Latest / Content, Briefly / Some Good Content: John Bonini on building a great content brand

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Some Good Content: John Bonini on building a great content brand · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
  Built the framework around is your own personal experiences, observations, and points of view, as well as those of your audience. So those are two separate sides. So I call it original thinking and original research.
• 0:11
  Research can be this right here, what we're doing.
• 0:13
  You're interviewing me, this is research that you could extract a bunch of raw material from this podcast, turn it into three blog posts, turn it into six LinkedIn posts, turn it into one edition of your newsletter.
• 0:25
  And I don't mean transcribing and pasting.
• 0:28
  I mean taking one idea that we talked about, sprinkling in some of the quotes, but then using that to sort of create a separate discussion or e-expand deeper on that idea, right?
• 0:39
  [upbeat music] Hey, and thanks so much for tuning in to Content Briefly. I don't even know how to summarize today's conversation because Jon Benigni and I covered a lot of ground.
• 0:49
  We talked about his very early days of podcasting way back in twenty fifteen. We talked about his in-house work at Litmus and Databox.
• 0:57
  We talk about his side project, Some Good Content, which has now become his full-time gig. We talk about what he's hearing from his consulting clients, why and what goes into writing his newsletter.
• 1:07
  Also, why you should subscribe to it, which you definitely should, because it's quite good. Anyways, Jon's been in the game a long time.
• 1:14
  He's contributed a lot of wonderful knowledge and experience to the content marketing industry. He's helped out a ton of people. I have mad respect for Jon.
• 1:21
  As always, I really enjoyed this episode, and I hope you do too. Maybe as part of an introduction to folks who don't know you or kinda know your full history, like what were you doing in twenty fifteen?
• 1:29
  What prompted you to start a podcast? Yeah. You know, like this is way, way, way before everybody had a podcast.
• 1:35
  Yeah, it was, it was basically like brands, HubSpot and folks like that started to do it, and then like massive influencers, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vee, and then guys like me, you know, Dave Gerhardt had a podcast.
• 1:46
  And I was working in-house for an agency at the time, like right around when I started it, and then like ten or so-- like when that episode came out, July sixth, I was running growth at Litmus.
• 1:57
  So right around the time, like the first ten or so episodes, I actually changed jobs. But I was working in-house at an agency when I first started.
• 2:03
  And honestly, the reason why I started the podcast was I was just looking to connect with people who I admired and people that I thought were really smart and, you know, years ahead of me in the game.
• 2:13
  And if I-- like having a podcast was a good excuse to get them to come and hang out with me. And so I was just kinda like fascinated with the medium 'cause like blogging had been the thing for so long.
• 2:26
  Video was still like the barrier to create video, I think, was still really high around that time. Like, you know, again, this is twenty fifteen. The iPhones have come a long way in terms of video.
• 2:35
  Like equipment has gotten cheaper. There's a lot more- It was Riverside back then... tools and software. Yeah. [chuckles] Right. There was no Loom, right? Everything was, was more difficult.
• 2:43
  So when the audio piece became more accessible, I was just fascinated by it, and I just was like, "Hmm, like maybe I can connect with a lot of people that I admire and, and have conversations that I wanna have, and if I wanna have them, maybe other people would wanna listen, and they could kinda be a fly on the wall type of thing."
• 3:01
  And I wasn't coming at it from like a monetization standpoint. In fact, I look back and think like how dumb was I because I was getting...
• 3:08
  At one point I was number eight on the business charts on iTunes, which you can't even sniff now. That's wild. That's so cool. And Inc. Magazine like wrote an article, Top Marketing Podcasts You Should Follow.
• 3:19
  Louder Than Words was on there. Whoa. And if I was thinking in terms of like, "Oh, let me get sponsors," and I just wasn't... Again, it was early, right?
• 3:26
  I mean, people weren't doing this besides, you know, the bigger folks. So I, I just, I wasn't coming at it from a monetization standpoint trying to make money. It was as pure of a motivation as you could have.
• 3:36
  Like I just wanted to have conversations with people I found interesting and use it to create like good content. That was, that was really it. That's so cool. That's so cool.
• 3:46
  You know, I just saw in Dave Gerhardt's Exit Five newsletter this morning, he was talking about like if your employees are building personal brands, let them. Yeah. It's kinda like the gist of it. Yeah.
• 3:55
  Was there any tension back then? Like you're working in-house as a marketer, you're doing this on the side, sort of building a personal brand, although maybe we didn't think of it like that back then.
• 4:04
  Was there any tension between those two things? Some. I think it was-- I think the lines can get blurred, right? Especially because the podcast wasn't through any of my employers, right?
• 4:15
  So it's different like if I was hosting a podcast for the brand versus myself, and then I'm promoting. So the lines are sorta blurred there, right?
• 4:24
  Because traditionally, you know, I, I think before the last ten years, right, like you created work for your employer, and that was kinda it.
• 4:33
  But then, uh, this whole creator movement started to happen, and now it's people are creating on the side. They have their own newsletters, which I think is smart.
• 4:42
  Even if you never plan to go solo or the self-employed route, it's just a good way to never have to apply for a job again, right? Build an audience, become known for- Yeah... a specific expertise.
• 4:54
  So yeah, I think there was definitely times where I think there was conversations that happened because of it early on. It was early days.
