Harnessing the Power of Storytelling for B2B SaaS Marketing: Insights from Steve Hoffman of Founder's Space

We all know the importance of engaging our audience and standing out in a crowded marketplace. One often overlooked strategy to achieve this is through the power of storytelling. Keirra recently invited Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founder's Space, to the podcast to discuss how SaaS companies can leverage storytelling to strengthen their marketing strategies. Here's a summary of the valuable insights and takeaways from their conversation.

The Importance of Storytelling in B2B SaaS Marketing 
When it comes to marketing a B2B SaaS product, it's easy to get caught up in the technical details and lose sight of the bigger picture. However, according to Steve Hoffman, storytelling is a crucial component of successful marketing campaigns. As humans, we're naturally drawn to stories because they help us make sense of the world around us. By weaving a compelling narrative around your product, you can create an emotional connection with your audience that transcends the limitations of traditional marketing methods.

Developing a Compelling Brand Story
Creating a captivating brand story begins with understanding your target audience's pain points and how your product can address them. Steve emphasizes the importance of developing a narrative that positions your product as the solution to your customers' problems. To craft an engaging brand story, consider the following elements:

1. The Problem: Clearly define the problem your audience is facing and create a sense of urgency around it.
2. The Solution: Explain how your product offers a unique and effective solution to the problem.
3. The Journey: Describe the transformation your customers will experience as they implement your solution.
4. The Success: Showcase the positive outcomes and results your customers can expect from using your product.

By incorporating these elements into your marketing materials, you can create a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience and motivates them to take action.

Utilizing Testimonials and Case Studies
One of the most effective ways to demonstrate the value of your product is by showcasing real-world success stories. Steve suggests utilizing testimonials and case studies as powerful tools to build trust and credibility with your audience. By sharing the experiences of your satisfied customers, you can validate your product's claims and provide tangible proof of its effectiveness.

When crafting testimonials and case studies, be sure to include:

1. The Customer's Background: Offer context by sharing the customer's industry, company size, and role.
2. The Challenge: Detail the specific problems the customer was facing before using your product.
3. The Solution: Explain how your product helped the customer overcome their challenges.
4. The Results: Highlight the positive outcomes the customer experienced as a result of implementing your product.

In the competitive world of B2B SaaS marketing, it's essential to differentiate your brand and create an emotional connection with your audience. By harnessing the power of storytelling, you can craft a compelling narrative that highlights the value of your product and drives customer engagement. Take inspiration from Steve Hoffman's insights and leverage storytelling, testimonials, and case studies to create an unforgettable marketing campaign that resonates with your audience and propels your business to new heights.

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Transcript

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All right, today I am sitting down with Steve, aka Captain Hoff. He's the chairman and CEO of

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Founderspace, a global innovation hub for entrepreneurs, corporations, and investors

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with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Hoffman is also a venture investor. He's the founder of

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three venture-backed and two bootstrap startups and author of several award-winning books,

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including Make Elephants Fly, Surviving a Startup, and The Five Forces.

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And he actually served on the board of governors of the New Media Council.

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He was the founder and chairman of the Producers Guild Silicon Valley chapter

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and was a founding member of the Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group.

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So Steve, you've got a really varied background here and I'm super excited to chat with you today.

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It is fantastic to be here. Absolutely. Yeah, so I'd just like to get a little bit of background on like why you got into the

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startup space and why you started, you know, Founderspace and a little bit of, you know,

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what you're doing with some of your startup companies. Sure. So I work all around the globe

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with startup companies, many of them SaaS based B2B companies. We help them basically

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land in Silicon Valley.

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Raise venture capital, and then grow like crazy. So we deal with a lot of the growth issues of these startups,

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especially going from early stage into mid and late stage.

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They get a lot of money.

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A lot of times they don't know how to spend it. I am an entrepreneur.

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So I did three venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley, and then I started Founderspace,

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which is our global startup accelerator.

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And I spend about 70% of my time traveling all around the US and all around the world.

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And really what I'm doing is looking for great startups and basically helping those startups

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to get to the next level. So I just got back from a trip.

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I was in the country, not the state of Georgia, working there with the local government,

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helping them select which startups to fund. Before that, I was in Istanbul,

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working with our partners there.

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Before that, Uzbekistan, Singapore, Malaysia. So I've been, it's been like nonstop traveling

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in the past couple months.

