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Conversations about marketing and business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt (Founder of Exit Five, Former CMO). Join the top community for B2B marketers at exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to the Dave Gerhardt.
Dave [0:00:02]: Okay.
Dave [0:00:17]: This is Jess Cook Jess a VP of Marketing at Vector, and I invited Jess on the show because twenty twenty six, I'm back on this podcast, and I wanna do something different not different revolutionary, but different for us, I was kind of in a rod of just doing interview interview, talking about your background.
Dave [0:00:36]: People really don't care about that.
Dave [0:00:37]: They wanna know...
Dave [0:00:38]: They don't wanna talk to marketers who are doing cool shit, and We're like, let's go into this year and let's just have a bunch of people on from from our community from our universe, come on and actually talk about marketing.
Dave [0:00:48]: I wanna start making the podcast that I wanna listen to.
Dave [0:00:51]: Again, not so many interviews and This is an interview, but we know you're doing cool shit, and that's what we're gonna hang out, and we're gonna talk through today.
Dave [0:00:58]: We did we did a bunch of prep on this.
Dave [0:01:00]: We got four kinda topics that we're gonna dive into based on the work that you're doing at Vector.
Dave [0:01:06]: But just tell me what what is Vector?
Jess [0:01:11]: That is a great question.
Jess [0:01:12]: First, I have to say this is...
Jess [0:01:14]: I'm, like, realizing a year's long dream right here.
Jess [0:01:17]: I need you to know that.
Jess [0:01:19]: Like the nine...
Jess [0:01:20]: Alright.
Dave [0:01:21]: Go ahead.
Dave [0:01:21]: I'll listen.
Dave [0:01:22]: I'll let I'll take it I think it.
Jess [0:01:24]: I've been listening for years.
Jess [0:01:25]: It's been, like, a legit.
Jess [0:01:26]: Like, if I have...
Jess [0:01:27]: I don't do vision boards, but, like if I had a vision board if you like, the Dg show.
Jess [0:01:30]: Gotta be on there Someday.
Jess [0:01:32]: So...
Dave [0:01:33]: Man, that's so cool.
Jess [0:01:34]: Making dreams come true.
Dave [0:01:35]: God.
Dave [0:01:35]: That feels good.
Dave [0:01:36]: Take take that and take that dopamine.
Dave [0:01:38]: Let's go.
Dave [0:01:39]: Well, that natural.
Jess [0:01:41]: A minute.
Dave [0:01:42]: Give me some of that natural dopamine holy cow.
Dave [0:01:44]: Wow, thank you, Jess.
Dave [0:01:45]: Alright.
Dave [0:01:46]: And that's the end of this episode if you want more.
Dave [0:01:49]: You want more.
Dave [0:01:52]: But...
Dave [0:01:52]: Okay.
Dave [0:01:53]: So as a listener though, don't you agree, like, I wanna hear the stuff I wanna listen to Is like, I wanna hear what people are doing, and I I used to I missed...
Dave [0:02:01]: I missed that type of podcast, and I think I gotta wait, like I, you know, too many, like, I care where we went college or if you went to college or whatever...
Dave [0:02:08]: Listen have what you're doing.
Jess [0:02:09]: Yeah.
Jess [0:02:09]: I I totally agree.
Jess [0:02:11]: I think so of my favorite episodes of your show just been, like, I would be, like, on a walk, and I'd get my phone out, and I'd be like, taking notes, and I'd, like, write the person's name now down so I'm, like, I have to go follow this person immediately after this is over, so I can continue to learn from them.
Jess [0:02:24]: So, yeah, Totally agree.
Jess [0:02:26]: I'm excited.
Dave [0:02:27]: So that's the bar.
Dave [0:02:28]: That's the bar then.
Dave [0:02:29]: Like, and I think what's cool about podcasting.
Dave [0:02:31]: We'll talk about this too.
Dave [0:02:32]: You can attract a wide range of of listeners for...
Dave [0:02:36]: So, like, you...
Dave [0:02:37]: We might...
Dave [0:02:37]: I wanted to cover, like, specific topics, like, you know, Ai and Seo or product marketing, whatever.
Dave [0:02:42]: Cmos, all the way down from Cmo to Intern, that that same advice, They're gonna be listening listen the same thing.
Dave [0:02:48]: It's like, you're gonna...
Dave [0:02:49]: You're you're a Vp marketing and be walking and be like, oh, I heard this episode about, like, Seo?
Dave [0:02:53]: Like, are we doing that?
Dave [0:02:54]: I wonder?
Dave [0:02:54]: And, like, that's the show that I wanna have.
Dave [0:02:56]: So...
Jess [0:02:57]: I love it.
Dave [0:02:58]: Okay.
Dave [0:02:58]: So Vector, some type of Saas tool, you have a ghost mascot, series, a ish, what what else?
Dave [0:03:04]: Tell me, how do I...
Jess [0:03:06]: Yeah.
Jess [0:03:06]: Yeah.
Jess [0:03:06]: So Vector lets you build the add audiences from the people who visit your website, who click your ads but don't convert and who are researching your competitors or relevant topics.
Jess [0:03:17]: By name.
Jess [0:03:18]: So Like, you can actually see the list of people by name and title who are going to be in your ad audiences before you spend a dime and push them over to all the platforms that you are already spending your money on, which is really exciting.
Jess [0:03:31]: We are pre series a.
Jess [0:03:34]: I know, it's seed and round at the moment.
Dave [0:03:36]: Yeah.
Dave [0:03:36]: Whatever.
Dave [0:03:37]: Just, like, how many people...
Dave [0:03:38]: Like, roughly what stage and One.
Dave [0:03:40]: I think
Jess [0:03:41]: whole total two in marketing.
Jess [0:03:42]: Okay.
Dave [0:03:44]: Yeah.
Dave [0:03:44]: Early stage draft startup up.
Jess [0:03:47]: Real early.
Jess [0:03:47]: And I got in here because of our boy Dan Murphy, who put my name for when my Ceo, Josh was looking for somebody to lead marketing, so shout out to Dan.
Dave [0:03:58]: How did he know you?
Jess [0:04:00]: You know, it's funny.
Jess [0:04:00]: I don't know.
Jess [0:04:01]: Linkedin.
Jess [0:04:03]: We've have never actually formally met.
Jess [0:04:05]: I'm sure he's...
Jess [0:04:06]: I'm trying
Dave [0:04:07]: to get the referral bonus just sent he's looking at, like first degree connections, but...
Jess [0:04:12]: Yeah.
Jess [0:04:12]: Well, Josh was looking specifically for someone with a content and brand background.
Dave [0:04:18]: Okay.
Jess [0:04:19]: Which is interesting and interesting choice for a marketing leader right now...
Jess [0:04:21]: Well, no.
Jess [0:04:22]: I think it's a great choice our marketing leader right now.
Jess [0:04:24]: I think it goes against a lot of conventional wisdom and kind of tradition is, like, who should your marketing leader be.
Jess [0:04:30]: So, I was lucky that whatever I did in the community or on Linkedin got me noticed in in Dan K and four, which is amazing.
Dave [0:04:39]: That is awesome.
Dave [0:04:40]: I mean, Yeah.
Dave [0:04:41]: That's the goal.
Dave [0:04:42]: The hardest part is I get a lot of messages.
Dave [0:04:43]: I know Dan does too about, like, hey, do you know a person for this and it's like, oh, it's hard.
Dave [0:04:48]: You know, You think you would.
Dave [0:04:49]: We got this community of all these people.
Dave [0:04:51]: I think one of the hardest things is...
Dave [0:04:52]: I I think it's very hard to recommend someone that you haven't work with directly.
Dave [0:04:56]: Yeah.
Dave [0:04:56]: I really don't know.
Dave [0:04:57]: I'm like, yeah, I don't know does she she seems really smart.
Dave [0:05:00]: She's cool to hang out with, but you just don't know.
Dave [0:05:02]: Yeah.
Dave [0:05:02]: So...
Dave [0:05:03]: Totally.
Dave [0:05:03]: Anyway, you...
Dave [0:05:04]: It look it looks like you're doing awesome.
Dave [0:05:05]: You guys are doing cool stuff.
Dave [0:05:07]: A lot of people, you know, I just want to...
Dave [0:05:10]: I want you to know that, like, this is more than b b Saas.
Dave [0:05:13]: Jess Cook.
Dave [0:05:14]: I don't know if you've heard.
Dave [0:05:15]: Okay?
Dave [0:05:15]: I I've I have a bigger heart than that.
Dave [0:05:17]: And so I'm gonna...
Dave [0:05:18]: I'm just trying to explain the story Like, I I like when you...
Dave [0:05:21]: Peep...
Dave [0:05:21]: Listeners have full context of, type of company you're at what you're doing, and then you can, you know, your marketing knowledge.
Dave [0:05:26]: You're your marketing tactics are applied through that lens.
Dave [0:05:28]: So Jess is Vp of marketing, early stage startup up in the...
Dave [0:05:32]: You kind marketing and sales, tech space, her background came up through content and brand...
Dave [0:05:38]: Okay.
Dave [0:05:39]: Cool.
Dave [0:05:39]: So one thing, we we have four topics here that your of stuff that you're doing in marketing Vector that is working right now.
Dave [0:05:47]: Yep.
Dave [0:05:47]: And I wanna spend, like, a couple minutes hitting on each one, and and let's leave people walking away with, you know, some some insight here.
Dave [0:05:55]: Okay.
Dave [0:05:55]: So topic number one is, influencer marketing in in b b u spent.
Dave [0:06:00]: So You had this idea We're gonna do influencer marketing.
Dave [0:06:03]: Let's talk about that.
Dave [0:06:04]: Why did you do it?
Dave [0:06:05]: And then you spent twelve grand on seven micro influencers and you generated a million dollars in pipeline.
Dave [0:06:10]: Let's dive into that.
Dave [0:06:12]: This is something everyone's asking about.
Dave [0:06:13]: They're seeing content on Linkedin.
Dave [0:06:14]: They're seeing influencer in b to b, how did this come up a Vector and how'd did you execute on it?
Jess [0:06:20]: Yeah.
Jess [0:06:20]: This was something that I'd wanted to try very early on and, you know, took me a couple months to kinda like, ramp up, and then get a budget sold in, and then part of that budget was, like, we're gonna test out some influencers.
Jess [0:06:35]: And so I I landed on twelve thousand simply because I'm not great at math.
Jess [0:06:40]: I had to, like, literally use calculator to figure all this out.
Jess [0:06:43]: But you know, that basically got me, like...
Dave [0:06:47]: I'm good at math.
Dave [0:06:47]: Now.
Dave [0:06:47]: I'm Got.
Dave [0:06:48]: I'm good.
Dave [0:06:49]: Right.
Jess [0:06:50]: We're all good at math.
Jess [0:06:50]: Now.
Dave [0:06:51]: Mean, before you get into the campaign and look, just...
Dave [0:06:53]: Let's go back and, like, why did you wanna...
Dave [0:06:55]: What why did you wanna do?
Dave [0:06:56]: So, hey, you...
Dave [0:06:57]: You're you're leading marketing.
Dave [0:06:58]: You're trying to accomplish some goal?
Dave [0:07:00]: Like, we could do anything.
Dave [0:07:01]: Direct mail influencers, events, trade shows whatever.
Dave [0:07:04]: I wanna know specifically, like, how did you pick this channel?
Dave [0:07:06]: What was the goal reason behind it and then let's talk about how you ended did it?
Jess [0:07:09]: Great.
Jess [0:07:09]: Agree.
Jess [0:07:10]: Great.
Jess [0:07:10]: Please to start.
Jess [0:07:11]: So I don't have a demand gen marketer, and I don't have a background in demand gen.
