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This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast drops you smack dab in the middle of the closed-door sessions where Jess Cook (Head of Marketing) and Joshua Perk (CEO) are working to turn their company, Vector, into B2B marketing’s next big thing.
In each episode, they tackle a real, strategic decision together—"Should we hire an agency?", "Should we push free trials or demos?", "What are we going to do with all the swag Josh bought?!"—dishing out pros, cons, knowns, unknowns, wins, challenges, and stories along the way.
Come for the big picture strategy and day-to-day tactics, stay for the jokes that make HR nervous.
[00:00:00] Josh: Okay, Jess, enjoy your vacation. Hope you have a great time. Thank
[00:00:02] Jess: you so much. I'm so excited. We've been planning for this for over a year.
[00:00:05] Josh: I can't wait to see the pictures. And while you're gone, don't worry about any of the marketing stuff I have planned. Okay.
[00:00:10] Jess: Wait, what?
[00:00:11] Josh: Okay. Bye.
[00:00:17] Jess: Josh. Yeah. I have one question for you. Sure. And that's, what were you thinking when you tried to take over marketing? When I was on vacation?
[00:00:27] Josh: First of all, I was trying to prove that marking is not that hard and I was wrong, but we'll tell the story anyways. Okay, so you were going on this like incredible vacation.
[00:00:38] Where were you going again?
[00:00:38] Jess: Okay. I, my family and I were going to Turks and Caicos.
[00:00:41] Josh: Beautiful.
[00:00:42] Jess: Amazing. To an all inclusive, which we'd never done before. We'd been planning for over a year for this and we were going with like some of our best friends and their kids. So it was like a really big built up.
[00:00:55] Exciting trip
[00:00:56] Josh: and I was so excited for you authentically. Yes. And [00:01:00] the first weekend, um, that you were gone, like going into the, the work week, I was like. I am gonna have some fun with her. And for context, this was, I think we had already recorded season one mm-hmm. Of this show. And so we already had this, like a little bit of this like chemistry of like crazy CEO Yeah.
[00:01:19] And like poor marketing leader. Um, but I was like, I'm gonna really play into it and see if I can like further this character. And so like. Your wheels like take off for vacation. And I was like scheming. And on Monday I started off my scheme by like posting on LinkedIn like. My marketer's outta office, like she's on vacation.
[00:01:42] Like she can't stop me. Like I'm gonna overthrow her this week. Like I'm gonna have a, how you say? A Cota Yes, A Cota. A coup of, of marketing. And I'm gonna proof that like, marketers aren't that special. CEO founders can do it like no biggie. Mm-hmm. So I posted this thing [00:02:00] on Monday that's basically like, everyone gimme your worst ideas.
[00:02:03] Like all the stuff I'm gonna do. And it went off.
[00:02:08] Jess: Yeah,
[00:02:09] Josh: off. It was like one of my best performing posts and people had wild ideas, like just, oh my gosh. Just like redesigned the website. Oh yeah. Like hire your cousin and put them in charge of social media. Just wild. Yeah. Wild post. Did you see this at this point?
[00:02:29] Like were you tagged yet at this point?
[00:02:32] Jess: Yeah. Well, I wanna back up just a little bit. Okay. Because like the week before I left Yeah. You dropped a couple times where you're like, don't, don't worry about next week. I've got it while you're gone. And I was like, okay. Or you'd be like, don't, like I have some marketing things planned, but like don't worry about it.
[00:02:52] Yeah. And I thought you were just like messing with me. And then I'm in a pool in Dirks and [00:03:00] Caicos. Yes. This is so bad. Like maybe I need to bring this to therapy, but like, yeah, on my phone, on LinkedIn, you got
[00:03:07] Josh: problems.
[00:03:08] Jess: I got problems. And I scroll and I'm like, what the hell is that happen? And it's, everyone has tagged me because you're trying to basically have a mutiny while I'm gone.
[00:03:22] And everyone's throwing these, uh, ideas out around like, yeah, like just turn off HubSpot. I hear you Don't really need it anyway. And you know, like, yeah, hire your like nephew's cousin who knows how to do some graphic design. Some graphic
[00:03:36] Josh: design, yeah.
[00:03:37] Jess: And I was like. I think I responded and I was like, Josh, I, I have wifi.
