Latest / Content, Briefly / The common pitfalls of LinkedIn ghostwriting (and how to overcome them)

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The common pitfalls of LinkedIn ghostwriting (and how to overcome them) · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
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• 1:09
  That's SUPERPATH30 at venngage.com. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Hey, everyone, Alex here. And today Ruth, Rachel, and I talk about LinkedIn ghostwriting.
• 1:20
  So my relationship with ghostwriting is about the same as my relationship with horseradish. I've tried it in several different contexts, but ultimately decided it was not for me.
• 1:29
  Luckily, for the sake of this conversation, Ruth and Rachel feel differently. Still, for most folks, there's a number of common challenges that pop up. Execs wanna see results quickly.
• 1:37
  It's tough to develop a process that yields recurring interesting insights, and the ever-changing whims of the algorithm is tough to communicate.
• 1:44
  In this conversation, Ruth, Rachel, and I go deep on just how complex and nuanced their ghostwriting relationship needs to be, how tactical you can get, what your goals should be, and how to establish an authentic, vulnerable voice for someone who isn't you.
• 1:57
  Hope you enjoy the conversation. What's your experience been with ghostwriting?
• 2:02
  I've been the ghostwriter for the executive team when we've had to start, like, executive thought leadership, and we've been very bullish on, "Okay, we're gonna get this message out."
• 2:12
  But then I've also been the person who's like, "Yo, this is like an entire person's job." Mm-hmm. "So I'm gonna go hire a ghostwriter.
• 2:20
  [laughs] I'm gonna go hire an actual ghostwriter or a strategist to help me figure out how to do this more efficiently, and then I'm gonna go hire an intern to be my content manager because this is an entire job."
• 2:34
  Yeah, totally. I have always been the ghostwriter. I have ghostwritten for executives and CEOs at brands that I was already freelancing with. I have ghostwritten for individual startup founders.
• 2:52
  I've ghostwritten for individuals, other freelancers. So kind of spanning the board in terms of who. But I feel like I'm always the, always the ghost.
• 3:03
  I have ghostwritten internally for a CEO, ghostwritten externally for a startup CEO. I've also hired a ghostwriter internally for our CEO, not for me.
• 3:15
  And then I guess also relevant, when I had my own startup, we kind of built a presence around my co-founder, who was the CEO, and I helped him, but he...
• 3:24
  It was, like, more him-led, and I, I helped with editing more than anything. So I feel like I've got a few different angles into it. I will say, I don't like ghostwriting. I'm out. I don't wanna do it again.
• 3:34
  [laughs] I'm sure it works for some people. I feel like my co-founder one was the only one that worked well. And, um, I will say, I think it also depends on the format, and I'm curious the- Mm...
• 3:45
  formats that y'all were working in. But, like, mine was always, like, social, LinkedIn-driven. You can imagine that kind of thing.
• 3:51
  I'd imagine it's a lot easier if you're, like, ghostwriting a, a blog post or something like that that's like, all we have to do is craft a really good one that has a u- a specific voice that reflects this person.
• 4:00
  But the constant need to, like, post on this platform in a very specific way that's got a hook.
• 4:06
  Also, is this person actually gonna do the things required to do well on this platform, which is like, go comment on other people's posts? Mm-hmm. I just struggled... I struggled getting the process down.
• 4:16
  I struggled with getting the, using the 20 minutes of time I would have with them, like, once every two weeks to actually get- Mm-hmm... the most interesting stuff out of them.
• 4:25
  And, and I think there's people that are a lot better at that, but I'm out. [laughs] I can't do it again. [laughs] Honestly, I think that's fair.
• 4:33
  I've had such an up-and-down relationship with ghostwriting, and I think, in my opinion, there's a couple of, like, critical break points.
• 4:42
  And a big one is, like, actually sitting down with the person and getting good stuff out of them. My minimum is an hour a month now, and I prefer all of that time to happen together because- Mm-hmm...
