Transcript
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Conversations from the front lines and marketing. This is be tob growth, coming
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to you from just outside Austin,
Texas. I'm your host, Benjie Block,
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and joining me from Louisville, Kentucky, our creative content lead, Emily
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Brady, and in Nashville, Tennessee
our director growth here at sweet fish,
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Dan Sanchez. Welcome in to the
show and here about ten minutes you're going
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to hear a conversation that I did
with Sarah. She's the senior growth manager
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over at voice flow. We talk
a lot about community. Actually we're on
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a group call together where we were
just talking about how you create community and
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foster community and she had so many
good ideas that I was like we need
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to have her on b Tob Growth, and so I'm excited to share this
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one with all of you for we
get there. You guys know, Monday's,
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Wednesday's Fridays, the three of us, Dan, Emily and I are
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here to do some show and tells
talking about things we're seeing in and around
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marketing, and it's my turn today. So I kind of want to turn
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the tables on emily a little bit, because she posted about the return we've
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seen on our linkedin evangelist program.
Emily, give us some context. It's
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been a year of really doing this
thing. So maybe just a high level
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overview on what we've done and,
like I mean, I guess congratulations.
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A year is is a long time
and marketing world right. You've I know
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you've learned a lot from this.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so
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that we've seen a lot of benefits
from a program for our companies and also
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for our employees. And one of
the things we've generated over three hundred Tho
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and revenue, and that's just what
we were able to attribute. And hub
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spot. We had twenty, twenty
plus team made team members go through the
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program and so we were able to
help them grow and build their brands,
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which is really exciting. That's one
of my favorite benefits of the program.
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And then also just another cool aside
is like having invites to podcast because of
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the content we're posting, or some
of gone on to get jobs outside of
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sweet fish that are really good because
of what they've posted. So just a
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lot of cool and a lot of
brand awareness, obviously in recognition for that.
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So those are results that we've seen. We're gonna have a lot of
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people like sort of all over the
map with how they engage with Linkedin.
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So just talk a little bit about
what this has looked like to get.
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When you say I mean helped twenty
plus employees build and grow their personal brands.
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They those aren't all marketers, those
aren't all people that might naturally just
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be like active on Linkedin. So
talk about some of the inner workings,
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I guess, of what this program
was and how it set people up to
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be so active over on the platform. Well, I mean the first step
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was creating a framework to make sure
that we had a strategy in place that
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would make this thing go and like
give it momentum and and then we on
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boarded whoever was interested. We had
this open invitation and we just said,
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if anyone wants to be active on
linkedn't build their brands, like we want
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to help you do that. And
so we would on board people and help
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them flesh out their their content pillars. I like to ask them like what
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they're passionate about, knowledgeable about and
curious about, and then from there,
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obviously something that's refined over time,
but you need something, some sort of
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springboard, and so we talked about
their personality as well as their content and
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just we give them training so they're
confident posting, because a lot of people
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haven't posted ever on linked did and
I hadn't either before I started this and
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it was kind of terrifying. So
that's a huge part of it, is
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equipping employees and giving them that training
and giving them the confidence to post.
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And we were really fortunate that we
had Dan already had been posting on linked
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in for a long time, so
he already had proved results and I think
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that just added to the excitement that
our employees had of like, if Dan
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can have these results, then we
can start working on this and see these
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as well. So that's how we
got started with it. Yeah, Dan,
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I mean you've been on this for
a while but also been alongside,
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you know, in Emily's journey over
the last year. Would if, from
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your perspective, your vanae point some
of the benefits you've seen, as this
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is kind of taken off for sweet
fish and been a core part of our
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strategy. And I actually wasn't the
first, that's say, James was the
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first, Logan was the second,
but they were kind of going independently this
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program first started. In it they
invited like just the leadership team to post,
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but of the whole leadership team,
James and Logan included, they were
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the kind of the only ones already
posting and I was brand new. I
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just been hired and threw me into
the mix with a few others, and
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of the few new others that I
got added, I was pretty much the
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only one really posting other than like
they were writing and posting, but like
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they weren't really engaging with it.
They were just kind of checking off the
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box, but I was going all
in. But the fact that James and
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Logan had already been there, had
already created momentum, it made it so
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much easier for me to kind of
like draft behind them. You know,
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if you're into like biking, you
know how right behind him, to like
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draft to it's kind of what happened. Like they had already been before me
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and would honestly, if they commented
on my my post, my post would
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get way more reach because they already
had reach, which, if you don't
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know, and Linkedin comments are like
tapping share. If you comment on someone's
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post, it's almost as if you
had hit the share button. In fact,
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even more so, I think,
then just tapping share. It goes
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out to all that person's or a
lot of their friends, followers and people
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they're engaging with. So every single
person you can get to comment ex boost
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your post. And James and Logan
were commenting a lot of my post early
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on and because they already have momentum, we brought it with and we're able
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to accelerate my growth and reach within
the platform and I'm like, oh my
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gosh, if we could scale this
out and ad a couple more people and
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doing the same thing I've done,
even if not to the same degree of
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intensity that I put it put into
it, it would work. And that
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was kind of like the whole idea
behind launching it, as can we do
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this more, and obviously we needed
even more help doing it. With more
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people came more work, and that's
why we brought emily full time on,
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because she was so good at helping
with my work, my post, and
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James and logans that I'm like,
let's let's do this even more, and
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it freaking work. I appreciate the
variety in that. It wasn't like everyone
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has to do this one way,
and we've, I mean you tried multiple
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things and I wonder, emily,
like what have been as you've done this
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and tried to scale it and then
we've gone through all these different seasons of
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it. Essentially, like, what
have been some of the biggest challenges for
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you in doing this? And I
know there's so many people that come to
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you with questions, like we're interested
in it right, but like biting the
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bullet and actually doing it is pretty
hard. So what are what were some
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of the biggest challenges you've kind of
encountered over the last year? The biggest
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challenges are usually centered around getting buy
in from either leadership or from your employees,
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and a lot of companies that I've
talked to who have tried similar programs
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that's been true for them as well. And so I think again, we
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were just fortunate to have James and
Dan and Logan already posting, but I
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think that's kind of a misconception,
is that you have to get the CEO
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posting. That's obviously it's valuable,
but I think really you just need a
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channel champion who is commit yeah,
who's committed to Linkedin and who will help
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other people do it as well.
And so you know, for us we
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hired me on. I'm not everyone's
able to do that. But if you
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have a channel champion, that makes
a huge difference and then that helps getting
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employees to buy in as well,
because a lot of companies will try and
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give employees content to repost, but
that just that's not a strategy. We've
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also read content. It's all ignored. That content here's to read it.
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Yeah, nobody wants to read it
if it's not coming from a person,
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and then they usually don't engage at
all on Linkedin. They post and ghosts.