Jess [0:07:15]: And so I'm not about to jump in and, like, start running ads willy nilly because I will just be throwing money off the window, trying to build that audiences all of that.
Jess [0:07:25]: But we needed a greater distribution.
Jess [0:07:27]: I post on Linkedin, our founders post on Linkedin.
Jess [0:07:31]: We've a couple of employees who are really good at posting on Linkedin, but, like, that wasn't gonna be enough and short of running ads.
Jess [0:07:37]: I needed another way to, like, get into People's brains and eyeballs and hurts and minds.
Jess [0:07:43]: So influencers felt right because it was one a really easy way to just, like, increase distribution in a really trustworthy way.
Jess [0:07:52]: And two, one thing I do know how to do is, like, go in and, like, turn those right into that leadership ads.
Jess [0:07:58]: So that felt like a pretty big win.
Jess [0:08:01]: So that was the main reason Was like, we just need more people to kinda know who we are from a trusted source and influencers feel like the right way to go about that.
Jess [0:08:10]: Our audience is marketers and like, we eat that stuff up.
Jess [0:08:13]: Right?
Jess [0:08:13]: Like, we...
Jess [0:08:14]: I love when I see somebody, I know whether it's paid or not, like, recommending something.
Jess [0:08:19]: So that was kind of impetus.
Dave [0:08:22]: And thought I think that this is a big slept on thing.
Dave [0:08:24]: I, I was on the phone with a guy Yesterday sr I asking for vice interviewing for a new job.
Dave [0:08:28]: It's kinda is crazy.
Dave [0:08:30]: Like, thought leadership ads.
Dave [0:08:31]: It's, like, on one side, it's like, it's a bummer from a organic standpoint because, like, you don't get to reach all your followers, but from a company standpoint.
Dave [0:08:39]: If you're spending money on Linkedin.
Dave [0:08:40]: I mean, the thought leader ad is is insane.
Dave [0:08:42]: Yeah.
Dave [0:08:43]: Now you can take those twelve influencers, and it's not just, like one off post.
Dave [0:08:46]: Those are literally become like, U g ads for your brand, which is really cool.
Jess [0:08:52]: Exactly.
Dave [0:08:53]: So you can justify the cost other than, like, we we need these twelve...
Dave [0:08:57]: Actually, what was the offer?
Dave [0:08:59]: What what it...
Dave [0:08:59]: What what did they post?
Dave [0:09:00]: What did you have them all post and that what were the mechanics of that?
Jess [0:09:03]: So we did a three month pilot, and I lined each month with either a launch, like, a product that we had launching or that we wanted to promote, and then one of the month...
Jess [0:09:14]: One of the three months we had done a survey, and I I gave them, like, all the results basically and had them, like, post about the results and the implications of it.
Jess [0:09:22]: So nice month was kind of aligned to that, and we had ended up kind of doing a mix of, like, customers and non customer influencers.
Jess [0:09:33]: These are not...
Jess [0:09:35]: They were not people with, like, huge following, like average was like, twelve or thirteen thousand followers, which is incredible, super respectable.
Dave [0:09:44]: No way, if you have any...
Dave [0:09:46]: If you have...
Dave [0:09:46]: If you only have ten thousand followers, we are not, offend you right now.
Dave [0:09:50]: If you're not, I I don't know if you know I have a hundred and ninety thousand followers.
Dave [0:09:53]: So that is nothing.
Dave [0:09:54]: To a guy like me.
Dave [0:09:56]: So
Jess [0:09:58]: pens pennies.
Dave [0:09:59]: Yeah.
Jess [0:10:01]: No.
Jess [0:10:01]: So weird...
Jess [0:10:01]: I didn't.
Dave [0:10:02]: That's good.
Jess [0:10:02]: So trust I think built into those, like, kind of audiences of that size.
Jess [0:10:07]: Right?
Dave [0:10:08]: Well, also, hold on.
Dave [0:10:09]: This is what's crazy about b to b, and you don't need hundreds...
Dave [0:10:15]: You're not doing this to generate hundreds of thousands of impressions or leads or whatever.
Dave [0:10:19]: Right?
Dave [0:10:19]: Like...
Jess [0:10:20]: Right.
Dave [0:10:21]: You could get...
Dave [0:10:21]: I I don't know how much Vector cost, but, like, whatever.
Dave [0:10:24]: Let's just, you know, make some simple math.
Dave [0:10:25]: I mean, we we have, like, sponsors that we work through with, for example, where if they get, like, one customer from doing a sponsorship deal with us.
Dave [0:10:33]: The math is amazing.
Dave [0:10:35]: And so it's just it's the same thing.
Dave [0:10:36]: It's like, we don't we don't need hundreds of leads from this?
Dave [0:10:38]: It's, like, can we get a couple...
Dave [0:10:39]: You know, can we get a couple hand razors.
Jess [0:10:42]: Exactly.
Jess [0:10:42]: Yeah.
Jess [0:10:42]: Yeah.
Jess [0:10:43]: And then that I was kind of the goal.
Jess [0:10:44]: And and the other thing I I decided against doing what this was any kind of tracking.
Jess [0:10:50]: Like, I didn't get any of the influencers and Ut.
Jess [0:10:52]: I just wanna to try it.
Jess [0:10:54]: I didn't wanna I I didn't wanna wait.
Jess [0:10:56]: I didn't wanna, like, set up this whole system in the back end.
Jess [0:10:59]: To try...
Dave [0:11:00]: Over and over that demand jen's person dead dead body would have let you done that without They know Ut.
Dave [0:11:05]: I know.
Dave [0:11:06]: I just delete him out, delete.
Dave [0:11:08]: Yeah.
Dave [0:11:08]: Bye bye.
Jess [0:11:09]: We're so messy.
Jess [0:11:10]: But, yeah.
Jess [0:11:10]: I just...
Jess [0:11:11]: I just wanted to, like, directional.
Jess [0:11:12]: Is this gonna work for us.
Jess [0:11:13]: Will be able to see if it's if it's working.
Dave [0:11:16]: But, like, that's a fun...
Dave [0:11:17]: You're at a fun stage.
Dave [0:11:18]: Right?
Dave [0:11:18]: Like, you're you're, like, you don't need to ob access over the measurement of this because, like, you're at a early stage.
Dave [0:11:24]: We're, like, you will know if this works.
Jess [0:11:27]: Yeah.
Jess [0:11:27]: Yeah like exactly.
Dave [0:11:28]: But I come into the office next...
Dave [0:11:29]: You know, the next...
Dave [0:11:30]: Did I show up at the bakery the next day and there was like, three people in line and there's never been anyone in line.
Dave [0:11:34]: Like, whoa.
Jess [0:11:36]: Yeah.
Jess [0:11:36]: Okay.
Jess [0:11:37]: One hundred percent.
Jess [0:11:38]: And and we could feel it.
Jess [0:11:39]: Like, you're you're totally right.
Jess [0:11:41]: We're at a stage Where we're like, we do a program like that, and we feel it.
Jess [0:11:44]: Yeah.
Jess [0:11:44]: At the end of the program, I went back and looked, the the only real tracking I did was I went into our call recording software, and I said some alerts.
Jess [0:11:51]: So I set up, like, the names of all the influencers, I set up one for Linkedin, which I know, like, they could've have seen somebody else's linkedin post or whatever, But, you know.
Jess [0:12:01]: And then, I set up one for just, like, influencer.
Jess [0:12:04]: And
Dave [0:12:05]: Yeah.
Jess [0:12:06]: So I could kinda see that, and then we have a how did you hear about us?
Jess [0:12:09]: Field.
Jess [0:12:10]: Wow.
Jess [0:12:11]: Field on our form.
Jess [0:12:12]: So and look back at the end of the three months, and we ended up having...
Dave [0:12:17]: What what do you use for the call recording by the way?
Jess [0:12:19]: Fathom.
Jess [0:12:19]: Fathom?
Dave [0:12:21]: Cool.
Dave [0:12:21]: And and is that is that is that pretty accurate?
Dave [0:12:23]: Like, if you if you typed in, like, Dave Gerhardt, it would it would be pretty good about mentions?
Jess [0:12:28]: Yes.
Jess [0:12:28]: Yeah.
Jess [0:12:29]: Absolutely.
Dave [0:12:30]: And do you have to count them or, like, will it give you the count of the mentions.
Jess [0:12:33]: What it you give me the count of mentions?
Jess [0:12:34]: And I get alerts in my email too, like, every day, there's, like a digest of how many times something was mentioned?
Dave [0:12:41]: Could you could you say, like, over the last thirty days, how much has this been mentioned more and you can do that in fathom?
Jess [0:12:47]: Yeah.
Jess [0:12:47]: It it has, like, a little Ai chat thing built into it.
Jess [0:12:50]: So, yeah, you could ask something like that.
Jess [0:12:52]: Right.
Jess [0:12:52]: And it would be able to get that back to you.
Dave [0:12:54]: I mean, that's an amazing way to do the to do this.
Dave [0:12:56]: Right?
Dave [0:12:56]: It's, like, if we can now track if you have a company where you have set...
Dave [0:13:01]: So so the...
Dave [0:13:02]: In your case, like, you have to talk to a sales rep?
Dave [0:13:04]: Yeah.
Dave [0:13:04]: Yep.
Dave [0:13:05]: So you can then mine every call to understand, like, hey.
Dave [0:13:08]: And just ask how did you hear about us?
Dave [0:13:10]: Oh, I must have been linkedin.
Jess [0:13:11]: Exactly.
Jess [0:13:11]: So, yeah.
Jess [0:13:13]: I looked back and we had over three months, forty five demos that we could track back to this program, over eighty percent of which were Ic, which is pretty incredible.
Jess [0:13:25]: And that represents one point one million in pipeline.
Jess [0:13:28]: So, yeah, Like, this is, like, okay.
Jess [0:13:30]: We...
Jess [0:13:30]: Cool.
Jess [0:13:31]: I I think the thing that gets hard then is, like, a lot of marketing leaders, a lot of Ceos would see that and be, like, how do I pour a million dollars into that.
Jess [0:13:40]: Yeah.
Dave [0:13:41]: Yeah We
Jess [0:13:41]: And there's diminishing returns at some point and just, like, bandwidth issues.
Jess [0:13:45]: Right?
Jess [0:13:46]: Like, I was the one to run that program.
Dave [0:13:49]: Yeah.
Dave [0:13:49]: No.
Dave [0:13:49]: It's all good.
Dave [0:13:49]: This is great.
Dave [0:13:50]: This is fun.
Dave [0:13:51]: I don't...
Dave [0:13:51]: I...
Dave [0:13:51]: Will, we can't...
Dave [0:13:52]: Everybody's marketing is different.
Dave [0:13:54]: Like, we we can't say, we...
Dave [0:13:57]: We're...
Dave [0:13:57]: I just wanna talk to you about what you're doing and how it's working and what we learned.
Dave [0:14:00]: Because even even just that little nugget, Someone's like, really, you could do that fathom them, Like, that's that's a nugget.
Dave [0:14:05]: That's that's a valuable thing.
Dave [0:14:06]: Right?
Dave [0:14:06]: So on the forty five demos thing, none of your offers were even, like, go start a free trial of Vector tell didn't...
Dave [0:14:14]: Wasn't at all, like content.
Dave [0:14:15]: So there was no direct, like, book a demo.
Dave [0:14:18]: That means these people saw the ads, checked out your stuff, thought Vector was interesting, then went to book a demo.
Dave [0:14:26]: You weren't running, like, book a demo ads which say influencers.
Dave [0:14:28]: Right?
Jess [0:14:29]: There's no call to action.
Jess [0:14:30]: It was really just, like, hey.
Jess [0:14:32]: Here's this new product.
Jess [0:14:32]: He hears this survey data.
Jess [0:14:34]: Hey, here's this thing you can do.
