Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to the Rogue Startups Podcast, where two startup founders are sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in their online businesses. And now here's Dave and Craig.
Speaker 2 00:00:19 Yeah, so Joel, like, I think this is the first time we've chatted, like in what In person <laugh> over over squad cast. I know we've been, we've been kind of internet friends and I've seen a lot of your stuff on Twitter for, for a long time. But, uh, I think most folks would know you from Case Study Buddy, right?
Speaker 3 00:00:32 Yeah, probably that, or, or the conversion copy stuff with business casual. But Case Study Buddy's been the focus for the past two years and where I've been kind of banging the drum the most and <laugh> making the most noise. Yeah. So, nice.
Speaker 2 00:00:45 Yeah. Nice. And what is the, what is the, like company size or can you give some kind of idea of scale for, for folks who, who don't know about you?
Speaker 3 00:00:53 Yeah, sure. So we, we began life as a completely productized service, so like very much, you know, at the time it was very part-time and off the side of our desks. And in the first year we, we had a tiny little team of four, um, all, all, you know, all of us doing, you know, myself and my partner Jen included all of us kind of doing it extremely part-time. Uh, today, uh, we're, we're at about, I think eight staff, uh, and then another, you know, four, four or five contractors just in, in, in different capacities. So we're not huge. We're, we're a pretty tight-knit team. We, you know, the, the only reason that we don't have 100% staff is I, I guess two reasons. One, because not everyone's in Canada, and so they can't necessarily be staff. And two, because some of the roles in the business just makes more sense, even if they're on retainer or whatever, you know, interviews, especially for us, it's project to project just makes more sense. It's pretty hard to fill 35, 40 hours a week, uh, of nothing but interviews. I don't think any sane person could conduct that many either. But, uh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's where, where we're at today. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:00 I hear you on the, um, on the, like the, the project thing. So like we, you know, my, my first kind of successful thing, <laugh>, uh, in this like online business road was what we used to call podcast motor, and now we call it Casto production. So like done for you podcast editing. And, and we have the same thing. We have a mix of like a very couple of full-time people and then mostly part-time folks for, for the same reason. As I always like to say, like, I think this is the saying, like, nine women can't have a baby in a month. Right. But like, nine podcast editors can edit a lot more podcast than one full-time person. Um, like, and, and, and it's, it's, it's just like you, you want them to be fresh. Most, most of our, our like editors and and writers want to have other stuff going on, or they want to be part-time. Um, and so it doesn't make as much sense for us to like, to bring them on full-time. Um, but I think like really core things we, we want folks to be like, you know, fully on board and only focusing on our stuff
Speaker 3 00:02:53 For sure. I, I mean that's, you know, for us too, like we serve the mid-sized enterprise and, and certain roles you just really want to have, I mean, we have consistency in our creative teams too, because we have these ongoing relationships, so we're able to provide that. But especially for functions like project management, account management, I mean, tho those are roles you just want always on, always there, at least for, for the market that we serve. So, yeah, you know, it was an interesting transition going from no staff and all contractors to mostly staff and, and some contractors and, you know, advantages to both, um, yeah. You know, advantages to, to both sides. And I, I really like the hybrid sort of team model we've arrived at.
Speaker 2 00:03:37 Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of, like, obviously team members do too. Like a lot of folks are looking for 25 hours a week or something like that. And that's great that we can provide that. I think I know, like I, I followed a lot of stuff you were doing on Twitter last year or earlier this year. I guess we're talking in May, um, about like cold outreach. Uh, it seemed, it seemed on the surface, like it was, uh, a bit of a personal journey for you to like, uh, <laugh> even delve into those waters and then like, ha, have some success, it seemed like. Um, yeah, like what, what did, I guess what brought about the, you know, the, the want to approach that as a like, marketing channel, customer acquisition channel? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:04:13 I, I mean, I used to be dead set against it, um, to the point that I was like, I will never do that. You know, I, I, yeah. I was like, I, because, so my personal history, right? My first exposure to cold anything was I wound up in Toronto, supposed to be for a whole summer. It only lasted a month. What I thought was gonna be more of a marketing job coming in with campaigns, that kind of thing. This was before any of my SEO days or anything, and wound up just being like b2b, cold calling. Uh, and so that was my first exposure to cold, and it was an awful experience. <laugh> trying to get someone's attention, who doesn't want to hear from you, doesn't know what's coming. And so that, you know, that was the backdrop, my context, where I was like, I hate that.
