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Proof is what GTM leaders need to make fast and furious decisions that keep their businesses alive and thriving.
The Proof Point hosts conversations anchored in the reality of day-to-day life as a revenue leader. No algorithm-hacking, talk-track headlining buzz statements around here. We’re hosting conversations between GTM leaders so we can gather the facts and provide you with the tactics and tools you need to bulletproof your strategy.
Join host Mark Huber every other week as he invites the best GTM leaders into the conversation.
Brooklin Nash [00:00:00]:
I don't think any martech tool could replace a good Google sheet, honestly.
Jess Cook [00:00:07]:
You said that was such a straight face.
Brendan Hufford [00:00:09]:
Uh, Brooklin, have you tweeted that yet?
Brooklin Nash [00:00:12]:
Probably. I don't remember.
Mark Huber [00:00:19]:
Here's what go to market teams are missing: proof. That's what I think of every morning when I fire up LinkedIn and scroll through boring manifestos and endless lukewarm takes. Opinions are cheap and proof is gold. I'm Mark Huber, and this is The Proof Point, a show from UserEvidence that helps go to market, teams find ideas, get frameworks, and swap tactics. Each episode includes an unfiltered discussion with the biggest names in B2B SaaS to help find the proof points that I'm in search of. You'll learn from sales, marketing, and customer success leaders in the trenches, where I ask them, seriously, what actually works for you. One of our guests actually told me: this felt like we were having drinks at a bar and talking about work without all the BS.
Mark Huber [00:01:01]:
And that pretty much sums it up on why I'm so excited for this new show. Join us every other week for new episodes. Hot takes always welcome.
Mark Huber [00:01:10]:
On today's episode of The Proof Point, we're talking about content POVs, how to come up with one, and most importantly, how to come up with one that your audience actually cares about. First up, he's the Founder of Beam Content, a content agency that we work with at UserEvidence, and I was actually one of their first customers, Brooklin Nash. Brooklin is incredibly talented and low key, one of the funniest people that I know in my little work bubble. Next up, we have Jess Cook. She's the Head of Content at Comms at Island. Jess and I actually met for the first time in person a few weeks ago at the exit five drive event, and we hit it off right away. She's awesome. I learned so much from her in that conversation and in this podcast episode today.
Mark Huber [00:01:50]:
And last but definitely not least, Brendan Hufford. He's the Founder of Growth Sprints, and he's somebody who always brings a lot of energy, always brings a great perspective, and just generally one of the more fun people that I've gotten to know. I love any time that I get to hang with Brendan, and this episode on content POVs did not disappoint. Enjoy. All right, I. So, Brendan, why do most B2B marketing teams play it safe with their content POV?
Brendan Hufford [00:02:17]:
Okay, this is. This is an absolute hill that I'll die on. I think that they're struggling and they're playing it safe in their content POV, especially because of what I call checkbox marketing, right? Like they do their monthly webinar, their weekly podcasts, they're doing their SEO. Every blog has to have their, you know, their yoast like Green and WordPress, Google Ads, LinkedIn newsletter. They're checking all these boxes except for the ones that I think actually matter. It's frustrating for me because this makes marketers busier than they've ever been, but with way less to show for it. We're repurposing content that didn't have a purpose to begin with. We're becoming spreadsheet engineers, trying to just manifest some sort of connection to revenue for every freaking post we make on LinkedIn.
Brendan Hufford [00:03:06]:
And honestly, im starting to see that now. Even with all of this work that marketers are doing, it cant keep up with the pace of AI. So now checkbox marketing is both boring and expensive. But I think the good news is that today, all of us collectively, if Mark does his job well, provide a way out.
Brendan Hufford [00:03:28]:
Thats a lot of pressure.
Brendan Hufford [00:03:31]:
So that's what I'm here for.
Mark Huber [00:03:32]:
I love checkbox marketing. I gotta ask, did that come right away? Brendan? Did that like take time? Where did that come from?
Brendan Hufford [00:03:41]:
It's one of those things where you can only connect the dots looking backwards. It came from a conversation with my friend Ernie when we were at activecampaign, when I was in house, still where we got off probably the 27th weekly metrics meeting in a row, and all the numbers were readdehe again. Everybody kind of saw the writing on the wall, right? Like layoffs are coming, six months, twelve months. We don't know when, but they're coming. And we were working our faces off, but like the numbers just weren't going up. And we're producing all of this different content. We kept talking about how it wasn't connected to anything else. And I had a, I call this spreadsheet.
Brendan Hufford [00:04:20]:
Like the spreadsheet that made me quit my job, which was literally just like all of these checkboxes that I had to keep checking every single week. And then another column I had to explain. I'll give you an example. We were gonna start a newsletter. Can you imagine? Active campaign, an email marketing and marketing automation company. No newsletter. Like, we're not even dog fooding our own product, right, or eating our own caviar, whatever. And we're doing all that.
Brendan Hufford [00:04:44]:
And I have to, like, my boss at the time was like, I need to know how many free trials you're gonna generate a, how many customers you're going to get us and how much website traffic you're going to generate from the newsletter before you can even start thinking about sending it. I was like, I'm literally just making these up. Like, what would these even be? Thanks.
Jess Cook [00:05:08]:
Let me tell you.
Brendan Hufford [00:05:10]:
And I think the other thing too, the only we had a spotlight email that we sent every week and that was, that went out to, I think, all of our customers. It was kind of like a newsletter, but nothing because it didn't actually help them. It was just us talking about ourselves. But even creating that was 47 crabs in a bucket just trying to get whatever they cared about at the top of that newsletter. And then they didn't care anymore. Right? Like at one point we had like our, we're so proud of our salesforce integration and all this crap. And then you look and it's like, oh, 0.5% of our customers integrate with Salesforce. Why is that? Just because that person yelled the loudest for the spotlight email.
