Mar 29, 2021
Personal branding can be a powerful way to grow your executive career AND your business, but creating content at the scale necessary to see results can be challenging.
This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Influence Podium founder Marti Sanchez talks about why it's important for executives to invest in building their personal brands, and how to overcome the "but I'm too busy to create content" challenge.
Marti's agency works with countless executives on content creation, and he's boiled his process down to a simple, streamlined set of steps that require minimal time from his executive clients while getting maximum results.
Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, to learn more about Marti's process, and how you can apply to building your own personal brand.
Resources from this episode:
- Visit InfluencePodium.com
- Connect with Marti on LinkedIn
- Follow Marti on Twitter
Transcript
Kathleen (00:01): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and this week, my guest is Marti Sanchez, who is the founder and CEO of Influence Podium. Welcome to the podcast, Marti.
Marti (00:21): Thank you so much for having me.
Kathleen (00:23): I am super excited to have you here. You're my first guest who hails originally from Spain and particularly from parts of Spain that I've spent some time in. And so that's just an aside, but that makes me really happy.
Marti (00:38): You had a big connection there. I'm very, very excited to be here.
Kathleen (00:42): Before we dig into our topic, tell my audience a little bit about yourself and your story and how you came to be doing what you're doing now, and specifically what Influence Podium is.
Marti (00:54): Absolutely. So long story short, I was born in Boone, North Carolina, but my parents are from Spain. So we moved back to my home country when I was about six months old. So all I got was the passport. I don't remember much else, but that passport there allowed me to come back when I was 17 to the United States to play college basketball. Since then it's been a lot of back and forth between the United States and Spain. When I was 21, I had just graduated. I was looking for a job back home in Spain, but unemployment was very high and there was no jobs available. So I kind of went back to what I knew how to do, which was writing. Back in college, I would ghost write my classmates' papers for them for $10 a page under the table, just to make some cash for, to get some groceries.
Marti (01:39): So I started ghost writing online. I wrote on Quora, which is a QA platform, every day for about six months. I got two to 3 million views in that period of time. And then some people started reaching out to me if I could go straight to them. I just, people ended up being B2B CEOs. And that's where I first started learning about personal branding and inbound and content marketing without even knowing what those stamps actually meant. Eventually my career as a freelance writer went pretty well, but it was short. We started getting a few clients and it turned into an agency and that's where Influence Podium was born. Since then, we've helped over 25 B2B CEOs grow their personal brands, create content, scale, and drive inbound opportunities for their companies. And it all really started by writing papers for my classmates.
Kathleen (02:25): I love it. I love sort of like necessity is the mother of invention. And I love that you just stumbled into writing and were kind of doing inbound marketing without even knowing it.
Marti (02:36): Yeah, I didn't, I mean, I started business and, and I had an MBA, but I didn't really know what anything of that or that meant it didn't really get much of that. So eventually it was a lot of trial and error and I stumbled into it. It was fun. But looking back, it all circled back together.
Kathleen (02:53): Yeah. Now it's interesting because B2B content is something we've talked a lot about on this podcast. We've talked a lot about personal branding and why it is so important for particularly executives to build strong personal brands. You know, that's a topic that I love talking about. I believe in it strongly, it's something I practiced for myself. And recently I've had several guests on to talk about it, but I feel like the challenge with that though, I think a lot of people get why they should do it. But I think the challenge they run into is, is the, how, like, it's sort of like saying you should exercise every day and then you're like, yes, I should. But how am I going to fit that into my schedule? How am I going to be consistent? I don't have the time, like all those same complaints I've heard, used to describe the process of creating content. And you have somehow come up with a solution that, that really solves for creating content at scale for executives in order to support personal brand building. So that's what I really want to pick apart today.
Marti (04:01): Actually, it's funny that you referenced that example of working out because I find that it's very similar the challenges of somebody trying to work out and somebody trying to create content. The first challenge is I don't know how to do it, right. I don't know what exercise to workout. I don't know how to do this exercise. It's very similar to creating content, right? I don't know how to create content, so it's not for me. Maybe I'm not a great writer or maybe I don't feel very comfortable in, in camera. So that's something that actually relayed a lot. And it's one of the objections that a lot of our clients, which at the beginning when they're talking to us and because like your audience are convinced that this is the right solution for them, but they don't know how to do it.