Dave [0:14:37]: And so that so that survey data was, Like, how would someone...
Dave [0:14:40]: How would someone get it?
Dave [0:14:41]: What do you think the path was for someone to get it to tell me your best guess at, how you think those forty five demos like happened?
Jess [0:14:47]: Yeah.
Jess [0:14:47]: I think a lot of it was, hey, I trust this person.
Jess [0:14:50]: This is really interesting.
Jess [0:14:51]: Let me go Google backed Okay.
Jess [0:14:52]: Let me go to Vector.
Jess [0:14:53]: Let me kinda look around.
Jess [0:14:54]: Oh, yeah.
Jess [0:14:55]: This is cool.
Jess [0:14:55]: I can build ad audiences with people that are actually named.
Jess [0:14:58]: Amazing.
Jess [0:14:59]: Let me actually see, like, what I can do with this.
Jess [0:15:02]: And I...
Dave [0:15:03]: Did their add copy say, like, check out Vector or was, like, here's some cool data from Vector.
Jess [0:15:08]: It was a, a mix of both.
Jess [0:15:11]: Like, I I was pretty, like, hands off with these content creators because one, they know their audience best.
Jess [0:15:18]: Like, I don't want them to...
Jess [0:15:20]: I don't want them creating content they don't actually think people are going to resonate with?
Jess [0:15:24]: The I asked for, like, could I see your post twenty four hours ahead of time just because I wanna make sure, like, how you talk about Vectors right?
Jess [0:15:31]: But besides that, like, It was kinda, like, do what you think is right, here's...
Jess [0:15:35]: If if you wanna throw a link in the comments, here's, like, the page I would link to about this.
Jess [0:15:39]: But for the most part, it was really...
Jess [0:15:42]: It was really up to them, like, how they wanted to talk about the the content and and the product that they were kind of handed.
Jess [0:15:48]: I did really loose brief.
Jess [0:15:50]: Like, it was just, like, Yeah.
Jess [0:15:51]: Here's some messaging points.
Jess [0:15:52]: Here's, I gave them all, like, a very loose time frame because I've been on the other side of this where, like, I've been paid by other companies to post something and they're, like, we need you to post on this day.
Jess [0:16:03]: It's like, well, I already have plans for that day.
Dave [0:16:06]: I know.
Dave [0:16:06]: Right.
Dave [0:16:06]: Or or I've done, like, happens to me all the time.
Dave [0:16:08]: I'm like, very randomly.
Dave [0:16:09]: I'll...
Dave [0:16:10]: I'll have something scheduled.
Dave [0:16:11]: Usually, I do it on my calendar and I'm like, oh, shit I double post that.
Dave [0:16:14]: Like, why is the engagement on this one so off.
Dave [0:16:16]: Yeah.
Dave [0:16:17]: On that, By the way, I've an interesting perspective on this because we do, you know, this is, like, what our sponsorship business is.
Dave [0:16:23]: It's it's been a part of our sponsorship business at Exit Five Right?
Dave [0:16:25]: We we're essentially, like, an influencer type of company.
Dave [0:16:29]: It it comes through, like, our newsletter in podcast ads or whatever.
Dave [0:16:31]: But in your example of, like, you were hands off and letting them write the thing.
Dave [0:16:36]: I've seen a dramatic difference for.
Dave [0:16:38]: I think two years ago I didn't have the same confidence that I have now and I don't...
Dave [0:16:41]: I why we have the results from, like working with sponsors.
Dave [0:16:44]: Right?
Dave [0:16:44]: Yeah.
Dave [0:16:45]: I think before, I would be, like, oh, you know, whatever this company, this is the ad they wanna run, like, okay.
Dave [0:16:50]: Cool.
Dave [0:16:50]: Like, this is the ad.
Dave [0:16:51]: And now I'm like, No.
Dave [0:16:52]: No.
Dave [0:16:53]: Actually, I can do a better job.
Dave [0:16:54]: Like, I know this audience so well.
Dave [0:16:56]: Yeah like, let me write hey, guys.
Dave [0:16:59]: Can I write the ad for you in the newsletter, and they're like, yeah?
Dave [0:17:03]: Yeah.
Dave [0:17:03]: And I'm like, no, I should tell them that.
Dave [0:17:04]: So now we will get a brief, but we will write the add in our tone in our voice in our way, and it works so much better.
Dave [0:17:12]: And it's like, oh, this is the lesson for influencers, and it's like, it's this weird thing Like the more we wanna control it and, like, we get these messages.
Dave [0:17:19]: I get them all the time from, like Hubspot as an example.
Dave [0:17:21]: Yep.
Dave [0:17:21]: They're like, hey, You post...
Dave [0:17:23]: Here's the Ut?
Dave [0:17:24]: Like, post this on this date and I'm like, I understand they're trying to do, like, that brought, like the big play like that, but there just feels like the...
Dave [0:17:30]: If you can really do it this way.
Dave [0:17:32]: It it...
Dave [0:17:32]: It's better.
Dave [0:17:32]: How did you find these twelve?
Dave [0:17:34]: Because this is what comes of all time.
Dave [0:17:35]: Is there some magic database that you found to get these people like...
Jess [0:17:39]: Yeah.
Jess [0:17:39]: There are a few tools out there.
Jess [0:17:41]: There's a hive site is one that's kinda cool where you can actually go in and, like, hive.
Dave [0:17:47]: Hive.
Dave [0:17:47]: How did you get your twelve though?
Jess [0:17:50]: I I'm kinda knew all of them.
Jess [0:17:52]: So four of them were customers.
Jess [0:17:54]: And so that felt really important to have, like, people who are actually in the product using it day to day and have seen business results can actually talk about this for us.
Jess [0:18:05]: And then, the the remainder were just...
Jess [0:18:07]: I I is, like, Kay Edmonds inn, Britney Blank.
Jess [0:18:11]: Right?
Jess [0:18:12]: Like, people who are demand gen marketers that have so much trust built up in their communities in their audiences.
Dave [0:18:20]: So you you knew you knew these people.
Dave [0:18:22]: Right?
Dave [0:18:22]: And And then are there...
Dave [0:18:24]: There's probably industries.
Dave [0:18:25]: Let me this as a question.
Dave [0:18:27]: Do you think there are industries where you can't know who the people are and so therefore, you need, like, a database or something like that?
Jess [0:18:34]: Absolutely.
Jess [0:18:34]: I think it it was easy for me because I'm a marketer marketing to marketers.
Jess [0:18:39]: And, you know, my whole kind of sphere of people, are marketers.
Jess [0:18:44]: And so it was very simple for me to be like, yeah.
Jess [0:18:47]: These are the people I I really want on this in this pilot.
Jess [0:18:50]: I think it would have been a lot harder, like, at might previous role at Island, which is, you know, enterprise browser and we're...
Jess [0:18:57]: They were selling to, like, It and, you know, information security, like, put it been like, I don't even know to start.
Jess [0:19:04]: So, there are tools out there that will help you kind of understand, like, who has influence with the people that you really want to reach?
Dave [0:19:10]: Mh.
Dave [0:19:10]: Could you have gone to someone at Island?
Dave [0:19:12]: Like, was there that customer internally?
Dave [0:19:14]: And could you have asked?
Dave [0:19:15]: Like, hey, Who do you follow?
Jess [0:19:16]: Totally.
Jess [0:19:16]: Yeah.
Jess [0:19:17]: Exactly.
Jess [0:19:17]: That's another great way.
Jess [0:19:18]: Like, who's who's, like, your internal Sm, Who's kind of the one with their ear or the ground?
Jess [0:19:22]: Can you talk to them about.
Jess [0:19:24]: Like, where would our where would our audience actually be, like, listening and getting their information from.
Dave [0:19:29]: Okay.
Dave [0:19:29]: So you did this...
Dave [0:19:30]: Let let...
Dave [0:19:31]: We'll move on from the section of minute, but you...
Dave [0:19:32]: You did this influencer campaign.
Dave [0:19:34]: Seems like it was effective.
Dave [0:19:35]: I understand how you did it.
Dave [0:19:38]: Any any parting thoughts before we we move on to this, like, next part.
Jess [0:19:43]: Things I wanna try moving forward are sure kind of like, hybrid sponsorship or partnership, plus influencer.
Jess [0:19:52]: So think...
Jess [0:19:54]: Like, we sponsored the Notorious b2b podcast, and and Ta and Tim, Ta were and Tim Davidson who hosts that show, part of that sponsorship was that they posted.
Dave [0:20:05]: I've never heard of them
Jess [0:20:06]: for us.
Jess [0:20:06]: Yeah.
Jess [0:20:06]: They're, you know, little known folks.
Dave [0:20:11]: The fruit that's the fruit guy.
Dave [0:20:12]: I think.
Dave [0:20:13]: The
Jess [0:20:13]: fruit guy and the landing page lady.
Jess [0:20:15]: Yeah.
Dave [0:20:16]: Nah.
Dave [0:20:16]: I'm not...
Dave [0:20:16]: I've never heard of her.
Dave [0:20:17]: Not familiar.
Jess [0:20:19]: U, right.
Jess [0:20:19]: So that...
Jess [0:20:20]: That's something cool I wanna look into.
Jess [0:20:22]: I think video.
Dave [0:20:23]: Yeah.
Jess [0:20:24]: I think a little bit more.
Dave [0:20:25]: What about, like, scaling this.
Dave [0:20:26]: Right?
Dave [0:20:26]: Because Josh, like, your Ceo, Josh, Like, you tell me like it, yeah.
Dave [0:20:28]: This drove forty five demos Like, wouldn't the reaction be, like, cool.
Dave [0:20:31]: Let's do it again.
Dave [0:20:32]: Let's get forty five more.
Dave [0:20:34]: Yeah.
Dave [0:20:34]: Why you just do again?
Jess [0:20:36]: Yeah.
Jess [0:20:36]: Absolutely.
Jess [0:20:37]: Just kind of continue to do it.
Jess [0:20:38]: I think grow that cool.
Jess [0:20:39]: I think I...
Jess [0:20:41]: At this point, like, now, I would need to build a couple systems and some documentation to, like, really streamline it and help me scale it.
Dave [0:20:47]: Why don't you just get, like, those twelve and just have them on, like, a retainer for, like, the whole year?
Jess [0:20:51]: Yeah.
Jess [0:20:51]: That's it that's the point.
Jess [0:20:52]: And it's, like, the long term partnership and the long relationships really do well.
Dave [0:20:59]: I think so too.
Dave [0:20:59]: I think I think in especially in b?
Dave [0:21:01]: I think, If if you're selling consumer, it's, like, I could do one post and sell a bunch of, you know, razors or whatever.
Jess [0:21:08]: Yeah.
Dave [0:21:09]: In B to b just because of how people buy.
Dave [0:21:11]: They're...
Dave [0:21:11]: Like, your influencer stuff might be awesome, but someone just might not be ready to buy hundred right now.
Dave [0:21:16]: Yeah.
Dave [0:21:16]: And so even, you know, back to, like, what we're what we're doing.
Dave [0:21:20]: Right?
Dave [0:21:20]: We've shifted from, like, when I first started doing this, we would do, like, you know, a week long campaign with with someone to a sponsor, they wanted to get, like, a sponsored post from me, and and we put him in the newsletter, and that would be, like, a one off, like, a la carte thing.
Dave [0:21:31]: And now it's like, no.
Dave [0:21:33]: What really works is like, three to six months of, like, hearing web flow, air opt, whatever on the podcast.
Dave [0:21:39]: Over and over and over plus in the news, then, the deals come in and that's what you want.
Dave [0:21:44]: We want people to look at it in, like, over six months, You know, did you get incremental lift from doing this?
Dave [0:21:49]: B2b b is not gonna be, like, we sent a newsletter and, like, forty people bought Vector today.
