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What kind of ServiceNow content gets attention? How do you get people to stop and look at your material? How do you get people to remember you? In this episode CJ & The Duke discuss their opinions on how to win attention.
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
[00:00:00] Duke: All right, Corey, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:02] CJ: Dude today, we're talking about everything, anything and nothing at all, man, we sat down and we, didn't necessarily have had have a topic. Right. But we we've been on summer vacation and, and we felt like we needed to get something out. So we're here we are.
[00:00:15] Duke: yeah. One episode in June. couldn't decide. So we just thought the hell with it. Let's just talk.
[00:00:21] CJ: let's just chat, man. See what happens? Right. So.
[00:00:24] Duke: So.
[00:00:25] CJ: No, you go what's up. what's going on in the ServiceNow world of the duke.
[00:00:33] Duke: Okay. Uh, let's talk about giving value to the people who listen. And I'll start off with a thread that I did today and I'll post that link in the description below. Uh, it was a LinkedIn thread because man, I get like 15 minutes. between activities to scroll LinkedIn and see what's up. Right.
That's how I collect my news. I see. What's cool. I learn a hell of a lot,
[00:00:57] CJ: Right.
[00:00:58] Duke: You know what that grinds my gears
[00:01:02] CJ: What's that duke,
[00:01:03] Duke: is I gotta scroll. Like I'm not, I'm not kidding. I gotta scroll like 50 times to find something cool. Because I'm scrolling through like, oh, I just got this micro cert or, Hey, I took the fundamentals course, like not get the cert. I just took the fundamentals course. Or, and it's like, man, I can understand why a beginner would be proud of that.
[00:01:21] CJ: right.
[00:01:22] Duke: But at the same time, it's like, if you want the spotlight, you gotta talk about stuff. That's not your certs, your micro certs and your courses. Cause that's doctrine not experience. and secondly, they're practically no fail.
[00:01:38] CJ: okay.
[00:01:39] Duke: Right. And so you're basically telling people like, Hey, you know, I, I read a pamphlet, I read some stuff.
It doesn't, it doesn't
[00:01:47] CJ: you a little bit on that, right? I cause, cause I mean, yeah, micro cert I I think are practically, no fail, but like the CSA. Oh man, that, that one's got some he to it.
[00:01:59] Duke: Yeah. I mean, it's no you're right. I know people who have failed the CSA and it's like, I'm not trying to shame them or, make them feel bad or whatever. But I would say that I read a short book is essentially what these courses are. Right.
[00:02:14] CJ: Right. Yeah.
[00:02:15] Duke: I, I, I read a short book and I took a test on what I read.
Like, they're not, they're not proposing thought invoking exercises it's recall of terms,
[00:02:26] CJ: Gotcha.
[00:02:27] Duke: not like on CSA, they're saying, Hey, listen, how would you handle a situation where you don't have access to timecard days and somebody wants to do monthly billing based off of their time cards.
[00:02:36] CJ: Right.
[00:02:36] Duke: it's not a solutionizing test. It's a. Recall test. And it's just, did you touch enough components such that you'd see the answer immediately because you did it once. And so I can understand the sense of pride, but I think a lot of people on LinkedIn, especially the new bloods, right.
They are trying to get some kind of exposure, some kind of spotlight.
[00:03:01] CJ: Yeah,
[00:03:02] Duke: So that, they're more attractive as an employee, right? Some of these people are still looking for jobs after NextGen or whatever. So it's like, Hey, look at me. I got this micro cert and I'm like, it's not making you attractive
And so I, I put a thread today and I just really implore people don't write about your doctrinal. exam, your CSA, your micro cert, your whatever provide insights and you don't have to be a seasoned pro to have insights.
You know what I mean? It's like, oh, today I built something with UI actions and, This is what I learned about it. And it's like, yeah, maybe the pros are like, yeah, whatever. Everybody knows that, but not everybody knows that.
[00:03:41] CJ: Right. And so, yeah, so I I'd like to pick up on that thread right. And say, we don't have enough newbie thought leadership. because there's a different, view from folks who are just getting into the ecosystem. Just folks who are old and crafty and, and been in the ecosystem for a long, for a long time.
Right. we often, accept certain things as just the way they are. And we've long since learned to work around them. Because we've been doing this for a decade.
