An Unbelievable Idea For Marketers with Dan Sanchez

Welcome to this week's episode of the Exploring Growth Podcast! In this episode, Lee sits down with Dan Sanchez, also known as #danchez on LinkedIn, from @Sweet Fish. Together, they dive deep into the world of LinkedIn and discuss the best engagement strategies, tips for getting the most out of your relationships on the platform, and how to create compelling content. They also discuss the importance of personalization and how that plays a significant role in achieving greater success on LinkedIn.

Whether you're a marketer looking to boost your LinkedIn presence and enhance your marketing strategies or a salesperson looking to sell effectively on the platform, this episode has something for you.

If you are enjoying what you hear, please consider sharing it with a colleague or a friend.

Have a guest recommendation, question, or just want to connect?
Go here: https://www.harvardmurray.com/exploring-growth-podcast

Connect on LinkedIn:

Dan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmarketingdan

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:28:22

Speaker 1

Welcome back to the Explosive Growth Podcast today. I have the privilege of talking with Dan Sanchez, otherwise known as hashtag Dan shares on LinkedIn. It's unbelievable conversation that we give you an unbelievable idea for 2023 for all marketers have to listen to this. Let's talk about LinkedIn engage Matt. Talk about podcasting. But seriously, at about 17 minute mark, you're going to want to tune in for this.

00:00:29:11 - 00:00:50:15

Speaker 1

Okay. We're back with Exploring Growth podcast. And today, I'm excited to have Dan Sanchez on, who's also known as hashtag Dan shares on LinkedIn. If you're not following him, then I don't know who you are because everyone's following him and privileged to have him on here to talk about LinkedIn today, because that's probably where you spend most of your time in the day.

00:00:50:16 - 00:01:16:09

Speaker 1

I would I would imagine you're very committed to a LinkedIn strategy, so I hope to learn a lot of practical get a lot of practical wisdom from you today. And I you know, the reason why we ended up here is because we ended up in this sort of swirling conversation as it goes with LinkedIn, where, you know, you you're looking at posts, you may comment and I'll post.

00:01:16:10 - 00:01:35:05

Speaker 1

You know, the average person to me like a post, they may even share a post. But I think what LinkedIn has really been good at over the last few months and years is that it's really bringing professionals together who are like minded, sharing philosophies and people who really want to know their craft. And so, you know, I'm one of those people.

00:01:35:05 - 00:01:59:02

Speaker 1

Like I spend a lot of time thinking about the work that I do, the craft of marketing and consulting. And so, you know, follow people, like minded people like yourself. And so we got into this conversation in the comments on, I think, someone else's post, if I remember correctly. And then something happened and that's why we ended up here.

00:01:59:02 - 00:02:21:23

Speaker 1

So I want to actually come back to that later on and talk specifically about that. But in order to get to that, I want to kind of start the conversation more macro and lead up to that point. So let's start with LinkedIn engagement, because I think that's really where we should spend a lot of our conversation today. I think a lot of people are on LinkedIn using it various different ways.

00:02:21:23 - 00:02:49:16

Speaker 1

They don't know really how it fits in with their personal brand or their company brand. They're posting occasionally. You know, I've heard the rule that I feel like it's pretty true to be the 99 one rule. 90% of people are voyeur, 9% are commenting or engaging, and then 1% are creating. And now that over the last year since I launched my podcast, have become one of that 1% trying to post at least two or three times a day.

00:02:50:04 - 00:03:12:00

Speaker 1

And so I can kind of, you know, verify that those numbers are, you know, play. And so the people are active, actively comedy, actively engaging. They're doing certain things that are different than the masses. And so, you know, I'd love to get your take, your philosophy, your thinking on how you approach LinkedIn for, you know, this is all about growth.

00:03:12:00 - 00:03:20:11

Speaker 1

Like we're exploring new avenues for thinking about growth, practically going about growth. So, you know, let's, let's dove in. Like, how do you think about LinkedIn engagement?

00:03:20:17 - 00:03:36:18

Speaker 2

LinkedIn engagement. Let me back up a little bit with starting with the fact that, yeah, I've been a marketer for a while. I remember back in 2010 when Facebook started to become a thing and were all posted to Facebook pages. And we're just seeing like 100% engagement with all of our audience. You're just like, This is awesome. Keep posting.

00:03:36:18 - 00:04:12:12

Speaker 2

Yeah. And like, quote, graphics became a thing and then Facebook pages started to die down, were like, oh, now what are we going to do? And then after that, I feel like social media for most companies, even most individuals, is a distribution channel. And that worked. That worked for a while in 2015. That was a brilliant strategy to take your long form piece of content, break it up into small posts that worked for a long time, but it's not working anymore because we're finally getting to the place where these platforms are maturing and we're starting to recognize the beauty of what they actually can bring, which is actually social interaction.

00:04:13:01 - 00:04:35:01

Speaker 2

But most of us were trained in a Facebook era where Facebook was really just people you knew in real life. It was like replicating that. Now, people who are good at Twitter actually figured this out early, and I was an early Twitter adopter and maybe in the early 20 tens, I kind of got a feeling for how Twitter could work because you could follow people that you didn't know in real life and have, like, interesting conversations with them there.

00:04:35:21 - 00:04:41:06

Speaker 2

I did that for a while and just kind of gave up on it. It was a lot of work and I didn't really get how that could be powerful.

00:04:42:00 - 00:04:53:22

Speaker 1

But yeah, more of an interest type of, as they would say, an interest graph versus a demographic or geographic like people. It's not just people you know, it's people you have land interests with.

00:04:53:22 - 00:05:16:08

Speaker 2

It's more of that, but it's still more of a networking thing. It's like who? Who? It's based on who, not what necessarily still. So it's somewhere. LinkedIn and Twitter are somewhere in between. Something like a pure interest, which is tick talk and more of a social graph like Facebook. Even though Facebook's now taking steps to be more interest based and they're starting to introduce things which are not your friend stuff or that your friends are even interacting with.

00:05:16:08 - 00:05:34:14

Speaker 2

It's like, Hey, we think you're interested. Yeah, right, right, right. They're trying to catch up, but we're LinkedIn and Twitter are cool is that. It's a little blend of both. It's still based on your network. It's still based on who you're connected to, but it's open. It's not just your friends. It assumes that you're going to connect with other people, assumes that you're going to follow maybe your favorite author on Twitter, right.

