Podcast
UX Marketing
Hosted by Blake Emal · EN
Marketing exists for one reason: to build awareness that drives revenue.
But what if your marketing doesn't actually do this?
UX Marketing is hosted by seasoned marketing pro Blake Emal. He interviews top marketing leaders to get to the bottom of what it takes to create successful marketing experiences.
Combining the worlds of UX and Marketing, this show is able to give you practical advice to test on your own website.
TL;DR
If you have a website, you need to listen to this podcast.
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Full Funnel of a Side Hustle w/ Ryan Garrow
May 26, 202000:24:08Tap to summarizeon the podcast today, I've got Ryan Garrow with us who is going to help us determine our side hustle, talk about goals, figure out that whole stage. So this is going to be really valuable, especially if you're just getting started and looking for some advice before we get too much into it.Ryan, how are you doing today?Have him do an awesome Blake. I'm excited to be here.Ryan just started his own podcast that we'll get to at the end as well. So we're, we're going to learn a lot here. I want to get some quick context on you before we dive into the technical subject matter of side hustling. So if you could just run, walk us through really briefly the story of your career from how you got started to where you got or how you, how you got to where you are now.Okay. I don't think our podcast is long enough to cover all of it, but we'll touch on some high points. I've, been in the digital marketing space for about a decade, was CEO of a company that got acquired. I'm now working with the company that acquired us. And so my focus is primarily in the eCommerce space.most of my days advising businesses on how they can grow their e-commerce, what they can do in strategically. well how they can compete better. But I also have five businesses with my wife outside of that. So I do have the side hustle game going where I have a brand selling direct to consumer. I also have a wholesale division on that.My wife has a retail store that also sells online. I have a wine and beer retailer. I have a marketing company that tests new products into markets. And then we have a, an investment organization for e-commerce technology. So I am literally all over the place.I have so many questions, but I, I can't dive in just yet cause I have one more contextual question I ask everybody there. So I'm curious what you would say is your professional superpower.Strategy. Seeing where something can or can't work.I love it. I can already tell. We're going to get along great. You're so, so simple. Direct, straight forward. It's going to be fantastic. My first question, because I do this every bit as much for me to learn as for the audience to learn so. You've mentioned you've already got several side hustles, especially some e-commerce stuff.I'm really curious. First off, we can go into how you get the ideas for that, but then I also want to bring up, before I forget, how do you actually get the system in place to like get, somebody to manufacture it if you need that or how, like how do you build those relationships as well? So let's tackle the idea first, then we can get into the more technical side.for me, the ideas are generally easy. And the problem for me is, is refining. And figuring out which ones are bad and which ones may have potential. so my wife is usually my best filter. She, she shoots down most of my ideas and tells me they're dumb. And so that's my step one. Like, all right, what do you think of this?Oh, I think it's bad. Okay, let's maybe table that and I'll try to refine that. But I usually, when I'm advising, cause we have 800 employees here, I'm advising on a lot of side hustles internally for people under 30 but what I like to tell people too is if you're going to make a side hustle work, you've got to be passionate about it or have some interest.Otherwise it's just going to become another job or a grind and you're not going to keep going and pushing when you're not making money. Cause most side hustles in the eCommerce space. You're grinding now and hoping for pay late, or whether you're working to become an influencer or whether you're working to set up an econ business for success and to scale and pay for generations of wealth type thing.So I think passionate interest is one of the biggest things I would filter an idea through. And then I think secondary below that is. What kind of con connections do you have or what kind of opportunities do you have to meet people or who is in your sphere that can help you with this? all of my side hustles.I have partners on purpose. number one, it's, it's more fun to work with people,but also there's a lot of skills that I don't have. I know I've run a lot of businesses. I've failed at a lot of businesses. I've succeeded. but what I've learned through that is there is no scenario in which I'm going to be able to do.Everything perfectly or to the best that this business deserves. And so I recommend from most side also people, outside of becoming your own influencer. Even that could use some other people helping each other become better influencers and bouncing ideas off each other. But if you're gonna start an econ business, have somebody else that wants to get excited about this product with you and do it with you, it's, it's way more enjoyable to win together.Then all by yourself.Plus the accountability factor.Yeah, exactly. It's too easy. You know, if you're 25 trying to side hustle and your friends want to go out for beers, and really you do need to develop a little bit of work on your site. You've got somebody sitting there saying, Hey, you're accountable. You said you were gonna do this by this date.Do it. And with it all by yourself, it's too easy to push things off in your side. Hustle lags and never makes anything.Oh, I would love to do just like a thought exercise then. So let's say I came up with an idea for an eCommerce product. it's a, it's a litter mat, a special litter mat. Let's go with that. And I have this idea, I think it's going to be really cool, but I have no idea of anybody in my network that can help me out to actually make the thing.So I'm pretty confident I can set up a store and sell it, maybe even market it. Okay. How did that, like how have you worked with the distribution side of things? Cause I know that's getting a little bit off topic, but at the same time, I know there are a lot of people that have these technical questions.They feel confident setting up a Shopify or something simple like that. But actually getting the product made is a whole different story.Well, step one, if we're going to do a litter mat, you better have a cat. Cause if you don't have something to experiment with and see the results and even have some photography that you can do with your own cat, at least have that. after that, my next step would be honestly going into pet stores and researching who's making one, going online and searching, seeing if there's anybody locally.That is in the space. Maybe it's maybe instead of the mat. If somebody's making litter boxes locally and I can be like, Hey, I'd love to partner with you because if you've got the box, maybe you know people making mats or you can help me. It would stop. I would go around and ask dumb questions. I do so many.Dumb question, asking sessions where I'm like, I really don't know. Let's just call somebody and see if they'll help. And people respond really well. They love helping people by default. That's my, I think most people do. And so I go on, I'm like, Hey, I don't know what I'm doing here. do you have any advice?Where can you direct me? And I'll just kind of follow rabbit trails and finding out, Oh, this guy's got a similar product and he's making it in China, in this factory. He introduced me, I sent an email. Great. There's something there.that, yeah, that's, that's super helpful because that, that side of things is a little bit murky for a lot of people. It's not talked about as much. The sexy thing to talk about is how to set up your Shopify store or how to market your eCommerce product, but the entire thing in the middle, that's the most crucial actually building the product and distributing it totally gets lost.I think that that's super helpful. But let's get back on track. I, I geared this off in a tangent a little bit there for, for selfish reasons. I'm just curious. I'm curious, like at the beginning, if we have some ideas now, how do you actually narrow it down to choose the right one? And I guess a sub question of that is, do you think you actually have to be passionate about your product, or does it just have to be adjacent to something you care about?I don't necessarily think it has to be the biggest passion for you. I mean, one of my businesses, I sell organic fertilizer. Guess what? I've never had houseplants before. Thisnot your number one.Your life doesn't revolve around fertilizer.It does not. I have a partner who in loves plants in the business and he created, came up with a formula and my skill set is we were, I was marketing it and getting it into the market. but we aligned while that somebody had that in mind was just like, Hey, I'm going to go figure this one was specifically set up to test out Amazon cause I didn't know what I was doing on Amazon.So I was like, forget it. I'm just going to jump a business on there and see what happens. so, but I think passion can help, especially cause I'm at a place where I don't need the money. if my side hustles drag along for years and don't make anything. My life's not gonna change. If they make a hundred grand, it doesn't change my life.So I'm going a little bit different spot as far as my side hustles go. if you need somebody to make money, then I suggest passion. outside of that, just. Also enjoy the process. I am passionate about business and I think that gives me an advantage...
