The Marketing Picnic

Oh god, how did we even make it to episode 11? Didn't expect this when we came up with The Picnic.

I also didn't see epic guests like Nicholas coming.

Who knew that there were so many cool Belgian boiiis in the marketing scene?

I sure didn't, but I'm always ready to support my countrymen.

Although I don't think a baller like Nicholas needs much help.

I mean look at what he's achieved so far:

1) He started a planning tool named Plann3r. This tool looks at both of your availability and location and immediately pics a meeting time that works optimally with both people's schedule.

It even takes travel time into account.

For more info check out this link:

https://plann3r.com/tmf

2) When he was getting started with the app, he got accepted into the "birdhouse accelerator". Which is a very prestigious Belgium accelerator that's notoriously hard to get into.

3) Before that, he worked for a growth hacking agency, where he used his hacky strategies to generate leads on the CHEAP.

He later used those skills for his startup, because he couldn't use traditional marketing channels with his limited budget.

4) He's also a talented developer, which is one of the reasons he managed to do all that other stuff.

That's where he honed his core marketing skills.

5) He has a disarming smile and dreamy eyes. Which isn't relevant in any way tbh..

Here's what I'm going to ask him about:

1) His life journey, he told me about living in Denmark and winning all sorts of entrepreneurial competitions. What's up with that?

2) What's plann3r all about? How is he managing to make it so cutting edge in such a crowded market?

3) How can people use plann3r to save time, make money and look cool?

4) What's his process for coming up with his guerilla marketing tactics?

5) What is the number one opportunity to get leads on the cheap right now?

6) What's one thing nobody told him about starting a saas company?

7) What's it like being an entrepreneur in Belgium?

Much Love,

Stapho Thienpont

As you guys know, there is nothing I enjoy more than feeling stupid. And if there's one person that has consistently made me feel stupid over the last 6 months, it's my main man Andrei.

He's an absolute God when it comes to b2b marketing.

If I have any question about b2b marketing, I'll always check his blog (getleado) first.

That's why I shared an excerpt of his blog here, earlier this week.

What I admire most about his approach is that it's extremely logical and well thought out. If it can be tracked or optimized, you can be sure that Andrei's done it.

He's the go-to guy for anything lead generation, b2b funnels, lead scoring, lead nurturing etc....

Basically, he's the weapon that can tell you which tool to use for which problem. And then he'll do it for you as well.

On top of all of that he's made a thriving community for B2B Marketers & Founders. Which is where all b2b marketers and founders go to learn so they can look smart in front of other people in the industry.

(They also go there if they want to make more money).

Andrei is highly technical, but in our talk, I want to go over the basics again:

- What is a funnel?

- How do you get started with funnels?

- How do you nurture leads?

- How do you run an experiment?

- How do you figure out who your ideal customer is?

I'm pumped about this, and you should be too.

Much Love,

Stapho Thienpont

We have Janosch, the founder of Joturl.

Joturl is an exceedingly clever, all-in-one suite for your marketing links.

It's what we use to track link open rates, figure out the destinations, track conversion, remarket people, deep link and so much more.

It's really a crazy effective tool that we use every day, so I'm stocked AF to get a chance to talk to the founder. (that you're gonna be there to watch is just a lucky by-product for me tbh).

But this Picnic won't just be about this epic tool, it's gonna be about the legend behind it.

To help me prepare for this introduction, he sent me almost 30 minutes of audio telling his story. And I actually enjoyed listening to it.

Before he was a SaaS founder and CEO Janosch was a theoretical Physicist, a custom software developer and a consultant.

When growing his company, they went through a lot of hardships:

- The competition is fierce

- They had to fire team members cause they didn't have the right mindset

- He had to deal with my endless questions about using links more effectively

So needless to say, he's an extremely experienced and hardworking entrepreneur.

What I'm interested in learning from this call is the following:

- How do people engage with links online and how can we leverage this for our own business?

- What features does Joturl have that can help us built our businesses?

- What did he learn from running a saas company that has a well-established competition

- What mindset does he look for in his team members?

- How can we use data in a more effective way?

