be targeting those really short sentences?

A (70:12)

Honestly, this is optimization. So those two people you mentioned, it's their job, they master the art of copywriting on social media. If you are starting or if you are a founder, you should not think about this too much. You should think more about what I said earlier, the strategy and the unique insights that you're going to share. If you are a founder, build in public, talk about your expertise. Yeah. Do short sentences, but don't try to, you know, like, do the, the perfect bullet points that goes like this. You know, the list where it's shorter and shorter and it fits perfectly. Yeah, common. You don't need to do that if you are not like mastering the art. Because at some point it becomes a game to create a perfect post. I've tried it before. It's like you want it to be perfect, but when you are a founder or even a content marketer for a company, that's not the goal. Honestly, the goal is on the. The bigger picture, the repetition effect, the content pillars and the revenue that you generate out of that.

B (71:25)

So is there an ideal post length? I think like Lara, everything she does, you can view it on one screen, mobile. But if you people look at my content, all of my content uses up all 3,000 of the characters. So there's different approaches. What do you think?

A (71:41)

I use the same as you. Because she doesn't have this. I don't know exactly for you, but Lara, she doesn't have the same posture as me. Her posture is more. I feel like she's talking to herself five years ago. And she's more in the inspiring posture, like, hey, this is possible, I made it. You can use this framework to, you know, succeed as well. For me, I'm more like my posture is more like a teacher, an expert that is teaching knowledge. So I use less punchlines I use more. Yeah, how can I say? Like I don't even know. But it's more like teaching rather than trying to inspire. It's less catch lines, it's more like longer information.

B (72:36)

How can people create better authority content?

A (72:41)

So I created this framework, the Authority first framework. You need to publish 70% of authority content, 15 of brand and 15% of offer content in the content plan that I give inside my course. When you create your content plan, you fill in the column and it will give you a dashboard if you are respecting this framework because it's very important and on the formats as well. Now, to create authority content, you need to rely on your expertise and the way you solve your problem, audience and ICP problems. This is the core principle. Like in product marketing, honestly listen to your audience solve their problem in your content and then you need to have different types of formats, opinions, case studies. You have how to do something or even better, how I did something. Yeah, you have this type of format that will help you to share the information.

B (73:51)

That's authority content. What is brand content?

A (73:54)

Brand content, very simple. You talk about your brand or your personal brand. So backstory, values, mission, news, events. Yeah.

B (74:07)

And what was the third bucket offer?

A (74:10)

So it's time to sell lead magnets. I call lead magnets content upgrades by the way, in all my content, but everyone call it lead magnet. You also have when you want to push your newsletter or a new product, a new feature. Yeah.

B (74:29)

What are lead magnets and how can like a SaaS business use them correctly?

A (74:36)

So I call it content upgrade. I tell you why, because from a semantic point of view perspective, content upgrade puts you in a position where you will actually create a good piece of content to upgrade your audience from one short form content to a longer form, whether the lead magnet. It sounds like just here to capture leads. So you are in a posture where you are optimized, optimizing the lead magnet site, like how to capture leads rather than doing good content. This is why I because I think the word we use will shape the way we create the piece of content. So that's why I call it content upgrade. And it's simple, it's. You give a piece of content in exchange of information and for me it's a way to get them inside my content ecosystem. Basically my newsletter, my products. Because I have three products as well. So yeah, and it's, it's a good way as well to track what they are doing when they are in the content ecosystem.

B (75:55)

So the way I traditionally understood lead magnets was it's kind of like a standalone piece of value that's usually gated. Like. I think a really common example in the podcast space is Chris Williamson. He has his Modern wisdom podcast. Under each podcast he comments on YouTube. Get my list of 100 books you need to read. And so I guess that's like his lead magnet. But to get his list, you have to sign up for his email list. Is that like a good way to execute on a lead magnet?