Dave [0:21:54]: It just doesn't work like.
Jess [0:21:55]: We're done now.
Jess [0:21:55]: Yeah.
Jess [0:21:55]: Leaving like, on the flip side, Like, I've been posting doing sponsored posts for Sem rush for two years.
Jess [0:22:03]: They understand that too.
Jess [0:22:05]: Like, I think the the brands that are doing it right are, like, creating these long term partnerships with with...
Dave [0:22:10]: Oh, like, you're an influencer for them?
Dave [0:22:12]: Is that a recurring thing?
Dave [0:22:13]: Yeah.
Dave [0:22:13]: How does it work?
Dave [0:22:14]: Is, like a monthly per month thing?
Jess [0:22:17]: It's...
Jess [0:22:17]: Yeah.
Jess [0:22:17]: I would say probably ten...
Jess [0:22:19]: Eight to ten times a year.
Jess [0:22:20]: They'll reach out and say, hey.
Jess [0:22:22]: We have this new campaign pain.
Jess [0:22:23]: Like, here's kind of think about?
Dave [0:22:25]: So just copy that for Vector.
Dave [0:22:26]: That makes a ton of sense?
Dave [0:22:27]: Like, yeah.
Dave [0:22:27]: Yeah.
Dave [0:22:28]: Nice.
Dave [0:22:29]: That's a that's a great idea.
Dave [0:22:30]: Okay.
Dave [0:22:31]: Cool.
Dave [0:22:31]: Influencers done.
Dave [0:22:32]: Cool.
Dave [0:22:33]: Good.
Dave [0:22:33]: Good on you.
Dave [0:22:34]: Keep doing it we're doing it until software.
Dave [0:22:37]: I was, about, podcasting.
Dave [0:22:38]: So you hosted podcast at Vector.
Dave [0:22:41]: Yeah.
Dave [0:22:42]: The podcast is called this meeting could have been a podcast, and it is between you, the head of marketing, Vp marketing, and the Ceo, how did this thing come to be?
Dave [0:22:52]: Why do you do it?
Dave [0:22:53]: Is it valuable?
Dave [0:22:54]: Must be?
Dave [0:22:55]: We're talking about it in this?
Dave [0:22:56]: We're talking about as a marketing tactic.
Dave [0:22:57]: Let's I could spend an hour talking about the value of podcast.
Dave [0:23:00]: So let me hear it.
Jess [0:23:01]: This is like...
Dave [0:23:02]: How's it going?
Jess [0:23:02]: One of my favorite topics.
Jess [0:23:03]: So, it's going great.
Jess [0:23:04]: We're in season two.
Jess [0:23:06]: We have plans for seasons three and four.
Jess [0:23:09]: So obviously, it's doing something for us.
Jess [0:23:11]: We really started doing this because we wanted some sort of, like, you know, they're...
Jess [0:23:16]: There's lead magnets.
Jess [0:23:18]: Right?
Jess [0:23:18]: We wanted an awareness magnet.
Jess [0:23:19]: We wanted something that was going to bring people to us continuously that would always be kind of this big top of funnel, like, You always know you're get value out of it.
Jess [0:23:30]: And through that, you're going to learn about us and through learning about us.
Jess [0:23:34]: You're going to learn about Vector.
Jess [0:23:35]: And at the same time, we did not want the show to be about the product.
Jess [0:23:41]: We just wanted to, like, take building and public to the extreme.
Jess [0:23:45]: So we came up with this idea.
Jess [0:23:49]: This meeting could have been a podcast.
Jess [0:23:50]: We kinda of decided, like, it was going to be our one on once.
Jess [0:23:53]: It was essentially gonna be, like, you're sitting down in our one on ones each episode covers, like, one decision we had to make together.
Jess [0:24:00]: So it's like, Just wants to start running ads, Josh went to a conference and has a bunch of crazy ideas.
Jess [0:24:06]: Jess wants to start a podcast.
Jess [0:24:09]: Right?
Jess [0:24:10]: So, like, each one kind of has a vein that we explore.
Jess [0:24:13]: And I think people like it because there are things you always wanna save to your Ceo that you can't.
Jess [0:24:19]: Right?
Jess [0:24:20]: Because you just don't have that relationship.
Jess [0:24:21]: And Josh, I have that relationship.
Jess [0:24:23]: And so I think, like, I can say the things or asked the questions.
Jess [0:24:25]: And I can get a real answer back to the things that, like, most people can't actually ask.
Jess [0:24:31]: And it's done really well for us.
Jess [0:24:34]: We...
Jess [0:24:34]: This season is even more successful than than last season.
Jess [0:24:38]: We have about double the downloads we did pretty consistently month month.
Jess [0:24:41]: And it's not of fun.
Dave [0:24:44]: I love the I love the whole idea.
Dave [0:24:46]: The concept of it is great.
Dave [0:24:47]: It seems like you do have the right chemistry for it, which matters.
Dave [0:24:51]: You know, I think that's the kinda secret sauce of it.
Dave [0:24:55]: Right?
Jess [0:24:55]: Yeah.
Jess [0:24:55]: Totally.
Jess [0:24:56]: I think people know that, like, they're gonna learn something, but they're also gonna be entertained.
Jess [0:25:01]: We have a couple like, weird moments where, like, we do really awkward positive affirmations and we start directly into the camera.
Jess [0:25:08]: So if it's fun.
Jess [0:25:09]: I think one big piece of it being so successful is that we record on set.
Jess [0:25:16]: So we actually do this together, like, I...
Jess [0:25:20]: He lives in florida.
Jess [0:25:20]: I live in Michigan.
Jess [0:25:21]: I fly down to Florida every few months, and we, over two days record an entire season.
Jess [0:25:27]: So I bring.
Jess [0:25:28]: Each changes angels of clothes.
Jess [0:25:30]: And we have, like, all the scripts written up, and we kinda know exactly like, what order we're gonna do them in and we do, you know, the silly photos where you have to, like, like, the you youtube now.
Dave [0:25:43]: You have to do a lot of prep for that?
Dave [0:25:44]: Or is it, like, topic driven and then you're kinda r ton of prep?
Jess [0:25:47]: Ton prep just to make sure that, like, we get the outline right.
Jess [0:25:51]: We don't do any real scripting besides the show opener.
Jess [0:25:56]: The show opener is kind of like a little skit.
Jess [0:25:58]: Besides that, it's all just kind of off the top where our head based on our outline.
Jess [0:26:03]: But we...
Jess [0:26:04]: We have very specific points we want to, like, make sure we hit and very specific stories we wanna make sure we tell, you know, moments from, like, oh, you know, hey.
Jess [0:26:13]: Remember when we were at drive...
Jess [0:26:14]: Exit Five Drive, and the boat mix up and we had to, like, go figure all that out and it worked out.
Jess [0:26:22]: Right?
Jess [0:26:22]: So, like, we we will sit down and, like, try to really get solid outlines written, and that is what takes the most work.
Dave [0:26:31]: Nice.
Dave [0:26:31]: That's awesome.
Dave [0:26:31]: I I feel like the...
Dave [0:26:33]: I mean, the in person thing makes a ton of difference, and then Also feel like because you're batch them, your banter is already, like, you're, like, warmed up a little bit, you know?
Jess [0:26:41]: Yeah.
Jess [0:26:41]: It is.
Jess [0:26:42]: It if you can feel that in the episodes.
Jess [0:26:45]: Like, it just feels like one conversation, which is which is awesome.
Dave [0:26:50]: Do you ever have a day where you're not really filling up for it, and you just gotta do it anyway.
Jess [0:26:53]: There was one episode where I was...
Jess [0:26:55]: We were gonna...
Jess [0:26:56]: I think it was, like, you know, one of the last episodes we were gonna record on day one of the two day shoot?
Jess [0:27:01]: And I was like, I don't.
Jess [0:27:03]: I'm not feeling this one.
Jess [0:27:04]: Can we just like, move this to the first slot tomorrow, and let's take that first one we were gonna do tomorrow morning and move it to now, And like, I think I'll be in a better, like, heads space in.
Dave [0:27:13]: And Yeah.
Jess [0:27:14]: Worked out great.
Jess [0:27:14]: But that's really, like, I get so excited.
Dave [0:27:17]: If you ever been like, mad at him and you have to do the podcast.
Jess [0:27:20]: No No.
Jess [0:27:21]: We...
Jess [0:27:22]: I really get mad at each other.
Jess [0:27:23]: I can tell him if he's being crazy and he can tell me if I'm being crazy and we're, like...
Dave [0:27:27]: I mean, it's not normal.
Dave [0:27:28]: You're allowed to be frustrated at your...
Dave [0:27:30]: With your bot...
Dave [0:27:30]: You know, whoever your bosses is is, like, can be kind of annoying sometimes.
Jess [0:27:34]: No.
Jess [0:27:34]: I don't know.
Jess [0:27:35]: We get long great.
Jess [0:27:35]: Like, I had someone asked me yesterday.
Jess [0:27:37]: Do...
Jess [0:27:37]: Have you guys known each other, like, a really long time.
Jess [0:27:39]: I was like, this time last year, I did not know him.
Dave [0:27:43]: Yeah.
Dave [0:27:43]: That's great.
Dave [0:27:43]: Yeah.
Dave [0:27:44]: And if you if you can find that, that is the recipe.
Dave [0:27:47]: I mean, I think there's a lot of people who can do the job, like, I think...
Dave [0:27:52]: Yeah.
Dave [0:27:52]: Like, I think that somebody else probably could...
Dave [0:27:55]: This is not a reflection on you.
Dave [0:27:57]: Like I think somebody else could probably be doing an effective job at marketing for Vector.
Dave [0:28:00]: Right?
Dave [0:28:01]: How.
Dave [0:28:01]: But when you have...
Dave [0:28:03]: It really is, I think the thing I'm learning to Jess is like, everyone always is like, could talk about the people It's all about...
Dave [0:28:08]: But it really, the business stuff is so easy.
Dave [0:28:11]: Almost all of the fresh all of the problems I have in a week are people problems.
Jess [0:28:15]: Yes.
Jess [0:28:15]: Yeah.
Jess [0:28:16]: I mean, this is my fifth job in six years.
Jess [0:28:22]: And it it's it's simply because, like, I would go somewhere and I would be okay like, kind of doing my work, but like, I didn't feel that I don't...
Jess [0:28:33]: I never felt what I feel here.
Jess [0:28:35]: Right?
Jess [0:28:36]: Where I'm, like, man, people really wanna know my opinion and they really care about it and, like, Yeah.
Jess [0:28:41]: It just...
Jess [0:28:42]: It's different here.
Jess [0:28:43]: And I think if I had advice for people who are, like, So she's is a content person where it's, like, really hard to quickly show how your work is having impact, Like, it's so long term.
Jess [0:28:54]: It's really difficult.
Jess [0:28:55]: Is, like, there is there is a leader out there for you, whether you're, like, you are gonna report to a Ceo or you're gonna report to a Vp of marketing or you're gonna report to, like, a manager of some kind, like, there is a leader out there for you who you are gonna be able to jive with and get along with and grow with, like, keep searching if you haven't found them yet.
Jess [0:29:14]: Okay.
Dave [0:29:16]: Because it just takes all the bullshit out and then you you two are on the same page.
Dave [0:29:20]: And you can actually have productive and creative discussions Instead of constantly worrying about hurting feelings or saying something.
Dave [0:29:29]: I don't know.
Jess [0:29:30]: Yeah.
Jess [0:29:30]: How do I deliver this to them so that they like it?
Jess [0:29:32]: Yeah.
Jess [0:29:32]: It's, like, yeah.
Jess [0:29:33]: Cuts all that.
Jess [0:29:34]: For sure.
Dave [0:29:35]: I tried this week?
