One of the best ways to get your message across a huge audience is
to ride a trending topic. And that's what newsjacking is all about.
When done well, it can give you a burst of traffic and also email
subscribers in a short period of time. This is what exactly, Camille Trent,
director of Content and Community at PeerSignal. They newsjack
their way to doubling their email subscribers from 6000
to 12,000 in just 45 days. Can you believe
it? In this Marketing Powerups episode, you learn, first, how PeerSignal
double their email traffic using the newsjacking technique. Second, the BLUF
technique that Camille uses to write viral posts on LinkedIn.
Third, how to create original thought leadership content that even AI
finds hard to copy. And number four, one piece of advice that
Camille used to accelerate her career. Now, before we
get started, I created a free powerups cheatsheet that you could download,
fill in, and apply Camille's newsjacking technique to double
their email subscribers. You can get that marketingpowerups.com
or find that link in the show notes and description below.
Are you ready? Let's go.
Marketing Powerups.
Ready? Go.
Here's your host, Ramli John
Specifically for peersignal, you use that to double their
email list from 6000 to 12,000 in 45 days
using LinkedIn and other things. Can you talk a little bit about what
was your approach to growing that list? And we can just go through it just
very high level because I want to get into that Power Up with the block
technique in a bit. Yeah, so you're right.
So most of it was Adam and I posting on LinkedIn.
That was our primary distribution channel. And the reason
for that was really because Adam already had built
up a good following there. It's kind of like where he initially
launched Pure Signal and grew his email list so
we knew it worked. And then on top of that, I think when I joined,
it kind of helped double that reach, right? Like, we had around the same amount
of followers. We're both at about 30K right now.
So I think if you think about it in terms of just doubling
down where you already have chips, where you already have strengths,
that's where I would recommend most people start. That was
a lot of it. I did do a little bit of experimentation with
Twitter, even a little bit of TikTok,
although I'd barely count that. So still kind of playing around with
some other channels, but trying to make sure we
stayed focused on one thing. And then I think it was helpful
for me because Adam actually, originally he
was talking about when bringing me on, like, let's branch into Twitter,
let's add some other channels. We still want to do that. But I think after
we saw what there was still what
we could still reap, I guess, from LinkedIn or how much more opportunity
there was there, he was like,
Actually, let's just focused on LinkedIn, LinkedIn first,
and don't worry about those other channels. So that really gave me the space to
focus there. Number one is really just
focus. That's the hardest thing I think for marketers is so many
shiny objects, like so many things that could work and do work for folks,
right? But it's like what's working the best for you?
Where have you already found success? And then it's like a
momentum game a little bit from there, right? And so
two ways I guess that I think about this is through the
lens of content logistics. So content as
a product, if you will. So there's the production, there's like
how the content is made. And I think of content as more of
the long form piece. So for us, that peersignal
itself has these data sets, has these
galleries, has basically this library of
resource for B, two B marketers. So we have those,
we have all that we can pull from for our research. We essentially
tap into our databases to think of
research projects and to essentially cut and filter
data to get some interesting insights so we can share. And then those insights
are distilled into our newsletter. And that's like a
weekly newsletter right now. Those are kind of like what I think of
as our long form pieces. And so a good sort of like rule
of thumb is when I'm excited about that long
form content, right? If you especially since we
are the target market to some degree, where our target market
is sales and marketing professionals and
we want to talk to the VP C suit suite
level. Not that it's not going to appeal to anyone else in that field,
but we just figure if we talk to that highest level of strategy
and we're really trying to understand go to market and how to
run an effective sales and marketing program.
I've just found that everyone else within that industry also
likes that content versus if you optimize for a
younger level and earlier level, you're not going to appeal
to the sweet C suite. Right? So starting
with that, essentially what does good look like for your organization?
And we have kind of this write up for us that's kind of a work
in progress, but how we define good content and what
we think it looks like. And then when we write that
newsletter, and often that starts one thing that we've run
into is that kind of starts with what would the press release
look like for this, right? What's the hook, what's the title
for it? And then if it's like, oh, that would appeal to
VP of Marketing, that would appeal to a VP of sales.
