Ep 104: Internal B2B Influencers: Internal Experts, Authentic Content, and Advanced Demand Generation Strategies

Transcript

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Welcome to Tiny Marketing.

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This is Sarah Norblach, and this is a podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less.

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Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today.

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Ready to scale smarter?

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Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with tiny marketing growing your business with tiny marketing.

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Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, it's Sarah, and this is episode 104.

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I am talking to Frank Hussman and we are talking all about how to position yourself as an expert in the B2B space, but, probably more importantly, we're talking about the myth the notion, the misconception.

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I'll go with misconception that so many B2B companies have in that they don't want their employees positioning themselves as subject matter experts because they're afraid that they're going to get recruited out or they're going to start their own thing and leave them, that they're investing in someone who is just going to bounce because they've built up their personal brand so much.

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But the real risk in not encouraging your employees to position themselves as subject matter experts is there's less visibility for your company.

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There is less trust for your company because for service businesses, people are buying people, not in a weird way, but they are buying the brains, the intelligence of the people that work at your company.

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They need to position themselves as subject matter experts.

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They need a reputation for being brilliant at their thing in order to radiate that brilliance back to your company.

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It is so beneficial and something that so many B2Bs mess up.

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They're always afraid when they start seeing them posting on LinkedIn and building their reputation, that they're going to bounce.

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They're just priming themselves to leave when really they're helping your business.

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Even if they do choose to leave and start their own thing at one point or they get a better offer somewhere else, you get a ton of benefit from them, bringing and attracting people to your company in the first place.

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It's worth the risk.

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It is worth the risk, people.

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Okay, stay tuned and we'll get started with my conversation with Frank.

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Can you start off by introducing yourself to the audience?

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Yeah, sure, hi, I'm Frank Hussman, I'm the founder of Maxiality and we are a B2B tech agency helping companies grow.

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Basically, tech companies grow with authority marketing.

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That's awesome.

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Today, we are talking about how you can create internal subject matter experts so basically internal influencers, to help elevate the visibility and authority for your business.

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So before we dig straight into that, let's talk about why so many businesses are afraid to do this.

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Yeah, I have found that a lot of B2Bs are afraid to elevate the visibility of their employees because they're afraid that they'll get recruited right out of their business.

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Have you found the same thing?

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Yeah, so this will happen anyway.

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Yeah, so this will happen anyway.

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Yes, I really relate to that problem, but I don't really think that's the main problem, to be honest.

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But I used to have a SaaS in the past.

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I sold it three years ago or so and the developers I had in my team they got pitched, I think, every week or so, for a new job offering.

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That's just business as usual, and especially nowadays when there are no people left apparently that's what they say.

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That doesn't really matter.

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So just roll with that part, don't be afraid of that.

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And I do think that when you just stand up, when you just show your expertise and really show that you know what you're talking about, it will make yourself in the company more valuable and it will make the company more valuable.

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So I don't really.

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It's actually the same fear that has been going on when everyone got introduced to inbound marketing content marketing.

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Why would you give away your recipe?

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Oh my gosh, the secret recipe.

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That's taking me back in time.

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You're right, that was a big fear of everybody with content marketing is.

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Yeah, and they'll just do it themselves.

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No one wants to do it themselves.

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They still buy Coca-Cola.

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So apparently and I think we know the recipe right there are many competitors, yeah.

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It's a total difference.

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Some people shouldn't really worry about it at all.

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It's like you said, sarah when you show how hard it is, then people will go okay, let me try it first, and when they fail at trying it, they will hopefully get to you and buy your software, buy your service, whatever you're selling right and B2B and that's actually the bridge that we're going to have to cross to make sure that we're there, showing that it's not that easy.

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Of course, it's always talking about the problems that our clients face and they are hard right Most of the time for them.

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But if we're good marketers or if we're a great company and we show and don't tell, that's basically the leap that we're going to take.

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Yeah, that's the cornerstone of content marketing.

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For anybody who's listening and don't tell that's basically the leap that we're going to take.

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Yeah, that's the cornerstone of content marketing.

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For anybody who's listening and doesn't understand.

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Content marketing is about educating your customer on the problem that you solve, and a lot of times, it's about the customer understanding the problem, because they know the pain that they're feeling, but they don't necessarily understand why it's happening or potential solutions to it.