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So I think that's important to recognize
as that. Employees need training and
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they need so much more than just
giving them content but giving them the ability
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to engage on linked in as well. HMM, yeah, because, I
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mean we've gone through some phases,
even though you know you've always done the
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like what are you passionate about,
and you try to hone it in on
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like the niche that the person that's
posting wants to be involved in. But
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we've gone through seasons where it was
like, okay, we're writing full out
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posts, all right, now we're
giving ideas for topics that you can talk
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about. We've gone through we have
a ton of people in this. Now
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we have a smaller group that's really
thinking through who and how we're engaging.
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Like you've tried these different methods.
Do you just feel like in different seasons
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it's worth trying different things, or
do you feel like you now have an
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approach that you say, Hey,
you should like, this is the way
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and you're pointing in a specific direction
that you think people should try now?
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It definitely depends on the season.
I know Dan and I, when this
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first started, our conversations usually were
like, how do we motivate people to
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post, you know, like no
one's posted this week. How do we
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motivate them? And there are several
different ways to do it. I know
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that like refine labs as a game
of fight their experience and that's brilliant or
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rewards or something like that. And
I think for us that at the fundamental
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level it was giving people a permission
to post about what they were interested in,
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and so that meant like posting about
the things that they're passionate about again,
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but like also posting things in addition
to posting things close to their role
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and giving value. So I think
and I think it also became just like
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a collective fun thing, because we
have a slack channel where we're all we
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were all sharing our our posts and
like celebrating Lens and that kind of thing,
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and so that became just sort of
a rallying cry that people gathered around,
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and now, since we've done it
for a year, it's changed a
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lot this last quarter, but it
had we had enough momentum because people had
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been posting for one quarter, two
quarters like after that, they just they
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had it. They knew what they
were doing, unless they you know,
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we're new to the program, but
those people were able to like carry them
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that momentum along and so that freed
up a lot of time for me to
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focus on other things, to focus
on creating things like monthly training or the
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editorial calendar, stuff like that.
So it does depend on your seat,
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on your season. In the beginning
it's a lot of like kind of hand
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holding and then once everyone's got it
down, it's more big picture framework type
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stuff. All Right, last question
that I have. But do you go
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in with like specific this is what
a win looks like for the evangelist program
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like these are whether I mean the
things we highlighted was followers. You talk
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about how many people we had in
it. You talked about traffic. That
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was driven money. You know,
three Hundred Eleven Tho in annual revenue directed
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directly attributed to Linkedin. where any
of those like numbers clarified from the beginning,
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or did you go and going we
just want exposure, we want you
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like what were the goals? Yeah, definitely, you know, exposure.
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Definitely wanted more brand awareness for the
company, but also we promoted it as
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a benefit to our employees, to
the as brand building, and so that
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was a big, a big motivator
for us. I think as far as
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goals, those maybe we're too like
really broad ones and we were able to
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zero in as we went along.
But Dan Dan built the program before I
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came on, so I'd love to
hear your thoughts on that. I think
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we'd been doing enough of those things
to demonstrate that it worked and that it
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was actually measurable. Like people were
coming in and telling us where'd you hear
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about us? I heard about you
from linkedin. Sometimes it was specific people
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on Linkedin. So we knew it
was working because that's where all the views
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were coming from. It's not like
we could like technically track attribution, but
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like it was coming straight from their
mouths. They knew where they came from.
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So I knew if we could just
get more content posted, I mean
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I think it was a guess.
It wasn't for for sure known, but
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it was a pretty safe assumption that
if we can get more voices out there,
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because different people are going to have
different personalities, different points of view
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and create more diversity of thought to
attracted wide array of customers, that it
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was likely to work. And one
so and they certainly did increase the reach.
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One thing that I wasn't that I
didn't anticipate that it also did was
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increase the depth of which people would
get sucked into like this sweet fish funnel
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just within Linkedin, because all of
sudden, you know, we would start
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interacting with a certain account and then
account would interact with maybe just me or
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maybe just logan or maybe just emily, but because they'd start engaging with one
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of us and we were engaging with
all a sweet fish, all the sudden
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they'd start seeing multiple post from sweetfish
and all of a sudden the whole feed
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was full of sweetfish people. And
they could tell because all our profile photos
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have a matching ring color and we
all have the same by line and are
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similar by line. That shows our
the company's position and value proposition, that
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it just starts to create momentum and
impressions of just value and good content and
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interesting people with interesting perspectives. So
lots of people would get pulled down even
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farther because of the diversity of thought. Well, there's a lot there and
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if you have follow up questions,
say reach out specifically to emily or to
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Dan on this topic, because they
both been thinking about it. And Emily
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again, congrats on a year of
this and know it's been a huge benefit
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to me come in on the team
back in November and so many on our
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team. So I'm sure this is
extremely valuable to our listeners, who are
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definitely thinking on on how they can
be present on Linkedin as well. We're
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about to dive into a conversation I
had with Sarah. She is the senior
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growth manager over at voice flow.
I wanted to remind our audience of one
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thing. Throughout the month of May
we are doing a survey here on be
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tob growth. Just takes less than
five minutes but gives us an idea of
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what you like about the show right
now, what we can cheek and continue
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to make better. Topics we can
cover. That would hit home for you.
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So we will pay you twenty five
dollars to fill it out. That
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is free money, essentially money.
Twenty five bucks for less than five minutes
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of work. It is fully worth
it. So go ahead and fill that
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out and you'll also be put in
a drawing for a chance to win two
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hundred and fifty bucks. So let's
jump in to my conversation with Sarah.
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Welcome back to be tob growth.
Today I am joined by Sarah Pyon G
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is. This senior growth manager at
voice flow. Sarah, welcome in to
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be to be growth. Thank you
for having me. Yeah, it's going
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to be fun to draw on your
expert TASA. Know you spent some time
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at Alice and at drift as well. But I want to start us with
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a buzzword. In the buzz word
is community. It's a hot topic and
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V to be and last time I
checked, I think everybody wants to have
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one. So I you and I. That's kind of and actually how we
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initially connected. We were on a
marketing squad called together just like this pop
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up zoom, called Zoom Call,
with people that were curious, specifically marketers
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that were curious about this and you
were saying a bunch of stuff that I
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was like, I want to just
jump on a separate call Sara and I
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want to pick her brain on this, and we kind of did that and
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then I'm like all right, let's
let's jump on an episode. Talk to
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me a little bit about what it
was that initially prompted your passion around community
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and why your head is sort of
in that space. Yeah, I think
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community was always implied by a lot
of the the work that I did in
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my last two roles at drift and
Alice. At drift I started in support,
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so I just had a very high
touch with a lot of drift customers
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and up until I left, if
there were something like there were still some
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customers where if they came into chat
like I would hop in and talk to
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them like they were they were my
people, I was like, Oh yeah,
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just like shoot him over to me, be happy to chat with them.
