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- [00:00]
AJ Eckstein
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Courtney Johnson
Welcome to Slay the Gatekeeper. I'm your host, Courtney Johnson and I am here to un gatekeep the gatekeep. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy. Welcome, aj.
- [00:17]
AJ Eckstein
Thank you. It's great to be here.
- [00:19]
Courtney Johnson
I'm excited, I'm excited, so excited to talk with you. I feel like when it comes to LinkedIn, I am always preaching about why you should be on LinkedIn and I'm just one person with one perspective. So you, you're here today to back me up that we should be on LinkedIn. So I'm just curious, what's your journey been with being a LinkedIn content creator? Obviously creating a whole company around it.
- [00:42]
AJ Eckstein
Sure. I mean, I think that there's no other platform that has a bigger opportunity right now than being on LinkedIn. I think to start off with just the landscape, it's one of the only few content efficient platforms. Think of like what TikTok was in the early days of Charli D'Amelio, where there's more people consuming than creating. So already the, the odds are in your favor. And odds on social media are not usually great. Right. It's so hard to stand out right now on YouTube, on Instagram, etc. So the opportunity stand on LinkedIn is massive. And I think for anybody creating content, if you're someone who can create something around professionals or have a professional lens, it's so awesome because you can talk to decision makers, right? The executives, the CEOs, while they might be spending time on TikTok, they're not making decisions when they're on TikTok. Right. You spend an hour on TikTok, you feel like you just lost an hour of your life. Like, why did I start out watching a podcast video, then got to cats and now someone's dancing in their basement. But Ling LinkedIn, like you spend an hour, you feel like you actually did something. Right. A lot of the speaking, like why I'm here today is probably because of something I posted about or connected with on LinkedIn. So again, the opportunity is massive. I think that the bar is much lower because so many people just write off LinkedIn because it's, oh, it's this cringe platform and there's a lot of content that's cringe and there's a lot of stuff where I'm like, whoa, like this is, this is not great. But the bar's lower. So if you can overcome what we call cringe mountain, the opportunity to stand out is, is huge. And if you are a creator, that's Wanting to go after brand deals, the influencer marketing managers, the CEOs, the CMOs, live on LinkedIn and video is crushing right now as well. So I can talk a lot about kind of my story, but just the opportunity to kick off the convo is massive. And I think people can get in early. And it's much easier to get in early now than you know, in two years when it's saturated and then you're trying to make a name for yourself.
- [02:20]
Courtney Johnson
I totally agree. It is just so much easier than other platforms because it's boring, because it's cringe. Like, yes, there are so many. Like, I was driving down the road and picked up a homeless man and hired him.
- [02:32]
AJ Eckstein
That was my hiring manager.
- [02:33]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, these like, lame posts. But yeah, it's because there's so many, so much bad content. You don't have to stand out and have like this incredibly optimized content. Your content just has to be like, kind of good, like a little, have a little bit of personality and it's going to stand out on LinkedIn. I absolutely love that. And you talked about creators. Yeah, I just want to share. Last year I made around 100 grand from brand deals. Around 20% of that was on LinkedIn. And I think a lot of content creators lose out on brand deals on LinkedIn that they could be bringing in extra thousands of dollars a year from LinkedIn brand deals, which is what you're solving for.
- [03:13]
AJ Eckstein
And I think a lot of people will throw LinkedIn in, as in, oh, I'm big on YouTube, TikTok, and maybe I have 2,000 on LinkedIn, so I'll just throw it in, but not price it and just throw it in. Oh, why not? It's the same video to throw it in. We're kind of taking that and doing a 180 approach where the creators that we work with, their main platform, their biggest platform is Linked, and then they have a lot of other things, whether it's YouTube, newsletter, etc. So, you know, I myself a LinkedIn creator, I remember for years now, I come to these creator summits, creator meetups, dinners. We're going around this circle. What's your biggest platform? I'm on YouTube. 2 million. I'm on newsletter. 300,000. I'm on TikTok 200K. And then I say, oh, I'm on, I'm on LinkedIn and kind of hiding in the corner. And they just, you know, okay, that's great, keep going. But no one understood what that meant. And you don't need. Also, we're talking about this opportunity. You don't need a big audience on, on LinkedIn because it's such a qualified audience that you can go so deep. So maybe you're only having 2,000 people who follow you, but what if they're all people in your direct audience right there? Maybe you're trying to be this thought leader in accounting and they're all people who have CPAs. So if you're ever selling one on one coaching or a course or a newsletter, it's 2,000 people in accounting, right? So I think LinkedIn is, is ripe for disruption right now. I think you have this massive supply of creators, a massive reach, massive audience, get tons of impressions, but nobody's paying them for anything, right? There's no YouTube AdSense like you can on YouTube where let's say no brand deals, you know, put them aside, you can just make money from ads rolling in your videos. That doesn't exist on LinkedIn, right? So thinking of that and the opportunity, all brands do right now is run ads, right? 4 to 6 billion a year are spent on ads on LinkedIn. Imagine if 1% of that was moved to creators to partner with creators to build trust, especially in these non sexy industries. B2B is boring for the most part. Like how do you humanize an insurance company, how do you humanize a software? So it's, it's wide open and your competitors on the brand side aren't on LinkedIn. So the opportunity to differentiate is huge. And these creators are dying to do brand deals. So brands right now have more leverage versus creators, I think on other platforms. If I reach out to you as a brand, you're like, oh my ads are, my ad slots are booked for the next three months and I'm going to continue increasing my rate because I'm so busy with deal flow on LinkedIn. There are really few to no brand deals being had. So the leverage that brands have is crazy right now. But take that as an advantage for the creators and go do something special, start building those case studies and then once you get a couple, as you know, it's that snowball effect and it's more and more and more and you know, it's massive.
- [05:45]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, a lot of these brands are already running ads on LinkedIn which is really, really, really expensive. I can imagine that if they put some of that budget into creators, they would see a lot better ROI.
- [05:56]
AJ Eckstein
Huge. And also what LinkedIn just unveiled about four months ago is thought leader ads. So traditionally it was, let's say that we have a company HubSpot HubSpot could boost a piece of content from their thought leaders, like their founders, CEOs, executives. Now they just opened it up to anybody. So if Courtney were To post about HubSpot, I could put ad spend behind Courtney's post and it would show up in the feed, not from HubSpot's account, but from Courtney's face image, you know, likeness, name and that organic looking piece of content. So I think that. And that's kind of what we're betting on. Influencer whitelisting is very common, but nobody knows that you can do it on LinkedIn. So imagine if 4 to 6 billion dollars of ads goes to the creators that make the content and then boost it through their profiles. And I think that's going to be what the feed looks like tomorrow.