[00:04:12] Duke: Or I haven't done it in five versions,
[00:04:14] CJ: Right. Or
[00:04:15] Duke: know what I mean? And it's just like, no, the whole world turned upside down, buddy. Like, hurry up, grandpa, get up.
[00:04:21] CJ: Exactly.
[00:04:22] Duke: the times.
[00:04:23] CJ: So, yeah, all right, so I'm with you on that, right? Like, I wanna hear some more new voices, I want folks who've been only on the end, the system for, you know, zero to six months or zero to a year. Right. who've just started getting built in, who've just started using the UI and using the, platform and just started with their first.
And they're going through this stuff and thinking, God, this doesn't make any sense in this area. I wanna hear that.
[00:04:48] Duke: Yeah. Or like, honest questions, the stuff that you learned, the stuff that you found. Cool.
[00:04:55] CJ: Yeah.
[00:04:56] Duke: but just not, I took this micro cert or just a lot, like I see a lot of stuff to you. Like I learned UI policies. what was the cool thing that you learned?
I learned flow designer. Okay. But.
[00:05:08] CJ: Yeah.
[00:05:08] Duke: but what blew you away about it or, or what's still confusing or what did you build with it?
[00:05:14] CJ: Yeah. Yeah. What's the lesson there. What's the takeaway. What's the cool thing that you did there. And I think, honestly, if you add that context to that, statement. You get so much more interaction on that pulse, you get so many more views, so many more eyeballs, right.
And you, and you look so much better to potential employers, Because not only are you articulating that, Hey, I know what a UI policy is, but you're actually showing that you know, what a UI policy is and you've done something with it.
[00:05:42] Duke: And you don't know who doesn't know that. And then you're either. getting corrected or you're growing an audience.
[00:05:50] CJ: Yeah, exactly. And correction's good, like, I learn by challenge, right? Like I like surrounding myself with folks who disagree with me, who, are probably gonna be smarter than me because then I can challenge myself against their ideas or they can tell me how I'm wrong.
And then I can either one prove that I'm not, or to change my idea. Right. you need that challenge. You need that little bit of conflict, but you can't get that without putting new ideas out into the world. without opening yourself up to that little bit of critique so that, folks can come in and offer that, gentle correction, or they can come in and offer that, challenge to, you know, your thought piece.
Right. So then you have to. During that defense, you figure out whether or not you're full of crap or not.
[00:06:33] Duke: Yeah. Another thing I think I put in here for everybody's consideration on the content creation game is , Imagine your post as being a meal and everybody's had a survival meal, right?
[00:06:44] CJ: Yeah.
[00:06:45] Duke: know, everybody's had a, butter sandwich at one point or their life, or like, a single slice of bologna between, two slices of bread.
If you got it,
[00:06:53] CJ: Yeah. SOP sandwich. Yeah.
[00:06:55] Duke: a of rice,
[00:06:57] CJ: Yep.
[00:06:58] Duke: , and your memory of it depletes. I ate bowl of rice. It's done. I forgot about it,
[00:07:03] CJ: Right. Got the calories moved on.
[00:07:06] Duke: yeah, exactly. But then Corey, I very much remember the first time I had fries in duck fat, you know what I mean? I'm like, dude, how dare you. Keep this a secret from me, And they'll lie in bed at night. All those duck fat fries, man. Oh. Every time I have an inferior fry. I'm like, this would be better if it was duck fat fries. So you see like, if your post is a meal if you're saying, Hey, I got my micro cert somebody like, likes it or claps their hands.
That's their survival meal. They're like, yeah. Okay, good for you. That's awesome.
[00:07:39] CJ: Yeah,
[00:07:39] Duke: they don't remember it a day later,
[00:07:41] CJ: true.
[00:07:42] Duke: but if you throw some salt on that baby, and just say I learned this thing, that's the spice, this is the insight. The insight is the spice and people remember that a lot longer.
[00:07:54] CJ: Two, let's walk through this, Because, I just got my micro cert and virtual agent, and I've learned that I can create pre formatic conversations and integrate with teams to get, bring my people, blah, blah. And this is how you do it, all of a sudden that post goes from vanilla.
Too freaking cookie dough.
[00:08:14] Duke: Yep. I mean, I was wrestling all day with the fact that this email wouldn't send on test. And then I realized that I was the event creator and the send from event creator. Wasn't checked off.
[00:08:26] CJ: oh man, who hasn't done that.