If that's the type of content that they'd want to consume,
that's probably a good sign. So essentially when we're excited
about the research project we're working on or about the upcoming
newsletter, I've just found that it makes the distribution a
lot easier versus if you're not excited about it, it's going to feel
like promotion because you're going to feel like you have to promote something,
right? Versus sharing something. I think when it feels
like, oh, I get to share this thing that I know is going to be
useful for a lot of folks. Like distribution
just gets really easy versus when I'm like, I have to promote
this thing because that's my job and that's it. And that's
the next step in the process, right? So I think about thinking
content, like, did we do that right? Do we have the right definition?
Is it reaching the right people? Are you excited about it? And then the
packaging stage I think of as copy and design. That's kind of
how I define packaging and distribution.
So for that I think of unique angles,
hooks, format, some newsjacking.
Like I would say though, those are some of the
ingredients that we kind of like used in
our distribution process. So to go through each of those
unique angles. So we kind of decided adam has a particular
voice. He's very analytical, he very much appeals to
that high level audience,
has been a founder multiple times. He has that credibility.
So playing to that, like still having the slide
decks and reports go through his profile
first and then I'll usually take a different approach
where it's a little bit more experimental. So for
instance, we start experimenting with what
I call like the product gifs. So for most people listening, they're going to have
a SaaS product. We have a SaaS product as well.
But when I say product GIF, like I'm more talking about
our data sets or our research. Like I'll just take a quick GIF of
essentially just like a sneak peek into this good
piece of content that we're going to be delivering. So I'll take things like that.
I'll take things like charts from our data set.
There's very data driven content and it's a mixture of screenshots
and charts and things like that. I'll just experiment with different formats
that way for the imagery and for kind of like the supporting stuff.
And so I can see an experiment with our
links still tanking on LinkedIn if we include
those in the post. I'll keep checking that
every once in a while because we have have found if you put the link
in the post but you don't have the link preview,
that can still work if you have really strong hook and
a really strong image and if it feels like native
content. So I think shout out to you, I think Amanda nagidot of
zero click content kind of idea of the more native
than it looks, even if it is a link, you can kind of overcome
the algorithm to some degree. So we experimented with that essentially.
I don't want to say Burner account, but I would almost kind of use my
account more as the Burner account. Whereas adams was more like
the true and tested things. We know this
works. And so what was fun for me, though,
is going to the newsjacking portion I'll get
into actually, I think later on we'll
get into that specific example that I'm talking about. But there's a good example
of newsjacking if you have an idea that something's coming or
you have an opportunity to capitalize on a
trend because it is relevant
to your product or the type of research that you're able to produce.
Right. So again, going back to what are your strengths? Lean into your strengths.
And then hooks. I'll talk about hooks a little
bit. I think a couple of things that over the
years of posting that I've realized is there's
a couple headline frameworks that work pretty well on
any social channel, but specifically LinkedIn is what
I call the thesis. So you
have a thesis for something. When I think about
a research paper, like my husband's in science,
right? And so you'd have to write an abstract, right? And so it's kind of
like going into the thesis or just like, you're the overview
of your project. Project. And so most important thing
first, right? And then you have your antithesis,
right? And so this is kind of more of this
is what everyone else thinks and this is why they're wrong. You have kind of
that shock value, devil's advocate
type of post, right? The trick here is I think you actually have
to believe it. You can't just be Boy who Cries wolf and just constantly
being contrarian all the time. It's going to be very obvious.
You actually have to have to believe it if you're going to do antithesis
type post objections. So I
love this for especially salespeople, but really
to help drive revenue, like, I think these
posts are good. There's probably some objections that
come up frequently, like in the sales cycle of
why people push back on your specific category or your specific product,
right? Especially if you're creating a new category.
It hasn't been adopted in the market yet. And so you just
take like a quote, Kabuma sales call of like a
good one that I used at Marketer Hire was,
if these marketers really are that good, then why
would they be going through Marketer Hire, right? Like, why can't they market themselves?
Like, that was kind of like a common objection of like, can't a good marketer
market themselves? Right? And there's tons of
reasons why, right? Good reasons why. And so just breaking
that down of breaking down someone's
objection into credible
arguments. So objection as a
headline. I really like dialogue. We love stories.
