Latest / Content, Briefly / John Collins (Part 2): 2024 trends and the new content playbook

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John Collins (Part 2): 2024 trends and the new content playbook · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
  I think we're at a kind of a, not so much an inflection point, but I think at a point where a lot of people are, like, sort of questioning what they're gonna do ar-around content and, like, what investments are gonna pay off.
• 0:08
  And I'm starting to see some obvious patterns emerge. Things like focus on it, like, really, really high quality. [upbeat music] Hey, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly.
• 0:21
  Today, we're doing part two with John Collins. In the last episode, it's actually a recorded version of an office hours we did about 18 months ago. We cover a lot of John's career at Intercom and Ramp.
• 0:31
  There's a ton of great stuff in there, which is why I decided to put it in a podcast feed. Today, we're talking with John, kind of an update to that. So he spent the last almost two years as consultant and advisor.
• 0:42
  He works with series A, B, and C SaaS companies. He helps them spin up their content strategy. He helps them actually get it rolling. So we talk all about that.
• 0:49
  We talk about some of the patterns he's seeing across those companies, kind of lost faith he's seeing in content marketing as a whole, and specifically SEO.
• 0:57
  Talk a little bit about some of the larger investments that some of the companies he's working with are making in video and data analysis, and there's even some examples there which he talks through and will be in the show notes, too.
• 1:08
  So great episode. John's one of the smartest, most legendary content marketers ever to do it, and I'm very grateful to have him on the show today. As always, really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do, too.
• 1:19
  Hey, everybody. Jimmy from Superpath here today with John Collins. This is, uh, kind of a part two. I just published our office hours we did from, I don't know, 18 months ago or so.
• 1:29
  I'm sure we'll at least briefly mention Intercom, Ramp. You can learn all about John's work at both of those companies in the previous episode.
• 1:36
  Today, we're gonna focus, John, mostly on your consulting work, which you've been now doing for a couple of years. Before we do all that, though, you did an intro on the last episode, but it's sort of outdated.
• 1:47
  Would you mind just doing a quick intro of yourself for folks who maybe aren't as familiar with your work or kind of just catching up? Sure. So yeah, uh, I'm John.
• 1:55
  I'm a, I suppose, a marketing advisor and consultant, mostly on the content side. My background is I ran content and comms at Ramp Fintech, a New York-based Fintech that's been on a bit of a tear the last few years.
• 2:08
  Prior to that, I was at Intercom for seven years, actually.
• 2:12
  So I was there from sort of, like, founded the content function there and sort of really built it out into something that not just helped the brand for Intercom, but also was generating leads, et cetera, and also, you know, handle things like sales enablement, et cetera.
• 2:24
  Prior to that, for, you know, more years than I care to remember- [chuckles]... I was a journalist, mostly covering tech and business for a variety of publications, mostly in Ireland, where I'm based. Very cool.
• 2:36
  You know, I do have to ask you this. I had Sarah Yin on a few episodes ago, who you worked with at Intercom. She's at Slack now, and she...
• 2:44
  We talked just briefly about some of the failures at Intercom, which I, to be honest, I was never really thought about because in my mind, Intercom's like legendary content marketing brand.
• 2:55
  We didn't go into any great detail, though. Is there anything there- [chuckles]... that you wanna share? I mean, i-in the spirit of, like, you know, you tried something- Sure...
• 3:02
  it didn't work as well as you hoped it would. You moved on to something else. Yeah. Oh, wow, there's a bunch of stuff.
• 3:06
  I mean, video was definitely one that we never really cracked, and it's kind of interesting 'cause I see Intercom now are sort of, like, in their sort of maybe, like, third or fourth iteration of content.
• 3:14
  They're going huge on video. Like, they've got, like, TV studios in their offices and stuff now. And they're doing this Off Script series, which is just, like, off the charts high quality.
• 3:22
  But yeah, that was something that during my tenure there, we never really got figured out properly. But
• 3:28
  probably the biggest one, actually, the biggest investment was we're like, "Hey, you know, we've got this kind of content marketing and thought leadership stuff down pretty well. It's performing pretty well.
• 3:36
  Like, what's next, and where is all this going?"