Speaker 3 00:04:52 I never want to do it again. I want to build a business that never has to rely on, on cold anything with case study by, I mean, we, in our first years, we grew really fast and, and, and really well just under the steam of our reputation and the space being pretty blue ocean, and my previous work on the, you know, on the conversion copywriting side and different connections, you know, partner had and, and things like that. But especially when we made the transition to staff, there was just this recognition of we can't just rely on that anymore on referrals and on our own networks. You know, we, even if we're, we're reaching these really great companies, now, our primary battle is getting people to know we exist. And so we had run smaller ad campaigns and, and we had, you know, done, done speaking and, and things like that.
Speaker 3 00:05:41 Cole was always just kind of on the fringes. And it wasn't until friend of mine, very smart peer, John Henry Shirk, actually recommended somebody and said, listen, this guy's legit, his team is good. If you ever want to explore this, I feel like this would be a shoe-in just to connect you with the types of people that, that you wanna be connected with. And, and basically using it almost more as like an awareness channel. Like still very much a sales channel, but basically just letting people know, like, hey, we're, we're out here, uh, at a scale that you can't, you know, you can't necessarily replicate with something like social unless you're really effective. So finally, you know, we, we got to the point we're kind of evaluating options, and John Henry's recommendation was always in the back of my mind. And so I thought, okay, I'll just, I'm reticent to do it, but I'll just, I'll give 'em a knock on the door.
Speaker 3 00:06:30 I'll see, you know, I'll see what their approach is like. And it was in chatting to, to Chris and and his team, that, that finally sold me on at least a, giving it a try, right? Their approach was very much like, all of the cold outreach I get is awful for the most part. It's like, hire us to do this. It's very form literary. It's often like poorly written, uh, or like cheaply personalized to the point where you're like, yeah, you clearly have no context on us. I didn't wanna do that. And, and Chris and his seems approach us, well, what can we do that's valuable to these people regardless, right? Like, what can we create for them that, whether they work with us or not, they're better for having gotten this email. And I, I like that mentality. And so we put together a resource specific to the audience.
Speaker 3 00:07:17 We were reaching out to something we felt like would be beneficial, hit on some of the pain points or experience offering answers to, to those things before even engaging with us. And then, uh, so I, I like the whole structure of that and, and the messaging and the approach. And we kicked that off in October. And between October and April, we were targeting like C-suite, vp, director level people, people that I thought would never take a cold meeting. We got 200, over 200 meetings between October and April with the kinds of people we wanted to be.
Speaker 2 00:07:53 And, and just for reference, like from inbound or referrals, how many, how many leads did or calls did you book typically in a month?
Speaker 3 00:08:00 <laugh>, uh, I mean, in our, in our busiest months between 10 and 20, right? They'd be really high quality leads. Okay. They, they, they'd come pro to, to, to buy. But in a typical month, you know, if, if you're getting for us anyways, just purely off a referral, if you're getting 10 really, you know, decent leads off, that's a, that's normally a, a pretty good month, right? So all of a sudden, you know, I, I became a believer because we were booking these calls, people were showing up to these calls, and people were legitimately interested in what we had to sell. Now, I think the other side of it that we didn't anticipate is as we kicked that off the market really started to crash in the audience that we were reaching out to. And so all of a sudden, and then this was the story for everybody that's, that serves this space.
Speaker 3 00:08:49 Yeah. But all of a sudden, sales cycles were taking twice, three times as long price sensitivity, never seen, you know, anything like it. The market changed underneath us. And so the reason we we pushed pause on cold was not cuz we didn't believe in the channel anymore, not because we weren't booking meetings, but there came this recognition of, if we want to close the percentage of these that we feel is possible, we need to retool, we need to retool our offering, we need to retool, uh, the, the, the value that, you know, the way we sell this, we need to revisit things like pricing and packaging, which was a hard pill to swallow. But, you know, and we did close business, we, we closed of, of those 200 some meetings somewhere between seven and 10 new clients, which is pretty good. Like when your average value is, is, you know, in the, in the, you know, usually five figures, you, you know, you're doing okay.
Speaker 3 00:09:46 But we had to make the decision, like, if we really want this to be successful for us, because based on the conversations we were having, it also became not only an awareness channel, a learning channel for us, we started to be able to get feedback at scale on our offer, which we had never previously been able to do. Because it's kind of like that weird analogy where it's like, if you only study the bullet holes in the planes that come back, you don't really know what the problem with the plane is. Yeah, yeah. And, and this was a chance for us to see like the planes that went down and like start to assess, okay, where, where do we need to improve in order to start closing and start moving more quickly? So yeah, I I went from being totally against cold to now, you know, I, I I believe done well. It's still a very viable channel. Yeah, interesting. A very good opportunity to grow.