So start like just dropping into the story by
dropping into dialogue. Like two people talking, right? It can be a
conversation from work. It can be like something in
everyday life that has to do with I did this a lot, like with Sales
Tech of if I'd had a conversation with a salesperson,
even if it was for what
was it recently? It was our dishwasher.
Our dishwasher is broken. Right? You are experiencing sales
all the time. You have sales conversations all the time. So it's just observing those
from kind of a third party perspective and thinking about
what the lesson was there. So dialogue,
conversation starters. So I think these are great for creating a
community of like, how can you how
can you format a post to really be a conversation and
not a lecture and like, genuinely be asking I'm
looking for recommendations or I'm trying to get better at this thing,
like opening up the conversation to people with interesting,
intriguing questions. Right? And then the last one is
analogy. And I think these can be the best for viral
posts. Not that that should be your goal, but I think when you're able
to articulate like a really good or observe
a really good analogy and make those good comparisons,
that's the definition of creativity, really, of making those connections and
simplifying it to something that everyone understands.
So those would be like my tips for
distribution is kind of like starting with the hook, starting with some
good headlines. Before we continue, I want to thank those who made this video
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engine. Now, you can find that link in the description below.
Let's jump back in. Those are some really valuable stuff that you
just shared there. I feel like that could be a whole blog post, an episode
on its own. One of the things you mentioned earlier is
around when you're creating social posts, you want to make sure
to start off with your thesis and that
kind of ties to a technique that you've talked about in
other podcasts shows and webinars. There's something called
bluff technique and it applies here as well as the
research that all of you are doing there
at Peer Signal. What is this bluff
technique that you have talked about quite a bit
and we can jump into how applying this into one of the social posts
that you mentioned around Newsjacking. Yeah.
So the bluff is a military term and it
means bottom line up front. And someone
who was in the military actually ascribed
how I thought about headlines and how I thought about content,
like, to this technique. He's like, oh, that sounds just like what we do in
the military of bluff. And I was like, that's brilliant. That's exactly what
I'm talking about. So if you come from more of a journalism
background, they talk about this as, like, the inverted triangle,
right? So an upside down triangle, meaning the
most important information should be first, right?
And then you get to the least important information as
you go. So you start with the most important, and then you
get less and less important as you go. And that's
how a lot of real news stories are framed.
Like, you have the format is, like, who, what, when, where, why,
how, and who cares? All of that pretty much in, like,
a sentence or two. Like, you're supposed to try and, like, fit that in the
first sentence or two. So your posts
or your marketing content shouldn't be much
different. So I kind of simplify it to
translate this to LinkedIn and the whole format of one
sentence per line, which I don't think you always have to do,
but I typically would have the first line be the
point, right? Like, first line is my point.
What you can expect from this piece, essentially, you should know immediately
what I'm talking about. And then the second line
is like, my angle essentially
is kind of like the who cares? And oftentimes I
was looking back through well performing posts,
oftentimes that second line acts as an ellipses,
right? So if it kind of feels like it could use
an ellipses after it, you're probably kind of onto something
because it should feel like you want to read more, right?
That's wrong. And this is why, right? And here's the framework,
right? Like, it should be something that, like, leads easily leads
into something else. Like, I'm about to,
you know, get to the point and tell you, like, the meat of the matter,
right? But you already know what I'm talking about, and you're already
able to kind of qualify in or out early on.
So I think and this other way works too, where you
kind of dangle the carrot. It's not my preference,
right, to kind of just say,
keep reading, keep reading. Every sentence is basically just
like, keep reading. I just
always prefer when you can kind of qualify yourself
in or out of content. And I think that's interesting because
it goes back to discovery, a good discovery call.
You shouldn't be afraid to qualify a prospect
in or out, right? Like, you should be wanting to only
be talking to people who are serious, like people who
relate well with you. You shouldn't be afraid of
turning some people off because that's just the
nature of the game, right? And so just knowing that you're not going to appeal
to everyone, knowing that while it's attractive
to kind of attract everyone in this entire market, realistically,
as a marketer, your market is this you only should
be trying to attract the small portion of the market.