A (76:26)

Yeah, I think this is a good example of a broad B2C LED. I think it's not B2C, maybe B2S, but a broad lead magnet. Now, if you want to do something more specific to your SaaS, what you can do is analyze the journey of your audience, of your clients. Let's say point A is they're struggling with a current limitation. And last point, let's say point C, they have their dream outcome. They. They fix their problems. You analyze this journey and you analyze what is the very first step of this journey, Right? And based on this first step, you create a free product and you make this free product the lead magnet. A good example is lemwarm. They have a tool you can type on Google, like deliverability check. You arrive on lemworm, you send an email to an email that they give you. So they have your email this way and they give you a score about your deliverability score about your email. So that's a good example. Obviously it's very specific to Lemlist and Learmoir, but you should find a way to do it to your product as well, to adapt it to your product.

B (77:47)

It's a really good form of product LED SEO as well.

A (77:50)

Yeah, and you can multiply. You can do many this way if you want to. You, you can even do like viral products like this. It was the case one year ago with AI.

B (78:04)

We talked a lot about reposting content. What are the wrong ways to repost content?

A (78:11)

So you mean repost or repurposed?

B (78:14)

Both, I think. Is reposting ever a good idea? Should you only repurpose? And how different should content be if you are repurposing?

A (78:22)

Okay, repurposing and reposting is very different. Reposting is take the same piece, change it a bit and post it again. Or. Or you have cross posting. Take it, take the post from LinkedIn, put it on substack notes, for example, or X. And repurposing is the same idea, the same insights, but you change everything else, change the way you talk about it, the types and the formats and so on. So reposting, it's okay. For example, I have three pages. I mean, I have my personal page and two company pages that I launched, that I launched recently. I publish on my company pages posts that I posted like 6 months ago on my personal page. That's okay. Even me, I forgot about those posts, honestly, so it's okay. And repurposing, this is, I think I explained it already, but this is a bit more like in depth.

B (79:21)

Okay, so repurposing, you take an infographic, you make a video, you take a video, you make a carousel. That type of thing.

A (79:29)

Exactly. Or even you can do with one insight, you can do three carousels, but with different types. First one is case study. Second one is how I did this. And third one is an analysis of or an opinion.

C (79:43)

Got it.

B (79:44)

All right, so reposting is not repurposing. Repurposing sounds more powerful. Reposting sounds like it might be good to create additional accounts, but maybe not do it through your original account.

A (79:56)

Yeah, reposting is. And sometimes you don't have time to create the content, so you just repost something and that's okay. Honestly, no problem. Don't do it every day.

B (80:09)

How important is consistency for LinkedIn?

A (80:13)

Consistency is the bare minimum. Honestly, everyone is sharing. Consistency is the key. This is true, but it's, it's the first key. You put this key and then you have like 10 other keys to add. You see what I mean? So consistency is the foundation. Because without consistency, you don't have the repetition effect. You cannot get a position in a market if you don't repeat the same information over and over. This is the key. This is repeating the information. In order to, to get this repetition effect, you need consistency. And to get consistency, you need discipline. And for me, the keyword is more like discipline because it's not only about consistency in content, it's consistency in social selling, in updating your product, in everything. So discipline is the keyword.

B (81:15)

So we just completed roughly a 45 minute masterclass on LinkedIn. Are there any other mistakes or things that you would give as advice for people that we haven't covered?

A (81:29)

We didn't talk about the profile. So your profile is like a landing page. So take care of your profile. Good about section, good banner, a link in your CTA that leads to something that makes sense in the content ecosystem. And apart from that, how should you use featured content? Featured content, it depends on your business. If you have a SaaS product, first one should be a link to your product, second one, a Testimonial or a case study. For example, for me, I use the first one for my course, especially when I'm launching it or when I'm active in the sales part. And the second one is more like a content upgrade. And when I'm not pushing the course, I do the opposite. First, the content upgrade.

B (82:27)

All right, that's where I want to double click next. So thanks for making the transition for me, which is how you grew your brand. Can you kind of give us the longer form story of how you went from 0 to 130,000 or even more now followers?