[00:08:27] Duke: Yeah. I mean, but think about all the people who don't even know that who's who, who, who have never spent the four hours troubleshooting before they, finally double check that
[00:08:37] CJ: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
[00:08:39] Duke: and it's just a simple, simple thing and you discover it and you're either reminding the old timers.
[00:08:44] CJ: Yep. And we're gonna come Remini with you, right?
[00:08:47] Duke: exactly.
or there's other people who haven't seen that it's so vast, like you just. Once you start dipping the toe in the content that you have insight on. You're never gonna go back and you, it will not take much for you to be suddenly a player in the space. You know, maybe you're not gonna get MVP or dev MVP or whatever, but people remember your name when they get insights from you.
[00:09:09] CJ: Yeah, absolutely. And, and now, where I went from, just, desiring to have new voices in the ecosystem specifically new voices to the ecosystem in the ecosystem. Now I'm pissed off that we don't have these new voices to the ecosystem in the ecosystem, right? Like, because there's so much value.
I felt like that that's missing. Right. Like that those voices can bring to the ecosystem and yeah, in fairness to them, right? Like they're new. They, they're not sure. Right. And I get it If you're just learning service now and some, and some folks are just new to technology, I get that. It feels, you know, a little uncertain, maybe a little, a little, a little anxious, right?
Maybe you have a little anxiety around putting yourself out there, like. Yeah, let me tell you it was the best thing I ever did. well, you know, I, I, I didn't start off as CJ, , I didn't start off as the person who would pop up and, and write something about this, that, or of the other kind of thought piece, or, you know, expound upon whatever ServiceNow technology.
I mean, I didn't, I, was in my cube. I did my work, right. I mean, I, I built solutions. It was all cool, but I didn't talk about. But let me tell you when I started to talk about it, when I started to kind of open myself up to the world and put myself out there. Oh, life changing. Completely life changing.
So duke. From your perspective. Right. And I'll, and, and maybe I, maybe I should go first on here.
I always kind of put you on the spot on these things. but you know, my thinking is it's like, okay, now that we've, we've got everyone kind of amped up, right. For, you know, jumping out here and, writing their innermost thoughts on LinkedIn or Twitter for everyone in the service. Now ecosystem to read, you don't have probably give 'em some tips.
on how, we can do this, right? Like how you can do this effectively and, and, and I'll kick it out. I'll kick it off a little bit. And I'll, I'll say is that you have to make sure that you're communicating for the medium that you choose. And that means if you are communicating on Twitter, don't bring the LinkedIn style of writing to Twitter.
Twitter is micro blogging. That is hard, right? Like, I mean, you can create a thread and those seem to be pretty popular and get some, views. So maybe I would encourage some of that, but don't write a Fullon article length thought piece that you would publish LinkedIn and then bring that to Twitter and then wonder why you're not getting any engagement.
choose the style for the platform. and, and really kind of sink in on that and, you know, and, and the way, and how do you know, right? Like, it's just look at what other folks are doing, who are getting engagement, So if you see folks on LinkedIn and they're publishing longer pieces with lots of graphics and really technical, really thought provoking, you know, kind of emulate that style, you don't have to emulate the content, but emulate that style.
If you see that as getting a lot of engage, Because You want all the shortcuts you can get, right. When you're early. As you build up your following, it won't matter as much, right? Like once you get, like, I don't know, 2000 LinkedIn folks, or, however many Twitter folks constitutes having a lot.
I don't have a lot, you know, then you can kind of experiment and kind of do your own thing and, and your engagement will be there because you built your community, but building the community, right? Like you wanna try to find what those norms are. You wanna adhere to them? You know, I say 80, 90% of the time and utilize that to kind of bootstrap your.
On to the next level. What do you think duke?
[00:12:31] Duke: I haven't put as much thought into, as you have evidently. but yeah, the
[00:12:36] CJ: what do you do?
[00:12:38] Duke: well, I don't do much Twitter anymore for service now. I feel like, there's way more useful content on a LinkedIn feed for the ServiceNow hashtag
[00:12:47] CJ: Right.
[00:12:48] Duke: than on Twitter. Like if you go on Twitter, it's 99% robo posts from every big vendor's, marketing robot.
