Transcript
WEBVTT
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Yeah.
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Hey everybody, welcome back to another
episode of GDP Growth. I'm your host,
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timmy Bauer, the content strategist
here at Sweet Fish and today I am
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talking with Carrie straits, she is the
director of growth at sure payroll.
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Carrie, welcome to the show. Hey,
thanks for having me, I'm excited to
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talk to you. The topic that we're
talking about is direct mail. Now, the
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last time we were talking I asked you,
you know, what does everybody think of
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when they think of direct mail and how
have you seen it done really
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successfully or how have you used it
really successfully? So, first question
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for you carry is how do most people
think about it? I think most people
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think about direct mail in terms of
like those big value pack fires that
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you get once a week with the coupons
for your local car wash or your local
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vent cleaning place or like a big
oversized postcard with bright colors
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for the local car dealership. But it's
become so much more than that. It's
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become such an interesting channel to
me that you can automate the sense to
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um, meet a person's needs or wherever
they're at in their funnel. Um, with
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personalized, highly personalized sends,
um, with your company logo, you can do
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gifting, um, you can do gift cards.
It's become such a much more
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interesting channel than it used to be.
Yeah. What initially made you sort of
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latch onto it as a channel that you
wanted to invest in? I started noticing
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it a couple of years ago when I was
working with some tech companies
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looking at building on my text back and
I started to get really cool stuff in
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the mail from them, like branded
cupcakes. I had a peer who was pregnant
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had mentioned she was going out on mat
leave. She got a branded one Z from her
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salesperson and I was like this is
different, this is up in the game, this
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is personalized. It is definitely in
the moment and it worked for some of
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our really long sales cycles that we
were going through. But also as a
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marketer I find it being really
effective as a sales enablement tool
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for my sales team. Yeah, so you said
something interesting the last time we
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talked, you said that you would never
recommend a standalone direct mail. But
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as a holistic strategy, it's very
powerful. So what do you mean by that?
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I would never, in my life send a stand
alone postcard or standalone gift box.
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It has to be part of an overarching
strategy and it's got to be like a
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multi touch strategy. So I've used it
in my A. B and prospecting strategy
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where I'm surrounding my prospects with
all of these digital messages. But I
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also get a really tactile physical way
to get my message in front of them as
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well. So I'm reaching them in a variety
of different channels and that's how I
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would recommend using direct mail or
automated sons. Yeah. Why do you think
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a lot of BB marketers are not using
direct mail in their strategy? I think
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a lot of people still think it's a
dinosaur and if you're sending a
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postcard or all letter than it is a
dinosaur, you're doing it like a
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dinosaur. But if you take advantage of
all the tech that's out there to enable
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your sales team with gifting and direct
mail when they need it, I think it's
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really, it's interesting. It's powerful
and it's new because it hasn't been
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done this way before. Yeah. So I want
to dig into how you recommend a
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strategy is created or followed. So
what do you think? Step one is to
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incorporating direct mail into your
strategy? I think step one is
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understanding your audience and
understanding what the thing is that
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you send them, that's going to resonate
with them if it's the holidays, Is it
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something holiday themed? If it's
valentine's day? Is that something is a
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valentine's day? Candy? It gets down to
knowing your audience. Yeah. So how do
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you guys use it? We use it in a couple
of different ways. We're using it in
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sales enablement. So for some of our
bigger dollar deals, we definitely
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opened up sort of the free wheel and
let our sales team send whatever they
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feel they need to to move the deal
along. Yeah, we definitely use it for
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sales enablement. But again, we also
use it and strategies for different
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audiences in an A. B. M. Strategy. Yeah,
Something we're going to start using in
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our A. B. M. Strategy is so we have
somebody on the podcast and then
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they're going to say something really
awesome. So we're going to make a
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canvas. I should probably shouldn't say
this. But yeah, we're gonna make a
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canvas print out of whatever awesome
thing that they said and said, I love
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it because if I'm on a podcast and I
end up, you know, a couple of weeks
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later I've got a canvas print of
something that the host thought I said
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awesome. Like I'm framing, I'm putting
that up on my wall that's going to be
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in my office forever. Yeah, you are.
That's awesome. I'm I'm stealing that
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because we have a podcast to love it.
So when you think about, oh there's
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something that you said, you said there
are a ton of creative ways to do it. So
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why don't you just hit me with a few?
What are some of the most creative but
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still very strategic ways that you've
either seen direct mail used or done it
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yourself. Sure. Um one of the two
things stick out in my head, one was a
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sort of swag bag from marquette, oh
that I got two years ago. And what
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stuck out to me is that it wasn't a
typical swag bay. These were a quality
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items. These were quality hoodie that I
still wear. It's not in here to two
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years later, I still wear to this day
daily. Um I got a pair of Ray Bans son
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sunglasses, like they were quality. The
other piece that sticks out is a box I
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got from google over the summer and it
was mixed tape themed and it had my
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name on it and it was incredibly
detailed down to um including recycling
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instructions for the packaging. So the
level of attention and detail and
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personalization that those two boxes
had was just amazing and incredibly
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memorable. Hey everybody Logan with
Sweet fish here. If you're a regular
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listener of GDP growth, you know that
I'm one of the co hosts of the show,
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but you may not know that. I also head
up the sales team here at Sweet Fish.
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So for those of you in sales or sales
ops, I wanted to take a second to share
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something that's made us insanely more
efficient lately. Our team has been
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using lead I. Q. For the past few
months. And what used to take us four
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hours gathering contact data now takes
us only one where 75 more efficient
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were able to move faster with outbound
prospecting and organizing our
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campaigns is so much easier than before.
