Latest / Content, Briefly / Clari: Michael Lowe on category creation

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Clari: Michael Lowe on category creation · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
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• 0:54
  And I think what I've learned from that process is, uh, A, like coming into my content roles, looking at the business problem and how can I impact the business from a strategic level where it's actually moving the needle in a larger way than just, uh, the typical content metrics.
• 1:15
  So like, how, how can I help drive revenue? How can I help build the story of the company? Uh, how can I help build brand? And, and these things don't always show up in metrics all the time.
• 1:27
  [upbeat music] Hey, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly. Today I'm very excited to present this conversation with Michael Lo.
• 1:33
  He is currently the senior director of corporate marketing at a company called AppBay, but we didn't talk about that at all.
• 1:38
  [chuckles] We actually talk about a role he had a few years back at a company called Clari, which is a revenue operations platform, and he spent a couple years there working on a category creation play, basically trying to turn revenue operations into kind of a fringe idea into a mainstream trend.
• 1:57
  So we get into all the details of that. We talk specifically about some of the differences between coining a term for marketing purposes versus actual category creation.
• 2:05
  We talk too about what he called the category creation tax. I'll let him explain. Very interesting.
• 2:10
  And then we talk too just about some of, like, the nitty-gritty tactical differences between how content works when you're running this category creation playbook versus if you're running a different type of content playbook.
• 2:20
  Really good stuff. This is a slightly different episode in that we, like, honed in on a theme from the beginning and spent the entire time unpacking it, so I really enjoyed it. Maybe we should do more of that.
• 2:28
  If you have feedback on that, you can always shoot us a note over email, jimmy@superpath.co, or in the Slack group too. As always, I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do too.
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• 3:46
  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Content Briefly. Very excited to have Michael Lo on today. We actually just met briefly yesterday in the very first Superpath Social.
• 3:55
  I'll probably plug that at some point in this podcast. Basically a monthly group call for Superpath Pro members. We're doing big group call plus breakout sessions, so Michael's there. Thank you for being there, Michael.
• 4:04
  We have a lot to discuss today. Specifically, we're gonna get into category creation.
• 4:09
  So Michael, you're currently the senior director of corporate marketing at a company called AppBay, but we're gonna go back in time just slightly to talk about a role you held at Clari and the category creation work you did there.
• 4:20
  So we'll get into all that. Before we do that, though, Michael, would you mind introducing yourself? Tell us a little bit- Yeah... about who you are and some of the work you've been up to for the past few years.
• 4:27
  Yeah, sure. Hey, everybody. Jimmy, thanks for having me. Big fan of Superpath. I love what y'all are doing and grateful to be a part of the community. So I have been in content marketing for around 10 years now.
• 4:37
  Started as a journalist back in 2010 and gained my experience as a writer in a newsroom for about five years.
• 4:46
  Made the shift over to tech as a content marketer, and have since worked my way up from an individual contributor in various companies of various roles all the way to where I am now, where I lead content design and digital at AppBay.
• 4:59
  But have been in all sorts of companies with different business models, which has been super interesting.
• 5:04
  The one that you mentioned, Clari, I was there for about four, almost five years, where it was a traditional B2B SaaS model.
• 5:12
  But a big push for what we were doing in content brand marketing was developing the revenue operations category. So lots of fun, interesting stories throughout my time and excited to share them. Cool. Awesome.
• 5:22
  Well, maybe we just dive into it. So, you know, ahead of the podcast, like, you know, email back and forth with guests, like, you know, are there some things we should hit on? And you sent over a couple of ideas.
• 5:32
  The one that really stood out to me was some of the work you did at Clari, specifically building out the revenue operations category. So maybe we start there. What is Clari, and what is revenue operations?
• 5:43
  Yeah, that's a great question. So Clari is a, uh, I think they call it revenue orchestration platform now. But when I joined, it was really known as a forecasting platform for sales managers and sales leaders.
• 5:56
  And what we realized was that we were doing something that nobody else was doing. We were oftentimesBuilding a product that people didn't realize they needed yet.