• 4:54
  I feel like, you guys probably feel this, even, like, when we sit down to record a podcast or when we're having a meeting together about something, the first five, 10 minutes, you're really just getting warmed up.
• 5:06
  Like, you're getting into the conversation. You're getting your feet under you. You're all getting on the same page.
• 5:12
  So if you're only meeting with them 20 minutes or half an hour, whatever, every few weeks, half of that time is just kind of trying to get into it.
• 5:22
  And then right as you're about to get to the good stuff, it's like, oh, time's up. That's a hill I will absolutely die on if I'm ghostwriting for someone.
• 5:29
  You just need time to be able to get into stuff and get past that surface. That's so funny, Alex. I was actually gonna ask, what do you guys prefer?
• 5:38
  Do you like being the ghostwriter, or do you li- [laughs] or do you like working with a ghostwriter?
• 5:42
  To your point, Alex, that's exactly why I ended up having to hire someone full time to, to, to do the, to do the entire executive presence because, yes, I could do it as part of my role as a marketing manager, as a content manager, but that's just one piece of the content puzzle.
• 6:01
  And It's one piece of your content system, of your content strategy, like who's gonna do the rest of it?
• 6:09
  If you're like trying to do that as part of some kind of like out, like some kind of LinkedIn connection strategy to get leads or to build your network, who's replying to the messages? Who is doing the connecting?
• 6:26
  Who is following up on all those messages? 'Cause you know your CEO isn't. [laughs] Right. Right? He's very busy. And you gotta, and you gotta keep that voice alive.
• 6:35
  Like you can't like, you gotta really build a good process where you trust that you've got the right voice.
• 6:40
  'Cause it's like, "Hey, I need to comment on this right now or it's not gonna have the impact, and like I don't have time to go check with that person of like what they would actually say to this." [laughs] Yeah.
• 6:49
  Exactly, especially with the algorithm algorithming these days, and everyone's like, "Oh yeah, you need to comment on your post, and then as soon as people comment, reply back to them, and if you don't reply back to them as soon as possible, it messes things up."
• 7:05
  But then you're seeing things three weeks later. I saw somebody on my feed recently say that they got a reaction to a post they posted two years ago. What is the algorithm doing?
• 7:15
  But like- That means that person was stalking you on LinkedIn, but [laughs] I digress. But there are tools today where like
• 7:24
  there are platforms where you can create your content and then repost it and put it on LinkedIn, and then actually do an entire flow to connect with someone and try to post comments and that kind of thing.
• 7:36
  It still requires someone in there doing it, and somebody in there thinking of, "Okay, what am I gonna post today?
• 7:45
  What are, what is gonna be the leading message here, and what is fueling this conversation and the actual posts that we're putting here?" So yeah, you need to have those sit downs.
• 7:56
  Building out the cadence is so hard because executives are so busy, and their time is expensive to say the least. [laughs] Yeah.
• 8:04
  I mean, the other thing with that is like, especially on social posts, is getting the value out of that time, and I think the expectation. E- every time, you know, I've
• 8:15
  successfully done this for myself in the past, but like it just requires so much experimentation and such a longterm mindset on like, "Hey, I'm gonna try a bunch of stuff out.
• 8:24
  A bunch of it's gonna flop, but we're gonna land on some format that sticks that's gonna be the thing that drives growth here." And then you just like then hit it. But there's not a lot of patience.
• 8:35
  The results are just right in front of you in a way that if you're making like a product launch announcement post for a CEO, it's like it just needs to look good.
• 8:44
  It needs to go out, and it needs to be part of this bigger package here.
• 8:47
  But when you're using their time for something that's got a clear like I want lead gen, I want followers, something like that, it's just so hard to show the value quickly. Mm-hmm.
• 8:57
  I, I just remember, you know, and across multiple contexts just like, okay, we had one post that hit, but then the next post and the next post didn't hit, and they're like, "I thought we would've grown on that."
