Today for our 29th episode, we will talk with Purna Virji, PPC trainer, evangelist, speaker and more at Microsoft, and also my new bestie.

I have followed Purna for years, but we had only met in passing to this point. But you could say we hit it off right away and I am excited that we were able to kick off a friendship based on mutual admiration and enjoyment.

And I have to say that Purna is super easy to talk to, engaging and her energy is contagious. And for that I am thankful, because I was trying something new in this episode. I’ll give you the setting. We started recording 10 PM, Copenhagen in Denmark. Earlier in the day I had taken a fjord cruise through Norway. An hour earlier my plane landed in Copenhagen and we checked into our AirBNB just in time to connect to the wifi system. Talk about threading the needle.

After an exhausting day, I was worried about keeping the energy up for our recording. But once we figured out how to get our microphones working, Purna and I started talking like old friends.

Now I don’t like to give away the story in the intro, but I must say that Purna shares many lessons that can benefit us all. The way she approached a new industry was a perfect case of diving in head first into an area of passion. Her thoughts on the differences between working for an agency and in-house are spot-on. And her first speaking gig? Epic.

But I don’t want to steal her thunder. Let’s hear it from my new bestie.

Quotable moments from our talk with Purna Virji

On future of Search:

On working for an agency vs in-house ppc/seo:

On fear of public speaking:

Links related to this week’s episode

* Are you ready for voice search?

* Globalization of local holidays

* Where is digital marketing headed to?

* @PurnaVirji on Twitter

* Purna on LinkedIn

Past episodes on SoundCloud