• 5:01
  I will say that when I got to Databox, there wasn't because, you know, our, our CEO there, he got it, right?
• 5:07
  And I, and I think he saw the, the value and benefit of having somebody who's very public with sharing their expertise, and they generate a following and, right?
• 5:16
  So I, I think he got it, just in-inherently kinda understood it. CEO of Databox was a former VP at HubSpot Inbound, so like he got it, right? He understood- Yeah, yeah...
• 5:25
  the benefit of attracting people to you and what that could do for the brand.
• 5:29
  But yeah, I think times are different now, where I would hope brands and companies are more understanding and see the sort of ancillary benefit. Like I remember recently, like somebody commented on a post.
• 5:41
  I think it, it was about Databox. I don't remember who posted it, if it was Pete Caputo or me or Jeremiah at Databox.
• 5:46
  But somebody commented and was like, "Yeah, the whole reason I knew who Databox was was just from following Jon on LinkedIn, and then I ended up checking it out."
• 5:53
  And, and so like for every one person that says that, there's probably a lot more, right?
• 5:59
  And I think that-It's hard to measure the benefit of it, and I think what most brands maybe look at is, like, they're out here talking about things other than our company and our product. Yeah, yeah.
• 6:08
  And like, yeah, but they're building up trust and authority. You can't buy that, right? And so I think it should be encouraged. I just think brands also think about it the wrong way.
• 6:17
  They're like, "Oh, we're trying to create in-house creators." Talking about your product and service all day is not gonna do that. Does not work. Yeah. You have to let them... Yeah, it's, it's a whole thing.
• 6:26
  But yeah, I mean, to answer your original question, I think there was some tension only because just the lines were blurred between, like, this thing is not ours, it's yours, and you're talking about it on...
• 6:35
  Yeah, like, people are gonna think you don't work here, and, uh, yeah, it's... Yeah, that, that con- that conversation came up certainly over the years. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting how all that has evolved.
• 6:44
  And I feel like the creator thing now has this new layer of monetization, which is, I think for some people actually the focus. Yeah. That's where I think it starts to get confusing. That's sort of a whole nother thing.
• 6:55
  I wanna maybe just catch people up to speed on all the other things that have happened since July 6th, 2015. [laughs] Like, what... [laughs] You know, you were at Litmus, you were at Databox.
• 7:04
  I might be missing one in there, and then now you've gone off on your own to run- Yeah... some good content. Could you just, like, kinda fill in, uh, nine years, obviously, like a lot of- Yeah, yeah. [laughs]...
• 7:14
  lot of space there. But, like, could you give us a summary of, of what's gone on in that almost decade? All right.
• 7:18
  Yeah, so starting with July 7th, 2015 now, um- [laughs] Yeah, so like I said, I shortly around the time... So I, funny enough, I had Justine Jordan, who ran marketing at Litmus, on Louder Than Words, the podcast.
• 7:30
  In fact, we can see, like, ex- around the time where I might've gotten hired, because I had her on, and Justine was episode four. So that was April of 2015.
• 7:40
  So I had Justine, who ran marketing at Litmus, on the podcast, and about a month later, she reached out to me and said, "Hey, like, we're having internal conversations. You know, we've been mostly bootstrapped.
• 7:51
  We haven't really focused on optimization and stuff over the years.
• 7:54
  We've kind of just done content and published what we thought was right, and it's allowed us to grow to where we're at, but we wanna have a more deliberate approach.
• 8:02
  Would you be interested in talking about a growth role here?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, absolutely." And so, you know, I went up to Boston a few times. I spoke at Unbounce's conversion conference up there.
• 8:12
  They came and supported me and, and watched. And we had dinner together, and that ended up turning into a role at Litmus, and I ran growth there for a little over two years.
• 8:22
  Right after I joined, they raised 50 million of private equity, so that'll get you thrown right into the growth sort of, you know, pool and, and mindset very quickly.
• 8:30
  And that was just an invaluable experience, just going from the agency world into the SAS space, raising money, presenting to the board, you know, having to tie everything back, you know, as best as you could in terms of attribution.
• 8:43
  And that was really like a-- I felt like an MBA, honestly. Just because, again, we raised money really quickly. We'd have quarterly board or monthly board meetings.
• 8:54
  I was called into some of them at times 'cause I ran growth, and so I'd present numbers to the board, I'd answer questions, and just, you know, that back and forth and having to experience that, I think was invaluable just for the rest of my career.
• 9:05
  That's pretty cool. Really different to, like, come up with a marketing campaign, run it- Right... you know, but then have to go and report to a board. And the question, yeah- Like, that feels very intimidating...
• 9:13
  it's, it's very intimidating. I remember, like, you know, being in my, you know, 'cause I'm, I live in Connecticut, so I would drive up.
• 9:20
  And I, you know, I, I was, like, getting off the exit one time, throwing a handful of Tums in my mouth because my stomach was- [laughs] Right... my stomach was in knots.
• 9:29
  And, you know, I'm driving around the financial district, trying to find a parking garage. Ended up parking under, you know, in this parking garage under the building, and it just kept going down, down, down, down.
• 9:40
  I was like, "Where am I going?" [laughs] Um, and I just remember being so stressed, and my stu- like I said, my stomach was in a... And this would happen almost every time.