• 6:08
  But when we did, and when we got it in front of people, they were like, "Oh my God, I never knew I needed this."
• 6:12
  We started having this raving community of fans that people would bet their careers on to buy this thing, because it was, it was not cheap.
• 6:19
  And so because of that, and because nobody really knew what to call this thing that we had, we were, we were a forecasting platform, but we did more than that.
• 6:29
  A lot of people kind of compared us to Salesforce, but we did a lot more than CRM, and surfaced data in a different way. We decided to embark on, on category creation.
• 6:38
  And that process of going through the category creation experience was very long, took a lot of steps, but the idea is that we honed in on this idea of revenue operations, which we saw a growing community of folks who were identifying with a revenue operations title and methodology.
• 6:58
  And it's really like the connected go-to-market motion for sales, marketing, customer success, all with the focused effort of driving more predictable revenue.
• 7:09
  So that's kind of where we started this kind of understanding that we were known as one thing, forecasting, but we did so much more, and that that thing did not exist as a known quantity in the B2B world, and so we had to create that terminology, create that category, become a, a known thing so that people could essentially put it in their budget, because that's really- Yeah, yeah.
• 7:33
  That's really like the output of a good category. Very... Okay. Did Clari come up with the term revenue operations or rev ops? I will say that I think we kind of co-opted it. Uh- Okay.
• 7:44
  We saw this trend among the people that were using our platform, and they had this revenue operations title, and it, it really resonated, I think, with our mission to drive more predictable revenue.
• 7:56
  A lot of them were sort of sales operations folks who were maturing into a more leadership role and taking on this revenue operations title. And over the course of my time at Clari, we jumped onto it.
• 8:10
  We sort of found those people and empowered them to have a voice, and because of that, we kind of became known as, like, the revenue operations place to be, the revenue operations- Yeah...
• 8:19
  platform, and really gained their trust, I think, by delivering value and listening to them and making sure that we were meeting their needs. Yeah, yeah.
• 8:29
  I will flag this right now as marketing lesson number one from this podcast, which is notice the trend and grab it, right? [chuckles] Yes.
• 8:36
  Like, I sometimes I think of, when I think of category creation, I think of, like, people in a room, like, coming up with the category and then fleshing out what it is, but you kind of drew a line around this somewhat abstract idea to clarify it for people.
• 8:51
  So, like, the trend already exists, you clarify it, and then that gives you the opportunity to kind of, quote unquote, "own that idea."
• 8:59
  Yeah, that's absolutely right, and, and I do see this a lot as well where, you know, people are sitting in a room trying to think of, like, the catchiest category to come up with because they want to create it.
• 9:08
  We were fortunate in that we were able to kind of ride this wave, but I think we knew that if we could feed the wave, that it would just grow and grow and grow, and that was sort of the direction that we took.
• 9:17
  One of the ways that we measured whether this would be a good idea to actually embark on category creation is seeing, like, this small, marginalized group of buyers or users who really believe strongly in this idea of, for us, it was driving predictable revenue and controlling and orchestrating the way a revenue process works.
• 9:39
  Part of the key of figuring out which category it is is identifying that, that group who can sort of, like, be the flag bearers for you.
• 9:49
  Because if, if you're the one, if you're the only one talking about the category, like, it becomes very clear very quickly, uh, what you're trying to do, and you're trying to sell a product.
• 9:57
  But if you can instead lift up those folks, you know, it becomes way more powerful. It's not about you anymore. It's about the category, this movement.
• 10:05
  And I think by being the fuel for that through content and community and events and, you know, research, all of these things, you by default start to be seen as the category leader- Yeah...
• 10:23
  the category owner, and that's sort of the play. You mentioned a few minutes ago that Clari is expensive. I just checked the website and there's no pricing listed on it.
• 10:32
  I'm not asking for the actual price, but I guess what I'm sort of getting at is, are the deals enterprise-type deals?
• 10:39
  And then the follow-up to that, sort of the direction I'm heading here is, is high customer lifetime value a requirement for a category creation effort?
• 10:51
  Meaning, like, is the effort, is the effort level high enough that there has to be, like, a pretty attractive customer lifetime value on the other side of that to make it worthwhile? Yeah.