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And also I got to be involved
in a lot of like pre and
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postale conversations because I was the one
leveraging drift for drift, so I was
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like customer number one in a sense, and I loved having that proximity to
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customers, to get a better understanding
of like their thought process with a tool
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and how they would use it and
then have that sort of imply the work
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that I do and I was I
was doing customer marketing when I was at
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Alice, so I got to have
that same sort of proximity the customers,
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personal relationships with customers, but voice
flow was the the company that had built
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this this mote of a community around
themselves before I got here, and so
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I was really excited because I think
having that personal connection with customers just gives
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you really great product insight but also
gives you like free marketing copywriting at all
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times, just taking the customers words
that they're saying and using that and leveraging
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that and internal conversations and external conversation. So I was really excited to join
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a company and be a part of
building and fostering and engaging a really tight
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knit community that already existed, and
so that's one of my main like focus
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areas at voice will. Yeah,
it's school that you bring in experience where
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it's like some level of customer in
like community engagement has been across three companies,
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because you've seen it from multiple different
angles. I know with voice flow.
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Specifically, that occupies an interesting space
because you have this large community and
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then you're feeling this tension that we'll
talk about with this need to migrate and
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like we need a more capable platform
and how do we actually engage with and
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do this in the right way?
What were you guys experiencing and talk to
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me a little bit about what prompted
the internal conversations and the tension in the
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need to migrate. Yeah, I
think as is our product evolved and as
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our ICP evolved, we realize that
if we were ever going to have like
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an enterprise motion associated with our our
tool, which like we have a dual
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go to market function where we have
a fremium product but we also sell into
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an enterprise, a lot of enterprise
employees are people, yes, but they
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can't generally log into a social network
platform like facebook, like from their work
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computer. It's not always a platform
that's just like white listed, essentially for
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customers. And we also wanted to
have better recognition within our community and didn't
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have that in facebook. We didn't
own any of the customer data, we
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weren't able to recognize people in the
way that we wanted and we could only
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have like one never ending updating news
feed of conversations. We couldn't split off
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any sort of conversation or try to
initiate any smaller group conversations, which I
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think is like where the power of
community really comes in, is being able
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to facilitate small, like minded groups
of people to have a conversation and connect
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organically, but also, like,
with your with your help, and facebook
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was really the platform for us to
do that. We had no way of
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getting people back into the community since
we didn't own any of that data.
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We couldn't, you know, pull
a list of people who were in the
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facebook community and send them updates in
terms of what was happening, and we
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didn't just want to send all of
our all of our sign ups like a
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weekly news letter. And what was
happening in the community is they couldn't even
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act sess it because it was behind
a firewall or something like that. So
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that was kind of the inflection point
of we need to start to really own
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where the conversation is happening and like
have a have a better definition for what
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kinds of conversations we want to have
happen within our community, because voice,
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well as a product, has evolved
so much over the last three years,
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where initially it was first just to
build Alexa and Google skills, which has
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a very specific audience type, but
has evolved into not only election Google but
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being able to facilitate like chat bought
conversations, in car assistance, in toys,
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like voice activated toys, website chat
bots, any sort of medium where
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you're having a conversation. And so
for that the the community was highly focused
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on election Google only. So we
didn't want our our professional users to feel
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left out, but we didn't want
the Alexa and Google builders to feel like
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they didn't have a place in the
community anymore, and so that's kind of
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all together created this like big need, both internally and within the community,
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to have a new place to have
different topics of conversation happening simultaneously. There's
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a lot that I want to go
into in the what you guys landed on
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and how you got there, but
I want to ask a couple questions specifically
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on what you think brought the initial
success, because we're talking about a large
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community, eight thousand members. That's
not a small thing. Obviously to build
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that takes time, and I like
that you mentioned the evolution of it,
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as well the Alexa and Google skills, and in the need for like how
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do we transform this, because now
we got a bunch of people here that
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are here for different reasons. But
why do you think sparked the initial success
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of the facebook? Like take me
back to are rewind real quick. Yeah,
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so voice flow in and of itself
started as first a place where parents
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could design stories for their kids that
would like, that would speak these stories
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and they were going to live on
Alexa. And the CO founders realize that
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trying to build an Alexa skill without
like a visual user interface tool was really
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hard because Amazon didn't make it easy
and it was very code heavy and even
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within the code like Alexa developer console
itself, it was very unintuitive. And
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so they created this this tool that
they called story flow that was to build
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these stories, but they themselves were
not parents so interested, which is,
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you know, fair. So they
wanted to bring together their customers to get
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feedback immediately on okay, like what
would you expect in a verbal storytelling tool
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or assistant? Let's bring a lot
of parents together, and we're parents were
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living at that time was voice.
Was Voice, was facebook. So they
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created a facebook group and had a
really strong, like back and forth communication
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with these parents that would help basically
builds the foundation of what voice flow is
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today, because they were iterating on
this like visual interface that they were using
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just to like build their stories,
but realize that could be a product in
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and of itself. And so from
there the Alexea and Google market was was
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budding and really exciting and a lot
of people were really enthusiastic about building on
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Alexa and Google, but there were
there wasn't like a place where they could
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all come together and kind of like
nerd out about it, and so it
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kind of was started out of necessity
in that they're the founders, were building
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this thing that a lot of people
were going to be really excited about,
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but they didn't have a place to
be excited about it all together. So
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they kind of joined a lot of
groups that were like developer specific for Alexa
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and Google and kind of set the
foundation of like Hey, if we were
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to build a tool that helped you, in a visual manner, create alex
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and Google skills, would you guys
want to join that? Would you guys
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want to use that? And everyone
was like yes, absolutely, so that's
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they saw the initial success with story
flow, which was the the inception of
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voice flow, and so they just
maintained that model as the product evolved and
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built a really strong mode around themselves
when it came to the user base that
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was excited and passionate about the product
and the solution that they got to get
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to when they use the product as
well. So the community wasn't just a
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place to ask support questions, but
it was a place where you could tell
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people about the skill that you just
built that you could get some more usage.
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It was a place where you could
share cool tips on like how you
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got your assistant to do x,
Y and Z thing, and it was
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like really just like a great place
for knowledge sharing. It's unique to some
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marketers who are listening to this going
like we're all put maybe trying to create
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slightly different communities. What I think
is a specific advantage to this is that
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you're all able to build something and
go like Hey, look what I built,
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and then in that you don't just
have the someone that's facilitating community that's
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having to figure out how do I
get people engaged? It's like such a
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natural thing that I think we can
kind of all learn from. I wonder
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as the number of people grew within
that group, did you guys sense any
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tensions of like, okay, we
have a lot of people but not as
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much engagement, and like how did
you go about moderating that and keeping people
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sort of engaged? Or it was
that never even worried because people were kind
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of creating them? Yeah, engagement
was always built into how we structured the
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community, because we call ourselves like
a community led growth pro platform. We
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Are Road Map has been determined by
our community since our inception, and so
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our CEO used to record weekly vlogs
of himself. They were like thirty minutes
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long of just him with the founding
team and some of the early team,
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just like what are we working on
this week, what's going on in the
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voice flow sphere, talking to people
who were building the product in real time
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and then posting that in the community
to basically keep people updated in like build
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out loud. A lot of people
on social media we'll talk about building out
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loud when it comes to their products, and we kind of did that,
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but within the confines of our community. So they felt like they had some
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exclusive look into the product, that
they were sort of like the first customers
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to be and so in that sense, engagement was built into the founding of
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the community and the growth of the
community. It started to taper off for
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sure on the voice flow side because
the team was growing, priorities were shifting,
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there were just fewer hands on deck
that were a hundred percent focused on
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the community. But that's kind of
when the community started to moderate itself,
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which was really cool to see,
where we had people trouble shooting in the
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comments, we had people continuing to
share what they were working on, we
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had people going out of their way
to talk about how they solve the specific
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problem, and that's when we knew
that this community was definitely something special.