• 9:07
  And it's like sometimes they just hit and sometimes they don't, and it's like this whole operation together, um, that's just a very hard thing to communicate, especially when you are dealing with somebody whose time is, is worth that much.
• 9:20
  Yeah. You need the right kind of person to have a good ghostwriter relationship with them.
• 9:25
  Like, I do think a big part of it is personality, and I think part of what makes that process work, what you're saying, Ruth, and what you're saying, Alex, is you have to have trust between those two people.
• 9:36
  Whether the trust is for commenting or responding to something in a timely manner or getting stuff out every day or knowing how to frame the point of view or being willing to experiment and have some things flop, all of that comes down to like the person who's getting the ghostwriting really has to trust the person doing it for them and trust the process, and that is the hardest piece.
• 10:04
  If you have that, then I think it can work. But if you don't have that, I do think it will fall apart nine times out of 10. I think that's right.
• 10:11
  Okay, the thing that I struggle with is trusting the process, and this kind of comes- Mm... back to a broader thing that we talk about a lot, where it's like looking back to content strategies in the past decade. Mm-hmm.
• 10:20
  It's the same thing about like starting a blog, like a B2B blog- Yeah... from scratch, right? It takes nine plus months to start to deliver value.
• 10:28
  Kind of have to trust the process there and be like, "Hey, we're gonna write all this stuff. People aren't gonna come to the website, but eventually it's gonna build."
• 10:34
  And I think what worked about that is there was a, a template and a process, and somebody could show up and say, "I've done this at two other companies. Here's how it works.
• 10:43
  It's tweaked a little bit over time, but this is, if we do this and if you trust this, here's what you'll see at month ni- nine, and here's what you'll see at month 18."
• 10:51
  And you can kind of deliver on that if, if you're good at the job. That's not the case for LinkedIn. The algorithm's constantly changing.
• 11:00
  I've talked about this a lot, but the thing that I used to build my own LinkedIn following three years ago would not work at all now.
• 11:07
  Uh, you know, I'm gonna start posting on LinkedIn more, but I'm coming up with an entirely different strategy because the algorithm's changed so much.
• 11:14
  I think that another hard thing as a ghostwriter is like you're constantly reinventing the process when the process is built around an ever-changing algorithm.
• 11:22
  And so how can you instill trust in your CEO when you can't just repeat what you've done elsewhere?
• 11:28
  Maybe that's like the case that we're making here for somebody that's working across 12 different clients at the same time, and so they can say, "Hey, this is working right now for, um, my other CEOs."
• 11:38
  But I had a hard time with that. Yeah. Yeah. In my experience, it has really just been continuing to emphasize the value or trying to connect the, trying to connect content to leads [laughs]
• 11:53
  essentially, um, because that's how closely I work with the CEO. Like proving the ROI right away basically. Exactly, proving the ROI right away from us. And for LinkedIn, it's always been-
• 12:03
  Okay, well, who's looking at our stuff? And do they matter? And are they in our ICP, and are our followers the right followers, and are we growing in the right way, and all the good stuff, right?
• 12:17
  Which some people might think are vanity metrics, but I, in my opinion, when they are individual profiles, I think they're valuable.
• 12:26
  But Rachel, I mean, I'm curious how you've gone about it as someone who is actually ghostwriting. Is that something that you deal with?
• 12:34
  I think I mean process a little bit more like loosey-goosey when it comes to LinkedIn ghostwriting. I've also done ghostwriting for things like interviews.
• 12:44
  Like so- so-and-so wants to interview the CEO, and they send over a list of questions, and then I write all the a- like, I've done that too, and that's pretty easy.
• 12:51
  I think when it comes to something that has an algorithm, what I mean by the process is, like, things change. You have to experiment. You have to be okay with flops.
• 13:01
  You have to be willing to try, like, 10 different formats or try the same piece of content with five different hooks spread out over time.
• 13:08
  Like, it works best when, when I can have a working relationship with someone who understands that that is the process of building a LinkedIn following or building a following on, on whatever kind of personal branding site that you're doing.