Brendan Hufford [00:05:48]:
But we were seeing that happen again and again and I just was like, all right, this is the problem. This is my pov that I exist to solve, both in how I work with clients, but also in my content.
Mark Huber [00:06:01]:
So Brendan, before we actually talk about content POVs, I got one question that is not in the episode outline at all, which is great because you have no idea what I'm going to ask. The last time that I saw you was in a gift shop in the vermonthe airport and we're buying gifts for your kids because you forgot to buy gifts while we were at drive. So the question is how did they respond to the gifts and did you pick good ones?
Brendan Hufford [00:06:25]:
First of all, allegedly. Allegedly. Second of all. Second of all, the word forgot there is doing a lot of heavy lifting and might be a little inaccurate. The correct phrasing might have been was having a great freaking time hanging out with people and nothing really didn't think where could I find go find gifts also Burlington, Vermont. You'd be surprised. Well, if you've been there, you wouldn't be surprised. Isn't super commercial.
Brendan Hufford [00:06:52]:
It's not like there's 500 gift shops to go buy stuff. Like you actually have to look. There's stores and things. But I mean, I crushed it. Like it was awesome. Me and Dimitri, who's there with me, we're walking through getting stuff for our kids and I'm not going to lie. There's a gift shop before security and one after security. And if you wait to go through security and then buy stuff, you've made a terrible mistake.
Brendan Hufford [00:07:16]:
Have to go to the. We did. We did great. They were pumped.
Jess Cook [00:07:20]:
Okay, I. To make you feel better, I did the same thing. But I went to the gift shop after security, and I did okay.
Brendan Hufford [00:07:28]:
Oh, okay, good. You're better than I.
Mark Huber [00:07:32]:
Well, here's why I think it was hilarious, is because Brendan and I drove together to the airport, and you're telling me, I hope there's a gift shop. I hope there's a gift shop. And unless you've been to the Burlington airport before, you know, like, it's a pretty small airport. So in my head, I'm like, there's no fucking way there's gonna be any. And then, sure enough, the one before security blew my mind how many options there were, and then there was a second one after security that just did well at.
Mark Huber [00:07:58]:
So I don't know.
Mark Huber [00:07:59]:
That was a happy accident.
Jess Cook [00:08:00]:
Big props to the Burlington airport.
Brendan Hufford [00:08:03]:
Yeah, it's like the security guy just looks at you when you come in, and he's like, you good? Are you cool? Come on in. It's fine. Like, that's the security. It's so silly.
Jess Cook [00:08:12]:
You have a nice face. Come on through.
Brendan Hufford [00:08:15]:
You have kind eyes.
Brooklin Nash [00:08:18]:
This is better than the Kenai airport in Alaska. There's no gift shop. And I once arrived and saw a guy unloading his rifle outside of the airport to pack it and bring it in safely. Like, we're in Alaska now.
Jess Cook [00:08:33]:
Yes. Excellent.
Brendan Hufford [00:08:35]:
So, I don't know how I transition from packing rifles to content POVs, but here we are. Jess, how do you define a content POV?
Jess Cook [00:08:43]:
So, in my mind, it's an imperative. It either has to have. If you're writing it out, you know, you're trying to get it down on paper, it should probably have the word. And see what I just did here? Should or shouldn't or must or mustn't, right? Like, if you're trying to understand what your. What your point of view is, it needs to be something that you are telling people they either should or shouldn't do or must or mustn't do. And it doesn't always have to come in that form. But when you're really trying to figure out what is my brand's point of view, my personal point of view, writing it out in that way really, really helps. Just this morning, I did a LinkedIn post that was like, why I'm not scared of noise in marketing and why you shouldn't be either.
Jess Cook [00:09:24]:
Right? That's a point of view everyone talks about. There's so much noise. You have to try and, you know, weighed against the. The current of the noise. And it's like, who cares if you have a good content? It's gonna rise to the top, right? So that's a point of view. It has to be some sort of imperative. It has to be some sort of, like, spiky kind of against the grain thought that gets people, like, to change their mind about something.
Mark Huber [00:09:48]:
Brendan, how does that stack up with what you think of as a content POV? Because I've learned a lot from you about this particular topic, whether you know that or nothing.
Brendan Hufford [00:09:56]:
Yeah, I mean, look, like not everybody has the POV, the signed copy of the POV on their desk. You have to watch the video for that one. I think your pOv, when it comes to content has to start with, and this is something I saw go awry at Activecampaign, especially in tech and especially in SaaS. We want to, like, name our solution, and then everything becomes about the solution. We write about the product, how the product solves the problem, and the product, the product, the product. And instead of naming a weird ass category, like, maybe we should just name the problem that we solve and then say, and this comes from like, the Andy Raskin school of marketing, but like, you define the problem, the old game, and then you define the new game and you say, we exist to help you navigate the new game. Agnostic of our product, all of our webinars, all of our podcasts, our newsletter, what we post on social is all in service of helping you navigate this new world that we're in. So instead of naming the category, naming the problem, and then just existing to solve that regardless of what you're producing.
Jess Cook [00:11:02]:
I think another nice thing about a really solid point of view is that it's going to kind of scare or push people away who don't believe in it. And that can be seen as a negative by leadership sometimes. But honestly, it's a huge positive, because if they don't believe in what you believe in anyway, it's going to be a really hard sell and it's going to like a magnet, draw in the people who are like, yeah, I can get on board with that. I agree. Like, that should be the way we're doing this. And so they're going to be even more drawn to your brand and your product and your vision.