[00:03:44] Which like in the Caribbean,
[00:03:46] Josh: that wasn't like, I think some people were like, oh, she knew you were gonna do this, right, right. And I was like, nah, dog. Nah, she didn't, no, this was straight like. Like, I didn't have any of this planned. Straight from the dome. Straight from the dome, [00:04:00] and in my dumb ass, like authentically didn't comprehend that you were gonna have wifi, like I don't know what third world country I thought you were traveling to, but it wasn't Turks and Caicos.
[00:04:15] Jess: Yeah. No, I'm not that adventurous. I'm, I don't even camp. Don't even glamp. Couldn't even
[00:04:21] Josh: glamp. I like, and to be honest, I'm glad I didn't realize it because this, this campaign Yes. That we'll eventually talk about here was so successful. But had I known that you would've actually been able to see it, I wouldn't have done it.
[00:04:31] 'cause I wouldn't want to interrupt your actual vacation. Yeah. But it just didn't click on me like, like, yo, she's gonna chuck LinkedIn and she's gonna have. 400 people tagging her. Yeah. About her, her CEO, like all this. You
[00:04:43] Jess: don't know the level of my addiction. It's bad. It's bad. You
[00:04:46] Josh: talk to somebody I
[00:04:47] Jess: know.
[00:04:48] Just gotta get that checked out.
[00:04:50] Josh: So we had all these people and, and like I authentically did not have a plan. You and I didn't talk about this beforehand. My only like. My only strategy at the time was to have this one [00:05:00] post about overthrowing you. And I thought it would be funny and I'd get a couple legs, but it went off so much that I was sitting there Monday night with these, like hundreds of comments in there and I was like, I gotta keep this shit going.
[00:05:10] Yeah. Like this is, this is fucking hilarious. And like, people are loving this. So like, what can I, what can I do? And I was sitting there and I was like, man, how do I top this? Yeah. Like, this is gonna be difficult. And like
[00:05:21] Jess: marketing's hard. Marketing's fucking hard. Now what do I do? Yeah.
[00:05:24] Josh: What do I do? I was like, I have all this attention.
[00:05:26] How do I actually capture it? And, and. I remember just like as most people do when they have an idea, you pull up GoDaddy and you're like, I'm gonna buy a domain. And I bought Monday night, I'm sorry, jess.com. I bought a fucking website dedicated to you. Mm-hmm. And in that night, I built. A entire website, like beautiful hand coded, not a Wix template, like I coded a custom branded website called, I'm sorry, jess.com.
[00:05:55] My
[00:05:55] Jess: God, why are you so obsessed with
[00:05:57] Josh: me? I just, you're awesome. [00:06:00]
[00:06:00] Jess: Didn't even use a template.
[00:06:03] Josh: I put that domain on like a five year renewal. So when I eventually fire you, I'd be like, I'm sorry, just do on
[00:06:10] Jess: all the blackmail material will come there. It's gonna
[00:06:12] Josh: be like my burn book from Mean Girls. Excellent.
[00:06:14] Like this ugly Regina George
[00:06:19] Jess: Skanky Piat.
[00:06:21] Josh: So I bought this domain and. I like code this like on-brand, on theme website. And I take the hundreds of suggestions that we got and build this like chronicle with like everyone's name and picture of Jenna said, do this, and Michael says I should do this and all of it.
[00:06:38] And we like, we had hundreds of these little things on there.
[00:06:41] Jess: Many of whom I once considered friends. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Not
[00:06:43] Josh: anymore. Now they're my friends. Uhhuh Uhhuh. There was one comment in particular, so we have a picture this, you have like hundreds of these comments on this page, and then there's one that's like super big and bold at the bottom.
[00:06:57] And I tell this like chronicle this [00:07:00] like story of just like I'm overthrowing my head of marketing. Here's all your guys' ideas, I'm gonna do them all. But there's one that really stood out and it was like some, some comment about like, give away all the swag or something. I forget exactly what it was, but it was just all of it.
[00:07:14] Just give away all the swag. And that was like the thing where I was like, huh. That's a good idea. I'm gonna give away all of our swag. So, but I also wanted to like prove that like I was a great marketer and I could like capture leads and demand gen. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna give away all of our swag, just fill out this form at the bottom of the page.