A (82:44)

It's 120k right now. So I started in January 2022. I started by experimenting a lot of different posts, formats, types and also topics. I was even talking about management. But I'm a terrible manager. I even do. I even did the post, a leader versus a boss, you should be a leader. I did this. It was very bad content. I experimented a lot. Then I started talking about go to markets and growth marketing, which was my expertise before. And then. So I did that to generate leads for my agency. Then what happened is I had a good momentum in June 2022, now April, May 2022. And I lost it. Good momentum means like growing engagements, starting to building a network. And then I lost it. And then like for 10 months or 8 months it was. I was posting, but I was getting like 20 likes, 30 likes. But I kept posting every day. I kept posting and I was, I was. I felt like, okay, you think you are consistent. You have discipline. Let's see. Because discipline is when it's hard, when it's easy. Yeah, the discipline is easy. Obviously I kept pushing. I got a second momentum. I lost it again. I did a post that was. I can't remember. I think it's 6.4 million or 5.4. I have to check again. It was about GPT Plus. They launched it. I did a post in like 20 minutes, honestly. And I did something. I said, hey, GPT plus just launched at $20 per month. I'm going to try to think about what, what revenue they will generate this year. And I made a weird calculation. And at the end I say, okay, they're going to make this revenue. And I got a lot, a lot, a lot of comments. No, this is not the right prediction. Oh yeah, I think they're going to do more and so on. I need to check. I think it's 6.4 million views. And I remember on Taplio you have a feature, right, that says that gives you the On a Specific topic, the the trending posts. And my post was before the Microsoft CEO in the Tapio tool. I don't know if it's. It was the true for engagement and impression. But in the Tapio tool I was just next to him. So this launched another momentum. As I said, I lost it again because I felt like, okay, I made it because when you do a post with 6.4 million views, the next day your post is shown to hundreds of thousands as well. At least it's what happened for me. So the next day I said something like about AI as well. And then I stopped talking about AI. I almost took the wave of AI, but I didn't take it. I said, okay, I will stay on marketing because I'm a marketer. And then I started adding. I started infographic designs in June 2023 and then the momentum took, took off and then I didn't really lose it. Sometimes it's getting harder. You need to keep pushing. But I didn't really lose it so far.

B (86:36)

All right, what are some underrated techniques that people might not realize that you used especially in those harder moments to grow your brand?

A (86:49)

Yeah, you need to love what you're writing about. Honestly, it's not underrated technique. But I was writing for myself as well because I was writing about my learnings in growth marketing. So that's. Honestly, that's what kept me going.

B (87:06)

You mentioned Taplio. Is that the main tool you pay for? Are there any other tools?

A (87:11)

No, I don't use any. Any tool. I. I used to use taplio. They had taplio.com trending something like this. And you? I was able to see what was the trending topics and trending posts, but I don't use it anymore. Maybe I should, but I don't use any tool. I write directly inside the LinkedIn post scheduler and I do my post on Canva.

B (87:42)

Oh my gosh. What if you refresh your tab or lose it? They don't save your drafts.

A (87:47)

Yeah. And I have many tabs open like remarketer.

B (87:53)

I think we've talked a little bit about authority content, but I think you really differentiate yourself with like a high percentage of authority content. How can people write authority content like you?

A (88:05)

Some tip that I can share is the PAS framework. It's very useful. It's problem agitate solution. So you start from the problem of your audience or icp. Then you agitate with the symptoms, the side effects and the consequences of the problem and then you introduce your solution. You don't try to sell, but you introduce your Solution like broadly. And then you give a CTA and you add an infographic if you can, or an image. This is a good way to do authority. Content.

B (88:41)

You wrote an interesting post about how Longform has added to your content. What has longform done for your content?

A (88:49)

So when you post only short form, you. You think, I mean your thinking is limited. You only think about, okay, how can I share one idea in like a really short post? But when you start creating long form content, you start building your narrative and you start connecting the dots a bit. Like when you are writing a book, most people think that you need to have an idea and then write the book. But what happens is while you are writing the book, you get more and more ideas, things start to make sense. So it's the same when you are writing. I did like newsletters and because I had to write something that was more structured, more in depth, more research, it helped me a lot. And it was at the same time around June 2023. So infographic plus creating the newsletter. Yeah, it really helped me. And the content strategy as well.

B (89:56)

How do you think about structuring your infographic? I noticed you often have like a title that is often a pretty good hook as well. How do you think about that hook?