Speaker 2 00:10:35 Yeah. Interesting. Uh, I mean, I, I suspected like the success you had and it was due in large part to like the, the care you took and the customization and the, like you said, crafting the offer and having an asset for them, like, you know, offering value and, and all these kinds of things. Um, I'm sure that was a big part in like the success you saw.
Speaker 3 00:10:54 Yeah. I think it helps too that number one, like that whole campaign went out during a season where businesses were actively making decisions and planning their budgets for the next year. Yep. I think it helped that, you know, we're, we're in a pretty, even today the competition's increased, but pretty blue ocean space, you know, we're not one more s e o vendor trying to convince you we can build white hat links, you know, like I, I I think there's certainly other verticals and companies who will face stronger headwinds, but I think the biggest takeaway for me was it doesn't have to be gross <laugh>. It doesn't have to be slimy. It doesn't have to be messages that feels like, feel like an afterthought. Yeah. Like with many things, if you put value first, if you're human about what you're bringing, if, if you can deliver something to them that you know them well enough to know they will actually use, whether they engage with you or not framing it through that lens as opposed to wanna buy something, wanna buy something, wanna buy something. I think that made a big difference.
Speaker 2 00:11:53 Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Do you, um, do you take most of the sales calls or, or do you have folks on the team that, that do sales?
Speaker 3 00:12:01 I used to, uh, and, and I think during this season, I'll, I'll probably come back to, to taking some of these, uh, just as we navigate the change, you know, for me it's important to get that firsthand experience of how different things are are landing. But we do have a team, and, and you can imagine too, we're not, I I mentioned earlier, we're not a big company. Yeah. So when you have sometimes 75 calls in the span of a month and a half, that, that's quite a lot for a small team to, to navigate too. So we actually had the opposite challenge that some companies do. It wasn't that we weren't getting enough meetings, it was that, holy cow, how do we handle the, the meetings we're getting and the other things on our plates? So, you know, I like to be involved in that sales process, especially anytime a change has been made, just because for me, it's not that I don't trust people to come back with the data, but I, I'm a copier. I, I'm, I love running interviews. I, I have an ability to suss out how decisions are made or how something might be landing. So I like to use it as a data gathering, you know, operation. And then when I feel confident handing that off or, you know, delegating that.
Speaker 2 00:13:08 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, we, um, so, so I, I'm, I'm kind of like heading up sales for, for us right now because we, we had a couple sales folks previously and, and it didn't work out for a couple reasons. And I think one of 'em was that there's a big difference between like a founder selling and you gathering and internalizing the feedback and, and taking it back to like your, your package and, and pricing and everything like that. And having two salespeople, which is what we had, uh, gathering information from them, taking it in the context of, oh, they, this is their first time selling like a professional service. Uh, they don't know the podcasting space or the, you know, case study space that, well, maybe, like, there are just so many transitions I think that founders have to bringing on salespeople and getting like the continuity of information back to you.
Speaker 2 00:13:55 Um, that was such a massive learning for me that like, I, I will definitely do it again, but I will do it very differently because like, you're just like, you're not doing anyone favors <laugh> if you, if you kind of set all of that up wrong. Um, and we unfortunately did, and it was, you know, a huge, huge learning lesson. Um, and I think that like, it's something that I'll hear anybody talking about. Like, you hear, you hear folks talking about like, Hey, go hire salespeople and take this off your plate. And so you can do hire lovers things. You don't hear folks talking about, like, how do you manage like the, the performance of, of sales folks aside from like, how many meetings did you book and what was their show? Right. And how many, you know, it turned into deals or opportunities or whatever. But like, how, how do you get that feedback loop back, uh, from the sales process? Because it's huge. I mean, those are, the bullet analogy is so good because like you're talking to customers, <laugh>, that's like one of the few times that you actually get to do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:14:46 Yeah. I, I think too, like one of the things people don't talk about, it's not something you can rush like you're saying. And I think especially in an environment where you need to change or you need to reevaluate it, it's extra steps to not only make a change, but then articulate that change to the salespeople and make sure that they're now representing things accurately. And there's, there's a training component, a teaching component, and, you know, it's, it's not as simple as throwing bodies at at the problem. It's, you know, you, you, you need to be getting that intel. And I think, you know, there's a lot of romanticizing, like you say, about getting out of founder led sales and delegating that and how that's kind of the hallmark of successful business. But I think there are a lot of things that smaller companies like ours, I think often there's a rush to do that because you want the prestige being out of sales when in reality there's probably a lot more for you to learn.