• 9:48
  But, like, I remember thinking the questions that they're asking me, this is so, like, n- very few people at the level I was at at the time get access to these types of conversations and people. Yeah.
• 10:00
  And so I just remember internalizing all the questions they were asking and being like, "This is super helpful for me in terms of how to think about the work going forward and how to prioritize and just how to manage my team, right?
• 10:11
  And ask them similar questions before we get further down the road with certain projects." So that whole experience, even though it was, like, super stressful and anxiety-inducing, was just invaluable.
• 10:22
  Even now, like, on the consulting side, when I'm working with-- Like, I've-- I understand, like, if I'm, you know, working with a CMO, I can empathize with they have to go report to the executives, or maybe they have to be in a board meeting.
• 10:32
  So I get it. Like, I've been in the seat before, and I think that's such an important part of being an effective consultant is having genuine empathy and being like, "Yeah, I know. I get it."
• 10:42
  You know, and describing what they're going through, and they're like, "Yeah, exactly." So- Yeah, yeah... yeah, that was, um- That's cool...
• 10:48
  that was a fun experience, and Litmus was like, their content, they were, you know, I talk about content brands. Litmus was a content brand around that time.
• 10:56
  Just their approach to content and what they wrote about, how they approached it, that was sort of like a crash course in working with Justine Jordan and, you know Justine, yeah, 'cause you, you- Mm-hmm...
• 11:07
  you worked with Litmus for a little while when I was there. Yeah, I did some ghostwriting for- Yeah... Paul Farnell, the CEO. And Justine used to tell everybody, like, she used to call that Jimmy Daly content.
• 11:16
  "We need more Jimmy Daly content." [laughs] Like, the way you wrote- Oh, that's funny... because it was more personal experiences, points of view.
• 11:23
  Like, you were ahead of the game, whereas now I feel like that's becoming critical. We'll probably get into that after.
• 11:28
  But back then, we didn't write a lot of stuff like that, and so when you came in and did a few posts with Paul, the founder, I remember Justine being like, "We need to do more Jimmy Daly content, like, as a team."
• 11:38
  So that, that's where I first heard of you.
• 11:40
  And so yeah, Justine was like, she would say no to the founders if they were like, "Hey, we want you to promote this new feat-" And if she didn't feel like it was a value add to the audience, she-- I've never met somebody who was so protective of the audience.
• 11:53
  A lot of people say they are, but she was...
• 11:56
  She fostered a whole community around email and knew what pains they were having and just understood them at a really visceral level, and she was super protective of putting out anything that-Would sort of withdraw from that bank of trust.
• 12:12
  I posted about the best marketers or troublemakers recently on LinkedIn, and I was thinking about her because, you know, sometimes it would rub people the wrong way or they'd be like, "Oh, Justine, you know, she could be difficult to work with," and she wasn't.
• 12:25
  Like, she just had a really-- she knew what the audience wanted, and if it didn't reach the bar for her for quality or just like this is a utility for the audience, it wasn't going out. Like my first- How great is that?
• 12:38
  My first day there. That is, that is evergreen too. Yeah.
• 12:40
  My first day there, my first day, dr- I spent a week up in Cambridge, and I said, "Justine," Like, she was like, "You know, what are, what are some things you think, like, about our blog?"
• 12:49
  And I was like, "Well, first of all," you know, because I'm going off what the COO is telling me. He's like, "Yeah, we need more-- We, we get a lot of people reading our content. We need to get them back to the site."
• 12:56
  And I was like, "Well, are you sharing? Like, when you publish a new blog, are you sharing it with all the subscribers?" "No." I was like, "Oh, that seems like low-hanging fruit."
• 13:03
  So I told Justine, I was like, "We should set up in which," you know, all the listeners out there that are gonna be like, oh my God, like this was commonplace at the time. Like, set up an autoresponder.
• 13:12
  Every time a blog post goes out, it automatically sends it to all of our- Yeah. [chuckles]... blog subscribers. Like, why don't we do that? And she looked at me and she was like, "Over my dead body."
• 13:19
  And, you know- [laughs]... smiling, you know, but I was like, "Okay." [laughs] And she's like, "We're not, we're not doing that." And I was like, "Okay."
• 13:27
  And so like right away I knew, like, all right, this is-- we really gotta come at this not from a transactional standpoint, but what will be best for the audience, what's gonna help us continue to build trust,
• 13:40
  gain authority, 'cause that's what helped Litmus, you know, bootstrap to twenty million. I mean- Wow... in like, uh, uh- That was, that was before they-... in like forty-four, five years. It's insane.
• 13:48
  Yeah, that's pretty amazing. You know, there's nothing better than working with someone who feels real conviction- Yeah... over their work. Yeah.
• 13:54
  And you don't come across it all that often, and it's like type two fun- Yeah...
• 13:58
  working with someone with that type of conviction, 'cause it's like sometimes the day-to-day of it's like it's so much harder to do it right- Yeah... and to like respect the audience.
• 14:05
  Like, you know, don't just do the hacky thing 'cause other people do it or whatever. Right. But then like that type of work is so much more satisfying. It is.
• 14:13
  And stuff you learn a lot just by working with somebody like that, and you learn to heighten your own standards. And so yeah, that, that whole experience was great.
• 14:21
  And then I used to reach out to Justine when I was running marketing at Databox 'cause I found myself doing the same thing.