Dave [0:29:36]: I tried just being super direct all week, and it's really working.
Jess [0:29:41]: What...
Jess [0:29:41]: We...
Jess [0:29:41]: Are you not normally like that?
Dave [0:29:43]: I can be direct, but I think I'm, like, I think right now, it's more like, I'm just saying like, if...
Dave [0:29:48]: I'm saying exactly why I don't like something and saying exactly what to do next instead of just being.
Dave [0:29:53]: Yeah.
Dave [0:29:54]: Like, I think before I'd be like...
Dave [0:29:55]: Okay, Sounds good.
Dave [0:29:56]: And I'm like, I kinda don't really, like, especially because a lot of people...
Dave [0:29:59]: A lot of our team is new.
Dave [0:30:00]: And so I feel like the more...
Dave [0:30:02]: I just need to, like, say more things out loud, and it's it's, like, intentionally trying to shape the team and the culture.
Jess [0:30:08]: Yeah.
Dave [0:30:09]: I feel like if I don't, so I'm trying to be more direct, and I...
Dave [0:30:11]: It's it's hard.
Jess [0:30:14]: It is.
Jess [0:30:14]: I didn't always feel like this the feedback is a gift.
Jess [0:30:17]: Like, if you can take...
Jess [0:30:19]: If you can internalize it the right way.
Jess [0:30:21]: Mh.
Dave [0:30:22]: I know it's really hard though.
Dave [0:30:23]: I still don't love it, and I...
Dave [0:30:25]: It feels uncomfortable and and and like, a gift.
Dave [0:30:27]: It's a...
Dave [0:30:28]: It's it's a gift until it happens to you.
Dave [0:30:30]: Let me just sit there and give you ten minutes of feedback.
Dave [0:30:33]: You know?
Dave [0:30:33]: It's like, I get a lot of feedback, and I don't want anymore of it.
Dave [0:30:37]: Like I'm good.
Dave [0:30:38]: That doesn't feel that...
Dave [0:30:39]: But anyone who goes on a podcast is like feedback.
Dave [0:30:42]: Feedback is...
Dave [0:30:43]: I I understand.
Dave [0:30:43]: I understand the concept, but it doesn't...
Dave [0:30:45]: I'm...
Dave [0:30:45]: We're still human and it's and it's challenging.
Dave [0:30:47]: And then I...
Dave [0:30:48]: I think sometimes you need to just say, like, no, like, the words n o, like, no.
Dave [0:30:53]: Yeah.
Dave [0:30:53]: And it needs to...
Jess [0:30:55]: Is it it's an?
Dave [0:30:56]: Fuck Leah says that to me all the time She's like, you say, no.
Dave [0:30:59]: It's a full sentence.
Dave [0:31:00]: We say it's no.
Dave [0:31:01]: No is it...
Dave [0:31:01]: No is a full sentence.
Dave [0:31:02]: What.
Dave [0:31:03]: But there's something that's weird about If someone emails me and they're like, hey, can I, can I have a?
Dave [0:31:07]: Can I pick your brain tomorrow?
Dave [0:31:09]: If I just wrote back no.
Dave [0:31:10]: I That would be an asshole move.
Dave [0:31:13]: Look So I I just...
Dave [0:31:17]: So then, what do I I just ignore it, then I ignore the message, but then I'm also an asshole.
Dave [0:31:20]: Anyway, in a work context.
Dave [0:31:21]: Yeah.
Dave [0:31:22]: Like, it's okay, like, let note.
Dave [0:31:23]: We're not doing that.
Dave [0:31:24]: Okay.
Jess [0:31:25]: Done.
Jess [0:31:25]: Yeah.
Jess [0:31:26]: Totally.
Jess [0:31:27]: Like, it's a
Dave [0:31:29]: little bit like parenting sometimes, management and parenting.
Dave [0:31:31]: I'm not saying that the teammates our children.
Dave [0:31:34]: I'm just saying, like, she's gotta be direct sometimes.
Jess [0:31:38]: Yeah.
Jess [0:31:38]: You just gotta say it like it is.
Dave [0:31:41]: Okay.
Dave [0:31:41]: On the on the results of the podcast.
Dave [0:31:43]: Now.
Dave [0:31:43]: You know it's working.
Dave [0:31:45]: It's working, it feels awesome.
Dave [0:31:46]: It's working, But what what does that actually mean?
Dave [0:31:48]: I've been in a situation where you got a podcast and you you you feel it.
Dave [0:31:52]: You get Dms on Linkedin.
Dave [0:31:53]: It shows up on sales calls.
Dave [0:31:55]: I'm wondering if you've feel that in the same way.
Jess [0:31:58]: Yeah.
Jess [0:31:58]: I will tell you right now.
Jess [0:32:00]: I cannot tie it back to...
Jess [0:32:02]: I don't know more than a handful of deals where it's been mentioned on a sales call or...
Jess [0:32:09]: Feel I know for a fact that someone either saw clip heard episode.
Jess [0:32:12]: Right?
Jess [0:32:13]: However, I...
Jess [0:32:15]: Yeah.
Jess [0:32:16]: I think like you say, we feel it.
Jess [0:32:18]: We feel the increase of, you know, the the kind of up into the right increase of traffic the growth on social between me and Josh.
Jess [0:32:28]: The...
Jess [0:32:29]: We're doing a live episode, actually, This is exciting next week, by the time this actually airs it'll have have happened.
Jess [0:32:36]: Thank god I'm like, really nerve about it.
Jess [0:32:38]: But Oh,
Dave [0:32:40]: Is it in Florida like, live in Florida?
Jess [0:32:42]: No.
Jess [0:32:42]: We're gonna do, like, a, webinar, live recording, and it...
Jess [0:32:48]: It's gonna feel just like the podcasts, like, it...
Jess [0:32:51]: It's in wild.
Jess [0:32:52]: Alright.
Jess [0:32:53]: So we're we're doing more of it.
Jess [0:32:55]: Like, we...
Jess [0:32:56]: Even just, like, the registrations for that.
Jess [0:32:58]: I'm like, it's working.
Jess [0:32:59]: We have fans and followers listeners there's.
Jess [0:33:01]: Yeah.
Dave [0:33:02]: So you feel it you feel it beyond sales, which is, like, a cool benefit of it, which is, like, employment brand, personal brand.
Dave [0:33:08]: It just feels to be more...
Dave [0:33:09]: The there...
Dave [0:33:10]: It's not like, I know for a fact that the podcast has generated six deals for us, but it's more just like, in general, since doing this, there seems to be more like buzz and air cover for Vector.
Jess [0:33:21]: Yes.
Jess [0:33:21]: Yeah.
Jess [0:33:22]: I think one of the marketing team's goals for twenty twenty six is to be your marketing team's favorite marketing team.
Jess [0:33:28]: And I think that that the podcast is a really good...
Dave [0:33:32]: Came up with that idea.
Jess [0:33:33]: Thrill me.
Dave [0:33:36]: Hell yeah.
Jess [0:33:38]: I mean it's real.
Jess [0:33:39]: Like, I want people to...
Jess [0:33:40]: When they're ass, like, who's doing cool stuff.
Jess [0:33:42]: I want people to say Vector and the podcast is an example of that.
Dave [0:33:46]: I like that.
Dave [0:33:47]: I like goals like that.
Jess [0:33:49]: Yeah.
Dave [0:33:50]: This is what happens when you put a content and brand person in charge marketing.
Dave [0:33:53]: Yeah.
Dave [0:33:54]: This is healthy.
Dave [0:33:56]: The goal doesn't always have to be seven million in pipeline in this quarter.
Dave [0:34:00]: Obviously, that's the one that's gonna get you keep your job, but, like, You do both.
Dave [0:34:04]: You're gonna get more inbound because more people know Vector.
Dave [0:34:07]: I meant to say this to year earlier, but I like the goal of, like, we're doing this to get more people to know that we exist.
Jess [0:34:12]: Yeah.
Jess [0:34:12]: How would they ever buy from you?
Jess [0:34:14]: So they don't know who you are and who you...
Jess [0:34:15]: And do they like you?
Jess [0:34:16]: Like, that's a big thing too.
Jess [0:34:17]: Just like ability.
Dave [0:34:19]: Cool.
Dave [0:34:19]: So...
Dave [0:34:19]: And then podcast podcasts, you're gonna double down on it.
Jess [0:34:23]: Yes.
Jess [0:34:23]: Still going.
Jess [0:34:24]: We're doing live episodes.
Jess [0:34:26]: Season three and four, they're coming.
Dave [0:34:28]: Cool.
Dave [0:34:28]: Dan's on my ass about podcast downloads.
Dave [0:34:30]: I...
Dave [0:34:31]: It's my least favorite topic in the world.
Jess [0:34:35]: Why is that?
Jess [0:34:35]: I think you're doing amazing.
Jess [0:34:37]: Are you not?
Dave [0:34:38]: Yeah.
Dave [0:34:38]: It's fine.
Dave [0:34:38]: It's just like, it's seasonal, the December and January.
Dave [0:34:42]: Yeah.
Dave [0:34:42]: Like, thanksgiving through January, like...
Dave [0:34:45]: And it's...
Dave [0:34:46]: I've been doing this for for many for seven years now, and it's, like, every year, like, few...
Dave [0:34:51]: I...
Dave [0:34:51]: I feel like I haven't listened to in three months.
Dave [0:34:53]: And that's okay.
Dave [0:34:54]: I'm still doing mine.
Dave [0:34:55]: Yeah.
Dave [0:34:56]: So, you know, he's just, like, why are these down?
Dave [0:34:58]: Why?
Dave [0:34:58]: I'm like, dude, it's okay.
Dave [0:35:00]: It's okay.
Jess [0:35:01]: And then
Dave [0:35:02]: y.
Dave [0:35:02]: And then also, I don't know.
Dave [0:35:04]: I just feel like the goal is not...
Dave [0:35:07]: I don't really care if they grow like this because the podcast, I think there's so many benefits of it beyond just like the growth machine.
Dave [0:35:16]: Yeah.
Dave [0:35:17]: And it's like, we create content through it.
Dave [0:35:19]: You meet people through it.
Dave [0:35:21]: You know, for you and Josh.
Dave [0:35:22]: Like, it's an amazing way to get content out.
Dave [0:35:25]: You're now kinda like, putting takes and bits on the record and, like, that thing you said in the podcast actually becomes, like, a key piece of messaging and, like, that becomes his, like, keynote at your event and.
Dave [0:35:34]: You know, customers are dm you saying they listen, people are sharing with their families and saying like, go, check out the podcast and my Ceo.
Dave [0:35:41]: So there there's there's a lot of benefits beyond just the downloads.
Jess [0:35:45]: One hundred percent.
Dave [0:35:47]: Do you think a part of it?
Dave [0:35:47]: Like, did you commit to doing this regardless of how it went or you say, hey, we're gonna do three episodes and try this.
Jess [0:35:55]: We committed to a full season and just kinda wanted to see, like, what it would do.
Jess [0:36:00]: I I...
Jess [0:36:01]: You know what Dave?
Jess [0:36:02]: I think the thing that we really realized it was, like, becoming a thing was my and Josh social following, like, really started.
Jess [0:36:10]: We started to see really steady growth.
Jess [0:36:11]: I've been posting Linkedin for, like, three years now, close to four.
Jess [0:36:15]: You know, the algorithm kinda does this thing year over year and it's, like, you see growth and then that Cal levels was obviously growth.
Jess [0:36:21]: Behind the scenes for me, like, I was starting to see, like, real growth again.
Jess [0:36:25]: And so I was like, some something's happening here.
Jess [0:36:27]: Like, this is this is happening.
Jess [0:36:28]: So I think that was the moment we were, like, okay, even I think halfway through season one being, distributed, like, the fourth episode was out and where, like, we're doing season two alright again.