A (90:06)

I try to add the numbers if I can. Honestly, I tried to be straight to the point. I tried to have an angle as well. When it's too descriptive, it's hard to have an angle. So a bit like a journalist because if you only describe, it can get a bit boring. For example, I did a post this week that didn't really work. It was about B2B social selling. It was too descriptive. It was how, like cheat sheet, how to do or B2B social setting. That's it. It's too descriptive. You see what I mean? So you try need to try to find an angle if possible.

B (90:50)

Yeah, I've seen a lot of yours have like some sort of hook that will draw people in. Whether it's a number, it's almost like a second hook in addition to your text hook.

A (90:58)

It's the main hook. The infographic is the main hook. The second hook is the text.

B (91:03)

Yeah. Infographic is what people see first. Right. Going back to where people's eyes go. They go to the top of the image first.

A (91:10)

What do you think when you see my post? What is the first thing you read?

B (91:14)

I mainly read the infographics.

A (91:17)

And you, you read the. The title first or the title?

B (91:21)

Yep. Yeah. I have the classic F pattern top left. Then I go a little Bit down. If it's good, then I'll continue.

A (91:28)

Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Good feedback. Good to know. But you should read the full text as well. It's very interesting if you can.

B (91:38)

So you sometimes have graphics within your infographics. When do you include those graphics and are you just finding them from Canva's library or where do you find them?

A (91:48)

I make them myself. Um, so sometimes creating a visual is faster than writing a text. So when I feel like it makes sense and when. When I have an idea to do it, I just do it. And some of them, it's. I also use, like, some icons, but most of the time I do the. The graphic myself.

C (92:12)

Got it.

B (92:13)

So you're using. Like, how do you. How does one even create a graphic in info in Canva?

A (92:18)

So you need to use shapes, colors, as I said earlier, and it's just like combining shapes together, and then it makes the graphic okay. Yeah. If you look closely, you will notice that, oh, it's just a circle inside a square. See what I mean? And then you can indeed, you can add some graphics from Canva, like, like a person, and you add the person in the circle.

B (92:46)

So that really covers how you've grown your personal brand. Perfect. Now I have some personal questions for you. What are your revenue drivers and how do they break down by percentages?

A (93:01)

So I sold my company in September 2023, my previous agency. After that I was doing. I was a consultant. I was making around like 20k per month, something like that, as a. As a consultant. It was oscillating, let's say between 15 to 20. And then I thought, okay, if I want to go further in term of revenue, I need to add some products. Info product, obviously. Um, I even asked myself, should I do a. A SaaS product? But I was not feeling like I. I wanted to create like, an info product, like teaching. So I transitioned from a consultant to, let's say, a creator business where you have a mix of different products. So now I have. I'm. I'm still doing consulting. I have a paid newsletter. I have a course, I have coachings, and I have what I call special projects for Fortune 500 companies. But that's like three to four times per year max. But that's like very, very high tickets. And now most of my revenue comes from my course. But I also do. I'm also launching more coaching programs, which will generate more revenue as well. Does it answer the question or you want something more specific?

B (94:35)

Yeah, I'm curious more on the percentages, let's say, like, for the last 30 days. How did those percentages break down? Sounds like the course would be the biggest one. What would that be?

A (94:46)

The course the last 30 days? I think the course in the last 30 days generated 60k euro because I have 54k plus like you can pay in two times. So like 6k and then consulting. I did two coaching. So it's like 15k of coaching, something like that. No, it's 4,000. So 12,000 of coaching. I have the newsletter which is 2,000 and yeah, I think that's it.

B (95:29)

So you don't have a consulting engagement in the last 30 days you were focused on the course?

A (95:33)

No, because I did a launch this month of my new course. So that's why the course gets so much this percentage. But normally the course is more like maybe 50% of my revenue, something like this. But it's really good because you generate sales just by publishing content and sending emails. Then you have this as constant flow, let's say like Evergreen Business. Then you add on top some consulting clients. I also opened a ghost writing agency. I'm going to announce it I think next year. We are at almost 20k of monthly recurring revenue. But that's something else. This is with a coo. Hired someone. I just like send clients and do like strategy and like yeah, management. So yeah, that's the overview. Is it more clear? No. I still didn't give you exact percentage though.