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So that's your job to educate them.

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And the best way to do this especially if it's a service or a SaaS company is to pull in internal subject matter experts to be the influencer.

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Anyone listening in the podcast don't know I'm using air quotes.

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What are you doing?

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But it's basically when a customer is coming to you and they're just discovering you.

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They're trying to feel you out.

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Get that know like trust factor.

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They need to.

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They're going to start digging into the people that they're going to be working with.

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They want to know more about them and they're sure as shit going to go over to LinkedIn and start Googling me, googling names, checking them out there and wanting to know if.

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Do they actually know what they say?

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They know, and that is one of the huge benefits of this.

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Yeah, so true, and those channels weren't even available 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago.

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There's so many channels right now where we can consume this content and really find out if this person isn't active, right, you can go on LinkedIn and see what their posts are about and see if there's some traction there as well.

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It's the quickest way for me to eliminate a company that I'm considering is okay.

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You guys don't talk at all about the thing that you do or a problem I'm having.

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Why would I trust you?

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It's all about that, no, discovering them.

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I like your personality.

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I think it would be fun to work with you and trust you've taught me something and I believe that you will do what work with you and trust you've taught me something and I believe that you will do what you say you're going to do so.

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how do you choose subject matter experts within an organization to be the experts, the visible experts, we'll say.

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So how do you choose the right B2B subject matter experts in an organization?

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There's always a challenge.

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It depends on the stage that a company is in and how big the company is.

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But I work with a lot of tech companies, from startups to scale-ups, and I always start with the founders because they've had a vision to create some sort of product, a software product that will help someone ease their pain with the software they created.

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So they really know about the problem, the mode, about the market.

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They know about the prospects.

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They know everything about that they're going through, hopefully, if they have product market fit.

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So that's always the first to go to.

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But depending on the stage, depending on how big the team is, depending on how many people there are actually in the company not only working on marketing yourself, but how big it is, and sometimes the founders will not have any time in their calendar to work with you, so you have to find another subject matter expert or we'll have some kind of way to even go around that.

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I'll get to that later.

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But other subject matter experts will be people who are client facing.

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It can be salespeople, can be consultants.

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I work with one company that has a consultant that has even written a book about their field, the industry.

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That's the go-to person to get all this knowledge from and to put it out there, because he is not doing it, he can't do it whatever, and that really helps as well, but then it's the.

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The last problem that can face is that not everyone is good talking about the things that you want to see on all these channels.

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Right, they might be able to write it or even have trouble writing it, but there's some way that they they crop it in their brain, but it doesn't necessarily translate to great content.

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Yeah, and this is actually the hardest part how do you select the right person?

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We've worked with so many different people and we actually coach them during our sessions to make sure that they are camera ready, cause we always start with video.

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Um, and yeah, that's the process and at some point I've never experienced it, but at some point you have to accept that maybe this is not the right way to go and we'll actually have experience at one time, and then someone just let my co-founder do it, and that's correct.

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Sometimes you both want to do it.

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So, yeah, that's how you find subject matter experts, and I think one thing I wanted to touch upon is that sometimes they don't have any time right, so you have to schedule a meeting every month for an hour, whether it's a subject matter expert from the company or whether it's the founder in the company, of course, and if you just schedule one hour, there must must be one hour 20 minutes.

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Okay for a founder, that's really busy.

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If you just schedule that, you can do a video call like this and you'll have content for a couple of weeks actually, if you prepare well, of course.

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Yeah, and that really works to show your expertise and become an authority in your industry.

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Yeah, that is really smart just putting it on the calendar so it's always there they can expect.

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Okay, we're going to be sharing some knowledge during this hour, so I need to mentally prepare for that.

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But, to reiterate, the first people that you look at when you're looking for an internal subject matter expert to be visible would be founders first, and then it would be the people that are internal that already have an audience, like the person who is an author, and last it's customer facing employees.

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That's also the order that I do.

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But when I'm working with my clients is right there.

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But even if I work with a lot of construction companies, facility companies, real estate that aren't really comfortable being on camera or being an influencer an influencer they even just having like a quick 15 minute conversation to grab stories that they have that you can pull into.

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Written content is a good like fallback If you can't get comfortable with being on a podcast or in video.