And sometimes I think we get greedy and we're like, but I just want the
likes, I just want to go
viral, right? Like, it gives me endorphins. But yeah,
the more that you can kind of let people qualify in and out of
your content, the better, I think. The second thing I'll add to this,
of why it's a good framework or why I like it is because
ideally, I want you to get something out of the first
line or two, whether it's like, hey, that's a
well written sentence, right? Or like, that's an interesting fact, like,
maybe it's a stat or something that you'd lead with.
Ideally, you get something from those one or two lines and you can decide,
I want to keep reading, or I don't want to keep reading. And you should
get more if you keep reading, right? Like, there should be more
value in there, but you should be able to kind of
scan the content in the same way that if I read a newsletter
or not newsletter, if I read the news and I read the headline and
the first paragraph, I know what the
news is at least, right? Like, I know what happened. So that's
kind of bloss in a nutshell.
I love this technique. For several reasoning, it's all about
leading with value, which is what product Led is really all about.
And I see what you just talked about applied to some of your
posts really well, and we're going to be talking about
this one post that's done, like, over 1360
likes and 133 comments. And it
does showcase this buff thing where you give up who
it applies to right away. And it reads here just
the first few sentences, like, Meta just laid off 13% of its
87,000 workforce, joining Stripe, Lyft, Twitter and other tech
giants. It's not good. But there might be a silver lining
for B two B tech. Those still hiring seems
to be compensating for those making cuts.
And then you have a link to peer signals. B two B tech job
resource. What was your thought process around this? It seems like
everything you talked about so far, with the hook and leading
qualifying and the audience definitely tech people. Can you
talk about how you put this together and what your thought process
was and why you think it's done so well on
LinkedIn? That's one of your most liked posts
on LinkedIn. Yeah, no, that's a nice
example to pull out because it kind of brings together a couple
of elements that we were talking about here. So it does incorporate
the bluff idea, right? Like it reads kind of
as a news article, right? Of here's the news.
Like, Meta just laid off this many people of its
giant workforce. Here are some other people that laid people off.
It's not good but there's silver lining and that's the ellipsis part,
right? That's the dot, dot, dot. I want to note what that silver lining is
as a B, two B marketer. And so under the fold,
if you think about it as a fold, that's what you see in the feed.
You don't see the rest of the post. Then hopefully you click
and then I tell you right away the good news,
right? You could just read those three lines and be okay,
interesting, these other companies are hiring
and it's kind of like breaking even. Interesting, but hopefully you
still want to read on from there as well. So that's how it
goes back to the bluff idea and journalism in general.
And then I think the other part was the newsjacking element.
So I mentioned that that was kind of a
packaging or distribution technique that had worked well
for us on a couple of occasions and in this case it
was right in the middle of these layoffs, right?
So we'd seen like these big tech companies do these layoffs
and then in doing the research for the upcoming
newsletter, which by the way was on our hiring
tracker, we were doing a monthly hiring tracker update
for B, two B sales and marketing folks. And so
it's always kind of like keeping an ear to the ground of what's the
latest news on this, and we want to be able to cover
that in the newsletter itself, but even better if
you can be there right when it's happening. So I knew
that Google was going to make cuts. They had already leaked
that they were going to make those cuts. It was just a matter
of how many. And so the newsletter
was coming out on a Thursday. I kind of pre wrote,
and I think this is a good tip for folks like pre wrote some of
the posts that we were going to do. So some ideas
for Adam, some promo posts for me. And then
I thought through, okay, if this does hit before the day
of the newsletter, I want kind of a pre written post for
that where I can basically just plug in the total number that
they end up cutting. So that's what I did, I just pre
wrote the post. And then when it did happen to come out,
I suppose I hate to say favorable, but favorable time
for us was basically like the day before.
I essentially just hit publish on that.
And yeah, there are a couple of risks
I guess too. I really didn't think it would do
that well. I thought it was well written. But there are a couple of things.