B (96:46)

But it's a lot more than your average content marketer or something. So it gives people an idea like 80, 90k in a month. The only people earning that much in the world are like CEOs and business owners and content creators.

A (97:01)

It's not, I think it's not 80 because the course is 54 for a launch and the 12 of coaching and the 20k of the ghostwriting agency, the almost 20k, it's something else. Honestly, it's. It's just like I'm getting paid with dividends, you know, at the end of the year. So this is totally different. But you have to take, you have to take into consideration that is the revenue of the business. Yeah, I'm not in the, you know, the make money niche where I share like yeah, I'm making that much money every month. Something like it's not my style. This is the revenue of the company.

B (97:43)

And what are your costs? How, how. What does your team look like and how are you spending on a team?

A (97:50)

So I have a designer that helps me for video editing for the course and sometime for design work as well. Not for the Infographics, but for creating guides, things like that I have, that's it.

B (98:11)

Super lean.

A (98:12)

One person, a video editor who is very talented in Bulgaria for the YouTube videos. Someone who is doing my thumbnails when I need them on for YouTube. What else? Someone for my landing page as well that I hired by Projects, then the accounting firm as well to do all the accounting and sometime I buy some like consulting or stuff like that. Like for my course I hired Notion, but it was just one hour. But she helped me to create my notion. But yeah, it's lean so far.

B (98:52)

It's lean, but it's still a lot you must personally be doing. How much do you work? How do you manage your time?

A (98:59)

I work a lot. Yeah. By the way, right now it's 10:30, but normally I stop at like 7, so.

B (99:09)

So you work like 12 hours a day or something?

A (99:11)

No, no, no, no, no. I work like seven, eight hours a day, something like that. Okay, but, but when I don't work, I'm thinking about it.

B (99:22)

Seven, eight hours is really balanced for the amount of income you have. And do you work weekends?

A (99:28)

I think about it in the weekends, but. And when I launch something, I, I work on the weekends. Otherwise. No, because you need to, you know, you need to relax at some point, stop thinking about all this content.

B (99:47)

So I've noticed like in the last month you're basically posting every day, but you don't always post seven days a week.

A (99:52)

I post seven days a week.

B (99:53)

Okay, so you schedule out Saturday and Sunday's post during the week.

A (99:58)

Yeah, got it. Sometimes I even do it on the same day, but most of the time I schedule it.

B (100:04)

Got it. All right. And you mentioned you're in Bangkok. Why?

A (100:09)

So I've been here for eight years now. I arrived here in 2016 to work for the French embassy. I was the communication manager of the French embassy, that's why. And then I stayed here.

B (100:25)

Yeah, And I imagine making the type of money you're making in Bangkok, it goes a lot further than in France.

A (100:33)

Uh, yeah, but I don't really spend it. It's, it's the company money. I'm more into like a long term plan. Got it. Yeah. You see what I mean? It's, it's, it's not like the, the Dubai lifestyle where you make money and then you buy, rent cars and something like this. I'm more like in a business mode. You see what I mean? The money is inside the company. I invest, I launch new projects. This is the type of thing I'm building.

B (101:04)

Very cool. What were your biggest learnings from your recent course launch, which was obviously very successful.

A (101:13)

Emails sell more. As I explained, you need to build a momentum before the launch. During the long momentum is trigger curiosity. Have a big idea, talk about it. You need to do lives. I didn't do enough lives like webinars, LinkedIn lives. Lives. Yeah. Or even events if you can. Because this builds momentum. You need. I don't like that. But you need to add a bit of urgency. Like, hey, you need to buy before that date for this reason. For example, I say the 20 first buyers, they will get a review of their strategy from me with a video. Then you have the traditional. Like it's cheaper for the first week. What else? It's really standard what I'm sharing. Right. It's like the.

B (102:19)

But you need to do it. Yeah. People know this, but then they only do some of it.

A (102:24)

Yeah. You need to have a checklist. I'm doing a checklist right now that I'm including inside the course. Like the. I call it the offer launch protocol.

B (102:35)

Got it. Now I want to move into kind of a poop pourri of lightning round. Related questions. The first one being who do you follow on LinkedIn? We heard about Greg Eisenberg. Who are your other follows on LinkedIn?