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But those real stories with actual customers, those are gold because it really helps people put themselves in the shoes of that customer and can understand the real benefits of it.

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So true, yeah, but I do think that every company will transform into some sort of company that will release content in different media formats.

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So we used to create lots of blog articles.

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That has been ruined right now because of AI and Google quality, whatever.

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That's just interesting.

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Of course you can still create content, of course you can still rank it, but you don't want to have me too content.

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The top 10 reasons why construction workers, whatever.

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We don't want that anymore.

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personal stories yes, you need those stories.

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Ai can't tell those stories, but you can't no, yeah, so that's why the interviews are great, and I do.

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I see the challenge that some people are just not really great at doing this stuff, but then then still they are.

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Probably, when they started the company, they have been talking to customers, potential customers, so they know how to talk, how to persuade people.

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They still tell stories anyway.

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Another way to do it is, if you're any way close, it's just to set up two cameras, or even one camera actually, because you only need one, and then just do it like this, but not with a Zoom call or whatever, and that might work as well, if that is a possibility.

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We never do it that way because we all work with companies all over the world actually, so that's not an option for us, but that would help.

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And the second thing is, like I mentioned before, we coach people as well, so we really prepare them during the calls and people as well, so we really prepare them during the calls, and we know it's hard, and we know it's hard to see yourself afterwards as well, and the first take is really not that good, but you grow into it.

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And, yeah, like I mentioned before, I think every company will evolve into something like this, because we've got so many platforms right now where we can share our knowledge.

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Actually, it's completely different than five years ago.

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Yeah, it really is.

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Five years ago, podcasting was like baby.

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It was a little baby on the content.

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Well, I know the audio right.

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Yeah, okay.

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So how do we help our?

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You talked about coaching.

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I'd love to know how you coach them.

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How do we help these internal content creators create better content?

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Yeah, it's basically just giving them feedback.

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How do we help these internal content creators create better content.

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Yeah, it's basically just giving them feedback, just making, assuring them that they're great stuff and making them repeat something.

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So we actually had a call I think it was one or two days not today, but last week, I think it was with with someone who's into sales he's a founder of a company as well, but he's into sales and the funny part was that we had a connection problem on his end.

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I don't even know what happened.

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So we did.

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We did it again because he wanted to do them again and we were like, okay, yeah, sure, it's great, it's the first time that we did that, and even for someone who was great at sales.

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The second take was just amazing.

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It was like looking at a presenter that could be on television.

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It was really, and if I looked them back, looked the footage back, it was like wow, this is so much better than the first time.

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It also comes to just yeah, it's like being in the movie, right, the director says let's do another take.

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We're not going to do 10 takes, of course, a maximum, two or three, and then still, we can select if we want to keep something or not.

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When in the final edit, select if we want to keep something or not when in the final edit.

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So, yeah, it helps to just make sure that you're just you're asking them the right questions, that they already know, so that they are more or less prepared.

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If they don't have any time, we'll ask the question that they get anyway, so they know them.

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That will help.

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And the second thing is that we are really reassuring them that they're doing great stuff and that it's fine what we're doing, and if you're not happy with the, do it again and it's conversational and that that all happens.

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That that's also something that they really like.

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So it's not a rapid fire interview for cnn where you're gonna get the rosage yes.

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so having that content created in a conversation where it's like me and you right now, where we can cut whatever we want, but also building in rehearsal time where that we already know that first take is not going to be amazing, so build it in ahead of time so people who aren't used to creating content regularly, this is going to be one take, but we too, this is our thing.

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Not everybody is like that, so you need to build in that rehearsal time.

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And I do think that the B-roll part, where you just are not really at your best, can be great if you want to go the infotainment route.

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So I think, first up you have to create a lot of how-to videos or personal stories, all the things that your prospect really want to hear, and it's more or less serious.

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I'm putting up the quote marks as well.

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They don't really have to be that serious.

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We're B2B but we're talking to humans still, so it can be any way you want it.

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And I think a logical, not even a next step, but another step will be to show some humor as well in the things that you create, because it will make you stand out.

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And you mentioned something about construction workers.

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You could have so many fails in there.

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That will work, if you would even record on site.

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Yes, 100%, and I love that I keep in a lot of the mess ups in this podcast, just because it feels more human and it's more approachable.