Transcribe →How to Create a Growth Model for Your Business w/ Peter Schroeder
May 21, 202000:24:04Tap to summarizeWelcome to the podcast. Today we have Peter Schroeder who is the head of growth at Onna, and we are going to discuss growth. Maybe it's maybe some other things as well, but first and foremost, let's just get some context on you. It's kind of a weird time that we're living in. So, Peter, how are you holding up with all this Corona virus stuff going on?Hey Blake, thanks for having me and thanks for checking in. it's a crazy time, in tech. I say to my team and I say to everyone every day, we're very fortunate to still be working, and I think that we get the lighter end of everything that's happening. So yeah, just staying positive, saying grateful every day.and I think we should, we should all do the same on a daily basis. yeah, definitely. hats off to everybody out there, all the nurses and doctors and everything. Obviously right now, a weird time we're living in. Yeah. The show must go on and let's. Let's give some people some ammo that they can take right now is a great opportunity for side hustlers and people working online to either start a project or continue building it and having a little bit more time at home to do that.So let's help them grow a little bit. But, but before we get into the details and getting ahead of myself a little bit of context on your career, if you could just give us a snapshot of your career so far, where you've been, where you're going, and where you are, how you got to where you are now.Basically. Yeah, absolutely. So, coming out of college, I very much so had that entrepreneurial spirit where, I was inspired by startups. I was inspired by tech companies. and I started, I tried starting a company that was essentially a messaging unification platform that brought all your text messages, your emails, your social media DMS into one place.and it really gave me that startup feeling that startup hustle and kind of grounded me on what it takes to get a company off the ground. So did that for about a year. didn't end up getting the traction that I wanted. but I used that time and experience. owning a project and trying to build a company to, make my way into the tech world.So ever since then been at a couple of tech startups, which has brought me to my current role at Oana where I'm heading up growth. And essentially what we do at Oana is where the central information layer for most tech companies. So if you think about the average tech worker and how many different enterprise applications they use on a daily basis, there's just.Tons of data getting created, especially at this time as we work from home. All this data that lives in Slack, Microsoft teams are emails, a sauna. It's just data getting created everywhere. So Ono helps you bring all that data together, right? and do a couple of different things. We help people do, like eat discovery compliance.So that's like GDPR, CCPA, enterprise search, knowledge management. So just really taking control and understanding your data. . What would you consider to be your professional super power yourself? Yeah, so am I professional superpower, at least to this point in my career, has been. Building and standing up and moving on to the next, repeatable, growth engine that companies, so just going into new channels, building repeatable processes that's driving leads, driving pipeline, driving repeatable revenue, and just moving on to the next thing.And I think that's very much. A growth mindset that a lot of growth marketers and people who work in marketing should have is everything needs to be built up to be repeatable and scalable. and then after you work on one thing, and it's very much like a testing. Framework that you should have with everything that you're standing up, but come into it with a hypothesis, test that hypothesis, and also have a definition of done.So, in most experiments, actually, every experiment you need, like what that definition of done is to be able to say, Hey, this works. we should. Double down on it, or Hey, this didn't work, we should quit and move on to the next thing. So, that's where I've spent the majority of my career. That's where I continue to work and grow.The team at Oana is just building up those repeatable engines. I love it. So let, let's dive into it then. I like to usually start with the foundation first and then build on that. So let's get really basic here. When you say growth model, what are you referencing? What does that entail? Yeah. As I mentioned, you need, you need hypothesis to be able to test, to be able to grow these engines.So you need a plan, right? You look out at the year when we're going into 2020 the year right now. Like, where do you want to test? What do you want to try? What's the timeline look like? What are the resources you have? So you have to take a holistic view at your company, the resources you have and the goals that you have in place.And you have to create this. Timeline to get there. what does it look for most early stage companies, most scrappy entrepreneurs? It's, it's this big ugly spreadsheet. and you know, your business the best, you know, the data that you have, but you're just really mapping out. And I like to start at the highest level, highest level goal.What's your goal for your business like, and then from a marketing perspective, like. I mean, the goal for your business is almost always revenue. Then from a marketing perspective, how much pipeline do you need to, attain that revenue goal? And then really you're just reversing the funnel. How many, opportunities do you have to meet that pipeline goal based on how many opportunities you have?How many meetings do you need to book based on how many meetings you need to book? How many leads do you have to drive? so it's really building out that typical funnel that you hear most people talking about. Based on that, you look at the resources you have and you're able to apply your resources to different stages of the funnel.So obviously salespeople go further towards the bottom of the funnel. They're the ones who are taking the meetings, taking it through the funnel to close the deal. Your marketing team, your SDRs, they're the ones driving that demand at the top of the funnel. and making sure you're driving those leads and booking those meetings.And so it's really a whole team effort, but really what a growth model. It's just holistically taking a look at everything that your company has, to be able to, you know, go to market with, with the product and the people that you have, to reach your overarching goals. And, that's me explaining it the best I can without looking at it.But just, it's, it's your, it's your go to market plan essentially. And I'm curious, before we even dive further into that, what parts of that go to market plan or your marketing strategy should be established before you even mentioned a plan for growth. Okay. Yeah. You need to know what you do best and where you need to look at is like.What have you done to succeed to this point? Where have you seen the most success like that? That's the place that you start in. That's the place you need to continue to double, you know, 10 X down until you're not seeing results anymore. Because if something's working like that's, that's the Genesis of growth.Define things that are working to grow your business. So if something's already working, like that's where you start. That's where you need to allocate your marketing efforts. That's where you need to allocate your team is like onto the things that are really working. As for how you think about marketing and growth, you know, I think, I think they're the same thing, like marketing growth.It should all really be aligned because what marketing's job is, is to drive demand, to drive demand to grow the business. So, That doesn't mean that marketers have to do social media. If it's not fruitful and it doesn't work for them, that doesn't mean that marketers need to push a newsletter every week if they're not seeing any results like it is marketing's job to drive demand and drive growth to the business.and, and so I think that they go hand in hand. And marketing always should have that growth mindset because. That's essentially their job. It's not like we hire marketing departments to do this template in, you know, routine of marketing activities that everyone does. no, like marketers are there to drive the business forward from our revenue perspective.and I think that's where a lot of marketers get it wrong. And so it's really just having that growth mindset will really differentiate you as a marketer. And it's my hope that soon it won't. It's my hope that people that just start to think about growth and marketing hand in hand. but I think we're getting there.I guess from the perspective of an entrepreneur or a side hustler or even somebody just building out there, their personal brand, these people we love, we love to set lofty growth goals, and at the beginning we usually don't actually have a realistic perspective or, or any reference point as to what our goal should be.Have. Have you found any. Right. Got already framework to set realistic growth goals. Do not have any reference point on. You're totally starting from zero. Yeah. I think that there's like there's benchmarks, industry standards experience that that can replace like lack of data. I think that you should always aim to have like a data driven approac...
Transcribe →How to Use 1:1 Communication to Scale Your LinkedIn w/ Stapho Thienpont
May 19, 202000:28:06Tap to summarizeAll right. On the podcast today, I have Stapho Thienpont who is here to talk LinkedIn with us. Somebody that is not only a consultant about this thing, but he's, he actually acts on his own advice. You can go check them out on LinkedIn and we'll get to that later on. First off, Stapho, how are you doing today?Ah, I'm doing great. I just came off my own show and you know, I'm just enjoying talking so much on the nice thing like this. Nice to be like here in Europe. Do you like hearing your own voice? Not really, but I do enjoy talking. I'm the same way. Hearing my own voice on on microphone. It's kind of weird, but you get over it cause it's fun to talk to people.Yeah. 100%. Awesome. Well, before we get into the details of LinkedIn, I know you're going to give us a ton of advice on how to grow on LinkedIn, but first and foremost, I want some quick context on you so that the audience knows who they're dealing with here. So first and foremost, just curious about the story of your career so far, where you got started and how you ended up where you are now, as briefly as you can.As briefly as I can. Okay. So I lived in issue to Jim and Stockholm, even though I'm originally from Belgium, which is the other side of Europe. one day I realized, you know what, by beating up my friends all day, I'm not really providing much value to the world. I figured I have a knack for both language and systems.And then. What I figured out was that, marketing is right on the edge of that. I started a Facebook group, got to start working with my favorite author, all this kind of stuff. and before I knew it, I got started with LinkedIn cause I wanted to learn a new platform. I somehow got into a super secret group of people that were basically the best to ever do it on LinkedIn.And I just started picking their brains and I started learning all this kind of LinkedIn stuff. I did it for myself, and then I figured, you know what? this is so helpful for myself to generate leads and also generate awareness and build connections and network. I'm going to do this as a service for other people.And since then we've been turning our people into LinkedIn thought leaders and generating leads for them. some highlights were when the multibillion dollar multimedia Titans started reaching out to our clients purely based on the content, but also getting some of our call bites on sales calls with Microsoft Lyme and the like.So, yeah, it's been a, that's my journey so far, I guess. And you're still going, okay. Yeah, the beginning right. Definitely, definitely. I don't know if I'm going to limit myself to LinkedIn forever, but I'm definitely still growing strong every day. Awesome. And if I were to ask you what you think your professional super power is, what would you say.That's a really good, a really good question. I'm actually a really good networker. I would say, even though I don't spend much time, I'm really good at building relationships fast and somehow I don't know what it is, but it's when I talk to people, they walk away with the idea that I really know what I'm talking about with makes, it makes it easy for me to sell, but also to get buy in when I'm working with people, which ultimately lasts me to get good results.But the networking of personal impact is for sure the key, I would say. Well that's, that's good because that's what LinkedIn is all about. So let's dive into that and just start talking about how this group of of listeners that are bootstrappers and micro-influencers can actually grow on LinkedIn. My first question really would be, if you are starting out with zero, you're a micro influencer, you are an entrepreneur that's just starting out.How can you actually get anybody to take your thought leadership seriously? Well, first and foremost, you gotta have at least some skill and some area, so you've got to be good at something and have something to say about it. I would say that's pretty important. The second thing that I would say you have to do.Or what's it's optimal if before you actually start creating the content and and doing all that search stuff to also know who it is that you want to talk to. So your ideal target audience, a good way to figure that out is to interview