• 11:01
  No, that's a really good question. So to answer your first question, price point was enterprise for sure. We did have a smaller business, like SMB-size opportunity that we expanded into. But in general, it was,
• 11:18
  when I was there, relatively expensive and it was because of the value that we believed we were giving.
• 11:25
  We were truly able to bring visibility into the revenue process and drive a better revenue process or a better sales process. And so because of that, I think we felt strongly about it.
• 11:36
  In terms of the lifetime value, I think in order to go after category creation, another sort of box that we checked was whether or not we felt there was a community of believers who would put their, not, like, career on the line, that sounds dramatic, but who are willing to stand up and say, like, "I need this."
• 11:55
  And, and we did see this. Before we even embarked on category creation, we saw customers who would not take a job unless they had Clari or unless they, like, got a commitment- Whoa...
• 12:05
  that the, the company would buy Clari. That's cool. Like, it was that serious. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool.
• 12:07
  And we'd see these, like, repeat customers who would go to different companiesAnd they would bring Clari with them. And so I think because of that, we felt like
• 12:18
  the need for the buyer and the value that we were providing was strong enough to go and, and create the category. 'Cause, 'cause it is, it is, you know, a lot of work to create a category. It takes a lot of time,
• 12:31
  you know, a lot of resources, right? And at the time, you know, we were still a, a high-growth startup that was venture-backed, and so we had really aggressive revenue numbers to hit.
• 12:43
  And in a lot of ways, category creation doesn't impact those revenue numbers right away. It takes some time for analysts to get on board, for people to adopt the idea.
• 12:53
  And because of that, like, you really need to work a lot on getting executive buy-in, internal buy-in, like, communicating it all the time to the people inside the company so they understand, like, why are we talking about this thing that doesn't exist yet when we could be talking about forecasting, for example, right?
• 13:10
  Which we know, like, people will buy our product if we call it a forecasting platform, but then we sort of lose out on the value of a long-term category play.
• 13:20
  So a lot of, like, really interesting conversations that we had inside, and, uh, it does take a long-term commitment. I had a question all ready for you.
• 13:28
  Okay, yeah, actually, one of the things that [chuckles] I was gonna ask you is, is category creation easier or harder than regular, whatever that means, regular content marketing?
• 13:37
  And, like, where my brain is at is, yeah, I'm sure it's harder, right, because you're sort of, you're kind of paving this new path, right? And then on the other hand, maybe it's a little easier because I'm just...
• 13:46
  What I'm wondering is does the team galvanize around it? Mm. Like, your mission is so clear, and does that actually make the work somewhat easier? Or maybe is this just a muddy answer and it's kind of some of both?
• 13:57
  Yeah, no, that's a really good question. I will say that initially when we embarked on this, there was not a lot of galvanization. [chuckles] Yeah.
• 14:05
  We had to really sell it internally because, again, the revenue goals were so aggressive for us that any type of initiative that was taking resources away from supporting revenue was really hard to sell. Yeah.
• 14:21
  And so we had to have this conversation internally of saying, "Look, we're gonna figure out how to do both at the same time because we have to.
• 14:27
  If we do category creation but we lose on the revenue, like, we're not gonna be able to keep the lights on for long enough." Mm-hmm. Makes sense.
• 14:33
  And so we had to figure out, we took this approach of having, like, the, these two funnel... This, like, a two funnel approach.
• 14:40
  It's like, uh, almost w- we had two go-to-market motions, one that was aimed at people who we knew wanted the product for what it was now and would, like, buy immediately.
• 14:50
  So these were, like, the demand growth sort of campaigns and initiatives. That content, which was my role at the time, would support.
• 14:57
  And then the other go-to-market was the broader category creation strategy that was, like, the long-term slow burn type stuff. And so I think over time, you know, we...
• 15:09
  Luckily our marketing team was incredible and very mature, and even though there were some folks who were, like, a little bit reluctant, we disagreed and we committed, and we pulled it off, and we just kind of did it.