- [06:41]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, it's so powerful and there's just so many users. I mean, LinkedIn's over a billion users right now. It is crazy. Also, I invite people to become conscious of their own LinkedIn usage. What I see the most is people use LinkedIn 3 or 4 maybe they check it in the morning, especially if they're like in sales or marketing and they have connections or messages to go through. And everyone gets on LinkedIn at like 3 or 4pm, maybe like 4:15, where you kind of feel like you want to be working, but you don't really want to work on a hard project. So you feel like you're being productive by scrolling through LinkedIn. Everybody does that shit. Like everyone. I don't use LinkedIn and I'm like, oh well, you know. Do you ever go on it? Yeah, I go on it like every day towards the end of the day and I'm like, you don't use it, bitch. Like sounds like you do. So it is also something where people are like, oh, this is so random, I don't use it. But if you actually look at your.
- [07:29]
AJ Eckstein
Behavior, you probably are using it and everybody's using it. Like my dad's not really on social media, he loves LinkedIn. Right. I think people that like the younger generation, like us, I think we are starting to understand how to use it and how to get past that cringe and be yourself. And if you're yourself, it doesn't have to be good content, but if you're authentic, it really rises above the 80% of AI generated kind of BS on LinkedIn and the very cringe content. I think, you know, LinkedIn 1.0 was, I'm happy to announce that I got a job at Facebook, right? And that was it. It's very high level, it's very positive. But I think now LinkedIn 2.0 is a lot more Gen Z are kind of taking over the workforce and on, you know, working at LinkedIn as well. It's a lot of the other side of the work is what happens after nine to five more lifestyle content as a professional more, you know, okay, maybe I didn't get this role, but here's what I learned from the failure. Like some of my best content is just being crazy authentic. And you know, I think another interesting way, because a lot of professionals like, well, I don't have time to create content. I actually don't consider myself a creator or create. I document everything that I do. I'm just building our business creator match in public and documenting it. So like today I was taking some BTs before you got here, talking about how I'm sitting in the seat right now, right? What we're talking about some key points and that is the content. And I think that is the content that really works on LinkedIn is more of the document over creating and trying to think of a ton of ideas versus, like, we're busy. So just talk about what's happening behind the scenes.
- [08:55]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, I love that. Something I tell my clients is just start with questions. You could say a question a client asked me today is blah, blah, blah, and give an answer to that question. Or a lot of people always ask me, X, here's the answer. That is like, easiest place to start, which is just documenting what problems your clients run into over and over. You know, what questions do they ask over and over. So yeah, where would you tell somebody to start? Maybe they are a content creator on Instagram and TikTok and they're like, all right, maybe I'll dip my toe into LinkedIn. Would you recommend them start to repurpose their content, change their content? How do they start?
- [09:28]
AJ Eckstein
So I'll break it into two, two buckets. So if you are a creator on another platform, which we're seeing a ton of people move from, I'm big on TikTok Instagram. I want to come over to LinkedIn is I would just repurpose the video content that you already have. Because video is crushing it right now on LinkedIn. And I gave this analogy. I spoke at a panel for south by Southwest a couple of days ago where whenever a social media platform is making it very obvious that they're prioritizing something, think of it like an ambulance driving through traffic, right? The other cars or creators who are waiting for something to Happen you get behind that ambulance and follow where the platform's going in that ambulance. Right now is LinkedIn video. Right. They're only really updating things for the video side of the platform. On mobile there's a dedicated video feed. Video is everything. And a lot of the stats coming out are talking about how much adoption and consumption is increasing for video. So if I'm a creator and I want to grow, I'm going to follow what the platform is telling me to prioritize versus fighting the algorithm. And oh, I'm still betting on polls or carousels. So videos crushing it. I would repurpose my videos from other platforms and then again try to think of something more native to LinkedIn. So I wouldn't just throw any video in there. Right. Or like a TikTok trend, but something that always, I try to always still have a professional tie in. So even if it's talking about, you know, a day in the life with some fitness side of being a professional, it still ties into being a professional. Right. We ran a great campaign with athletic greens, ran their first ever Creator campaign on LinkedIn and it was talking about the day in the life of a professional and how AG1 powers your workday. So that's what I would do if I'm a creator on other platforms. If I'm a really busy professional who have. Has really never made a piece of content, I actually wouldn't start with video because I think, and you know better than anybody, video is probably the hardest thing to do as a creator. You have to sit down, you have to get good lighting, you have to get a nice camera, you have to script something out and you have to build it out. It's hard. LinkedIn's still a text based platform, so I would start with just again documenting text, text + image, text + carousel and then move into video at the end.
- [11:23]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. What I recommend for clients such as don't want to do video is one, they could do something like this. Go on a podcast, go to a talk, do a webinar and just start cutting those or doing some sort of photo. But make it personal. Like a great way to not be flagged as like boring ass AI. Content is just by adding a personal photo. It doesn't even have to be your face. It could be your desk setup, your dog, your coffee, your tea in the morning, whatever. As long as it's personal, like it's going to, it's going to stand out.
- [11:50]
AJ Eckstein
And selfies do well for whatever reason on LinkedIn. I think it's because it's so unique, right? Like, of so of the 1 billion users, only 1% create content consistently. And of that, let's say 80% of that, you know, 1% is very cringe AI generated. Like, I'm happy to announce content. It's like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. If you're just yourself and talk about, okay, well, I see Courtney's crushing it. But like, who's Courtney behind the scenes? When the camera turns off, what is Courtney's day in the life? And I'm so curious. So tell me about it. Show those selfies. Show those more vulnerable, authentic, transparent moments. And when people talk about you, they want you to. You want to think of them as. As transparent and authentic. And that's the kind of the brand that I'm trying to portray as well, is I really don't talk a lot about the wins and successes because there's so many more failures. And I want to help that next founder, the next creator entrepreneur out there.
- [12:38]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, there's also. I also recommend people document their consumption. So what podcast are you listening to? You can post that. What talk are you going to? You can post that. What book are you reading? Like, highlight something and post that. That's a super easy way to start. I also want to ask about connections. So there's a ton of strategies you can use and curating your own audience. Like, the unique thing about LinkedIn is it is follow for follow. If you are sending a connection request and they accept they are following you, they're seeing all your content, you can be so strategic with your connections.