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But we wanted to make sure that
they they still felt it, and that
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was kind of the inflection point that
I came on to voice flow, where
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it was self. It was a
self moderating community. It was maybe not
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daily engagement, but definitely a weekly
engagement, and we wanted our community members
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to feel like they got that exclusive
access to the voicebook voice flow team once
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again, and that's that's when migration
conversation started to happen and when we started
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to think about like actual programming on
the community side of how are we going
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to engage now that the persona has
shifted a little bit? Hmm, okay,
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so let's go there a little bit. You kind of grow, grow,
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grow, and then, as we
kind of mentioned, it's time for
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something new. So what were you
looking for in this new community platform?
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Because I think they're only people that
go. I've thought about a facebook group
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and now there's probably less thinking that
way, but it's like Linkedin has some
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options with some bad features. People
are trying slack channels and whatever it is.
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So what were you looking for?
Yeah, we were looking for a
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community that we could own, we
could white list, so that people could
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easily remember how to find it if
we were going to remove ourselves from social
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media, which is really hard because
that's in people's like regular notification checking habits.
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We wanted to make sure that it
was an easy place to find and
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so, in that sense, we
weren't sure that slack communities were going to
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be like the best channel for us. A lot of our professional users are
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on Linkedin, for sure, but
we still have a lot of students who
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use our platform and a lot of
individual builders who use our platform, and
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so we didn't want to just move
it on to a professional platform where the
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group functionality is quite for and so
we started looking at like proper community platforms
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and we landed on one called circle
for a few reasons, in that we
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could white list the domain, we
could add as many user tags or user
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badges is as we wanted and automate
the application of applying those badges so that
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when you reach US finite milestone,
you do something, you get a badge
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and then you get a little personalized
message being like Hey, congrats, you've
400
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:04.759
got the showcase or badge because you
shared three of your projects in the showcase
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space. Congrats to you. Here's
to the next one something, something along
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00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:15.519
those lines, where we with some
of the default community platforms that we see
403
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right now, which are slack Linkedin
facebook, you don't really get that level
404
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:26.599
of automation that still feels personal.
And so whenever anyone joins our community,
405
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they get a personal DM from me. They have is a three Edm like
406
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kind of drip sequence throughout your first
twelve days of don't forget to turn your
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00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:38.720
notifications. What are you working on
right now? Can I help you with
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00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:41.880
anything? Can I shit? Can
we are you comfortable with us sharing that
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in specific channels and people respond to
those dams all the time. They don't
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00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:52.759
know that they're automated. So it
feels like a personal touch from us to
411
00:29:52.880 --> 00:30:00.400
the communities that we maintain a level
of brand engage want that we had before,
412
00:30:00.440 --> 00:30:03.599
but we do it a little bit
more scale. HMM, okay,
413
00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.160
so I like that. I think
that's always going to be a tension right
414
00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:12.079
as we scale, like how do
we continue the personalized touch? I think
415
00:30:12.079 --> 00:30:17.480
even badges makes sense. That something
that we probably all struggle with, like
416
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:22.279
how do we honor those that are
really engaged here, and it's hard to
417
00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:27.799
do on certain platforms. I wonder, like do you have some core foundations
418
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:32.839
to the way that this community kind
of functions in inter acts, like are
419
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:36.720
there? You're taking yourself out of
some things right, like by automating,
420
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:38.960
but in other ways, like do
you have moderators or leaders prompting interaction,
421
00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:42.200
or is that just mostly at this
Point We got a well oiled machine and
422
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:48.759
people are kind of automatically posting and
the communities just going yeah, we have
423
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.720
a few internal moderators to start on
our CS team, on our product team
424
00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:56.359
and within the marketing team as well, to facilitate different kinds of conversations.
425
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.559
We have a product advocate who we
hired from the community, so everyone already
426
00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:07.119
knows his name, everyone already knows
me go, but he also has moderator
427
00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:11.400
privileges where he can, you know, make sure that he's facilitating conversations around
428
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.720
the area of expertise that he has. But some of the founding principles that
429
00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:18.079
we made sure were defined before we
did any sort of migration. If we
430
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:23.200
were going to basically create this new
community, that was where this like the
431
00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:26.519
source of truth of community for voice
what was going to live was is it's
432
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:30.480
going to be a community of practice
or community of products? Is this for
433
00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:33.880
any conversation designer or is this only
for conversation centers who use voice flow?
434
00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:38.079
And so that delineation we made before
we did any sort of migration. And
435
00:31:38.119 --> 00:31:41.880
we are a community of product.
So if you are in our community,
436
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:45.319
you are you have used voice flow, and that made it easier to then
437
00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:53.519
focus programming conversations and who can join
an easier conversation and who can moderate an
438
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:59.279
easier conversation. Because was there was
there debate? They're like, did you
439
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:01.920
guys go back and forth on practice
your product or did it feel pretty easy?
440
00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:07.400
It felt pretty easy. We did
a procons list, essentially of like
441
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:10.359
if we had a community of practice, what would the pros and cons look
442
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:13.640
like? Food of community of product, but with the pros and cons look
443
00:32:13.720 --> 00:32:16.880
like. And if we as a
company had a community of practice but all
444
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:22.079
of the announcements were voice flow specific
product features, it would feel very self
445
00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:27.240
serving and that wouldn't be the kind
of vitual conversations we would want to set
446
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:31.680
an example for within the community.
And so by no means is our community
447
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:36.559
a content distribution channel. I have
a whole lot of hot takes about that.