• 14:25
  Right, like getting into arguments with people at the company or saying like, "No, this isn't gonna..."
• 14:30
  Or, you know, even having conversations with Pete, and we would butt heads on certain things, and I would be stubborn about something. He'd be stubborn about something.
• 14:37
  And I would talk to Justine every now and then, and I'd be like, "I get it. Like I get, [chuckles] I get where you were coming from."
• 14:43
  And, and like also that seat, like being in that seat, it, it could be hard because you're, you know you're pissing people off, but you know like the north star is the audience and building up that trust and authority, and you can't do that by being super transactional.
• 14:56
  You just can't. Um- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That experience at Litmus was just invaluable. And again, something I, I still hold with me now, um- That's really cool...
• 15:04
  and yeah, learning sort of like to work within that, those parameters. That's awesome. And so then from there, you go to Databox. You spent, I don't know, three, three, four years there? Six years. Oh my gosh, six years.
• 15:15
  Yeah, yeah. Okay. What's like the arc of that experience, you know? Like- [laughs] Yeah.
• 15:19
  I mean- And I, I know obviously very difficult to condense six years into a couple minutes, but like I'm just curious, like how young was the company when you started? What type of marketing stuff are you doing? Yeah.
• 15:27
  'Cause you're leading all marketing, not just content, although I know content was a key part- Yeah, yeah... of all this. Like how does that stuff evolve over those couple years? Yeah.
• 15:34
  So they were, I mean, they were doing about 300K ARR when I joined, which was scary, right? I had never joined a company that early before.
• 15:44
  But Pete Caputa, the CEO who I had known since my days working at an agency, because he ran the partner program, started the partner program at HubSpot. So I knew Pete really well. I trusted him.
• 15:56
  We talked, I under- like his vision. So like I was like, yeah, I, I really wanted to...
• 16:00
  Something I learned at Litmus was you could tell the people who were there for the first million, for the first five million, for the first ten million.
• 16:09
  They just have a wisdom that you can't attain by reading a blog post or reading a book. You have to live it, and I wanted that.
• 16:18
  And so I felt like, okay, Databox is this opportunity where I can join at the ground floor and work with somebody like Pete, who I admired, and report directly to him.
• 16:29
  You know, he built a $100 million business inside of HubSpot in the partner program there. So like- Oh, wow. That's wild...
• 16:35
  imagine all the things I could, I could learn from him, and then also B, see Databox hit the first one million, and what does it take to get there? See them hit five, what does that take? And so on.
• 16:45
  And so I was like, all right. Like, it was nerve-wracking 'cause they were, you know, it was so early, but I joined because, again, I wanted that experience and I wanted to gain sort of that
• 16:54
  wisdom that I had observed at Litmus, the folks who were there from maybe not day one, but, you know, day 300 or so. Like, they were there in the early days and saw Litmus hit a million and hit it.
• 17:06
  And so that's why I joined. And so it was, it was super early, and there was one content marketer on the team at the time, so I kinda came in and inherited like one direct report.
• 17:16
  And there was no budget for paid, you know, we didn't have a ton of resources, so like, you know, doing a video series or all this stu- like we had to find a creative way to come at content if we were gonna break through and it was gonna work.
• 17:29
  You know, that's where we, we sort of like landed on that, like a research approach and being reporters, surveying our audience, asking them the questions rather than trying to be the experts ourselves, and then sort of like report on the results.
• 17:41
  And then what ended up happening was the, all the people that contributed to our content would share it, they would talk about it, they would feature it in their own content, and then that just compounds the more you do that.
• 17:51
  And so we had a, we, you know, built an, a really tight process over the years there and became known for a very specific approach to content. Yeah. And that allowed us to break through.
• 18:01
  I mean, we were, you know, ranking up there with some of the bigger players that have been around much longer than us for content when they said it was so much harder to do that.
• 18:10
  And I think that, yeah, we, we grew off organic. Like that's-And in content. And, but we did it differently.
• 18:17
  We didn't just have a spreadsheet of keywords and said, "Let's write about these things and do traditional how-tos." We did it our way, the way we wanted to do it, the way we thought would work, and it did.
• 18:26
  It really helped us build up an audience and, yeah, so I think they're around eight million ARR now, or just over, and they didn't raise any money when I was there for six years.
• 18:37
  And yeah, it was just like a, a crash course in doing a lot with very little, seeing the company hit those milestones I was talking about.
• 18:45
  And yeah, if Litmus was an MBA, I get-- DataBox too, and working with Pete, and just seeing all the different ways the, you know, teams can work together and what has to be done to get you to zero to one million, and then from one to two is much different.
• 18:59
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:00
  One to five looks a lot d- Like, everything has to change, and it's painful, and it can be really frustrating and-- but again, like, I kept reminding myself while I was in it, like, this earned experience is not supposed to be easy, you know, all the time.
• 19:13
  So it was fun. A-and again, like- That's cool. Yeah. Six years and no fundraising is a long time. And, like, from a content perspective- Yeah...
• 19:22
  I can imagine, like, you dream up the strategy when you first get there, you start executing, and you can probably see off into the future like, "I know this is gonna work, but it's gonna take a while." Yeah. You know?
• 19:31
  But then without, like, a influx of cash to make it go faster- Or hire more people... I, I would imagine- Yeah. Yeah... yeah, like I would imagine that, like, it's a test of endurance at some point. It is.