- [13:06]
AJ Eckstein
So I think of it like this in the sense of an audience. Right. So I do think that the businesses that win tomorrow are the ones that are content or creator first, but also the founding team or the execs need to be the face of the company. And I think the companies that don't lean into content will lose tomorrow. Right. So I think for myself, it's the days that I don't want to create. It's a disservice to my team to disservice to our audience, to our customers, etc. So, like, I don't just create for my own personal brand, but on behalf of our company creator match. Right. So that's probably one of the biggest things to focus on. And then also you get a 30,000 connection limit on LinkedIn. So every week I would just continue to connect with people who you want in your audience. It's like having this beautiful amphitheater where you can fill up to 30,000 seats, and there's a mic waiting for you at that, you know, on the stage, whenever you want to come up and say something, whether it's, hey, I just lost my job, I'm a product engineer or software engineer, and I need to look for a new job, or it's, hey, we're launching something, or hey, I'm starting my business, or, hey, I'm starting a podcast. You don't want to talk to an empty room, so you have to spend that time building the audience. Whether it's through organic content, people following you, or whether it's finding someone in your space who's a bit bigger than you, going through their connections and literally hitting connect, connect, connect, connect to build that audience. It's a very different experience than TikTok or Instagram. And the beauty is, even if you're not creating today, but you have followers, when you are wanting to reach out to those people. It's a. It's a warm intro, right? A lot of times if I'm connecting with somebody and commenting on a post, I'm not directly outreaching to them, but they know who I am or they've seen my face. The amount of times people come up to me and say, hey, I've seen you online, I think we've connected or we've DMed or whatever it is. But there's never a hard sell, right? And that's what LinkedIn really is about, is the networking piece. So it's not just posting, but it's engaging with other people's content, it's connecting with people, sending a little DMs here and there. And then business is just so much easier because you're not hard selling.
- [15:00]
Courtney Johnson
Mm. I think that is so important. I always encourage people to just start a conversation, ask somebody their goals, what they're working on, not sell at all. And when the time comes, they're naturally going to gravitate towards you, like your audience. These connections are seeds that you're planting. And maybe this is a seed for five years in the future. Like I tell people, let's say you want to quit your job in five years and start your own tech company. Start adding those investors now. Start adding the co founders now. Start adding all of those possible people, even your target customers now. Because in five years, they've had five years of seeing your face over and over and over. And the inherent trust that that built is insane.
- [15:38]
AJ Eckstein
I'll also add that I know this whole focus of the show is to un gatekeep, and I think a lot of Employers will basically put a muzzle on you to say that you shouldn't or not encourage a post as long as you're not, you know, saying anything detrimental to the company that you work at. It's your personal brand on LinkedIn. Obviously you're still representing the company, so you have to be careful what you talk about. But it's your personal brand and what they don't tell you is you're renting the company's brand up until the day that you leave. Or hopefully you don't, but you get laid off, right? It's renting the company brand. So you don't want to be known as the marketer who works at Google. You want to be known as Courtney Johnson, right, who happens to work at Google. So as you're going through this process, document what you do. Keep confidential information confidential, but talk about it and be known as that marketer. So if there ever happens to be a day where you get laid off, your first post should not be I'm happy to announce that I got a job at Google. And then the second post, I'm sad I got laid off. I need help because you're asking something before you gave anything you want to give your audience so much value to them. The day that you do need something, whether you're selling something or need their help, they're ready to help. You already gave so much throughout the years, so I think that's what people don't say. And like for our team at Creator Match, we encourage our employees, our team to be creators and talk about the day to day, right? And also if it's a good work life balance, which we do, and it's a great workplace, we're not hiding anything, right? So talk about and document what you do.
- [16:58]
Courtney Johnson
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- [18:48]
AJ Eckstein
And I would just again, like you said, like, if you are working for a consulting company, never mention your company name or a competitor's name and try to stay away from anything that can get you into hot water. There's a million other topics that you can talk about. And then like if you're trying to help job seekers, like, are they really going to get mad at you for helping job seekers or helping women empowerment or super important topics. And then also when you're going down these routes, as much as I want to say stay neutral, I feel like neutral points of view get kind of lost in translation. You have to almost be polarizing. I think polarizing gets a bad rap. But you have to choose a side. You can't be like, what are your political views? And I'm like, oh, I'm kind of in the middle. No one really is in the middle. You're either on one side, side or the other. So the same thing where we're talking about like posting as a creator inside a company, like, you have to go hard on what you're talking about, but just stay away from what can get you into hot water.
- [19:38]
Courtney Johnson
I totally agree. And I think that controversy or polarization can be in a lot of different ways. It could be politics, religion, whatever. It could also be that you don't like agile and you think there's a better something, a better process than agile and you're like an agile hater. Great. That is polarizing. Something that I've done that's always been polarizing is I actually think the traditional marketing agency model model is, is flawed and really doesn't work. And that's been kind of my polarizing thing. So I completely agree. There is something even again, even if you've got eyes on you and your company is like really making you be neutral, there is something that you can talk about. So if you are in a industry like finance or legal, where you cannot mention your clients, you cannot mention any projects you've done, you really have to stay quiet, talk about what's publicly available. So let's say you're a lawyer. You obviously can't talk about what you're working on, but that big case that's in the media, you can comment on that. You can look at what their lawyer is doing and talk about their strategic take. Again, in finance, maybe you have to be really quiet about everything you're doing. But is there something, is there a big financial thing that's going on, news story, like in another country or in another industry that is public and you can comment on the strategy behind it? I find that's like the best loophole to really show your strategic, strategic expertise without compromising any information.
- [21:01]
AJ Eckstein
And when I think of legal, I think of you, right? Like to stay top of mind and stay relevant. It's not clicking on, you know, a Google Ad anymore, a Facebook ad. It's like, who do I think of when I think of podcasting? Who do I think of when I think of, you know, LinkedIn coaching? And it's the people that are as public as they can be who stay top of mind. So even in law, like, who is top of mind and you see all those billboards, like, I think the most billboards I see are, you know, 5, 55 legal. Call me if you're in a car accident, but if you're staying top of mind but just doing that digitally now versus the IRL out of home billboards online and in your certain niche. Because people might not be able to or not might, might not be ready to buy today, but when they're ready, you want them to think of you. So, like, how do you do that? Whether it's through a side hustle, through your business or even you as a marketer, right? Maybe Google or whatever company you're working at isn't living up to the hype and you want to go somewhere else, you should never have to apply to a job again, right? Like, that is definitely a hot take. But the best people don't apply to jobs. The best people. You talk a lot about this in terms of the open to work banner, probably aren't looking for something. It's when you're. They get poached to another company. Right. To be that level of stature, you have to be the one who has the audience who talks about these topics consistently, who has pull in their niche. And that's how I think a lot about for us at Creator Match is being known. So when someone thinks of a topic, LinkedIn Creator Marketing, I want them to think of Creator Match. Right. Not I want to. I don't want to be known for everything. Because if you try to be known for everything, you're actually known for nothing. Right. When one topic, one idea comes into somebody's mind, they need to think of you.