448
00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:39.079
But it is a place where you
can have direct access to the voice
449
00:32:39.079 --> 00:32:45.400
flow team as a voice flow user, and I think that's part of the
450
00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:47.920
benefit to being a part of it
when you are a member or when you
451
00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:52.839
are a user of the product,
is that you have all of this historical
452
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:58.599
knowledge from other users, as well
as the CEO, who posts our post
453
00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:01.920
and asks for product feedback on a
quarterly basis. And so that was like
454
00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:07.599
one of the the set found founding
principles of okay, are we going to
455
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.200
change up the way that we position
this community? Are we going to let
456
00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:15.240
any conversations that are in as sort
of a prospecting technique, and the answer
457
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:19.400
is no. It's more so a
great place to have customer engagement where we
458
00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:24.720
can set up private spaces for customers
to have group conversations with their own colleagues,
459
00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:31.640
but then also have the larger community
to network and ask their their questions
460
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:36.119
to people who may have also done
this before. So that was those were
461
00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:39.200
the kind of principles that we look
to. Of We want to have a
462
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:45.279
community that allows us to recognize and
celebrate our users and have this community be
463
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:49.599
for our users. Okay, so
let me ask you a question there.
464
00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:52.279
Then you address one of the first
things that kind of came to my mind,
465
00:33:52.359 --> 00:33:57.119
which is you you want to go
to the product side, but you
466
00:33:57.240 --> 00:34:00.200
also want to let people know this
isn't just going to be an announcement board
467
00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:04.279
and, like us, showing off
the product all the time. I appreciate
468
00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:12.039
that. My second kind of thought
would be you're losing out on obviously some
469
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:16.480
that in practice are your ideal customer, but you're kind of going we're going
470
00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:22.800
to specifically focus. So was what
are do you see any cons now looking
471
00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:27.039
at going the product route? I
don't want to put you on the spot
472
00:34:27.039 --> 00:34:30.400
because obviously you like the community you've
created, but like, let's just use
473
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:34.280
it as a thought exercise for a
second. has there been any like it
474
00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:37.480
would have been we would have had
value if we had gone the practice route
475
00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:43.360
or winder we thoughts center. I
think what's valuable about the way that we
476
00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:45.360
decided to host the community was that
it wasn't a slack group that you had
477
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:50.519
to be invited into. It's community
to voice photocom anyone can go to that
478
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:54.000
url right now and see every conversation
that's happening within the community. They themselves
479
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.760
can sign up and post, and
so, from a prospect perspective, we
480
00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:01.039
do have a lot of prospects who, a are within a trial or like
481
00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:07.480
in the sales process, who are
just so freaking pumped about this world of
482
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:10.920
conversation design where if you sign up
for the free product, you can join
483
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:16.519
the like the community will be applicable
to you, and so it's there is
484
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:21.320
a really low barrier to entry in
that sense, where all of the content
485
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:27.280
is searchable both inside the community and
like Seo optimized for Google and open so
486
00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.039
that if you do want to just
be a lurker like you can go and
487
00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:37.039
you can lurk, and so in
that sense it helps so that sales teams
488
00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:39.199
can't, like our sales team,
can point to it and say look,
489
00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:43.119
this is a really active community.
These are the kinds of conversations that you
490
00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:46.199
could be actively participating in. You
can join it right now if you want
491
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:50.079
and get an inside look at what
it is like to be a voice flote
492
00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:54.239
customer and get this additional layer of
support alongside your CSM and your and your
493
00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:59.639
account manager. So in that sense
it helps later on in the sales cycle
494
00:35:59.760 --> 00:36:02.400
or even middle of the funnel,
of people have really specific questions about voice
495
00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:08.119
while functionality and conversations within the community
pop up, they see that firsthand that
496
00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:15.719
there is this additional support layer to
being a product user, regardless of if
497
00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:22.440
you pay us or not, because
anyone can join the community. So hey
498
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.559
be to be gross listeners. We
want to hear from you. In fact,
499
00:36:24.639 --> 00:36:28.400
we will pay you for it.
Just head over to B TOB growth
500
00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:32.760
podcom and complete a short survey about
the show to enter for a chance to
501
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:37.280
win two hundred and fifty dollars plus. The first fifty participants will receive twenty
502
00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:40.840
five dollars as our way of saying
thank you so much one more time.
503
00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:51.079
That's be tob growth podcom, letter
B number two letter be growth podcom.
504
00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:54.159
One entry per person must be an
active listener of the show to enter and
505
00:36:54.320 --> 00:37:02.280
look forward to hearing from you.
They see that firsthand, that there is
506
00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:08.280
this additional support layer to being a
product user, regardless of if you pay
507
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:13.400
us or not, because anyone can
join the community. That's a really interesting
508
00:37:13.400 --> 00:37:19.519
way of being essentially ungated dated.
At the same time, I love that
509
00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:22.320
it's optimized. I love that it's
searchable. Those are things that we're all
510
00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:28.239
thinking about right you're kind of getting
these the commonly asked questions out of the
511
00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:31.039
way, like people can still find
the answers, but at the same time
512
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:35.400
there's this value add of actually being
in the community and I think that gives
513
00:37:35.480 --> 00:37:39.280
us a lot of like food for
thought. I wonder anything else that you
514
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.719
want to bring to the surface here
on like how this community functions before I
515
00:37:44.760 --> 00:37:46.639
go? All Right, Sarah,
tell some like practical takeaways for those of
516
00:37:46.679 --> 00:37:49.760
us that are trying to build communities, because we're going to go there as
517
00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:52.519
we wrap up. But anything else
that kind of paints the full picture of
518
00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:57.639
what you what you all have create. Yeah, I think we've moved a
519
00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:01.280
little bit further away from from the
weekly vlogs from the CEO, but instead
520
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:08.639
how we drive engagement is through a
monthly event calendar. So we have the
521
00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:14.440
platform that we found also ended up
having live streaming capabilities within it, so
522
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:19.039
we can go live at any moment, but we can also schedule live streams
523
00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:24.719
for community specific events, and that's
how we've created exclusivity within the community itself
524
00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:30.079
of join this for community get access
to these events, and the events themselves
525
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:35.559
have been really fun and successful.
We do amased with customers and we do
526
00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:40.679
live bought teardowns. So we'll choose
a prospect, usually who has a conversational
527
00:38:40.679 --> 00:38:45.599
experience. We will let him know
what's working, let him know what we
528
00:38:45.639 --> 00:38:51.440
would do differently, and then rebuild
their conversational experience live on on the teardown
529
00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:54.079
as well, so that not only
do the people who are tuning in get
530
00:38:54.119 --> 00:38:57.920
to see how we would use the
product, but then I get to pass
531
00:38:57.960 --> 00:39:01.039
off a deck and a demo project
to the sales up to be like here
532
00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:05.239
you go, here's some sales collateral. Yeah, hope you hope we close
533
00:39:05.320 --> 00:39:08.920
them Nice, kind of a two
for one deal. But after those events
534
00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:14.320
we see a lot more people going
out of their way to ask questions and
535
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:19.679
engage within the community themselves. It's
itself. So when we saw more professional
536
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:22.360
users join the community, engagement was
a little bit on the lower side and
537
00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:28.039
that in that segment, and so
being a little bit more manual in terms
538
00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:32.159
of their engagement with like live events
has helped increase the engagement of that persona
539
00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:39.960
and get get more people talking about
their specific use cases and getting feedback from
540
00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:45.719
other members of the of the community
that they know are facing similar issues to
541
00:39:45.800 --> 00:39:50.480
what they are internally or trying to
solve similar problems within their own team structures.