Marti (04:43): So for us, I think that main challenge is solved by one being very self-aware and really understanding what are your main skills. And if you are a naturally better writer focusing on that, if you're naturally a better speaker focusing in that maybe it's not even on camera video, maybe it's a podcast. And then using that channel of communication that comes more naturally to you and then understanding that it's not going to be perfect at the first time it's going to be perfect or better eventually. So that's one of the challenges that we face a lot with people of like, how do I do this for me personally, I was a good writer and I didn't do any video content for two years or three years. Right. I was self-conscious about my accent. And only now I'm saying to branch out into that, but I still, I stayed very focused on my core skills at the beginning. So that's one of the first times just that we see with people, right? How do I do this? And how do I work out? How do I create concentration?
Kathleen (05:35): Yeah. It makes a ton of sense. And it's really funny that you just said that because I was interviewed for somebody else's podcast earlier today. And one of the questions they asked was you've been podcasting for three and a half years. Like most people don't get past episode five. How have you been so consistent? And my answer was, it starts with knowing yourself and like, I'm a pretty good writer. I can say that like, I am a pretty good writer, but it's, it's, doesn't come as easily to me. Like, it takes me more time. I, you know, it feels like work versus this format. I'm like, I can jump on zoom and talk to somebody for 45 minutes, no problem. And so honestly there's no more secret to it than that. It's just that it's easy. And I know if it's easier and I feel comfortable and it comes naturally to me that I'm going to stick with it. So I think you're spot on.
Marti (06:28): We're all wired differently, right? That you have different things that come naturally to us again, for me, I was a good writer. That's what I did. So 95% of my content during the first two, three years was winning and that's fine. Right. We have to take ourselves out of the comfort zone, but not at the beginning because then it's too easy to give up. If somebody had forced me to the video content at the beginning, I would have been like, I'm not doing this. I'm like, I don't want to hear my accent. I don't want to do all this stuff now that I have the confidence that I've built up after years now. I'm okay doing that. But it's too easy to allow ourselves to expand too quickly, versus just focusing on what we do best at the beginning. And that's something that we recommend all our CEO clients, like, let's be self-aware, let's see, what is your number one skill and then optimize for that double down on it. And then we'll, we'll explain later.
Kathleen (07:18): Do you have a particular process you use to figure out what their number one skill is? Or is it really just a conversation and then you can land on it?
Marti (07:25): I think they're very, it's very easy for people to know, like a lot of them, once we have that initial conversation during our onboarding process, they're able to decide which version they want to go after. Right. Then if we're creating like LinkedIn content or Twitter content, and then we're like look, for us, it's fine to create through video content or written content because the process is very similar. Just tell her what, what, where do you, what side of the equation do you feel more comfortable with? And they're able to know which side is easier for them. So I think at least of the guidance that I've talked to, and obviously I guess it's the person is different, but for us there, it's very quick for them to know which side they're usually more self-aware to the point of like knowing what comes naturally to them versus the, the one who doesn't.
Kathleen (08:17): So once they know what their strong suit is, then what?
Marti (08:21): Yeah. I think that like the other objection that we get, and I think that's what these two objections are, what dictates the whole process is I don't have the time. Right. And just like working out, like I don't have the time to workout. I don't have the time to create content, especially if you're a marketer or you're a salesperson or you're running a company, you have a nine to five job. If you were running the company, you have a lot of fires to crowd, but every position has their own complications and their time consumption. So the key here is how do we optimize so that we can leverage your time, the better so that you don't have to create 20 LinkedIn posts by yourself, or you don't have to create 20 videos every month. Cause nobody's going to do that. Like, I don't want to do it.