• 13:24
  And I think to Alex's point, like, regardless of the exact strategy that you're using, the process of building a personal brand is still relatively similar.
• 13:37
  You help people have relationship with you or parasocial relationship. You show things that you're working on.
• 13:42
  How you're going to do that looks different based on what you're building or what platform you're on, but if somebody can trust that all of that experimenting and trying different things will pay off exponentially in six months from now, of course it will work, you know?
• 14:00
  [laughs] And I honestly think a big part of it comes down to, like, people are really scared of, like, looking dumb or being cringe or something not working right away meaning that they're dumb or that they're failing or wasting their money.
• 14:14
  That's obviously not true, but I think that fear holds back a lot of people from being able to, like, get where they wanna be with their personal branding, whether they have a ghostwriter or not.
• 14:27
  That really went off the deep end, but I, like, I think that's underneath all of this. No, I get it. I, I feel like you have to work with someone who just understands that content marketing is not a one-trick pony.
• 14:40
  [laughs] Right? You, you have to be willing to have your worst post be the one that goes viral and, you know, that kinda thing because that's typically what happens. You just can't control it half the time- Yeah...
• 14:53
  um, no matter what you do.
• 14:55
  Another thing I have run into a lot, and I think this also tracks back to people are scared, is that the qualities that I look for is someone who's vulnerable, curious, and willing to experiment.
• 15:07
  Something that kills a ghostwriting relationship so fast is if I write the posts, and then that person immediately comes in, and this happened before AI by the way, and, like, takes all the human out of it and makes them, like, super sanitized, corporate, polished.
• 15:23
  I can tell people, "Hey, just as a heads-up, this isn't gonna perform well."
• 15:27
  But if they're convinced that that's the persona that they need to present, maybe because that's what they've been taught or that's what they do when they're raising VC funds, that's another piece of trusting the process, too, is trusting that your ghostwriter knows what platforms they're writing for and knows what you need to bring to those.
• 15:45
  The person also has to be willing to bring those things into the relationship and, and to the platform. You can't beat the system. You gotta work with the system. I was gonna touch on vulnerability, too.
• 15:56
  Did you feel comfortable writing somebody's personal vulnerability and, like, finding the sweet spot around that? Just finding the spot where it's not, like, fake vulnerability, but it's coming from an- Mm-hmm.
• 16:06
  Like, that was the thing- Mm-hmm... that I found the hardest to be authentic about without coming from their words directly. But I'm curious your experience with that. I kind of thought of it like journalism.
• 16:19
  You're interviewing people, and you're telling other people's stories. I don't see it as inauthentic as long as my goal is to represent their story in the most honest and careful, like, with care, light that I can.
• 16:37
  And I think my best compliment is if somebody reads something and is like, "Wow, those are exactly the words that I've been searching for." I really enjoy that piece of it.
• 16:47
  But I could also understand someone else being like, "Uh, I don't wanna, I don't wanna put words in your mouth." What's your experience been of that, Ruth?
• 16:55
  I've just worked with people who have been so hesitant to say anything personal because they have been so bullish on building their company for the past X number of years that when it comes to talking about themselves, it's like, "We're growing the company.
• 17:13
  This isn't about me." And it's like, "Yes, but it's kinda late, and no one knows anything about you. We need to grow your personal account, so, like, trust me," right?
• 17:24
  And then you create content for them, and you send it to them, and they're like, "No, I don't wanna do that post." But it's like, "This is literally from a conversation that you and I had." [laughs] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 17:36
  And it's like, okay, great, so ultimately I'm just not gonna be able to create content for this one executive because there's nothing here.
• 17:45
  I would literally be publishing the exact same content I would be publishing from the brand page Yep And where's the value in that? [laughs] Yeah. I've run in... I mean, I've been on both sides.