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But I also love like a blooper reel yeah, yeah, I personally have not used that yet, but it's something that I want to do in in this year because I think it shows more personality and I think we should laugh more.

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Anyway, we really could.

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You could even put it towards like the tail end of whatever your, whatever content you're producing.

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You could have a little cut scene and then the bloopers people love, love that.

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Absolutely, and we'll remember it too and we'll probably share it even more.

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So, yeah, yes, exactly, you convinced me to put it higher on the product.

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Good, while we're talking about the human side of it, I think we and the B-roll and stuff is I think we really at a sort of crossroads.

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I see so many marketeers go the AI route all in and they even want to create these kinds of video podcasts with AI, whatever, and videos you're moving your mouth with the script or something like that.

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It's really weird to look at.

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It's probably getting better, but anyway.

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So taking out the human out of everything, that's one road that we can take, that lots of marketers are actually taking, and the other route is just how can we be the source of AI?

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The only way that we can do that is by sharing the things that are inside our head, that live, and that we know from our clients, from personal things that we have seen so many times.

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And if you share these stories, it will always be more genuine and be more shared as well, and people will see you're a true expert, instead of the me too route that a lot of people are following.

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So it's interesting times.

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Yeah, I 100% agree, and I think that's why I've intentionally made my content a little again.

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I'll put quotes, messier, because I want it more human in real, to counteract all of the AI that's in this world.

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Let's show the human side of content.

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Yeah, couldn't agree more, and especially with software services.

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It's sometimes when you're talking about construction works, right it's, you can show the human side way better.

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But software you can't put it in a box, you can't ship it really, and it's always especially the start, so focused on features and stuff like that.

00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:50.282
Why don't you show how you transformed someone's life, a company, whatever with the software?

00:20:50.282 --> 00:20:53.355
That is not really that hard to do and you can also capture that on video.

00:20:53.557 --> 00:21:07.500
Yes, I love that Telling those customer stories makes such a huge difference, because it's not always easy for someone who's not techie, for example, to understand how your software can apply to them.

00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:24.897
So telling stories within those use cases will help a lot, because it feels really foreign when you're looking at a use case list and you're like okay, my thing is listed there but I don't really get that's going to change my life.

00:21:25.199 --> 00:21:26.182
Not until.

00:21:27.230 --> 00:21:27.351
David.

00:21:27.371 --> 00:21:27.490
Pérez-.

00:21:27.490 --> 00:21:28.375
So use cases?

00:21:28.375 --> 00:21:28.836
Definitely.

00:21:28.836 --> 00:21:29.913
Yeah, jobs to be done.

00:21:29.913 --> 00:21:32.714
Uh, faqs you can put it everywhere, even the blog articles.

00:21:32.714 --> 00:21:42.720
Why not even put show some human in there with maybe how you would do it with your tool and how other people could do it manually, whatever it's, it's not really that hard to create something like.

00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:46.740
You don't have to create 12 minute long videos or 30 minute long video casts.

00:21:47.122 --> 00:21:57.963
It can be one minute yeah, people love the short views apparently our attention span is yeah, we're a bunch of goldfish, for sure.

00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:27.083
But what you were saying before of doing a comparison of maybe your competitive alternatives within your content compared to yours, it could be interesting to run experiments like timing yourself, doing it one way versus the other so you can show them, and it could be really fun and experimental and maybe do a time lapse where you're showing them what you did.

00:22:27.083 --> 00:22:35.211
So I don't know, being less, less serious and thinking outside of the box could be an interesting way to do it.

00:22:35.211 --> 00:22:49.019
You can pull in those subject matter experts too that might not be comfortable in like this conversation type of thing, but you're still showing them when they're running this experiment in maybe a situation where they feel more comfortable.

00:22:49.781 --> 00:22:57.210
Yeah, especially when you do it with other people, right, it gives you more credibility, yeah, and that's, I think, one other way to add a subject matter expert.

00:22:57.210 --> 00:23:09.416
You can also hire a subject matter expert, and it can be a freelancer that knows your industry really well, and, of course, this person will be credited as well, so it will not be someone from your own company.