• 3:38
  And actually we looked at, like, the whole area of news and, like, doing this kind of, like, almost filtering the news for folks and sort of, like, say, "Look, here's your five o'clock email."
• 3:47
  It's like, "We'll give you everything that's happened in the tech world today or the software world today." We hired someone for that. We, like, heavily resourced it, and we never launched it for a variety of reasons.
• 3:57
  [chuckles] So- Interesting... that was a pretty big one. But I mean, generally, uh, you know, and it's something that stood to me in, in good stead ever since.
• 4:03
  Like at Intercom, we would always try and do small experiments, like what's the minimum thing we can do to get some, like, data points and, like, figure out is... You know, rather than go and make that big investment.
• 4:13
  And I think that was probably one of those points where, where actually we did, we went and hired someone for it before we even really had any data or un- really understood if this is gonna work.
• 4:21
  So yeah, it's something that the product team at Intercom have always done, you know, try and get feedback as soon as possible, ship often, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
• 4:28
  And I think we actually did that on the content side as well. But in that case, uh, we didn't, and, uh, didn't work out so well. [chuckles] But hey, you live and learn. Yeah, you live and learn.
• 4:36
  I mean, you know, one thing that I always have admired about Intercom's content is that it's not like Intercom struck gold and then just kept mining the same mine, just hoping for more.
• 4:45
  Like, you guys nailed the thought leadership thing, and then kind of as you mentioned, like, they're in their third or fourth phase of different content initiatives, like always sort of reinventing itself, never falling prey to the innovator's dilemma, where you just let somebody else come overtake you because you're not willing to try the new thing.
• 5:03
  Yeah, totally. And as I say, I think that's across the company, though. I don't think that's unique on the content side.
• 5:07
  I think it's relatively unique probably in terms of content marketing teams that, like, they're onto that fourth iteration, and it seems to be working pretty well.
• 5:15
  I mean, I'm super impressed with what I saw with Off Script. Uh, I mean, as a company that's kind of focused on customer service, like, really impressed how they've, like, pivoted content to support that.
• 5:25
  The pluses and minuses when I was there was that, like, we were pretty broad. We were selling to, like- Right... marketing, s-support, sales teams, which was great.
• 5:33
  And from a content perspective, you could create content for a bunch of different personas and, you know, uh, like, there was a large surface area to play against.
• 5:40
  But I suppose the challenge then on the other side of that is, is it just a case of, like, y-you're not really engaging with any of them really, really deeply?
• 5:48
  So that, that was definitely something we, we always were aware of and, like, trying to make sure that we address that.
• 5:53
  You know, Intercom is such a great history lesson in content marketing, but I also, I promised myself that I wouldn't ask you too many questions about it- [laughs]... 'cause I do wanna know about what you're doing now.
• 6:01
  Sure. So you've been an advisor consultant now for a couple of years.Yeah... paint that picture. Like what kind of work are you doing? What types of customers do you like working with? Yeah.
• 6:11
  It's quite an interesting one actually. Uh, yeah, like coming up actually two years in September.
• 6:16
  And it's funny, I actually ran into someone who, in the tech industry here locally in Ireland, who like works as a kind of a fractional CFO and kind of consultant on that side for software companies.
• 6:26
  And, uh, you know, sh- I was like in the first month of this or something, and she was like, "Oh, it'll take you two years to figure out like what you actually do and where you add value." I was like, "Oh."
• 6:35
  Oh, interesting. No, I mean, I know exactly what I do, but actually she was spot on. I mean, it does take a while to actually figure out, like where do you actually add value? Like what does a good client look like?
• 6:46
  You know, like what's a good engagement look like?
• 6:48
  I've, I've worked with everything from like private equity spin-outs to like companies that are like less than six months old and everything in between, you know, like at every stage or not every stage obviously, but you know, at many points along that journey.
• 7:03
  I think it's learning like where can you add the most value. So I suppose first off, what I try to do and what I enjoy doing is work with people on content strategy.
• 7:13
  But I think I realized pretty early on that like it's one thing to come and say, "Hey, look, we've looked at your go-to-market motion, we've looked at everything at, you know, your competitors, we do all this analysis.