Speaker 3 00:15:41 And until you've achieved a level of, I don't know whether it's product market fit or real heavy confidence in the sales process until it's been battle tested, and even when it has, like you say, like having to ingrain that in others, like it's a real process. It's, it's easy to underestimate, and that's not to see. Yeah. You know, I think again, it is really important to build up to that point. But yeah, leap, you know, trying to make the seismic shift from, okay, I do it all right now to just like, here you go, run with it. Uh, yeah, I think I would come at it differently in the future too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:16:16 Yeah. Interesting. Who's, uh, who's a typical customer for y'all?
Speaker 3 00:16:20 Yeah, it's, it's changed over time. Um, but we, we really like serving mid-size the enterprise B2B only businesses we do well, uh, in spaces that are a little bit more technical, you know, so like cloud security or, um, sometimes engineering data analysis, that, that kind of thing. Um, but we also do really well with professional services. I think one of the quirks of customer stories, one of the like really difficult parts of making this your niche is that you can only ever do as much work as your clients can get buy-in for, you don't just have to sell your client. They then have to be able to get buy-in from their clients to, to take part in stories. And so clients tend to come in one to two flavors, either they have so much basically demand and buy-in that they can't keep up. And we really like those relationships because there's just built in scale.
Speaker 3 00:17:16 And at that point, you've just become the, the delivery arm, and you can collaborate on strategy and you can pick, you know, they can pick who they want to interview, and you can be very intentional about all of it. There's that, but far more common are the companies who really struggle to get buy-in, who, who don't have internal alignment, or they're still spinning up the infrastructure of their referral programs, or they don't have the, the gigantic client bases of like a HubSpot where you can do 50 stories in a year. You know, they, they might have 50 clients total. You look at like a mid-size agency even. And so we like both, but they're different problems to solve for each really, you know, like there, there's a lot of hate to be made and there's competitors of ours who've chosen to, to stay there. And I think it's a wise move of their part.
Speaker 3 00:18:06 There's a lot of money to be made in the small businesses too. And the trade off is, they might have smaller budgets, but they also tend to have closer relationships with clients, fewer hurdles to jump through. So, you know, it's, it's an interesting space to play in because you either decide too that you're gonna make helping get buy-in your problem and try to equip them to do that or not, you know, and that mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that influences who you go after to. So there's been a lot of landmines we've walked into and, and, you know, mistakes we've made in trying to arrive at that. But yeah, mid-size to enterprise, you know, b2b, whether it's software, whether it's tech, whether it's services, we, we don't really care. Um,
Speaker 2 00:18:46 Yeah. One of the things we struggle with, uh, in our professional services is like, um, k k kind of like y'all, maybe like, we need our customers to do something before we can deliver value. You know, like we need them to record the podcast episode like this <laugh> and send it to us before we can go edit it and produce it and do the video and all that kind of stuff. I, I would suppose you all have even more of that kind of struggle because like you, you're not even talking to them, but they're customers. So you gotta say, Hey, who can we talk to? How are we gonna schedule this? How are we gonna get them on the phone? I'm sure you're doing videos, so it's like, Hey, they have to look reasonable and like, are you sending video kits? Like, I don't know, what, what does that all look like for, for y'all?
Speaker 3 00:19:25 Yeah. I mean, if you peek under the hood of our operations, every, everything's a process, right? I mean, even seven years in, we can still be surprised by something that happens in the process. But I think you're right in that, number one, we're limited by how many clients they have, number two, how many they can get buy-in for. And that question of buy-in, you know, the thing I've learned over time, it, it splits both ways. Both there's internal buy-in you need to achieve to be able to achieve that scale. Because if marketing and sales are at marketing and CSMs forever at odds, doesn't matter how many clients you have, you, you won't be able to operationalize things properly. And then there's the external buy-in too, which is, you know, we identified that first. It's like, well, how can we help them feel confident in pitching their customers and getting their customers to take part?
Speaker 3 00:20:11 And so in the early years, a lot of my focus and time and attention was towards engineering and, and the whole teams was towards engineering a process that felt really great for, for customers and non-threatening and easy to take part in. And I think that was the right move, right? It's, it's the primary thing we have to worry about. But in the latter years, especially the past too, a lot of my time, energy, passion has been how do we help internal teams do their thing better? Because it's amazing. You, you know, we, we we're very fortunate that we, we serve some multi-billion dollar companies and a lot of companies in the 30 plus million range. And as an outsider, it's really easy to look in and assume we didn't wind up working them. But, but for example, it's easy to look at a company like Shopify and assume, oh yeah, they, they must have like a really rich infrastructure for identifying candidates and a really strong team around this.