A (102:51)

Yes. So it's weird, but I like people who are completely the opposite of what I'm doing. I like rough content, not raw content. Sorry, meaning like just like I can feel they open their laptop and they type and share some cool inside very fast. Completely the opposite as what I do. Then I like the guy from RB2B. What's it? Adam. Adam Robinson. Something like this. Yeah. I really like build in public. I love what. When people build in public. Honestly, this is my favorite type of content and I don't follow a lot of trying to find. I'm a bit tired. That's why maybe I. I don't remember. So basically I will follow you. If you build in public, this is okay because I feel it's the best type of content. It's like you learn so much from the behind the scenes, from the details, from the revenue. Even the question that you asked me just before, it's like because you understand the type of revenue they make based on what type of actions. So you think like, oh, I could do that as well. Yeah.

B (104:26)

Yep. People also copy you a lot if you build in public though.

A (104:31)

Yes, I think so. Maybe that's why I'm not doing it too much. I'm protecting myself. But I'm going to do it more. I think this time you did it

B (104:43)

in like hour two of the podcast. So I think you're safe.

A (104:47)

Yes.

B (104:50)

So we talked a lot about you might need to build out a team. Where are the right places to go? What are your favorite places to go when clients need help? Hiring a VA or hiring a content strategist or hiring a. Where should they go to do that?

A (105:06)

LinkedIn. So for my ghost writing agency, I did a post 3 weeks ago on a company page and I said, hey, I'm looking for a ghostwriter. Here is a link to a tally. I asked question. In the tally, I got like 20 or 30 answers. We hired one of them. So this is very cool when you have a LinkedIn presence and what we call personal brand. Otherwise, LinkedIn, the paid fun feature, I think it's good. Yeah, honestly, LinkedIn is very good for hiring.

B (105:47)

All right. That's how a lot of people I've hired do on my team. But I didn't actually post about it. They just reach out to me and then I give them a little work project.

A (105:57)

That's even better.

B (105:59)

Yeah. How do you like to hire people? Like, do you give them a little trial project? Do you interview them with multiple rounds? What's your process?

A (106:09)

Honestly, this is really, really not my specialty. Like hiring COO stuff, HR stuff. I'm more like a marketer, but from a marketing point of view, I need to check the expertise. So I like to do a test. I like to do a test on tally. Yeah, tally. So I ask questions. I ask them from 0 to 10. Where do you stand in term for each scale? Like copywriting, design, storytelling. And we need to say from 0 to 10. Then I give them a small case study, let's say, I will say, like, this company need a content strategy. They have this problem, what should you do something like this. Then if they pass this test, we can go on an interview. But I'm not interviewing anyone right now, so, yeah, you should not ask me question about hr. Honestly, I don't have some core tips.

B (107:20)

What is your favorite book or books with lessons for people interested in B2B content?

A (107:27)

Have one. Should I show you the best? This one influenced by Chaldini. Do you know it?

B (107:44)

Yep. It's a classic.

A (107:46)

Yeah, it's the best. Honestly, it's the best. And this one is more practical.

B (107:52)

The Copywriter's Handbook. Who is that by?

A (107:56)

The Copywriter's Handbook from Robert W. Bly.

B (108:01)

I don't know that one. I'll have to check it out.

A (108:04)

It's very good because I can open it right now and I can share like the three keys to writing copy that works in the digital age, you see, and they give you an explanation. So it's really straight to the point. You have tips. So when you are writing, it's very useful. Yep. And influence for the foundation of psychology. We didn't talk about psychology, but this is one of the main thing I study rather than the AI and technology side.

B (108:44)

Yes, I've seen a lot of posts actually about that. Psychological biases, psychological techniques, trips, tricks. Why is that important?

A (108:53)

Not tricks, but understanding the concepts. Why it's important. It's very simple because everyone has a brain. So you need to understand how the brain works in order to be able to communicate, sell, persuade. It's just so obvious. Honestly, it's like if you are a developer, you need to understand how a computer works. Right. So it's the same for a marketer. It's as simple as that. You need to understand the operating system. And yeah, it's many concepts. So authority, buyers, repetition effects, allo effects. You have the mere exposure effect, confirmation bias. You know all those concepts you need to know about.