00:05:34:14 - 00:05:53:20

Speaker 2

And that's the beauty of it. And I didn't really get it until I started working with the founder of Sweet Fish, James CARBERRY, who's honestly one of the best friends I've ever met. And I don't mean like a best friend to me, though. He's certainly one of my best friends. He's a best friend to lots of people. Like James CARBERRY is like the epitome of how to win friends and influence people.

00:05:53:20 - 00:06:11:20

Speaker 2

He just knows it's not. It's I would say he knows how to play the game, but to him, it's not a game. To him, it's real. He's trying to build a lot of friends. And I guarantee you when he like someday when he dies, it's going to be a lot of people at his funeral. And all of us collectively will probably agree that the wake will be more of a party because that's how James would want it, right?

00:06:11:20 - 00:06:26:18

Speaker 2

Yeah. It's going to be fun because he's just that kind of person and he's the one who really showed me that. If you want to do well here, it's good to build relationships with people. But, you know, like, how do you build relationships? It's not by standing up on a box and getting a crowd to pay attention to you.

00:06:27:00 - 00:06:48:08

Speaker 2

It's 1 to 1 kind of a thing. And that's where we met. I showed up in somebody else's conversation and just tried to be extremely helpful. I actually have an acronym that I stick to. I try to I try to be like Water H2O. It, too is one helpful, humble and optimistic. I try to be look at the bright side of things.

00:06:48:08 - 00:06:55:02

Speaker 2

I try to be helpful. And it's hard sometimes because you're like you're like when someone says something that's just totally off, you're like, Don't do it that way.

00:06:55:02 - 00:06:55:10

Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:06:56:10 - 00:07:27:11

Speaker 2

I can see how you would think about Yeah, okay. I found that it works like this. So you try to be humble and helpful and optimistic, always trying to bring warmth into the conversation, trying to be as helpful as possible. And the way I do it that I find that gets a lot of traction is I use loom videos and I've also gone back and forth between loom and bom bom personal video in particular, regardless of the platform, is what's really powerful and because so few people do it, even though everybody's aware of that, it's a thing like it could be done.

00:07:28:03 - 00:07:30:20

Speaker 2

It packs, it packs a punch, it leaves a different impression.

00:07:30:22 - 00:08:01:02

Speaker 1

So before we get into that, I wanted to just take a second. And what you're talking about resonates, of course, with me, because this is same way, I think, but maybe a couple of years ago, two or three years ago, I had this as a consultant. I you know, frameworks are my thing, like, you know, methods and frameworks and like, how can I visually demonstrate what it is that, you know, this concept I came up with this concept called the intimacy funnel and no one's heard of it because it's super weird to say that.

00:08:01:02 - 00:08:31:06

Speaker 1

So that's why I've never really done anything with it. But it's basically, you know, in more practical form. If you were to outline taking someone from being a complete stranger to your complete best friend, I mean, literally, those are the words I use. And so I love that thinking because it's not that you will be best friends in real life with everyone, but that mindset of saying, how do I add value in an honest way that is not me preaching at them.

00:08:31:06 - 00:09:04:18

Speaker 1

We're not trying to solve their problem, but it's just coming alongside like you will with a friend listening. There's a lot of listening involved and doing it. What I found is it is 1 to 1. It is it is a it's a it's a laborious, labor intensive thing that scales those over time because that one person, it becomes incremental at first and exponential in time because that one person that you really showed love to, they have a whole network of people that now they trust that credibility.

00:09:05:02 - 00:09:08:08

Speaker 1

So I agree 100%. So continue.

00:09:08:09 - 00:09:26:11

Speaker 2

Funny, I just had someone message me today and it was an automated message. DM That was a dressed up pitch. It was a better dressed up pitch than normal. It was somebody messaging me on behalf of somebody else. It was actually very well worded to the. But you could feel it. You could feel it like this is going to be a pitch.

00:09:26:11 - 00:09:42:18

Speaker 2

So I click off and there's a video there, but it's not personalized video saying like, Hi, I'm the CEO, so and so and I had so-and-so reach out on behalf of me to start building partnerships and I want to know blah, blah, blah would you, would you like to take a meeting? I have a link below this really simple landing page.

00:09:42:18 - 00:10:03:12

Speaker 2

Very clear, well put together. And I message the guy and I'm like, No thanks, man. Don't need the pitch today. He's like, It's not a pitch to partnership. I'm like, Tell me, did you copy and paste the message above or is this sent from an automated software? He's like, Well, yeah, it's, it's using the software that actually that I want to white label for you.

00:10:03:12 - 00:10:04:20

Speaker 2

I'm like, I'm like.

00:10:04:20 - 00:10:06:10

Speaker 1

Yeah, so you can do this.

00:10:06:13 - 00:10:25:06

Speaker 2

I was like in my book, I call that a pitch and he put a little like digital app emoji. He's like, Yeah, I guess it is for me too. He's like, Just curious, what's your method? And I'm like, So what did I do is I open up a room record and I say, Yeah, hi. So and so this is how I like to roll.

00:10:25:11 - 00:10:50:22

Speaker 2

I do it one at a time. It's the an automated, unsexy way of doing it. But I guarantee you, you could automate this message that you're sending out to a thousand people. But if you just if you just took 50 of them and sent a 1 to 1 video like this and do people that kind of maybe know you a little bit and just do it personal invitation, even if it's the same invitation to all of them, I guarantee you will get much better results.

00:10:50:22 - 00:10:54:23

Speaker 2

It takes more time, but the results will pay for it because personal.

00:10:54:23 - 00:10:55:06

Speaker 1

Yes.

00:10:55:06 - 00:11:09:16

Speaker 2

Is 100 times better than personalized. The reason why personalized is even a thing is because there's all these automation companies trying to sell you software, screw personalization, make it personal, it pays to.