One, I wanted to be able to put the link itself to our hiring
tracker to help folks in the post itself versus buried
in the comments. But I knew LinkedIn might bury the post
because of that. So that was a bit of a risk and then also
had like a screenshot where I highlighted the
companies that were still growing that kind of emphasize
this third line of essentially the silver lining of,
hey, there are still companies growing. There are still startups and
software companies that are doing really well. So I know
it seems like the sky is falling right now,
but there is some good news that we wanted to lean into. So I
had the screenshot in there as well. So those
things were a little bit, like I said, risky. But I think
if you're ultimately selling a product or you
do have some sort of end goal like we did want to expose
more people to the hiring tracker and let people know
that there is a way to kind of pre vet
companies. It's not going to be 100% right,
like some of the growth signals that we have in there, but we have some
signals that kind of show which companies are doing
well and might be better bets for your career.
So we did want to make that a little bit more accessible even if
it kind of hurt our reach. But in this case, it didn't
end up hurting reach and we got a pretty good response from it.
Nice. Yeah. I didn't even realize that your time is specifically for this
release of the news so that you can make sure to capitalize
on that. But one thing I also really liked about this is going
back to providing value and delivering value is like, you're not just like,
oh, there are companies hiring. If you're one
of the tech people who are affected by this layoffs, we have a
resource that can help you find your next opportunity. So it really
is like value on value. And now you're leading
them to something that can actually help them with that. I think that's the
reason why if I recall in another
show you said this brought one
of the high records of new subscribers to your newsletter
when you released this. This is like one of those moments where like, oh,
boom. Daily record for new subscribers for
Peer Signal is what happened here. Yeah, so that's true.
The first wave, it was like the first week or two
at Peersignal. So it just gave us again that momentum.
Like the rush to kind of perform or
create content as kind of like high pace, like early on to sort of keep
that momentum going. But I had the opportunity to basically
release this homepage gallery and so again,
was really excited about the content, had really good long form,
not even content. It like really was like a gallery, a resource for
folks. And so that was like it felt really easy to promote because
I just really believed it was good resource. That was when we saw the
most subscribers that we had to date. And then this I think came
a week or two after that and then we actually broke that
first record. And we're like, okay, this is actually the most subscribers
that we've gotten per day. And then when we were evaluating
this a little bit, it was like part of it was broad appeal.
Right. Going back to the we mainly
talk to the level of the C suite VPs,
but this really is hyper relevant for folks.
Right. It's affecting a lot of folks. It's kind of like our chance to
give back. And then the newsjacking element.
You're not always going to have the opportunity to be at the right time,
at the right place, at the right place, the right time. And so
when you do, it's just about being ready,
right? It's just about being if
you can prepare something in advance, if you can
get everything lined up in a way where you just have the best
chance to kind of hit it out of the park. And that was kind of
our thought processes. We talked about this the other day of it's
not about hitting a home run every week or every month even.
But a lot of the projects that you do should
have the upside of being able to do that.
Right. That's good.
Give you the opportunity to at least
be we talked about this. We actually like doubles or triples. Right?
And not just like settling for singles every week,
but really kind of like having those stretch goals of like, this should at least
be like a double or triple. And it should have the upside
of being able to kind of make it out of the park. So that
was kind of the thought process here. That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing this. I want to shift gears and talk about your
career. You've been in marketing for doing
content brand and copywriting for several years now.
You worked at several companies, and I didn't even notice you worked
at a bank, texas Citizen Bank. Market hire. Marketer hire duly.
And now you are a peer signal. I'm curious,
what's a power up that's helped you with your career? Something that's kind of
given you a leg up when you're doing that.
What's a power up career power for you, so to speak, as a marketer?
Yeah. So I'd say in general,
go wide. I think just focusing on absorbing
everything that you can early on, like optimizing
for learning, I suppose. And for me, I remember there
was a moment in college where I had a really good lecture, a research
professor. I was essentially deciding if I wanted to go. I was in the
advertising program. I was deciding if I wanted to go the creative, like,
copywriting route or if I wanted to go
what was called like, account planning at the time, which is essentially like the research
route. Right. And anyways,
this professor stood out because he essentially
told us that we didn't know how
to learn. Right. Or that most people, like most people haven't
learned how to learn yet. And that was fascinating to me
because I was like, that's true. I know how to memorize things
right. I know how to do school pretty well.