542
00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:55.880
And so that's that's what we've done
for community specific engagement. Is will
543
00:39:55.880 --> 00:40:01.760
send an invite to like our userbase, will do social pushes for these events,
544
00:40:01.800 --> 00:40:07.280
but they are hosted with within the
community itself. So it's also an
545
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:10.880
acquisition tactic. Last we could even
talk there on the monthly event calendar,
546
00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:16.639
because I think what you create around
monthly events and like how you interact obviously
547
00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:22.639
as a key component of community for
you guys. The tear down what a
548
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:28.000
fantastic way of utilizing both the community
and then on the backend, like sales,
549
00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:30.400
you're offering value by doing it that
way. So I think that's a
550
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:35.239
huge takeaway from this episode is how
you guys are doing that side of things.
551
00:40:35.320 --> 00:40:38.719
Let's paint a picture real fast of
what the migration actually like, what
552
00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:42.880
the results were, and then I'm
just going to hit you with some questions
553
00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:46.559
as we wrap up on what you
would do for creating community if you were
554
00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:52.360
somewhere else. Okay, let's first
just say you had a group of eight
555
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:57.960
thousand the migration. Did you lose
a bunch of people? What were the
556
00:40:58.039 --> 00:41:02.000
results of that like now, being
able to see it in hindsight? Yeah,
557
00:41:02.039 --> 00:41:06.360
so we had a group of eight
thousand and, to be candid,
558
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:10.239
are our transition. Our migration is
still ongoing. So there was going to
559
00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:15.480
be like a date where we officially
are like no more facebook group. Will
560
00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:19.719
change the name of the group to
say outdated, go here, so that
561
00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:24.760
when people do habitually go to that
link, they are met with the instruction
562
00:41:24.920 --> 00:41:34.079
to not anymore. But we we
took our most active participants and we first
563
00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:37.599
had conversations with them about what they
were missing from the existing community what they
564
00:41:37.639 --> 00:41:42.639
wanted to see from the community as
well as we took users who had not
565
00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:46.159
joined the community and we got their
feedback on what they would want from something
566
00:41:46.199 --> 00:41:52.320
like this and what they would look
forward to in a new sort of place,
567
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:55.760
and we that's that's how we got
our first ten users to join this
568
00:41:55.800 --> 00:42:00.159
new community. We gave them all
badges. They all have a little one
569
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.760
next to their name as a founding
member, and we ask them, you
570
00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:06.800
know who, or ten others,
like who's one other person that you would
571
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:10.639
like to have in this community?
which feels a little puremody, but if
572
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.599
we have active users, we want
to ensure that we have as many active
573
00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:20.960
users as possible so we can build
up density of conversation within the community itself.
574
00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:22.559
So we didn't only just have the
facebook group, we also had a
575
00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:27.559
forum that was for our more technical
developer users and in that sort of in
576
00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:32.559
that sense, we've we've taken a
different approach where that community wasn't very active,
577
00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:37.119
but but it was very its skewed
more technical, and so we worked
578
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:40.159
with a develop our developer advocate,
to beef up documentation, to beef up
579
00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:45.880
our like open source, Github repot
and to start building out this components library
580
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:51.039
of like re usable like codes,
code blocks and API blocks that people can
581
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:52.719
just insert into their projects. So
it's a little bit more self serve on
582
00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:58.840
that side and they don't have to
have as much conversation and back and forth
583
00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:04.280
as as they have right now.
From a developer perspective, a lot of
584
00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:07.039
them just want to tinker and be
self serves. So we're trying to make
585
00:43:07.239 --> 00:43:10.880
that content as easily to find as
possible. But from a from a full
586
00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:15.599
migration standpoint, we were totally okay
and understood that there would be attrition.
587
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:22.639
About a thousand of our users,
we imagine, were would will not be
588
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:29.559
coming over to this new platform with
us, which which is a pretty solid
589
00:43:29.639 --> 00:43:34.119
like seven thousand out of eight thousand
people coming out, incredible, pretty cool,
590
00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:38.199
pretty cool with me. And so
it's more so now about quality of
591
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:43.800
conversation and making sure that this community
isn't just look to as a secondary support
592
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:49.079
channel but a conversation design resource,
like a resource within the community itself.
593
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:52.599
The space is still small and developing, so there aren't a lot of products
594
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:58.639
that fall within this category and that's
why we can be both a community of
595
00:43:58.639 --> 00:44:01.960
practice and product at the same time, in a sense of the content that
596
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:07.199
we create. So yeah, Migracian
is still is still ongoing, but we
597
00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:13.199
are expecting to see attrition, for
sure, but still with a lot of
598
00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:17.039
people coming over to join us in
the new platform. HMM. Okay,
599
00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:22.360
I love the way that you've talked
about this today. I think already just
600
00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:24.800
in hearing the story and this maybe
this is just my personality type, but
601
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:30.480
I love hearing how people are doing
their work and then it just internally,
602
00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:36.000
I'm internalizing it and turning it into
what I would do in my situation.
603
00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:38.920
I don't even even like need Sarah
to be like, here's the three things
604
00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:42.320
now that I would do, but
I want to go there for a minute
605
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.239
because and I don't need you to
give me three things, I just need
606
00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:51.039
us to go if we dropped Sarah
in somewhere else and she's thinking practice for
607
00:44:51.360 --> 00:44:55.960
product community and you're kind of left
with this blank space that you're getting to
608
00:44:57.039 --> 00:45:00.599
create, I wonder if you've taken
away something things from this situation, in
609
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:06.480
this migration and having to think about
community at such depth that you feel like
610
00:45:06.840 --> 00:45:09.800
these are just things that stick with
you, these are lessons you've learned that
611
00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:15.039
are going to be vital in any
community you helped create in the future.
612
00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:17.920
Do you have some of those takeaways
that you would maybe give us here as
613
00:45:17.920 --> 00:45:23.920
we start to wrap up? Yeah, I would say first, does the
614
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:29.920
company have an existing community? And
if they do, like totally different story.
615
00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:32.760
But if they don't, then first
we're asking ourselves the question of do
616
00:45:32.840 --> 00:45:37.119
you need to have a like do
you need to have a community at all?
617
00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:39.840
Is your product self serve enough?
Do you have a really solid foundation
618
00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:45.800
of help Docs and tutorials and templates
where people might not need to have a
619
00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:51.320
community of product, for example?