Marti (09:05): You probably don't want to do it. It's too much. It's too time consumption. So the key is how do we reverse engineer that time that you have, let's say it's 60 minutes per month into leveraging that into the content creation. So that the whole process for us, it looks like this and I would get tactical and cover the nitty gritty because I think your audience getting tactical. So the key here is we first start by creating a pillar piece of content. And it can be either a podcast interview where they're the host. It can be a podcast interview like me being a guest, or it can be an interview. Or we usually do two interviews of 30 minutes per month with our brand manager by that 60 minutes that they're either speaking on a podcast, hosting a podcast or speaking to a brand manager and that's recorded.
Marti (09:58): And we record the video. We recorded the audio. The next step is, and this is for clients who work with us, but it can be similarly gone with other people and find out cheaper ways to do it is to create a brief. So break down that pillar piece of condom into smaller pieces of content. So for example, after these episodes, district is recorded that we're on right now. My team's going to go in and find the best one minute, two minute highlights of our conversation and create either video content or reading content. So what that does is it allows me to create content without me being present. All I had to do was show up here, talk about things that I hopefully know that my team does the rest. If you have a team that can work with us like us, then perfect. If you can hire a freelancer, that's probably cheaper way, but even if you can not hire a team, it's easier to find ways to do clips with software than have to record yourself. 20 more times.
Kathleen (10:58): There's so much software out there now. Like I've, I've been in this game for awhile podcasting. And in that time I've repurposed my podcast, video and audio in different ways. And I've been really amazed in the last like six months to a year at the number of new companies that have popped up to solve for that need of like how to repurpose your video and audio assets. It's awesome. And they're very, user-friendly,
Marti (11:23): It's incredible. And they threatened my business. Why I'm super focused on that. Cause I love that these things are coming out because they would save us a lot of time. And maybe that's another topic, right? AI and, and what to acquire manually. I do think there's still going to be manual in both and needed.
Kathleen (11:44): 100% because like I I've, I've used some of these tools to create things like audio grams and video grams and this sort of thing. But it, you still to know how to go in and capture exactly the right piece, like sends the right message and
Marti (11:59): Know what's good content for people, for an algorithm to know that. But like you said, there's ways to do that. That doesn't require a full team like us. And it sounds contrary that I talk about it, but I want to be super transparent. There's other ways to do that than hiring a team. Like it's going to allow you to create that large piece of content into smaller pieces of content that then you can distribute.
Kathleen (12:24): I understand how that works. If you're talking about a podcast or a video, but are you saying you would do that also with like a written along written piece of pillar content or just with audio?
Marti (12:36): Yeah. So you can do it through different ways. We just found it. It's easier when it's a conversation for 30 minutes to 60 minutes, then repurposing an article. The reason why is because when you start with the pillar being audio or video, it allows you to create it's more versatile. So you can create video content, you can create freedom content, you can do many different stuff with it. When you're repurposing from like, let's say a long form article, then you're limiting yourself to reinforce them, which is still fine, but it doesn't allow you that versatility, that audio and video gives you. So we'd recommend to start with that just because it opens the world for more types of content that you can create from there.
Kathleen (13:20): That makes sense. So you're you create this original piece of longer form content. That's really a conversation then you're breaking it up into little pieces. Talk me through what those little pieces look like.
Marti (13:33): Yeah. So it can be, we find three to four main different types of pieces. The first one can be winning content for LinkedIn Twitter, Quora or written oriented platforms. So if those are Tweets, you can turn the best quotes into Tweets. If you've made a point for about 60 seconds, 90 seconds, that can turn into a LinkedIn post and you can even create long form articles from the main point that you covered during the interview or the podcast. So you can create an SEO strategy, create a LinkedIn and Twitter strategy from that. Option two is to create a video call. So you will be looking for one to two minute tips not more than that and turn them into touch with a title that catches attention, subtitles time bar, and you can post that on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, across all social platforms. Option three is if the podcast is recorded with audio only, you can turn it into audio. So audiograms is an image that is still with the sound wave for the people that are listening. And you're using that as video content, but just audio and finally something that we were assigned to do as well now is design oriented content. So we're doing carousels, Instagram decks for LinkedIn. So things that visually give it more appeal that's a fourth type of content that you can create.