the best clients you have. So not just any of the clients with the best clients that you have, and figure out how we can find more of those people.Now, on a tactical level, well, that means it's too. Figure out the type of people that you want. Then going in LinkedIn search or LinkedIn sales navigator, finding those exact individuals, sending them a connection request, and then after they accept to start a conversation with them, LinkedIn voice messages work really well because they're an extra personal touch there.not really. You know, as I'm sure many people have said on your shows. Building thought leadership on any social media platform. It's about scaling one to one relationships. So building a relationship with one person and then the next, and then the next will ultimately catapult you. So it goes beyond just the amount of one-to-one conversations you can have.But that sounds like a lot of effort. Yeah, there's, there's no way to cheat the system. You're saying I had to put in work. And, well, actually there is. but it depends on, on bootstrapping what kind of a budget you have. One thing that I'll say is if you take, yeah, either sales navigator and use that to find like the ideal people that you want or external lists such as top 10 entrepreneurs in the city.Top 100 marketers in that city, whatever, and then find those people on LinkedIn. You could actually automate a part of the work with tools such as reconnect or grow fleet or Phantom Buster and send these people automated connection requests and follow up messages. No. The issue with that when you're starting out is that you don't know yet which messages people will respond to and you might just burn like thousands of people that you could have.But then she builds really good relationships with, so my advice is to start doing it manually, at the very least. And then once you get a good fit between your message and your audience, that's when you can scale it up by either using automation tools or by using virtual assistants. Oh, I have to say, does this obviously against the terms of service.So it's not something I would officially recommend. Hmm. Well, let's, let's start out at, at the very bottom then, and just talk about briefly what the most effective ways that you've seen to start building an audience.The most effective way. Is to do this, the things I mentioned, earlier, which is knowing exactly who it is that you want to talk to, and then actually talking to them on all the touch points you have. So touch point on LinkedIn would be the other person's own content. So commenting on their stuff as well as the LinkedIn DMS.So chatting with these people directly. those are in my. In my estimation, the best, most effective tools. And the reason for that is that the personal contact has the highest amount of impact per individual. So if you can get to a hundred true fans, meaning a hundred people that you actually communicate with on a weekly basis, one-on-one, that will just spill over into a larger audience over time because of the network effect is, it's an audience on LinkedIn.In terms of your content, is that as valuable as having a good audience on, say, YouTube or Instagram?Do you mean if they have a similar size? W I mean it just, just like if, if you're actually, if you're treating your LinkedIn almost like a channel where you're putting out content to reach an audience. So not necessarily touching on the outreach and sales navigator side of things, but just creating content.If you're trying to reach that audience as a, as a channel, is LinkedIn as a channel through content, as effective as having like a good YouTube channel or a good Instagram channel. I would say that the best 100% on who? Your target audiences. So if you're trying to. Get to generation Z or whatever, probably take take is going to be way more.The talk is going to be way more effective for you. but if you're trying to get, you know, like young professionals, seasoned professionals, executive CEOs, people that usually have a high amount of spending power, and I think LinkedIn is second to none. So it depends 100% on who it is that you're trying to target now, Is, is a hundred. Then the question is, if you have. If, if you have the perfect, if YouTube is the perfect best friend for you, and LinkedIn is a perfect bathroom for somebody else and you have a thousand followers on both, which is going to be bringing me, bringing you the most ROI, and that's going to depend on how good you are at using platform.One really big benefits is that on LinkedIn, somebody that is connected with you, you have to immediately have an open line of communication. So that means you can immediately message them and advanced the conversation while on YouTube. you don't really expect somebody they're subscribed to to reach out to you directly.So I think the nature of LinkedIn is that it's built for a two way communi...
Transcribe →How to Craft a Perfect Bio or Headline on Social Media
May 15, 202000:10:40Tap to summarize it's just me as usual on a Friday, and the subject today that we're going to be covering is headlines, bios, titles, whatever, across social media. Okay. On LinkedIn, it's your headline on Twitter, Instagram, it's your bio on Facebook. It's your whole profile.Basically. You don't really have a title on Facebook, so. Let's talk about how to optimize that. Um, I have a couple of tactical tips that you can implement. Ultimately, I think it goes without saying that there is. No perfect formula for everybody, but there's a general universal formula that will usually work and do better than what you at least have.Tweak it over time. This is the kind of thing you want to AB test, so don't just do something about it right now and then forget about it forever. Constantly be AB testing things. There's no penalty for doing that. It's not going to hurt you in any way. You're just going to learn more and more about what drives clicks on your profile.And in the case of LinkedIn, which unique because you actually see your headline across the entire platform in the feed and everywhere. So that's really a conversion tool for you across the board. That one's particularly impactful. So here is my number one tip for you that I want you to go and try right now.This is very easy to do. So whatever you're in right now, whether in LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, go into the search bar and type in conversion copywriter or copywriter search. Any copywriters that are in your network already or that you're following or that are following you, check them out. See what their bio looks like.Now, keep in mind that these are people that for a living to make money, to support their families. Right copy that converts people to take action and into customers. So I think it goes without saying that the, of all the groups of people that you could probably trust to write a good bio, this is the most likely, I'm not telling you that every copywriter has a great bio.Okay? You're still gonna come across people on LinkedIn that don't use it enough. And then their title just says copywriter at, you know, Acme org. So. There are going to be people like that, but for the most part, as a whole, more than any other group, these people are going to give you great patterns to follow.So whether you're on Twitter with, with your bias, so let's use that as an example. Look up. Conversion copywriters look up copywriters for B2B, for B to C, whatever is unique to you. If you're in an eCommerce store, look for B to C conversion copywriters, or if you do SAS technology, look that up. B2B copywriters look at these people and try to compile a list.Of all the elements that you notice from this search, you're going to start noticing like they're more descriptive. They don't use a lot of fluff. They're straight to the point, but in a way that's really fun to read. So it's not just like I do marketing for businesses, it's, it's not necessarily always clever or.Punny or anything like that. But it conveys the point in a little bit more of a story and it makes it a little bit more exciting, but there's no fluff. So there's a really good balance. Usually when you, you'll find with, with these people's bios, so write down a huge list and almost like a math equation, like add them all up in terms of their patterns.Take the average of those patterns and what does that usually look like? So what I've found for LinkedIn, for example, when I do this exercise, aside from the elements of using your personality and things like that, just a general universal formula. If I took the averages of conversion copywriters, headlines, it would usually be, I help.X group of people accomplish Y task using Z tool or for Z purpose. That's usually the general formula. And you've heard that before, right? You can add onto this a little bit to add a little bar and then you know, you can still state your actual job title. You could still state if you have a side project.So for mine, for example, my, my LinkedIn title, let me pull it up here. I just changed it again, I test this all the time. And I think it's really important to do that because you can start seeing what actually works for you. So mine is. Delivering deep marketing guidance for $6 DM for more in parentheses.Then there's a bar micro-influencer podcast than another bar senior manager at Talkdesk. That's, that's my LinkedIn headline. It's pretty long, but that actually fits on my profile on mobile and desktop. And then when you look in the feed. When I comment on something or put a post out, you'll see it'll cut off right after.It'll say, delivering deep marketing guidance for six dollars.dot, dot. That's where it'll cut off. So that's perfect. That lined up really well for me. That works. Okay, so can you think of what are you trying to deliver to people? What's your unit? Unique value proposition, but stop adding fluff. Also don't go overboard with the emojis or the hashtags, like hashtags in your, in Twitter bios.Instagram bios is one thing that could help a little bit. If you have one or two, don't go more than that. In LinkedIn, it's really not going to do anything to have a hashtag in your headline, in your bio, whatever you want to call it. It just looks bad. It's aesthetically displeasing to the eye. So I would keep it to words.If you're going to use an emoji, use a very simple emoji. Don't you know, maybe use it to break up your points, but don't go overboard with it. No more than two or three maximum. And if you can do it without emojis, that'll just look a little bit more professional. There are some people that really like them.I'm not saying they're the worst thing in the world. I've used them before and I've tested them. I just don't feel like when I've had those in my headline that they provided value. So take that for what it's worth. But I think core elements, again, in your LinkedIn headline, for an example, actually talk about what you're delivering to people and how you do it and what's in it for them.Be concise. Don't fluff, be straight to the point, but try to add in your personality in there. Also, if you can at the end, weave in any side projects that are important to you and your job title. You have enough room to do all of that. Then on Twitter, get a little bit more deep. You, you can even start talking.You know, for me it would be more like. Delivering deep guidance in marketing for $6 on Patrion, send me a DM and I'll hook you up. Also, host a micro-influencer podcast, and then I'd link to that account. So I don't need to mention what job title there. You know, it can be similar, but just make it a little bit more contextual.Your Twitter bio can be a little bit longer than your LinkedIn headline. Same for Instagram bio. So I hope this was helpful. I think that that number one tactic right there, go do that exercise. Like, stop listening to this right now and go do that. Do an advanced search of copywriters that you know, dive deep, compile a list in a, in an Excel sheet and take the average of all the patterns that you see.And one great thing to do as well to determine like what you should do. Cause there will be different patterns that you see. Whatever catches your eye that you like. That's what you should test first. If it got you to stop. Try that formula out for yourself. Ultimately, your headline is all about making people stop on LinkedIn because they can see it on the feed.If you can make them stop and look at what you're doing. The chance they'll click through is a lot higher. If they click through the chance that they'll use your services a lot higher. But if you have a terrible headline, nobody's ever going to reach out to you. Even if they click on your profile, they're probably just looking to see if you're real or not, and then they'll bounce, you know, they're not actually looking for what your services are.Same thing on Twitter. Same thing on Instagram. Uh, optimize your Facebook pages accordingly as well. Yeah. I think that if you did that alone, you would have a better headline. So I encourage you to go do that. Also, AB tests like crazy every few weeks, evaluate if that's driving clicks and if you feel like it's providing value, and if it's not, that's okay.Make a, make a variant, try, try something else, see if you get more traction doing something else. Sometimes the copy that we liked the most is not what converts the best. We just have to be okay with that. It'd be humble enough to accept that even if we write something that is good. It may not speak to people, so always try to find what your audience is actually looking for.That's the tip for the week. Something had been top of mind for me that I've been optimizing around. Hope this is helpful. Let me know if I can help you out in any way and have a great weekend.