Speaker 3 00:21:03 And then the reality is, it's one person when we were engaged, it's one person, and there's, there's zilch, you know, there's nothing. They're, they're building it as they're going. And that's certainly a trend that I've seen over the past couple years, really, whether it's just my own perception or awareness of it, or that it's actually happening. But I see a lot of companies now finally starting to make actual dollar and personnel investments in customer marketing as its own function. And that's both exciting and complicated because again, you can't just build a customer marketing department and say, go to the case study thing. They're still dependent on everybody else in the org from leadership on down to enable that to happen. So, you know, we started out looking at the client, you know, client's, customer side, and now these days I, you know, really looking at how do we help companies do things like standup SOPs, make pitches, set consistent expectations? Cuz it's all one big ecosystem. It all, it all runs together.
Speaker 2 00:22:05 Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Hmm. I wanna, I wanna shift gears to talk about, uh, about social. I've, I've kinda like you with cold outreach, <laugh>, I've resisted, uh, social media for a long time. Uh, and still like e even as of this morning, I was telling someone, this is just a giant waste of time. I don't know why I even have a Twitter account. I, I don't know. So, you know, may of of 2023, what, what's your kind of take on, on social media as a, as a brand thing for like you and, and how that can help your business? I guess that that's, that's, that's where I'm coming from it from. So selfishly we'd love to hear
Speaker 3 00:22:41 Yeah, no, I'm, I mean, I, I think it's huge. I can pin so much of the opportunities that we've been able to capitalize on the relationships I have to social. Um, but that being said, my mentality for social when I'm at my best and most consistent is the mentality of solving problems in public. It's, you know, it's easy to look at. There's so much noise. And I, I was talking with Jordan Shelton on his podcast the other day about, you know, this whole, like, there's a real almost anger or frustration or, uh, hatred of some of the things that work. You look and you're like, really, that's what works? That's what lands here. You know, really that's, do I have to play that game? And I think what's interesting, you know, is shifting from a mindset of anger or frustration to curiosity, okay, well why mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:23:38 <affirmative>, why does that work? Why is that landing? What is it about that? And how can I adapt that to, to who I am? So I'm, I'm a huge believer in the power of social. I, I think this was what I kind of was thinking about this morning and turning over my head. I really believe, especially with the emergence of ai, with the change in the market with how quickly things in industries are changing, I really believe community is kind of like the, the future and the ultimate expression of marketing at, at this point. If you can build a community and not just like, well, we have a slack, and so we've done it, you know, this has existed for eternity in terms of, people have always said, your network is your net worth and so on and so forth. But on a, on a company level, even if you can foster involvement in that way, if you can become known for solving problems in public, if you can be a connector, like one of my favorite people living and breathing is Andy, Chris, Dina at Orbit.
Speaker 3 00:24:36 And, you know, he doesn't have necessarily that I know of like a Slack channel or community, but he, he has made an incredible career and life, I believe, of just connecting the dots between people and being an advocate and fan of individuals. And I know for sure that served his business well, him well, and all of those people too. So, yeah, I, I think on a personal branding level, it's incredibly important. Is created all kinds of opportunities, but on a, on a company level, especially solving problems in public and doing that consistently, I think as a bridge to community, that's how I come at it now.
Speaker 2 00:25:10 Yeah. I mean, I I, I've been on Twitter for, for a long time, and largely just like inactive in the last few months, last six, six months maybe. I, I, I've been more active. And, and the one thing along the lines of what you're saying that I learned is that when, when I use the word I and not the word you, it really, it really seems to resonate like much, much better. Like, I learned this, I'm struggling with this. I think this, not like, you should go to the gym three times a day, <laugh>, and you should eat vegan and you should do cold outreach and all this kind of crap that, like, nobody wants to hear. I mean, I think it's similar to like how I can solve problems in public, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the, the thing, the thing I struggle with a little bit is like, I guess you would call it like imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2 00:25:57 It's like, I'm not, you know, Nathan Berry or whatever, you know, like we're not doing 80 million a month or whatever it is, <laugh> like, um, so, so like, I have a lot that I know, or I think I know at least for, for like the point I'm at in my journey. Um, and sometimes I feel like, man, I am super unqualified to, to even say this because like, there's a bunch of shit that, that I think that's probably wrong. Mm-hmm. And, and I guess I just couch it with like, I don't know everything. Nobody knows everything. Uh, I, I hope that folks know the context through which I come with all this stuff. Cause I think that's like the most important when you're looking at someone on social, it's like, okay, you know, what is Joel trying to say? And like, what's his lens? Um, and, and hopefully like I represent that okay. That like, Hey, we're a SaaS company with nine people and we're not doing 30 million a year. This is like, what I know is in that context.