[00:07:31] And it was like, actually it was a picture from season one of this podcast of you and I like standing back to back and it was just like
[00:07:36] Jess: we were on the same team. Yeah.
[00:07:39] Josh: We were on the same team. Mm-hmm. Back in the day. Yeah. Then I realized it's not the hardest, your job. And so I put this picture of, uh, of us and I was just like.
[00:07:45] I was like, if you want our swag, and I think particularly it was our Marketers Against Humanity, which is like card game we had built for, for marketers, like a parody on Cards Against Humanity. I was like, if you want free Cards Against Humanity, just fill out this form and hit the subscribe button. I'm gonna [00:08:00] build that fucking newsletter.
[00:08:02] Yeah. And, and like. Overnight it got like hundreds of form submissions on it, and I was like, oh shit, I have to ship these, these cards are in my garage right now.
[00:08:16] Jess: Yeah. Uhhuh. We don't have a fulfillment center yet. We're small. So I,
[00:08:21] Josh: I posted this, uh, this, you know, this page on Tuesday, right? Of like, go fill this out.
[00:08:25] All these people filled it out and you're still at the pool with wifi, just and watching. All of these comments come in of people filling at the forum. And I was like, Jess, can you ship these out for me? And you're like, go fuck
[00:08:36] Jess: yourself. Yeah. Still in the Caribbean. Sorry sir.
[00:08:40] Josh: So I had this like realization that I, and this is true, I, we sent them out.
[00:08:44] I shipped hundreds of decks of cards one by one from my house with handwritten notes on them. Yeah.
[00:08:50] Jess: Yeah.
[00:08:51] Josh: At like $5 a piece
[00:08:52] Jess: serves you right.
[00:08:54] Josh: And none of those people became an opportunity
[00:08:58] Jess: Karma. Karma is [00:09:00] a bitch.
[00:09:01] Josh: It was insane. Um. And so at, at the, towards the end of the week, I had honestly learned my lesson.
[00:09:09] Like it wasn't even funny anymore. I'd actually learned my lesson of like, mm-hmm. Oh, this is kind of hard. Yeah. Like market, like it's one idea to like one thing to have a creative idea. It's totally different to like have an idea that captures demand. That
[00:09:21] actually works.
[00:09:23] I thought, I thought marketing was just ideas.
[00:09:25] Yeah. Didn't know they have to actually work. And so on the final day of this like mass campaign, I. I wrote like a, uh, like an apology letter to you, Uhhuh. Um, and it was just like, dear Jess, like, I'm so sorry. Like, I had no idea. Well, I didn't actually start it that way. We'll talk about it in a second how I actually started it, but it was roughly like, dear Jess, I'm so sorry.
[00:09:48] Like, I really need you to come back. I hope you're having a great trip. Just like,
[00:09:53] Jess: yeah, just groveling. Just groveling. Yeah.
[00:09:56] Josh: Um, and what was really interesting about like, this is a fun [00:10:00] story. You and I like laughed over, hilarious. What was actually so interesting is that set of posts is what created like the caricature
[00:10:10] Jess: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Josh: Of you and I. Yeah. And it like, honestly had an, an incredible impact. Like you and I go to trade shows now. Yeah. And they're like, oh my God, it's Josh and Jess.
[00:10:19] Jess: I know. Like, they like harken back to that. Like, that was like a, a moment I think where. It was like what we had on the podcast, like came into LinkedIn and it was very organic.
[00:10:31] Like, like you said, it was like premeditated, but to a point. Yeah. And it just kind of snowballed from there. And I think people one just liked that idea that you would like lean in so hard to that CEO trope of like, I can do this. Um, and two, just like how much fun you had with it that you actually did.
[00:10:51] Like give swag away. Yeah. Um, and at the end, like, you know, yeah, just realized like, okay, wait, this is a little tougher. Right? And [00:11:00] so it was like, and, and then here I am like desperately in the comments. Like, everyone stop,
[00:11:06] Josh: don't feed into his shit. I'm
[00:11:07] Jess: still on vacation. I can read this. And so I think there was like, it's funny, my comments got more impressions.