Transcribe →Should You Actually Start a Side Hustle w/ Stef Caldwell
May 12, 202000:24:25Tap to summarizeBlake: [00:00:00] today on the podcast you have Stef Caldwell, who is going to tackle a bunch of different subjects with us. Today we're going to be discussing things like side hustles and authenticity and customer experience, kind of the, the whole gamut.[00:00:11] But I'm really excited about this one. But Stef, before we get into it, I do want to give you a chance to give some context about yourself. Basically, if you could just tell us, first and foremost what your career path has been to this point, where you got started and how you got to where you are now.[00:00:28] Stef: [00:00:28] Happy to do that and thanks for having me on the show. So my career path, if you just looked at it on LinkedIn, might be confusing to somebody who doesn't know kind of where I'm headed. So I started, , my first internship was in recruiting, right? I worked at a staffing firm where I was recruiting people and, and helping place them in jobs.[00:00:48] In my professional career, I moved from being a business analyst to working in a sales and marketing role, to then working in a product management role and a channel development role to now where I sit, which is in customer success. And so again, , any person would look at that experience and be like, huh, this girl's really, , been all over the place in terms of her variances.[00:01:08] But the way that I look at it is I'm collecting the experiences necessary to make me the most ultimate general manager or CEO of a business. And I think that, okay, really, really incredible leaders can empathize with their people in any department. And so I really navigated my career path. Bye bye.[00:01:28] Creating opportunities to have those experiences so that when I do become, you're the leader and I am, , and my side hustle that I can really emphasize and create good experiences across departments. [00:01:39] Blake: [00:01:39] Oh, that's a, that's a pretty unique. Viewpoint, I guess because most people when they go into a side hustle are basically just looking to make money.[00:01:47] That's, I mean, that's the facts of the matter, and I love that you're really more like people focus your people customer centric. That's going to bode really well for you down the road, and it's gonna be great for our audience as well, because I think it's a really important message to hear. And before we dive too much more in detail, I do ask everybody, what do you consider to be your professional superpower?[00:02:13] Stef: [00:02:13] I think adaptability and tenacity. So whatever the baby is, of those two words, that's me. [00:02:20] Blake: [00:02:20] It's a necessity. [00:02:21] Stef: [00:02:21] Untapped tenacity. Yes. it's, . I believe and truly like live out every day that everything is figureoutable and having that mentality and then also having the willingness to get up everyday and take one step forward, even if that step is very uncertain, I think is what sets me apart in my professional career as well as in my side hustle.[00:02:44] Awesome. [00:02:44] Blake: [00:02:44] Well. I know that you do work full time at narrative science. Correct. So you've, you've already got the full time job. Now you also have the side hustle thing going on. obviously the word side hustle itself is self explanatory. Do you understand that it's something you're doing on the side? You already have a full time job, but it's another thing to actually help people understand how you can do that.[00:03:06] And so you're in a unique position where you can discuss that a little bit with us. I'm curious right now, what does your day to day look like? I mean that, that may be a bad question because right now we're going through all this coronavirus stuff and everybody's normal is completely out of whack, but normally how are you balancing having a full time job that's, that's demanding where you're trying to learn skills and grow and you're doing a side hustle at the same time.[00:03:31] Stef: [00:03:31] That's a really good question. And because my side hustle is helping women optimize their lives and kind of step into the woman they were born to be. I talk about this often. It starts with boundaries. I am ruthless about my boundaries and I know specifically what my dream day looks like, which starts with know.[00:03:50] Putting my physical and mental health first through practices like yoga and journaling and meditation and making sure that I set myself up for a successful day because my days are strenuous. Then, , I go directly from kind of my self care routines into working at narrative science where. , my, my day really changes.[00:04:10] I'm in customer success. So it depends on, , what the customer problem is or what the, the advices that I'm giving to any other department to ensure that our customers have a great experience. And then my day kind of ends, , between five and six o'clock when I transitioned over to working for manifests full time.[00:04:28] And I think it's an important distinction. A lot of side hustlers, they're like, Oh, it's, , it's my side hustle. To me manifest is, is something that I would love one day to be the hustle, right? And so the way that I am orchestrating, , my team and orchestrating our client experiences is such that, , we're setting ourselves up for a broader future.[00:04:47] So. I tell my husband all the time I worked, I worked two full time jobs. It's just that the hours are distributed differently. If you look day to day, Saturday and Sunday, full time manifest Monday through Friday, full time narrative science. So it's a, it's a lot of effort. It's a lot of work. Okay. I'm doing it because all of these things bring me joy.[00:05:10] So it's a choice and I choose kind of every day too, spend the time doing those things. I have [00:05:16] Blake: [00:05:16] many questions following up on that, but I'll start with from the company's viewpoint, because there are a lot of companies out there that are at their very roots, very entrepreneurial, so they're okay with people having side hustles.[00:05:27] They understand it. Then there are a lot of traditional businesses, probably the majority of businesses that actually look at that and say, why aren't you giving us a hundred percent of your time? So how, how do you go about, if you were in that position of working for a traditional company, like many of our audience is going to be right now, but you want to do a side hustle, how might you convince your employer or your company that it's actually a good thing for you to have your own little side project?[00:05:53] Stef: [00:05:53] So it manifests, we talk about the people in our lives as, expanders, people that are the validation that you need to prove that that success that you're seeking as possible for you. I think when I started with manifest, I wasn't sure how to communicate this idea to my company that I was going to be doing something on the side.[00:06:14] And , when I first started, it was small enough that it was just a few hours a week where I was planning events to bring women in Chicago together, that it was really manageable. And now it's become a little bit more of who I am, obviously. And so. To answer your question, I think it's find someone who can be an expander for you.[00:06:35] What I found the second I started my side hustle, it was that was actually more effective and an even better employee of narrative science because I was thinking like a business owner and it narrative science. That's something that they really value in the respect they say, I mean, we are all owners of narrative science in a sense because we have equity positions in the company.[00:06:55] But it's difficult when you're working for someone to really feel that ownership. And when I started working at manifest and every dollar that was going out the door was mine, and I was, , mobilizing a team in all these directions, achieve these outcomes. I started applying all of that in narrative science.[00:07:12] So neuroscience science isn't getting, , two years ago, Stefanie, pre side hustle, value anymore. They're getting full blown, like super power value out of me because I've got these two lives and they're teaching me and informing one another. So find an expander who is the validation you need, understand their story, and then communicate that to.[00:07:33] Your company so that you can help them realize that you're not going to be splitting your time. You're actually going to be even more effective in all the time that you spend, regardless of where you're spending that time. [00:07:42] Blake: [00:07:42] I love that. I've never heard the concept of an expander, so kudos to you. That's, that's awesome.[00:07:47] Stef: [00:07:47] But even Aboriginal work, that's fine. [00:07:52] Blake: [00:07:52] And expanding even further though. You're probably a proponent of everybody having a side hustle. Right? But I'm curious, if I were to play devil's advocate, is there anybody out there that actually should not consider doing something on the side? [00:08:07] Stef: [00:08:07] This is a really good question, and the president of my company actually has asked me a little bit about my side hustle and why I'm able to manage these things.[00:08:16] Realistically, I'm a dog mom. I'm a narrative scientist and I'm a side hustle entrepreneur and I'm a wife, and those identities are really easy for me to manage and balance. If I was a real mom, if I was a full time philanthropist, if I was super involved on, ,...