Kathleen (14:59): And when you say carousel, like what does that look like? Is that is that carousels with, I know what a carousel is, but is it like paint like individual images with different words on it? Or is it images? Like how, how do you put that together?
Marti (15:12): Yeah, that's a good question. So basically what Instagram and LinkedIn allowed to do is turn it into like a slide deck, like a PowerPoint presentation, how that looks like usually is you have this initial slide with it, which is the main title that kind of tells you what you're going to see over the next few slides. And then slides two, two, seven, eight are usually the main piece of content. So if we're talking about how to repurpose content, so that's going to be the slides for, I talk about why then I talk about pillars and I talk about content repurposing that distribution. And usually there's a final slide. That's a call to action. So either follow for more visit our website. So I think that leads the reader, the consumer into the next steps. So you can repurpose that from LinkedIn to Instagram, we found that to work really well. And it just a different type of content that it's more time consuming because you don't need a designer and that's not something that comes naturally to me. I have no eye for design, then you have to watch source. But if something, somebody that their main skill of communication, which comes back to what we were talking about before is design. That's something that I would double down on that for now.
Kathleen (16:21): And when you, so you talked about like creating all these repurposed assets and then distributing them on social, are you saying that those would be distributed via the executives, like personal social media accounts or by the company account? Where would you put that?
Marti (16:35): Yeah, that's a great question and something that we get a lot. So I started the company because I believe people trust people and people want to work with people. So we think that the content performs better and resonates more when it comes from the point of view of the CEO or leadership or a person doesn't matter, they don't have to be an executive or a founder. Each person has their own personal brand. So my opinion is always, the posts should be posted from the company, from the personal profile, from the individual that said, if you want to maximize the value that you're getting for your content, I always agree that you should, reshared it from your company standpoint as well. So if your CEO talks about XYZ, then you can re share that on the LinkedIn page or the Twitter page or whatever that looks like the company profile to reach a different audience that you built. And say, this is our founder talking about XYZ, and this is why we think matters. So you're getting two for one, but I always recommend that the first wave of posting comes from the, the person from the CEO. We just found from our data to be usually over 300% better reach men, 2.5 more inbound leads coming in through when it supports the personal profile. So our numbers back back that idea.
Kathleen (17:59): Yeah. That makes sense. And then once that initial piece of content is created, do you then kind of establish a rhythm for future content pieces? How do you handle that?
Marti (18:10): Yeah, so we usually work on a monthly basis, so we have a monthly deliverables. So if we're talking LinkedIn, if we're talking Twitter, if we're talking long form content, and then we have one or two pillar pieces of content every month, so it's either one podcast or two podcasts whatever that looks like. And then from there we create the content for the whole month, from that one pillar piece or two pillar pieces, and then we can do it again next month. And then the next month we funded results combined over time. So usually we work in long-term partnerships because it's something that I was you'd probably say that you to see the same thing. You're not going to get results today. It's more of a longterm play, what brand played and you really need to believe in long-term for it to be successful. So it's something that we look for long-term partnerships, even though, I mean, I don't need to get into this because contractually we work month to month, et cetera, but it's when I'm watching a renewal.
Kathleen (19:10): How often do you personally think somebody should be sharing content in order to get traction?
Marti (19:18): Yeah I think the more, the better, as long as it's sustainable. So there's a point where if you try to do more, you eventually give up because you were not, but the more content you can create the better, because you're only one piece of content away from that. Inbounded, you're one piece of content away from that. Ask to get an, a podcast, your one piece of content away from whatever you're looking for, that book deal. So you, you know, all your professional life or your company's life can change from one piece of content that reaches the right person at the right time.
Kathleen (19:53): Is there a frequency under which you think it's like, why bother?
Marti (19:59): It's a good question. I don't think at the beginning. So I encourage people to start, even if it's with one post per week or whatever that looks like and then scale up, right? Because if you start to see traction, even if you're special, so engagement where you start to enjoy the process, which is what I eventually, that's the turning point, and you really enjoy the process of creating content. Then you start seeing results, but even if you start small start that that's my whole thing. I don't think that you need to create as much content as possible, even though as much content as possible is the best thing for me personally, I'm posting about five to six times on LinkedIn just to give some references three or four times sweeter. And then we have a couple of episodes every month, at least. So that's sustainable for might be different for somebody else.