• 15:19
  One of the things that kind of helped was, you know, having executives constantly talking about why we're doing category creation, what it means for us, how it's gonna impact the business long term.
• 15:30
  Just, like, at every all-hands, it was constantly drilled into everybody, which helped from a leadership standpoint.
• 15:36
  From a marketing standpoint, we introduced this thing called the category tax, which I thought was kind of funny, where basically, like, in every meeting, in anything that we did, in any asset that we created, we had this category tax where we would have to talk about revenue operations in some way.
• 15:52
  Uh- Whoa, that's kind of cool. It did- I like that. Yeah. Kind of made it fun without, you know, making it, like, a super hard goal, like you have to do this thing. Right. Um, and it didn't have to be a lot.
• 16:03
  It could be just a line. It could be a sentence. It could be a paragraph. It could be, you know, more than that.
• 16:08
  But it just kind of helped to reinforce, like, hey, we are all doing this thing, and we're gonna pay the tax every single time we do something. That's very interesting.
• 16:17
  I feel like this might be the right place to call out the difference between coining a term for the purposes of marketing and actual category creation.
• 16:26
  So examples of coining a term would be, like, Drift and conversational marketing, or back in the day Zuora, this company called Zuora, and- Mm-hmm... the subscription economy. You know? Mm-hmm.
• 16:38
  It's just like you grab onto this great term, and it just kind of gives you this platform to talk about the thing your product does.
• 16:45
  And then what you're talking about at Clari, which is proper category creation, where the tool or maybe the set of features enable something that wasn't possible before, and it actually needs a new name, and then that...
• 16:57
  It's like the marketing team is almost destined to go down this route. Does, does that feel roughly accurate? Yeah, I c- I can see that.
• 17:04
  I think one of the differences in, in, like, coining a term versus category creation, that I've seen at least in my experience, is that I feel like when companies and teams try to coin a term, it's really talking about them.
• 17:16
  Like you said, it's, it's a way for them to talk about their own product. It's like, "This is how we're framing the thing that we're doing, and we want to tell you about us."
• 17:23
  When we're thinking about category creation, it's really about the buyers and the audience, and it's about what those revenue operations professionals need. And so to me, it feels almost reversed in saying- Yeah...
• 17:35
  we're just, like, the vessel for this revenue operations movement, and we're gonna be capturing all of this expertise and knowhow and, and, you know, subject matter experts coming in and, and giving them a platform to talk about revenue operations and the way that they do it just so happens to be with Clari.
• 17:52
  But, like, the methodology and the philosophy behind it is something that we try not to necessarily make come from Clari. It comes from them. I'll give you an example.
• 18:02
  So one of the five main things that we tried to do was around building this revenue operations community, and one of the, the initiative that I thought was really, really successful is that we actually developed-This small group of revenue operations executives, and we called them the Revenue Operations Council.
• 18:23
  And they were Clari customers who had been with us for a long time, and they sort of embodied like the philosophies of revenue operations, driving predictable revenue, driving revenue like a process.
• 18:36
  And we would work with them on these big pieces of like content, and it felt like almost academic research because we'd have diagrams for how they were mapping out sales stages and exit criteria and mutual action plans and like all of this like almost technical, like sales philosophy and methodology and approaches.
• 18:58
  And we would put their names on it and we would say, "Look, you know, we are lifting you all up. We're building a platform for you to be these like subject matter experts in this growing revenue operations category."
• 19:09
  And they were received super well. I know we had one, like COO print out the entire white paper for like everybody on their team on their first day- Oh, that's awesome...
• 19:18
  as a COO, and was like, "All right, this is the playbook." And like literally gave it to like all 20 of their direct reports, like, "Read this. This is how we're running the revenue." Right.
• 19:26
  And it's cool because like these are the things that don't show up in the analytics. Yeah.
• 19:30
  But you, you know that they work because people are resonating with them, and that's again how you, how we're building this affinity for us as like a revenue operations platform. Yeah, yeah. That's so interesting.
• 19:42
  I would love to get into some of like the nitty-gritty. Like- Yeah... okay, you and the content team, you're sitting down for your weekly meeting, you're assigning out articles to be written to the writers.