Brooklin Nash [00:11:34]:
I think connecting the points there, what you said, Brendan, is exactly where my head was going, is a content POV, to me, almost by definition, has to be product agnostic. Because if you're trying to shoehorn your product in, you're doing product marketing, you're not doing helpful, engaging, community building, audience building content. So the content POV needs to be the broader problem that can be solved with or without your product. Like this new report, Mark, like this customer evidence gap. There's a gap. You're identifying the problem exactly like Brendan said, your product is a great way to solve that problem. There's also DIY and other like, it's not pitching your product inherently by developing that POV, right. Or working with a online training program right now in spanish language.
Brooklin Nash [00:12:33]:
And they're getting into this whole problem in healthcare about a lack of spanish language training. They're speaking to the problem and the opportunity. They're nothing pitching their product. So I think that's number one. And I think number two, it has to be, it can't be too high level where it's like thought leadership be, oh, we need sales and marketing to work together. That's our POV. But it also can't be like way in the weeds of saying this is exactly how to do XYZ. It needs to sit somewhere in the middle where you're saying, we're identifying a pretty unique problem in this space and we're dedicated to spending a good amount of time digging into addressing what solving that problem looks like through different themes and topics and levels, from the conceptual down through to the tactical.
Brooklin Nash [00:13:24]:
So it has to be consistent and strong enough to support an entire editorial calendar for at least a couple of quarters, if not a year.
Mark Huber [00:13:35]:
All right, so let's get into that part in a little bit because I like what you said there, Brook. So I have a question asking for a friend, aka me, does product category play into this at all? Is it completely separate from product category? Is there a relationship between the two?
Brooklin Nash [00:13:52]:
You tell me to me the categories, and it's what Brendan said. I think, like you said, just cut those two minutes about being product agnostic and I think you've got it. Category is inherently product focused. You're creating a category and then if you're creating that category, you're going to end up with competitors down the line. Right? If you're creating a content POV and you're basing it on your SME's or your deep partnerships or your platform data, and you're basing it in something that only you can produce, it's not replicable, or at least it's a lot harder to replicate.
Brendan Hufford [00:14:28]:
I think it also makes it a forcing function within your company. And I think this is why it's hard for a lot of companies is because the company was frankly started because people saw an opportunity to make money or they saw a gap in the market or something like that. And the purpose of their content is basically, hey, do you want to become a lead? And that's a really shitty purpose for content to exist. And I think on the product category side of things, again, this is something that I've been diving into a lot more lately, is like offer design. So like front end offers that are not like white papers or come to, you know, the traditional stuff. But I think we just always think like the product is our front end offer. Like buy the software and all of this stuff is just to get you to buy the software. But there's other things that you can either give away or sell or do that are interesting and fun.
Brendan Hufford [00:15:14]:
I think even though they're super cringey, I think clickfunnels does this exceptionally well where the, their software is their backend offer. That's why they're, I think, three times the size of their nearest competitor lead pages. And it's again, when you're so focused on your product category, it keeps you in there. And if you're focused on the problem, instead you branch outside of your category. It's like, hey, maybe we should do this, maybe we should have that. And it's not like we have to keep focused and stay in our lane of our category.
Jess Cook [00:15:42]:
I will say, I think your category can help, should help another imperative guide your point of view. Right? Like there's a reason that a team of people, some large committee came together and was like, this is the category we're in. And I think it's kind of behind that is like the, well, why is this the category? What things are we doing that's completely different from anyone else? That how are we solving the problem in a unique way? And your point of view will start to be derived from there. They are connected. But I love kind of, you know, where Brendan and Brooklin were going, where they don't have to be overt, it doesn't have to be like, this is the point of view. And this, you know, this software is like the way to go about it. It's like, let's just help the people solve the problem. And the point of view, again, is going to help you bring in the people who are going to want to solve the problem in the way that you are solving the problem.
Brooklin Nash [00:16:42]:
Yeah. Can I ask a question that is tangential but I think related here. What are your thoughts on top down?
Mark Huber [00:16:50]:
What am I going to say? No?
Brooklin Nash [00:16:50]:
You could. I'm curious your thoughts on the difference for the both of you. Top down versus bottom up for product category versus content POV. For me, the category often is top down. It's the CEO saying, yeah, this is the category and this is what we're going after. And often they know because they've been a developer or salesperson and they know the space. Great. Exactly what you were saying, Jess, to your earlier point about checkbox marketing, Brendan, what we run into often and difficulty on the content POV is that still trying to be top down and will do all this work, or the product marketers and the content marketers and the brand marketers will do all this work and listen to customers and go out and talk to people and then come back and say, okay, here's what is hitting, and here's the questions that they're asking, and here's the pain points they're facing, and here's the themes and topics we need to dig into because of that.
Brooklin Nash [00:17:49]:
And here's how it flows up to an overarching narrative. And then you'll get edits or pushback or all kinds of red tape once you start surfacing that to leadership. So I'm curious of your thoughts on like, the balance of top down versus bottom up for content POV.
Mark Huber [00:18:12]:
I'll get started from past experience. I don't even think my last CEO or my current CEO knows what a content POV is, but when they see a good content POV, they say, yes, more of that. I want that. Whereas the category usually is from the top down.
Brendan Hufford [00:18:26]:
I would agree it's hard because you become a forcing function, uh, with, especially if you're an outsider, uh, coming in, you are. Or even when you're inside a company, like, can you imagine, uh, if you're. I was an individual contributor on purpose at activecampaign because I couldn't deal with managing people anymore. That can really matter.
Mark Huber [00:18:44]:
You also taught kids for so long that I feel like you were kind of over that.
Brendan Hufford [00:18:48]:
Yeah, I teach high school for ten years and I was a principal for a little bit. We're all good here. Um, I don't have employees, but imagine an individual contributor talking all the way up, even in a small. This is a problem because the founders or CEO's are really close to everything and everything is still theirs. In a huge organization, this is also a problem. It's that reverse bell curve. It's also a problem because they're too far away. But you have this individual contributor going, hey, I think we need to rethink everything, because we've pulled our customers, instead of us being across the table from our customers, pulled their chair onto the same side of the table as us.