[00:11:15] Yeah. Then my actual post-it like the week before. Yes. Yes. It blew up. It got really big, and I think it was a moment where people were like, oh, this is like a, this is like the brand. Yes. Like this is bigger than just the show, the podcast. Like this is their brand. Yeah. Like the people behind this and what they're doing and their personalities like.
[00:11:35] Transcend. Yeah. The, the, the couple of ex episodes they've given us,
[00:11:39] Josh: this was, I'm, I'll never forget this was around the beginning of the time, LinkedIn changed their algorithm to stop showing things in order.
[00:11:45] Yeah.
[00:11:45] So there was someone on our team, Sarah, on our team, that didn't see these chronologically.
[00:11:51] Yeah. And all she saw was my last post of like, I'm so sorry. I tried to overthrow Jess. And she was like, what the hell is going on? Like, what, what happened? Jess [00:12:00] was on vacation. Does she still work here? Yeah. And I was like, oh honey, you missed it. No. Yeah, you missed a couple things. Go
[00:12:05] Jess: back to Yeah. Oh my gosh.
[00:12:08] So yeah, like people will now I got emails about that. Uh, sorry. I get like, no, but like in a good way. Like people like this is funny. Yeah. Like did you plan this? Yeah. How did you plan this? I get
[00:12:20] Josh: that a lot.
[00:12:21] Jess: Um, and it wasn't planned. It was just like one of those crazy spur of the moment. Crazy spur of the moment ideas, but I'm so glad you did it because it really was like, it shows you don't have to take everything so seriously all the time.
[00:12:33] Josh: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Jess: Um, it really, and I, I think one of my favorite parts was when I came back, you were like, yeah, but it, it didn't generate any leads. And I was like. Okay. Quintessential. CEO, like, uh, the marketing thing. I didn't generate any leads. Like, and I think my response to you was yet.
[00:12:51] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. 'cause
[00:12:52] Jess: people still talk about it.
[00:12:53] Yeah. Right. Yeah. And like, if that was one of their first touch points with us, where they're like, what are these people doing? This is wild. Yeah. You [00:13:00] know, six months down the road, yeah. They could become a customer and that like that was part of the journey. Josh? Yes. It's time.
[00:13:06] Josh: What time
[00:13:06] Jess: to do the thing
[00:13:07] Josh: with the words.
[00:13:08] With
[00:13:08] Jess: the words. Where we look into the camera.
[00:13:09] Josh: Yeah. Deeply.
[00:13:10] Jess: Deeply. Affirmations. Affirmations for marketers.
[00:13:16] Josh: Dear marketer, you don't even need retargeting. People clear their schedules, hoping to see your ads again.
[00:13:21] Jess: Yeah, they're like. Kidney surgery?
[00:13:25] Josh: No. Nah.
[00:13:25] Jess: My mom's coming to town. Screw that. Nope. Got to see those hands.
[00:13:29] See them hands. Dear marketer, your ideas don't just reduce churn. They make customers feel personally guilty for even. Thinking about leaving.
[00:13:39] Josh: It's like when you click the unsubscribe button, it's like, how dare you? Yeah. What are you thinking? Are you sure you wanna do this? You're crazy.
[00:13:44] Jess: You're nuts. Like, it's like the revenge dress of marketing.
[00:13:47] Yeah. Like they're like, what? I would leave that. What
[00:13:49] Josh: you thinking? Yeah. What is she? What are you saying? Pretty lady or uh, what's it called? Pretty pretty woman. Pretty bird. Pretty
[00:13:54] Jess: lady. Big mistake.
[00:13:56] Josh: Huge. Huge. [00:14:00] So I was at dinner. Um, a couple months back with a CRO that I used to work for Josh Allen. Josh Allen was one of, I think one of the first sales reps or maybe sales managers at a company called LogMeIn.
[00:14:12] Okay. Um. LogMeIn back in the day we're like one of the first like remote access support products where if you're like trying to help your grandma. Mm-hmm. Right? You can log into a computer and I remember at the time I asked Josh this question of like, Hey, we're in the messy middle. Like, what was it like at Log Me in the early days?
[00:14:28] And he told me the story of like how within like. Six months of LogMeIn. They were like a multi-product, multimillion dollar company. And I remember having like all this imposter syndrome, right, of like, oh my God, that founder must have been so smart. And you told me this story about how LogMeIn really realized they weren't building support access software.