Kathleen (20:49): And what I mean, what a, what a good results look like. Cause you do this for a lot of different people. I'm curious if you can share some stories of what impacts.
Marti (20:59): Yeah, absolutely. So obviously it depends on like length of sales cycles and depends of like average deal size. Usually we work with a lot of agency owners who have monthly retainers as similar or larger than what they pay us. And we're starting to see people get ROI by the month four or five. So at more than four or five, they usually have break. And even for the year, which allows the fall with the rest of the year to be for profit obviously that depends and we cannot go into results. Any content migrated can guarantee leads and revenue is probably a line, but we that's what we're seeing in terms of traction. Some kinds are getting more, some kinds are getting less, but from an art standpoint, that's where we're, that's where we're at right now, which is pretty good in my opinion.
Kathleen (21:49): Yeah. I would say I want to talk about like what good content looks like, because we've talked about why you should do it. We've talked about the overall framework for kind of scaling up content creation, but there's in my experience, there's good content and there's some really, really bad content out there. So what, how do you counsel your clients on what makes for good content?
Marti (22:13): Yeah, so, so we tried to find the balance between content and content that educates in content that empty to entertains without leaning too far on either side. So I think content that only educates is that physios from college that nobody wants to read because it's boring and sure it's plenty of good info, but it's not never going to get structured. And it's never going to resonate with the audience. There's nobody wants to read 45 pages of that, but then content only entertains. You're just posting cat videos at that point shortly, they get a lot of beers and other oppressions, but it's never going to get any actual results. So for us, we try to find a balance of content that really drives the conversation forward. And I hit calling it thought leadership because everybody calls the leadership, everything. But for me, the real thought leadership is ideas that drive the industry forward. That's actually I add value and that people can utilize because they're technical enough for them to be used on a day to day life. And then
Kathleen (23:20): What's that look like in practice? Like give me some examples. Cause it's one thing to say it's content that entertains and educates, but like I'm sure people have said so. Okay. So like what is, tell me what that means.
Marti (23:33): Yeah. So for me, content that entertains it's content that is actually enjoyable to consume. So content that has good spacing that is used, at an English level that is easy to understand and that it allows for that flow consumption of that content. It's hard to explain. I think you can tell, you can tell when they don't have and then content that educates for me, it's about getting as tactical as possible. So if you can share actual best practices, if you can share the themes that only you would know because you've been doing it for so long, those are the contents that people appreciate. So if you're creating content for HR and professionals, right, and you're looking for things about what are the best platforms and what are the threats within those best platforms to go to Upwork this and never use this key terms.
Marti (24:26): So whatever that looks like for your industry, and if everybody can put that content out, it's probably not create content. And so if you actually want to drive the conversation forward, it's about saying those things that only we experienced can tell. So that's why we also vet our clients very hard. And because we don't want to work with people that sell the courses or people that are like new to the industry, you want to work with people who have proven expertise and have done that themselves. So we can actually create content. That means something, otherwise we're just adding to that loud noise that will use the internet sometimes. Yeah.
Kathleen (25:07): And, and I guess the other thing I would wonder is from your standpoint, you know, obviously at some point I'm assuming your clients are looking for this to turn into business for them. And so how do you advise them about converting, right? Like you don't want to be too salesy in your content, but at some point it probably makes sense to have some kind of a call to action. How do you strike that balance?
Marti (25:32): Yeah. So we usually try to do call to actions. We do call to actions in almost all our content, especially on LinkedIn, but those call to actions are never caught, not always call to actions that are meant to drive new business. So sometimes they're call to actions to engage. So questions at the end of the post, those types of things that are going to help engage, have more conversation with your ideal prospects. So we ask questions that if your ideal prospect is like we said, an HR manager, it's helping them as I get answers from them. And then two out of 10 times we do that, what seven to eight times out of 10 and then the rest, which is really one or two times for every time posts, we do a call to action to the next step in the file. So if it's, they have a free resource, if it's go to the website, if it's a free consultation, whatever that looks like that, tell me what, 15 to 20% of the time on the content that we create something that's important.