Brendan Hufford [00:19:26]:
And sometimes the organization maybe isn't ready to hear that because that's not what they think. And I think the thing with marketing that we learn really quickly is like, you put it out into the world and it's not yours anymore. Right. Your customers, your audience, do with it what they want. They interpret it how they want, and they have their own thoughts about what your product is solving for them, what your company is solving for them in terms of the problem. And I think that's where it comes from, is, like, listening. But it's hard. Brooklin, to your point of, like, surfacing that stuff up, and if you have levels of bureaucracy or you have people that are really owning their swim lanes of, like, that's not how we talk about that, because I'm the product marketer and this is how we talk about it.
Brendan Hufford [00:20:07]:
You kind of just have to error of, like, cool. I'm just like, this is what they said.
Jess Cook [00:20:11]:
Yeah.
Brendan Hufford [00:20:11]:
Just what our best customer.
Jess Cook [00:20:13]:
I'm the messenger. Yeah.
Brooklin Nash [00:20:14]:
I'm just translating
Brendan Hufford [00:20:15]:
Disagree with our customers. Cool.
Jess Cook [00:20:18]:
But, yeah, I was gonna say, I've had projects that I was like, so I had so much heart behind because I had that validation from customers or advisors that, like, yes, these are. This is a problem we're thinking about. This is, you know, something we're investing in, and it didn't align with what leadership felt was. Was our point of view, even though our customers are saying yes. Right. And sometimes, man, that's painful, but it's like, just kind of have to take that hit every once in a while. But, like, I like to keep those on the back burner because it's like, I don't know, they might hear something. You know how leadership is.
Jess Cook [00:20:52]:
Like, they might hear something on a podcast on Tuesday and be like, hey, remember that idea you had? Let's. Let's resurrect that. Right? So it's like, sometimes you just need those outside forces to come in and, like, hit them and. And it's resurrected in an odd way.
Brendan Hufford [00:21:05]:
I remember I had an executive one time tell me that, like, if we wanted to, like, they thought that thought leadership and leading meant they had to decide and we shouldn't. And this is true in a lot of cases. Like, you shouldn't listen to customers. Like, they don't. They might be incorrect, or you might build the thing that they say they want, and then there's all sorts that's just wrought with issues. But I think, you know, they, I got quoted by an executive that. What is it, the Ford quote of, like, if I were to listen to people, you know, to customers, I would have built a faster horse. People.
Brendan Hufford [00:21:39]:
I kind of replied, well, cool. He was also the 8th car. Like he had. They knew the way the market was going. They saw proof. There were eight car companies before his. Like, it's not that he invented. Despite the revisionist history, right.
Brendan Hufford [00:21:51]:
Of like, they invented this thing. They didn't. And there is, despite that quote being mis, you know, used a lot of times, like, you do have to look at the market, look at your audience and listen to customers in a lot of ways. And even if you're going to disagree with them, having a well thought out reason why versus just, it's my opinion against theirs that can be problematic.
Mark Huber [00:22:11]:
So is that the best place to get started then? When you're building out a content POV.
Brooklin Nash [00:22:17]:
With customers, where would you get started? Wink. Wink. Is custom. Is listening to your customers the best place to start? Sorry.
Jess Cook [00:22:28]:
Yes.
Brendan Hufford [00:22:29]:
Yeah, it's 110%. And here's the thing, like, see, oftentimes.
Brendan Hufford [00:22:35]:
People don't have think that way, so they don't have.
Brendan Hufford [00:22:38]:
I empathize terribly. Like when I again, like being outside in agencies and even being in house. Like, sometimes it's hard to find customers and talk to them. And it's like, well, we have customer marketing and we don't want to email them that much and we already bothered them enough. Or, you know, we have a technical audience and they don't like that sort of thing. Or, you know, there's all sorts of reasons why this becomes hard to do. And I empathize with that deeply. So it's easy for me to post on LinkedIn, talk to customers.
Brendan Hufford [00:23:04]:
But I also understand internally how challenging that I have a 20,000 person email list and I send out a thing that's like, will you take this survey? And I get like 17 people to fill it out out of 20,000. Like, that's very real when that stuff, like, it's very hard to get this stuff.
Brooklin Nash [00:23:21]:
Sometimes I think a shortcut, it's not even a shortcut, but yes, it's, it can be really difficult to actually get time with your customers or implement something. Well, I won't name drop, but the right tools to get what you, those insights you need and organized. But like, if you're an individual contributor or a new manager or new director of content, even this sounds trite, but nobody not nobody, almost nobody I talk to on sales calls or new clients are doing it and we're coming in and saying, okay, let's do this thing. It's talk to your customer success team, talk to your sales team, talk to your product managers. Because guess what? All of them are listening to your customers or should be with product managers building out roadmaps, customer success, hearing the questions that are coming up and sales hearing, presenting every pain point, hearing every objection, getting every question. Like there's got to be a way to bring all that together. Internally, I think content market sounds really negative. I can say it because I'm a content marketer, but I feel like content marketers often resort to, oh, woe is me.
Brooklin Nash [00:24:29]:
We don't have a seat at the table. We don't have the right tools, we never get budget, we don't have access to our customers. Just start with the small steps that you can start with and that starts by taking time with your product managers and your csms and your ae's. You don't have to start with your CEO and say, what's our pov? What are we going to market with? Just start with your counterparts and go to market and then use that to document and build from there.
Brendan Hufford [00:25:00]:
I love that. To wrap it in a bow, I called it. I end up coining all these phrases just to help communicate to executive leadership and give them. Same as naming your problem, creating content ip for your customers. You also have to do that internally so that they can wrap their head around things. So I've called it like the three s strategy, like sales success and support. You talk to them, build those virtuous cycles. Copy AI has a really cool thing where they'll take gone call and you could probably do this with a number of tools, right? But you can take your gone call recordings.