• 19:42
  That's a good way to put it. Can we keep doing this for long enough for it to pay off? It really does become a test of, are you gonna get bored?
• 19:50
  Or, you know, especially early on, like, can you handle publishing kind of in obscurity? Like, not a lot of people really knew- Yeah...
• 19:57
  who DataBox was, and yeah, you're gonna publish some stuff, you'll get some initial traction, and then after that, nobody's gonna talk about you again, 'cause again, you're still really early in the process.
• 20:05
  And it's, you have to do the same thing when it starts working over and over to the point where, yeah, you kinda get bored.
• 20:15
  But you're not bringing in, you're not raising money, you're not hiring a bunch of other people that increases your capabilities as a team, so you really just have to find ways to continue to stay, like, how do we keep this interesting?
• 20:28
  What are some additional things we could add to this process without needing to add head count? You're constantly trying to keep budget low for everything, freelancers.
• 20:36
  You know, I worked with freelancers whose rates were much higher than what we were paying them, but because we had a process for getting quotes and basically what they would just do is take those quotes and create- Mm...
• 20:46
  a narrative around it, like, they were willing to work for a little less.
• 20:49
  And so we worked with some great writers, but had to find creative ways to, like, "Okay, we can't afford to pay you your normal rate, but, like, this is our process and how we think it...
• 20:58
  And it might, might not take you as much time. You might be able to do two or three of these instead of just one." And that, like-- and so, yeah, I mean, it was so much to learn beyond just the company growing.
• 21:09
  It was just how to, how to operate at that, you know, with those growth aspirations, but with the resources of being a bootstrap team and having to grow off profit and, yeah, man. The, you know, how did you describe it?
• 21:23
  Like, exhausting or, oh, endurance. Perfect way to describe it. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of my early days at Animals, which is, like, twenty sixteen.
• 21:35
  I think I was the sixth or seventh person there, and it's like you're writing content, you're on calls with customers.
• 21:40
  You may need to, like, clean up the books this month and, like, you might have to restock the toilet paper in the bathroom. Yeah. Like- Yeah... whatever needs to be done- Right. Yeah... you're just doing it.
• 21:49
  But you feel this, or at least what I thought was like this, really, like, the camaraderie of it was awesome. Yeah, 'cause everyone else- You know what I mean? It was-... is the same. Yeah. It's very punk rock.
• 21:59
  You're just trying to get noticed. Like, right? You wanna be discovered. You want people to know who you are, and so, like, everybody's kinda bought into that.
• 22:05
  And yeah, things get complicated after the fact, you know, once the company starts growing and things change.
• 22:11
  But yeah, those early days are, yeah, it's-- it really has a way of building culture and those, all those early people, I think. You're all going through it together. Absolutely.
• 22:21
  And it also really hones your skills if you wanna be a consultant later. [chuckles] Yeah. So while you're at DataBox, you start Some Good Content.
• 22:29
  Probably, I don't know the exact date, but I would imagine it's not, kind of like around the same time that I started Superpath. Same, same ballpark. Twenty twenty. Twenty-ish. Twenty twenty, yeah.
• 22:37
  August, August fourth- And-... twenty twenty is when I launched the Patreon. Nice. I like these specific dates. Yeah. I mean, you- This is good... you did it, so I was like, all right, I gotta throw out some dates too.
• 22:45
  [laughing] And you ran that as a side project for a while. You've now gone on to work on it full time, which includes membership, newsletters- Yeah... some consulting. Like, paint the picture of- Yeah...
• 22:55
  Some Good Content.
• 22:56
  Well, that, again, that was just so, if Louder Than Words was a way for me to have conversations with people and learn, Some Good Content was a way for me to share everything I had learned from, from the agency days, from running growth at a, you know, high growth SaaS startup that raised a ton of money, to working at, at DataBox on, you know, sort of like that bootstrapped mentality.
• 23:17
  And I just was like, you know, I have a lot to share, and, you know, I'm basically gonna put together this resource where other content marketers may be in similar positions or earlier in their careers or whatever, right?
• 23:29
  Just wanna riff on this stuff and hear what's worked for me. And that's really how I positioned it is like this is the stuff that's worked for me. I always hated absolute advice, like, "This is what you need to do."
• 23:40
  So it was more so like, these are my systems, these are my processes, these are some of the things that I found to be helpful and effective.
• 23:47
  And I just threw up a quick Patreon, thought maybe I'd get a hundred people to join or something like that, which would've been awesome. You know, at its height, had six hundred members, paying members. Oh, wow.
• 23:57
  And so it grew to be a lot bigger than I thought, and with that came a lot of people being like, "Hey, that thing you talked about, do you know anybody that helps do that? Do you offer consulting around that?"
• 24:07
  And at the time, you know, I had a full-time job, and I was like, "No, I don't," but, you know, I would refer them to people maybe that I knew.
• 24:12
  And then after a while, I think that opportunity just became too great to continue to ignore and sort of just parlayed all my experience that I've had up until this point in my career to, all right, like, how can I help other companies, software companies, and even, you know, I've worked with some agencies as well-Build their content brand, like meaning move beyond this sort of like impersonal, mundane, listicle how-to content that does-- it's not as effective now because it's the bar to create it has been lowered so far, right?