B (109:42)

What's the authority bias?

A (109:47)

Authority bias or authority effect is simple, is people will listen more to other people that have an authority sign or symbol. Like when you go inside a room, when you go to a doctor, the first thing you will see, you will analyze the room, right? You will see the, like the diploma, the certificate from let's say Harvard or another school. Then you will see he will, he has the, the white shirt and you feel like, okay, I'm safe here, I'm going to listen to this person. So we have the same thing in marketing. It's a bit sad, but the followers count. It's important you have also the, even the picture, the way you dress in the picture. Yeah.

B (110:42)

What about the repetition effect,

A (110:46)

as the name says, is repeat the same information over and over and maybe you will get a chance that people remember this information. Maybe because there is so much information out there. But if you don't repeat this information, if you feel like, oh no, I'm spamming, you will not be able to cut through the noise. You need to repeat.

B (111:12)

What's the halo effect?

A (111:14)

So halo effect is. I give you an example. If I see, if I hear your podcast and I think your podcast is good, I will unconsciously think that your product or your brand overall is good. Another example is if you see this doctor, he says something really specifically that is very good, or he gives you one good advice, you will Think that overall he's a good doctor. You see, it's like you go from a detail to a general effect.

B (111:55)

All right, are there any others we should cover?

A (112:01)

The male exposure effect. I think that's important. Actually I have an infographic. The ninth. The ninth. Psychology Bias. That are important. Nice Psychology concepts. Another social proof, obviously likability, reciprocity as well. Likabilities. If I like you, I have more chance to buy from you. Also if you are more relatable. If you are relatable, I have more chance to buy from you. If.

B (112:35)

Let's pause on that. I think that one is pretty underrated. It feels to me like, you know, if you look at the big podcasts, for instance, like Theo Vaughn or Modern Wisdom to really fast growing podcasts right now, both of the guests talk about how they've had mental health struggles, how they're having depression and different things. It feels to me like if you just present a perfect veneer, people don't find that as likable or as authentic.

A (113:03)

Yeah, I think so. You, when you want to understand the psychology concepts, you should look at the movies as well. Because movies, the production companies, they invested millions and millions of dollars into producing these movies. So they need to make sure that the movie is good. Right. And when you watch a movie, let's say Spider man, for example, the first one, when you watch Spider man, the best part of Spider man is at the beginning when he's not so good and then he becomes good. Step by step. And you see a transformation. You see what I mean? And people, it's proven people love transformation. Go from A to B. A being bad, B being good. People love that. And you also have the hero's journey. You have also David, David against Goliath. So this type of stories as well, the Odyssey, this type of stories, we really love them. And good podcast, they can reuse those type of stories to get engagement.

B (114:14)

Okay, so that's psychology. Going back to our poop pourri of random questions, what newsletters do you actually read?

A (114:35)

I read, I'm not sure I read a lot of newsletter. Yours. Can I check? Ah, yeah. I know one. I know one. Daniel Fazio, do you know?

B (114:56)

No.

A (114:58)

Daniel Fazio. F A C I O. He's completely the opposite as me as well. It's like raw content straight to the point. On YouTube, he records loom videos of himself on a Google document and he explained he's making like 600 or 800 per month. Something like this. I don't know, but it's a thousand. Yeah, It's a company. Right. So it's not like he's not alone. And he explained how he use ads, cold emails, content funnels as well, webinars, sales systems to generate those revenue. And I like, because he's straight to the point. Last email I checked was, hey, we are spending $6,000 per month on ads to convert call traffic. Here is what you need to do. Exactly. Straight to the point.

B (116:01)

Going back to build in public and being really authentic.

A (116:04)

Definitely. I love building public content.

B (116:08)

All right, now I'm gonna list some popular creators and I kind of want your hot takes on their content.

A (116:14)

That's a funny game.

B (116:16)

Uh, Ruben Hassed.

A (116:18)

Yeah, he's French. So good, good content. And he's the leader in AI, I think right now, or at least from my point of view, from what I see in the field.