Brendan Hufford [00:25:30]:
It'll summarize all of that parts of the product they care about, problem statements, all these like beautiful summaries. Pipe that right into slack. And now you have a slack channel that shows every single disco, like disco call that goes on. And what happens, you don't have to listen to an hour long gone call anymore. Now all of a sudden you have a feed of that and the whole company can see what's happening on sales calls and what they care about and what their problems are. There's really cool ways and creative ways. I think if we were talking about uses of generative AI, like that's a really good use of it. Not to write your blogs, we're all maybe against that, but like there's cool ways to get around these things.
Brendan Hufford [00:26:05]:
There's really clever solutions out there and some that, you know, to Brooklin's point, like, don't involve technology. It's just reaching out and connecting with people.
Brooklin Nash [00:26:14]:
I don't think any martech tool could replace a good Google sheet, honestly.
Jess Cook [00:26:22]:
That was such a straight face.
Brendan Hufford [00:26:25]:
Brooklin. Have you tweeted that yet?
Brooklin Nash [00:26:28]:
Probably. I don't remember.
Mark Huber [00:26:33]:
So, Jess, I was going to say, I feel like you just started at Island, but turns out you haven't. You've been there about a year. So did you inherit a content POV or I guess walk me through what took place and how you built that out, because I really love what I've been seeing from you all.
Jess Cook [00:26:49]:
Thank you. I kind of had this crazy bout of luck where they hired me even though a content marketer was not on their roadmap. My manager and I had worked together at a previous company. She found out that I was potentially looking for my next thing. And so she was like, let's just figure this out. So I was lucky enough in that I made it over there and that there wasn't really that we had great messaging, we had a great story, but I don't know that a point of view had really been fleshed out or at least not documented. It was kind of there floating around in leadership interviews and within the messaging documents, but it wasn't actually written down somewhere like, this is what we think about this topic. This is what we think about this problem.
Jess Cook [00:27:40]:
And so that was actually one of my first kind of tasks is like, okay, what are the things we actually have points of view on that we can own, that we have credibility and can build trust against? And then what are those points of view? And so kind of getting those down in a deck and socializing that with the right people, making sure that we're using the exact right words because words really matter in those things. So, yeah, that was one of kind of my first. My first tasks. And what an exciting first task.
Mark Huber [00:28:10]:
You made it sound really easy. Was it as easy as you just described it?
Jess Cook [00:28:13]:
No, I think there was a lot of back and forth. I think when it feels easy and fun, when you're the one, like, writing things down and you're like, this sounds great. And I think this is right. And then the real work comes when you start to socialize it, right? So you're getting it in front of people, and everyone has a very strong opinion on, like, that word is not right, or we shouldn't be talking about that at all, or like, instead of that, we should say this, right? And so that's where, like, the real, I don't know, kind of political work comes in, where you're, like, trying to figure out, okay, whose opinion, I know.
Mark Huber [00:28:44]:
What you're not saying. Or the fun part. The not so fun part.
Jess Cook [00:28:48]:
Yeah, yeah. That's the challenge is, like, whose opinion? All of these opinions matter, but, like, which ones are actually going to make it into this thing, right? Because some are conflicting and, and it's really difficult to weigh all of that and figure out what's going to make it into the final cut.
Brooklin Nash [00:29:03]:
Did you learn something in that that you would do differently moving forward? Because that is a very common problem. Like this week, a sales call. He's like, our problem is we're creating content for an internal audience, and we're creating by committee, so it's blah. And that's not what our actual audience wants. It's for our internal leadership audience. So, like, what, when you have 15 stakeholders, what, how did you narrow in on what matters?
Jess Cook [00:29:30]:
Yeah, that's such a great question. Actually. One thing I wish I would have done, that I have since done, but I wish I would have done, like, earlier I is again run those points of view past some customers, past some, like, people on our advisory board and get their take on it. Like, does this pass muster for you? Is this just like, marketing b's? Would this be interesting to you if, like, we had a series of content that basically supported this point of view and get their thoughts on it? Because one, it just, one, validates for me that, like, I'm on the right track before I take it to leadership. And two, it arms me with that validation to be like, hey, CMO, chief customer officer, CEO, whatever these customers X, Y and Z have said, this is resonating for them. That's absolutely something I wish I would have done. And it's hard when it's one of your first tasks in a company because you're still trying to figure out who's really understanding marketing and what I'm trying to do here versus what their role is or what their very big opinionated feelings are about the company, especially if they've been there a while, if they're the founder. Right? So, yeah, I think, I don't know if that's something I could have necessarily, like, figured out how to do differently, but just, I think probably seeking some guidance on, like, okay, someone who's been here longer, like, who's really, like, the person that, hey, if they say it, listen, I think that's really? That's always helpful to know.
Brooklin Nash [00:31:04]:
Yeah.
Brendan Hufford [00:31:05]:
Yeah. Like, figuring out who actually knows. Like, I remember when I was a teacher. It's such a weird analogy, but when you're a teacher, you realize really quickly that, like, the secretarial staff and the custodians are actually the ones who run the school. And if they are your best friends, they matter more than anybody else in the entire building. And I think figuring that out within your company, like, yeah, I, you know, hey, I'm going to come in strong. I take an ownership mindset. I'm a.
Brendan Hufford [00:31:28]:
If you're a quick start kind of person. Like, I am where I come in really hot and want to do stuff really fast. Set that up in your interview, but then also, like, figure out, like, who really has the keys around here.
Jess Cook [00:31:39]:
Totally.
Mark Huber [00:31:40]:
What's the funniest janitor school story that you can remember, Brendan?
Brendan Hufford [00:31:46]:
Oh, man.