- How did he find a baller like Stefano Pisoni to be his CMO and what's their main strategy for their own marketing?

- Does he think his karate can defeat my jiu-jitsu?

My friend, Professor Scott Davis teaches courses about Marketing Management, Integrated Marketing Communications, and the Sales Force.

He does that at The University of Houston-Downtown Davies College of Business. He's also passionate about making online education better.

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He also has an extremely interesting podcast called the "Marketing Mixtape".

It's one of the only podcasts I listen too and coincidentally, a podcast that I've appeared on! (I'll link it in the comments).

And it's actually that last part that impresses me so much. You see, most marketing professors talk the talk. but they rarely walked the walk.

They'll come at you with complicated theories and methods that are theoretically sound but often lack practicality.

Scott definitely walks the walk:

- He has his podcast that's blowing up

- He's killing in on LinkedIn

- And he's starting on Youtube as well.

That's a lot of hard work that he's doing, that he really didn't have too. His university wouldn't lose any sleep if he kept it simple.

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As you guys know, I'm completely self-taught when it comes to marketing. The benefit of this has been that I've always had the opportunity to learn by doing.

But the downside has been that I've developed the parts that I like a bit more than the parts that I don't like.

Like most people, I've developed some blind spots.

Now, as a professor, Scott has built an extremely solid theoretical foundation when it comes to marketing.

So my goal with this talk is to help myself, you and other marketers to close the gaps in our foundation.

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In this talk, you'll see me as an eager student, ready to learn from the legendary professor, Scott Davis!

Here's what we'll talk about:

- Blind spots of self-taught marketers

- The latest research in Marketing

- Psychological triggers that you don't know about

- The effects of colors in Marketing

- How you can become a baller like Scott Davis

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I hope to see you guys there!

Much Love,

Stapho Thienpont

Who's that peeping in my inbox?

POW

Personalized memes and videos in your inbox now.

Our guest for this Episode is a disruptor, an innovator, and a pretty cool guy. One of those people that changed the game for the better.

Before I talk about Lemlist I want to tell you some fantastic stuff about the man:

- He's an engineer and a marketer

- He loves Gifs, Cats, meeting people and learning

- He hates people with inflated ego's

- He runs the first Cold email group on the Facebook: The Email Outreach Family

- His country cheated us out of the world cup (damn Frenchies)

Back to business.

His cold email tool allows you to send personalized memes and videos to people's inbox.

That's right instead of random pitches you're now getting memes in your inbox.

It's no wonder they ended up as #1 on product hunt.

I'm not surprised tho, I mean... Tech that allows you to send unique personalized memes to thousands of people at once deserves a reward.

Even though they only launched in January, they already have more than 4000 users.

As you guys know, I haven't played with email much.

But Lemlist is the first tool we're planning to get serious about.

I'm definitely planning to abuse this chance to step up my cold outreach game.

Here's what I'm going to ask Guillaume about:

1) What are the stages of a successful cold outreach campaign?

2) What are good use cases for Cold email? Who should get on it?

3) What's the 20% that makes 80% of the difference?

4) What personalization functions do they have up their sleeve?

5) What the effect of these functions?

6) How did they get to #1 on Producthunt?

7) What's the #1 thing he has learned since January?

I'm hyped!

Much Love,

Stapho

I was so ashamed, here I was, looking at the replay of me interviewing a marketing legend. A man who's been actively marketing since before the internet.

Someone with true skill lead nurturing.

He was spitting fire from the first second, answering every question with skill, finesse, and clarity. Russ was a real champ.

However, I looked distracted and disrespectful.

What you can't see in the Live stream is the number of technical difficulties we had. It was so bad that I had to use my laptop as a camera stand for my phone.

Nothing seemed to be working, except for the glorious brain of Russ.

The interview didn't do him honor.

That's why we're redoing it tonight. This time I'll make sure that we make the most out of it. I'll have my eyes peeled to the screen and my ears right open.

Here's what I'm going to ask Russ:

1) What's your method for finding and following up with leads?

2) How do you help coaches and speakers book more events?

3) How do you manage to post so much valuable content in so little time?

4) How did you manage to transition so well into the digital age?