But I am not always concerned
about learning, right? Or else I would remember more things
from my anthropology class or like my physical science class.
I wasn't always interested in absorbing
the information and learning how to be a student, essentially like
learning how to learn. So that was like a big light bulb
moment for me of just being
a little bit more intentional about how
to learn and when they're learning opportunities and essentially just seeing
more things as learning opportunities,
even if they seem very menial, if you're like,
I'm in this low level job. I would start out at like an agency,
and you're kind of on low level projects, so it's
easy to see I can't learn here, right? Like, I can't grow here.
For me, I think, though, it was like trying to challenge myself
with every seemingly uninteresting,
unlike, challenging type of project.
There's probably a way that you can expand it if you want to actually
learn. So think that was like the big advantage.
I think number two is I wanted to say build in public,
but I actually want to change it to experiment in public
because I think early on you really don't
have a ton of knowledge or you don't know what you know,
right? Like, you don't you don't know what knowledge is kind of like unique to
you at that point. And you're still kind of gaining that
real world experience that people
are willing to pay for. Essentially put client knowledge
or in house knowledge that you get. But what you can
do is you can always experiment in public, right?
Like, I'm setting this goal or I have this thesis,
then I'm going to do this thing. This is how I'm going to
conduct the experiment, right? And then I'll give you updates and
I'll let you know how things turn out. People are always fascinated
by that. It ends up being like a social experiment. Whether the actual
experiment itself is a social experiment, you have you're building
this kind of community or this sort of support system to
both help you as you're doing that experiment, right, help you
in your day job, essentially, but then learn how
to create and build things in
public, right? So there's a lot of benefits, I think,
to doing that. And part of it is just like getting out of your shell
a little bit. And it's hard to just
create the first few pieces of content again when you don't
necessarily know how to write or how
to communicate with people online. I think it sounds crazy,
but those two things, I think, are what stand
out. Oh, sorry, one more thing. The last thing would just be like,
I've thought this multiple times in my career, especially like, jumping into
the startup world and the software world is that
my last few jobs that I've taken, I've always felt
like I was, like, jumping into the deep end. I had that
exact thought of, like, this is
in the deep end. I'm on a diving board. You know what I mean?
This is going to be uncomfortable, but I think it's
the right thing to do. And so, yeah,
the last few moves that I made have already always kind of feel like this.
I think you want to be in a place where you bet on yourself,
where you think that you have enough of that knowledge
to do it, but it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable because
I think that's where the growth happens. And if you
meet every criteria on a job description,
it's probably too easier for you. Right. That's probably like a sign that
you should move on to that kind of next rung or at least
differentiate what you do so that you can continue to
learn. I love that the last two power ups you mentioned
ties back to your first one. How do you learn? We don't know how to
learn. But you learn through experimentation, and you're learning through
pushing yourself to what's capable, like, pushing the boundaries,
essentially. I feel like that applies to a lot
of things. Is that connection valid?
Like, that the first two kind of helps you essentially learn
faster is what they help you with.
Yeah, no, I really like that because I think well, it's funny that that happened
in college, right. Like, in, like, a learning environment
of, you know, I had this, like, foundational thing, but I wouldn't say
that I, like, you know, started implementing that are, you know,
right away. Right. Or or I was, you know,
acting like a student, like, every day. Like, that was not the case. I had
plenty of lazy days. But I think that
is true. It's like how
to build in public, how to experiment in public, like, how to learn in public
right. Is essentially that, and then jumping off into the deep end to force
yourself to learn. So good.
One final question before we wrap up, and it's kind
of related in terms of an advice or one or two
pieces of advice you'd give your younger self. If you can travel back in time,
what would you tell the younger Camille who's just,
like, starting out in brand or content and copywriting?
What would be your advice to that person starting out
in marketing? Yeah, it's a great question.
So some of the things that I had mentioned are relevant here. I think
I did a decent job of absorbing
right, and just being really curious about everything and trying to
make menial tasks into a challenge.
That part worked well, I think. I was also kind
of like advertising for the stone age, and I didn't really
realize that there were digital agencies
out there that I could be learning digital ads or
marketing at a broader level. So it took a while
for me to kind of like, and this isn't the right move for everyone,
but for me to kind of broaden from sort
of like traditional advertising and agency work,
which gave me, I think, that breadth and a nice foundation.