Brendan Hufford [00:31:48]:
And if you can't think of one now, we'll close the episode out. So I'll give you more time to think, but I'm not going to let you off the hook like that.
Brendan Hufford [00:31:54]:
Okay. You want me to tell you something right now?
Brendan Hufford [00:31:56]:
Do you have something good or do you want me to wait?
Brendan Hufford [00:31:58]:
Oh, I don't know. I think, like, the funniest thing is that some people would be surprised about this. Some. Most people that have worked with me, not surprised. I am very, like, disorganized. I have to learn to be an organized person and time block stuff, but I'm inherently very, like, if you could see my desk right now, it's an absolute nightmare. But so as a teacher, I was very similar. And I can't, like, the custodians were my best allies because not only would they help me break up fights, which, like, became, like, my de facto job, they're like, you're a large dude.
Brendan Hufford [00:32:29]:
You break up the fights. But, like, they would also help me, like, when you become really good friends, it's like, hey, can you, like, run and get this for me? Can you help me with this? Like, over time? I'll give you an example. Over time, I accumulated a lot of cool stuff in my room because there was cool stuff in the building, whether that's like, extra closets or really cool desks or, like, a neat table. Like, I could just get anything I wanted over time because I would just ask and they were like, absolutely. If I needed more supplies, like, they could. They would. It would just be in my room. Like, stuff like that just happened.
Brendan Hufford [00:33:04]:
And you don't realize, like, how much of a struggle it is unless you have those relationships internally, you know?
Brendan Hufford [00:33:11]:
So who's doing this right at the moment? Who has like a really good content POV as a brand?
Jess Cook [00:33:17]:
Actually, Brendan, mention one for me.
Mark Huber [00:33:19]:
Oh, this was not. This was not planted. And funny story. That's actually the old copy because Brendan gave me feedback and we changed the name of the report and what we're calling the problem. So that was not a planted pat me on the back question.
Brooklin Nash [00:33:35]:
Nice. Who's doing it? Well, should you start with customers when you're. When you're developing a content POV type of question?
Jess Cook [00:33:45]:
I was gonna say Brendan brought one up for me. Copy AI. Brendan, I and Mark, I don't know if you saw it, but Cal Coleman, who's their CMO, had a really great presentation at drive. And he talked about that. Like how. He talked about how they named the problem GTMbloat. Right? Like, he actually had this great slide where it was like four kind of Gen AI tools, and it was like, write your content faster was like the thing. And it's like, well, no, that's not actually, like the good thing about Gen AI.
Jess Cook [00:34:16]:
And so, you know, he talked about how they took a lot of time to, like, really think. Actually, I think he said it was part of his interview process. Like, he took it upon himself to basically reposition them and came up with the idea of GTM bloat as like, the problem they were solving. We're spending all this money on agencies and, you know, like, coming up with ideas and figuring all this stuff out. And like, some of that is necessary, but a lot of it can be done, you know, with like, automation and really understanding, like, how you're. You're taking all of that input. Like, we talked about the sales calls and, you know, the. The leadership interviews and things like that, and how you're actually directing that information in a way where you can use it very quickly and not have to spend so much time and cost on it.
Jess Cook [00:35:01]:
Right. And so I thought that was a really, really interesting one that he, like, just did that of his own accord to like, get the job and like, obviously got it.
Brendan Hufford [00:35:09]:
That doesn't surprise me.
Jess Cook [00:35:10]:
That machine. Yeah, but that he took a completely different approach. It's not speed. Right. It's not, you know, get the thing done faster. It's like, cut out all of the waste and use what you already have at your disposal to make more great stuff.
Brendan Hufford [00:35:28]:
So this is two things on that, Jess, I think that's a great example. It's actually one that I hadn't thought. Thought of despite, like, having that thought during that time. I even had somebody come up afterwards and was like, oh, that's. That's the content ip thing, right? Like, that's naming the problem. That was cool. Cause I don't know him personally. And, like, it's cool when you see other really smart people arriving at the same conclusions as you independently.
Brendan Hufford [00:35:49]:
The thing, I mean, it just, it's not. It's very validating.
Brooklin Nash [00:35:53]:
It is.
Jess Cook [00:35:53]:
It's helpful.
Brendan Hufford [00:35:54]:
Like, I think that way, too. That's neat. It really pissed me off, though. Cause he, you know, afterwards they open up for Q and a, and everybody's asking him about, like, how do you choose your category and what category? What if your old category was a better category? And he's like, very plainly, you notice I didn't tell you what category we think we're in. I didn't talk about it at all. And that's for a reason. Like, the problem we solve is way more important. I think a bunch of people do this.
Brendan Hufford [00:36:17]:
Well, I think I saw. I don't know how you say his name. Mark Koziglow from operator AI.
Brooklin Nash [00:36:23]:
Yeah, that's the example I was going to point to.
Brendan Hufford [00:36:26]:
Perfect.
Mark Huber [00:36:28]:
All right, you talk about this because I have some thoughts on it. Keep going.
Brooklin Nash [00:36:33]:
Oh, I just. I mean, his current thing with operator, but, like, at each company, because I was at outreach with him, and he was always super crystal clear about our positioning, what problem we're solving and not getting lost in the noise. And then he brought that to catalyst, and then now he's launching operator, and each time there's a very clear POV that is going back to what we talked about at the beginning. It's based on the problem, right? All the way through to operator. So, yeah, I just, I've liked all three iterations of that. Outreach had the bloat, but catalyst, and.
Brendan Hufford [00:37:13]:
Now operator, he calls it the great ignore. And I was like, that's so smart. The whole homepage. If you go to operator AI right now, depending on when you listen to this or watch this, the whole homepage is a manifesto. And I think that's super interesting, like, really tripling down on that. I never knew where this came from, this way of thinking about naming these things. And my friend Kurt Woodward, who is an incredible content marketer at Zoom info, was like, he has a journalism background. And he explained to me that these are actually called, in journalism, these are called conceptual scoops.