Speaker 3 00:26:49 I, I think though, like, and I, I connect with that because I think when you care a lot about the work you do, and when you're an analytical person, there's always this like, hidden fear of being found out for just like not being someone else. But the reality is, you know, it's nobody for the most part. I mean, the internet can be a cruel place, but living like you're under the anvil waiting for someone to call you out, most people don't care. And most people are just, they're hungry in my experience. They're hungry for a community. They're, they're interested in practical advice they want to connect with, with someone on that journey. And I think what's fascinating is if only the best and most qualified people could build these thriving communities, like, let's take the copyrighting community, for example. My my old stomping grounds. Like if only the very best in the business were qualified to offer any kind of insight to anyone, that'd be a pretty desolate landscape.
Speaker 3 00:27:50 I mean, there's, there's only g gotta be, I mean, how many operators are there probably in the hundreds of thousands. How many of them could we say are truly, you know, AAA elite home run hitters, a hundred less, far less? Yeah. You know, like, and so I think the reality is it's not where I, where I come at it from is I know myself enough to know that I believe I'm still learning and I'm still growing and I'm still open to being wrong and I'm still, uh, you know, adjusting. And especially for example, like over the past you've been trying to get emerged in more customer marketing and advocacy communities and realizing, hey, there's a lot here. I don't know. And so I think there's a humility to that, but, but also you can serve people wherever you're at with the knowledge you have. There's always, there's always another rung.
Speaker 3 00:28:35 We look up at people up the ladder to us. They look up the, the ladder to them. There's people who want to be like, like you and I and, and people that wanna be like the people who wanna be like you and I. So it's, yeah. It's just, at the end of the day, I think we've created this mentality that the internet is just a full of people waiting to call you out and waiting to call your fraud and go, you don't know that I know that way better. And in reality, that's just not been my experience. I think if you approach it with humility, if you approach it with this weird combination of humility and confidence, confidence in what you're teaching and humility when someone presents an alternative viewpoint or a new idea, and you know what, I actually hadn't considered that, or that's a really great point. You don't have to have it all figured out to, to create things of value for, for the community. And I think especially just the way I sense that you're wired up a lot like me, I think we block a lot of our own shots when we choose to not share out of fear. Yeah. Well, someone better than me will just, they'll say it better than I can. So
Speaker 2 00:29:38 Yeah, I mean, the, the, the thing that gets me over the, the hump more than more than anything is, you know, folks like Rob Walling or, or whoever who have just shared so much of their like professional lives so openly throughout the years that like, I mean, I, I can't quantify the value of, of those hooks, right? Like Joel from Buffer and, you know, Tyler Trius and all the, all these folks. There's enormous, enormous like bodies of work that just super open and, and have shared and like, fuck, like, it's kind of my job to do a little bit of that, right? Because like, I, I have, I have a decent amount of experience to, to someone, right? And so like, it, it, I kind of think it's, it's the least I can do almost to like share what I know. And there's hopefully someone who finds it helpful. Um, that, that, that's about the only thing that gets me over my, my own issues.
Speaker 3 00:30:29 <laugh>. Yeah. I think great ideas can also come from anywhere, right? And like, different people teach in different ways. Like even you think about, like, I, I've don't know his name and I don't ever care to, but there's some like old bald crotchety guy in the sales world who just, like, he's a total asshole and you watches videos, it's just him calling. Like, I had a guy, you know, he's, he's telling his wife push push. He's on the call, you know, doing a sales call while he's delivering, you know, in the delivery room. You know, he's a total jackass. But certain people, like, I need that in my life. You know, that, that hits for me. Yeah. There's other people in the sales realm who, you know, polar opposite and they teach similar ideas in a very different way or a different approach, right? And I think that's like, the interesting thing too is when you think about the people you learn from in your own life, like I've learned in immeasurable amounts of lessons from my dad.
Speaker 3 00:31:21 Is my dad a perfect guy? No. Was my dad the perfect dad? No, dad's the perfect dad, but it, it's right. Cause it's because it came from him and his voice and his experience, and it was something I could relate to. And so, you know, when I'm, when I'm teaching things like, you know, I, one of the things that I've blocked my own shots on for years and taken it just fine of 'em that never pushed alive. You know, when I was developing a course on how to hire and build writing teams, something that I've done, I always stopped shy because I'm like, well, I haven't done this in a corporate environment, or I haven't done this in whatever environs. Like, meanwhile, the people that I show the things I've been working on, they're like, this is so, this is great. This lands for me. So it's, yeah, I mean, it's realistically, it's just about growing a thicker skin, not worrying so much that someone's not gonna like you because the reality is the world is full of, you know, people who will find a bone to pick with anybody. And as long as you know your intent, and as long as it comes from a place of humility, you know, we're not, you're not crying c e oing it out there making it all about you, you know, I, I think people can sense that, so, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:32:31 Yeah. No, fair enough. Fair enough. Um, like wrap up talking about AI a little bit. Like you mentioned, it's, it's changing a ton I think in, in marketing and how people think ab people in the marketing space think about information, right? And, and content and stuff like that. Uh, I agree that like the, the reason that that, that I'm so bullish on like brand, whether it's my brand or Casto brand, is, is like the barrier to entry for so much is, is lowered. Um, and I think the only thing that's still kind of defensible is brand, um, and, you know, brand slash community, I think, I think they're kind of related. I don't know where, where do you see it going? Like, I think we know where we are today, or I think we know we're today. Like where do you, where do you see this going in the next like 18 months or so?