[00:12:57] CJ: See, so that's a tip right there, right? Like, you know, the first thing you're saying is you can probably skip Twitter
[00:13:03] Duke: Probably, yeah. I mean, I'm getting it on Twitter cuz I follow the people. Not because I'm looking at the service now, hashtag versus on LinkedIn, I will go to the service now hashtag a lot. And actually that dovetails into one thing I'd add also is hashtag smartly.
[00:13:18] CJ: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:13:20] Duke: you know what I mean? Like just don't write a whole sentence of hashtags. That's lame. , so you hashtag service now, obviously. , but you gotta keep in mind. This is like a hashtag is something in LinkedIn anyway, that you click and you see posts about that. So if it's like, oh, Hey, I want to do a service now.
Dev meetup don't hashtag meetup.
[00:13:41] CJ: Right.
[00:13:42] Duke: people are gonna like click that and they're gonna see like how many people in all of LinkedIn are talking about meetups. bazillions it's useless. It, it adds no value, but you'll notice that anytime I mention, on my mega threads where I say, if you wanted to learn more about this, listen to this CJ in the duke episode, guess what is hashtag CJ and the duke, because you can click that.
And now you're seeing , any mention of CJ and the duke in linked.
[00:14:08] CJ: so that's super smart, hashtag tagging, and using that as like basically what it was designed for, right? Like that cross reference point. To be able to follow interests. and, you know, doing that smartly based on, audience sizes for the hashtag too, right?
Because just like other folks are gonna click on it. You can click on it too. You can see what the audience looks like for that hashtag and whether or not it's even worth doing right. And, and then, secondly, like with the CJ and the duke hashtag, right, like obviously, that's something that we're building, ourselves, right.
And so when you click on that, initially when you create the hashtag, it might only have a follower of one, but over time, right. As you get a re reputation, as you build content, as you get more and more like shares and so forth, that hashtag will go from, it'll be just be great. Watching it go from one to 10 to 50, to a hundred.
[00:14:57] Duke: I think. I use hashtags a lot more on LinkedIn for some reason than Twitter, but I've got a bunch of them. And like I learned it from Joseph Laden, right. Where he kind of had his own hashtag. And so I'm like, oh, I can do that too. So I got a hashtag for CJ in the duke hashtag for Titans, a service now hashtag tag for the duke goes with the.
And I put those in my posts so that people can start following them. And it, elevates that up on their feed. So if you're like a new blood or whatever, not even if you're new, right. If you just wanna have more recognition, then make your own hashtag make your hashtag. This is just, you.
[00:15:35] CJ: That's love, dude. I love that. I mean, now that you even mentioned this right. In a sidebar, right? Like, so now that you're even mentioning this, I can even see how this becomes like a great, self-promotion tool, not from the promotion to an audience or community right before employers. As you start to build content, you can have a separate hashtag, For things that you wanna show to an employer, you know, when they kinda contact you is say, Hey, what you got out here? Funny, you should mention it. here's a link to my, uh, portfolio via LinkedIn use this hashtag right. Send 'em that. You know that hashtag and then get just a list, right? Of all of the things that you posted, whether that's YouTube videos that you've shared on LinkedIn, whether it's articles, whether it's just, you know, witty insights, thought leadership, pieces, whatever.
And it's curated by you because you picked the hashtag
[00:16:24] Duke: Dude, I'm telling you like this
[00:16:26] CJ: an unlock
[00:16:27] Duke: This is, this is bigger than hashtags even, but what you've said has really fundamentally reminded me of something that I do. And that is whenever I'm searching for contract work or talking to people about how do we know we want you on service now?
Right. So there's obviously the resume, right. But I have a separate artifact that I send them and it's. Here's a collection of some of my best thoughts on ServiceNow
[00:16:53] CJ: Oh, I love
[00:16:54] Duke: and it's one page long it's embedded hyperlinks. here's my thoughts on documentation. Here's my thoughts on blah, blah, blah.
they almost don't have to interview you cuz they could just scan down that list and see your blogs, your YouTube videos, your LinkedIn posts, your LinkedIn hashtag whatever. Channel you wanna send them to and they could be like, wow, like I can learn a lot more about Robert. If I just look at this page once than even sitting to interview him,
[00:17:23] CJ: Dude that right there is a master in marketing.
[00:17:28] Duke: it's done me.
[00:17:29] CJ: like, we're giving you that one for free guys. You don't even understand how much that's worth right now.
[00:17:36] Duke: Right. We need a chip. We need a tip jar. We really do.