• 7:24
  Here's what we think you should do with your content strategy." And I think like it's very easy for, you know, you or I to do that and then walk away.
• 7:31
  But actually what you don't realize is that for most companies, actually putting that into, like actually making that happen is quite a challenge.
• 7:38
  And so pa- the second piece that I, I, I do quite a bit is more on the sort of like org structure and helping people look at like, how are we gonna resource this? Like, do we need freelancers?
• 7:48
  Do we need to hire people in-house? Is there agencies out there that we can work with? And so I kinda use my network to sort of like not just decide what that should look like, but then also like source people for them.
• 7:59
  I mean, it's some, some clients have even got involved with interviews and like, you know, actually helping them hire people in-house.
• 8:05
  So it's making sure that you have the strategy, but then also figuring out like, how the hell are we actually gonna do this? Yeah. 'Cause that's, as I say, I think that's still non-trivial for a lot of folks.
• 8:14
  I think it's something that people who work in mark- in content marketing all the time kind of take that for granted a little bit almost. So that's kind of what I do.
• 8:21
  And as I say, I think like the sweet spot is probably like, you know, companies probably like, I hate to say like tied to sort of venture stage, but probably like Series A.
• 8:32
  Series A through C is probably like the sweet spot. You know, they've got a real product market fit, they've got a sense of their positioning. They know who they're trying to sell to, what the ICP looks like.
• 8:41
  They've got a marketing team that you can integrate the content strategy with so that it's not just a case of, you know, we're, we're publishing a lot of content, but we're not really gonna see...
• 8:50
  You know, we're not gonna convert it because we don't have the rest of the marketing machine to wrap around it. And so that's been probably where the, the most successful engagements have been.
• 8:58
  But, uh, you know, again, it very much depends on the client and, and really their sort of understanding of content and even the space they're in as to how successful it can be. Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:08
  What kind of things are you seeing out there right now? Or are you seeing patterns across the different companies you work with? Like one thing I sense is a bit of chaos, maybe is the right word,
• 9:20
  affects everyone a little bit differently, but many companies still have some of the same questions related to content marketing. Maybe a little bit of a loss of confidence in SEO.
• 9:31
  Maybe a healthy, maybe it's healthy actually. Yep. But they're thinking about like, how do we diversify? They're thinking about, they have fear around generative AI, maybe a, a little hint of excitement, but- Yep...
• 9:43
  some skepticism too.
• 9:44
  Like I wonder for some teams if it's slowed them down, like if they're sort of hesitating, not exactly sure what to do next, or if you're seeing other teams that are just being like, "Hey, there's a lot of blue ocean out there, like let's just try lots of things."
• 9:56
  Sorry, ver-very long question. Yeah.
• 9:58
  [chuckles] Yeah, no, it's interesting 'cause I mean, when I started this like September, like t-two years ago next September, there was a financial, like uncertainty and like the whole sort of venture backed game was like changing very, very quickly.
• 10:11
  You know, particularly, as I said, those kind of companies where, where I see I can add a lot of value.
• 10:15
  That like suddenly it was like we got a cost and we gotta figure out, you know, how we're gonna make our money go further, or how do we actually stop investing in growth and actually think about like turning a profit.
• 10:24
  And so suddenly there was a lot of, I think there was a lot of layoffs in content. I think content was definitely probably hit.
• 10:29
  Yeah, marketing was generally hit, and I think within that, content was probably hit ev-even further.
• 10:34
  You know, which is sucks to see, to be perfectly honest, but I suppose as a consultant, the upside of that is actually people were more willing to hire consultants.
• 10:42
  I think a lot of that has worked its way out of the system. I think, yeah, what you're seeing now is more, I would say, a little bit of crisis of faith in content marketing. It is not as easy to deliver.
• 10:52
  There's not a-- I don't think there's a sort of a standard playbook in the way that probably there was around 2016, 2017, 2018, in the sort of B2B SaaS world that like I sort of operate in, and I know that you've done a lot of work in, where it was like there was a playbook you could follow and you, you would get like decent results.