Transcribe →How to Start and Grow on TikTok w/ Brian Bosche
May 12, 202000:23:23Tap to summarizeBlake: [00:00:00] on the podcast today, I have Brian Bosche who is here to talk all things tick tock. He's the first person to come on here and strictly discuss this with us about tech. So Brian, how are you doing today? [00:00:10] Brian: [00:00:10] Doing well, Blake, thanks for having me. I am [00:00:12] Blake: [00:00:12] super excited selfishly because I need to learn more about tick tock.[00:00:16] My, my fan ship is really, really low and I do not get a lot of views, so I'm excited to learn how I can flip that around and I'm sure that the audience is going to do just the same, but before we get into it, I do want to get a little bit of context on you. Just basically your background. If you could give us a snapshot of your career so far, where you got started and how you got to where you are [00:00:36] Brian: [00:00:36] now.[00:00:37] Sure. So right now I'm on the product team at Smartsheet, which is a collaborative work management tool. it's a public company used by tens of thousands of different companies to help them manage their workflows and really managed our work as a team. And my company, my startup actually was acquired by Smartsheet last year.[00:00:54] So I was previously the CEO and co founder of a company called slope, and we really made it easy for creative teams to manage their work. So we largely focused on content review and approval, so images, videos, photography, design, and that's really where I got to know more about the creative field, where I worked with lots of different marketing creative teams or trying out.[00:01:15] Any new channel that would come up that we're trying to, you know, deploy their social media strategies at scale. So that's what really got me interested in tech talk when it first launched, is a lot of the customers that I work with and help build products for. I started asking questions about tick talk and how do we do this vertical video and how do we take advantage of this new channel.[00:01:32]so I've always really been interested in the marketing creative world. I'd even run a video production company previous to, to slope. so yeah, this is a really exciting space for me. And if [00:01:41] Blake: [00:01:41] I were to ask you what you think professional superpower is, what would you say? [00:01:45] Brian: [00:01:45] creative workflows. so, you know, for the last eight years, I have.[00:01:51] Worked really deep with marketing creative teams, helping them manage, you know, anything from, how do you request a project to planning it out to assigning. So going through the entire feedback and review and approval process all the way to getting something published. So, really the expertise on how companies, teams, people should, Build out their creative workflows. Well, [00:02:13] Blake: [00:02:13] let's, let's dive into it as it pertains to tick tock then. So for anyone that's not using it currently, can you give an idea of what makes it different from what's already out there. Sure. [00:02:23] Brian: [00:02:23] So tech talk is really powerful for brands and also for individuals or really anyone that's trying it out, because it gives you so much engagement and reach with no following.[00:02:33] So I'm sure many of you have been on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter for years, and engagement's really tough. You know, I've had a Twitter for the last 10 years at 10,000 followers. I'm lucky to get a few likes, you know, they engagement is pretty low. And then once you actually. A tweet, something, it's gone, you know, within hours.[00:02:50]so it's really hard to get that engagement and really hard, you know, on Instagram to get hundreds of thousands of likes. If you have 500 followers, we're on, tick-tock, you can literally have your first video published, get to a million views. So it really a, is a powerful channel because it gives you that engagement and reach without having to establish that following and really rewards great content over someone who's famous or someone who has a huge following.[00:03:17] Blake: [00:03:17] Well, we'll, we'll definitely build up to that point of getting a million views by, let's start out here with just the framework of ideated content. Is there a good way to come up with ideas of what to post. [00:03:30] Brian: [00:03:30] Yeah. So is actually great for that because it has, kind of that discover page, where you can go and it will actually show you the trending hashtags.[00:03:38] It'll show you the trending songs. So I kind of like to think of them as a daily challenge where it'll show you like the top three or four hashtags for the day. And you know today it's, it's, it's st Patrick's day. So it's hashtag wish me luck hashtag make me a drink hashtag video call. Cause a lot of people are working from home.[00:03:56] So you can start to see what other people are creating along those hashtags. And what types of content are doing well matched with the audio. And you can, you know, make your own video in whatever niche you have or whatever specialty you actually have on TechTalk to kind of fit within that trend with your own angle on it or your own no brand on it.[00:04:15]so it's actually, it's, it's much easier to brainstorm concept for tech talk than other channels because it kind of gives you those trends built in. [00:04:24] Blake: [00:04:24] Interesting. So it's, it's almost like on this platform, it's better to just look at what already is built out and exists. Then come up with your own original ideas.[00:04:33] Like on LinkedIn for example, you don't really have any context. It's just like post something. But with, with tech talk, it's basically giving you the formula for how to succeed. [00:04:42] Brian: [00:04:42] Yeah. And it actually rewards you for that. So when I do something that's on trend with one of the hashtags or with a trending song.[00:04:49]it almost always does better, and that's anecdotal evidence, but, you know, it is pretty apparent when you use them. Kind of a recent song that has just been released. you can see your view count really go up as compared to using something, that isn't trending or hashtag that isn't trending.[00:05:04] Now, I will say all of this with, you should figure out what, yeah. Kind of what your brand is on tech talk or what your niches that you want to fill. So when I first started producing videos, I didn't know what to bring as I was just playing around with tech talk. I didn't really know what I was doing. So I do like a travel video.[00:05:18] I would do like a funny reaction video. You do a lip sync, you know, you try all this stuff and it just kind of falls flat. Once I committed to producing videos around creative tips and photography tips and creative insights, that's really when my following started to take off because it gave people a reason to follow.[00:05:35] And then any of those trends that came up, I could match too. A creative tip or creative workflow or whatever I was actually doing. as a part of my account. [00:05:44] Blake: [00:05:44] Yeah. That, that brings me to my next question because it's pretty common, like you said, to get more views and likes than you have followers on your account right now because it's like content deficient platform per se.[00:05:55] They're, they're just so many people that are on there, but not enough creating content. So it's being rewarded heavily when you do so you can get more likes and views, but at the same time it's, you still have to. Yeah, I've found at least it's a lot easier to get those likes and views than it is to actually convert them into followers.[00:06:12] So. How can you actually optimize around getting more fans? [00:06:17] Brian: [00:06:17] Yeah, it is. The fans versus views is really interesting because. You can have hundreds of followers and have a million view video. I have 250,000 followers, and if I produce a video that's not great, I'll get no low thousands of views. So even with my follower count that high, tick-tock, really pushes your content to new audiences.[00:06:39] I found mostly. So it gives you analytics. If you go on kind of the pro mode, and I can see from most of my videos, the people watching it are not my followers. I think having that follower base gets you a boost, so it'll send it to more people to actually see if it's something that they want to spread more.[00:06:54]as a part of that algorithm. But, but you know, you still get rewarded for the content itself being great and being something that people engage with. So I would think the best way to kind of build your following is to have that reason why someone would follow you. So that is a doubling down on whatever you, your topics that you're really interested on, what you, what you want your brand to be.[00:07:14]so if someone sees a photography tip, I have. And they go to my account with that profile visit and they see, Oh, this person does a lot of photography tips. This person, there's a lot of creative tips or this person, there's a lot of travel or this person does make up, or this person does this. They know what to expect from your content and they'll follow you so that they can keep engaging with that.[00:07:32] That's interesting to that. If it's just random content all over the place and there's no reason to actually follow you, they might just like it, think it's funny and move on to the next [00:07:39] Blake: [00:07:39] person. Yeah. The one question that I r...
