UX Marketing

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....

Blake: [00:00:00] welcome to the podcast. We have Ryan Fenn here today.

[00:00:02] Ryan: [00:00:02] He's a CEO of chirp

[00:00:04] Blake: [00:00:04] and I'm sure among other things as well, but Chirp is your main thing right now. Ryan, but before we get going, I want to get context on you. So first off, how are you doing?

[00:00:15] Ryan: [00:00:15] I'm doing great. Thanks.

[00:00:17] Blake: [00:00:17] I'm curious, before we start, just so people know what they're getting into here with this interview, what is your professional

[00:00:23] Ryan: [00:00:23] superpower?

[00:00:25] My professional superpower. Oh man. Which one? no, I'm just humility. Humility. No. I would say that our, if I was to sum it up, we're really good at, capturing Leeds and converting those leads are quickly connecting with those leads to push them through a sales process and turn them into a customer faster.

[00:00:46] And what other people generally can do.

[00:00:49] Blake: [00:00:49] Awesome. And we obviously want to touch on Facebook ads a little bit today. We want to touch on text messaging as a platform today. But before that, just curious if you could tell us kind of the elevator pitch version of what's the story of starting chirp, what all went into that?

[00:01:04] How did the idea come about? How did you get to this

[00:01:07] Ryan: [00:01:07] point? Sure. So, I've generally always been entrepreneurial. it wasn't, I don't have a tech background, but. my brother and I had started a business many years ago, 10, 12 years ago, where we, where are we? It was our first entrepreneurial venture.

[00:01:19] We fixed windshields and it fixed like little rock chips and windshields, man. And that was like our first venture we were doing it out of gas stations and our washes and dealerships were down in the trenches, right? And we started to hire people and it started to grow and it was a, it ended up being a really good business.

[00:01:40] And so we decided to, create a digital course on how to start your own windshield repair business. And so, I didn't know what to do there. I just kind of put together a WordPress website, builds up some videos on how to fix windshields and how to build the insurance companies, all that stuff. And then, I partnered with a friend of ours who does do digital marketing and we started selling this course.

[00:02:05] And, started to take off. And we started selling it by texting our leads as they would come in, we would run Facebook ads and when he was texting them, we'd get a much higher engagement rate than we weren't texting them. And we sold about $2 million worth of that course over a couple of years and all through text message.

[00:02:23] So at that point we said, Hey, the sales process of generating a lead in connecting with them through text messaging is really, really effective. Maybe it'll work for other businesses. So we started helping other businesses, real estate agents, mortgage, things like that, local businesses. and then at that point we went to an investor and said, Hey, this is really cool.

[00:02:42] Mmm. Ah, know, can you fund us so that we can start this, start this program? And, there it is. So, so we created chirp to be able to, so that other businesses could get to do what we were doing with this other platform. Or with this other business so that they could get in and do it

[00:03:00] Blake: [00:03:00] themselves. Awesome.

[00:03:03]can you do me a favor real quick? D is your phone on?

[00:03:05] Ryan: [00:03:05] Yeah, we just, we just fixed it.

[00:03:09] Blake: [00:03:09] Awesome. Awesome. So sounds like you're in the same boat, or you were in the same boat as many of the listeners here once upon a time, and now you're in the process

[00:03:19] Ryan: [00:03:19] of building this company,

[00:03:20] Blake: [00:03:20] and I'm guessing that Facebook.

[00:03:23] Based on your expertise. Facebook ads have been a good part of what's made you successful...

Blake: [00:00:00] welcome to the micro-influencer podcast. Today we have a special guest, Kathleen Booth, who is the VP of marketing at Attila security and really excited to talk all things email today, but first off, Kathleen, how are you doing?

[00:00:15] Kathleen: [00:00:15] I'm great. Thanks, Blake. How are you doing?

[00:00:17] Blake: [00:00:17] I'm fantastic doing really well, and I'm sure the audience is going to get a lot out of this one today because many of us, myself included, are trying to build an email list.

[00:00:27] We know how important that is to keep nurturing that and building that up. So I'm excited. Personally to ask you tons of questions, but first off, I would love to get some quick context on you.

[00:00:37] And first and foremost, just curious what you think your professional super power is. Just to give an idea to the audience of who we're talking to.

[00:00:44] Kathleen: [00:00:44] Oh boy. Professional superpower. that's a really good question. you know, I'm like many marketers, I'm great at marketing other people and terrible at marketing myself. so I guess, you know, the thing that I've really. I seem to have specialized in the last few years that I'm really passionate about and that I love is coming into really early stage companies as the first head of marketing, building out a marketing team, developing the strategy, and basically putting a growth engine in place.

[00:01:13] And so that, that's what I love and that's what I seem to do over and over and over.