• 11:10
  I mean, obviously you applied it to your particular ICP and your particular sector, but I mean, it wasn't rocket science. I think, uh, yeah, like SEO is huge issue now. It's getting really harder.
• 11:20
  I was gonna say I have mixed feelings on that, but I actually don't really in the sense of I think that like,
• 11:25
  I think a lot of focus on SEO was a bit of a like sort of, you know, just a focus on traffic and like, we've gotta get lots and lots of people on the website and we've gotta rank for these like keywords that like generate lots of traffic.
• 11:37
  But, you know, you run into then what I call the, like high school projects problem, which is like, you know, if someone like Ramp, if they've got articles like how to create a budget,
• 11:47
  I'm not really sure that like a CFO who is about to change his spend management platform and bring in a new card to all his employees is googling, "How do I create a budget?"
• 11:56
  You know, there's traffic for it, but is it actually gonna be traffic that can convert?
• 12:00
  So I actually think, you know, we're seeing a lot of people focus on this idea of pain points and, and pain point SEO and like thinking about like, you know, higher intent traffic and I think that is justJust makes way more sense.
• 12:13
  Like, does it really matter if you get like, you know, 100 visitors to your blog every month if like 98 of them are like actually qualified and, and could buy your product? Probably not. I mean, I think that's, that's...
• 12:23
  they'd be amazing figures.
• 12:25
  You know, and I think that, you know, you-- we're not in the publishing game, we're in the content marketing game, and so I think that's, that's key here, you know, that we should be, uh, not focused on traffic and, and be much more focused on, on sort of engagement and conversion.
• 12:37
  Yeah. You know, it's so interesting, back in the day when I was doing sales for Animals, one thing we would hear on sales calls all the time was people saying, "We're just not getting enough traffic."
• 12:45
  They have this kind of like anxiety about it, and then- Mm... you get a look at their Google Analytics and you think, "Really? It seems like you're getting a lot of traffic, actually."
• 12:54
  And I think part of it was it's difficult to benchmark. You know, like if they could see what we saw from the agency perspective, you s- you could tell them like, "Actually, you're doing great," you know? Yeah.
• 13:02
  Most sites are not getting this much traffic. But that... you're right, the thinking around traffic was just so pervasive, probably because SEO is just, you know, whatever.
• 13:11
  It's greater opportunity than it probably is right this minute. Yeah. And, and I get it.
• 13:16
  You know, if you're converting like 3% of your visitors and you're getting like 1,000 visitors a month, you're like, "Well, why don't we get 10,000 visitors and we'll get, you know, convert X amount more?"
• 13:26
  But, you know, it's a pretty inefficient way of working when you, when you think about it- Yeah, yeah... if you're actually willing to live with those kind of conversion numbers.
• 13:33
  So yeah, I think the SEO thing is really sort of like spooking people, and I, I think like you're, you're right. There's like... I think we're at a kind of a,
• 13:40
  not so much an inflection point, but I think at a point where a lot of people are like sort of questioning like what they're gonna do ar- around content and like what investments are gonna pay off.
• 13:48
  And like you-- I'm starting to see some obvious patterns emerge. I think like a focus on it, like really, really high quality.
• 13:55
  Like, I mean, I, I talked about Intercom's Off Script thing there, like where they are doing these like almost like, it's almost like a, a chat show from the like 19- 80s or 90s or something, where it's like this deep like conversation.
• 14:06
  It really well shot, and uh, and like they have created, what I understand, like TV studios in their offices in San Francisco- Oh, wow... in order to shoot these things. No way.
• 14:14
  You know, and I, I think like j- whether it's like... Or Atomico, you know, like the, the, the venture capital firm who are big here in Europe.
• 14:21
  Like, I mean, they do the, they do one piece of content every year, which is their like state s- state of European startups, which is this massive, massive data report.
• 14:28
  Rather than that sort of like, "Hey, we're gonna publish three blog posts a week," or, "We're gonna like, you know, do a, like a weekly podcast," I think a lot of those things are s- are seeing diminishing returns. Yeah.
• 14:38
  Data-driven I think is also huge. Like seeing a lot of customers, like a lot of customers coming to me going, "Hey, we've... our product creates data. Like, you know, our customers are connecting to our platform.