Or is your market a little crowded and
620
00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:54.360
are there are a ton of of
existing communities. I know marketing technology,
621
00:45:54.400 --> 00:46:00.880
for example, there are so many
communities for marketers. I think if you
622
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.800
want to build a community before joining
any community that exists within the space that
623
00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:09.280
you want to build it in,
you're missing out on on a good positioning
624
00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:14.800
statement for your community. I think
the biggest thing is so many people want
625
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:16.679
to own their community, but really
they just want to have a distribution platform
626
00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:23.679
that they own with an audience that
will listen to them, versus yeah,
627
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:29.280
versus a place where people can have
conversations, maybe about things that they dislike
628
00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:32.960
about your product, like to God
forbid, but a place where there can
629
00:46:34.039 --> 00:46:38.719
be an open sort of dialog between
all users of your product or all people
630
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:44.840
within your market, as well as
your company being there or not, like
631
00:46:44.960 --> 00:46:46.559
or not. You know, and
so that that would be the first question
632
00:46:46.559 --> 00:46:50.880
I ask is, do you have
one already and if you don't, doesn't
633
00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:54.440
need to exist. I think a
lot of times community is a buzz word
634
00:46:54.480 --> 00:46:59.440
and marketers don't want to hear that
their own community doesn't need to exist.
635
00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:02.280
But you need to understand if there's
a gap that you're filling before you go
636
00:47:02.360 --> 00:47:07.320
there. I think secondarily, a
lot of times companies who say that they
637
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:12.679
want to a community don't hire the
necessary resources that are needed to run a
638
00:47:12.880 --> 00:47:15.960
relief effective community. Like your social
media manager is in a community manager,
639
00:47:15.960 --> 00:47:20.119
and either is your customer marketing manager, and either is your demand jet manager,
640
00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:22.559
like you need someone who is on
your team who's willing to do the
641
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:27.480
very manual work of talking to customers
and then putting them into a place to
642
00:47:27.480 --> 00:47:30.960
make sure that they are talking amongths, some amongst themselves. Before you can
643
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.800
automate anything. You can't just drop
all of your customers into a selectionnel and
644
00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:42.320
be like you're in a community now
discuss like that's not really how it works.
645
00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:45.320
And so in talking to some of
my counterparts in marketing and talking about
646
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:52.639
the work that it took to to
build this platform and then my great people
647
00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:55.519
over, the eyes widen and people
go, Oh God, that sounds like
648
00:47:55.519 --> 00:47:59.039
a lot of work and it's it's
like yeah, of course, it's a
649
00:47:59.079 --> 00:48:02.000
full it's a job, it's someone
it is someone's job. It's not someone's
650
00:48:02.079 --> 00:48:05.840
you know, three hours a week. It could be, it just won't.
651
00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:07.519
It won't move at the pace you
probably want it to. And so,
652
00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:13.159
yeah, the first two things I
would do is doesn't need to exist.
653
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:15.760
How should it exist? Do we
have the resources necessary to make sure
654
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:21.199
that it can thrive? And then
lastly, is just what are the customers
655
00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:23.960
want? What are the what do
the potential community members want? What are
656
00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:28.639
they not getting right now, and
having those one on one conversations and having
657
00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:34.039
a lot of them and seeing where
the gaps are and where the commonalities come
658
00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:37.599
from so that you know that baseline. You need to have x, Y
659
00:48:37.719 --> 00:48:40.400
Z things baseline. For us,
we knew we needed to have like a
660
00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:45.920
library of voiceful experts who were available
to help you with your project, because
661
00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:51.320
we wanted to reinforce the work that
they were doing and showcase them as as
662
00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:53.920
assets. We needed to have a
badging system so that people who were active
663
00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:58.360
in the community could get recognized for
their activity and we needed to have a
664
00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:02.119
place where we could split up the
conversations in two different topics once we had
665
00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:07.239
density of conversation. If someone gets
dropped into a community was like eighteen space
666
00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:10.400
channels and all of them are empty, they're not going to be super motivated
667
00:49:10.440 --> 00:49:15.960
to have conversation. So how could
we build up density in two space channels
668
00:49:16.039 --> 00:49:21.800
first, until we knew that we
needed to break off another another chunk of
669
00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:24.280
the audience that they could have their
more in depth discussions and in a new
670
00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:30.599
space. So that was a lot, but try, I had to can
671
00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:32.480
condense it, and so you did. You did, and I think those
672
00:49:32.519 --> 00:49:38.480
are three really solid kind of questions
to be thinking about. And just I
673
00:49:38.559 --> 00:49:42.320
mean, you're going to know if
you have an existing community. But even
674
00:49:42.360 --> 00:49:44.719
if you didn't have, going back
to your first point, even if you
675
00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:50.000
didn't have an existing community, you
have people that interact with you and your
676
00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:53.880
what you guys are doing more than
like, more than anything, that's where
677
00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:58.199
your community starts is that's the ECOS, that's a water you swimming. Those
678
00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:00.239
are the people that are interested.
Like, just start there with those and
679
00:50:00.280 --> 00:50:02.960
then and figure out what they like
and what they don't like. I love
680
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:06.639
that you said that. To like, what are they not like? And
681
00:50:06.679 --> 00:50:10.840
if we know that, man,
how valuable is that information? It's sometimes
682
00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:15.639
way more valuable. And knowing that
there's you have a bunch of raving fans.
683
00:50:15.679 --> 00:50:17.639
So okay, as we kind of
come to a close, I want
684
00:50:17.639 --> 00:50:22.760
to end on a positive note here. When this is done right, there's
685
00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:28.159
obviously a ton of benefits. Leave
us with some of the benefits you've seen,
686
00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:32.280
Sarah, from doing this and why
you would be a huge community advocate,
687
00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:37.840
why this is something that has become
a passion of yours. Yeah,
688
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:44.360
first things first. It makes hiring
really easy, especially on the product support
689
00:50:44.440 --> 00:50:47.480
side. Our Support Team in our
product advocate came from the community. They
690
00:50:47.480 --> 00:50:52.159
were users first. They know the
product probably better than us at this point,
691
00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:57.320
and so they also shared the passion
of the vision and the future of
692
00:50:57.320 --> 00:51:01.960
the company as well, where we
knew that bringing them on the training aspect
693
00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:07.440
wouldn't be hard, but more so
like how can we, you know,
694
00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:12.079
like make sure that the don't work
for your heroes type mentality didn't necessarily apply
695
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:15.480
to voice flow. So how could
we ensure that, even if you were
696
00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:19.400
coming from a different background but you
came on to the support function, like
697
00:51:19.400 --> 00:51:21.920
how can we help your career grow? How can we make sure that you
698
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:23.559
get the visibility that you wanted to
other parts of the business? What have
699
00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:29.480
you always wondered about that you just
had questions about from behind the scenes,
700
00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:31.599
and how can we expose you to
that? And so I work really closely
701
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:38.079
with our our customer support in our
product advocate team to be like what,
702
00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:42.039
what did you think was going to
happen and what happened, and did you
703
00:51:42.079 --> 00:51:44.000
like that and did you not like
that? And what should we take into
704
00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:47.760
account when we have certain things like
as a commute, as a former community
705
00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:52.559
and current community member, what was
most important to you? So that feedback
706
00:51:52.599 --> 00:51:57.519
loop is so important and it's like
such a cheek code because I have they
707
00:51:57.639 --> 00:52:00.880
have the inside knowledge, I have
the inside knowledge. We're all benefiting,
708
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:06.039
I would say, also because community
is a lift, it is an effort.