• 17:55
  I worked with a founder once who was amazing to work with. She would tell awesome stories. I would be like, "Oh, let's like weave this story you told me- Mm-hmm... into this thing in your business."
• 18:05
  And she'd be like, "Cool, if you think it will work, go for it." And I've also been on the other side, too.
• 18:10
  I will say that being vulnerable and telling stories for your personal brand does not have to mean, like, spilling all your life online. What kinds of stories are you comfortable telling?
• 18:23
  Do you wanna tell stories about how you work? Do you wanna tell stories about your family? If you're a parent, do you wanna tell stories about your kids? Is that off limits?
• 18:30
  There's all of these different kinds of buckets we can pull from. Giving people a list upfront, like, which of these areas of your life are you comfortable talking about online and making part of your personal brand?
• 18:41
  Like, I never talk about my family online. I think people might have a hard time figuring out what my family even looks like, and that's my preference. But- Mm-hmm... that's fine.
• 18:51
  There's lots of other stories I can tell, and things from my life that I can draw from. It doesn't have to be that bucket.
• 18:57
  So I always give that example to clients that I work with, too, and I find sometimes that just puts people at ease to know, oh, there are things I don't have to put on the internet. But with that being said- Yeah.
• 19:09
  [laughs]... you do have to pick from some bucket or else your- Yeah... your content's just gonna be a bag of stale chips, and no one wants that.
• 19:15
  I feel like people think that to create a brand means that you have to become some kind of social influencer that is oversharing online, when- Yes...
• 19:25
  all it really means is that you're just talking more online about your work, and what you're doing, and what you're thinking, what you're building at work, and how you are thinking about the industry you work in.
• 19:39
  Your, your peers care about your thoughts. And when you are building a company in a very valuable space, people care, and they wanna hear about how it's going. They wanna hear about what the experience has been like.
• 19:54
  They wanna hear about how overall things have been impacting you and your team. Talk about those things. That's where you could find a vulnerability or two.
• 20:03
  Yeah, let me be real with you about how this has been going for us. It doesn't mean you have to, like, tell me about your grandmother, [laughs] you know? Totally. Cosign all of that 100%.
• 20:16
  [laughs] People think that being vulnerable online means they need to post, like, CEO crying selfies. My gosh. And I feel like- Yeah... please do not. Please do not. Can actually delete that please. No more of that.
• 20:29
  No more of that. [laughs] Honestly, being vulnerable online is like, "I'm trying this new thing. I'm gonna try it for three weeks, and I'm gonna see what happens." That's it.
• 20:39
  Like, "I, I tried this thing and it didn't work. Here's what I learned from it." That's being vulnerable online. "I used to do something this way, and then I learned this thing, and now I do it this other way."
• 20:51
  That's being vulnerable online. Of course you run into people who only wanna talk about their successes and things that went well, but it's, it's actually counterproductive.
• 21:01
  Alex, would you ever let somebody ghostwrite for you? Oh my God. Would you ever hire a ghostwriter for your own personal brand? Good question. I'd be curious. [laughs] Nope. Curious in what way?
• 21:17
  Like, curious to kinda test them out to see if they could do it, or curious, like, how it would impact your brand?
• 21:23
  You know why I'd be curious is that I, I feel like I'm, I'm right now you're catching me in the, like, I'm, like I mentioned, probably ramping back up, um, more posting on, on LinkedIn, and I'm, like, trying to find my voice.
• 21:36
  And what I'd be curious about is, like, to have a person come in that thinks about this a lot- Yeah... and be like, "Okay, here's your voice. Here's your unique angle." Um, I think in the long run, no.
• 21:46
  The compelling thing is the comments. Man, when I... I, I hate on LinkedIn how it's like I spend 45 minutes crafting a post, and I post it, and then I'm like, "Great, I can get on to the next thing."
• 21:57
  Except I can't, because I gotta spend the next hour [laughs] waiting for comments, and being really fast, fast follow replies to those comments. [laughs] Except it's not an hour.