Speaker 3 00:33:12 Uh, I, I feel so mixed about all of this because on the one hand, I'm so excited for the opportunities unlocked by some of these things. The outlets created, the efficiencies found, there's some genuinely cool things happening. And I mean, I've used it in my own, in my own work, right? Like, we had a project recently where, you know, there there's almost 30 different, you know, we're, we're shooting live at this event on a very tricky subject matter complex, and we're doing these live on location interviews. And so we've got about 30 sessions, we need individual questions for that deal with specific sessions. And if I had to manually sit down and get to a point of understanding in all of those spaces and analyze each session and manually come up with question sets, it would've, it would've, it would've honestly been a week long effort.
Speaker 3 00:34:10 There's so much to get through. Instead, I was able to take, you know, the title of those sessions, the summaries of those sessions, and then carefully crafted prompts surrounding, these are the goals we have for these interviews. These are the individuals who will be watching this, these are the, these are the, you know, these things. And generate over 200 different questions at the end of the day, finalize questions more than that, that I've vetted down in, you know, a matter of hours. And so I see huge potential for things like that and for repurposing. And I think there's a lot of good that can be created. But I think the danger for me on a personal level is there's a huge difference to me, uh, between earned knowledge and access knowledge. Earned knowledge comes from experience and being in the weeds and doing the thing and understanding why something is better than something else or why you take a particular approach or why a framework.
Speaker 3 00:35:06 You know, the thinking behind a framework or model access knowledge is just, oh, I'll take that, you know? Yeah. I mean, earn knowledge to put it practically, if you live in a big city and you use gps, earn knowledge, is the ability to look at the, the route that GPS mapped out for you and go, what this thing doesn't know is that it's about to be rush hour, or there's heavy construction here that just went up a couple days ago, and I'm gonna take a different path. Access knowledge is just boop and following up blindly. Yeah. And I think the thing that I fear is when everything is easy and abundant, the perceived value of it all goes down. And especially when it comes to communication and, and things like art even that make us human, my concern is that we, and the generation that comes after us, and my kids, what I hope is that they don't lose interest in understanding how to communicate and how just because it's easy doesn't mean that it's not worth learning and doing the hard things to learn.
Speaker 3 00:36:09 Like I truly believe one of the worst things society has done is idolized efficiency above everything else. Not everything needs to be efficient. Not everything needs to be optimal. Not everything needs to be comfortable. Not everything should be quick. And I think we rob ourselves of a lot of learning and a lot of knowledge when we can just access it instead of having to earn it. And there's counterpoints to that, you know, I think, again, like there are huge pluses. You look at the opportunity for things like customized learning for people with disabilities or learning disability, things like that. You know, there's, there's so much great stuff that can be done and achieved and, and make, you know, done to make lives better. And I, I don't refute any of that. I, I'm not trying to gate keep, but I do worry for what the world looks like when we don't believe anything is worth throwing yourself into the hard work of truly navigating and understanding and doing. When everything's a button pressed, does anything really matter? Like, I don't know, I'm, I'm curious,
Speaker 2 00:37:23 And I think that's the opportunity. I mean, that, that's where I stand is like the, it's so easy to do, you know, what relatively easy to do, what you did, but, but if you were to take that week and really understand something, and that was your core job, yeah. You leveled up so much over the person that, that, you know, fed a bunch of stuff in a chat g p t and as a better than surface level understanding, but, but not like master level understanding. Um, right. And that, that, that's kind of where, that's where I am with it, is like, yeah, I mean this, all the, all of the content we have on our blog now is accessible, uh, like in, in a chat, right? Um, and, and that's, that's bad in some ways, but, um, it, it means that if we're able to, to like level up to, to the next rung that we're worth so much more in the eyes of our customers, because like, you literally can't get that from the, you know, the kind of the, the prevailing source of knowledge in all a lot of our lives.