709
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:10.280
It is also not something that can
be easily copied in a world where
710
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:15.639
anyone can copy your product. They
can't copy your brands, they can't copy
711
00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:22.039
how your customers feel about you.
And so our mote for our business is
712
00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:25.039
our community first, and then you
know the fact that we have a really
713
00:52:25.079 --> 00:52:30.320
complex and hard to copy product.
Second, but it's complex and hard to
714
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:35.639
copy because of the impact that that
the community had on its development. So
715
00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:39.400
super beneficial in that sense. And
then there's so much untapped potential to grow
716
00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:45.039
exponentially with a community. One Dream
Project that I have is we're developing a
717
00:52:45.159 --> 00:52:49.679
voice flow course, so anyone can
learn voice flow and be certified in voice
718
00:52:49.679 --> 00:52:53.880
flow, but we want our community
members to then be certified teachers of voice
719
00:52:53.880 --> 00:52:58.519
flow so that they can go to
their own communities, have a ton of
720
00:52:58.519 --> 00:53:02.360
people sign up, whether they're in
their community library, their community classroom,
721
00:53:02.360 --> 00:53:09.519
their community whatever, and and start
to facilitate the teaching of not only conversation
722
00:53:09.559 --> 00:53:14.719
design, but like conversation design using
voice flow, so that there is like
723
00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:20.159
a network effect and exponential growth effect
for people who get to be recognized at
724
00:53:20.199 --> 00:53:24.000
another higher level than just yeah,
og user, like knows their stuff and
725
00:53:24.039 --> 00:53:30.079
now like teacher of voice flow and
so do a lingo has a great model
726
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:32.199
for that and I can't I that's
that's a dream project for sure. I
727
00:53:32.239 --> 00:53:36.800
really want to do that. Nobody
steal that first. Well, good luck,
728
00:53:36.840 --> 00:53:39.920
because now it's out there. So
but, like you said, if
729
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.760
it's you guys doing it in specifically
use there, it's going to be different
730
00:53:44.840 --> 00:53:46.920
right than what other people do.
I think that is a fantastic way to
731
00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:52.119
wrap this up. Is Community is
one of those things that you can't just
732
00:53:52.199 --> 00:53:55.480
replicate. It's not a copy paste
situation. It's the same as the personality
733
00:53:55.519 --> 00:54:00.320
of your brand, which we had
some conversations around that recently here. I'll
734
00:54:00.360 --> 00:54:04.840
be to be growth. It's community
and personality are things that people interact with.
735
00:54:05.159 --> 00:54:08.679
It's what it's the culture that you've
created and cultivated. Really, I
736
00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:12.000
guess, whether you like it or
not, your lack of community, your
737
00:54:12.079 --> 00:54:15.119
lack of personality, is also your
brand. If you don't have it,
738
00:54:15.119 --> 00:54:17.239
it's still the way that people are
going to perceive you. Oh, they
739
00:54:17.239 --> 00:54:22.519
don't have it, they don't put
effort there. So that is a differentiator
740
00:54:22.519 --> 00:54:24.280
that I think we should be all
focused on, and that's why, even
741
00:54:24.280 --> 00:54:28.920
though it's a buzz word. Like
we said on the top, it's a
742
00:54:29.079 --> 00:54:31.559
necessary one at this point. It's
something we should be thinking about, and
743
00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:37.480
so I would encourage our listeners to
continue down that road and to be asking
744
00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:40.440
some of these really important questions,
like do we need one? I think
745
00:54:40.440 --> 00:54:45.199
that's an important first question. But
beyond that then, like what specific function
746
00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:49.519
is the serving and how are we
really serving our customers ultimately, and those
747
00:54:49.559 --> 00:54:52.440
that could be customers, how are
we serving them? Well? So,
748
00:54:52.599 --> 00:54:54.679
Sarah, thanks for taking time for
being on B to be growth. Tell
749
00:54:54.800 --> 00:54:59.800
us a little bit about how we
can connect with you, and I know
750
00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.119
we've been talking about voiceflow. Can
all episode, but a little bit more
751
00:55:02.119 --> 00:55:06.840
there as well. People want to
connect, sure, yeah, I'm on
752
00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:10.679
twitter and Linkedin Sarah Pa no age
and Sarah so sai a pio N.
753
00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.800
feel free to connect with me on
either one. Pretty active on both.
754
00:55:15.039 --> 00:55:21.280
And then voice flow is a great
graphic user interface for if you are designing
755
00:55:21.320 --> 00:55:25.360
any sort of conversation. So chatbots
IV ours. So that's the that's those
756
00:55:25.400 --> 00:55:29.519
things where you call CPS and says
press one for pharmacy, press two for
757
00:55:29.599 --> 00:55:32.559
whatever. That's an IP are.
They're fun. If you want to build
758
00:55:32.559 --> 00:55:37.639
your own Alexa skill or Google skill
for free. It's a really cool weekend
759
00:55:37.679 --> 00:55:43.280
activity with like kids. I'm gonna
do that with my bookmend's younger sisters and
760
00:55:43.559 --> 00:55:45.719
yeah, real for you to just
connect and ask any questions. I'm I'm
761
00:55:45.760 --> 00:55:50.519
always open to chat. Well,
thanks for stopping by, BB growth.
762
00:55:50.519 --> 00:55:54.159
I know we learned a lot on
community today from you and I know our
763
00:55:54.199 --> 00:55:59.599
listeners will reach out and would love
to connect. So, for those that
764
00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:02.280
are listening and you haven't yet followed
me to be grows, be sure to
765
00:56:02.320 --> 00:56:07.920
do that on whatever podcast player is
of choice. We would love to stay
766
00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:09.639
connected to you and you can connect
with me over on Linkedin as well.
767
00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:14.480
Talk about marketing business in life.
Over there to search benchry Balk keep.
768
00:56:14.480 --> 00:56:16.239
You don't work that matters. Will
be back real soon with another episode.
769
00:56:16.280 --> 00:56:31.199
Sarah, thanks for being on here
today. If you enjoyed a day show,
770
00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:35.960
hit subscribe for more marketing goodness,
and if you really enjoyed the day
771
00:56:36.039 --> 00:56:38.800
show, take a second to rate
and review the podcast on the platform you're
772
00:56:38.800 --> 00:56:44.079
listening to it on right now.
If you really really enjoyed this episode,
773
00:56:44.079 --> 00:56:46.599
share the love by texting you to
a friend who would find it insightful thanks
774
00:56:46.599 --> 00:56:49.639
for listening and thanks for sharing