• 24:43
  And the importance of creating content with that combines sort of your own internal experience, expertise, points of view, insights with that of your audience. Like, that is what you see working.
• 24:56
  That worked for me at Databox. I saw that work at Litmus and then other brands that I admire, people like Wistia. And, and so just helping-- like, I wanna help other brands do that and sort of implement those systems.
• 25:08
  And so really, yeah, I think the time just, I don't know if it's ever right.
• 25:11
  Didn't feel maybe right at the time, but as good as it's going to feel in terms of like taking that leap and trying to make it work on your own. So yeah, last summer, so or maybe, yeah, June, June of last year.
• 25:23
  June of twenty twenty-three was when I finally took the leap and went full time on the consulting and sort of like, it's a combination of creator and consulting.
• 25:32
  Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because I really like how you still do both. Yeah.
• 25:36
  Because every now and then, you'll notice some experienced, smart marketing person become a consultant, and then you kinda like lose track of... Like, they're so busy doing consulting work that- Right...
• 25:47
  there's no public output. Yeah. You don't really know what they're doing. Yeah. I feel like, at least from my perspective, it's very smart to do both. Like, continue sharing the knowledge because you're sort of,
• 25:58
  you're accumulating more of it as you go. And then it kinda also, at the very least, like it's lead gen, you know? Mm. But potentially, it fuels this community of paying members. Yeah.
• 26:08
  Like, it gets people on a newsletter list, which you could sell ads to. Like, that's a whole business that could run alongside the consulting. Exactly, or on its own someday.
• 26:16
  And I need to stay close to the work too, you know, myself personally, just to... Like, I still create, right? I'm not, not a consultant who, who goes off and I don't create anymore.
• 26:27
  I've, I haven't written a blog post in years, that kinda thing. So I think staying close to the work, and honestly, just flat out I enjoy it. Like [chuckles] there's a part of me that needs to create.
• 26:37
  I need to write this newsletter. I need to have this podcast with folks that I admire. And if I don't, I don't have sort of like the desired fulfillment.
• 26:48
  Like, if I was just doing the client work and not creating at all, it would feel like something was missing. So- Yeah... I kinda need to do both.
• 26:56
  And like you said, yeah, it helps to build up, you know, when I have people that book calls potentially to, to consult, they're using my language back to me.
• 27:05
  Yeah, I think we have an opportunity to be the content brand in our space. So the level of trust there for people reading your work, just like observing you over months or even years, right?
• 27:15
  Like, the impact of that is immeasurable. There's really no reason not to.
• 27:19
  That's, like, a big reason why I've stuck with it, and creating has given me everything I've had in my career up to this point, so why would I stop now, right? So- Yeah. That's cool, man. Yeah. That's really cool.
• 27:28
  What are you seeing on the consulting side these days? Are SaaS companies having, like, the same old content problems, or are you discovering new stuff? Like, last twelve months, I feel like a lot has- Yeah...
• 27:41
  changed in content, and I am curious 'cause I see-- I, like, I feel like I see some of both. Like, I see some people, like, forging new paths- Mm-hmm...
• 27:48
  and I feel like I see others kinda, like, kind of refining the same system from a few years ago. Yeah, it's a combination of both things.
• 27:55
  Like, I think you're seeing a lot of fear because of what's happened with AI, and it's gonna become a lot easier for people to copy our content.
• 28:04
  In some cases, I have people who come to me and say that our competitors are copying our content,
• 28:09
  and they know that the way that they've been doing it isn't gonna necessarily be the thing that continues to be effective, meaning just spreadsheet of keywords, let's just write about these things, hope they rank.
• 28:21
  And so I think there's a lot of just uncertainty in, is this gonna continue to work, or it's just not working as well as it has.
• 28:30
  And so I've had a lot of people articulate that, but then I just have a lot of people articulate s- basically around two main challenges, which is like, we don't--
• 28:39
  I had somebody describe it recently to me that we just want our audience to feel, have good feelings about us already when they come and talk to sales or when-- if they see our ad, whether it's a search ad or a display ad.
• 28:52
  And we know to do that, we have to create content that's not transactional, like search content. We need to create something better, but they can't quite articulate what that means.
• 29:01
  But they know that, again, the way that they've always done it or the way everybody else has been doing it isn't the way that they wanna do it anymore.
• 29:08
  And then the two more specific things that I hear is, like, they find it really hard to get subject matter expertise in the content because the people internally who have it don't have time to contribute.
• 29:17
  And so they're relying on junior level marketers to basically fake expertise and write these blog articles like everybody's always written, ten ways to do this, how to do this, written by somebody with, you know, two years of experience in the field.
• 29:30
  You know, that sort of lacks that acumen. And then the other piece is they don't see sort of like their audience represented in the content. Meaning, this isn't what we hear. This isn't what customers are talking about.
• 29:40
  Have you listened to sales calls? You know, maybe you should jump on some support. Maybe you should answer some support tickets.
• 29:45
  Like, companies are asking marketers to do those things because they're not seeing the audience sort of represented in the content. They don't feel like the expertise is there in the content.
• 29:56
  They don't feel like the audience is represented in the content. Those are two things I, just for me, reading between the lines, I consistently see as challenges.
• 30:04
  And all that stuff can be solved in sort of like the same approach, you know, which is part of the content brand framework that I sort of like consult people on and help them implement.