- [22:33]
Courtney Johnson
Absolutely, yeah. And with the, the brand deals that you guys are doing at Creator Match, let's say I'm a content creator, I'm like, all right, look, I'm getting brand deals, I'm posting on all these platforms. I'm convinced, AJ, I'm going to go on LinkedIn. How would they start monetizing that?
- [22:53]
AJ Eckstein
Sure. So to give you some context, so Creator Match, we match brands with LinkedIn creators. We have both an agency where we run these campaigns, and then we have a software platform where brands can do it themselves. It's important to know because there's different types of models. We're not a creator talent agency, so we don't sign creators exclusively. We actually partner with the brands. And instead of saying, hey, HubSpot, I have this amazing creator, Courtney and I, she charges, let's say 2k a post and that's it. It's a 2k or 4k deal for two posts. It's a HubSpot. Let's run a creator campaign on LinkedIn and unlock a 50 to $100,000 budget. So, like going after these treasure chests of budget and then running a massive campaign and then in turn finding the best creators, whether it's Courtney or John or Stephanie or Bruce, let's say Bruce just came to mind. Right. So that's how we partner with brands and creators. We've paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to creators in literally the last few months, have massive campaigns on the way. Of course we'll do our best to get, you know, the LinkedIn creator community paid. But I always say that, you know, while we're trying to fight and fish for creators, there's nothing better than you building the best fishing pole and fishing for yourself and doing things like making sure that you are open to brand deals that you're posting about brands. We've worked with a lot of creators, but they've never mentioned a brand name in any of their content. So it's like, how could a brand envision their brand in your content if they don't. If you don't talk about names? And I know a lot of creators might say, oh, well, I'm not getting paid, but like, to get paid, it's like getting that first job. You have to do an internship. And to do the internship right, you have to start small and talk about, okay, well, here's my case study. Here's what I've done, maybe at school. And then you slowly start to build your way up. And once you get a couple, then it's that snowball effect. So I would make sure that you're optimizing your content for reach on, on LinkedIn, think about who you're talking to. And then, you know, if you have 2,000 followers, maybe that's not enough today, but build those relationships with the brands that you use daily. So the beauty of LinkedIn is, especially if it's any product or service in the professional world, it's like, if I were to you, Courtney, what tools do you use today? You might say, oh, I use Notion, I use Riverside, I use HubSpot, I use so on and so forth. Talk about those. It's the most organic thing. And use that and send that to Notion, send that to HubSpot, say, hey, this post I did with Notion got a million views, 500,000 views, 200,000 people ask me about it. And that is the case study you're going to do to land that next gig.
- [25:10]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, that's a great post. Type in general, just sharing the tools that you're using, sharing the resources that you're using. Again, that kind of goes to the content curation. What books, what podcasts, what YouTube channels, what tools. Great way to start. Today's episode is sponsored by my Sunrise Content Club. I created Sunrise Content Club because I really desired accountability in my content creation. How it works is we meet on Zoom every single weekday from 8 to 9am we get on the Zoom, we play some fun music, we have a little mindful moment, and then I give you a contest prompt. And we spend about 45 minutes working on this prompt together. In this time, you can ask questions, get feedback on your content, and at the end, we all share our wins and we also share our content that we have created during that time. So we all get an initial boost because we are liking and commenting on each other's posts. There's also a really fun and supportive group chat where you can ask questions, share your content, get accountability. The Sunrise Content Club is an incredible way to stay consistent in your content creation and have community support. It is especially helpful with folks with ADHD who find value in body doubling. For a very limited time, you can join the Sunrise Content club for just $99 a month. This is a very special limited time founders rate and I am so excited to see you guys there. Join the Sunrise Content Club today. If a content creator they're like all right I am starting to post. I'm going to post about brands. I want to start monetiz my LinkedIn connection wise. How can we use these tools for them to get in front of you and your team and get familiar? Is that stalking Creator Match and adding everyone and liking all of your posts? How do they do that?
- [26:57]
AJ Eckstein
I'm not gonna say no to that sneaky way. That would be awesome but so I think the two best ways to get involved as a creator with Creator Match we have a interest form on our website that you can fill out to kind of join our creator network. That's where we start when we're sourcing like this massive HubSpot or notion campaign and then we also source outside of that second off we have an incredible Chrome extension which is completely free to use where I can go to any creator's profile on LinkedIn of the billion profiles and see all of their stats. So one of the biggest pain points that we hear from creators, and I'm myself a creator as well, is the lack of analytics as a creator, right? I think Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, great analytics, LinkedIn, very poor analytics. So I can go to anyone else's profile and see their top performing posts. I can see who is sponsoring them in terms of brand deals. I can see your follower count, engagement rate, average likes per post, median likes per post. I can type in a keyword like HubSpot and see if Courtney's ever mentioned that keyword. I can go to the homepage and see all of the sponsorships being run in the feed that day. It's an incredible way to again un gatekeep and show people what's happening behind the scenes. And if I'm a creator and I maybe have a thousand followers, I definitely know creators in my niche. So I'm gonna go to their profile, use this Chrome extension and see what are their top performing posts organically in terms of format, hook, content, style, authentic as well as what brands are spending in my niche. Because one of the Hardest things as a creator on LinkedIn is doing a ton of outreach and trying to figure out, like you're shooting in the dark what brands are spending on LinkedIn. Right. This tool identifies what brands are spending on LinkedIn. And you can say, hey, HubSpot, I saw you just, you partnered with Courtney, who's in my niche of podcasting, let's say, and I'd love to work with you. Here's an example post I made about HubSpot that got 200 likes and drove a ton of conversation. And here are my rates. And that's way more effective than just trying to guess who is spending on the platform.
- [28:51]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, it's a great tool. Do you ever have trouble finding creators like I find on LinkedIn? I see the same people at every event, I see the same people everywhere. I'm like, is there. There's such a small amount.
- [29:04]
AJ Eckstein
There's a small amount, which on the creator side should give you some excitement, as in, there's not a lot. Right. On YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, there's no shortage of creators. So the first thing is, yes, there are not a lot. I will say it's like finding a needle in the haystack for sure, but it's an even smaller haystack, so it's even harder to find on the brand side as well, as you can imagine how few there are. So it will really double down on partnerships. I think every day we're seeing more and more creators start flooding and flocking to the platform. So we're seeing TikTokers come over and bring their video content. I think over time, like we said, it will start to get saturated, but it's still wide open today and it's still hard to find those best creators. But we have an entire platform from the Chrome extension and from the relationships that we built that we can type in certain keywords, certain metrics to find and source the best creators.
- [29:52]
Courtney Johnson
Is there industries that are majorly lacking creators, I can imagine, like marketing and sales, probably has more than marketing.