Brendan Hufford [00:37:48]:
I had never heard that phrase before, but he was very plain, like, you know what a conceptual scoop is right. Like, we all saw the great resignation and quiet quitting. It's simply when there's an overarching trend that we can all define long form, and then you give a name to it, and then everybody, what you want, and I think, Jess, you kind of alluded to this, too, is like, you want that thing of like, it's like a snap in point of like, oh, yeah, that's the, like, you want that kind of reaction, right? You want the eyebrow raised when you explain it to people because they felt that problem viscerally for so long, and now they have words for it. So I think even, like, calling it the great ignore. You know, we could, we've known this problem long form for a while, right? But now we have a phrase for it. And I don't know if I love that, but I love, like, good copy and clever stuff like this. So I think things like that are great. I do think you can get off the rails a little bit.
Brendan Hufford [00:38:36]:
So I've seen people name problems really, really well. I think Chris Walker named Dark social on the attribution Mirage really, really well. Problem was, it was a little too disconnected from what they offered, which is, we will run your Facebook ads for you at the time. And they kind of tried to, like, I'm not. That's not a dig. But, like, people were like, no, I've heard the same.
Brooklin Nash [00:38:56]:
I heard the same thing. Somebody else was like, well, this is great way of talking about it, but it's a performance marketing agency right now.
Brendan Hufford [00:39:03]:
Now he does more of that, right? He does his own consulting, and it's very much about solving the attribution mirage. And I think that's the right way to do it. But you have to be careful when you're naming problems that you don't exist to solve.
Jess Cook [00:39:16]:
Yeah. Ooh, that's the sound bite right there. That's good.
Brooklin Nash [00:39:22]:
What does it look like? So these are early stage companies. I also think of Demio, I'm forgetting her name right now, who just launched it. It came to market similar to the operator to AiAI, where it's like, here's our manifesto. And they were, they started with content, like, week two. They were running live sessions as, like, head to head demos, essentially, and started out with content. What I'm trying to think through more of what this looks like with much more established companies with very large product suites and ten different icps. Yeah, it's a different question, I guess. So.
Brooklin Nash [00:40:01]:
The one example I think of there is coursera, because they have their b two, c and they have their B2B and on the B2B side. The strong POV is investing in learning and development now will have business impact, short term, midterm and long term in terms of growth potential, churn, hiring costs, all of this and all the content that they put out through their B2B end of things focuses on that content POV is just from half a dozen different angles. I'm curious for other larger companies like that, if you've seen a successful content POV.
Brendan Hufford [00:40:42]:
I think it's hard, and I think that's why this ends up becoming like a, you know, not an incumbent game. I do think it's the biggest opportunity for incumbents, but it's really hard with all of the, I mean, just, I mean, it's literally, Brooklin, this is a great point. Everything we talked about today, there's too many stakeholders, there's too much of this, like, bureaucracy. There's too many, frankly, too many customers, too many products. It becomes really, really hard to narrow down a consistent pOv. Once the ship we built such a big ship, it's hard to narrow it down, I think when the opportunity early on is to really own the problem. And the incumbents, ideally, people have asked me about that. What if they steal our language? What if they talk about the problem the same way? Great.
Brendan Hufford [00:41:26]:
That's actually what we want. I want them in popularizing the thing that I came up with, we've had.
Brooklin Nash [00:41:33]:
The same conversation, even for our tiny little five person company, and we're seeing that, I'm like, I'll take it. I think it's a good thing. It means we're accomplishing what we're talking about, where it's not about the solution or product. It's about, let's talk about this problem and how we can solve it.
Jess Cook [00:41:51]:
I will say you just brought something up for me, Brooklin, where you're talking about Coursera, where like, if their point of view is this idea that this training, right. Has impact in all of these different stages, and then they go and they live that. Like they're creating content that allows you to have those kind of breakthrough moments, short term, midterm, long term. Right. Like actually, I guess like dog fooding your content POV as much as you do, your actual product feels just as important for any size of company, right. That you are actually living the things you're saying everyone else should be doing, right?
Brooklin Nash [00:42:35]:
Yeah. They just launched three different tracks for Genai training, and they had gone through it internally as a company first. So a lot of the content they put out is here's what it looked like for us to roll out Genai training for everyone, for teams and for executives. And it just, content POV is not a topic. It's your perspective and should, if, if your POV does not open up more ideas than you know what to do with and have the bandwidth to produce, then it's probably, it probably needs work because it should just open up this whole, oh, we can talk about this and we can explore it from this angle and we can get tactical here. We can talk to Kyle Lacey about the conceptual end of things and leadership. It should open up a whole world of content possibilities.
Mark Huber [00:43:23]:
We're clipping that. So that was perfect. So one question that I want to end with, mostly because I know that with this group we probably could talk for another hour.
Mark Huber [00:43:33]:
This is super interesting.
Mark Huber [00:43:35]:
Once you have the content POV and you've gone through all the legwork, now what, how do you actually use it? How are you making sure that it doesn't just sit in a Google Slide presentation and collect dust on the cloud? What are you doing, Jess, with it on an ongoing basis?
Jess Cook [00:43:51]:
So I think a lot of what our points of view are doing for us at Island is they're generating like Brooklin just talked about, like all these ideas and stories, right? Like, hey, this market trend is kind of popping up and we have a point of view on, on that matter, right? And so let's just take that story and let's push it in all the ways we can, right? So we're bringing the teams together, we're bringing growth and comms and events together and we're like, events? This is kind of, here's like the abstract entitle for that. How do we feel like that? Could that be a presentation? Growth team, could this be some sort of campaign? And we have a really great landing page about our point of view on this problem and can we get some ad creative together, comms team, can we pitch some stories to press about, you know, this kind of differentiated point of view and like how it's a not been done before and then content, can we, you know, create some sort of blog post or social commentary around this thing? Right? So we're not just taking a piece of content, putting our point of view into it, and then like repurposing that. We're taking the story at large and bringing in all of the different kind of specialists and seeing how we can disseminate that story. And I feel like there's pretty marked difference there.