Jess [0:36:41]: So...
Jess [0:36:41]: Yeah.
Jess [0:36:42]: It makes a difference.
Jess [0:36:43]: It's it's hard to track.
Jess [0:36:44]: Yes, But, like, you can feel it.
Jess [0:36:46]: You can find it.
Dave [0:36:47]: Damn, I'm looking at your Linkedin right now and your post today.
Dave [0:36:49]: I'm like, is that me?
Dave [0:36:50]: It's a bald guy with Look a stubble, and he's got a Exit Five crew neck on.
Dave [0:36:56]: I've realized was like, was that me for like, now the head shape is different.
Dave [0:36:58]: That's josh.
Dave [0:37:00]: Okay.
Dave [0:37:02]: Let's see.
Dave [0:37:02]: Linkedin.
Dave [0:37:03]: You talked a bunch about Linkedin.
Dave [0:37:04]: You've been posting on Linkedin for three years.
Dave [0:37:06]: You said, holy shit.
Dave [0:37:07]: You got thirty seven thousand followers.
Dave [0:37:09]: That's that's not a that's not a joke.
Dave [0:37:11]: That's not...
Dave [0:37:12]: That that ain't know ten k Jess.
Jess [0:37:14]: No cool.
Jess [0:37:14]: I...
Jess [0:37:15]: That's the main reason my daughter thinks I'm cool.
Jess [0:37:17]: You know, you know?
Dave [0:37:19]: Wow.
Dave [0:37:19]: Love that.
Dave [0:37:21]: And and you start...
Dave [0:37:23]: Were you started posting three years ago?
Dave [0:37:24]: Is that is that...
Dave [0:37:25]: Is this all been growth within three years?
Jess [0:37:28]: Yeah.
Jess [0:37:28]: Almost four.
Jess [0:37:29]: I think it was April of twenty twenty two.
Jess [0:37:31]: I started posting.
Dave [0:37:33]: You know what?
Dave [0:37:33]: You know, those things like imagine being one of those people who posts on Linkedin
Jess [0:37:40]: And then I'm like, that's me hi.
Dave [0:37:41]: The Like, you're looking at me bitch.
Dave [0:37:43]: Yeah.
Dave [0:37:43]: And like, Yeah.
Jess [0:37:45]: What about it?
Dave [0:37:46]: Exactly.
Dave [0:37:46]: Help me bro.
Dave [0:37:47]: Or, like, I I mean, I think it just...
Dave [0:37:48]: And then there's other one, like, I one day I wanna...
Dave [0:37:51]: The point of working.
Dave [0:37:52]: You're seeing the other one's like the point of working is to never have to use.
Dave [0:37:55]: Linkedin.
Jess [0:37:58]: Hey.
Jess [0:37:58]: You know what?
Jess [0:37:59]: I will tell you the point of Linkedin is to never have to apply for a job.
Jess [0:38:03]: That is...
Dave [0:38:06]: Or like to have a...
Dave [0:38:06]: You have a family.
Dave [0:38:08]: You wanna make money that's okay.
Dave [0:38:10]: You have You're running marketing and you have, like, a great company paying you money to talk about their products and, like, you can use that money to live your life.
Dave [0:38:17]: Like, goddamn.
Dave [0:38:17]: That's good.
Dave [0:38:18]: That's good.
Jess [0:38:19]: It is amazing.
Jess [0:38:19]: Yes.
Dave [0:38:22]: But that's crazy.
Dave [0:38:22]: Three years, thirty seven thousand followers can...
Dave [0:38:24]: I mean, hey, hell heck yeah.
Dave [0:38:26]: We we left...
Dave [0:38:27]: We we we love that?
Dave [0:38:28]: I'm I'm happy to have a Linkedin success success story.
Dave [0:38:31]: How do you define your your content strategy?
Dave [0:38:34]: In my prep notes from Aaron says Linkedin un hinge branding, but, like, I don't I don't really think you're un hinge?
Dave [0:38:41]: That you're, like,
Jess [0:38:42]: You're not maybe talking about wrapped Vectors a little.
Dave [0:38:46]: Vectors un hinge of the...
Dave [0:38:47]: Okay.
Dave [0:38:47]: Jess Cook is not un hinge.
Dave [0:38:49]: The Vector social brand is un unchanged.
Jess [0:38:52]: Yeah.
Jess [0:38:52]: Yeah.
Jess [0:38:53]: For sure.
Jess [0:38:53]: Which honestly, like, all I do for the Vector social page is just like repo me and Josh stuff, but from the podcast mostly.
Jess [0:39:00]: But, yeah, I don't...
Jess [0:39:02]: My content strategy is like, I just I really started posting on Linkedin because my, okay.
Jess [0:39:10]: Well on, And actually, I gonna go back even further.
Jess [0:39:11]: My background is in copywriting and creative direction.
Jess [0:39:16]: I was copywriter, creative director on B brands, Mcdonald's, right rice Kris for us if, like, pop arts, Scott, a lot of, like Cp g stuff for fifteen years.
Jess [0:39:26]: And I made the switch over to b to b and Saas in twenty nineteen.
Jess [0:39:31]: And I felt so lost in those first couple of years.
Jess [0:39:35]: Like, I was like, they're gonna figure out.
Jess [0:39:38]: I have no idea what I'm doing, they're gonna fire me like, all I know how to do is write recipe description for rice first streets.
Jess [0:39:45]: Like, what am I doing here?
Jess [0:39:46]: Yeah.
Jess [0:39:47]: Finally got my feet underneath me, and I finally, like, it took a good two years, but I really felt like, okay.
Jess [0:39:54]: I actually, like, I have some transferable skills here.
Jess [0:39:57]: Like, I know what I'm doing.
Jess [0:39:58]: I know what good content is.
Jess [0:39:59]: And so I started writing on Linkedin because I was like, man, I really wish I would have had somebody to just, like, throw me a tip of the day like, help me feel like I wasn't drowning.
Jess [0:40:08]: And I just wanted to be that person for someone else, and I just kept going.
Jess [0:40:13]: So that's kind of my ethos is, like, what would help someone not wanna cry at their job today.
Jess [0:40:20]: Like, what could be something that could really help them out that they could use who's a content marketer or trying to move up the ladder or has an unconditional background that maybe is, like, man today is rough, and they just need a little glimmer of hope.
Dave [0:40:35]: Can you remember a rice kris recipe off the top of your head right now?
Jess [0:40:40]: Well, it's the same recipe over and over and over, and you just put a different topping.
Jess [0:40:45]: So it could be like, butter scotch rice crispy treats, and you just put butters scotch in the original recipe.
Jess [0:40:52]: Like legit.
Jess [0:40:54]: I wrote...
Jess [0:40:54]: I kid you not two hundred plus recipe descriptions is a junior copywriter.
Dave [0:41:00]: I love that.
Dave [0:41:00]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:01]: Look I think I think it's...
Dave [0:41:02]: I think it's great.
Dave [0:41:03]: I love...
Dave [0:41:03]: I love the I love the background and and and how that how that plays out.
Dave [0:41:07]: And I think it's the perfect error for this.
Dave [0:41:10]: Like, yeah.
Dave [0:41:10]: I think you have to you have to win by standing out by being different by getting attention by getting people to
Jess [0:41:18]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:19]: To like you, I talked to...
Dave [0:41:21]: I the podcast this morning actually with with Louie louis, Louie Gran, you know, his book.
Jess [0:41:27]: Oh, yes.
Dave [0:41:27]: Yeah Yeah.
Dave [0:41:27]: And his whole thing is, like, standing out being different.
Dave [0:41:30]: He was great.
Dave [0:41:30]: He was super creative reminded me a lot of, like, kinda, like, harry dry type of stuff.
Dave [0:41:34]: But...
Dave [0:41:34]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:34]: I like that even just, like, the fact that Vector has a has a mascot.
Dave [0:41:39]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:40]: Some reason works for me.
Dave [0:41:41]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:42]: Like, it it it does.
Dave [0:41:44]: And I said to you, yesterday sir, like, you get you gave these out at our event and, like, my kids both have this ghost this ghost stuffy, but there's something about, like, I'm looking at Linkedin, like, the banner you have the only way to build add audiences by name and it's Vector and this little ghosts and then, like, you're you're white and pink, like, the brand colors.
Dave [0:41:59]: It it really does work and it makes me...
Dave [0:42:01]: I said this on the podcast with Louie, but, like, it'd be it'd be fun to, like, use brand as an advantage right now and to stand out and to not have your website and everything feel like you know, stripe
Jess [0:42:13]: Yeah.
Jess [0:42:13]: Whatever.
Jess [0:42:13]: I feel like it's non negotiable moving forward.
Jess [0:42:16]: And I think I posted this just the other day.
Jess [0:42:19]: I really think we're gonna start to see content marketers move up into that, like, marketing lead role, because they understand that.
Jess [0:42:28]: And you know, I think that was part of the reason I...
Jess [0:42:31]: Like, Vector was so appealing to me when the opportunity arose was like, they had the ghosts on their site.
Jess [0:42:38]: They really...
Jess [0:42:39]: They named the problem.
Jess [0:42:40]: They had fun colors.
Jess [0:42:41]: There was, like, a little bit of...
Jess [0:42:43]: I don't know Sas or attitude to their vibe in their tone.
Jess [0:42:47]: And it spoke to me as, like, my the my past in b c.
Jess [0:42:52]: Right?
Jess [0:42:52]: Where everything has a mascot, and you actually, like, try to capitalize on emotion and not just like, oh, there's frosting on every flake.
Jess [0:43:00]: Right?
Jess [0:43:00]: Like, it's bigger than that.
Jess [0:43:02]: And I think we're gonna start to see, like, this is gonna be the new wave where marketers who understand that are rising to the top.
Dave [0:43:09]: And it's just more fun.
Dave [0:43:10]: This is a more fun job to, like, More fun.
Dave [0:43:12]: Be creative.
Dave [0:43:13]: And, like, I don't know.
Dave [0:43:15]: I love that stuff Like, this...
Dave [0:43:16]: What I love about marketing is like, if the...
Dave [0:43:19]: My kid's school was doing a fundraiser, and they wanted help, like, getting more parents to, like, donate.
Dave [0:43:27]: I'd love to be involved in that and, like, come up with something creative And and that's what we're doing just at a bigger scale with, like, nah.
Dave [0:43:33]: A B2b brand.
Dave [0:43:34]: And, like, that's the fun shit.
Dave [0:43:35]: That That is so fun.
Dave [0:43:37]: What what's not fun is all the other internal and people stuff and done it that.
Dave [0:43:42]: But, like, I think if we can do more of that, like, craft.
Dave [0:43:44]: I love this lately, like, the craft of marketing, the art of marketing like, that that...
Dave [0:43:47]: That's what's fun.
Jess [0:43:48]: It's so fun.
Jess [0:43:49]: And we we lean pretty hard into the ghost.
Jess [0:43:51]: I think people really love him.
Jess [0:43:53]: Like, I've had so many people tell tell me now that, like, when they see a ghost, they think of Vector, they don't think of snapchat.
Jess [0:43:59]: Like, they think of us, which is that's for you wild.
Dave [0:44:04]: Did you...
Dave [0:44:04]: So did the ghost start out, like, as...
Dave [0:44:06]: You you you all just started using the ghost emoji and then you did you eventually, like, design the ghost emoji into your own ghost?
Jess [0:44:14]: Well, Josh came up with a ghost?
Jess [0:44:15]: Which again, like, find you a more a, a a c suite leader who believes in brand so much.
Jess [0:44:21]: They create their own mascot.
Jess [0:44:23]: Like that, that's huge.
Jess [0:44:24]: So he created the ghost.