• 19:51
  You're editing, you're publishing, you're distributing. Like, what are the differences? Whatever type of content program you're running, you're, you're doing those things.
• 19:58
  So if you're in this category creation motion, what are the differences? What things are you doing there that you might not be doing otherwise? Yeah. Great question.
• 20:07
  So you know, I think the first thing that I'll say is that it, it was a super interesting experience because I came into Clari as a senior content marketing manager.
• 20:16
  I approached content as like, probably in the wrong way, which is all about like quantity and volume. And I was like, "All right, I gotta get through my like editorial calendar and stuff like that."
• 20:24
  And over the time there, what I realized the company really needed was for me to look at the business problem that we're trying to solve and then translate content programs in that manner.
• 20:35
  And so category creation was not something that I had on my, you know, job description, but it was what the company needed.
• 20:42
  And so it was really interesting to like go through that process of kind of shifting my mentality away from, okay, you know, I'm just doing content, I'm just kind of being a service provider, into a more strategic role where I could kind of take a look at what are the problems we're trying to solve and how can content solve it?
• 20:58
  So as, to your, to your question, content really drove a lot of the foundational like initiatives that fueled the category creation.
• 21:07
  So there was five main ones that we kind of focused on because we knew we couldn't do everything. We were s- still a small team.
• 21:13
  We knew we still had to do all the revenue driving initiatives and that, you know, category creation was, was only a part of my job. And so we took five initiatives and we just had to make bets on those.
• 21:24
  The first one was SEO.
• 21:27
  We knew that if we could own the term revenue operations, we get to define the term, and everybody who hears about this term and then goes search for it will find our content and then now revenue operations is what we call it and how we define it, and that basically helps to create that category.
• 21:47
  Got it. Uh, the second is community.
• 21:49
  And so we did, uh, like I said, the Revenue Operations Council, like these white papers, these academic stuff, trying to tell customer stories, but not in a way that, you know, talked about Clari the product.
• 22:01
  It was about like what these revenue operations professionals were doing in their day jobs and like the philosophy that they were using to approach their job.
• 22:09
  So a lot of like customer or third-party validation type stuff. The third one was working with analysts.
• 22:14
  So we had an analyst team, uh, working with Gartner and Forrester, but then from a content perspective, we were also engaging with them on like the TLP, the TEI papers, getting that like, again, third-party validation from the analysts.
• 22:26
  And then two more which were executive platforms, so getting our CEO out in front of people talking about revenue operations and what it means and why it's important.
• 22:36
  And then the fifth one, which is kind of interesting is, is the internal communications.
• 22:40
  Doing the category tax, making sure that like everybody was like living and breathing from a cultural value perspective, this revenue operations thing.
• 22:51
  And, and that manifested in a ton of social activity on, on LinkedIn, which created this like really big halo effect. So we went through a lot there, but yeah, you know, content really fueled everything here.
• 23:02
  You know, I, I was not expecting you to say internal communications as the fifth one. I thought you were gonna say something about distribution or something like that. Yeah.
• 23:10
  Did the category creation, the cultural part of it, is it top down? You know what I mean?
• 23:15
  Is it being kind of reinforced from the highest level, or was it bottoms up where the marketing team is saying like, "We need to do this," and you're sort of slowly building buy-in and momentum?
• 23:24
  Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's a little bit of both. Definitely need that executive buy-in, the executive communications always talking about this thing.
• 23:33
  But then also, right, as the market, like we have to lead by example. So like we're the ones posting on social.
• 23:38
  Whenever we had a big like revenue operations launch or a big brand piece or like a piece of content come out, we would develop like a social plan where we would provide prompts and like responses and coordinate across the whole company.
• 23:51
  "All right, this piece is coming out. We're gonna post you on LinkedIn. We're gonna share the LinkedIn link. Go and like comment on it. Here are some comment ideas." Right?
• 23:59
  Just to create this like groundswell and make it easy for them, right? Because everybody else has day jobs too.
• 24:04
  And so I think from a bottoms up perspective, it's about leading from it by example and it's about making it easy for everybody else to like feel engaged and feel a part of it.