5) How can I make sure I'll be as cool as you when I turn 50?

This is gonna be one for the history books,

See you there

We're here with top 50 UK SaaS Sales leader, aka Top 15 podcast host AKA THE GINGER BEARD EVANGELIST HIMSELF.

Who's also a generally top bloke. So psyched to have him.

"Download my latest growth hack!"

"3 ways to growth hack your personal brand"

"7 secrets to growth hacking your broccoli soup"

You might have clicked on links like that before. And it might have changed your life. Or it might have been a disappointment.

BUT, chances are, you still don't really know what a "growth hacker" is.

Do they actually hack stuff? Are they criminals? Do all of them have fluffy hair?

Well, you're about to find out. Because our next guest, Ricardo, is a purebred growth hacker.

He has more in him than that tho.

When he was 19, he was too lazy to write his thesis. So he started his first company instead. A rental service for students.

Later on, he started Alchemist box, a box that allows you to mix fancy drinks. He sold that company a few months ago.

Currently, he's running his own growth hacking consultancy: fast forward online.

He's ALSO head of growth at KAZI.

AND he's running an awesome Facebook group, called B2B Founders & Marketers. (EXCLUSIVELY for B2B marketers and founders).

That's quite an impressive resume if you ask me. That's I'm honoured that he accepted my invitation to be on this show.

So given the expertise and experience of Ricardo, we'll be talking about the following subjects:

- How to be more data-driven

- How does a Growth H3cker think?

- Entrepreneurship.

- Secret tactics to blow up in 2018

- How to Growth Hack your hair

Hope you guys are HYPED!

- Stapho

Lila Smith is the Director of Communications and E-Commerce at DNA Footwear.

But she's also:

- LinkedIn Influencer

- Super nice person

- LinkedIn Local Co-Host in NYC

- Master Networker

- My Favourite person on LinkedIn.

One time Lila told me that her brother got her a reminder once, that said: "You can't make everyone happy, you're not a Taco".

Lila isn't a Taco. But damn it I've never met anyone who comes as close as her.

Her Taco style pays off too, her LinkedIn videos always get thousands of engagements (Likes+ comments+shares).

There aren't many people who can boast of numbers like that.

She's one of those rare people who became an influencer by the sheer power of niceness and networking.

(But let's not forget she's extremely clever and hardworking too).

My whole #TMFLinkedInsChallenge was about me trying to get people to be more Lila.

I believe Lila's whole way of being should be seen as a prime example of how to treat each other on the internet.

She makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside. But she won't hesitate to come up for herself or her friends.

I really hope to meet Lila in real life one day.

Here's what we'll talk about:

- How to Network

- How to master LinkedIn like a human

- Business Culture

- LinkedIn Local.

- Taco Style Kung-Fu

It's truly an honour to have her on the show.

Much Love,

Stapho Thienpont

It's tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime for another episode of the TMF Picnic! As you've realised by now, I only invite people that I really really like.

Matter of fact, I've accused myself of using the Picnic as a cheap excuse to hang out with hard to reach people.

I've spent the whole week applying some techniques I learned from Lila Smith last week.

Every week I learn. And I'm, sure this week won't be any different.

So, what about Jeannette? What do I like about her so much?

I could start with the obvious:

- She's coached more than 100 entrepreneurs.

- She was interviewed by Charlie Price himself for her incredible Instagram prowess. (I paid to see that and it was worth every penny)

- I've seen her kill it as a team member on multiple projects.

- She Grew her Facebook group Dream Team Instagram Secrets at a staggering pace.

But that's all superficial "she gets results" stuff. Here's what really made me reach out to her:

She combines marketing with the spiritual.

That's right, she doesn't just talk about getting big on Instagram. She doesn't just talk about personal branding.

She talks about how to do all that but maintain a healthy mind and body at the same time.

I haven't spoken about this publicly. But later on, I want to work more around Social Media and mental health.

I think Social Media can be wonderfully healthy, but it can be poisonous as well. And I want to help people make it healthy for them.

Jeannette shares this passion, so I'm sure we're gonna reach a new level of understanding.

I'm excited about this one!

Much Love,

Stapho Thienpont