- [29:58]
AJ Eckstein
Sales business in general are definitely probably the most common. Maybe productivity is another big one, like the Ali Abdullahs of the world. But more niche industries like cybersecurity is really hard. There's also so much trust in that industry that if you are a top voice, you don't have to be a hundred thousand, it could be like 5,000. And you are a top voice in that niche. So if you're also listening in and you have a great niche, double down on that niche, right there might not be as many deals to be had. But since there's such few creators, you can really jack up the price and you have more leverage even partner with a brand and maybe not do a brand deal. But let's say that you have a cybersecurity company and you only have 2000 followers. What if you just make them better ad creative that will. They'll run it through your account. Right. And it's the same thing of GGC content and doing ads on Instagram or TikTok. So you don't only have to focus on brand deals, but partnering with brands in different ways and saying, hey, I'm a great creator. I'm growing on on LinkedIn. I don't have a massive audience, but I have amazing content. And you're running ads on LinkedIn. I see you spend a hundred thousand a month on LinkedIn, let's say. So use me as the ad. I'll build all these different ad types for you and put money behind me in my account and I'm getting paid. And you're benefiting it as well.
- [31:08]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. For those industries that don't have a lot I cybersecurity. The most money I've ever been offered for brand deals is cybersecurity stuff. But it makes no sense. Like I always turn them down because I'm like, I don't have this software, I don't use this thing. It just wouldn't make sense. I can't learn all of that. But there's so much money in it and I've had so many opportunities that the cybersecurity in general also like engineering, like coding, like that whole world, you guys are all hiding on GitHub or whatever. Like not showing your face, not wanting to put yourself out there. There is so much money right now that is that brands are desiring to give you if you just post publicly.
- [31:44]
AJ Eckstein
Yeah, it's insane. I also think one other thing. So we think a lot in terms of sourcing with keywords. So if I'm sourcing you for notion, a notion campaign, I'm going to see if you ever said the word notion in any of your content. I'm going to see if you ever said the word maybe CRM or Google Docs or even a competitor like ClickUp. Right. To see if you're talking about the keywords of this campaign. Because if you are, then it de risks you as a creator. We think a lot about when we're sourcing that it's risky to partner with a creator because there's so much unknown if I'm using just traditional ads. It's not risky. Right. I know exactly what I'm putting in and getting out. Obviously you lose. You don't have any trust. If I'm partnering with a Courtney or any creator, I asked myself how could I de risk this partnership? The way to de risk is if you were to show me sponsorships that you've done in the past, if you've worked with us or talked about us. But in terms of keywords, do you actually talk about what we do? Right. Sales, CRM, marketing, productivity, whatever those keywords are. So if you think about it like that and say, oh, actually you know, I'm this big productivity creator, like an Ali Abdaal, but I've never mentioned the word productivity. Top 1%, getting better, you know, whatever those keywords are, that's an issue. Right. And if you are trying to prioritize brand deals, you have to think in terms of keywords. And our Chrome extension is an example. You could just type in that keyword and see even what competitors are talking about or what other creators are talking about. And you have to think in terms of keywords.
- [33:06]
Courtney Johnson
I think a great action item for creators listening to this is do a little self audit with Creator match and see if your keywords are matching the types of brands that you want to work with.
- [33:16]
AJ Eckstein
Yes. And you can see this little word cloud as well. Even on your own or anybody's profile of your top words that you say and you're actually, it's like very, it's intriguing. What are the top words that I say? For me it's creator, marketing, LinkedIn brand and I'm like, wow, like that's super on point of what I talk about because those are the four things I talk about on a daily basis. But for you, if it's. You think that you're a productivity creator but you accidentally talk about sales, maybe you're not really a productivity creator. So really thinking in terms of keywords, especially if you're prioritizing brand deals and brand partnerships, because those are the ones that will be the best and most long lasting.
- [33:52]
Courtney Johnson
I want to go back to something you were talking about earlier, which is job search. And if you really want to be getting paid very well, like tracking towards your professional goals to make sure you have a strong personal brand and recruiters are coming into your inbox. Yes, I just actionable cheat code. Add as many recruiters as possible, especially if it's like a niche recruiter, like an executive recruiter, a marketing recruiter, a recruiter that Only focuses on your state. A remote recruiter. I've even gotten really great gigs from like freelance and contract role recruiters. So add a ton of recruiters. I'm sure you've had so many people in your DMs offering you roles, gigs, opportunities. What are some of the opportunities that you've gotten inbound throughout your journey?
- [34:31]
AJ Eckstein
Well, I think before we talk about the what of inbound, like, how does inbound happen? You know, I think everyone's like, oh, you can just relax and everything, everything comes inbound. It's like a machine machine. Right? And while it's we're getting. You were taking steps closer and closer to that. How I think about it is you do organic outbound content to get organic inbound leads. And that could be for you as a business, that could be you as a creator, that could be you as a job seeker or someone who has a great job. But you should always have one foot in, one foot out, because the company can kind of lay you off whenever. So why not have those opportunities ready if you need to unload on that network in terms of those opportunities? So that's how I think about it in terms of getting people to reach out to me. I have to reach out to them via that organic content, right? So with more and more content, I have so many creators, so many brands reaching out to us. I don't do any really cold email, cold outbound. I don't spend any money, literally zero dollars on ads. Everything's inbound. But it's not just because I'm sitting here. It's because every day I'm showing up for my audience, networking, commenting on their posts, and they're reaching out. Hey, could we sell a mattress on LinkedIn? And I'm like, huh? I mean, mattresses are sold on YouTube. Why can't we do it on LinkedIn? And we literally working with a mattress brand or hey, do you think athletic greens would. We would kind of do well on LinkedIn? I'm like, well, professionals still drink supplements. Like, let's try it, right? Or professionals still need to sleep. So the inbound conversations we have now are mostly tied to Creator Match. But previously I was posting a lot of consulting content because I was working at a consulting company and I was posting a lot of consulting content and a lot of it was conversations we've had, especially for some smaller companies, of, hey, you're this voice in this network work, let's chat versus you reaching out and applying for a job.
- [36:10]
Courtney Johnson
How. How did you come to understand the importance of Personal brand. You have such a strong personal brand, and I feel like some people just get it, and you're one that just gets it.