• 24:13
  And that was like in the early days of, I feel like LinkedIn really blowing up. And so we got-Massive play from it.
• 24:20
  Also, the fact that our, our audience is sales, and so, you know, everyone from sales is on LinkedIn, so that had just huge, um, outsized value for us. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:30
  Was this easier or more difficult to measure than other content? That's a good question. Um, I think it's a little bit of both. Uh, it's harder because it's, it's a little bit fuzzy, right? There's-- it's long term.
• 24:45
  It doesn't show up as revenue numbers necessarily, but everything we try to do for category creation, we try to use in our demand gen.
• 24:53
  So when we were writing the revenue operations council papers, right, it was really like a brand play first, but we would be, you know, sharing them with the growth team to use as, like, demand gen pieces.
• 25:04
  And so we tried to do a little bit of both.
• 25:06
  The things that we tried to communicate in terms of are we progressing in the category actually being created are things like revenue operations keyword searches and impressions. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:17
  Uh, revenue operations references and, like, analyst papers, things like backlinks to our revenue operations pillar piece.
• 25:24
  Basically seeing, like, are there people out there recognizing us as a authority in this space, referencing what we're doing, linking to what we're doing, and, and then over time, I think the big one that we saw was job title growth in revenue operations.
• 25:40
  I think it was, like, last year when revenue operations was, like, the number one highest growth title. That's cool. So I could see people like- That's interesting. Yeah.
• 25:48
  Yeah, 'cause, 'cause at the end of the day, like, category creation is trying to find that cohort of people who want to identify themselves with you and your movement.
• 25:57
  And so the more people that were calling themselves revenue operations professionals, the more we felt like, okay, this is like, this is picking up steam, and we gotta, we gotta continue putting fuel on the fire. Yeah.
• 26:07
  I, I will... I'll just quick flag that as a, a key way to differentiate between category creation and coining a term. If you're coining a term, you're probably not gonna see that in people's LinkedIn job titles.
• 26:18
  You know, category creation, I never thought of it that way, but it makes total sense that, like, as that movement gains momentum, that more people identify with it, the job titles start appearing, and, um, that's real...
• 26:30
  I-- What-- Yeah, never thought of measuring content in that way before, but, like, what a cool way to think about it. Super interesting. The other thing that we saw was, um, companies
• 26:41
  putting job postings out for revenue operations titles that required Clari as a, like, known... Like, you, you have to have experience with Clari to, like, be qualified for this job. Dang. Yeah. That's cool.
• 26:52
  And the job title is revenue operations. So, like, that's where you're starting to see the, you know, Clari as a company being associated with revenue operations profession.
• 27:02
  So again, these, these are things that are not, like, out of the box measurement tools that you can do. It takes a lot of sort of, like, anecdotal investigation work.
• 27:11
  But, you know, in a lot of ways, that's sort of path of category creation. Yeah. It's a little bit squishy, and you just have to, like, tell that story of how, how it's starting to manifest itself out in the wild. Right.
• 27:22
  Man, it's so interesting. All right, I have one more question for you, Michael. Yeah. You have moved on to other roles since then. Are there lessons learned or, you know, things that you apply
• 27:34
  at other companies where you're running a different playbook? Hmm.
• 27:39
  Meaning like, yeah, stuff you learned in the category creation process that you found to be maybe kind of more universally applicable that you've found yourself leaning on since then. Yeah. That's a super good question.
• 27:50
  I think going back to your last question, the interesting thing about category creation is that it wasn't about, like, measuring page views or impressions. Like, the s- the con- the typical content metrics
• 28:03
  didn't necessarily always apply. It, it was part of the story, but not all of the story. And I think what I've learned from that process is, A,
• 28:12
  coming into my content roles looking at the business problem and how can I impact the business from a strategic level where it's actually moving the needle in a larger way than just the typical content metrics.
• 28:26
  So like, how can I help drive revenue? How can I help build the story of the company? How can I help build brand? And these things don't always show up in metrics all the time.