But then to kind of start marketing
if the first two jobs were at smaller businesses. But I think
I got some good foundations there. But I think it's realizing,
do you want to be a generalist, do you want to be a specialist?
Like trying to listen to what
other people tell you, essentially when other people tell you what your
strengths and weaknesses are, really taking that to car and seeing how
you can build your career around that, around the things
that give you energy. So I recommend paying attention to
those things early on. And then
I think the other thing was, it just goes back to
betting on yourself. So, for instance,
this first agency, they didn't allow freelancing.
And I was very, buy the book,
I'm going to work really hard for this company. And I did.
And I didn't realize, because I think I was so young, how much
leverage that I had, even as a more junior employee.
I was getting raises and was valued and I had
good friends there. But it wasn't until later that I was
like, oh, this whole no freelancing thing,
first off, everyone else is doing it.
So there's that. So I started realizing that and then I was also
like, and it's BS. Why should
we do that? I think starting to bet on
myself and again, experiment on my own,
right? Like experiment in public to some degree.
And I started kind of like a little bit of a
freelance side hustle at that time. So I
guess in retrospect, I wish I had done that early. I had a chance to,
and I did do it for one bigger brand.
And then I ended up saying like, oh, I actually can't do this anymore because
I'm not allowed, right? This was like right out of college.
And I was like, well, that was stupid because I could have really built
a good portfolio from that. But that's
what I would tell my younger self, is that bet on yourself,
take risks earlier on. And I think moving
since that stage, those early stages of agency work,
smaller business, marketing type work, and then that transition
into the startup and SaaS world, my advice
changes a little bit to try and understand yourself
better. This goes back to other things I said, but I
met with kind of not
really a life coach so much, but MBTI
type coach, right? So I really wanted to understand
my personality, my MBTI, what were my
strengths and weaknesses. And so I
think I'd recommend doing that earlier on because it helped me
understand what I was good at, what I was not good at, but it also
helped me understand how other people might see things differently
than I see them, right, and be able to have better, more empathy
for that. So I wish I'd done that earlier.
And then the last things are again, as I started to grow
and as I started to gain more confidence in some of these things,
the advice I would give is just to stay humble and
stay level, right? I think sometimes when
things don't go your way or they don't go how you expected,
it's easy to have kind of like a chip on your shoulder about that and
sometimes that can fuel you. I think Michael
Jordan, any and every documentary about him will
kind of, like, will kind of show you that there's, like, some elements
of that that you need to kind of get
yourself through hard things. But I think
realizing that it's not always about talent,
it's not always about the opportunities they're given or your work ethic,
sometimes it's also just, like, not a good fit.
I think one thing that I started realizing was,
like, oh,
I shouldn't always take a challenge because it's a challenge and as
a square peg, try and fit myself into a round hole.
Sometimes most of the time, the best option is to,
as a square peg, look for a square hole.
This is going, like, way off. But if that doesn't
exist, sometimes you're the one who's supposed to,
like, create the square hole, right? Like, whether that's becoming an
entrepreneur or, like, creating, like, a new role for yourself or,
like, you know, finding, like, that environment where you really thrive and
can sort of live up to
your strengths, essentially and best complement the business.
That's one of the early things that I would, like, tell myself is,
like, there's gonna be, like, a people pleaser
side of you or a, you know,
just like a challenge, like, mindset where you're like, I'm just going to do this
because it's hard, because it's a challenge. And that's not always
the healthiest thing for your mental state. Sometimes it's actually
like, no, you should actually find people that are already aligned
to the way that you think and you'll do your
best work. Hope you learned as much as I did with my competition with Camille.
I know I did. Now newsjacking can really backfire on you
if you don't do it well. But when you do well, like,
what peersignal and Camille did, it can give you some amazing and
really meteoric results, like what we saw
here. Now you can follow Camille on LinkedIn and Twitter. Also, you can
check out peersignal@peersignal.org. You can find all those
links in the show notes in the description. And thank you to Camille for being
on this show. If you enjoyed this episode, you'd love the Marketing
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