B (116:28)

We talked about Lara already, so we have to talk about her fellow Jasmine, Alice.

A (116:35)

Yeah, good content. I think he's helping a lot of people, honestly. And Lara as well. She's helping a lot of people. Lara, she's a very nice person. She's very generous. She helped me on something. It was very cool. And Jasmine is very nice as well. So we can feel this in their content as well, that they are generous, that they help others, that they love helping others. So that I think that's why they created this massive engagement as well, because they are generous and people feel it and they are helping others, so others help them back. That's just like the, as I said, likability and reciprocity principle.

B (117:15)

Yeah, I think they nailed likability. I don't ever see a post from either of them with less than a thousand likes.

A (117:21)

Yeah, definitely.

B (117:23)

Actually crazy.

A (117:26)

Justin Welch, Justin Welsh. I think we. Everyone that is publishing content on LinkedIn is somehow influenced by him with a delay effect. So I think he was a pioneer in the game. So, yeah, he's a very good content creator. I think he's. I like his. I like his mindset, I like his style. I don't really read his content, but I really respect what he did. It's really a very strong businessman and a strong business, in my opinion. Well, it's almost 10 millions revenue as a solopreneur, so it's. I think, yeah, this is what he put in his tagline. Right. So, yeah, I think definitely a good business.

B (118:12)

Alex Hermosi.

A (118:15)

Alex Hormozi as well. I think this is a very. He was a game changer in the B2B. B2S. B2S being business to solopreneurs. In this type of content. No, his style is really work hard. You see what I mean? I'm not really. I prefer to chill a bit. You see what I mean?

B (118:43)

Yeah. Work hard is not very French.

A (118:48)

This was a shot. But I think his content is so accurate and he's so like. Yeah, it's straight to the point. Very accurate. You always have something to apply after you listen, even to a short video or to a YouTube video. I think he's. Yeah, he's very good at educating people about business.

B (119:15)

Ben Meir, I don't know. All right. Matt Gray.

A (119:22)

Gray. Matt Gray. I like his business, but I don't. I don't really follow his content. I think he's doing something that I'm going to do on the coaching is having like a product plus coaching where you help founders to build their business. I'm going to do more of that next year. So I think. Yeah, very good business owner. Yeah.

B (119:47)

But I think he just passed 10 million in revenue this year. So of the people we mentioned, he earns the most.

A (119:53)

Okay.

B (119:54)

Jade Bonacalta.

A (119:57)

I don't know.

B (119:58)

All right, see, look, there are big creators that even Pierre doesn't know about. Ali Miller,

A (120:08)

Should I check them?

B (120:09)

Do they show us we have different, different worlds. But Ali Miller, I think she has one and a half million followers. So she has the most followers out of all the people we talked about. Jade Bonacalta is Ben Meir's girlfriend, who I think you didn't know Ben Meir either, but I think she's the number one influencer on LinkedIn for women in terms of average likes per post.

A (120:32)

Okay.

B (120:32)

So that's those who those creators are. Awesome.

A (120:36)

Thank you very much. I think it's a very good exercise to a very good game. And YouTube creators are cool as well.

B (120:45)

Who are some of the key YouTube creators? You would call out

A (120:50)

almost very good videos. Daniel Fazio, his videos are cool as well. And then honestly, I listen to French videos a lot because I didn't say it, but I. I read like French creators as well. Yeah. And I think Matt Barker, he's doing some cool content right now. Um, I was following him more at the beginning when he was like building in public. Like he was seeing how much he earn every day, how much client he get. That was cool. And how many clients he got.

B (121:27)

Yeah, Matt is awesome. All right. If people enjoyed this two plus hour conversation, where can they find you online and how can they help you?

A (121:37)

So my name is Pierre Arubel, so my website is pierrebel.com her is h E R U B L. And it's the same name everywhere on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, MySpace. No, I'm joking. So yeah, LinkedIn and my website.

B (122:00)

All right, Pierre, thank you so much for making the time late at night in Thailand. Really enjoyed it.

A (122:05)

Yeah, thanks so much, Akash. See you soon then.

B (122:09)

All right, bye everybody.

A (122:10)

Ciao.

C (122:12)

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