[00:14:47] They were actually building, um, you know, a smarter way for like peer to peer, you know, devices to talk to each other. So any application of that technology from field support to helping your grandma to students like you had this like aha moment and I was just like, yeah. [00:15:00] Oh my God, I'm not that good of a founder.
[00:15:01] I haven't had the aha moment. The reason I tell you this story is now so many people come to me and say like, how did you figure out your marketing? Like, how did you go to market? Right? Yeah. Like you have all these like quippy crazy things that you do with Jess. Like how did you know to hire Jess, right?
[00:15:19] Yeah. And I feel like, um, the reality is, is like. Success stories are told by the victors that write them. Yeah. And it's so much easier to look backwards and talk about what worked and leave out all the details of what didn't work.
[00:15:33] Jess: Yeah.
[00:15:34] Josh: Right. So like this whole thing that like started the evolution of our relationship online Yeah.
[00:15:40] Was a fucking accident. Yeah. Like we weren't smart. No. Like we didn't plan this thing in. See her on a corner you saying?
[00:15:46] Jess: Well, you're saying we weren't, but it, it started by you. That's true.
[00:15:49] Josh: That's true. Just putting that on the record. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't smart. Yeah, you were Okay. But you know what I mean?
[00:15:55] Yeah. Like it's like, I, I think it's, yeah, I'm getting kind of like deep [00:16:00] at this point, but like I, I feel like so much of like. Of being good at your job is is about like putting imposter syndrome aside and realizing like everyone has it. Yeah. And just like keep trying things, like keep going. Eventually you will look back and be like, that one out of a hundred things We tried, worked.
[00:16:15] Yes. And like that's the reason that we were so smart and like forward thinking.
[00:16:19] Jess: Yeah. So much of it is just having guts to do something different. And that's what this was. It was just like this silly little thing that turned into something bigger.
[00:16:29] Josh: Yeah.
[00:16:29] Jess: Um, and really became kind of the point where like, oh, okay, they have a shtick here.
[00:16:34] They have like a thing. Yeah. And I'm into it. Yeah. And I'm here for it. And you know, we got new podcast subscribers from that. You and I both got new like followers from that. Yeah. Like, it was, it was a, it was a really interesting moment. Yeah. That was a total accident. And I think it just came from like.
[00:16:49] Like, who cares? Like having no ego. Yeah. And like I'm gonna try it and if no one likes it or sees it Yeah. Like whatever, we'll move on. Yeah, exactly. But I think people get, so I think that's [00:17:00] why so much B2B marketing is so boring now. Mm-hmm. Because people get really afraid of doing something bold. Yeah.
[00:17:05] It's scary. Yeah. But like what is the worst that can happen? Yeah. Like we are not Coca-Cola,
[00:17:11] Josh: right.
[00:17:11] Jess: We cannot break our brand at this point.
[00:17:14] Josh: No.
[00:17:14] Jess: Um, we're not gonna do anything that's really gonna like, in terms of like a marketing experiment that's going to tarnish us. Yeah. And so it's like, I don't know, just try it, see what happens.
[00:17:25] Yeah. You never know.
[00:17:26] Josh: Yeah. I think that's the other thing where, where people ask like, where did your belief in marketing come from? Yeah. Like why, like why, why does just have so much like. Rope in her. Yeah. Her role or others don't. And I think like going back to what you said of like, we don't have much to lose.
[00:17:40] Right. And I, I think the thing that's interesting about Nick and I's background is like we came from the military, right? Yeah. Like we've seen so much more serious stuff Yeah. Than like marketing B2B advertising software. Yeah. It's like just go for it. Try something. I
[00:17:53] Jess: even think when I was interviewing, I was like.
[00:17:56] I was shocked that you didn't already have someone in, in a marketing seat [00:18:00] because of the brand and the website, everything that was already built up so far.
[00:18:04] Josh: Yeah.
[00:18:04] Jess: And I was like, what? Like what makes you like believe in this so much? Yeah. Like that's not typical of founders. And I think your answer to me was like either you or Nick said.
[00:18:16] When you've been shot at before, like nothing else is as serious. Yeah. And so we are not having fun. What the hell are we doing here?