Speaker 2 00:38:16 Um, the, the one thing I think is maybe the most cool that I haven't heard many folks talk about is like the, the, it's leveling the playing ground for folks who English is not their first language. Yeah. Right? Think about like writing, um, e even folks who, like, their writing is very, very good, but like to, to ask Che Petti to like, you know, write an article or outline an article or something like that, if English isn't your first language, like it's gonna get them on like a much better path, I think. And I think it'll, it'll really help folks in like a working situation, um, to, to work like a lot more effectively. Even
Speaker 3 00:38:49 Think, you know, it's, I I think it'll be such a fascinating kind of gotcha sort of experiment, but think about all the insidious, sometimes unintentional, sometimes ingrained biases we have, like look at a field like hiring and there's no denying to this day if certain surnames show up or certain, you know, things come through. There are biases that actively Yep. May not even be aware of. It may not be a conscious decision. Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's excusable, but things that you're not even aware of influencing the way you make decisions or influencing your decisions. Right. Can you imagine, for example, like one of the very unfair biases that a lot of us carry, even if we're aware we have to work through things like someone with a heavy accent, right? How we perceive anything from intelligence or, or capability, again, you, you look at, uh, for, for those who have disabilities, like there's lots of people who can, who are not me, but who have shared experiences of they are fully mentally capable.
Speaker 3 00:39:52 Cause they're brilliant people, but they're in a wheelchair, and so they get treated differently, which is not good or fair. Can you imagine that? You know, for example, if I, if I could use some of the voice cloning things or voiceover dubbing things to pass an interview, and then I show up as my true, you know, my true self and, and does that level the playing field, like, I think there's a fascinating opportunity, whether it's people overseas or again, people disadvantaged or disabled in, in or whatever of all different walker backgrounds. I think there's fascinating opportunities to level the playing field. And in many ways, I think a lot of people to be more their true selves or break through yeah, some of the preconceived biases, things that are very unfair, things that are not charitable, things that do prevent, um, you know, them from, from being given the same opportunities.
Speaker 3 00:40:42 So I think again, there's, there's really exciting and great things. And to be clear too, that it's not a solution that, like everyone who has a thick ex, and well, if they just mask it with this, like that's not a solution. The real solution is to, for us to check our biases and get better at Yep. Recognize and solving that underlying issue. But I think it will be very interesting to see as a tool for progress, not the only answer, but as hopefully everybody continues to do the work of unpacking and eliminating those things. Will this accelerate that? Will this make us more conscious of that? Will this level the playing field? I hope it will. I I think there's great opportunities for, for that. So it's not all bad and it's not all good. And I think my headspace is more tilted to the bad because of late, I've been watching like interviews with people saying, AI's gonna kill us all one day, and it's gonna lead to basically the end, which is terrifying as a prospect. But yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm very curious to see what kind of social impact, especially what kind of human, right? Yeah. What kind of justice impact. And you know, by, by the same token too, you know, there, there's opportunity to create, but then at the same time, you think, will people who do caricature on five or will they ever have a viable business model again, you know, if I, how will they adapt? So it's, it's, it's a real turbulent and interesting time to be alive, that's for sure. It
Speaker 2 00:42:02 Is, it is. It is. I think it's the biggest shift I've seen in, in marketing, right? And in content since I've been in this world eight years. Like, yeah, nothing else comes close, I don't think, you know, just
Speaker 3 00:42:13 Life in general, casting
Speaker 2 00:42:15 YouTube SEO's been about the same. This is just has the potential to be quite different. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:42:21 Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:42:21 Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, it's good to chat. Thanks so much for, for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:42:26 Thanks for the opportunity. I hope there's something here for people to latch onto or I, there's unpack or, or carry forward.
Speaker 2 00:42:33 Uh, I think there's a lot. Uh, and where, where, where's the best place for folks to, to connect with you?
Speaker 3 00:42:37 Yeah, uh, personally, you know, LinkedIn, I try to share kind of my own stream of consciousness and again, solve problems in public, share things that are actually useful. Don't always reply quickly, but I do always reply. So feel free to drop a message there if you're curious about case study buddy or you're just trying to improve your own processes, whether you can gauge with us or not. Are blogs full of content? Um, things that you can take and apply and noodle on. And, you know, we obviously we'd love to work with, with clients on that side of things, but we share a fair amount of our thinking there too. So it's a, it's a worthy stop if you're ever planning, you know, a program or preparing for an interview or trying to get buy-in or there's resources on all that stuff there.
Speaker 2 00:43:18 Awesome. Awesome. Thanks Joel.
Speaker 3 00:43:20 Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:43:21 Thanks for listening to another episode of Rogue Startups. If you haven't already, head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review for the show, for show notes from each episode and a few extra resources to help you along your journey. Head over to rogue startups.com to learn more.