00:23:09.416 --> 00:23:28.659
But if you work with such a person for a long time by creating content and still, we did this in the past so many times by creating listicles with other people that would answer questions about your industry the top 10 questions answered by experts in industry XYZ we always did these kinds of blog articles, right?

00:23:28.659 --> 00:23:39.645
So why not work with one or two of these freelancers or maybe I don't know people that you find in your network that have lots of knowledge of your industry and work with them together to create this content?

00:23:39.645 --> 00:23:43.180
I think that's only a win if you don't have anyone else in your organization to help you.

00:23:43.534 --> 00:23:44.750
Oh, 100%.

00:23:44.750 --> 00:23:49.461
I would say not if I would say and yeah.

00:23:49.461 --> 00:23:56.364
The amount of people seeing or consuming your content, because they'll have their own audience.

00:23:56.990 --> 00:23:59.973
Yeah, I'd love that, to be honest, your content, because they'll have their own audience.

00:23:59.973 --> 00:24:00.694
Yeah, I'd love that, to be honest.

00:24:00.694 --> 00:24:01.076
But B2B is still.

00:24:01.076 --> 00:24:07.786
I wish we would just get more from the B2C playbooks, and I think this, at the end of the day, is working with influencers however you would call them.

00:24:07.786 --> 00:24:11.836
They are influencers in their industry, so why don't we work together?

00:24:11.836 --> 00:24:13.837
And I wish we would do that more in B2B.

00:24:13.837 --> 00:24:22.718
So I'm starting, small-ish, by working with the people inside the company yeah but yeah, next level will definitely be working with other people to amplify.

00:24:22.897 --> 00:24:28.897
Yeah I think that's happening more and more yeah but we just call it something different.

00:24:28.897 --> 00:24:32.892
It's not influencer marketing, even though it's influencers.

00:24:32.892 --> 00:24:47.984
It's more collaborative marketing, where we're co-marketing with someone else that shares the same audience as us, but we're doing it all the time with events, webinars, podcasts, videos, live stream interview panels.

00:24:47.984 --> 00:24:51.300
All of that is still influencer marketing.

00:24:51.300 --> 00:24:55.358
It's just a different genre, I'll say, of it.

00:24:55.700 --> 00:24:56.843
Yeah so true.

00:24:56.843 --> 00:24:59.771
Rough, I'll say yeah of it.

00:24:59.771 --> 00:25:24.950
Yeah so true, but I wish that we would integrate it more in our content strategy as well, by really using their expertise, amplifying your own brand by just creating some, like a netflix series, just episodes content with people that know your audience yeah, episodic content is what I do for companies, but I absolutely love it because it gives you something consistent that you're always creating.

00:25:25.351 --> 00:25:34.318
So you build an audience, you get known for that thing, but then you can pull in those influencers within your industry to amplify the reach.

00:25:34.318 --> 00:25:41.050
On every single episode you get a new audience that's pulled in by the reach.

00:25:41.050 --> 00:25:42.673
On every single episode you get a new audience that's pulled in.

00:25:42.673 --> 00:25:50.837
I literally just this morning wrote a LinkedIn post about that, how I would not be at all where I am today if it wasn't for the influencers who helped me early on.

00:25:50.837 --> 00:25:58.458
We're like, okay, your show is not known at all, but okay, I'll let you interview me, yeah that's an amazing example.

00:25:58.679 --> 00:25:59.279
Wow, yeah.

00:26:00.461 --> 00:26:02.365
Yeah, it has helped a lot.

00:26:02.365 --> 00:26:12.242
So the last piece that we were going to talk about today is so we're helping our internal influencers create content.

00:26:12.242 --> 00:26:14.778
How do we promote that now?

00:26:16.151 --> 00:26:18.718
Yeah, so it always starts with your ICP, right.

00:26:18.718 --> 00:26:20.402
Where is your ideal client profile?

00:26:20.402 --> 00:26:21.472
Where can we find them?

00:26:21.472 --> 00:26:28.837
And in B2B, most of the time we work with tech companies, they're definitely on LinkedIn and, of course, on Google as well.

00:26:28.837 --> 00:26:30.871
But, yeah, we have to be on LinkedIn.

00:26:30.871 --> 00:26:36.496
So what we do is we distribute the content on LinkedIn and organic content and the best performing content.