I'd highly suggest you guys check out
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lead I. Q. As well. You can check them
out at lead I. Q. Dot com. That's L E A
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D I Q dot com. All right. Let's get
back to the show. I love that. So for
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anyone listening who wants to get in
the game and start incorporating this,
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they want to honestly follow your
advice. How do you think they could
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screw it up? Well you send the wrong
thing to the wrong person or you don't
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make a serious investment in it. Like
sending something on the cheaper end is
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probably not a good idea. Not sending
it as part of a strategy. If you send a
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box and don't include any SDR activity
around it or digital activity, then
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you're just basically burning money. So
you've got to add it as a bunch of
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different touchpoints and you've got to
add money. It's got to be personalized
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and it's got to be quality. Yeah. When
we think about giving gifts, um we're
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really inspired by a book called gift
Ology and I actually need to read it. I
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talk about this book so often because
I've gotten so much of it secondhand
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from my, from my best friend James,
that I don't need to actually just read
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the book. I'm sorry john, but one of
the central ideas in the book is that
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so often when companies give gifts,
quote unquote, it's not something that
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the other person would love to receive
its, you know? Yeah, it's like cheap
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swag, but real good gift giving is when
you can figure out what that other
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person loves and give them something
that, you know, is going to be
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impactful given what they're interested
in. So we've actually incorporated
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again this is like we're trying to
develop a really killer strategy for
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just building real friendships with the
types of people that we want to have,
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you know in our network. And so one of
the things that we do is we do a pre
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interview for every call and in the pre
interview I hit you with a bunch of
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questions. But one of my sneaky goals
in the pre interview is to figure out
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what you like because uh we haven't
built out the strategy carry so I can't
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promise that you're gonna get anything
in the mail. But yeah one of my sneaky
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goals is to figure out what you like.
So we we actually recommend that folks
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who do podcasts, they should have a pre
interview where they ask original
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research questions and topic discovery
questions which we call P. O. V.
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Questions but also questions that are
going to lend themselves well to
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figuring out what the other person
likes so that you can do really good
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gift ology. So if you want to steal
that one for your podcast as well carry
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well. Well that's a good one. I like
that we do pre interviews but we don't
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really use them in that manner but I
think that I'll give you a really good
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question. This is a fun one. You ask
what is the current and you ask it
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right in that you're just doing the pre
interview, you're just talking to them
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about you know potential topics and
then you're like yeah so my next
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question for you is what is the current
background wallpaper of your phone and
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uh you know whatever they answer,
chances are it's going to be very
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personal and it's going to give you a
sense of who they are and what they're
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like and what they like and uh minus a
picture of my girlfriend. So then you
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might start asking me about her and you
know, we just got engaged and now
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there's all kinds of potential for
things that you could do. I'm still in
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that in general, like I'm real socially
awkward with covid stealing that. Yeah,
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well, you know, as long as we're just
jamming on pre interviews, another
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great one is to start your call with,
you know, so hey Carrie, how's your
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Tuesday going? So today's Tuesday? So
I'm not going to say how's it going?
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I'm going to say how's your Tuesday
going now? You're thinking about
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Tuesday and then I say what's been the
highlight and lowlight of your day? And
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I have been shocked at how intimate and
personal people will get with me when
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they tell me what their highlight and
lowlight are. And they will straight up
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say what they're low light is. It's
like, you know, we have to take our dog
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to the vet and you know, or whatever,
like whatever the low light is and
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they'll get very personal with me and
the highlight, you know, and the
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highlight could have nothing to do with
work. And uh it's just another clever
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strategy to building like a human
relationship with that person. Do you
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get more highlights and lowlights?
Everybody wants to start with the
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highlight. And also it kind of depends
on what time of day it is. So if it's
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in the morning, I typically don't get
any low lights. But if it's like the
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end of the day, they're getting ready
to like leave and hit up, you know, go
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out and get a drink or something. Like
relax from the day. Well, it's covid a
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lot of people aren't going out, but if
you're in florida, it's like the
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disease doesn't exist here. Yeah, So
they're going out. So you get them at
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that time, they will tell you what the
love light is. I think I opened with my
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low light was a three hour zoom meeting
today. Yeah, exactly. So if I wanted to
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do gift ology on you, I could, I could
get on Pinterest and start looking for
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some inspiration for good gifts that
are related to long, unnecessary zoom
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calls. Amen to that gift ology. That's
really interesting. Well, I'm happy to
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advertise it because I've heard such
good things about it and I need to read
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it. You know what? You don't, you pull
it off like you did. Anyways carry.
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This has been a super fun conversation.
I'm really glad that we got to jam on
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this. How would you like listeners to
connect with you? You can find me on
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linkedin. Just search up carry straits.
I'm also on twitter, Same first name,
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last name Carrie straits. Thank you so
much for being on the podcast. Thanks
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for having me. This is great.
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Is the decision maker for your product
or service Abebe marketer. Are you
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looking to reach those buyers through
the medium of podcasting? Considered
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00:12:01.760 --> 00:12:06.980
becoming a co host of GDP Growth. This
show is consistently ranked as a top
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00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:11.130
100 podcast in the marketing category
of apple podcasts and the show gets
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more than 100 and 30,000 downloads each
month. We've already done the work of
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building the audience so you can focus
on delivering incredible content to our
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listeners if you're interested, email
Logan at sweet fish Media dot com.