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I'm happy to be back in my home turf, California. I'm right near San Francisco.

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And, you know, really, I see a very bright future.

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I'm especially, you know, my sweet spot when I'm an investor too, and an accelerator,

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but I also angel invest in a lot of these startups personally.

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And I'm always looking for really B2B startups that have really figured it out.

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They've really figured out what their customer needs. They have a unique solution that's either, you know,

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significantly, not incrementally, but exponentially better than the competition out there

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because they're using AI or new technology, or it's totally different, addressing a new need.

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That's what I look for. And those are startups that I have the most potential.

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Okay. And your founder space functions as sort of an accelerator for these types of companies, right? We do.

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Yeah. So we work as an accelerator. We bring in, we work with individual companies.

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We work with batches of companies. We work with overseas governments and we work with overseas tech parks

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accelerators, all of them.

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Okay, well, this is going to be very interesting then, because I'd like to ask, what is the one

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insight in terms of like marketing and growth that you would share, you know, having worked with all

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of these different startup companies, with, you know, SaaS marketers and SaaS founders?

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Yes, so I have 1000 insights, but I will narrow it down to one we're going to talk about today,

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which I think you haven't talked about on your show before.

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And that is personality-based marketing.

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Now, I know a lot of SaaS and B2B companies, the funnel is very important,

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where you market, how you target your customers, all that really, really important stuff.

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But what a lot of B2B companies forget is that there is something they can use that a lot of

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other startup companies and established companies use that can

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really make their marketing have more impact,

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especially when it's content-based.

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And that is attaching a face and a personality to your marketing.

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Don't not just, you know, a lot of marketing, a lot of content marketing out there is useful information.

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Like, you know, you're giving them useful information. Sometimes you're giving them tools

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that you developed for free to get them in there. Their whole freemium model,

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as well as a lot of companies offer extra, you know, tools that are just totally free

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just to get them to come to their site.

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But if you combine this sort of marketing with somebody who has a personality,

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who can speak to your customers, who your customers can come to trust,

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makes an enormous difference.

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Actually can make an exponential difference in the amount of traction you get

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with your marketing and growth.

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Wow, okay. Yeah, I feel like I've seen that quite a bit from like influencers, quote unquote,

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social media influencers, and even like.

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Mostly like brands that sell like to consumers or like service-based kind of things,

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but not so much from software and SaaS companies.

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Right, so, you know, when you're in the consumer space, you see it more, you see a lot of personalities out there

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and they're, you know, either influencers, you know, speaking to their audience or they are selling something

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and they have a face attached to the brand.

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But I think it's equally important in business. In this, when you're doing B2B and SAS, and this is why.

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People.

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By people ultimately respond to other people more than they respond to facts, figures,

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data, even different tools and utility you can provide them.

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Information, right? Information is interesting and useful. You can get great SEO ratings on certain articles you write on how to do stuff.

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But imagine you're going to publish an article that is really useful to your customer base.

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And you're going to try to get this on the first page of Google so that people are clicking on

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this article, reading it, people are sharing it virally in the social networks. That's great.

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Writing the article and putting all that information is great. But now think, what if this came from a

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personality, somebody they could relate to? What you get here is that not only do people engage

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with the article, but if you write it and you write it in the right way, and when I'm talking

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about the right way, I'm talking about a tone of voice. You know, it's not enough to put your

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little picture near the article, your little face, and say, follow me on Twitter, follow me on,

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you know, whatever platforms, LinkedIn. It's even better if you write the article with some of who

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you really are in the article, you know, expressing your background, your personal experiences,

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that ties in seamlessly to that content, to the information, the useful information you are giving

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your customers. Because what you do then is you create, oh, this person is really, this isn't just

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useful information, but here's a source of information. This is the difference. Useful

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information, you'll go to the article once, you'll read it and you'll move on. We all do that. We're

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all Googling all the time to figure stuff out. How can I do this? How can I do that? How can I

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to make my business better." We're all doing that. We go there, we read it, and we move on.

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But if you really respond to the person, their tone of voice, their insights, their way of

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explaining things to you, then you are much more likely to follow them on some social network.

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Once you make that transition from just consuming at once and moving on to following them.

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As a company, you have a chance to repeatedly engage your customer with your messaging over

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and over again and that is the power.