Marti (26:32): And I encourage our clients to look at the full audit of their funnel and see if the handoff steps are clear. So if it's easy to go from one step from content consumption to the next step, so is the call to action clear if it's about scheduling a call, do we have a Calendly link? If do they know where to go to the next step? So making sure that straightforward and as direct as possible it's something that helps the conversion because you can lose a lot of people in those handoffs. So being that base rate for is important.
Kathleen (27:08): And do you do you generally have your clients create any sort of like purpose-built landing page for the stuff you're doing with them,
Marti (27:19): Which might create something with them? That's a middle point between content and a set score. So something that can help do that in between process. And so if it's a free consultation, but an actual free consultation, not a theme with this guy sales scope, like actually helping people, then we can do that. If it's a free resource via email, and then they go into like a seed email sequence, we can also do that. So something that's in between that's free and that's actually valuable. So something that people would pay for, but you're giving it for free. It's something that has really helped us. And then that also allows for better tracking and better attribution if they don't have it and we cannot create it, we do have some clients that go straight to sales scope, which is fine. But something in between is usually very helpful.
Kathleen (28:12): You raised tracking, which was going to be my next question. So how are you tracking results? What is your preferred way to do that?
Marti (28:18): Yeah, so I think there's a lot of platforms and SaaS software that kind of have improved trackability and attribution with content marketing. I still don't think we're there yet. And I don't know if we'll ever be, have a clear way to fully attribute content marketing and personal branding So I personally, and I know a lot of marketers disagree with me. I really believe in qualitative data. So if somebody comes to a sales call and her said and says, I read your LinkedIn post and that made me reach out, or, Oh, I remember you mentioned that on the podcast, those are the data points that I look for because it's really hard to track higher data just because I called it the dark attribution, which is things that we can just not track. I like me telling somebody that, Oh, that agency did really good job.
Marti (29:12): Or I read that look, you should read that blog post that they wrote and sending it via email or whatever that looks like. You're just not going to be able to track that. So we can go crazy and track everything, track leading indicators, like impressions, engagement. We can track all of that. Sure. But what really matters. And the North star for a lot of our clients is inbound revenue generated. No, it's not even about inbound leads. Cause if they want to get a load of fleets, there's other ways to do that for when you're doing content in personal branding, get less leads, but they're higher quality, which means that they close more and they close faster. So we're just looking for this qualitative data points that show that we're doing our work.
Kathleen (29:52): And have you, have you seen your clients have like ancillary benefits beyond revenue?
Marti (29:58): Yeah. So one of the main benefits that I think is very underrated is the ability to attract new talent. So something that when you're growing your brand as a company or as a CEO, you're also going to get, if you're doing your job, right, you're going to get a lot of people interested in the company that are not clients, but will want to work for you. They don't want to work for the company. They want to work for you. So that's something that we've also seen. And I think sometimes it's even more valuable to attract new people to work with that are great. Then new clients for me in my company right now, we're looking for people we're not looking for clients. So that's something that's, I think it's one of the secondary benefits that are really important for companies that are fundraising and trying to raise money, you've also seen that they can get better traction from investors. So we've gotten people that I've gotten investors for the condom. So that's when it just rambling, like good things happen. You're breathing your brand, use those leads faster, you close more, and then you have all these secondary benefits that are also support how your goals.
Kathleen (31:04): Yeah. That makes sense. So what advice do you have if somebody is listening and they're thinking, I, you know, I know I need to be creating content, so maybe it's time for me to get serious about it.
Marti (31:17): Yeah. The first thing I'd say is you actually have to believe in it. If you don't fully believe in it, if it's maybe then don't do it because you're going to give up too early, it's one of the things that you have to commit and you have to commit for a longer, long time. So that's what the one thing that I would say at the very beginning, like if you're not fully sure that this is for you, don't even do it. Second is your personal brand is your reputation and your reputation follows you everywhere forever. So it's a long-term investment that you're building and yourself, your personal bank will follow you everywhere. You've got for companies as an employee to then a founder, whatever you go that for some Brown follow-ups here. And then third, try to do it in a sustainable matter.