00:11:09:21 - 00:11:43:22

Speaker 1

Be a human. Yeah, yeah. 100%. So I. I don't know, maybe in the last quarter of last year, I ran an experiment with three different test on cold email and one was in this vein of hyper personalization, hyper human meaning. You know, I did research on each prospect. I created a limb with my ideas and I sent them a handwritten manual email with a link to the video and had the animated gif in the video.

00:11:43:22 - 00:12:05:23

Speaker 1

The whole deal, the next one was more just, Hey, I came across your your stuff. It was still warmer than trying to it wasn't a pitch, but it was scalable because I could just put their name in it and, you know, send it. And then the last one was a test and using A.I. to write the copy, but it was a similar version of the second one.

00:12:07:05 - 00:12:35:00

Speaker 1

I mean, I have the numbers to prove it. That first one took me hours and hours and hours and hours because I had to sit there and research their company and think about their business. But I had more than an 80% open rate that's on you sort of right when they opened rate was, I don't know, 3% or whatever, 4% on the second one and same third.

00:12:35:00 - 00:13:00:10

Speaker 1

So to your point, I was experimenting with this idea of like, what if I'm just straight up human out of the gate and it works, but I think it kind of begs the question of and since you do a lot of this, how do you work this into your every day? How do you there's got to be some kind of framework in terms of how you go about this can't be chaotic because you'll you'll spend all day every day doing this, not getting anything done.

00:13:00:10 - 00:13:25:04

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I've gone through different seasons with how much time I'm spending on LinkedIn. In the very beginning I was like obsessed with it. So you're talking like three or 4 hours a day, which is ridiculous. But like, honestly, you get to the point where I actually had influence. It took it took that long. So I was posting three times a day and I was waking up early in the morning to start at I don't know, five, four.

00:13:25:04 - 00:13:41:12

Speaker 2

I was waking up at 430, probably hitting it from five for an hour and a half, kind of making my first post and engaging with a lot of early people who are waking up in Europe or I was in Central Time and engaging with the other early people because there was a number of other people that I knew were doing this early on.

00:13:43:03 - 00:14:01:09

Speaker 2

Other influencers out there that were engaging early. So I would engage with them. And it's funny, I would almost prime the algorithm early in the morning to like get my posts that were coming in at seven or 8 a.m., like to get more influence because it really is based on engagement. The more you're engaging with other people's stuff, the more your posts get seen and there's a reason for it I can dove into.

00:14:01:16 - 00:14:18:16

Speaker 2

I'll skip that now, unless you want to dove into why this happens. And then I would spend an maybe an hour to an hour and a half of work time, and my company loved it when I did it because I was bringing them in a lot of money, doing it in, sharing lots about podcasting and stuff. So it's very good for the company.

00:14:19:19 - 00:14:49:00

Speaker 2

And then maybe another 30 minutes in the evening sometime, kind of like wrapping up conversations that were lingering from post that had we're still catching on and maybe being engaged with people on the West Coast. And I was doing that every day for like a solid five, six months. And then it started winding down. And now I'm at a place where it's kind of like leveled off a bit and my audience is certainly started to hit what I call the audience growth ceiling because the people I engage with at the beginning maybe aren't as active on LinkedIn anymore.

00:14:49:01 - 00:15:10:05

Speaker 2

Maybe my content became a little repetitive for them. Now they've just had I have a new growth curve I need to get into. I'm still trying to figure that out. But now, now it's probably I schedule an hour a day from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., and that's my first hour of the workdays, not only posting but also engaging with people for an hour.

00:15:11:04 - 00:15:26:08

Speaker 2

That's messaging, that's comments, that's doing lots of videos. And then throughout the day, I'll just log on and message people. When I have downtime, I have my phone with me. So I'm like engaging people from the phone, engage people on desktop, just kind of always keeping the conversations going.

00:15:27:19 - 00:15:54:18

Speaker 1

Yeah. And I could see now that you've hit somewhat of a plateau probably from, you know, compared to your original days, now you can actually sit in the comments and spend more of that 1 to 1 time because you're spending less time creating posts or posting. I mean, you're probably posting still a lot, but those 1 to 1 conversations we're talking about can get more enriched because you're talking to a lot of the same people you've been talking to for months and months on end.

00:15:54:21 - 00:15:55:04

Speaker 1

Yep.

00:15:55:22 - 00:16:14:11

Speaker 2

There are some people that have stuck around that have become I don't want to say it's funny because I don't like to call them friends, not fans, because we are genuine friends. I've had a lot of them on the podcast now. I've talked to them kind of like we're having a face to face conversation now. Even a few of them I've pulled in as a group of like, Hey, let's figure out how to grow our LinkedIn stuff together.

00:16:14:11 - 00:16:32:13

Speaker 2

And I pulled a bunch of people that even had smaller followings than me to just I wasn't necessarily coaching them, though I had them. I definitely had a larger following of the group, but I was like, Yeah, let's just let's just all of us, all of you should be friends if you don't own already know each other. And let's do this together because we can all learn from one another.

00:16:32:13 - 00:16:57:13

Speaker 2

You're all pushing into it. And a lot of them have gone on and have had more success because of that. And, you know, the more connections you can make with yourself by helping people and helping them make connections, you really are going from audience over to community because you're starting to make introductions to other people. You start to tag people and pull other people into your conversations with other people, and that's a community.

00:16:57:13 - 00:17:02:22

Speaker 2

It's no longer an audience anymore. You're connecting people. You're leveraging the people that you know to help other people now.

00:17:03:23 - 00:17:27:09

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. And I think people are will see that you are authentic with what you're doing because when you pull someone into a conversation and has no benefit for you, you know, there's a there's a real, you know, genuine outpouring there of, wow, you know, you have this following and you spent time to think about me and bring me into this conversation.

00:17:27:13 - 00:17:40:09

Speaker 1

That goes a long way. And it really goes to the point of that. The philosophy of being human, you know, being humble, as you mentioned, and and treating people like humans. That's absolutely I mean.

00:17:41:01 - 00:18:01:21

Speaker 2

And it's been working well, I can tell you that I keep doing the loon things because of the comments. I keep getting back and they're slow and steady. I leave a few of these every single day and I don't even keep track. And I think you asked me like, what's the metrics on? I'm like, I don't know. I just know I have people personally messaged me and thank me a very genuine thank you for the videos.