• 14:48
  There's a lot of interesting insights there. How do we actually turn that into content?" That was something we did really successfully at, at Ramp.
• 14:55
  Obviously, they have a, a charge card like businesses are using, so we looked at like what are people actually spending on quarter by quarter? Like, how is that changing? What are the trends?
• 15:04
  You know, started to produce these Ramp benchmarks that we published every quarter, and that's still going and still, still performing for them.
• 15:10
  There's another really interesting startup, Ravio, that I did some work with.
• 15:13
  You know, they basically do compensation information on like how startups are compensating their staff in European markets, and like they're doing a great job in terms of like, you know, people are connecting their HR platform to Ravio.
• 15:26
  They're getting all these insights, and then they're publishing them in aggregate and, and sharing them out to the market.
• 15:30
  And so it's an absolutely great way of getting people to s- get a sense of like what can be done with your product and the kind of, you know, the kind of data you have. And so you really sort of draw people in that way.
• 15:40
  You know, as you're describing some of these examples, the thing that's at the top of my mind is the changing skill set of the content marketing team, right? Like- Yeah...
• 15:49
  content marketing teams who may be used to just write. You know, maybe they have like strong editorial background, they're great writers, they know how to scale quality.
• 15:57
  Now, the content team, maybe it's the same people, maybe it's different people, are thinking about how to tell the story with video, how to shoot it, how to produce it, you know, how to analyze data.
• 16:07
  You know, these are skills that traditionally, I guess, content marketers don't really have. And it just, it's sort of an open-ended thought.
• 16:13
  Like I don't know what the skill set of the content marketer looks like a few years from now. I think it's- I imagine it's, it's quite a bit more diverse than it has been. Yeah.
• 16:22
  I mean, in many ways, the way I, I think about it is like a lot of us were writers back in the day, like eight, 10 years ago.
• 16:29
  Because we were, we were producing a lot of the content, and it was kind of almost like, you know, these two or three-person teams that like were getting blogs off the ground and, you know, it was easy enough to sort of make the move then maybe into podcasting from that 'cause it's quite similar.
• 16:42
  I think the role is much more like an editor now, if we use that.
• 16:46
  You know, that it's a sense of like I can edit a data report, but I'm gonna have to partner with like a data science team or someone who can do SQL queries and all this kind of stuff.
• 16:56
  And so it's like that kind of editing job where you're pulling stuff together, you're partnering with different people, and I think it's those kind of skills.
• 17:03
  I mean, the reality is, I think, you know, the-- you are invariably partnering with people from all over the company now when you're doing content, if you wanna do that high quality content, and it's an investment, you know?
• 17:15
  And so, you know, like I...
• 17:17
  over the years, I mean, I definitely like partnering with data teams has always been a bit of a challenge 'cause they're always concerned that you're like, the integrity of the data, and is like marketing gonna try and make the data say something that it doesn't and all this.
• 17:29
  You know, I think like you're partnering really deeply with designers and creatives, like video creatives, people like that, you know.
• 17:36
  So it's definitely a different skill set, but I still think like that if you've come from that sort of writing, editing background, it's a really solid place to be as sort of like a, either an IC or a leader in content marketing.
• 17:48
  Yeah. That's fascinating. It's fascinating. Content has become so deeply embedded into many of these organizations. It's difficult to separate out just the content people who,
• 17:58
  you know, maybe used to be responsible for, for that traffic, and now they're responsible for, in some cases, like the voice and tone of the entire company. Yeah.
• 18:06
  And I think it's, you know, like with a lot of these, it's becoming almost more like product-led growth, so you're involved in a lot more of those kind of initiatives, which traditionally would've been like separate, I think, to content, which I think is, is, is great.
• 18:17
  It's a really exciting time for the companies that are embracing that and, and sort of start to understand that. Yeah.What have you learned about working for yourself?
• 18:27
  I'm just sort of curious how it's gone, any lessons you've learned along the way. I mean, we have a lot of folks in the Slack community who, who work independently or maybe aspire to at some point. Yep.
• 18:37
  I personally had a brief, failed freelance career, which scared me back into getting a job and took me a couple years actually to build the confidence back up to go try it again.