[00:17:39] CJ: Seriously, man. Seriously, like you that that's mind blowing right there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell my marketing buddy about that and he's gonna, flip out because , it is, absolutely true. I never thought about it. I'm gonna do it too. I haven't, I haven't been done.
I usually you've been holding out on me, dude. I don't really appreciate it, but
[00:17:57] Duke: We're gonna put a PayPal link in the scripture, below
[00:18:07] CJ: I got tree fitty but, but too, like that's, that's huge right there. That is, that's so huge. Especially in this, ecosystem, if you're an independent consultant, like we. Right. Like where, where you're often pitching yourself over and over and over again. I mean, that's that's that's that's yeah. Anyway, like, I, I can't, I can't
[00:18:32] Duke: but it's just, it's, where the content creation pays off. Right. sometimes you get paid for your content and that's awesome. But if I've never got a sponsorship revenue for my content, it for sure has saved me interviews. Right. Or saved me the depth of the interview because it's just here's what I know on a plate.
I've hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of content, thousands of words. And you it's all open to you. Here's a list of an index of it.
[00:18:58] CJ: This could have been another entry on the, on the last show we did, right? Like this is why we do. Because this is also why we do it. Right. Why we create the content? Why we give back to the community. you know, we do it because we like to, we love to, right. We love helping folks, but it also has a self-serving component to it too.
Right? Like you put all that stuff, you packages up and then, boom, this is who I am. Pay me. and it's. All right, man, dude. So yeah. What, what El, what else we got, man? I mean, we're we cooking with guys here today, man, we just sat down here. We aint have, we had no topic and I feel like this is already one of better episodes.
[00:19:35] Duke: it. I got it. Got it. I got it. Thumbnails. If you don't do dare, put. something more than a paragraph on LinkedIn without even thinking of a thumbnail for it. those are the things on LinkedIn, like if you're scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, you see an image you stop.
Right? Like even if it's for a millisecond, your brain's like, wait a second, but you can scroll through hundreds of paragraphs and you won't stop
[00:20:03] CJ: Yeah.
[00:20:03] Duke: brain. Won't tell you, stop, stop, stop. There's something I need to read there. It's image first. It's just like monkey brain. Ooh, shiny. Oh, shiny. and then you see it and then a millisecond later, your brain has decided, oh, that's I wanna learn more about that.
Like they just read the title. We're talking like seconds, fractions of seconds. Um,
[00:20:21] CJ: So let me tell you, right, like real time as we're, as we're recording, as I'm scrolling. Right to, to just to test this theory and what I'd say here is, is I was scrolling, right. I did stop on a post, with an image in it. Right. Like the thumbnail , , and that, the funny thing is, is that thumbnail has text, right.
Is code that I would probably never see embedded in a paragraph, but because they took the main part of this code. And turned it into an image and embedded it in the post. It stood out. That's one thing, but here's the S thing that they did. That was pretty awesome. Right? knowing the medium.
So when they decided on what image to put in this post, LinkedIn, at least for me, I don't know if you can theme it or not, but I, I don't think you. But it is a beige background and the posts are white, right? Like, so you've got a white background on the post.
You've got black, text on it. And then you've got as a, as the site, as a whole is like a beige ish kind of color, right? Like the most Cy Landish color scheme you can find. And what this person did is that the cold window that they took as an image black with colorful text instantly stands out. As I'm scrolling instantly stands out. I know this is in text. This isn't like a corporate logo. This is interesting. Why don't I stop and take a look?
[00:21:43] Duke: there, like do yourself a favor, go to YouTube and say how to make a YouTube thumbnail or even how to make a thumbnail. There are hundreds of pages of results. , you know, and it's not like eight views of video. It's astounding. How much content is on YouTube, just around thumbnail.
[00:22:02] CJ: They gotta be important if there's that much out.
[00:22:04] Duke: Exactly exactly. I mean, I think it's a new science almost, or for years, people have been experimenting and it's just like, and, and taste change and trends change, and people get tapped out of one idea. And like some new thumbnail concept comes out and everybody's like, Hey, do this. So I'm not saying like, you have to be peak fashion on thumbnails, but it makes a difference, a huge difference.
And even, even in mine, I can tell a difference between like I, I used to generate. All my thumbnails. and then I got like a thumbnail dude from fiber. Who's awesome. And so I just, I passed the work on to him, but I can tell a difference in reactions
[00:22:37] CJ: All right.