00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:43.300
After a month, we will amplify with LinkedIn ads on a targeted account based list.

00:26:43.611 --> 00:26:46.342
So we will go to a maximum of.

00:26:46.382 --> 00:27:01.710
That depends, of course, on the whole total addressable market, of course, but we'll use about a thousand accounts and then we'll boost the content that worked for them and we will do that that round every month because we're creating organic content.

00:27:01.931 --> 00:27:08.256
We know what works, so we know what we can do next month as well in the interviews, and we amplify it as well.

00:27:08.256 --> 00:27:28.031
We do it in the cold audience on LinkedIn and we do it in a retargeted audience with, of course, a different messaging and a different call to action, and people know you by then, of course, a different messaging and a different call to action, and people know you by then, so you can definitely make it a more positive conversion.

00:27:28.031 --> 00:27:34.718
That's basically the approach that we use when we are focusing on LinkedIn, which is definitely the main channel and the good news.

00:27:34.718 --> 00:27:40.163
Of course, when you create this content, we always create articles as well, and that will help for Google.

00:27:40.163 --> 00:27:50.605
But the people in Google, they already know they have a problem, so they're problem aware and that's where you capture the demand and you have to create it, in our case, for the company to work with on LinkedIn.

00:27:53.798 --> 00:27:57.397
I love that, so I don't do any paid anything.

00:27:57.397 --> 00:28:00.232
So tell me more about this.

00:28:00.232 --> 00:28:02.135
It makes sense your process.

00:28:02.135 --> 00:28:05.661
You're seeing what's resonating with your audience first before you're putting money to it.

00:28:05.661 --> 00:28:08.865
But how successful are your LinkedIn ads?

00:28:10.849 --> 00:28:14.020
Basically it's called demand generation right.

00:28:20.092 --> 00:28:23.314
I can't hear it on my end, at least right now okay, no worries.

00:28:25.315 --> 00:28:29.726
Yes, this is also about demand generation versus demand capturing.

00:28:29.726 --> 00:28:30.982
And then we've got the lead generation.

00:28:30.982 --> 00:28:33.963
Everyone used to go the lead generation route.

00:28:33.963 --> 00:28:52.144
So you put on LinkedIn a white paper that's three articles written by an intern, most of the time and you will boost that and you will pay about $30 or so for every person that would enter their email information via lead form.

00:28:52.144 --> 00:28:55.509
It will get to sales and sales will go.

00:28:55.749 --> 00:28:58.171
Okay, thanks for the 100 leads you just sent me.

00:28:58.171 --> 00:28:59.392
I'm going to call them all.

00:28:59.392 --> 00:29:04.945
So he or she is going to call them and after a month or so they will come back and are like they're not that great.

00:29:04.945 --> 00:29:06.797
Okay, let's do it again.

00:29:06.797 --> 00:29:08.077
That's basically how it goes Right.

00:29:08.077 --> 00:29:08.519
Let's do it again.

00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:09.680
That's basically how it goes Right.

00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:10.682
And this used to work.

00:29:10.682 --> 00:29:21.058
Definitely, because from the 100 leads you would get to sales about two or three that would even get to somewhere and maybe you get one sale at some point.

00:29:21.058 --> 00:29:28.047
But nowadays costs are way higher and everyone knows that they're going to be followed by email, a phone, whatever.

00:29:28.047 --> 00:29:31.664
So this playbook isn't really working anymore.

00:29:31.664 --> 00:29:41.638
And last thing about this that the people are really in a self-serve buyer journey right now, so they want to consume the content on their own terms, in their own pace.

00:29:41.719 --> 00:29:42.080
Yeah.

00:29:43.084 --> 00:29:44.156
Yeah, that's.

00:29:44.156 --> 00:29:46.223
The main challenge is when we talk about lead generation.

00:29:46.223 --> 00:29:59.023
So there's a whole shift going to demand generation, which means we create demand for your product or services at the places where your ideal prospects are and, like I mentioned before, that's usually LinkedIn.

00:29:59.023 --> 00:30:08.279
And what we're doing is we'll create hand raises on LinkedIn by organic content and by LinkedIn ads, and we'll measure that by pipeline velocity.

00:30:08.279 --> 00:30:16.077
So that means attributed marketing channel that we're using is the marketing channel, which is LinkedIn.