• 18:47
  But I'm just curious, like, how it's been for you. Uh, yeah, I mean, look, look, look, I was, I was lucky, I suppose.
• 18:51
  Back in my journalism days, I did work as a freelance journalist for a number of years, and I would say that, like, you know, was it Hunter S. Thompson who said, "I love the sound... Or, "I love deadlines.
• 19:00
  I love the sound they make as they go whooshing by."
• 19:02
  I mean, there was definitely a, a sense of like, I needed a deadline to really sort of like, get my juices flowing and, you know, if I look back at that period, I kinda go, "Oh, I wish I was more sort of organized," et cetera.
• 19:13
  But no, for, I think working for yourself, I think it's great. You have to... Like, yeah, like at this point in my career, I'm, I'm pretty organized about it.
• 19:20
  But I think the, the thing is not to get stuck in your little, in your own little world, and actually realizing that, like,
• 19:28
  you know, meeting a former colleague for coffee or, you know, taking that call, 'cause VCs are great at, like, looking for free consulting, but, like, doing that 30-minute call with someone for a VC.
• 19:38
  Just all those things are, where you're actually just getting back out and sort of like seeing what's going on in the sort of space that you're consulting into, I think is really, really important.
• 19:46
  I think that to me is... And I'm not feeling like, "Oh my gosh, I'm not working," like you are. You can't just constantly sort of, I think, just sit there and be like, "I'm, I'm a, an output machine." Yeah.
• 19:55
  You know, I think you have to be sort of, like, realistic about, like, how many billable hours you can do in a week or, you know. So I think that's really key for me, and just, just yeah,
• 20:04
  taking the time to continue sort of learning and hearing what's going on and, and seeing, like, interesting, just interesting stuff that's happening in your space. Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:12
  And so you're working with most of these clients on a longer-term basis as you help them sort out some strategy stuff and then actually bring it to life. Yeah.
• 20:20
  So typically, uh, what, what's happened, uh, the first couple of clients, uh, like, one of my first clients is...
• 20:26
  Actually, I don't think they'll, they'll mind me talking about it, is, uh, is Workvivo, who, who, uh, they're a software company who kind of like help with employee engagement, and they were acquired by Zoom.
• 20:36
  But I kind of went in there and helped them with content strategy, and then sort of transitioned from that to sort of like, I'm still there as a sort of like, an advisor and consultant and just sort of like, you know, basically just help their content folks and sort of like, you know, they're able to run stuff by me.
• 20:51
  I meet with them weekly. You know, so it's, it's moving from that sort of like... I always have at least probably two to three projects on the go.
• 20:58
  But ideally, like, those projects then move into sort of like a, some kind of retainer, which is a great way to work it if you can. It hasn't worked with everyone, obviously.
• 21:05
  Um, but yeah, like, I've probably, it's probably a 50/50 split between, like, retainer work and project work. Got it. That's very cool.
• 21:13
  You know one thing I find about working for myself is that it exposes, like blatantly exposes all of my bad work habits.
• 21:19
  Like, stuff that might be, there might be, like, some better barriers around in a regular nine-to-five job or just, like, out there, and it's, I found that to be, like, probably the single most difficult thing is that, like, I say yes to too many things.
• 21:33
  You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.
• 21:33
  Or I don't organize my day properly and then save the hardest thing for last, and, like, that is harder to do when you have someone, like a teammate relying on you to get a thing done, you know? Yeah. Absolutely.
• 21:45
  No, there's no hiding place, and actually, you know what? I actually have kind of a, like a, someone who helps with research and admin who does eight hours a week for me.
• 21:52
  You know, like even, you know, some weeks there were, like, there was times where I was like, "Ooh, do I... Like, how much work do I have for her?"
• 22:00
  But, like, it's just a great way of putting some discipline on it, even just having someone that you're like, "Oh, I gotta have stuff for her to do," or, "I gotta, like, get back to her," and stuff. It just, yeah.
• 22:09
  I think that working solo thing can be quite, uh, quite, quite tough- It can... um, because you don't have someone to sort of keep you responsible. Yeah, totally. Are you doing any writing these days?