[00:01:18] Blake: [00:01:18] Awesome. Well that's going to be super helpful then. Cause that startup mentality is exactly who we're talking to. That's, that's the audience here. I'm curious what the story, if you could give a brief elevator story of how your career has gone so far. Basically the story of when you started to where you are now and then we'll get into a lot of the tactical

[00:01:37] Kathleen: [00:01:37] Absolutely. So I did not actually start out in marketing. I had a whole nother career for 10 years working in international development, but about halfway through that time, I started to kind of shift over to focus more on. Marketing and communications, because a lot of big international development projects have, have trouble getting off the ground because of poor communication.

[00:01:57] And so I started to shift my focus and that eventually led me back into marketing, which is what I had done my MBA and many, many years ago. I started my own agency and had that for 11 years. that after that I, I sold it to another agency. Then a couple of years, they're transitioning everything over and then left to really pursue my passion, which is working with startups.

[00:02:20] And, since that time, I've been VP of marketing and a couple of different startups, recently specializing in cybersecurity. but really I'm just, I'm all about helping entrepreneurs make their businesses successful. And I think that's because I was an entrepreneur myself for so long, and, you know, I might not have my own business now, but I still need to scratch that itch.

[00:02:37] And so I like to do it with other business owners and help them see success and maybe not make some of the mistakes that I made. I'm also a podcaster, so I have a podcast called the inbound success podcast where we talk all about, how to get more ROI from your inbound marketing efforts.

[00:02:54] Blake: [00:02:54] Fantastic. So fellow podcast or fellow entrepreneur. I think this aligns really well. so let's, let's dive into the email side of things, cause I know that's what we want to cover today for the most part. And I'm really curious, starting out, you mentioned you are an entrepreneur that's very much at the heart of who you are.

[00:03:10] I'm curious what email, email marketing, building an email list has looked like for you? What have you done in the past for yourself?

[00:03:19] Kathleen: [00:03:19] You know, this is such a fascinating topic to me...

[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome to the micro influencer podcast. This is Blake. I am the host of the show. I have hosted several podcasts in the past, and I am excited to get back into it on my own, and I'm going to be interviewing people like you. I want a podcast that's made for people. By people that are actually going through the same things as the audience.

[00:00:31] So the purpose of this is that you're going to learn how to grow your audience, grow your business, market a product, build out your services. You're going to learn how to do. All these things and so many more in between and outside of that from people that are either currently doing it or have just done it as opposed to people.

[00:00:52] You know, we're not going to have Gary Vaynerchuk on here anytime soon talking about how you can build your social media following because [00:01:00] he's got amazing advice and you should follow people like that. But the reality is that if you follow people that are just a level above you or on the same level, even, you'll learn so much more in that moment than if you try to hold yourself to a standard of somebody that has had a personal videographer for 15 years.

[00:01:18] We're going to learn together from experts, from amateurs, from, you know, anybody that has something to teach based on failure or experiments or successes in influence. So whether it's, you know, building a website and getting traffic there, or growing a social media following so many different subjects, real people are going to be helping out you real people.

[00:01:42] So today. Now that we understand what this is going to be, I want to start things off there. Was this typically going to be an interview podcast, but I will often do solo episodes when I have really tactical advice that's top of [00:02:00] mind, and today I want to start this off with. Three tips to grow your social media.

[00:02:05] And again, this is to grow realistically and sustainably. This is not three tips to explode your Instagram by doing follow on follow or other things that technically work for getting your vanity metrics up, but they don't drive business and they're not sustainable. Meaning if you just shut off the program or stop paying for it, it's not going to work.

[00:02:25] We're going to talk about things that are real, which means they're going to take more work and more time. And if you're okay with that. This is for you, and it's going to work as we work together. So for today, three tips to grow on social media. If you're trying to fast track your Facebook, larger fire, LinkedIn, grow your gram, take on Twitter, whatever you're trying to do, I have three actionable tips today that will help you grow.

[00:02:54]. You can trust me on these things because I feel a lot in my experiments to learn [00:03:00] these things and I'm still learning them. So again, if you look me up on social media anywhere. You're going to see that I'm not a huge influencer, and that is by design that I'm doing this podcast right now because I have every bit as much to learn, and this is a great platform for me to learn on.

[00:03:16] Not just regurgitate information, but I also sometimes learn things that I want to share with other people, just like I do that from others. So here they are. Number one, steal your competitors' gold. Mine. So let's say for example, you're in a boring industry. You're trying to build a following in like insurance or finance or marketing, something that normal people consider boring.

[00:03:42] Now, what I want you to do is take a full week to examine other players in this space. Compile notes on what everyone else is doing, whether you want to do it in a spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets. I think it's a really clean way to gather information. Basically, keep a journal of any patterns that you [00:04:00] notice that seem to be working for other people.

[00:04:02] Right now, I want you to focus on the positive. What's working for these...