• 22:05
  It's all day long, and then you're like, "Okay." Yeah. "Now can I rank up the impressions now?" And then I'm like, "Well, what did I do today?" Oh. [laughs] Well, I was all over my own LinkedIn posts. [laughs] Okay. Wow.
• 22:17
  I... So this is my LinkedIn process for myself in terms of, like, posting. I batch write posts, obviously, because I'm a good little content marketer. [laughs] Um, just kidding.
• 22:27
  If you write your posts one-off, you can still be a great content marketer. That's purely a joke. But I batch write posts. I comment on other people's posts for 10 minutes, then I post my own post. Mm-hmm.
• 22:39
  Then I comment on other people's posts for 10 minutes, and then I just get on with my day. Maybe I'm just not popular enough to have people commenting in the first 10 minutes of posting something.
• 22:49
  But I just go back on LinkedIn. This is embarrassing to admit. When I finish a task, it's kinda my reward. Mm-hmm. Like, I go on LinkedIn and get a dopamine hit of like, ooh, people commented. And then I just respond.
• 23:01
  And so yeah, sometimes they sit there for three, four hours before I get to them, and business is fine, [laughs] so I think that it's okay. Well, okay, for me it depends on the type of post that I'm posting.
• 23:13
  For example, for the past three years, I would be posting a little work anniversary post, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, everybody look at my job."
• 23:21
  And I was sending it to my mom, I was sending it to my friends, and you comment on it, I'm commenting back. Yes, let's get the engagement.
• 23:30
  But, like, I'm not gonna sit there and monitor a post that's like a company repost, you know? Totally. Yeah. Totally. Like, [laughs]
• 23:37
  or if I'm just, like, thinking about, honestly, if I'm promoting something that I'm in, I'm not gonna monitor the post. [laughs] Just run away as fast as you can. Exactly. I did the post. I did it. It's live.
• 23:49
  Everyone, nobody look. [laughs] Yep. That's totally a valid strategy, too Um, but yeah, I will still though comment before and after.
• 24:00
  I'm totally willing to be wrong about this, but I think the main thing is responding to comments within a day or two. Mm-hmm. I see people who have a post that has like 30 comments, and they don't respond to any of them.
• 24:11
  I'm like, "What are you doing?" Yep. You gotta, you gotta have even numbers of comments. Yes. If you don't have an even number of comments, you're not doing your job. But I don't think you have to be fast. No.
• 24:21
  I think you can batch respond to comments, too. Do you reply to everyone in your comments? If I think that somebody wrote me an AI bot comment, I might respond, but I also might just thumbs up it.
• 24:35
  I'm not gonna respond to your AI generated comments, [laughs] sorry. But yes, I do try to respond to every comment. Alex, have you noticed an uptick in like AI comments on any of the Superpath content that you post? No.
• 24:47
  On the Superpath page? Uh, well, I don't post a lot from the Superpath page, to be honest. That's, that's- Well, from your content? [laughs] Um, I don't... I see a lot on other people's. I don't have a lot on mine.
• 25:00
  I don't know, I, again, ramping up LinkedIn posting again, like it's been after- Yes... kind of like not doing it. The more you post, the more AI generated comments you'll see. Yeah. True. I buy that.
• 25:10
  I mean, I see them all over LinkedIn, just not- Yeah... specifically on my stuff yet. I've also- That's, that's how I know that I've got my operation down now. I'm like, okay- Yeah... great, we're rolling.
• 25:19
  [laughs] The AI- [laughs]... AI slap is coming into the comments. It's showing up places. [laughs] Right. You know that you're making it. Yeah, that's how you know you've made it.
• 25:27
  When I start writing with companies that are primarily AI companies- Mm-hmm... the amount of AI generated inbound and comments that I get on LinkedIn skyrockets if I add that to the profile.
• 25:42
  Okay, to wrap this up into, uh, takeaways, what would you recommend to somebody who is trying to get a LinkedIn ghostwriting practice either, let's say, let's say in-house. Like, I'm, I'm tasked with doing this.