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Hmm. Okay, okay. So it's like you're developing this human personality that you're sharing with people

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and people respond to that because if they resonate with like your tone and your energy

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that you put out there and your personality and the way you present yourself, then they're

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more likely to actually buy from you like follow you and all of that.

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Yes. So I'll give you an example. So a couple examples. So one is me, right? Okay. I work in

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B2B. I work with startups all over the globe. You know, what did I do to get my company founder space

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to the next level? Well, as you introduced me, I have a nickname Captain Hoff, you know, and that

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name didn't come out of nowhere. There's a story there. So I'm a big time gamer. In my early career,

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I made a lot of games. Some of them were extremely popular. One of them is gazillionaire out there.

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That teaches you how to be a gazillionaire, how to be an entrepreneur, but it's a game.

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I did all these games and my gamer handle was Captain Hoff. That's the handle I used. So all

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my friends would call me Captain Hoff. Then when I started in my companies, they called me Captain

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Hoff. And when I started Founderspace, that carried over. So now a lot of people, they might

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not remember my name, Steve Hoffman, but they do remember Captain Hoff. It's an icebreaker.

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I'll tell you, there's a compounding effect to having a personality.

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So you could put content out there, YouTube videos, whatever, just informational, and

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people may discover them and they may get a lot out of them.

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But your personality is there. People start to like you.

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They not only start to follow you, but you can translate that personality into all these

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other avenues, like getting invited to speak at industry conferences.

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They're not going to invite just an article to speak at an industry conference or even

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the writer if they're a decent writer, but they're going to invite a personality.

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They've done many, many studies in all of marketing. People are much more likely just in basic marketing 101 to click on an ad with a human

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face in it.

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With a human face in it. And people, advertisers know that if you expose somebody

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to the same messaging and the same kind of visuals and everything else that all tie together,

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multiple times, the more you expose them, the more they feel comfortable with it, familiar with it,

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the more likely they're gonna have trust in it, and the more likely they're gonna follow through

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on a sale of that product.

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So we see this in TV advertising, any type of advertising, all the social networks,

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It's all personality based. If you're not doing this in your business,

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you're missing out on a big chance.

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And like you now, you're doing podcasting, right? Podcasting is putting your personality out there.

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There's your face out there, your voice out there, yet your marketing, your services to other people.

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I want every business to think of their business as a personality business.

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Now the question that a lot of people have is do I have the personality to do this, right?

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If you know, some CEOs are natural, right? They can talk forever.

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They have, you know, they're incredibly funny. They, you know, they, people just respond to them.

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Other CEOs are more analytical, more introverted, not so good at communicating.

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Let me tell you, it doesn't have to be the CEO.

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It helps. Usually, you know, the great ones tend to be the CEO, right?

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Because the CEO is the leader, the visionary of the company.

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But if that's not your strong point, get somebody on your team to do it.

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And I know other teams out there where they basically hire somebody for that role

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to be the personality for their company.

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They bring them in full time and their job is media and stuff,

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and they run internal podcasts, they write the articles, but they do it all from this personality point of view.

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The danger in this, and I wanna point this out, is that if you just hire somebody, they can leave.

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They might leave your, you know, after a few years, even if you're a good boss

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and they might get another opportunity or they just might wanna move on in their career

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and do something else and they leave and then whoop, if you don't have that personality anymore.

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That you still have the archive of all the content that created the social networks,

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but they're no longer alive, right? They're more, they exist.

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So my advice is...

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There's two avenues you can take. Number one, you can train yourself to do this.

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Anybody can train themselves to become a better communicator.

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There's a zillion resources out there to train yourself.

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I trained myself. I used to be, just so you know, I used to be extremely shy.

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I was like, people don't believe it now. I was terrified of public speaking.

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I would never do anything like a podcast or any of that. But I knew as a CEO of my early startups

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that a big portion of our success, I had to be out there. I had to be selling our product.

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I had to be interfacing with people. So I trained myself. Anybody can train themselves.

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Anybody can get better. Number two, it doesn't, as long as it's one of the core team,

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it doesn't have to be the CEO.

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So if you have co-founders on your team who are committed to the company long-term,

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just like you, they could also be that. And then as a third resort, you can hire somebody.

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Somebody is better than nobody.

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Like if you're gonna put content out there with no personality, or you're gonna add a personality, just add it.

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Like it's just gonna be better for as long as that person is with your company.