00:30:16.077 --> 00:30:16.339
Of course.

00:30:16.339 --> 00:30:18.875
That has attributed to the pipeline velocity.

00:30:18.875 --> 00:30:24.288
So that means that the pipeline will grow or sales cycle will shorten, and we'll do this.

00:30:24.288 --> 00:30:26.221
We'll measure this definitely every month.

00:30:26.221 --> 00:30:32.923
We'll check this every three months consistently and if that's going the right direction, we know that we're doing the right things.

00:30:32.982 --> 00:30:45.682
That's one, and the second one I'm going to be technical is we will check where the leads are coming from by just an empty field on every form on the website, and that's just how did you find us?

00:30:45.682 --> 00:30:47.221
So it's not pre-filled.

00:30:47.221 --> 00:30:48.901
Please don't put anything in there.

00:30:48.901 --> 00:30:55.541
Just make sure that anyone can put anything in there and that your sales is also following that up by asking it again.

00:30:55.541 --> 00:31:02.599
And it will amaze you how many people say I listened to the podcast, I saw an organic post, but I never saw an organic post.

00:31:02.599 --> 00:31:06.202
I saw a post by the founder right, or I saw something on LinkedIn.

00:31:06.202 --> 00:31:17.576
So if you do that correctly, then you're creating demand and you're also capturing it, because people raise their hand and get to your website and you will know where they're coming from and yeah.

00:31:17.576 --> 00:31:21.443
So that's basically how that part works did you?

00:31:21.644 --> 00:31:24.950
okay, that's me fast forwarding.

00:31:24.950 --> 00:31:26.917
Yeah, by it was.

00:31:26.917 --> 00:31:30.584
By what in the the thing that you were measuring?

00:31:31.846 --> 00:31:32.787
Pipeline velocity.

00:31:33.147 --> 00:31:33.709
What is that?

00:31:39.454 --> 00:31:44.154
Pipeline velocity is basically a big formula that I can show you.

00:31:44.154 --> 00:31:56.557
I'll bring it up for you because it's a big formula and you can put it in HubSpot, for example, or even PipeDrive, whatever.

00:31:56.557 --> 00:31:57.278
You're using Salesforce as well.

00:31:57.278 --> 00:32:07.804
But at the end of the day, it's about the number of opportunities you've gotten and the times the average annual contract value times the win rate and you will divide that by the sales cycle.

00:32:08.316 --> 00:32:11.240
So that's the pipeline velocity and I always do this in a month.

00:32:11.240 --> 00:32:19.241
But in B2B there will never be a lead on day one and on the third day it will be a sale.

00:32:19.763 --> 00:32:20.506
Not in my life.

00:32:21.634 --> 00:32:24.044
No, that would be great, but it doesn't happen.

00:32:24.044 --> 00:32:27.243
So that's why I look at it in quarters.

00:32:27.243 --> 00:32:37.800
So it's opportunities times the average annual contract value, times the win rate, and then you divide it by the period of days, so one month if you do it by a month or three months.

00:32:39.242 --> 00:32:40.825
That's interesting.

00:32:42.106 --> 00:32:50.881
Yeah, and, of course, sorry to interrupt you, sarah, but the thing is that we have been told that you can measure everything, and we have been told this by Google Analytics.

00:32:50.881 --> 00:32:51.766
Of course people advocate for that.

00:32:51.766 --> 00:32:55.403
Been told by that by people who create attribution software and HubSpot as well.

00:32:55.403 --> 00:32:57.932
They all say you can measure everything.

00:32:57.932 --> 00:33:01.535
The thing is you can't anymore, for a lot of different reasons.

00:33:01.535 --> 00:33:02.873
First of all, cookies are dead.

00:33:02.873 --> 00:33:04.773
You can't use them anymore.

00:33:05.234 --> 00:33:05.698
We got GDPR in Europe.

00:33:05.698 --> 00:33:08.855
We got all these kinds of regulations as well, so it's really hard to track them anyway.

00:33:08.855 --> 00:33:10.076
And then there's the third problem is that the many.

00:33:10.076 --> 00:33:10.715
You can't use them anymore.

00:33:10.715 --> 00:33:11.217
We got GDPR in Europe.

