Patrick Ward - MI Podcast

Blake: [00:00:00] welcome to the podcast today, Patrick Ward, who is a director of marketing at Rootstrap. Patrick, how are you doing today?

[00:00:07] Patrick: [00:00:07] Thanks for having me, Blake.

[00:00:09] Blake: [00:00:09] Thank you very much for coming on. Really excited to talk to you about LinkedIn and B2B lead generation. And specifically just giving advice to help micro-influencers and entrepreneurs and people that are building something in this particular area.

[00:00:22] But before we get into that, I do want to get a little bit of context on you, just so that we can have a little social proof, if you will, of who you are, where you've been. So first and foremost, what's your professional super power according to you?

[00:00:35] Patrick: [00:00:35] Oh, that's a great question. Like I would say my professional superpower is being able to connect with audiences regardless of industry.

[00:00:45] And what I mean by that is. In a cross, I think nine different industries now and all using the same foundation of marketing, specifically writing. I started as a copywriter in the insurance space. Then went through food and beverage, tech, travel, finance, real estate in name, and I've done it. And what I've been able to do is take those core fundamental skills of writing and then apply them to different industries so that yes, there's a little bit of a change with , language or across those different industries.

[00:01:19] But at the end of the day, we are still communicating to few months and if everyone can understand that, and that's really where you can start to see some success. One of the things I often notice as I've gone through my career. people try and make it too complicated. They try and think that one area is very unique and another area is also exceptional.

[00:01:43] And really at the end of the day, who are you selling to? You're selling to people. People. We have way more similarities than differences. Do you understand that you can be very successful? Well, I'm

[00:01:56] Blake: [00:01:56] curious, according to you, what percentage of the industries you've worked in would be considered boring.

[00:02:02] Patrick: [00:02:02] Oh, easily 80 to 90%.

[00:02:05] I think I do travel and food and beverage for a bit, but every single other one, insurance, real estate, finance, even the tech I'm doing, it's not even a quote unquote sexy tech. It's all, beta, beta app development. It's all talking in terms of how do we scale it. So very numbered space. it's all. On part, as you say, very boring.

[00:02:29]and the funny thing is that's what, that's where I really shine because I'm able to bring a perspective of, Hey, we can bring entertainment, we can bring content, we can bring, you know, an exciting level of value to the people. That we are communicating to because at the end of the day, they are still humans.

[00:02:49] You might say, Oh, well it's a CEO. They want to be serious. Well, next CEOs on always serious. They do last too. You know? They are still people, so you don't have to communicate in a boring way just because it's, you know, someone who's a C suite or a decision maker.

[00:03:09] Blake: [00:03:09] Yeah, for sure. I mean that's ultimately, that's why I was curious because.

[00:03:13] We get in our heads that just because something's boring, you know? That's how it is, but sometimes you just got to disrupt the way that we write and speak and communicate with other people. And I think, I'm sure going to get into that a little bit more tactfully, especially with how we do this for LinkedIn to generate leads for B2B specifically.

[00:03:33] Mmm. Before that though, just want to get a quick reference on a snapshot of your career so far, where you started and how you got to where you are now.

[00:03:42] Patrick: [00:03:42] Yeah, totally. So I started as a copywriter in an ad agency. Home country of Australia and Sydney and was there for a while....