- [36:18]
AJ Eckstein
So it's a funny story. I actually had a podcast. It was a side hustle while I was at my, my management consulting company. It was called the Final round. I interview recruiters to help job seekers advance past the final round interview. So through that, to find out the guests, where do recruiters live on LinkedIn? Where do the job seekers live on LinkedIn? So to be where my audience literally is on both sides, it was growing an audience on this platform and constantly promoting the podcast on LinkedIn. And, you know, through that of building relationships and also realizing that a recruiter at Google will never respond to me unless I find them through, you know, some sourcing on LinkedIn, engaging in their content, them seeing me and be, oh, he's a warm lead now. And then reaching out after about a week of engaging with them, of, hey, I have this amazing podcast. I just interviewed, interviewed someone at Facebook or Meta, let's chat about Google. But that's how I got my start and started really investing in this platform and realizing that, you know, in these creator conversations, Nobody was saying LinkedIn. I'm like, is there, is there something that people are missing? And I kind of just went all in. And I think that, you know, in terms of, I think diversification is huge, but to be the best, you can only be known for one thing. Especially early on. I always give the example Mr. Beast and want to be the number one creator in the world. I want to be the number one YouTuber in the world. Nothing else matters. Once he became the number one YouTuber, then he moved to become massive on other platforms, launch feastables, different businesses, et cetera. So for you, it's, I think there's so much pressure to be everywhere. But I always say when you're everywhere, you're nowhere even for your audience or the different channels that you focus on. So I kind of got on the personal branding train pretty early on. We found our software engineer at creator match. He DMed me because he saw my content. Right? A lot of leads for businesses reach out to us from content, our customers, our creators, our brands. It's just building that network and showing up for them and knowing that this is the way to have that competitive moat in 2025 versus a cold, outbound approach.
- [38:11]
Courtney Johnson
Did Joel fundraiser? Are you bootstrapped?
- [38:13]
AJ Eckstein
We are bootstrapped today. I've not raised any money. It's so funny. People think that we are this Massive team or a team of under 10 that we have been around for 10 years, we've been around for 10 months, that we've raised millions, we've raised $0. And, you know, it's just, again, really showing up for our audience. And, you know, I'm a LinkedIn creator myself, so I can really speak the language and know the pain of being a creator on LinkedIn that no one cares about you. I would say you're underappreciated, you're underpaid, and you're undervalued. So why not really double down on this painful audience and help them first and show up for them and then everything else kind of comes into play.
- [38:48]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, very true. Well, that's amazing that you guys are bootstrapped. That's really cool. That takes a lot.
- [38:53]
AJ Eckstein
Unless you want to write a check and free money.
- [38:55]
Courtney Johnson
But, no, I'm curious. Are. Are you fundraising, or are you curious about fundraising?
- [38:59]
AJ Eckstein
So we. We have a list running of people who. They're not even. It's funny, they're not even investor calls, but we're just demoing our. Our software platform that we built, and they're like, oh, my God, I want to write a check for you. I'm like, that's incredible. I'm so honored. We have a list of people who are interested, but right now, we are completely bootstrapped. I think. I think where we're at right now is if we had a million in the bank, we wouldn't move faster. We're moving so fast right now, but we're really trying to figure out the best direction to go. And I think that money doesn't necessarily help with. With direction. It helps with speed, and it's gasoline on the fire. We don't need more gasoline right now. Like, we don't need more inbound. We're really trying to figure out the best offering for brands and creators. Even the agencies, like other agencies, are reaching out to us, saying, hey, we have our own brand roster, and we want to partner. We want to help them partner with creators. So how can we work with you and opening up this unlock of other agencies? So we're figuring a lot out. It's still very new. It's the wild, wild west, which is why it's so exciting on all sides of the table and hopefully leading that charge to get more creators paid.
- [39:55]
Courtney Johnson
Wow. Yeah. I didn't realize. Only 10 months old, I assumed y'all.
- [39:58]
AJ Eckstein
Had been around for the amount of hours I worked. It's like 10 years old, but. But it's been fun.
- [40:02]
Courtney Johnson
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- [41:16]
AJ Eckstein
So actually, it's funny enough I have a mini course with LinkedIn on professional networking. I think I'm Gen Z and I think so much of us think that networking is so cringe, right? It's so like I have to wear a suit and tie.
- [41:27]
Courtney Johnson
How old are you?
- [41:28]
AJ Eckstein
I'm 26.
- [41:29]
Courtney Johnson
Okay.
- [41:29]
AJ Eckstein
Well, yeah, and I feel like you have to wear this suit and tie, go to these corporate events and like, you're just not yourself. And I think networking is just, I love being known as this super connector and someone who just connects opportunities to opportunities. So whether I'm connecting you to someone who's gonna be a great, great guest on your podcast, right? I get value, you get value, they get value. Or I'm connecting an investor to a startup founder or connecting a friend to their girlfriend. Like, I love being that person that kind of knows everybody and, you know, really merging the two together. And it's also so helpful in business, obviously, where you're just, you're everywhere, right? You're always connecting people. So I think early on I found that, you know, I got this question of what's your superpower? And I'm not saying I'm good at a lot of things, but the one thing I'm very good at is connecting people and being known as the connector. So how could I really lean into that and build a business off of strong, positive relationships? And that's what I do. So I go to a Ton of in person events. I travel like crazy. We were talking about early on in the green room. I haven't been in Austin in four months. Living out of my suitcase, traveling to conferences, speaking, hosting dinners with creators, brands, and just being that, that person that is always connecting people because it's no cost to me, but it could be incredible value for both of you. And everybody wins. There's very few things in life where everybody wins. And it's not a zero sum game.
- [42:47]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. You are a very super connector. I have a LinkedIn outreach formula that ties in connection that's pretty tactical that anyone can implement, but it's essentially after you add someone as a connection, reach out being like, like with a voice memo or a video message, ideally. Cause it's more personal. Hey, aj, super great to be connected. I'm really inspired by what you're doing at Creator Match. Super curious, like, what's your number one goal for 2025? And your two things are gonna happen. One, you're gonna say something completely irrelevant to me and I'll connect you with that person, thus giving you value and that other person value. Like, let's say you're like, oh, fundraising is my number one goal. Awesome. Let me connect you with my client who's an investor, who's, you know, investing and B2B startups. Or you're gonna say, well, Courtney, I really wanna work on my personal brand. Awesome. That's where I can help you. I can either send you a resource, you know, a podcast episode that might help a course I've done, or maybe if I feel out the vibe, I can pitch you on, well, here's my coaching services or whatever. So ask them their goal. You're either gonna make a connection or you can pitch yourself if it makes sense, or give them some sort of resource. Well, this book really helped me. And it's like win, win, win all around. While you're making money, while you're helping someone else on their goals.