[00:18:24] Josh: Yeah. Like, what is the point of this? And I was
[00:18:24] Jess: like, I'm in like, please, like I have to have this job. Right. So. And Okay, I get it. We're really lucky we get to market to marketers.
[00:18:31] Yeah. And they think this kind of insane, goofy, like irreverent stuff is amazing and so funny.
[00:18:37] Josh: Yeah.
[00:18:37] Jess: Not every audience is like that.
[00:18:40] Josh: Yeah.
[00:18:41] Jess: But every audience has a sense of humor. Yeah. And I think you have to just kind of tap into like what that is. Yeah. What is their tolerance for it? Is it dry? Yeah. Like lean into that.
[00:18:50] Josh: Yeah.
[00:18:51] Jess: Um, is it, you know, it might not be, uh, like memes. Yeah. But like, is it a New Yorker type style cartoon thing? Yeah. Like [00:19:00] those are funny to a certain degree to a certain audience as well. Right. So I think it, you gotta find what their humor is and like lean into that.
[00:19:05] Josh: I saw one on LinkedIn this week that was like you, I I island when you were there.
[00:19:09] Right. You were focused on the enterprise, you know, engineer security. Right? Yeah. And I saw something on LinkedIn this week where I was like, that's. Brilliant. Right? Everyone talks about like, well, yeah, you market to marketers, they're fun. I market to engineers. Yep. Like developers. Right? I saw something on LinkedIn earlier this week and I was like, that's brilliant.
[00:19:25] They, there was a company, I think it's um, I think it's a company called Pump. I think they do like AWS optimization, right? So they sell to engineers and like, um, infrastructure and uh, DevOps and. They're doing a trivia night that is engineers versus salespeople.
[00:19:41] Jess: I'm like, oh, like that gives me chills.
[00:19:43] Right. Just like that's brilliant. Yes. Right?
[00:19:45] Josh: Like, don't tell me engineers are boring. Don't tell me they're hard to sell to. Right. Like you go talk to any engineer, like what's the one thing they all agree on? Salespeople are stupid.
[00:19:52] Yeah.
[00:19:52] Do what? Trivia night engineers versus salespeople. That is brilliant.
[00:19:55] That so good. You don't have to be boring just because you think you sell to people that are boring. Yeah. You just need to be more creative. [00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Jess: Yeah, exactly. And they're not boring.
[00:20:02] Josh: No, they're not.
[00:20:03] Jess: You just have to figure out what is their, yeah, what's their thing?
[00:20:06] Josh: I don't understand them.
[00:20:07] Jess: Right. Yeah.
[00:20:08] Josh: Yeah.
[00:20:08] They're not boring. We have like six of 'em that work at our company. I know. I love They speak different language. I love them all. They do.
[00:20:14] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. They're great.
[00:20:15] Josh: I dunno how to market to them.
[00:20:17] Jess: Uh, it's tough. It's real tough.
[00:20:18] Josh: Okay. There was one downside.
[00:20:21] Jess: Oh wait, yeah. Can I say it? Yes, please. Josh got canceled over this last post, specifically his hook.
[00:20:30] Josh: My hook, yeah. So tell me about that. So, yeah, I mean, Jess has been training me. She tells me like every post is about. The hook. Mm-hmm. Gotta make that thing super good. So the way I described my last post earlier wasn't exactly honest. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I didn't really start the post by saying like, I'm sorry, Jess.
[00:20:46] I started the post by saying, earlier this week I forgot to take my ozempic and while I was hungry, decided to overthrow my head of marketing. And I thought that shit was funny. Yeah.
[00:20:58] Jess: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:58] Josh: Not everyone else. [00:21:00]
[00:21:00] Jess: Nope. That wasn't everyone's cup of tea.
[00:21:02] Josh: And so I think later that weekend, um, my wife and I were leaving like Trader Joe's or some grocery store or something and like my phone lights up and it's like.
[00:21:13] A comment or like a, about our post and like, it had been going off, so I was like, oh, just another comment. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, no. This wasn't a comment. This was like a post about me referencing the post about how I was fat taming and, and all, all this sort of stuff. And, um, that wasn't fun. I remember texting you being like uhoh.
[00:21:36] Mm-hmm. I'm in 12. Oh yeah. And, and for the record, uh. Not fat shaming. No. Uh, at, at all. And I, I do remember though, it was like the, the first opportunity where I was like, okay, two things. One is like, you're, you're probably, if you haven't disrupted something or upset somebody, you're probably not pushing the edge enough.