• 30:14
  But yeah, I would say a lot of it is just like not wanting to do things the way that they've always done. There's some element of, like, we wanna be everyone's favorite. We wanna be who they talk about.
• 30:23
  We want them to bookmark our stuff. We want them to, like, reach out to us if we didn't send a newsletter this week and be like, "Hey, is thereDid I miss it? Like, when is that episode going up?
• 30:31
  Or when is that newsletter going out? They're all articulating something similar around that. Like, we want people- Yeah...
• 30:37
  to care about us, and we want, like, a real audience, not just this transactional, "You searched for this thing, we offer this thing. Here it is. Come buy." And so there's a lot of that.
• 30:49
  They all articulate it in slightly different ways, but that's essentially what the folks that I wanna work with and the folks that I have been, or the folks that have reached out to book calls, that's sort of like what I'm hearing.
• 30:59
  There seems to be this, like, wave that's built up of things have to change or our content's not good enough. It ranks, but people don't love us.
• 31:10
  Like, you know, I had one person tell me, like, "When people talk about our space on LinkedIn, no one mentions us." But they rank for a bunch of stuff. They drive a ton of organic traffic, but nobody talks about them.
• 31:22
  They don't feel like people care to that extent, and if they wanna continue growing, they feel like that's what they need.
• 31:27
  So it's, like I said, it's articulated in a lot of different-- somebody told me, like, "A lot of our content ranks. I just hope our customers don't read it." And so, like, they all articulate it. Oh, wow.
• 31:35
  That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people articulate it in different ways, but that's sort of like what I'm hearing from the folks I talk to.
• 31:42
  Do you feel like the content brand framework has fundamentally changed over the past couple of years, or is it, you know, you're tweaking little things based on how channels change and algorithms change and things like that?
• 31:56
  I mean, I think the core tenets of it are just-- they don't change, right?
• 32:01
  And really what I've sort of like built the framework around is your own personal experiences, observations, and points of view, as well as those of your audience. So those are two separate sides.
• 32:12
  So I call it original thinking and original research. Research can be this right here, what we're doing. You're interviewing me.
• 32:17
  This is research that you could extract a bunch of raw material from this podcast, turn it into three blog posts, turn it into six LinkedIn posts, turn it into one edition of your newsletter. Yeah.
• 32:28
  And I don't mean transcribing and pasting. I mean taking one idea that we talked about, sprinkling in some of the quotes, but then using that to sort of create a separate discussion or expand deeper on that idea, right?
• 32:42
  And that being sort of the starting point for your content.
• 32:46
  Not a list of keywords, but an insight from somebody who's actually in the field or an insight from an expert inside the company that maybe you interview for your podcast, or you interview separately, just plain old interview.
• 32:58
  But that needs to be the starting point, especially with AI and all this stuff. It's like it's too easy for anybody to just write another, "Here's what you should do."
• 33:07
  Like, "I'm gonna talk at the audience and just tell them what they should do." Don't do that. Like, show them what other people are doing, like real people out in the field that are just like them.
• 33:17
  Cover those stories, tell them what they're doing, and then also use the expertise inside of your company and, like, what are their experiences? What have they observed? And build content around that.
• 33:25
  That's really the core tenets of content brand.
• 33:27
  And all the people that you see who I sort of consider content brands, Wistia, SparkToro, Litmus, they might not know that they're doing that, but that's what they've always done. Look at Wistia's content.
• 33:37
  It's very much built on their own geekery around video and the gear that they use and how they outfitted a station wagon to be a mobile video studio.
• 33:47
  And, and then places like Litmus were very community-driven and featured a lot of email geeks, as they call them, from their audience in their content and would interview them and have them present.
• 33:57
  And so it's always existed. I just think it's become even more critical now. Like, it's always allowed brands like them to stand out.
• 34:05
  But, like, now it's-- I just think it's even more critical for brands to sort of follow that approach because you really need to focus on creating content that no one else can copy.
• 34:13
  And the only way you can do that is it has to be personal, or it has to be personal to you or to members of your audience. Use their experiences to tell the stories.
• 34:22
  Sprinkle in keywords as what they should be, the seasoning after the fact, instead of, like, having the keywords be the meat, you know, the side, the dessert and everything, so.
• 34:33
  How different is the coaching versus execution? Because I'm imagining, like, you explain this- Mm... to a consulting client, and they say, "Hell yeah, we want that." Yeah.
• 34:43
  You know, like, "And you just articulated this thing that we've been, like, trying to figure out but, like, haven't found words for. Now we've got it."
• 34:50
  Do you find that given the framework, they'll do it, or do you need to be kinda like pushing them along- It's, it's-... to make sure that- Yes... the little things are executed on?
• 34:58
  It's sort of like guided implementation.
• 35:00
  Like, the first thing I do is I'll interview them and some of the leaders at their company, and I have a set of questions that I ask to get at what their unique points of view and observations are.
• 35:10
  You know, asking them questions like, "What's a point of view you have on the market that others don't have?
• 35:15
  What's a point of view that exists in the market that is common sort of knowledge that you don't agree with, that you strongly oppose?"
• 35:23
  And so I have a whole set of questions to sort of extract out what their unique observation, experience, just sort of their unique editorial narrative, like what it even is, so that we can sort of then go from there and build out, okay, so what IP do we currently have that we could leverage to sort of present that?
