He Started Writing About Video Games in His Parents' Basement. Now Ross Simmonds Scales Global Brands By Telling Them To Stop Creating and Start Distributing.

So I've been a little obsessed with Ross Simmonds ever since I came across one of his presentations and this conversation did NOT disappoint. Ross is a global thought leader and entrepreneur who helps brands scale through content, but the way he thinks about content is completely different from what most marketers are doing right now. He says things that honestly make a lot of people in the industry uncomfortable, like that distribution matters MORE than what you actually create, and that the channels most brands are afraid of are exactly where they should be showing up.

But it's what Ross said about the person on the other end of the screen that completely shifted my perspective. He has this way of breaking down something we all know deep down but keep ignoring, and once you hear it you won't be able to unsee it in your own marketing.

And if you're leading a stretched-thin team right now trying to keep the lights on AND be creative at the same time? Ross shared something his company does every single week that I think every business should steal immediately. You're going to want to hear this one all the way through.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know that moment when you realize the people you admire just didn't wake up successful. They figured it out as they went. That's the part no one really talks about. So I am talking about it. I'm Jeannie Weldon, and this is Liftoff Journeys. This is where I sit down with leaders, founders, and executives to talk about how they actually became the people they are today. We skip the titles, we skip the bios, we focus on the choices, the detours, and the instincts that shape their journey. Because when you understand how someone else navigated their career, it changes how you think about your own. Let's see where today's journey takes us. Ross Simons is a global thought leader and entrepreneur who helps scale brands with content that connects. Through Foundation Marketing, he's taught thousands how to turn creativity and consistency into unstoppable growth. I came across him on a special group presentation that he did and became obsessed with this human. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Welcome to LiftF.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Thrilled to have the chance to chat and share more about what I do and all the wonderful things that are changing the way that we work as marketers, communicators, and creators today.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, one of the things that I love about you is you have this unique and very fresh approach to the way that content actually works. And a million years ago, at the beginning of email marketing, me and some other people brought that same kind of approach to the concept of email. And it was super new, it was super innovative. Some people scratch their heads, other people were on board with it right away. What kind of response are you getting from your audiences when you talk about content in the way that you talk about it today?

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah, so there's a lot of fear in the marketing industry at large when I start to talk about some of the different topics like content distribution mattering more than what you actually create. When I talk about the power of channels like Reddit that have been considered by many to be kind of like hands-off, don't go there channels for some time. Or I talk about the fact that yes, in fact, we should embrace this thing called AI and not view it as a threat, but instead view it as kind of our partner in crime as we create content and try to influence people and help them make decisions to buy things that we are supporting and the brands that we represent. So it's uh it's definitely a mix. But one of the most beautiful things that I've seen is that as people start to get a little bit uncomfortable trying new things, the the message kind of becomes easy because when people start to see the results, it speaks for itself. When you start to really invest the time and energy to distribute your content and you use AI to augment it and you go into channels where your audience is, but your competitors might be afraid of, you ultimately end up winning. And customers kind of see that, the market sees that, and then they start to have the light bulbs go off, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Well, I've got to say, you're one of the few people that I've spoken with that seems to be on front of the trend of AI being the augmenter and not the driver of some of this, which I completely appreciate. And the other thing that I am just obsessed with about you, there's so many things, uh, is that you say the best content comes from passion. How does love for the craft change business outcomes?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah, so I have always had this belief that content has the ability to shape culture. When you think of your own beliefs, you think of humanity, society at large, a lot of the worldviews, the perspectives, the ideas that we have as humans are shaped by content. Whether we're talking about historical texts, whether we're talking about the stories that our parents tell us, whether we're talking about the stories that we read, the movies we watch, the content that we read in school, whatever it might be, it's essentially content that has influenced our world perspective and views. And when you can get excited about a certain topic, you don't go through it in a way that's kind of stagnant. You're just lit up about the exploration of an idea, of a concept, of a story, of an industry, of a niche. And through your own passion for discovery and learning, you're going to find insights that the rest of the market is sleeping on. Because everyone else, when they are viewing it as a nine-to-five, a task that they have to do just because it's going to pay the bills, instead of this is my calling, this is something I can get excited about, then you're going to stand out. You're going to have the ability to create better stories. For me, it started at a very young age, creating stories and content about video games. And when I was a young kid and I was writing about The Sims and Madden and all of these video games, I was able to see the impact that I could have on a global scale reaching people when I was like 18 years old, living in my parents' basement. And I was like, wow, if I can take this and allocate it to something like my degree, marketing, and start to write about marketing with I'm passionate about communications, I'm passionate about AI, I'm passionate about tech, what will happen? And what happened was pretty wild. I started to get opportunities all over the world to help some of the biggest brands in the world do marketing. So, long story, little bit longer, your competitive advantage is how much fun you can have doing your work because when everyone else might feel burnt out from this idea, you're just playing. And that's unstoppable.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Totally. I totally agree with you. You know, I've got this framework that I created. It turns out, I'll tell you that story in a second, that I created it when I was 11. But it's called the AIR method. And AIR stands for authenticity, inspiration, and relatability. And it's a really simple premise. You know, if your content is not authentic, which you totally talk about, and if it doesn't inspire the audience that you're reaching out to, whether it's your employee or whether it's your prospect, and it's not relatable, done in a relatable way, which you also break down for so many companies. So every company should bring you in and work with you, then you're not going to succeed, regardless of what, regardless of who you are, what your product is. So to hear somebody else playing that back is is so is is so exciting to me and is just a great, a great reminder that, you know, this is the way to make it, to make it work. And you have built your entire career on helping other companies, as you said, share their stories and bring success to life. If you had to pick one lesson about love and leadership that you've learned in the process, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