[00:21:56] Yep.
[00:21:56] That being said, it was never my intention to upset people. No. And so [00:22:00] I remember sitting there a couple different times because like one, you know, you wanted to guess it now 'cause I've lost a little bit of weight, but I wasn't exactly the smallest boy at the time that was posting this. But I remember sitting there for a second and just being like, okay, how am I gonna reply to this?
[00:22:12] Yeah. Am I gonna lean into like our, our trope? Am I going to, um, like push the envelope further? And I just, I think I just replied like, I didn't mean to offend you. Like, I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I got canceled 'cause of this, my first cancellation. Yeah. Yeah. I
[00:22:25] Jess: mean, you haven't lived until Yeah. That's happened.
[00:22:27] Josh: Yeah. You, you had a person in your comments lately. That was I did,
[00:22:33] Jess: yeah. Yeah, that was, that was rough. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I, so there's always gonna be people who like jump in there and say something. Like disagree with you, right? Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah. Uh, totally open to debate. Yeah. Um, this particular person like took it way too far, started getting rude, was like insulting people that were commenting on my post.
[00:22:57] Um. And it just got [00:23:00] rough. And so, I don't know. At one point I was like, all right, man. Like, get outta my comments. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I don't know how else to, to like,
[00:23:06] Josh: yeah.
[00:23:06] Jess: You know, I'm not gonna engage. Yeah. And I'm not gonna insult back. No. But at some point it's like, all right, we've had enough of you.
[00:23:13] I love your response.
[00:23:13] Josh: Get outta my comments. Just get outta my
[00:23:15] Jess: comments. Like, this is MySpace. I also think the funny thing is. In commenting on my post, he's giving my post more. Reach. More. Yeah. Like that's what makes me laugh about it, is like, you're actually giving me more engagement, but also I kind of want you going.
[00:23:27] Yeah.
[00:23:27] Josh: A hundred percent. One more comment on this. You can, you can tell our editor whether we keep this in or take it out. Yes. Go for it. Um, so we won't name names, but this particular post was about you, you talking about like you didn't understand gated content anymore. Yeah. Right. Like you,
[00:23:41] Jess: I I actually said it was a weird hill to die on.
[00:23:43] Yes.
[00:23:43] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And. This person basically gave this like diatribe Yes. Of like how you as a, like, you don't know anything as a marketer and like if you write good content, it should be gated. People should have to pay for it. And like, as, as a side note, like, cool. Get your content. [00:24:00] Good luck. Yeah. Like, do you, do you, um.
[00:24:02] But I remember like we have such an interesting culture at Vector where it's like we're a small company. Like we all really enjoy working with each other. And so I think, I think you posted this in Slack and all of us just like jumped in.
[00:24:14] Oh yeah.
[00:24:14] And I, and I think I wrote something along the lines like I.
[00:24:18] As the boss of the, like, as the boss of the moron who wrote this post, or the boss of the marketer, whatever it was, whatever he called me, right? Yeah, yeah. Whatever word he used, I basically threw it back at him. And like as the, as the person that manages, like the, the author of this post, like, I can tell you, you know, all the stuff that she's, she's done has worked really well for us and.
[00:24:37] For the record, Jess and I are not very far apart in age, uh, but he, he commented back and said, your mom said that you can't talk to me anymore, and that one really hurt my feelings.
[00:24:47] Jess: That's like, where are we going with this? Like, what are we doing here? I think that's the part
[00:24:52] Josh: where you said like, like, man,
[00:24:53] Jess: get the hell out.
[00:24:54] Oh, I can't take it. What a
[00:24:56] Josh: weird world we live in. It
[00:24:57] Jess: is very strange. Yeah. Uh, I felt very [00:25:00] supported Yeah. By my friends and community. Yeah. When that happened, that was, that was a good feeling. Uh, like even I think Casey Jenkins jumped into my defense and like, it's just lovely. But you know, it's just what a weird world that we're in.
[00:25:13] Um, and yeah. Entitled to his opinion for sure.
[00:25:16] Josh: Yep.