• 22:19
  Uh, I do a little bit of writing. Actually, I do a bit of writing on the side. I, I write for a, a business news site here in Ireland, Currency.News. So I write about, like, sort of tech for them.
• 22:28
  Some of the clients, yeah, like particularly I think with the, the earlier-stage companies, I end up sort of like jumping in, uh, particularly early on engagement and, and do some, like we'll actually write some stuff.
• 22:39
  Uh, but invariably I'm trying to like, yeah, not, not do as much writing and, and get like freelancers and, and folks to do that. Like, you know, it's, it's commoditized, unfortunately, k- like writing at this stage.
• 22:50
  Um, but there are like, there's some great subject matter experts out there who are like, you know...
• 22:55
  And it's pretty economical to get them to, to write posts versus like, you know, the rate I charge for, uh, for, for consulting. It doesn't necessarily make sense for me to be producing content for the clients. For sure.
• 23:04
  For sure. Do you enjoy it? Yeah. I mean, I find that I miss writing quite a bit, actually. Yeah, I do actually. Uh, uh, the thing about writing is it, it's a bit like running or something.
• 23:11
  I know you're a keen runner, but like, you kinda have to do it regularly. Yeah. And then, you know, if you haven't done it for a while and you go back and you try to write something, it just...
• 23:19
  Like, you're like, "Why is this taking me, like, three hours? I should've been able to do this in, like, an hour." Whereas, you know, when you're doing it regularly, you know.
• 23:25
  So I try to do, like, try and do some writing every week at least just 'cause I don't wanna lose that muscle entirely. Yeah. That's cool. I should do that. And you're so right about the running thing.
• 23:34
  Like, I do really enjoy running. I run probably every day, six days a week probably.
• 23:39
  And I was just talking to a friend recently and she said, you know, "I went out for a run, and I ran for, you know, 15, 20 minutes and I hated it." And I was like, "Oh, well, there's your problem.
• 23:47
  [chuckles] You have to go way longer." [chuckles] "And then you should do it every day, and then you'll, you'll eventually really like it."
• 23:51
  [chuckles] Um- The other thing is, well, everyone, everyone hates it at some point. It doesn't matter- Yeah. [chuckles] It doesn't matter how good you are, you know, what you've done before. Yeah. Totally.
• 24:00
  Do you have a website? Can we point people to a website? I have a pretty basic website, but like johncollins.cc- Okay...
• 24:06
  has all the, the contact points, so I think that's a good place to catch up and just, yeah, get in, get in touch.
• 24:11
  And yeah, as I say, I'm always sort of, obviously within reason, but I'm pretty open to chat to folks, um, about this kind of stuff. So yeah. Cool. Get in touch. All right. We'll, we'll link to that in show notes.
• 24:21
  We'll put your LinkedIn profile in there too, so people can take a look.
• 24:25
  You've been posting some interesting stuff, I, which I assume is from clients, like sharing content they've done, and I found, I found some good stuff in there when I was browsing through your posts. Invariably, yeah.
• 24:34
  Yeah. A lot of the, lot, a lot of the stuff are, is, is, is from clients or, or companies where I have investments. I'm doing a bit of angel investing as well. So yeah. Nice. It's, it's a mixed bag. Yeah.
• 24:43
  Well, very cool. Well, we'll link to those. I'll actually, I'll try to grab links to Intercom, Offscript, Tomiko's. Tomiko, is that the company? Their report- Tomiko, yeah. Yeah. He- The big VC. Ravio, R-A-V-I-O.
• 24:54
  Check out what they're doing on the content side. They're, they're great. Did some consulting with them early on. What else did we mention? I think they were, they were the main ones, right? I think so, yeah.
• 25:01
  We'll put links. I mean, I think it's cool for people to go, like go, go check it out, get some inspiration from that. Yeah. Um- Great... thank you, John.
• 25:06
  You've been very generous with your time today and for many years, actually, you know. I've learned a lot from you. I know a lot of other folks have too, so we really appreciate you taking the time to chat.
• 25:16
  Thanks, Jimmy. Appreciate that. Take care, John. [outro music]