Brooklin Nash [00:45:05]:
I love the way you talk through that Jess, because I think what we see all the time is this. There's a bunch of different visual ways of showing it, but like, oh, here's your tempo piece. And then it breaks up into blogs, and then there's podcasts, and then there's social posts, and it's this whole tree, right, for distribution. But those are the assets. I think what I love, I think what I was hearing in what you're saying is it's not just the actual assets or deliverables or channels they're living on. It's okay, we have this overarching PoV. What are the themes that can serve as the pillars to that POV, and then what are the topics under each of those themes that we can dig into and at which level? Like, what's conceptual, traditional thought leadership, what's strategic, where we're talking to directors and DP's about like a question mark just asked, how do you actually do this thing? Or is it tactical? Is it a step by step guide for an individual contributor who's just looking to get shit done and doesn't have the internal support that they need, and they get that maybe in nine months they become a champion for you. Like, it's breaking it down into as many different parts and angles as possible.
Jess Cook [00:46:15]:
Yeah. Less about the format and way more about the story, which I love.
Brendan Hufford [00:46:21]:
Yeah, we're talking. I think we're talking about, like, premise, right? Where it's. It's differentiated. And I love the phrasing of like, unlike other. Whatever. Unlike other podcasts on this topic, only we. That has to be your point of differentiation. Unlike other newsletters that talk about X, only we Y.
Brendan Hufford [00:46:39]:
Right. If you can answer that sentence and it resonates internally. It resonates with all the different teams that we've talked about. It resonates with customers. You can use that premise across everything.
Brooklin Nash [00:46:50]:
And make sure you have the substance to back it up. I mean, that product wise, and I mean that data wise and team wise, not to denigrate. It's far enough ago. I think it's okay. Basecamp has a very strong POV and then imploded because they didn't have the actual meat of what they were talking about internally. So, like, make sure you have what you need to back up what you're promising in your point of view and what you're going to market with the culture of. Okay, I just bashed basically, no, screw them.
Mark Huber [00:47:27]:
They're fine, screw them. No one really argue that it has.
Brendan Hufford [00:47:31]:
To come from the top. I'll say this as a final thing, the culture of differentiated marketing has to come from the top. It is very hard to go bottom up with it. To our earlier points, not everything has to be differentiated. You could have a super differentiated and unique premise around a podcast, and then that feeds into everything else, or a live event series, and that feeds into everything else. There are these feeder channels, or feeder media, we can call it, that feed into everything else. But in order to do that, you have to kind of, I think, sometimes be okay with leadership, especially when you're in house. Ask them, like, do you care more about output or impact? And I think they'll always say impact.
Brendan Hufford [00:48:07]:
And you're like, cool. If I produce half as many, whatever box checking we've been doing. If I do half as many, for how long are you okay with that? A week? A month? A quarter? A year? Like, figuring that out, because this takes time. This is a thing that marketers are usually not afforded, especially in B2B and especially in tech. We just don't have time to sit and think. And you're like, I'm going to block out a half day to just think about this. That is really, really valuable, but it is also very rare.
Mark Huber [00:48:37]:
I had a blast. I learned a ton on this. There's one last question, and not to exclude you, Jess, or exclude you, Brooklin, but it doesn't apply to you. Brendan, is there any syrup left?
Brendan Hufford [00:48:49]:
Are you asking me if I drink all this syrup?
Mark Huber [00:48:51]:
Is when I thought that Brendan wasn't.
Brooklin Nash [00:48:54]:
Drive, like a week ago when he.
Mark Huber [00:48:57]:
Was going to strike out at the gift shop, I was like, here's my bottle of syrup from the exit five gift bag to hopefully give you a backup blend.
Brendan Hufford [00:49:05]:
Yeah, man. It's still there. We haven't. We haven't used it yet. I've been able to not go on a syrup binge. Thanks.
Jess Cook [00:49:10]:
You're not just smashing.
Brooklin Nash [00:49:12]:
I'd be worried if it was gone already.
Brendan Hufford [00:49:15]:
What kind of a madman do you think I am?
Brooklin Nash [00:49:19]:
It's on his desk.
Brendan Hufford [00:49:20]:
Though I really did wish it was here. That would have been. That would have been.
Mark Huber [00:49:24]:
Well, all right, last thing, I promise. Last thing. Jess and Brendan, did you have any of the Vermont coffee with, like, the syrup in it?
Jess Cook [00:49:32]:
No. Didn't even know that was a possibility.
Mark Huber [00:49:36]:
Until I was in Vermont for the first time at drive.
Jess Cook [00:49:39]:
That means I have to go next year. Check it out.
Brendan Hufford [00:49:42]:
I still have self. I'll let you know. Yeah, yeah.
Brooklin Nash [00:49:45]:
All this is confirming. I gotta go next year.
Jess Cook [00:49:47]:
Yes.
Mark Huber [00:49:48]:
Yes.
Brooklin Nash [00:49:48]:
I'm not man out here next year.
Jess Cook [00:49:50]:
You must go next year.
Jess Cook [00:49:52]:
Point of view.
Mark Huber [00:49:54]:
I was quiet because you three taught me a ton on this topic. This was a blast. We'll have to maybe record one in the future when we see how my little content POV that I'm working on it at UserEvidence lands like six months from now. But appreciate you guys for coming on the proof point.
Jess Cook [00:50:10]:
So fun. Thanks, Mark.
Brooklin Nash [00:50:11]:
Thank you.