[00:25:17] Jess: Um. It's a lot of time Yeah. For like to be that upset about things. Yeah. But you know,
[00:25:23] Josh: so good takeaways, like, uh, overthrow your marketer. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, regret it.
[00:25:28] Jess: Yeah.
[00:25:29] Josh: Get canceled and ruffle some feathers. Basically ruffle. That's the one take away from this episode.
[00:25:34] Yeah,
[00:25:34] Jess: yeah, yeah. You're not upsetting one person. Yeah. Uh, you're not doing it right. It's not worth it. Yeah.
[00:25:40] Josh: It's amazing.
[00:25:41] Jess: One more thing that I think is super important that played out here was. We did this on our personal pages, right? Like Yeah. LinkedIn has given company pages, so Little Reach now they actually have an, a new paid model for company pages.
[00:25:58] Josh: Hmm.
[00:25:59] Jess: Um, [00:26:00] I'm not exactly sure where they're gonna take that. Yeah. I'm not sure. I've, I've just noticed this starting pop to pop up.
[00:26:05] Josh: Yeah.
[00:26:05] Jess: But there is like now going to be monetary like. Incentive Yeah. To, to, to pay for reach on your company page.
[00:26:15] Josh: Wow. But,
[00:26:17] Jess: but I don't know how successful it's going to be because no one cares about a company page.
[00:26:21] If we had done this on the vector page, like one, no one would've seen it. No one would've cared.
[00:26:26] Josh: Yeah.
[00:26:26] Jess: It's because it came from the people. And I think if, if there's anything to take away from this, it's that like start leaning into your people being the deliverers of your campaign. Yeah. Of your ideas, of your narrative, like.
[00:26:39] Stop leaning on your company page. Yes. I get it. Every once in a while. You have to look like it's still active. Yeah. But like maybe just a simple thing is start reposting Yeah. Your founders and your your employees posts. Yeah. Like that. That's essentially. 98% of the vector page posts is just reposts of [00:27:00] our stuff.
[00:27:00] Josh: Yeah. You know what's interesting is like our page has actually like climbed pretty good in followers. It has, but it's not, to your point, it's not because we do anything on the company page that's special at all.
[00:27:11] Jess: No, we do nearly nothing on that page actually. Yeah. Um, if we have a big product announcement, if we have a big partner announcement, we will do a specific post from the vector page.
[00:27:21] But that is the only time. Yeah. Every other piece of content is a repost.
[00:27:25] Josh: You do do really good comments from the vector page and the persona of our That's a good point. Yeah. And I,
[00:27:31] Jess: that could be a good part of the growth because I do, uh, surprise. I'm the vector voice.
[00:27:36] Josh: You're the ghost.
[00:27:38] Jess: And I, I, it's like one of my favorite parts of the job.
[00:27:41] 'cause I do get to pretend to be ghosty and I like will say funny things like, oh my gosh, I look so fire in this picture.
[00:27:48] Josh: I do think that's actually probably now they think about this probably is where that, that growth comes from. It could be. Uh, which like, I guess the advice there is like, find a way to give your brand a personification.
[00:27:57] Heck yes. Because it's way more fun to follow mascots
[00:27:59] Jess: [00:28:00] baby. Yeah. Swear. It's at, what was
[00:28:01] Josh: it? Was it like Wendy's that set the trend for like personification of a brand voice? Oh, yeah,
[00:28:05] Jess: yeah, yeah. The snarky. It's so good. So good.
[00:28:08] Josh: Love it.
[00:28:08] Jess: So what I've learned is I can never go on vacation again.
[00:28:12] Josh: That's exactly what I was trying to get across.
[00:28:14] Jess, you think this was for leads? This was so that you learned your lesson. Do not go outta office.
[00:28:18] Jess: Such a power move. Gosh, whatever. This was a good meeting though.
[00:28:22] Josh: It was a good meeting.
[00:28:23] Jess: Yeah. Like this meeting. Could have been a podcast.
[00:28:26] Josh: It was.
[00:28:27] Jess: It was. This meeting could have been a podcast as a vector.
[00:28:30] Production vector lets you build ad audiences from real people that visit your site, click your ads and research your competitors. Imagine seeing exactly who will see your ads by name before you spend a dime. It's a great time to be alive. Marketers go give it a whirl@vector.co. See you next time.