• 35:42
  You have a podcast? Great. We might need to sort of adjust the positioning of it because it's just like a basic they hop on, they do an interview, and there's no real, like, big question that they're exploring.
• 35:51
  So it's more guided implementation, you know, like working with their team, helping them uncover things.
• 35:57
  I have a sort of editorial roadmap, you know, inside of Notion to help them, like, take one piece of content and, say, like a podcast episode, extract out three to five insights that were shared in it, use like an angle matrix that I have to come up with different, uh, you know, articles they could write on their blog, different posts they could put on LinkedIn, different ways they could roll all of that up into a newsletter.
• 36:18
  So it creates this whole, like, flywheel for them. For example, podcast to blog to social to email newsletter, and we build that whole content flow. So it's very much guided.
• 36:28
  I'm not just, like, giving them the steps and being like, "Go do it."It's more so guided implementation.
• 36:32
  I'm not writing the content for them, but I'm sort of helping them through the process of implementing the program inside their company. Got it. Got it. That makes sense. Really cool, man.
• 36:42
  You've done a lot of good work for the content industry in your career. [laughs] So- I appreciate that. We, we thank you And well, coming from you, yeah. I- Likewise, dude.
• 36:48
  Like, I feel like you and I are kindred spirits in- Absolutely... many ways when it comes to content. Yes, no, absolutely. I mean, I've, I have learned from you for a long time, and I respect the hell of the work you do.
• 36:58
  So- Likewise... I would strongly encourage people to go subscribe to the newsletter. I mean, I don't know if that's, like, your main call to action- Yeah, yeah...
• 37:05
  but, like, go read the newsletter because so much of this ends up in there, and this is not- Yeah... you just, like, dreaming up ideas that might be cool.
• 37:11
  It's, like, stuff you're learning in the trenches with customers, things you're actually advising them on.
• 37:16
  So, um- Well, um, it's my sort of observations, but then also the folks that come on my podcast, I talk about, like, my favorite things that I've heard from them and what that all means.
• 37:25
  So I practice what I preach, right? Like, and what I'm saying, you know, the, the companies that I work with should do. So they, yeah, the Louder!
• 37:32
  It's up to this point been called The Good Content Newsletter, and it's actually being rebranded to Louder Than Words to align with- Oh, cool... the podcast and just have that be sort of one brand.
• 37:41
  But yeah, come, uh, join. We'd love to have you. Cool. We'll, we'll put links in there, and let's shout out the podcast, too. I'm gonna be a guest on in a few weeks, so- Yeah, yeah... go listen to that one.
• 37:48
  But, you know, you took a break from the podcast, and now you've revived it. Long break. And it seems like it just fits perfectly within this new kind of portfolio of stuff you're putting together. Yeah.
• 37:57
  It's seven years I didn't publish it. And, and then for the most part, I thought it was like, okay, that was something cool that I did earlier in my career, but, like, I've moved on.
• 38:05
  And, you know, I had podcasts for the brands I was working for, and if I ever started another one, I just thought it would be something different.
• 38:12
  But then once I went off on my own, I was like, you know, like, the Louder Than Words concept at the time, what it meant was talking to people who created content that was louder than just words on paper.
• 38:23
  They weren't just writing words. It was more than that. They weren't just writing keywords and... Right? Like, their work spoke louder. It stood out.
• 38:31
  And at the time, I was like, this is even more relevant now with, like, literally words are commoditized.
• 38:36
  Like, any of us could get a ChatGPT article written in minutes and, or we're all, you know, spreadsheet of keywords, and that's all we're writing.
• 38:45
  And everyone else is doing the same thing, and I'm like, Louder Than Words as a concept is even more relevant now than it was in 2015.
• 38:52
  So one of the first things when I went, when I, you know, decided to go solo, was like, I need to bring this back. And it was, like, buried in SoundCloud somewhere. I had to go get the hard... Like- [laughs]
• 39:02
  That's awesome... some- somehow I was still paying for SoundCloud, which actually worked out 'cause I was still able to get in, access my, you know, the RSS link, everything.
• 39:09
  And, and so I just moved everything over to Transistor and started just, all right, like, my last episode was seven years ago. Here's the next one, right? So... And but it just feels good to have it back for me.
• 39:21
  It's very personal to me. It's, like, the first thing I ever really did on the side, and I think it changed my career and my life in many ways. So I'm like, it feels good to have it back, and- Yeah...
• 39:32
  and it's like this, like, I don't know. It just feels good, like I'm supposed to be doing this podcast, so. Yeah. That's awesome, man. I'm so happy.
• 39:39
  One of the cool things happening in content right now is that things that are old are new again. Yeah, yeah. You know? Like, everyone's sort of like, "Oh, my God, does content work anymore?"
• 39:47
  And it's like, well, actually, yeah, it does. Just do all the things- [laughs]... that you're supposed to do, like, that we talked about, like, 15 years ago. Yeah, yeah. It's still applicable. It's still good.
• 39:53
  Still good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Even more so now. Yeah, it's probably more important now that you do those things. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, John, thanks so much for your time, man.
• 40:00
  We'll have links to SomeGoodContent newsletter, podcast. Everything will be in show notes. People, please go, go check it out, and, uh, we'd love to have you on again sometime, John. I appreciate you, Jimmy.
• 40:11
  Thanks for having me on. Take care, man. [outro music]