[00:22:38] Duke: those thumbnails versus the ones I I've made myself.
[00:22:42] CJ: Yes. So let's talk about leveling up, You mentioned fiber. Fiber's a level up, ? You got a guy he builds your thumbnails, probably costs you next to nothing, comparatively, to the value you get out of, it saves you a ton of time, right? Lets you produce more content faster and quick.
Because now a lot of that intricate process of creating the right thumbnail and all of that thought work that goes into it. You've offloaded right now. You've, turned that from a creation to an approval. And that lets you be more productive. That's what I'm talking about.
When I say leveling up. when you actually get to the point where you've got your content generation engine humming. Now you wanna think about how do you level that thing up so you can get more content out there because the thumbnail is great, but the thumbnail is the Leadin to the content.
the thumbnail is there to get your content attention. And so you want more content, so you can get more attention because the content is there to get you attention. Right? So it's thumbnail content. You that's the pipeline.
[00:23:43] Duke: Yep. it doesn't take that long either. You just have to be a little bit more mindful about it. So Think about not so much color, complimentary colors, that's like a five minute Google search can teach you everything you need to know about color selection, then just Google up.
What's a really common, good thumbnail font use that, it doesn't add to be super fancy. for the amount of time it takes to make good ones, huge payoff, like massive payoff. and let let's transition. Like sometimes it's not LinkedIn or Twitter, maybe we're talking about the YouTube content right now, flat out there are so many videos on YouTube that probably deserve a watch, but it's like, you look at the, you look at the thumbnail, it's just like, uh, no.
[00:24:23] CJ: Yeah,
[00:24:24] Duke: And it's not like I haven't mindfully thought. And you know, I did a cost benefit analysis of how much time it will this be valuable for my time? I just looked at it and my monkey brain said, no, not shiny.
[00:24:39] CJ: Right, right.
[00:24:41] Duke: it, my conscious mind had nothing to do with it. That was primate. Rob, just like not shiny. And you can complain about it all you want, but this is reality.
[00:24:51] CJ: No, absolutely absolutely duke. And, and, and, you know, as we chat about this, I'm sensing like a, a fame emerge here of marketing yourself. Right. And, it's important, right? Marketing is important to CA in marketing is important to capture the attention of your audience, And as you said, not shiny skipping past it, right.
Saw billboard today. Uh, when I was coming home from, , picking up my kid at. day camp. And that I remembered that billboard. I looked at that thing. I was like, oh my God, that's an awesome billboard. And right. And so I wrote it, I, I, I didn't write it down. I was driving. Right. But I remembered it.
Right. And then I wrote it down when I got home. So now I'm gonna go and Google the company, just, I could figure out what the heck, like what what's so awesome about this billboard, right. It caught my attention.
[00:25:37] Duke: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:38] CJ: So these things work is my point here, right? Like, and, and this is like a, a, something that's not unique to the ServiceNow ecosystem it's been going on for a while.
People use marketing everywhere. and it's always about capturing the attention of your audience and the key to doing that. Sometimes it's bright and shiny.
[00:25:55] Duke: I just I'll say it if you're especially, I mean, I do, I do thumbnails for my LinkedIn. The last two posts I've done have been, thumbnailed, but, oh my goodness. If you're gonna spend the immense amount of time, it takes to build something on YouTube, like record a video, edit it, all that stuff.
For heaven's sake, get yourself a 10 minute education on thumbnailing. please, you're gonna spend two hours on editing. spend 10% of that time learning how to make a thumbnail so that you get the eyeballs that you deserve.
[00:26:31] CJ: Man I'm about to thumb. Emails
[00:26:34] Duke: There you go. I, I actually do that too. On my mailing list.
[00:26:39] CJ: boom, right there. Right there. Should we talk about a mailing list? Let's talk about a mailing list, right? Because as you start to, create this audience, right. This community around your content, The mailing list is the next step, that's where you become less dependent on the platforms that you're utilizing.
And you start to form that more one to one relationship with the people who actually like your content. and not just like that one video you made or that one article you wrote. Right. But they like all of the stuff that you do, or at least most of it. Right. They like it enough that they wanna see it when you do.
That's what your mailing list becomes. it gives you direct access to those folks and they get direct access to you. And now you actually have the beginning of a community.