- [43:55]
AJ Eckstein
So I could talk, I mean, we could talk for another hour about networking. Caus of it. And I think 99% of people who network are just like shitting the bed for. For lack of a better phrase, right? And with this new world of AI, so much outreach that I get, or that you get is AI. And it's so fluffy and it's so templatized and I don't even. I see it for a second. I'm like, no, thank you. This is AI. They didn't put any effort in, so it's very. It's almost easier now to stand above the 80, 90% of average, to be, you know, above average and be the best. So when you're sending outreach, if you're someone that you actually want them to respond to, especially if they're bus, put yourself in their shoes and say, would you respond to this own message? So if it's like, hi, comma, love your podcast, exclamation point, they didn't say your name, they didn't say your podcast name, they didn't say your episode, didn't say your favorite quote from an episode. So they probably don't even know who you are. Or they're doing mass outreach. Try to find what I call cookies, where you would only say something if you did research on me, because I'll do the same thing to you and I'm trying to get your attention. Right. So something along the lines of I had to have watched your story on Instagram where you were wearing this goddess outfit, speaking at XYZ thing, and you said something that. There was this one quote that you said, and you have to be as specific as you can in that outreach to show that person that you did and went above and beyond in terms of the research. And those are the messages that I actually respond to. I might not always have time to chat, but at least respond and say, like, love the message or. A lot of my stuff's very public. So if you go to my Instagram, you can see I do a lot of ultramarathons. And, you know, I do. I'm a crazy adrenaline junkie. Love adventure. So talking about stuff outside of work as well. Right. Especially if it's relatable. Hey, I also run marathons. Hey, I'm also a snowboarder. Even if it's a professional message on LinkedIn, it really stands above everything else.
- [45:40]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, that's. This is sneaky. Cause now I'm clocking that somebody did this to me yesterday. They were like, hey, Courtney, I really loved when you were interviewed on Blah blah, blah podcast and you had mentioned that you would recommend the book seven Rules of Power. And I'm like, I don't even remember saying that. But okay, yeah, no, now I do remember it. But that was so niche buried in someone else's podcast that I guessed it on. And I was like, wow, yeah, you really. You really know what you're talking about.
- [46:02]
AJ Eckstein
I can say that and this is going to get super meta. But now that someone's going to watch this and hear our advice, they're going to say, hey, I heard you on this podcast giving this advice. So here's me doing that same advice back to you of that book and of that quote. And that's how you get people's attention. Like, we're so busy. There's so many messages going back and forth. We. We wake up, and a sea of notifications hit us every day like a tsunami every morning. So how can you stand above in anything that you do with that outreach? Be intentional. And one of my favorite stories is I'm scrolling on on LinkedIn and I see this guy works for the Chicago Bulls, and his role was creator partnerships at the Chicago Bulls. I'm like, whoa, that's insanely cool. I wasn't trying to sell to him. I was just generally curious. I reached out to him, say, hey, I know you get a ton of outreach. I'm literally not trying to sell to you, but I saw your role, and a big basketball fan, played basketball in high school and college. Tell me more about this role. He's like, let's hop in a call. Hop in a call. We hit it off, and at the end, he's like, yeah, man, I'd love to have you come by in Chicago. And I actually get free tickets. Whenever you want to come by, let me know. Said, okay, like, sure. When should I come by? He's like, oh, I mean, if you're serious, come by next weekend for the Celtics. I said, great. Bought a ticket, flew out to visit him, hit it off, and he's like, one of my close friends now. No money has ever been been moved from creator match to Chicago Bulls or vice versa. Maybe in the future that happens, but it's genuine networking because we're both in this space, and I was able to bring a bunch of LinkedIn creators to that event. I see him at every conference now, and we're just. We're just friends. And that's how you should network. Right. In that approach, I didn't sell anything. He didn't sell anything to me. And we're friends, and I've referred creators to him that I haven't worked with. Right. So there's no money being moved or I've gotten him speaking gigs, and he's connected me with other influencer marketing managers. And, like, that is a true relationship and how more people should actually network.
- [47:45]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah. So instead of. We think of, yeah, putting on a suit and being like, hello, my name is Courtney. Rather than just like, networking is just making friends. It's just like going out and about and making new friends. I. I really, really encourage And I'm curious if you do this, but I just really encourage people to always do. Not always, but if you can, like a personalized video or voice memo, because it just seems so much more personal. Something that you just cannot spray and pray. Do you ever do that?
- [48:13]
AJ Eckstein
I think voice notes. Yes. Video. If you're like really dying to get this person to respond to me, it's probably like, it's. It's so simple, like finding again that cookie in their profile. Like, what is going to get them to say, like, smile for a quarter of a second and busy work in say, wow. Like, they actually, they researched me, right? And it takes 10 minutes if you know how to do it, of really looking for something strategic in their profile that nobody spoken about it or. Well, like nobody said that in a while. So I think those are great if you have the ability to send a voice note or, or a video, but I, I think even text is totally fine. And just again, finding that cookie. And if it's for yourself, what would that cookie be for you? Right? What would be that thing that said, well, like, how did they, how did they find that? They had to have Doug in research. And another great example, I don't know if you follow Hot Ones with Sean Evans. Every guest that he has, they say, oh my God, Sean, like, how did you know that? Where. Who told you this? Right? Like, they're talking. I think it was like to post Malone and how he used to, you know, cook chicken wings at, at a chicken wing place or whatever it is. Like, you have to go so far back to find and do that research. So I think of it like you're doing investigation as if they were on a podcast with you and asking those questions, then get them to stop and say, whoa, Like, I'm gonna respond to that. I might not say yes, but I'm gonna respond and be like, awesome, awesome question.
- [49:29]
Courtney Johnson
Would you recommend running these same plays for job search? Like you.
- [49:33]
AJ Eckstein
Everything. Yeah, everything. It's is. They're all the same. It's just a. Or different use case. So if I'm reaching out for you to be on a podcast, if I'm reaching out to you as a creator, if I'm reaching out for you to be a brand that we're working with, right? It's. It's not sending them that, you know, templatized AI generated sales message. It's just connecting to connect, and that's it. And literally, if you, if you network with zero expectations, that's how you win. If I reach out to you hey, I'm looking for a job and you're a recruiter. It's. It's kind of transactional. Right. But you're like, hey, you know, I love your content. Thank you so much for this post that you made. And I'm gonna leverage this in my job search. That's it. Not asking for anything. I'm just saying thank you. And also complimenting people is another great networking hack. Hack as well. We love getting complimented. So those things being super organic with your outreach and finding those cookies is everything.
- [50:23]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, I love the compliment. I call it like the ego play. Like, oh my God, aj, It is so incredible what you built. Like, obviously you want to be genuine. Like, not bullshit, but, like, it is genuinely so incredible what you've built. Like, you have this amazing team. Like, it's super visible. It's awesome that, that people assume you've been around for so long. That's great marketing. Like, all the compliments, so good. Makes people respond to you so quickly.