Jess [0:44:25]: He used a little ghost image on one page of the website kind of to start as as this idea of, like, we're revealing the ghosts that are coming into your site your ads.
Jess [0:44:36]: Right?
Jess [0:44:36]: Like, they're no longer anonymous.
Jess [0:44:38]: And when I started last last year, they were a pretty big, like, part of the branding already.
Jess [0:44:46]: And I just recognize recognized that it could be the thing we really lean into and use all the time.
Jess [0:44:53]: So, yeah, the the ghost emojis is, like, I think we kind of own that now.
Jess [0:44:58]: We're gonna do a little sneak peek of our our plan this year.
Jess [0:45:01]: We're gonna do a little tour.
Jess [0:45:02]: We're gonna do our own little event series called the ghost tour tour where we go to different cities when we're taking prospects and customers out to nice dinner, and then we're gonna go do, like, goes to her right.
Jess [0:45:14]: We do a lot of, like, the hey or we, like, lean into the, like, language like that.
Jess [0:45:20]: I I I one of my favorite parts of the job is I have the privilege of commenting as a Vector on Linkedin.
Jess [0:45:26]: So like, I get...
Jess [0:45:27]: I take on the voice of the ghosts.
Dave [0:45:29]: Oh, yeah.
Dave [0:45:30]: When that's...
Dave [0:45:30]: When when it's not you, actually, you can say whatever you...
Jess [0:45:33]: It's so fun.
Jess [0:45:33]: Yeah.
Jess [0:45:34]: I call it like...
Dave [0:45:35]: Are there other are there other brands that you think I have done a good job of this it, like, kinda created a character are winning right now with brand, like, Vectors is one, who...
Dave [0:45:45]: Maybe one or two others that that you could mention that that people might come follow?
Jess [0:45:50]: F is another one.
Jess [0:45:51]: If you've ever heard of Fiddle, they're they're Linkedin, like ads attribution tool, They also have a mascot.
Jess [0:45:58]: It's a little, like, lion.
Jess [0:45:59]: I stop at every single one of their ads that I ever see on Linkedin because it's always like their...
Dave [0:46:06]: Oh, yeah.
Jess [0:46:07]: Lion in some sort of, like, meme that I've seen before, like, the actual...
Dave [0:46:11]: It's a swedish company.
Dave [0:46:12]: This is always true.
Dave [0:46:13]: There there's something out there that they...
Dave [0:46:15]: Yeah.
Jess [0:46:16]: Yeah.
Jess [0:46:16]: So they're they're a really good one.
Jess [0:46:17]: There are companies that have mascot that I'm like, use mascot more, like, Yeah.
Jess [0:46:23]: You know?
Dave [0:46:24]: Like, who?
Dave [0:46:24]: Who's got a good mask.
Jess [0:46:26]: You has a great.
Jess [0:46:26]: Mutiny has the raccoon.
Dave [0:46:29]: Oh, yeah.
Dave [0:46:29]: Yeah.
Jess [0:46:30]: And I'm, like, you gotta you gotta use that raccoon for.
Dave [0:46:33]: Rack.
Dave [0:46:33]: I need a mascot.
Jess [0:46:35]: You need a mascot.
Dave [0:46:36]: You need a mascot.
Jess [0:46:38]: What to be your mascot.
Dave [0:46:41]: Like the number five with, like, legs.
Jess [0:46:44]: Oh, I love it.
Dave [0:46:46]: I don't know.
Dave [0:46:47]: I don't know.
Dave [0:46:51]: That's a good one...
Dave [0:46:52]: The ghost is great.
Dave [0:46:53]: The ghost is the ghost works.
Dave [0:46:54]: Cool.
Dave [0:46:55]: Brand, like the brand is back, baby.
Jess [0:46:58]: Brand back.
Dave [0:46:59]: It's funny.
Dave [0:46:59]: This and this note it in here what was you know, just just worked on childhood brands, Mcdonald's Egg I, Rice Kris and Continental.
Dave [0:47:05]: This is Google Gemini, by the way.
Dave [0:47:08]: Oh And one of the suggesting questions was, you you spent years writing for brands like I go and rice Kris.
Dave [0:47:13]: Now that you're parent yourself, do you look at these box in your own pantry and think I would have written that tagline differently.
Jess [0:47:20]: That's a great question.
Dave [0:47:22]: I think that was Aaron.
Dave [0:47:22]: Knows was Aaron actually not Gemini.
Jess [0:47:25]: Oh, she's amazing.
Jess [0:47:25]: Oh, I'm sure I would have.
Jess [0:47:27]: I mean, I I was writing those lines As like a twenty year old.
Dave [0:47:32]: No disrespect.
Dave [0:47:33]: Twenty year old Listen as no disrespect.
Jess [0:47:35]: One, I disrespect.
Jess [0:47:36]: For ten whole years, I was a twenty something.
Jess [0:47:38]: But
Dave [0:47:39]: thirty eight.
Dave [0:47:39]: Listen to me.
Dave [0:47:40]: I'm thirty eight.
Dave [0:47:41]: And if I could go back for one day and talk a bunch of shit to my twenty three year olds twenty five year old self, I would.
Jess [0:47:47]: Heck yes.
Jess [0:47:47]: Absolutely.
Jess [0:47:48]: Agreed.
Jess [0:47:49]: Yeah.
Jess [0:47:50]: I wouldn't.
Jess [0:47:50]: And because I know things now that I I couldn't have possibly known then.
Jess [0:47:53]: So, yeah, Absolutely.
Jess [0:47:54]: I I would write.
Dave [0:47:55]: Which is just which is that doesn't even mean you're smarter or just like, literally you have more time like, I will have...
Dave [0:48:00]: I will know more when I'm seventy than I know more now.
Dave [0:48:03]: It's a fact.
Dave [0:48:03]: Any any older person...
Dave [0:48:05]: Any person older than me that I've ever disrespect in my life.
Dave [0:48:08]: Take back.
Dave [0:48:09]: It's over never wipe it away, never happens.
Jess [0:48:12]: Never happened.
Jess [0:48:13]: No.
Dave [0:48:13]: Right.
Jess [0:48:14]: I I understand the error of my weight.
Dave [0:48:16]: You you in the copywriting or that you...
Dave [0:48:17]: Now...
Dave [0:48:18]: So you wrote for, like, the big brands.
Dave [0:48:20]: Right?
Dave [0:48:20]: But now all the the whole marketing play is like, everything in our pantry.
Dave [0:48:25]: Right?
Dave [0:48:25]: It's like, Linda made these snacks because she was tired of feeding her fan.
Dave [0:48:29]: She was...
Dave [0:48:30]: She saw the sugar.
Dave [0:48:31]: How much sugar there was in normal snacks.
Dave [0:48:32]: And so she made veggie chips.
Dave [0:48:34]: You know?
Dave [0:48:34]: It's like, it's always a story about, like, how some family like created their own thing now.
Jess [0:48:39]: Or another garage sold it in a wagon.
Jess [0:48:41]: Yeah.
Dave [0:48:42]: Yeah.
Dave [0:48:42]: Yeah.
Dave [0:48:42]: Totally.
Dave [0:48:42]: What is your, like, guilty pleasure at home drink during the day.
Dave [0:48:47]: Like, for me, I'm a closet Pop guy.
Dave [0:48:49]: I'd not...
Dave [0:48:50]: You know.
Dave [0:48:50]: A lot of people don't like it.
Dave [0:48:52]: A lot of people do.
Dave [0:48:53]: Has that fake taste in it for me?
Dave [0:48:55]: It works.
Dave [0:48:56]: Well, what's your...
Dave [0:48:57]: Do you do you have one?
Dave [0:48:57]: I could see it being a tea person?
Jess [0:49:00]: I'm a coke zero girl.
Dave [0:49:02]: Whoa.
Dave [0:49:02]: I didn't see that
Jess [0:49:04]: coke yeah.
Dave [0:49:05]: Hero.
Dave [0:49:05]: Wow.
Jess [0:49:06]: Love it.
Jess [0:49:06]: Okay.
Jess [0:49:07]: Can can't get enough.
Jess [0:49:08]: I have to, like, limit myself to one a day.
Dave [0:49:12]: Does it have caffeine?
Jess [0:49:14]: Oh, yeah.
Jess [0:49:14]: A kathy doesn't really like do anything for me though.
Jess [0:49:17]: I can have a cup of coffee right before Ben be fine?
Dave [0:49:19]: Has that always been true?
Jess [0:49:21]: Yeah.
Dave [0:49:22]: So we had we had this...
Dave [0:49:23]: We were in Arizona, and we had this team dinner, and it was really late at night, and I was on the West Coast.
Dave [0:49:28]: And I just was all out of it.
Dave [0:49:30]: And Dan got a...
Dave [0:49:32]: I was really full to and after dinner, he ordered in espresso.
Dave [0:49:35]: He says I always get a express So after dinner.
Dave [0:49:37]: And he's like, I feel like I...
Dave [0:49:39]: We ate so much Like, you'll be fine.
Dave [0:49:40]: You ate so much steak.
Dave [0:49:41]: Like, it's not gonna bother you.
Dave [0:49:42]: I was up the whole freaking night.
Dave [0:49:44]: Oh, yeah.
Dave [0:49:46]: So that's stressing me.
Dave [0:49:47]: You're a coke syrup, We're gonna send you a big case at coke zero.
Dave [0:49:50]: You can have one a day.
Dave [0:49:52]: When when is it ties it is to time does time to a certain in the day.
Jess [0:49:57]: This is the thing about getting older.
Jess [0:49:58]: I won't tell you how old I am, but I am older than you.
Jess [0:50:00]: And I don't like to drink water.
Jess [0:50:02]: I have this Josh actually for Christmas Gabby this water bottle that, like, lights up when I don't drink enough, and so I make myself drink three of those before I can have a coke zero.
Dave [0:50:14]: That's good.
Dave [0:50:15]: Good for you.
Dave [0:50:15]: And I would have guessed that you're, like, twenty eight.
Dave [0:50:18]: So take that, put it in the bank.
Dave [0:50:21]: Clip clip that on the record, you can have it gift from me to you.
Jess [0:50:26]: I appreciate.
Dave [0:50:26]: Happy hanukkah, Like, you know, we...
Dave [0:50:28]: You're good.
Dave [0:50:29]: What else is in my what is my doctor?
Dave [0:50:31]: I think I think we did it.
Dave [0:50:32]: We talked a little bit about the transition from content to Vp marketing, but maybe let's wrap up and just and hit on this for for a couple more minutes.
Dave [0:50:41]: I...
Dave [0:50:41]: We didn't do it enough justice.
Dave [0:50:42]: Yeah.
Dave [0:50:43]: Are there things that need to be different?
Dave [0:50:44]: Content person jess to Vp Jess and and what are they?
Jess [0:50:50]: Here.
Jess [0:50:50]: I will tell you my weaknesses and things that I need, like, muscles I need to build now and and started before I got to this role, but really need to build now that I'm, I'm in the world, but, One is metrics reporting.
Jess [0:51:04]: Like, I, you know, one, we do a lot.
Jess [0:51:07]: Like, I think the first year of me being here was a lot of, like, vibes and feeling?
Jess [0:51:10]: Like, does this work?
Jess [0:51:11]: Do we feel the pull of this program?
Jess [0:51:13]: We just started, Yeah.
Jess [0:51:14]: We think it's working.
Jess [0:51:15]: I wanna get really good this year at, like, knowing what's working and actually doing some sort of reporting and, like, building some dashboards.
Jess [0:51:22]: We have an incredible Rev ops lead.
Jess [0:51:25]: I believe she's been on She's been on multiple, Exit Five events they're math mara.
Jess [0:51:31]: But, she's building all kinds of stuff for me for this year to really understand.
Jess [0:51:37]: Like, what's working, where should we double down.