00:18:01:21 - 00:18:06:03

Speaker 2

Yes. Often so frighteningly. Okay. So don't know what the ratio as we've.

00:18:06:03 - 00:18:31:01

Speaker 1

Talked about we've talked about this around this enough now and we're about 17 minutes in now. It's time to tell people why we're here and how we got here. Talking about you. We're talking about this loon thing. So it was a it was a cool experience for me that I'm in commenting on someone's post and here comes Dan and he comments or replies to my comment with a link that a loom link and I use loom.

00:18:31:01 - 00:18:56:00

Speaker 1

So I like, Oh, he put a video for me. So I click the link and it goes over to this two and a half minute long video, then sharing just, just genuine ideas about I mean, it's a genuine as if we were sitting in a coffee shop talking to each other. He just turned on his screen, hit his record and sent that video directly to me as a response to my comment on this person's post.

00:18:56:21 - 00:19:21:04

Speaker 1

And it was it blew my mind because I was thinking, why haven't I thought of this? This is makes so much sense because I have the same philosophy about this sort of 1 to 1, you know, labor intensive. But sometimes it can be semi-skilled approach to building relationships, brand new relationships being the sort of cycle that you're forming a brand through building relationships.

00:19:21:04 - 00:19:37:12

Speaker 1

And so it hit me and I was like, Wow, okay, this is genius. So I messaged him and said, Hey, thanks for the loom, you know? And actually what I want to do right now is in post, I'm going to cut two cuts, a screen record of me explaining what happened. I'm going to play those videos. So let's cut to that right now.

00:19:38:04 - 00:19:54:14

Speaker 1

If you're just listening to the audio this and not watching the video, portion of what I'm doing right now is sharing my screen. And I just want to share with you kind of how this conversation got kicked off between myself and Dan. So I wasn't able to find the actual post where we were going back and forth in the comments.

00:19:54:14 - 00:20:05:08

Speaker 1

But what it led to very quickly was our back and forth in the DMS, which you can see right here. And then he just went ahead and sent me a loom to explain more of his thoughts, which is what I want to play for you. Now.

00:20:05:21 - 00:20:23:15

Speaker 2

You know, it's funny because I stumbled upon how powerful it actually is to send 1 to 1 videos on accident because I did it just to save time. I sometimes I'm not the strongest, right? I'm a pretty I'm a decent writer. I'm a marketer. I can write stuff, but it's kind of like you just took longer to write it than it was just to just throw together a video and be like, Hey, this is how you do it.

00:20:23:20 - 00:20:40:06

Speaker 2

Hey, this is my thoughts. Hey, this is what I'm thinking. Just kind of like I'm doing now. I actually started typing up her message on my script just to record a video, and I know that it's worth it, one, because it saves time, but two, because it just has more impact. And I've posted about it on LinkedIn multiple times, but very few people actually still do it.

00:20:40:06 - 00:21:02:05

Speaker 2

I think there's there's something about doing personal video where people are afraid. It's I think speaking into a camera is a skill. And if you get good at it, then personal video is like a frickin an amazing little secret weapon of a tool. But the barrier to entry and being confident in front of video, I think is the thing that keeps people from doing it more.

00:21:02:05 - 00:21:21:00

Speaker 2

Otherwise, everybody would have a loom or a bomb bomb or a video account to be doing this all day. Actually, I think all three of those products are great and I just happen to like loom the best right now. They they change. It changes but absolutely start doing it. Grab like a free loom account and just start hammering it as much as you can.

00:21:21:07 - 00:21:42:23

Speaker 2

I can't make enough of these videos and what it really does is turn someone from a a a kind of a passive fan to a much more engaged fan because the relational level just went up because of the interaction that you just talked about. So it's a really funny 1 to 1 tool. But you know what? I don't know.

00:21:42:23 - 00:22:05:03

Speaker 2

Communities built on a 1 to 1 scale oftentimes. Right, which is why influencers later on, it's because they were doing all the 1 to 1 hand-to-hand stuff, like until they got big enough to where they couldn't do that anymore. And even though they still tried to do it, it's just gets hard. But the amount of energy and momentum and relationship you have to build that beginning in order to get there takes a lot of this 1 to 1 thing.

00:22:05:03 - 00:22:08:16

Speaker 2

And that's why I love the video rather than just doing a Zoom call, which is way harder.

00:22:08:21 - 00:22:38:15

Speaker 1

So what you just saw that screen record was our interaction and it opened my eyes to this I this sort of practical way of now I've got this playing over here and it's like distracting me. But it opened my eyes to this, this whole idea that you can take LinkedIn as a social platform and truly make it social because that's but it's, you know, and I would say lightning speed, but a very fast pace.

00:22:39:00 - 00:22:57:20

Speaker 1

LinkedIn is catching up to this the way people are using it and coming behind them. But with this one little trick, this one little tactic, people will see you as a human and you can add so much value. Now, of course, it takes a ton of time. You got to get your mind right. You got to have the stuff in place so you can kind of go through it.

00:22:58:12 - 00:23:25:22

Speaker 1

But I think it's invaluable. In fact, I think it started 2023. This could be when it comes to LinkedIn for a SDR, R BTR, you know, a non solo entrepreneur or whoever is out there trying to build relationships with a bigger brand, even a mid-sized company. This could be the one thing that changes trajectory for your, you know, followership on LinkedIn and the engagement that you get with your content.

00:23:25:23 - 00:23:44:09

Speaker 2

I mean, for BTR and it's pretty amazing. It's pretty silly if you're not using personal video at this point, which is why companies like Bam, Bam and video are to literally just target salespeople. Which is sad because I'm like all of us over in marketing could be using it too. But the, the, the immediate application is always a sales one because it's so powerful.

00:23:45:01 - 00:24:01:10

Speaker 2

But if anybody is doing social like gosh loom just doesn't cost that much and has most of the features that I want now, which is why, why I use it. I pay for it myself like sweet fish doesn't even pay for it. I pay for it because I use it for things beyond sweet fish. So I felt I did pay for myself because it's cheap.

00:24:01:10 - 00:24:02:04

Speaker 2

It's like ten bucks.