Transcribe →Why "Create Quality Content" is TERRIBLE Advice [Weekly Tips]
May 8, 202000:09:07Tap to summarizeHi there, welcome to the Micro Influencer podcast / video series now every Friday this is going to beon video as well.Hopefully this is going to be helpful for some people. This is new for me.I've got a new set up very excited.So today I want to get right to the point.I want to talk about why the worst advice you're ever going to get is to create quality content.That sounds counterintuitive. I get that hear me out before you get out your pitchforksand try to burn down the house.Let me explain what I'm talking about.So. If you think about it,you hire a consultant you want to start growing on social media Instagram Twitter LinkedInwherever it is you hire a consultant.Okay, they can give you technical tricks.They can tell you what worksand what doesn't how to please the algorithm they can give you practical things that you canImplement that will make your content perform better most likelybut usually the number one piece of advice are going to have for you is to create quality content.They're always going to say that it's not wrong.I'm not saying that this advice is incorrect advice I'm saying it's bad advice.And the reason for that is just think about how absurdly obvious.That is everybody knows that you shouldn't be creating terrible content.Everybody knows that if you want to succeed at blogging with your websitescopy with video with podcasting with social media,whatever your medium is even graphic. Design,that's a way of communicating as well. Anyway,you're trying to communicate everybody knows that you're not supposed to be terrible at it.If you want to attract attention and grow a following.It's blatantly obvious anything that is that obvious is not advice.And if you have ever paid anybody to hear those words,you should try to get your money back because it's such bad advice.Of course, we should be creating quality content,but Never give that out as advicebecause it's not helping anybody advice by definition is trying to teach somebodysomething they didn't already know that they can actually Implement.So I want to try to give you some things you can actually Implementinstead of telling you create good stuff,which is true. I'm going to tell you what you can do to prepare yourself.So that what you create is inherently going to be good.It doesn't take a mastermind to create good cause good content online.It just doesn't all it takes is your own unique personality and try to be helpful.Try to add some kind of value.Now what I want to say add value that's another one of those things like weld,of course, I want to be valuable to somebody I'll let me explain a little bit of what that means.It doesn't just mean that you are breaking newsand that you're telling people something that they've never thought of before.It's really rare that you're ever going to communicate withthought that somebody else hasn't already.Not that you're stealing that idea. It's just that there are so many people on this planet.So many people that have already existed that have had really good ideas.You're not the first person that's ever thought of your idea.I guarantee it. So with that said,how can you actually create good content?If all the good ideas are quote unquote taken.Well, it's not just about coming up with brand new ideas.It's almost impossible. You can add value by being funny.You can add value by being a little bit obnoxious of people are into that youcould add value by expanding on ideas that already existor yeah,you can try to come up with new ideas and expand on those as well.Definitely don't I'm not recommending against that it's just you're always goingto have some kind of idea that's similar out there already.So instead try to find ways you can add your own personal LD to it.That's the best way to go about it.So that's number one for prepping yourself to create good stuff online.Number two. You need to be building a skill every single day.So if you want to write or blogor Vlog about Instagram you had better be on Instagram every day commenting engaging likingfiguring out how stuff works trying to figure out the algorithmas best as you can posting regularly and you'd better be growing a following yourself.If you're trying to tell people how to grow a following and you're just doing an okay job at it.It will have no impact. That's the same as selling a bad product.That's like me trying to sell an apple that is clearly past its primeand just you know coming up with marketing to say no,it's great. But obviously, you know, it's a bad product.It's not going to sell so that's how ultimately you have to have theproduct to back up the content that you're creatingor it's Pointless,and it's not as hard as you think to have that quality product just work at it every single day.If you do something every day toward that over time not onlywill you just get inherently better at itbecause you're doing it in a pattern,but you're also going to have a desire to learn more to do more in that searso that you'll build some momentum kind of a snowball effect on thatand then my final piece of advice would again just yes do seek out those technical thingsas well the Well and vicebecause that's ultimately if you're working with a consultantor talking to somebody and trying to pick their brain if they're worth their salt in their subject.They should be able to give you tactical advice.Not just theoretical advice theoretical would be creating a Content tactical would be if you'reposting on LinkedIn try to break your sentences up into smaller sentencesso that they're easier to read that's just how people read nowor another tactical thing would be don't overload with hashtagsand tagging people try to keep Really relevant relevantbut maybe two to three hashtags isokay because hashtags aren't quite as big a deal on LinkedIn as they are on Instagram.Those things are Tech tactical Technical and practical you can actually Implement them yourself.There's no way that you would be able to implement the advice to create great contentbecause you already know it and it's open-ended and doesn't mean anything.It's meaningless. So the next time you hear somebody say create great contentor anything that's General like that add value things.It's like that encourage them don'tdon't be a trollbut encourage them to start thinking deeper than thatbecause that's how ideas are going to spreadfor you is by going deeperand that again does not mean that you need to be the first to that ideaor even the best you just have to be willing to be available to talk about that idea.That's the biggest key in content Creation in marketing pretty much in any skill is availability.That's the best ability if you're not there.Single day doing something in your subject.You're already behind that's Point number one.So if you want to get if you want to create quality content,I'm making air quotes. Well start creating contentfor yourself and you're going to start out being pretty bad at it.If you're just starting at 0 be okay with that learn from it be proud of thatso that a year from now,you can look back and say man. I was really bad.I've learned so much and then share what you've learned in that Gap.That is great stuff.That's what should be shared not what you think other people want to hear.You can't know what other people want to hear.You can only create what you like tested over time and then re-evaluate.That's the process. I hope that was helpful for you.Next time. You hear create great content.Just please go down that rabbit hole a little bit with that personand expand their mind a little bit Let's Start Spreading this That depth is what really matters.Hope you have a great day, and we'll see you soon.
Transcribe →How to Do Content Marketing that Leads to Paid Gigs w/ Jason Vana
May 5, 202000:28:39Tap to summarizeJason VanaBlake: [00:00:00] All right. On the podcast today, I have Jason Vanna, who we're going to talk about branding and side hustles and how you can actually create content that leads to gigs. But before we get into that, let's get a little bit of context on Jason. So first off, Jason, how are you doing today? [00:00:20] Jason: [00:00:20] I'm great, man. How are you doing?[00:00:22] Blake: [00:00:22] I am fantastic. I'm ready to get this going. And I'm curious if we could just get a little bit of the history [00:00:28] Jason: [00:00:28] of your career so far, just so we [00:00:29] Blake: [00:00:29] know, where are you being and how you can help out? [00:00:33] Jason: [00:00:33] Yeah, so I actually started out in sales doing, advertising sales for a local newspaper. and I like to tease all my, salespeople friends that I upgraded to marketing after that.[00:00:45]they don't like that so much, but I like to say it. but yeah, so I've been in marketing for roughly about 13 years, if you don't count the five years, where I focused on advertising. And so basically done everything from designing ads to helping small local businesses, no how to market it. their company.[00:01:06] Two, I'm marketing for a community college marketing for a church marketing for now. A food processing equipment, the manufacturer. and then I have my own side hustle where I help, personal brands. And. More small businesses really understand their branding and, developing marketing strategy. So basically I break the rule of find a niche and focus on it because I've done, I've basically done it all.[00:01:37] So yeah, that's, that's kind of a, my career in a nutshell, I would say. [00:01:43] Blake: [00:01:43] And if you had to pinpoint like one professional superpower that you feel like you encapsulate, what would that be? [00:01:50] Jason: [00:01:50] Oh man. I would say the biggest thing, and this is why a lot of people will, will hire me, is the, the ability to really help, A business helping individual understands their identity as a, as a brand or as a company. and be able then to communicate that quickly and communicate that well. and so really what I've done at the current job where I work. Is taking a brand that no one knew in the industry and turned it into a globally recognized, Globally recognized and really desired brand, to work with. And so that's kind of the, I can do a lot, but that's my super power is, here's the messaging. Here's what we need to focus on. Now let's do this. So yeah, that's, that I would say is my super power. And [00:02:40] Blake: [00:02:40] that. So that's, that's on a bigger scale.[00:02:42] And then, and if we take it down, I'm sure that we have a lot of principles that we can cover for side hustlers and people that are trying to do something, build something that's meaningful to them, but they're kind of starting from scratch. So let's, let's just dive into that, because if I'm early on in my side project, I kind of know my, I know my product, I know my audience a little bit.[00:03:02] How early on should I actually be worried about branding? [00:03:06] Jason: [00:03:06] So actually a lot of my side hustle, my personal side, hustle cuts clients are personal branding and kind of that very small business. I have an idea, I have a product and I want to move forward. And really what I, I advise them is, you really need to start working on your brand right away.[00:03:25] And the reason I say that is. A brand is not just a logo and colors and fonts and all that. Those are brand elements. But really what a brand is, is understanding your identity as whether that's an individual or a company. so it's your identity and how you communicate that and get people to understand that very quickly.[00:03:48] So psychologists say that we have seven seconds. To make a first impression that within seven seconds you will make a judgment on any person, product, idea, company, whatever it may be, seven seconds. And what a brand does is it takes the core of who you are, who your businesses, and distills it down in a way that people can make that snap judgment.[00:04:12]within seven seconds correct about who you are. And so I'm not saying that you need to go all out and spend $5,000, having someone you know, come up with a fancy brand for you and, and go through like a weeks long process of a brand. I would definitely say later on, as your brand grows, you might want to do that to make sure everything is in sync.[00:04:35] But really you need to, I tell my clients this all the time. Nope. The process you need to go through with marketing is start with your, your target customer, your target client. Who are the people that you want to buy your product, buy your service, work with you. Then the next thing you need to do is determined who you are as a company or brand or a personal side, hustle or whatever, whatever you are in that, in that category.[00:05:07]You need to determine who you are and what your message is. What is that? What I tell my clients, you need the tagline, which is your three to six word. Here's who I am in a snapshot, and then your one line summary of this is who I work with. This is what I provide. These are the results you're going to get in one sentence.[00:05:29] That way people see that and they are able to very quickly understand how you benefits. Yeah. And that really is your, that's your brilliant. it's not necessarily the logo and the colors that comes later where you, once you know who you are and how you help your target audience, then you pick colors and you pick fonts and all that stuff that helps with, yeah.