I'd say the biggest lesson that I've learned about love and leadership across this process as an entrepreneur, as a storyteller, as a creator, is that you have no choice but to really get to know the person on the other end of the screen. Like I have gone so many years where I have obsessed over pixels, where I get paid by reach on the internet, by how many likes and shares and pipeline deals, and you think about all of these numbers and all of these things, but the moment that you can realize that there are people on the other end of the computer, there are humans who have 20 different tabs open, and they're not all about business. Some of those tabs are about trying to figure out whether or not they should give their kid how to get their kid to go to sleep. Some of them are trying to figure out potty training, some of them are trying to figure out what school their kids want to go to, some of them are trying to figure out if they should quit their job. Like there's so many layers to a human, but oftentimes marketers and leaders get stuck in our worlds of business that we forget even the business professional that you're speaking to is probably scrolling through Facebook and looking at their ex. They're also scrolling through Instagram and trying to see whether or not they should buy that cute shirt. Like they're doing things that are human. It's not all business all the time. And when you realize that, you are able to stop thinking exclusively about the brain and start to think about the heart and how there's psychological and emotional triggers that you can tap into to tell a story that actually resonates and breaks through all of the noise where everybody's saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Not in the office, because everybody goes to events and everybody gets stalked and everybody gets chased by, you know, all of the vendors that are trying to sell them. But, you know, when you're out having fun and you're golfing leisurely on a Friday, like you are in that quasi-business, quasi-lifestyle mode, and and your brain just just thinks better and and you're able to be more inspired. And we found the white space. So you're absolutely right, of course, because you're a genius. So all right, one more question. The world is, you know, so insanely busy right now. And even though there's more levels and more modes of marketing than we probably could have ever thought of or imagined in the past, companies are just keeping resources and staffing so thin. How do executives keep creativity alive when their teams are stretched literally to the point? And many of the companies that I advise are in this scenario every day where they can barely get the day-to-day out and they keep the lights on, let alone try and be creative at the same time. What's your advice?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

So my biggest piece of advice is to remember that your greatest ideas typically come when you are in a state of play, calm, peace, chill. When you're in the shower, you have your best ideas. When you're going for a swim, you have your best ideas. You're sitting in a sauna, you have your great best ideas. Between walking from hole nine to hole ten on the golf course, you have your best ideas. If you can create a culture where you give your team space to think, to talk, to chat, to have conversations, to throw bad ideas out there and just have a collaboration and discussion, that's where you win. At my company, we have this thing called Wired In Wednesdays, where on Wednesdays everybody's wired in. We don't take calls, we don't take meetings. We're just able to wire into our keyboard, read, learn, discuss, chat, have conversations. And by doing that, it gives the team the ability to really just unleash their own creativity. No distractions. No, every 30-minute increment of your calendar, you have to go from meeting to meeting to meeting. And then at the end of the day, try to remember what you talked about at 9:30. Like, no, no, no. Let's give our team space to think. Because in this AI age, guess what? A lot of the IQ tasks can be done with AI. AI can tackle the spreadsheet. AI can tackle the analysis of a report for you. It can do a lot of those things today. But what it cannot do is understand the psychology of the humans you're selling to, you're working with, the audience that you're speaking to. They don't know the nuances of the trends and the things that are shaping culture around you and your industry today. They don't know the nuances of the skills or the behaviors of your audience, your customers, your internal teammates. That is where the human still wins. The human still wins on taste. The human still wins on connection, on relationships, on understanding the nuances of what it means to be human today. Because the LLM scraped it last week, but it doesn't know the nuances of today. So that idea of giving your team space would be my biggest recommendation to leaders today.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

This conversation was packed with so much incredible insight, intelligence, inspiration. Thank you so much for being a guest on Liftoff.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Thanks for having me on Liftoff. I'm a super fan of what you all do, and I love that you're lifting off so many people's careers, so many people's minds, and keep doing what you're doing. It's great to see.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Absolutely. All right, Ross. Talk to you later.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

That was awesome, right? I thought so. And I totally wasn't expecting half that conversation. And like always, I learned something new. One of the things I hope you can take away from today's conversation is this there is no single path to growth, but there are great ideas that you can integrate into your own style. You know me, I'm a big fan of the air method, authenticity, inspiration, and relatability. And those are the patterns that will lead you to success. When you start noticing how people make decisions, how they pivot, lead, and handle those very real bumps along the way, the ones we all call life, you get much clearer about your own next move. And that's what we explore here on Liftoff Journeys and across everything we do at Liftoff Enterprises. We look at conversations, we do it through media and experiences designed to help leaders grow with more trust and confidence every day. If this episode resonated with you, there is more waiting for you. Whether it's another journey, a liftoff with Genie Weldon TV interview, or one of our liftoff spotlight episodes, find what speaks to you and use it to cross that trust threshold and go from stuck to unstoppable. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.