00:24:02:04 - 00:24:23:10

Speaker 1

Totally worth it. Yeah, it's like ten or $12 a month. And then we went back and forth cause I told you I found Send Spark, which was cool because they have that set up a little differently. It's really actually, like you said, geared towards hours. But you're right, the marketing side is either not seeing this opportunity or I don't know what's happening, but I was blind to it.

00:24:23:10 - 00:24:47:05

Speaker 1

I mean, I'm not going to act like I knew about it until we talked, but I think it's it's a huge mistake if you don't come into awareness and start building this into your you know, because with all I'm doing so much research right now on chat, CBT and what I is kind of getting out of control in terms of how it's changed the landscape of everything.

00:24:47:05 - 00:25:06:10

Speaker 1

This right here is such an interesting evolution of selling and marketing on such a personalized level, while at the same time we're talking about JPT. You know, it's, it's an interesting time to be in marketing. I think.

00:25:06:10 - 00:25:14:00

Speaker 2

Yeah, it'll be a while before things like catch up can get used to leaving personalized 1 to 1 video where you're trying to be helpful and. Yes. Kind of stuff.

00:25:14:06 - 00:25:14:16

Speaker 1

Yes.

00:25:15:05 - 00:25:15:18

Speaker 2

And I.

00:25:16:02 - 00:25:16:18

Speaker 1

Think this particular.

00:25:16:18 - 00:25:35:00

Speaker 2

Day, the day is doing that day by itself where you're like they go build relationships with marketer marketers by being genuinely helpful to them and everything they talk about in social media. And it actually looks like a real game. And talking to you, I'm like, by that point, do we even have real friends anymore where we be able to even tell?

00:25:35:00 - 00:25:41:03

Speaker 2

Will you be able to tell that Dan Sanchez is real and not a fake chat? That bot just executing a program.

00:25:42:00 - 00:26:15:23

Speaker 1

Space that within the deepfake that can emulate the beard perfectly. I mean, and then there. But what's the point though? Because then if I don't know that I'm friends with you and then you feel like you have a connection with me because it's, hey, I well, do we really have a connection now? So, you know, I was having this conversation earlier today with a friend of mine about Chad GBG and I and we both are in agreement that this this idea of it being an and conversation versus an OR conversation I that is what gives me, you know, peace about the whole thing because I think that we're humans.

00:26:15:23 - 00:26:36:22

Speaker 1

We always need we always need both. I mean, we need support with technology. And technology is going to do its thing. But we also are humans and so I think it's such an interesting thing that we're we're, you know, as marketers looking at critically AI, but we also are looking at critically very human, you know, tactics.

00:26:37:07 - 00:26:58:01

Speaker 2

And AI becomes more prevalent. This more personal side will only become more and more important because it's getting harder to distinguish. But like I said, this video thing, it'll be a while, so it'll stand out for a long time because honestly, I find that it saves time. It's actually like it's easier to record a two minute video that it is to type out the same level of response in LinkedIn.

00:26:58:01 - 00:27:07:12

Speaker 2

Yeah, but most people aren't even engaging in LinkedIn. Like you said, it's only nine 10%. So most people are just reading and watching and maybe clicking the like button.

00:27:09:06 - 00:27:30:05

Speaker 1

Well, so, so to the efficiency conversation that that brings up the very next point that came to mind as we were going through this conversation, and that is if you're going to record these videos, they're valuable to more than one person. So you are sending a video, you are sending a video to me and answering my question that I had in the comments.

00:27:30:05 - 00:28:00:04

Speaker 1

Very Piper personalized. Really getting more personalized. But now you're going to take that same conversation and scale it because you can post it on Instagram, you can post it on LinkedIn, you can if you think that this conversation will have or this, you know, response will have more value to someone else, why not share it? So that was the second sort of like, wow, okay, this this is a whole new way of thinking about effectiveness and efficiencies at the same time with content.

00:28:01:09 - 00:28:25:09

Speaker 1

And then I think that you set me an example which I can share too of someone that's I mean, if you're, if you're okay with it, someone sent you an example, just like as we were having the conversation, like, hey, why don't you turn these videos into social clips and then someone sent you a social clip that they had created from your videos and said, Hey, you should turn this into social club.

00:28:25:09 - 00:28:27:10

Speaker 1

This is what it could look like. It was wild.

00:28:28:04 - 00:28:45:03

Speaker 2

Yeah. I want to plug him to his name's Dylan. I can't pronounce your last name. Dylan, I'm so sorry. It's like it's Italian. It's Cassio. Cassio. I think it's Dylan. Cassio. I'm just going to go with that. He actually approached me and is very rarely that I get a DM of a pitch that I'm actually not like instantly rolling my eyes.

00:28:45:07 - 00:29:04:12

Speaker 2

But he was like, Hey man, you frickin love the loon videos. I think I sent him a video. He too. And he was like, Wow, that blew my mind. But he he's he runs a clip agency, you know. So he's taking usually podcasts and other things and turns them into micro videos. And I'm like, he's and I think he asked asked me is if he could do clips for free for me.

00:29:04:17 - 00:29:21:11

Speaker 2

And I'm like, Hey bro. I mean, I can't turn down free content if you want to turn all these lumias, I'm dropping off at a place and turn it into little clips because he and he did one for me as an example. Sure. And had chopped it up and cleaned it up so that it was tighter and made more sense and had the captions in the title and all that kind of stuff looked fantastic.

00:29:23:05 - 00:29:43:22

Speaker 2

He's like, Hey, why don't you use more of these? I'm like, a word, but that's actually a service we provided. Squeamish, too, because again, we do podcasting and the little clip things from the podcast. It's actually like it's almost half our revenue is doing the clips. So and then even though we had a hiccup, so my clips are delayed on the sweet fresh side, we're getting it worked out and I'll have some clips coming from Sweet Fish and I just got it this morning actually.

00:29:43:22 - 00:30:00:12

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. But so I'm like, I can't hire you to do it because the CEO would be like, we got to figure out if we can't figure out how to do it internally, then we're doing something wrong. Fix What's the point? Mike Yes, sir. But I told him that he's like, That's okay, just give me an endorsement or a testimonial.