• 28:34
  But what I've found is that, you know, this process of kind of approaching content in a more entrepreneurial spirit, um, really helps me to, I think, pitch ideas, speak the same language as the business, as executives.
• 28:50
  And these are things that, I don't know about you, Jimmy, but I did not learn this in school. Like, I did not know any of this business stuff before coming in.
• 28:58
  I did, definitely didn't learn it as a journalist, and I felt very, like, out of my depth when I first got into tech, but all of these sort of, like, soft skills, telling the story of what you're doing, identifying the business need, translating that into, like, a content initiative, all of these things are super important, in my opinion, to success as a content marketer, especially in today's world.
• 29:19
  And bringing that to the table, I think, has really helped me in my career, kind of stepping out of a... Most content marketers are, are really great writers. They are really great researchers.
• 29:29
  Like, they know how to tell a story. The thing, the gap that I've seen in my experience and in the people I've talked to is, like, how do I speak the business of the language?
• 29:37
  How do I translate those content initiatives into business impact?
• 29:41
  And if you can figure those things out, then I feel like sky's the limit for you as a content marketer, and that's what's helped me, at least in my career. Yeah. I love that. That's awesome.
• 29:50
  I'm thinking-- You're reminding me of this article I read a few years ago. I'm blanking on the name of the woman who wrote it. Essentially explaining... She was a designer at Facebook, I think. Julie Zhao, maybe.
• 29:59
  I'll try to find the article and put it in the show notes. But essentially, the article is about career development, and she, she talks about how, like, your career starts based on your technical skills.
• 30:07
  Can you write, design- Hmm. Code, et cetera. And then over time, it transitions into, can you get shit done or not? You know, [chuckles] it's like the soft skills- Yeah... become so much more important.
• 30:16
  Can you advocate for a project? Can you rally a team of people around it? Can you keep- Yeah... people on deadline? Can you just, like, get it done? You know, kind of like own the narrative of it, et cetera.
• 30:24
  And, uh, that's, that sounds like-There's a big difference between, like, running a content playbook and then running a category creation playbook.
• 30:33
  You know, super interesting to hear you talk through some of the differences, but- Yeah... it feels like it does rely quite a bit more heavily on the soft skills part, as you said. Yeah.
• 30:41
  And, and a lot of the tactics are the same, right? SEO, social, you know, long form e-book writing. Like, a lot of those are still the same.
• 30:48
  It's, it's just understanding how to connect those tactics to the larger business strategy, and then tell the story to leadership about what you're doing, why you're doing it, how it's impacting the business.
• 31:01
  It's super important. Again, these are things that, like, I think everybody can learn. Takes work. It's not easy.
• 31:07
  It's not something that I was comfortable with when I got into this, but the more and more I kinda grow in my career, the more I realize just how critical it is to success. Yeah. Love it.
• 31:18
  Michael, thank you so much for coming on. This episode was a little different than most of our episodes in the sense that we kinda came in with a theme and unpacked it, and
• 31:26
  usually we talk to a person and kinda figure out the theme as we go and go down a few rabbit holes, which is fun too, but this was just a cool break, I think, from our typical format. So thank you.
• 31:34
  Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing the story. Yeah. It's a blast. Where's the best place for us to send folks to connect with you, assuming LinkedIn or maybe a personal website?
• 31:42
  Yeah, uh, just LinkedIn right now. Look me up on LinkedIn. Shoot me a, a message. I love talking about this stuff, as you can probably tell.
• 31:49
  Very passionate about both, you know, content marketing from a strategic standpoint and also helping folks in their content marketing career because I truly believe that, uh, content marketers in general are, are under-resourced.
• 32:02
  They're under, under-appreciated. Yeah, definitely. [laughs] They're overworked. And, and I think we deserve a whole lot more, so I love mentoring, coaching folks and, uh, happy to help where I can. Amazing. We'll...
• 32:15
  I'll grab the link to your, uh, LinkedIn profile, and I'll drop it in the show notes so- Cool... folks can find it easily. Michael, thank you so much.
• 32:20
  Uh, seriously appreciate the time and hope we can do a round two sometime. Yeah, would love to. Thanks, Jimmy. Take care. [outro music]