[00:05:53] Persona that you've built around yourself and around your company. So for me, I always tell people, start right away. You. It takes some time. And I know as a side hustler and or a small business, that's the last thing you have is time. Especially when it's like I have to start making sales so I can pay some bills.[00:06:15] Like I know that I go that process. Bye. The benefit of having a brand and people being able to see the content you put out, see, you know what you're doing, look at you and be able to very quickly say that's who you are and that's how you help. That's, that's invaluable. Like you, you will land more clients, you will get more money if you have a brand and people can very quickly see if you can help them or not.[00:06:45]it's, you'll even save money on marketing if you have a good brand. So it's, it's really a core thing that you need to do right away. [00:06:55] Blake: [00:06:55] You mentioned that a tagline, so I wanted to nitpick at that a little bit because. I'm curious if you have any examples, whether of your [00:07:03] Jason: [00:07:03] own brand or a brand that you've worked with, [00:07:06] Blake: [00:07:06] a tagline or two, just to give people an idea of what that actually, it sounds like it looks like.[00:07:11] Jason: [00:07:11] Yeah, so my tagline for, for shift is, simplify your marketing, because that's really when, as I put out content, as I've worked with customers, you know, throughout the last, Doing a side hustle now, probably for 15 years off and on just helping random local businesses with their marketing. Well, what I've heard is that, from kind of from this target market of.[00:07:36] Personal brands and small businesses is when they think of marketing, they think this very overwhelming, like I don't even understand where to start because now there's this thing called tick tock, and I should be on Snapchat, but I don't even know what that is. And how do I do Instagram? And you know, I heard someone say, I need to have a website, but I don't even know how to build one.[00:07:56] And like it's, it's all this marketing advice that's out there. And there the, a lot of. Personal brands and small businesses are just overwhelmed and like, I don't know where to start. And what I've heard people say is, you can't, I've come in and help them simplify the whole process. And so I took what is my, unique, my USP, my competitive advantage, whatever you want to call it.[00:08:20] I've taken that. Why clients, work with me and distilled it into three words. I'm working with a. A client right now, it's an it company. And what we've settled on for them is, making it simple. really, when you look at it written out, it also says, making it simple, you know, cause it, and it is the same thing basically.[00:08:43] And. Yeah, I don't, okay. I don't make every tagline have the word simple in it. Right. Well, as I was saying that, I was like, Oh crap. People are gonna think that all I do is come up with simple. but really what they've said when, when they've worked with their clients and as we've done surveys with their clients and understand like why people hire them is they have this, you really unique, this is what they call a decision matrix.[00:09:08] Which helps their customers understand what actually they need in the it world for their company. So they sit down and they say, okay, what do you want your phone system to do? Like, do you want to pick it up and be able to push a button and transfer? Do you want to be able to record? Do you want to be able to do this?[00:09:25] And when it looks, when you look at your, the computer system, do you, what do you need it to be able to do? So they help them answer those kinds of questions. And then what they do is develop a And it system for ...
Transcribe →How to Use DMs to Contact and Drive Real Results w/ Aaron Patton
May 5, 202000:26:05Tap to summarizeAaron PattonBlake: [00:00:00] Perfect. We are live on the podcast today with Erin Patton, where we're going to be talking about prospecting and networking, but through some different channels that maybe we haven't discussed here on the podcast before. Before we get into that, Erin, how's your day going? [00:00:15] Aaron: [00:00:15] Fantastic. Blake, thanks for having me on and hello everyone.[00:00:18] Blake: [00:00:18] Super excited. I would love to get some context on you as a person, as a professional. Before we dive into the details here. So just to give the audience an idea of who they're, who they're working with here, could you just give us the story of your career so far, briefly as to where you started to, how you got where you are now.[00:00:35] Aaron: [00:00:35] Sure. Absolutely. So myself and just a regular guy, I, I went through life just a regular path like most of us do. I was just accepted to go to high school, try to get good grades, go to college, get a job, right. The normal path that we're all used to and accustomed to. And I, my parents, had done that.[00:00:52] They were. Good students. And that was the just accepted way. So I didn't really have any thoughts to do anything else like entrepreneurship wise or, or any other path that was, that was my journey. So went to college, got a job in sales, and worked at about four or five different companies in sales and software, software's a service companies, and then really just hit a wall in my later twenties, and decided that I don't want to do this long term.[00:01:16] So I essentially started over. I quit my job. I did a little traveling, was playing a little poker. That was a serious hobby of mine. So, trying to chase the dream of not really waking up and go into an office every day, like someone you have a dream about. And, I quickly realized that I don't want to spend all my time at a casino.[00:01:37] So I decided that I wanted to take some of the reasons why I did love that game. And parlay it into a more productive and business oriented manner. so I came up with podcasting, content creation, first and foremost just to learn how to do online business, but also to be creating content at the same time.[00:01:56] So kind of learning with the audience. And then it's been about 15 months now, and I feel like I'm in a place where I can. You know, actually launched something decent on my own and help people in their endeavors for what they want to do online. So that's the route that I'm going for this year, and I'm putting a hard focus on building up a little community and membership group to enable people to do just that.[00:02:18] Blake: [00:02:18] And what would you say your professional superpower [00:02:20] Aaron: [00:02:20] is. Professional superpower for me is definitely prospecting. It's, getting in touch with the right people, excuse me, the right people, the decision makers, people that, are actually going to be able to either purchase a product or service, like in my sales job or in this case for podcasting, be a guest on the show.[00:02:41] And part of my show for new age influencers is to try to get people that are really living a true online. You know, dream based lifestyle, and sometimes it's really hard to get in touch with these people, but I felt like it was my duty to, to try as hard as I can to get as high quality guests as possible so that they can give back advice and lessons that they've used in their lives to attain success and give it back to the audience.[00:03:07] So that's what I try to do every single week, week in and week out. Well, [00:03:10] Blake: [00:03:10] let's dive into your superpower then and start with the very foundation. I'm curious how you would recommend going about starting to establish herself. So if first off, how you can identify the proper niche for you and then beyond that, just establishing yourself as somebody that anybody should listen [00:03:29] Aaron: [00:03:29] to.[00:03:30] Yeah, sure. So, I think. First it comes down to, you know, like what Gary V always says is self-awareness, right? You need to figure out what drives you, what, what you actually enjoy doing, what you have fun doing. Because the internet game, content creation game, it's a hard game and there's a lot of effort on the front end with minimal payoff, but if you keep with it and stick with it, the pay off will come eventually.[00:03:53] But the, the regular person in society doesn't have that mindset. So it's very hard for them to keep at something for that long without an actual payoff. So that's why I say I'm part of my whole shtick is the new age lifestyle, which is the internet lifestyle. But part of that is really having fun first, so whatever you want to try to pursue, make sure that you at least are interested in it or have fun.[00:04:19] I see so many people out there making the mistake that they think that they want to be a social media guru or they think they want to be a real estate agent online or they think they want to be this or that, when in reality, they really just want to do that because they see other people having success in it and they think that that's what glamour looks like.[00:04:38] But that's really not the case. You've got to figure out what drives you. Like whether it's a hobby fishing or whether it's something that you're doing right now professionally, whatever you're doing, if you enjoy it, keep with it. But if you don't, they'll be afraid to switch it up and make sure that you can actually pursue something that you can commit to.[00:04:55] And if you don't know what that is, well, the only really way to find that out is to experiment with different things and try it out. And it's okay to experiment and fail and not, you know, continue to pursue that path if it's not right for you. But that's the first part. So the first part is just finding out what, what lights you up and what you have fun doing.[00:05:13] And then the second part is creating a plan and a concept, where you can be proud to pitch it to people. So for me, for the podcast, I came up with this concept because I really enjoy talking to different types of people in the poker. arena and learning their stories. So I, I said to myself, I want to do this in online business.[00:05:32] So I wanted to learn from people doing it out there in the space, and I pursued them on the, and Instagram and the DMS. And I just prospecting my head off and I pitched them the concept of new age influencers as I want to give. The people that don't have knowledge, knowledge from the people who have it.[00:05:50] And so that was my concept pitch. I was very regimented with it. I took all the skills that I had learned in software sales and applied it to pretty much Instagram DMS. Yes, I would have some email reach out. If people weren't responding to DMS, but, it was mainly DNS. I had a whole Excel spreadsheet. I had, all my prospects of guests that I wanted to have on the show.[00:06:10] I would reach out to them. I would Mark whether they saw that message or not, I would Mark whether they responded back, if they committed to being a guest, if they showed up all the different data behind the scenes. I was just very organized with it at the start and, I got a lot of nos at the beginning.[00:06:24] Like anyone, you know, would get, when you're starting something new, it's not going to be easy cause you don't have any established reputation or social proof yet. So I would reach out to maybe a hundred people, maybe 20% of them would actually get back to me. And then maybe half of those people would say that they're on board for an interview and then maybe half of those people would show up.[00:06:45] So a hundred reach outs. Three interviews, you know, so it's, it's hard. But I, I, and, and a lot of people wouldn't have that if they weren't reaching out, if they were reaching out to more, you know, kind of, reg regular, you know, people that haven't made it already, but I wanted to differentiate my show, whereas I wanted to start out with a bang.[00:07:05] People that had some social influence online for that credibility factor. So that's why I put in so much effort to try to get really good guests right from the get. [00:07:15] Blake: [00:07:15] I do have a question regarding the DM thing. So you, you mentioned if maybe on average you outreach to a hundred people, maybe you'll get 300 views in return.[00:07:24] Okay, so that's 3% conversion rate. You can live with that. You're at least you're getting interviews. I'm curious though, because. Often the advice that we get as side hustlers is you have to be consistent for a long periods of time. You have to be okay with not seeing results upfront to get results down the road, but there are certain instances where it just doesn't work, where whatever your idea is, it's just not going to work.[00:07:47] And I'm curious if you have any ideas as to when to actually quit, when did actually stop? If there are any indicators that you seen that say, consistency really isn't going to fix this. [00:07:59] Aaron: [00:07:59] Got it. Yeah, no, that's a great question. so first I would say that do your best to make it as good as possible. Get as good of a pitch as possible.[00:08:08] So for me, I already had like good looking cover art already done. I had the show concept in my head, so it was clear for me. It wasn't like I was reaching out to these people like. You know, in a shy manner or shy nature. I was like, no. I was like, this is what I'm doing. Like if you're on board, fantastic....