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And then you can transition over to another person. You could have multiple personalities

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and see which one works out the best, have them compete if you have the budget for that.

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But there are many, many different ways to do this.

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And I wanna give you a few hints as to what I think works really best.

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So in any personality, whoever they are, they don't wanna seem sales.

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They don't wanna seem like you're selling something. What you are doing for people is you are doing two things.

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You're giving them really, this is B2B and SaaS, right?

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You are giving them really useful information that they can take home and that will make a difference

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in their, like they can use right away.

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It's like, oh, I can use that management tip. I can use that marketing information

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or that marketing tip.

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These are things that are actionable items for your customers.

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You want things that they can share, and as a personality.

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As a style, you want to develop your own voice and you want your voice to be authentic. You don't,

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want to try to pretend to be somebody you aren't like we all have our strengths. We all have our

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weaknesses. We, you know, if you're going to really be a personality out there, you have to show like

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your weaknesses, what's going on in your life. Like it's more than just the content as useful

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information to people, it's the content as part of your life. So you want to embed the content and

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what you're doing. If you're at a trade show, your film, you're, you're getting interesting stuff.

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You're not feeding them garbage, but really interesting stuff going on at that trade show.

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And you're sharing it on all your social feeds, right? With your personality and your, your

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comment, it doesn't have to be professionally produced. That's not what people expect these days.

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It just has to be real, really you at the trade show, like going up to different boos,

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going up to different people, asking them really penetrating questions that are interesting.

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Who you are, and if you fumble and you make mistakes or you don't know something,

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that's all perfectly fine. It's not about being perfect. It's about being you and putting yourself

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out there and putting yourself in places where you can get a great information and that provide

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a great platform for you to engage with customers and engage with ideas and information that

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your users will find really valuable.

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Okay. That makes sense. That is super interesting, especially your point about like...

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Incorporating your life into it, I guess, well, your business life, you know, going to trade shows or

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you can even incorporate your personal life, even your personal life, like honestly, people want to

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know, like it's so much more think about the TV shows you watch, right? You don't just watch them,

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because, you know, for the information you watch, you know, you like the people like, yeah. And so,

00:17:24.020 --> 00:17:29.358
you know, if you reveal stuff about your life in the process, it doesn't, it's not the center thing,

00:17:29.358 --> 00:17:35.038
but it's kind of in the background, really, it really gets people to begin to relate to you,

00:17:35.038 --> 00:17:38.878
like you think about it when you're out there selling, when you're out there asking for an

00:17:38.878 --> 00:17:43.678
interview, they're much more likely to say yes. Hmm. Yeah, I have been thinking about

00:17:43.678 --> 00:17:48.238
incorporating more of my personality into my brand. I mean, you would think I would do that

00:17:48.238 --> 00:17:54.158
considering I'm doing like the podcast. I'm like, yes, you're doing the podcast. So yeah,

00:17:54.158 --> 00:17:56.198
Yeah, let it all out there.

00:17:56.198 --> 00:17:59.678
Show like when you're having trouble, when you're grappling with something,

00:17:59.678 --> 00:18:03.598
when you discover something amazing, all those things.

00:18:04.838 --> 00:18:08.478
If your plane got delayed and you're like, I was supposed to be at this conference

00:18:08.478 --> 00:18:14.441
meeting with these people. You just told me you went to that altruism conference

00:18:14.518 --> 00:18:16.358
in the Bay Area, my home turf.

00:18:17.518 --> 00:18:22.398
And I was like, oh, that made me instantly like you. Well, you aren't just out there

00:18:22.398 --> 00:18:28.377
like creating content for SaaS products, you want to do good things in the world.

00:18:28.438 --> 00:18:31.598
Like I would want to see from you, like if I were working with you,

00:18:31.598 --> 00:18:35.718
I'd want to see that Altruism Conference. Like I'd want you interviewing people

00:18:35.718 --> 00:18:41.475
at the Altruism Conference and letting all your followers know about that. Did you do that?

00:18:42.378 --> 00:18:48.497
I did not record any content, no. Yeah, see, next time, the next time you do something cool like that,

00:18:48.598 --> 00:18:50.718
be recording content.

00:18:50.718 --> 00:18:57.733
Your life and your brand and your mission should all be tied up because at the end of the day,

00:18:57.896 --> 00:19:03.918
anybody who works for you and you're an amazing person would want to will be much more likely to

00:19:03.918 --> 00:19:08.078
do it if they like know you like you see all the things you're doing.