00:33:11.217 --> 00:33:13.198
We got all kinds of regulations as well, so it's really hard to track them anyway.

00:33:13.198 --> 00:33:18.859
And then there's the third problem is that the many different channels that we got people switching browsers, people going off of VPNs.

00:33:18.859 --> 00:33:21.842
Even so, it's a real challenge to measure everything.

00:33:21.842 --> 00:33:25.743
And the most important reason is it's not a linear buying journey anymore.

00:33:25.743 --> 00:33:32.928
So if you look at Google Analytics, for example, it will report SEO traffic is your number one channel.

00:33:32.928 --> 00:33:43.113
Everything comes from Google, which is completely wrong, because they probably, if you go the expert authority marketing way, they probably have seen you somewhere on LinkedIn, right, and then Google you.

00:33:43.113 --> 00:33:47.044
Then they Google your name, yeah, and then they put in the form right.

00:33:47.044 --> 00:33:48.540
So it's really cool.

00:33:50.415 --> 00:33:52.461
I agree 100% with that.

00:33:52.461 --> 00:33:59.423
Seo is the highest on everything, but they have to discover you existed somewhere.

00:34:00.226 --> 00:34:01.208
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:05.878 --> 00:34:06.098
Let's see.

00:34:06.098 --> 00:34:09.824
Yes, there is a training expert video.

00:34:09.824 --> 00:34:13.771
Can you tell the audience what you're giving away?

00:34:15.215 --> 00:34:25.824
Yeah, so if you want to know more about authority marketing and how you can show your expertise, you can go to maxialitycom and you can check out the free video training I've made, and you can do it all by yourself.

00:34:26.885 --> 00:34:31.429
Yes, it's called how to Become an Industry Authority and we'll have the link in the show notes.

00:34:31.429 --> 00:34:33.791
And you said you're on LinkedIn.

00:34:33.791 --> 00:34:34.831
You're most active there.

00:34:38.675 --> 00:34:39.960
So should they follow you personally or should they follow?

00:34:39.960 --> 00:34:41.364
It would be great because I'm the most active of our company.

00:34:41.364 --> 00:34:43.090
Yes, frank Hussman, just follow me there, please.

00:34:43.090 --> 00:34:45.181
Happy to share my network and tips there.

00:34:45.181 --> 00:34:46.344
Yeah, Awesome.

00:34:46.655 --> 00:34:49.960
We'll share that link then directly to the show notes.

00:34:49.960 --> 00:34:56.048
So just boop on over below the show notes page and you'll find all of that.

00:34:56.048 --> 00:34:57.371
Thank you for joining me.

00:34:57.371 --> 00:34:59.663
Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

00:35:00.735 --> 00:35:01.840
No, thanks, sarah for having me.

00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:05.326
It's really great to talk about all this stuff with a fellow B2B marketeer.

00:35:06.056 --> 00:35:08.264
Yes, it's so rare that we get to talk to each other.

00:35:08.264 --> 00:35:12.791
All right, thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:35:12.791 --> 00:35:15.222
And that's a wrap, boop.

00:35:16.056 --> 00:35:31.420
Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode on how to position yourself and your employees as subject matter experts out in the world so you can attract more clients and earn their trust.

00:35:31.420 --> 00:35:39.485
If you liked this episode, don't be afraid to like, subscribe, rate, review and tell your friends.

00:35:39.485 --> 00:35:47.822
If you really liked this episode, please take a screenshot of you listening to it and post it on social.

00:35:47.822 --> 00:35:48.463
Tag me.

00:35:48.463 --> 00:35:56.043
I am at SarahNoelBlock my full name on all of the socials, so share your screenshots, tag me.

00:35:56.043 --> 00:35:59.922
I'd love to see that and be friends, engage with you guys.

00:35:59.922 --> 00:36:02.541
All right, we'll be seeing you next week.

00:36:02.956 --> 00:36:05.244
You love all things tiny marketing.

00:36:05.244 --> 00:36:24.684
Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the Tiny Marketing Club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback and pop-up coaching that will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business.

00:36:24.684 --> 00:36:26.246
So I'll see you over in the club.

Ep 104: Internal B2B Influencers: Internal Experts, Authentic Content, and Advanced Demand Generation Strategies | Expert Guest: Frank Husemann

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