- [50:43]
AJ Eckstein
Yes. And then you hit them with whatever you're asking for. If it is something direct, but hitting them with something positive first versus like, just coming out of the gate. I need something from. I need your time. I don't even know you. I'm just gonna give you 30 minutes outta my day to just chat with you. I don't know anything about you. Right. Versus oh yeah, you always engage with my content. You said a really nice DM the other day. I heard you through the grapevine. And then it's a warm conversation versus coming out cold out of the gate. And it's not going to convert.
- [51:09]
Courtney Johnson
I have a very problematic networking cheat code, but that is people will want to network you. If you have a strong personal brand and you have a lot of followers, period. It is leverage. It is a huge asset. Like, one of the best ways to network better is by having a personal brand.
- [51:26]
AJ Eckstein
And that's just. I mean, networking is one of the benefits of having an. I mean, having an audience is. Is currency today. Right? You can monetize your audience, you could sell to your audience, you could promote something. I mean, like, for me and my audience, I don't try to sell anything. Right. I'm not prioritizing my content for brand deals. I'm just promoting creator match and building it and building awareness. And there's nothing better that you can do as a founder than being the face of the company and promoting it. Think of Gary Vee, Alex Hormozi. Like, they don't actually run their businesses. They're just the face in front of the business and they focus on content. So whatever you want to do, even if you're just focusing on 9 to 5, which is totally fine, mind, how can you get even a higher salary because you have 200,000 followers at Google, let's say.
- [52:08]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, I love that. One more question. Do you have a direct ask when you're networking? Like, do you have your clear ask? Does it change or do you not really mess around with that?
- [52:18]
AJ Eckstein
I think it depends on the situation. Sometimes I'll kind of fish in DMS where I like will ask a brand like, hey, have you ever run anything on LinkedIn in terms of creators? And just kind of a light, simple, quick. Like your brain doesn't have to turn on like, either. It's either a yes or a no. If it's something where there is something direct, as in, like, hey, you know, are you still inquiring about speakers at Vidcon? Maybe it's more direct, but a lot of these, that won't be the first touch point that they hear from me. It's a DM that I sent two weeks ago about just like, hey, so great to connect and give them that cookie. Or it's commenting on their content or it's liking their posts or it's, you know, name dropping is another huge hack is if you could say that someone referred you my way and it's a close friend of mine or someone that I trust. They already de risked you as a person. So I think that's always great where you're chatting with someone, hey, who'd you recommend I should chat with? Oh, chat with this person. Great. So when you reach out to that person, you say, hey, you know, Courtney recommended I chat with you or hey, saw that we're both friends in Austin. I think you also know a mutual Courtney Johnson. Right. So I think it depends on the situation, but when you can do it organically, it's everything. And if you can do it early on when you don't need anything, you win.
- [53:28]
Courtney Johnson
Oh, name dropping is so good. I had someone reach out to me being like, hey, I want to come on the podcast. I used to be the social media manager for Grant Cardone. And I was like, yes, I want to talk to you.
- [53:37]
AJ Eckstein
Crazy, crazy.
- [53:38]
Courtney Johnson
I don't know anything about you, but just that I want to talk to you. I want to know. I have all these questions, whatever. We didn't even talk about Grant Cardone, but just, yeah, made my guard drop because I'm like, okay, that's a successful person that you You've worked with. I love that. These are great tips.
- [53:51]
AJ Eckstein
Yeah. Last thing I'll say as well is I think the average now is the bar is actually, I think, decreasing.
- [53:57]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah.
- [53:57]
AJ Eckstein
So the ability to stand above everything is just doing 1% better than everybody else. Like it literally as simple as that. Right. You could either be, you know, ordinary or extraordinary. And it's just like that little extra that gets you above everything else. So again, in this age of AI and templatize and like, like I could send a cold email campaign to a million people today with a click of a button. Right. Versus spending the time to build an audience, spending the time to invest in relationships while it's. It takes longer. That's where you win in long term. Not like these quick wins that. Oh, that's how you network with a thousand people in one day. Right. And nobody knows you. Who are you? Who are you? Right. You have never mentioned anything publicly about what you do. You have no presence on social. That is currency today. Right. So you have to build those things early on and start with not asking for anything, because when you do need something, they should know who you are.
- [54:50]
Courtney Johnson
That's so powerful. What percentage of your time is spent in relationship building and networking?
- [54:56]
AJ Eckstein
I mean, it's kind of just. I mean, you should. A better question is how much time do I spend on LinkedIn? Yeah. Because, you know, one part of me is like, I'm doing it to grow our brand. The other part of me is like, I'm doing it to invest in creator relationships. The other part of me is kind of like I'm fishing for what brands I should maybe reach out to or kind of build relationships with, to bring into our mix of our clients, ours. But it's. It's all the same. So it's not like I'm just spending an hour a day DMing people, but if I'm commenting on your post, that is a touch point. Right. I'm staying top of mind. So, I mean, a couple hours every day I'm on LinkedIn and I think you have to be where your audience is and they're there. And obviously we need a presence on LinkedIn, so. So just always being boots on the ground, seeing what's going on with our competitors, seeing what's going on with our creators, our brands as a platform, what's working, what's not, or else I lose touch, I lose relevance. And I. I can't really speak the truth if I'm not in the mix of everything. So to me, it's not you know, even in job search, people think networking just to get a job, and that's it. I did more networking once I had my full time job than I did to get my full time job. You think about the how backwards that sounds. But now that you're in this company, how can you network with everybody to grow in the company? And even while I'm at the company, how can I build relationships with the people outside the company just in case doomsday happens and I get laid off, Right? So to me, I'm always networking, but I'm not networking traditionally. I'm just chatting with people, building relationships and trying to provide value where I can.
- [56:22]
Courtney Johnson
Yeah, that's amazing. Well, aj, where can everyone find you? How can they work with creator match?
- [56:27]
AJ Eckstein
Imagine if I didn't say LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn's the best place. You could just look up my name, AJ Eckstein. Or type in creatormatch.com on Google. You can find our Chrome extension there. You can find my LinkedIn there. Any creators, fill out the interest form. Love to work with you in any brands. We're happy to chat and see what campaigns we can run with you on the agency and the software side. But I'm super, super accessible. But you need to send me that cookie. Physical cookie. I'll take. I love cookies. I'll send you my shipping address. But seriously, when you're doing that outreach, be intentional, be thoughtful, or else nobody's going to respond.
- [56:58]
Courtney Johnson
Beautiful. Thank you so much.
- [56:59]
AJ Eckstein
Thank you. It was fun.
- [57:00]
Courtney Johnson
So, so great. Thank you, aj.
- [57:03]
AJ Eckstein
Awesome.
- [57:05]
Courtney Johnson
Okay, y'all, if you like this episode, you would love, love my Patreon. Okay? You get exclusive access to me, exclusive content, tons of other resources, and a lot of juicy shit. Okay? So I hope to see you on my Patreon.