• 25:58
  What are you looking for? Uh, how do you set the boundaries to, like, set yourself up for success? And then where are your, like, red flags of like, "Hey, this might not be the right thing for us"?
• 26:08
  Get an honest assessment of the CEO or the executive or whoever's getting the ghostwriting, and figure out what they are actually willing to do. Are they willing to monitor comments? Are they willing to pass that off?
• 26:22
  You can tell them, like, you can say yes or no, like it's not good or bad, but just try to get an honest assessment. Mm-hmm. And then
• 26:31
  bring that to your ghostwriters, and be like, "What would be your process of working with someone who wants to do XYZ?" And see how they respond. Um, it's gonna be different for everyone.
• 26:42
  You'll see some ghostwriters be like, "Oh, um, well, uh, that's not gonna be a good fit." And others will be like, "Oh yeah, I work with that kind of process all the time."
• 26:53
  Doesn't mean those are good and bad ghostwriters, it's just there's just some people that are going to be a good fit for you and your needs and your process and what your CEO or whoever needs, and there's others that that process isn't going to work for them.
• 27:06
  So takeaways, be honest about what needs you have, and then bring those honestly to the ghostwriters you talk to, and figure out who is going to have a process that works with those needs.
• 27:18
  I would also add to evaluate why you guys are trying to go down the ghostwriting path. Yeah. What is the goal of growing the executive's presence on socials? Is it for brand awareness?
• 27:33
  Is it to drive people to your website? Is it to grow your sales team's networks? Is it to get people to your LinkedIn page? Are you trying to grow a newsletter? What are you doing?
• 27:46
  And is that something that you can align with whoever you end up hiring to do the job, or whoever you or however you choose to do it internally?
• 27:55
  I would also add too, align on like do you understand how you are going to get there? If you're going to outsource it, is that writer going to know how to work backwards to get there?
• 28:08
  If you work in an industry that may require some kind of like subject matter expertise, I've had to go down the path of working with some kind of strategist who knows the industry, who has a background, some kind of background in or adjacent to what I'm working in.
• 28:29
  Um, I used to work in weather, and I worked with a weather- with a ghostwriter who had a climate background. She was amazing.
• 28:38
  She like taught me so much about just writing, and then was like, "Oh yeah, you can like put this kind of spin on this," and I was like, oh my goodness.
• 28:46
  I would follow you any- anywhere, and, and I don't care if you don't write about climate. [laughs] Like, you know? But it was because she understood how the sales cycle worked and all this stuff.
• 28:57
  So evaluate why you're doing something, and if that's not something you're capable of doing, then when you're outsourcing it, ensure that who you're going to work with aligns with the industry that you're working through.
• 29:09
  Depending on what your why is, there's actually very few whys that require the executive or the CEO to be the one that's building the brand. In a lot of cases- Yeah...
• 29:21
  it may be more effective and way easier to have someone else in the company, whether that's a group of employees or a group of managers or like the VPs of different departments that have a little bit more leeway in their schedule, a little bit less like eyes on them, they might feel more comfortable being vulnerable, that you can work on a program with to accomplish some of those goals.
• 29:45
  It doesn't just have to be the CEO or some high up executive. Yeah, that's super true, and I think back to your comment earlier of I'm on LinkedIn in between meetings, and that's my rule of thumb.
• 29:57
  Get somebody who defaults to like I have five minutes, I'm gonna be on LinkedIn, because I just [laughs] I buy that you're- Yeah...
• 30:04
  if you get a high enough up person of the company who is default on LinkedIn and in those conversations, you're gonna have a lot more success than forcing somebody who doesn't really naturally fall into those conversations to try to fit some kind of mold that they're not.
• 30:18
  I think that's probably a good place to end it. Rachel and Ruth- Yeah... thanks for joining me today. Absolutely. So good to be chatting with you guys. Yeah, it was fun. Thanks, guys. [outro music]