00:30:00:12 - 00:30:13:23

Speaker 2

I'd love to knock out 15 clips for you. I was like, Man, what a way to do outreach because I'm going to be selling him like I'm selling him now because he's been doing a fantastic job keeping. He's done quite a few for me and they've actually hit they've actually done really well for me over the last week.

00:30:13:23 - 00:30:34:05

Speaker 2

So that's the other cool part about doing all these long videos is it helps you in help being helpful to the one you can be helpful to many. And oftentimes those same clips are actually even more powerful than if you were trying to address a whole room. Jordan Peterson actually said this recently when someone asked him, How do I be an articulate communicator?

00:30:34:11 - 00:30:58:12

Speaker 2

He's like, You become an articulate communicator. Not one part is just being an expert, like reading a lot so you can have something good to say, but also speaking to people individually, because if you can speak, I saw that the other day. It's coming up for you on YouTube, too. If you can speak to the one, you can speak to thousands because everybody's being everyone's perceiving it as if it's being spoken just to them.

00:30:58:12 - 00:31:20:06

Speaker 2

Right. It's the same thing for these loon videos. So every time you leave a loom, chances are unless it's a hyper specific situation, that's going to be helpful. So someone like Dylan at a clip agency or if you want to do it yourself and dress it up in a in a descriptor, something, you could easily turn that into a fantastic little social piece for TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever.

00:31:21:04 - 00:31:49:11

Speaker 2

And so that's what I've been doing and it creates relevancy. The one problem I found with it, because I can I speak to all kinds of different marketing topics I found I don't have enough consistency in my post because I'm shooting all over the place and people know me for podcasting because I work for Sweet Fish and naturally, because I'm thinking a lot about podcasts, I post the most about that, but I still don't quite have a strong enough theme and position as someone like a Justin Walsh or a Chris Walker, which is something I need to work on with my own personal brand.

00:31:51:00 - 00:32:08:03

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think you're getting there, though. I think it's it's coming. You're on your way. You're on your way there, though. I mean, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. Maybe from the messaging side, it could be dialed in a little bit more. But but I think I think you're 100% on the right track. So you're talking about this this idea.

00:32:08:03 - 00:32:28:19

Speaker 1

Call it 1 to 1 to scale, right? So 1 to 1 on response loom videos. Response to someone's comment is labor intensive. And, you know, you have to think about what you're saying, have to be personalized, but then you can use that to scale. So I really love that idea because you're you know, putting the work in on the front end.

00:32:28:19 - 00:32:45:00

Speaker 1

You're getting a lot of benefit on the back end and everyone is getting value. And I'm interested to see how how you think about that when it comes to podcasting, because I did want to get around to podcasting because to me I feel like that's kind of what we're doing here to some extent, right? We're having a genuine conversation.

00:32:45:12 - 00:33:04:01

Speaker 1

One, two, one. But it's it's set up. The premise is that it's for scale. So so in in a sense, this podcast is kind of trying to accomplish the same thing that in a way you're doing with balloon videos and comments. So curious if I.

00:33:04:01 - 00:33:21:09

Speaker 2

Think the video is a good place to go, but eventually this is this is kind of how we approach it. We I call this the water wheel approach because you've heard of the waterfall approach where you take I don't even know why they call this. I guess you start with the top and then you splinter it down into more, right?

00:33:22:04 - 00:33:39:12

Speaker 2

Or the content pillar approach. Right. You take your one piece and splinter it out. But if you're starting with small pieces, it's kind of like it starts off as a11 off piece. And then I call it the water wheel approach because it kind of creates this flywheel because you're doing small, little chunks at a time. It just keeps that we are moving faster and faster.

00:33:39:18 - 00:34:00:16

Speaker 2

You start off by answering individual questions you take, and then of course you make the loom video videos you posted on social, and most of them will do pretty well, probably because you're answering real questions and not just wondering what people are talking about. Your answering questions are actually talking about, but every once in a while one of them frickin hits hard and it goes not super viral, but kind of viral.

00:34:00:16 - 00:34:35:09

Speaker 2

It goes bigger than your other post. And I just had one of those happened last week on the audience growth ceiling, which is where our conversation got started, was on that post. And, you know, it's not my most viral post, but it's probably one of the most deep posts where the amount of comments and the depth of the comments of the back and forth and that the amount people wrote in the comments was probably the deepest post I've ever had from that one post I've probably created another ten ideas, you know, another ten videos because I'm because people are asking questions.

00:34:35:09 - 00:35:01:18

Speaker 2

So I'm fleshing out the idea and it's creating more Lume contents. And now what do we, what have we done? I've scheduled a live podcast. We're going to try the LinkedIn live LinkedIn Live next week with this, but we're going to talk about this topic of the audience growth ceiling and then flesh it out even more. So it becomes a pillar post and then using all the other loom videos, flashback out into a lot of small pieces.

00:35:01:22 - 00:35:27:05

Speaker 2

So you use the small things to test. They're almost like little bullets or what Jim Collins calls like firing bullets before you fire cannonballs. Just to test, test, test. And then one hits, it's like, ding, you're like, ooh, shoot the cannon, right? Put more thought into that idea and develop it out into something really worthwhile and then make it big if it still hits hard after developing it out and developing out all the sub points of it, maybe you need to develop it more, right?

00:35:27:05 - 00:35:46:10

Speaker 2

And that's how a lot of books are written for people who grow audiences. They're actually testing ideas and then bam, it becomes something. Alex or Jose go to his Twitter channel. Every single tweet is just a random thought he just throws out and each one that scores or like has enough comments and reaction. He flushes out into blogger videos.

00:35:46:10 - 00:36:12:01

Speaker 2

So most people are doing this naturally, but how you do it differs. Alex or is just throwing out ideas on Twitter. I'm actually making loop videos and I find my my approach. I don't know. Alex is pretty brilliant. So hard, hard, too hard to replicate what Alex is doing. But I find that my approach is probably easier for most people who are just getting started because anybody can sign up for a loom and just start having conversations in one off videos.

00:36:12:17 - 00:36:12:22

Speaker 2

Yeah.