Transcribe →How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome w/ Cecil Cross
May 5, 202000:25:57Tap to summarizeBlake: [00:00:00] All right. On the podcast today, I have Cecil cross who's going to help us understand the ins and outs of a imposter syndrome. We're going to go into this in detail, but before Cecil, how are you doing? [00:00:16] Cecil: [00:00:16] I'm doing great. [00:00:19] Blake: [00:00:19] Yeah, so it's almost the weekend. I'm excited. [00:00:22] Cecil: [00:00:22] That's right. And, [00:00:23] Blake: [00:00:23] and I would love to get just a little bit of context on you before we dive into the topic at hand.[00:00:29] So if you wouldn't mind just giving the audience an idea of, w just a brief history of your career so far, where you got started, how you got to where you are now, and everything in between. [00:00:39] Cecil: [00:00:39] Sure. I'm a graphic designer slash creative director. And, I currently work for a software company, Around the Dallas, Texas area.[00:00:49]but I was born in Michigan and I came up drawing like a lot of, a lot of young people, and I've been a designer for about, huh, almost 20 years, about between 18 and 19 years at this point. And I've had different roles where I've served as the designer and art director, one for school districts. That was my first major job.[00:01:11] And, after that, a, a direct mail marketing company that was right around the time of the recession. And so that became a difficult time. And that was around the time that I really started kicking my fire of a up in third year because I had to provide for my family. After that, I worked for the Fox affiliates, from my hometown.[00:01:34] And, just a few years ago, I moved out to Dallas and up in here. working in different positions, as increased responsibilities, touched a little bit of everything in the graph, buying industry from retail education, government technology. So that's kind of where I am now. And, and I also run a freelance brand consultant, brand consultancy and that creative direction.[00:01:58] Okay. [00:01:59] Blake: [00:01:59] So I think it's safe to say with all the different areas that you've worked that you've probably dealt with imposter syndrome before. [00:02:05] Cecil: [00:02:05] Absolutely. [00:02:06] Blake: [00:02:06] Yeah, we'll definitely get into that, but before that, one final context question, what would you consider to be your professional superpower? Connecting with [00:02:18] Cecil: [00:02:18] people.[00:02:19] Just connecting with people. Everything that I do from a creative standpoint, I try to find the human element. There's so many. Acronyms and businessy terms and jargon that can get in the way of that last scene it happened. But once you find that human connection, it's easier to tell a story no matter what, no matter what the industry is.[00:02:42] So I think it's finding that human connection and treating people accordingly. This is my simple palette. [00:02:47] Blake: [00:02:47] I love it. All right, well let's, let's talk about imposter syndrome and let's get into it because the audience is going to skew more toward people like, like me, where. Just trying to do side hustles cause that's what I like to do more at the beginning.[00:03:01] That the end of my journey trying to build things that that means something to me. Yeah. Kind of starting from zero. So with that in mind, I think most of us at some point are going to feel imposter syndrome. I think it. When we think of that, it's often more of like a Silicon Valley kind of term where these big founders of big companies have imposter syndrome because they don't, I think that they're up to that task.[00:03:22] But do you think it applies to a much smaller scale when you're like freelancing and things like that? [00:03:28] Cecil: [00:03:28] Absolutely. from my perspective, imposter syndrome, has, has come up in the form of, I think I belong here, but for whatever reason, I feel like. I don't know, really belong here. Like I didn't really earn my way into the position that I am today.[00:03:48] Maybe I stumbled upon my current level of success. Yes. And because of that, did I really do everything I needed to do in order to, okay. And for those that are freelancing or working on side hustles or consulting, there's so many talented people out there that may be doing the same thing that I'm doing.[00:04:08] No. Who am I among these? This is great. See if people, am I really worthy, okay. Encountered among them. Well, people really come to me for my expertise. Who am I? You know? That's sort of in my experience with, with imposter syndrome. Who am I among all these other talented people? I'm no one, maybe I should even try.[00:04:30] Blake: [00:04:30] So let's, let's dive into conquering that then, because I think that's the whole purpose of what you really want to talk about you do you identify with that mentality you just described. How do you take that? What's the first step? [00:04:41] Cecil: [00:04:41] The first step is for me is what I've had to do over the last couple of years is stop comparing myself.[00:04:50] Two others. It's a really big challenge, especially in the creative community. Cause there are a lot of, now it's just people out there. there are great. for me, I love the brand identity design. and there are some really fantastic I designers out there. But what I've learned to do is to look not that others, but to look at my path.[00:05:10] Nope. And that's all that matters to me right now. Am I better than I was yesterday? And that way. I'm no longer competing against everyone. I'm just constantly trying to be a better version of myself. So I think that can translate to any endeavor. Well, from a freelance whole team or psychological basis.[00:05:32]I think what I have to bring, yes. Special, even if it's been done before, no one has done it quite the way that I'm able to do it. And if I'm continually improving on my own process. And I can combat that imposter syndrome. And I'd also like to point out that I personally, I think it's okay occasionally to feel like an imposter, but that doesn't mean you have to succumb to the imposter syndrome.[00:05:59] All right? If you feel occasionally, occasionally, like an imposter, then that means you're challenging yourself. Am I doing this the best way I can put this be done better? Is there someone else out there that's doing it a little bit better that I can learn from? Not be like, not totally emulate, but maybe I can learn from some of my peers and that'll help push me to be a better version of myself.[00:06:20] Again, not comparing yourself to others. Okay. Comparing yourself to pack versus. I, I [00:06:28] Blake: [00:06:28] personally really identify with that thought because I'm super guilty in the past of comparing myself to the success of others. You know, looking at people maybe that I went to high school with or that I knew in college that are already wealthier than I am and have a nice house in, in everything.[00:06:44] You look at them and you think, why? Why can't that be me? Why are they so much better? But then you realize everybody's life is totally different with different circumstances. And. Who cares why, like nobody else cares that you're feeling and the, you're the only one that cares. So like there's really no purpose and you could feel a whole lot better in your life.[00:07:05] Like you said, I love that you mentioned comparing yourself to your past self instead of others because that is a healthy relationship. That's not necessarily to mean put yourself down or think less of yourself even if you've gotten worse over time. It's just a reality check. It's motivation. So that stuff can be good to compare in that way.[00:07:24] And I, I liked that from, from your standpoint, but I'm curious, taking it a step further than if we know, compare against yourself in the past, not against others, but then how do we take it to the next level if we're still feeling like, I'm really not cut out for this? How do we find motivation that works for us?[00:07:43] Cecil: [00:07:43] Like I said before, it's, there's nothing wrong with looking at others. And, and, and finding inspiration and what they're doing. So start building a community. I think, you know, Blake, I think you've done a great job of building your own community and your own network. You're on, or rather on LinkedIn a practice, be a little bit more active over the last couple of years and you sort of get that encouragement.[00:08:07] Okay? You'll find other people who may feel the same way that you feel. And, that, that encouragement. Can spur one onto action. And that's one of the main things to overcome. Imposter syndrome. Yeah. It can be a very paralyzing same, but once the, once you realize that there are others in your shoes for others who have overcome it, it's going to spur you on to do something about it.[00:08:31] So if you have an idea, you know, yeah. The, the circumstances are never going to be perfect. you may have a really stressful job that drains you with mental energy. You may have a family, you have family obligations. you may have, maybe caring for her. They're sick, sick parents or sick, loved one, and that's taking a lot of pot.[00:08:53] But final few minutes every day or every week, whatever your circumstances, a allow, it takes some sort of actions, some steps, four, to help you do that, whether it's learning more. whether it's, it's writing something down and making a li...
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