Marti (31:58): Like we created this process right, where you get one pillar piece of content and then you repurpose it and do it at the pace that works for you and works for you, your resources right now, both time and money, and then scale, right. Maybe start with one platform and then eventually go to two, may start with two pieces of content a week, then go to four. So don't burn yourself out doing that and, and just try to enjoy the process because when you do that, then the whole thing is easier and you're going to be committed for a longer time, which is when you were serious.
Kathleen (32:29): Yeah. That makes sense. All right. We're going to shift gears and I'm going to ask you the two questions that I always ask my guests. The first one is, we talk a lot about inbound marketing on this podcast. Is there a particular company or individual that you would say is really setting the example for what it means to be a great inbound marketing person or company?
Marti (32:49): Other than ourselves? I mean, there's this big companies. I think we've all seen them. Like Refine Labs, like Gong and Drift, that they're doing amazing stuff. I want to give a shout out to this small agency out of Europe called Funky Marketing. The founder is a good friend of mine and we actually ran a book test together and they were one of those companies who get it. I like they understand inbound marketing, they understand content creation and branding, and they don't have the resources of these huge companies, but they're building a community at first in Europe and now they're moving it to the United States. So if you go follow them, they're called Funky Marketing on LinkedIn. You're going to see how people with not that big of resources can actually do very practical stuff and start seeing results. So highly recommend seeing what they're doing.
Kathleen (33:42): I love the company name.
Marti (33:44): Yeah. The guy loves funk and rock and roll, the founder. So it's, it's a good, it's a good company to work with. It's a good company to see what they're doing for sure.
Kathleen (33:54): Very cool. Alright. Second question. Most of the marketers I talk to say that one of their biggest pain points is just trying to keep up with everything in digital marketing, because it changes so quickly. So how do you personally keep yourself educated and stay up to date?
Marti (34:07): Yeah. Twitter is my go-to platform for myself to get educated and to hear conversations. I think if you follow the right people, your feed is basically an education platform straight from the minds of great marketers and great founders. So Twitter is my go-to because then you can engage with them, which I think is the key, right. We can consume a lot of content, but if you can engage with people that created that, it makes it even better. So for myself is Twitter and then talking to people I'm more of like a conversational person to learn. I need to ask questions, followups. So for me, if I can get people on a podcast or have 20 minutes with them, that's how I try to educate myself, just talking to them, having those conversations and honestly just going there and listening because I know they know more than I do. So, so that's how I approach my education.
Kathleen (35:02): Amen. I mean, that's, for me, it's hosting this podcast and talking to people. That's how I learn everything.
Marti (35:07): Yeah, yeah. Probably the best way to pick their brain, like face to face. And you can ask selfish questions. I a hundred percent agree that having a podcast is probably the best way to educate yourself.
Kathleen (35:19): Yeah, I actually had one guest that I interviewed and I'll mention, so it's, Val Geisler, who's this incredible email marketing copywriter. And she now recently has been hired by Klaviyo to be like a customer evangelist. And I love her and she came on and I was asking her all these really detailed questions. And she just sort of like half jokingly said, is this, is this a free consultation? And I was like, absolutely.
Marti (35:45): What's a better way. Right? Yeah, absolutely.
Kathleen (35:50): Well, if somebody is listening and they want to learn more about Influence Podium or they want to connect with you and ask a question, what's the best way for them to find you online?
Marti (35:58): Yeah, I think LinkedIn's probably the easiest way. I'm at Marti Sanchez on LinkedIn. Also same on Twitter and via email at marti@influencepodium.com, probably the easiest and most straight forward way to reach out.
Kathleen (36:13): Fantastic. And I'll put those links in the show notes for anybody. Who's curious. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, please consider heading to Apple podcasts and leaving the podcast to review. And of course, if you know someone else doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. Thank you so much for joining me.
Marti (36:34): It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for so much fun. Thank you.