00:36:13:12 - 00:36:44:09

Speaker 1

Yeah. I think that this last piece of our conversation is is a mini masterclass for marketers today, honestly, because, you know, I'm in working with marketing teams every day and I can tell you, you know, on the front lines, like they don't understand customer or buyer feedback. Right. And that's really what you're talking about is like we're going to test the messaging, we're going to get feedback, we're going to be okay with these messages failing, and we're going to look for where we're testing.

00:36:44:09 - 00:37:09:23

Speaker 1

And once we hit something that's hot, let's dove deeper. But you have to be methodical about it. You have to be patient, and you have to have a strategy in terms of how you're actually going to execute once you find what's working. And I personally feel like the secret sauce of marketing is feedback. It's insights and feedback. The more you can get, the better you're going to be equipped to give them more value.

00:37:10:10 - 00:37:39:06

Speaker 1

And yes, you got to know your tools. You've got to know your platforms, all that matters, but only for getting better feedback. And so, you know, I think it's it's it's really it's really creative way the way that you're approaching it. I like the the water wheel approach as a visual because you're doing you're kind of hitting them on both ends where you're very hyper personalized, but they're also scaled.

00:37:39:13 - 00:38:19:01

Speaker 1

And the scaled, if you give it time and you're listening to the personal side, becomes so much more effective for the masses because there's a really good chance that the masses are thinking and having the same that are hitting on the 1 to 1 love it. So so one more question for you about pod podcasting, because I'm curious to know you're probably more in the middle of it than I am with if someone is has a podcast and they've just gotten started or they maybe had it for a while and is plateaued or thinking about getting into it, where is where do you where is podcasting right now?

00:38:19:01 - 00:38:40:22

Speaker 1

Like, what's the landscape look like for podcasting? I've recently heard some people say, you know what, podcasting is and you know, no one starting new podcast is and if those who are, they shouldn't have them and you know, negative. And I've also heard more in my camp where if you know how to use the tool, you know your audience and you know you have a really good narrative.

00:38:41:09 - 00:39:04:07

Speaker 1

There's a lot that goes into podcasting that makes it really good and valuable for the audience. But I think those podcasts that are showing up and are intentional about, you know, creating valuable content, I, I say gas in the fire, you know, so I'm curious to know, like, where do you feel like the landscape of podcast podcasting is and where is where is it going for 23?

00:39:04:08 - 00:39:21:20

Speaker 2

If you look at all the hype that it's generated over the last of years, you know, with Spotify making major acquisitions, Joe Rogan getting acquired and all that kind of stuff, the buzz is kind of died down a lot and I'm okay with that. Honestly, because podcasting still, it's not in infancy. I mean, it started all the way back in 2004.

00:39:21:20 - 00:39:30:07

Speaker 2

I mean, podcasting has been around for a long time, longer than like social media, almost. I mean, so and I'm not going to get to that debate, but it's been around a long time.

00:39:30:07 - 00:39:31:03

Speaker 1

No, no, I'm working.

00:39:31:04 - 00:39:31:17

Speaker 2

I've listened to it.

00:39:32:04 - 00:39:58:20

Speaker 1

Well, back in 2000 back in 2006, 2007, I was following multiple podcasts at that time when they kind of came on the scene, and one of them was Jason Calacanis, who's This Week in Startups. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but he started back around six or 26 or seven and he had so much value to to offer in the I was young entrepreneur starting up and let's just eat it up.

00:39:59:15 - 00:40:12:00

Speaker 1

He's still doing that today and I'm still listening to his podcast today. It's amazing. I mean, so to that point, it's been around a long time. But again, it's a mechanism which if you're providing value, people are going to show it.

00:40:12:00 - 00:40:39:03

Speaker 2

It didn't get the hype that it's gotten and tells us the last couple of years and it's been pushed on by the pandemic because everybody's going digital. So that's kind of died down. Yeah, but it's going to see its largest growth, maybe not this year, but in the few years after this year. Everyone's playing conservative this year. So we're going back, of course, to the things that worked well before for B2B, which is going to be sales led Motion's ABM, SEO people and and of course, performance advertising.

00:40:39:11 - 00:40:59:10

Speaker 2

That's going to be what everybody's leaning back into because they're scared. And now that because everybody's getting hit by like a recession, but just everybody is a little nervous, the other shoe is going to drop. So everybody's playing real conservative right now. So, yeah, everyone's going back to that. A lot of my clients are really interested in turning their their podcast into ABS machines right now.

00:40:59:10 - 00:41:16:18

Speaker 2

So I'm like, okay, if that's, if that's what you want to do. And that's the strategy for your marketing department, a podcast is like a Swiss Army knife. It can accomplish so many different objectives, but not all at once. So let's if you want to do ABM, let's do ABM, let's build let's make it a relationship building machine, genuine relationships, and also make great content with it.

00:41:16:18 - 00:41:40:09

Speaker 2

Let's do that. So I'm a lot of my clients are going in that direction, but where it's going and where Sweet Fish is positioning itself for is we know podcast is going to be you have it's going to has to be beyond going it has to be more than just interviews you have to introduce a premise to the show to make it a little bit more unique and give it something that you can't get anywhere else.

00:41:40:16 - 00:41:59:21

Speaker 2

It has to have an angle and a way of treating it in order to make it interesting. We also think that a podcast is the best way as a to build a foundation for what we're calling a media brand as an a separate brand from your corporate brand, but can actually become a separate piece because let's look at like like journalism, for example.

00:42:00:03 - 00:42:17:05

Speaker 2

Right? What do you do with journalism? Or you find topics, you find people that are subject matter experts on those topics. You interview them, you craft a story out of the interviews. What are you doing with the podcast? You find a topic, you interview experts, and then you turn that into different types of content. I'm like, Just use a podcast.

00:42:17:13 - 00:42:33:20

Speaker 2

Of course, there is a skillset to doing better journalism and we should just study journalism as podcast and learn how to ask better questions, how to find the story, how to find the angle. All those things just learn how to do this as marketers and use that as your basis to build a separate media brand with and build a newsletter.

00:42:33:20 - 00:42:53:06

Speaker 2

But use build content channels that are all specific to those specific to the media brand. And that way you can set a whole separate brand aside that can have a separate and broader positioning than your corporate brand, which needs to be positioned around your product. It should, and the website should be optimized for sales. That's what you expect.