[00:27:26] Duke: Hmm. I'm so, so on mailing list now, like I know I have one and it'll be in the description below, but. It's really hard to figure out what it's for. Like sometimes you're just like, okay, now it's, a bottleneck service, right? You can't just see me post this on LinkedIn. You have to subscribe to see it.
So it's, obviscated, it's hidden. and sometimes it's just is it more valuable, hidden, or is it, more valuable? Just set out in the open and I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. What I will say is that for some reason, mailing lists get a lot more personal way faster.
[00:28:02] CJ: Yeah.
[00:28:02] Duke: Like you gotta grow a thick skin before you have a mailing list. holy cow, one time. I slaved over this, mailing list entry about testing.
[00:28:12] CJ: Okay.
[00:28:13] Duke: and I ranted about this in our last episode, too, with like ATF and how it doesn't scale. And I was like, it has to deliver value before anything.
And I'm really telling people like, here's what you're in for. If you say we are gonna test it scale,
[00:28:26] CJ: Right.
[00:28:27] Duke: I slaved over it. And then at the end, I mentioned, a friend of mine's business dot walk.io who got bought by ServiceNow because their ATF replacement is just so much better.
And you wouldn't believe the poison that I had to read through after that. Like how dare you market to me?
[00:28:46] CJ: What
[00:28:47] Duke: yeah, some lead architect at DXC. Talking about pages and pages screen he was so angry that this had sponsored material in it. And how dare I. know, and how I'm like, how I'm like greedy and, and all these, like, I have terrible character because I'm not giving away everything for free.
I'm like, Hey, you do you, man, you make a mailing list, but there was value in this one way or there. So I totally went on a rant there, but the, the key is it's a way different paradigm. I think people are very sensitive about the amount of stuff that comes into their inbox. And so. people will, report you for spam right after they signed up, know, you know, they will do that.
Uh, they will flag you for fishing. and they will say awful, awful things when they unsubscribe. , so if you wanna do a mailing list, just, be prepared for seeing the worst parts of the people in our E.
[00:29:45] CJ: Man so that sucks. Number one. I mean, that, really, really sucks. presumably if you ended up on my mailing list, it's because you opted into it, this is the opt in sort of thing. I didn't find your email somewhere. I didn't buy it from like some shady black market or gray market, like data, P or whatever.
you came to my newsletter and you put your email address and you click subscribed. And so, because you did that now you get my content. If you no longer want my content at the end of every new. It's also a button called unsubscribe, right? like, this is a very simple and simplistic and straightforward relationship.
You will get my content. If you ask for it until you stop asking for it, then you will no longer get it. Anyone who's got a problem with that. Anyone who's making it personal, who goes on like a screen, because you happen to put in your email newsletter, whatever the hell you want it to, presumably they opted into it.
Like that's just crazy, man. And that's the them problem that ain't you problem.
[00:30:50] Duke: It's like, I'm not gonna lie about yes, I do sponsorships. Right. I, I get sponsored for my YouTube videos, CJ and the duke has sponsors, which you should check out in the description below
[00:31:02] CJ: Dude, the title of this episode in the description below.
[00:31:06] Duke: and yeah, in my mailing list, once I sent a sponsored thing, but it's just like, people have to underst. it's not like I just took anybody off the street, you know what I mean? cuz this isn't feeding my family. This is like insignificant amount of money
[00:31:19] CJ: Yeah, right,
[00:31:20] Duke: but it justifies the time and it's like, I worked really hard at this solution is awesome.
more people should know about it. Yes. I'm going to make them, pay me to say that to the world, but it's still awesome.
[00:31:33] CJ: Right.
[00:31:34] Duke: anyway,
[00:31:34] CJ: and, and no, but, but, one further thing on that before we switch up, Is that even if, this is an insignificant amount of money, right? The skills that you learn by having a, me, an email newsletter by learning how to include sponsorship in it, by doing all these sorts of things, right.
You can now take those. And translate them into something that else that you might do that might be explicitly for the purposes of making large sums of money. And that's okay.
[00:32:03] Duke: Yeah.
[00:32:04] CJ: man, dude, this is, we said we sit down, we riff, man. This is like an hour later, dark outside now. The sun's
[00:32:14] Duke: My kids are like me.
[00:32:17] CJ: oh man, this was good. One
[00:32:19] Duke: Yeah. We'll see you on the next one, folks.
[00:32:20] CJ: guys.
[00:32:21] Duke: All right, bye. Bye.