Jess [0:51:39]: So that's one big thing.
Jess [0:51:40]: To managing a team.
Jess [0:51:42]: When I was a creative director, I managed, copywriter and art directors, you know, teams of ten or so.
Jess [0:51:48]: But it's been a while and managing an actual, like, marketing team is, you know, that that's a that's a different skill set than being the individual contributor.
Jess [0:51:59]: So those are those are the two for me is, like, really sharpening up on, like, kind of reporting and metrics and understanding, like, what's...
Jess [0:52:07]: What is important or so much data that you could gather and like, what's just noise and what actually is showing me that, like, we're doing our jobs.
Jess [0:52:13]: And second is just being a good leader for my team.
Jess [0:52:17]: We have a demand gen marketer starting later this month, which is so exciting.
Jess [0:52:22]: And, yeah.
Jess [0:52:24]: So there will be three of us on the marketing team, and I just wanna be...
Jess [0:52:27]: I wanna be a great a great leader to them.
Jess [0:52:29]: I bought it?
Dave [0:52:31]: Yes.
Dave [0:52:31]: Sam's here.
Dave [0:52:32]: I think you're set up.
Dave [0:52:36]: I I think that's also a key ingredient in your past without knowing you too well personally.
Dave [0:52:40]: If you can manage copywriter and create...
Dave [0:52:43]: Like, there...
Dave [0:52:44]: To be able to be a creative director is is, you know, you you weren't a Vp marking the year before, but managing that many people and having to get feedback on work at that scale is is, you know, very trans.
Dave [0:52:56]: Very important.
Dave [0:52:58]: He had to know where my baseball glove is.
Dave [0:53:00]: There's foot of snow on the ground.
Dave [0:53:02]: I don't know why why that...
Jess [0:53:03]: They don't care.
Jess [0:53:04]: Kids don't care it.
Jess [0:53:04]: They will swim in fifty degree water, they will.
Jess [0:53:08]: Playing the shorts and plain the snow in their shorts it doesn't matter.
Dave [0:53:12]: Yeah.
Dave [0:53:12]: How do you how do you balance keeping your sanity while working from home and having a family.
Jess [0:53:19]: It's not easy.
Dave [0:53:21]: If we could make a if we could make a gift, I said gif.
Dave [0:53:23]: If we make...
Dave [0:53:24]: Could make a gif out of your reaction right there, that that would be, like, that's the end.
Jess [0:53:28]: Wait, let's do it.
Jess [0:53:29]: There are a few of those from our podcasts that are gold.
Jess [0:53:32]: I make some crazy faces.
Jess [0:53:34]: I don't mean to.
Jess [0:53:35]: I am fortunate enough to be able to, like, get my groceries deliver and paid of my house cleaned.
Jess [0:53:42]: Like, to anyone that is has the ability to do those things.
Jess [0:53:46]: Like, I just say do it.
Jess [0:53:48]: I think part of it too is, like, I'm kind of okay with the house looking like a Toys R else exploded in it at some point.
Jess [0:53:55]: And then knowing that, like, I'll clean it up this weekend.
Jess [0:53:57]: So a lot of it is just like, what can I outsource?
Jess [0:54:01]: Very much like I would hear at Vector, like, what can and should I outsource.
Jess [0:54:06]: The other kind of side of that coin is, like, I realistically have, let's say, a max of fifty hours to give that or a week.
Jess [0:54:15]: And, like, I've told Josh this before.
Jess [0:54:16]: Like, that is...
Jess [0:54:17]: That's what I have.
Jess [0:54:18]: And I will work my ass off for you in that fifty hours.
Jess [0:54:20]: And then when the kids are home, or we have girl scouts or we have basketball the practice or you know, volleyball practice.
Jess [0:54:29]: Like, I'm gonna sign off and I'm gonna go enjoy those things without feeling guilty.
Jess [0:54:33]: And he has kids too.
Jess [0:54:34]: I think that's a that's a really important piece Is, like, a find yourself some leaders that if they aren't in the same life stages as you at least have empathy for that and and we'll give you the flexibility you need to, like, live your life while you work.
Dave [0:54:48]: Hey, amen.
Dave [0:54:48]: Because if you don't do that, you're an asshole.
Jess [0:54:52]: Yes.
Jess [0:54:52]: Facts.
Jess [0:54:53]: No lies dick.
Dave [0:54:55]: There you go.
Dave [0:54:56]: Send that to your boss.
Jess [0:54:58]: That's, sir.
Dave [0:54:59]: But do you...
Dave [0:55:00]: Are you able to fully turn off?
Dave [0:55:02]: No.
Dave [0:55:02]: Like.
Dave [0:55:03]: You're not checking you're shutting.
Dave [0:55:04]: You're not, like, looking at look sitting in up in the bleach looking at Slack on your phone?
Jess [0:55:09]: Oh, totally.
Jess [0:55:09]: Yeah.
Jess [0:55:10]: Okay.
Jess [0:55:10]: I'll be on vacation.
Jess [0:55:11]: I was I was in a pool in turks and kick earlier this year.
Jess [0:55:15]: Checking in link...
Jess [0:55:17]: Checking in on Linkedin.
Jess [0:55:18]: Like, what do I
Dave [0:55:19]: So, like, that's that's the whole thing.
Dave [0:55:20]: Right?
Dave [0:55:20]: Like, even you quantifying it as fifty hours, it's like not.
Dave [0:55:24]: It's not.
Jess [0:55:25]: You're not...
Jess [0:55:25]: Yeah.
Dave [0:55:27]: Maybe maybe, like, hours touching the.
Jess [0:55:29]: Like Yeah.
Dave [0:55:30]: Yeah.
Dave [0:55:30]: And, like, as the owner of the business, like, don't you just want or the boss, wherever, like, Is it about the hours that you're working or like, how can I create an environment where, like, you?
Dave [0:55:39]: You're you're walking the beach in Turks and C handcuffs and you're like oh, you know what...
Dave [0:55:44]: But you know what?
Dave [0:55:44]: Ads we should run, like, I want that.
Dave [0:55:46]: And so if you're only gonna be in the office for whatever, but, like, you get it.
Dave [0:55:49]: And and we're in marketing, like, ideas don't just stop and so, like, are you gonna be like, alright.
Dave [0:55:54]: My my work brain is off, like, do, Dave do not get any ideas this weekend because if you get them, you'll have to work.
Jess [0:56:01]: Those are the moments when you get the ideas when you are away, and you're
Dave [0:56:04]: working Every weekend ever, every weekend ever is when I have ideas because Monday through Friday, you're in meetings, And then when you finally get a minute, it's like, oh.
Jess [0:56:14]: Yeah.
Jess [0:56:14]: Unlock.
Jess [0:56:14]: I got it.
Jess [0:56:15]: I figured it out.
Jess [0:56:16]: Yeah.
Dave [0:56:18]: Dear your kids know what you do for work.
Jess [0:56:20]: So my oldest will be thirteen in four.
Jess [0:56:23]: So she kinda gets it.
Jess [0:56:25]: She understands.
Jess [0:56:26]: She thinks it's cool that I have, like Linkedin followers.
Dave [0:56:29]: I mean, what is...
Dave [0:56:30]: It does Age, Matt?
Dave [0:56:31]: I mean, my my my parents are sixty eight.
Dave [0:56:33]: They don't know what I do.
Dave [0:56:34]: So the age just not the qualifier but
Jess [0:56:37]: What's through.
Jess [0:56:37]: I feel like that...
Jess [0:56:38]: Like, man, this generation, like, she showed me how to edit videos on my phone.
Jess [0:56:42]: She has shot videos for me for Linkedin.
Jess [0:56:45]: So she totally gets, like, what I do and that I'm helping building a company and we have a brand.
Jess [0:56:52]: Like, she understands all that.
Jess [0:56:53]: My six year old, like, doesn't really get it.
Jess [0:56:58]: She'll, like, come in and she'll be like, Oh that's you.
Jess [0:57:00]: Look at it you know, like, she think are kinda cool.
Dave [0:57:04]: That was my guy that just came in his six.
Dave [0:57:05]: And he he...
Dave [0:57:06]: Literally, that's why I was like, god.
Dave [0:57:08]: God.
Dave [0:57:09]: Because he and he can't hear because I got these in and the...
Dave [0:57:12]: You're just, like, there's no sound right now, and I'm just sitting here.
Dave [0:57:14]: Is no idea you're talking to.
Jess [0:57:16]: Yeah.
Jess [0:57:16]: Exactly.
Jess [0:57:17]: Yeah.
Jess [0:57:18]: I know.
Jess [0:57:18]: They they, like get, but they don't.
Jess [0:57:21]: You know.
Jess [0:57:22]: I mean, they don't really understand, like, what marketing is.
Jess [0:57:24]: But Yeah.
Dave [0:57:26]: Yeah.
Dave [0:57:26]: But they have nice clothes they can wear to school.
Jess [0:57:29]: Heck yeah.
Jess [0:57:29]: You know what?
Jess [0:57:31]: We have a Stanley Cup or with the Koalas, like the big one now, The big.
Dave [0:57:37]: Wow, give me a break my.
Dave [0:57:38]: The hell at the kids but birthday was someone get gave her off brand Stanley and it and I had to tell her it wasn't a Stanley.
Dave [0:57:43]: And we got an argument I'm like, no, but seriously, this is why brand matters.
Dave [0:57:46]: That's not actually a Stanley.
Jess [0:57:48]: Yeah.
Jess [0:57:48]: Even at that age, it matters.
Dave [0:57:50]: But they created a cat.
Dave [0:57:51]: Anyway.
Dave [0:57:51]: Alright.
Dave [0:57:51]: Jessica Cook.
Dave [0:57:52]: You rock man.
Dave [0:57:52]: Thank you for hanging out.
Dave [0:57:53]: This is great.
Dave [0:57:54]: Super fun.
Dave [0:57:55]: You can go find Jess Cook on Linkedin.
Dave [0:57:58]: We'll...
Dave [0:57:59]: We're measuring your follower account before and after this, and so we will be able to directly track how many followers.
Dave [0:58:04]: You got go check out Vector.
Dave [0:58:05]: And, Jess is also, like, OG member of the Exit Five community she's in there.
Dave [0:58:11]: You could, you know, holler her at her in there, you know, say, like, hey.
Dave [0:58:14]: I heard jess on the podcast and it was awesome.
Dave [0:58:15]: And then just send me any notes or feedback, David at exitfive.com or reach out on Linkedin.
Dave [0:58:19]: Big year ahead for our podcast podcasts, we wanna share a lot of, like, really useful marketing stuff, and I hope we're off to a good start, but if we're not, send me you note and let me know because they will Jess.
Dave [0:58:28]: And you know what feedback.
Dave [0:58:29]: Like we talked about earlier, Jess, feedback is a gift.
Dave [0:58:32]: Right?
Jess [0:58:33]: The guess.
Jess [0:58:33]: Hey.
Jess [0:58:34]: Thanks so make a med dream come true.
Jess [0:58:35]: Appreciate it.
Dave [0:58:36]: Oh, if
Dave [0:58:37]: you stop that.
Dave [0:58:37]: Dawn.
Dave [0:58:38]: Hey.
Dave [0:58:43]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
Dave [0:58:44]: If you like this episode.
Dave [0:58:46]: You know what?
Dave [0:58:46]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.
Dave [0:58:51]: I have something better for you.
Dave [0:58:52]: So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at Exit Five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, Go check it out right now on our website, exitfive.com.
Dave [0:59:04]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing, and there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.
Dave [0:59:11]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are so to have a peer group.
Dave [0:59:27]: Or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.
Dave [0:59:32]: It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.
Dave [0:59:41]: Go check it out, learn more, exitfive.com, and I will see you over there in the community.