00:42:53:06 - 00:43:22:17

Speaker 2

That's what you hope for. Your media brand can be optimized for audience growth. It can be positioned around all the things your buyers love. It can be the source of information or entertainment or education or a mix of those, depending on what your your your ideal buyers actually want. And then you could just optimize that growing audience and that becomes the thing that you can then advertise your company, you can plug your company into a real nice sales feed is a great example of someone who is on the cutting edge of this from Vineyard.

00:43:23:03 - 00:43:42:10

Speaker 2

We're actually doing a series with them and we are on B2B growth right now, unpacking how they're doing it and how they built that. But sales feed, isn't it sponsored by Vineyard, but it's separate from Vineyard. And the content marketers of vineyard are different from the content creators working for sales feed. So we think that's the future and that's where we're diving.

00:43:42:10 - 00:43:54:17

Speaker 2

And right now we're in the very beginning stages of trying to build that kind of media brand category along with other people who are on the more the tech side or we're hoping to become a service provider in that emerging category.

00:43:56:04 - 00:44:25:07

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think you're on the right track. I've had this sort of philosophy for some time now that I think every company and if you want to call it every brand, however you think of your company, should be a publisher. And I did a lecture at a university here recently where I put together this hour long talk that basically laid out all of history, going back to the beginning of cavemen and women where, you know, all you could do is sort of make noises.

00:44:25:16 - 00:44:55:14

Speaker 1

And I kind of, you know, walked through in large brushstrokes what history has done and how we've communicated with each other. And it all kind of points to, you know, those who had the loudest voice were publishers, whether they're doing what we're doing right now, 1 to 1 or one to a few or one to many. And this this terminology of a media brand just puts the last little corner piece of the jigsaw puzzle together.

00:44:55:14 - 00:45:22:17

Speaker 1

For me, I think, because that's really what I've been saying this whole time, is that the philosophy of publishing is true, but it has to land in as a separate yes kind of mechanism outside of your company brand. Even though there's cohesiveness and there's, you know, the connectivity. And I think that is so smart. And I think you're right.

00:45:22:17 - 00:45:30:20

Speaker 1

I think that's where things are going is that media brand terminologies, that's something you guys have workshops or come up with yourself or is this something that we've.

00:45:30:20 - 00:45:50:06

Speaker 2

Kicked around so many different terms and what we found and we didn't even make up this term, we just found other people using a bunch of different terms that we found like this term fit the best. And what we did do is like, well, how does this how do media brands differentiate between what people are currently doing? A content marketing is a media brand different than content marketing.

00:45:50:06 - 00:46:09:00

Speaker 2

We're like, No, a media brand still falls under the content marketing umbrella. And if you've seen like the content marketing documentary, fantastic documentary by the Content Marketing Institute, watch it. A lot of the things they highlight in they're are actually media brands. But what most people, when they hear content marketing, they're thinking of publishing on their corporate blog, right?

00:46:09:00 - 00:46:28:19

Speaker 2

Which is what we call a corporate brand. And we even we did a whole podcast episode of what we're calling the three content marketing motions to create some differentiation between corporate brands, personal brands and media brands. All three can play well together and they can overlap a lot, but there is a difference between these three entities and how they can be used.

00:46:30:16 - 00:46:40:09

Speaker 1

I like the term media brand because I think it's going to make sense immediately for marketers to adopt. So the adoption rate will be higher by marketers.

00:46:40:09 - 00:46:41:16

Speaker 2

That's what we picked.

00:46:41:16 - 00:47:02:08

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah. I like it. I mean, we are 45 minutes in and I would love to keep talking with you, but we both got to get back to work. And as you can see, the gods are shining on my face right now because the the light coming through my window is crazy. But I would love to have you back.

00:47:02:20 - 00:47:28:19

Speaker 1

And I'm working on building some panels of various different voices, so I'd love to have you be part of that. So much more to talk about and so much value in this episode. I mean, we I feel like we've just given the gift that marketers needed to add to their repertoire if they'll just do the work. And by the end of 2023, could could have so many more inroads with real solid relationships.

00:47:28:19 - 00:47:39:23

Speaker 1

Talking about ABM, you know, that, that, that loom Mike whatever platform you use that video response 1 to 1 is powerful. Powerful.

00:47:40:09 - 00:47:46:22

Speaker 2

Well fantastic. All right. Thanks for thanks for all your support for the concepts.

00:47:48:15 - 00:47:59:15

Speaker 1

Yeah, of course. Yeah. And what you know, what are you working on right now that I can tell people about? Gosh, it's a good question. I mean, I obviously tag you on my ten that.

00:47:59:15 - 00:48:03:12

Speaker 2

We were doing and are now gearing up for the next one. When does this episode go out?

00:48:05:07 - 00:48:09:07

Speaker 1

Probably Three weeks from now, so probably into February.

00:48:09:15 - 00:48:29:19

Speaker 2

I think the best thing to do is connect, connect with me on LinkedIn. But Sweet Fish is planning an event in October coming up. That's going to be fantastic. It's going to be it's called content camp. I haven't even this. So you will break the news on this if you publish this in three weeks, because I probably won't announce this officially on my own LinkedIn until March.

00:48:30:02 - 00:48:36:02

Speaker 2

But we are planning an event around media brands and it's going to be called Content Camp.

00:48:36:02 - 00:48:38:04

Speaker 1

And is it a physical event event?

00:48:38:14 - 00:48:47:03

Speaker 2

It'll be a small event. It'll be intimate, to use your word for it. I have a lot of friends. It's going to be really it's going to be a really fun event.

00:48:47:03 - 00:49:10:22

Speaker 1

That's awesome. As exciting. Cool. Yeah, I'll definitely tag you. And when we put the clips out on this so you can respond to everybody with a live video. Fantastic as always. Appreciate you tuning in. If you like this episode, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or to Dan. We would love to connect with you more on a 1 to 1 basis since that's sort of the premise of everything we were just talking about.

00:49:11:13 - 00:49:29:00

Speaker 1

But also, if you are liking all of these episodes, please go to Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever subscribe. You know, like comment, but leave us a review rate. This podcast. I need to get this in front of more people so they can see what I'm talking about and who I'm talking with.