00:19:09.049 --> 00:19:14.259
Yeah, and I'm thinking more about like how this can be incorporated into different formats as well,

00:19:14.259 --> 00:19:19.699
because maybe I'm not like a live stream type of, you know, have my camera and everybody's faces,

00:19:19.699 --> 00:19:24.099
I'm walking around a trade show or conference kind of person. But I've seen it where like.

00:19:26.361 --> 00:19:31.219
Like bloggers will kind of write about their life. And like, I've seen that even like a business

00:19:31.219 --> 00:19:34.819
context where I'm following like some coaches, newsletters and stuff like that.

00:19:34.819 --> 00:19:39.693
Right. You don't have to do, you can pick your, it has to be true to you, right? So it has to be,

00:19:39.792 --> 00:19:44.499
so you can follow up with people after the conference, but when you're at the conference,

00:19:44.499 --> 00:19:49.859
you can blog, you can even record video and then narrate over and afterwards when you're in your

00:19:49.859 --> 00:19:55.939
studio and you feel more comfortable, all sorts of different ways to do it. You know, you can explore

00:19:55.939 --> 00:20:01.699
different, so, you know, most people, when they have social media channels, it's better to focus

00:20:01.699 --> 00:20:07.219
on one or two, then spread yourself over a lot. So you figure out like which social media platforms

00:20:07.219 --> 00:20:12.979
are your customers on, which ones do you feel most comfortable communicating on, and kind of zero in

00:20:12.979 --> 00:20:18.772
on those, and then what type of content really resonates. And you can do tests, right? So you

00:20:19.059 --> 00:20:24.899
can do, you might not think you're a live streamer, but you might find out, ah, actually, I really

00:20:24.899 --> 00:20:28.899
enjoy this. I never thought I would. So, you know, you could do experiments. If they don't work,

00:20:28.899 --> 00:20:35.459
you just delete them. If they work, they work, right? You can keep doing them.

00:20:36.259 --> 00:20:42.899
Yeah. Can I get some more real life examples on how this works in the SaaS space? Any brands

00:20:42.899 --> 00:20:50.179
you've worked with that were SaaS and then kind of incorporated this personality into their brand?

00:20:50.179 --> 00:20:54.259
Yeah. So I told you, I just got back from the country of Georgia, a very small country,

00:20:54.259 --> 00:20:58.419
but with some amazing entrepreneurs. One of the entrepreneurs, I...

00:20:59.426 --> 00:21:06.076
You know, I work with his B2B company works with auto mechanics, like in his B2B platform.

00:21:06.636 --> 00:21:13.436
He literally, he's very driven, but he literally became a personality. Like you wouldn't expect

00:21:13.436 --> 00:21:20.156
it, but he became a personality. Like he started has his own, because he has this kind of B2B

00:21:20.156 --> 00:21:26.316
platform for, you know, independent mechanics, he launched his own connecting customers and

00:21:26.316 --> 00:21:28.556
and independent mechanics and all this other stuff.

00:21:28.556 --> 00:21:35.756
He launched his own show in Georgia, literally became super popular.

00:21:35.756 --> 00:21:41.476
Like in his country, he cannot walk down the street without people stopping him.

00:21:41.836 --> 00:21:46.676
Like without people stopping him. Yeah, everybody loves him and they all know his brand.

00:21:46.676 --> 00:21:50.276
They know who he is. They all, you know, people use his service.

00:21:50.276 --> 00:21:54.556
A lot of them just because everybody else is using their service and everybody else is talking about it.

00:21:54.556 --> 00:21:55.987
And he's not super funny.

00:21:56.456 --> 00:22:01.456
He's not super, he's not like your typical talk show host.

00:22:02.316 --> 00:22:08.756
He's a driven business guy. Like, but he's so driven and so into this

00:22:08.756 --> 00:22:12.296
and always, you know, trying to help his customers

00:22:12.296 --> 00:22:16.297
do better in their businesses that people responded

00:22:16.476 --> 00:22:18.043
and became a huge hit.

00:22:18.156 --> 00:22:30.241
You can literally, whatever business you're in, you can go out there and start creating content with who you are,

00:22:30.376 --> 00:22:33.230
what you care about in the world, and you will find that

00:22:33.436 --> 00:22:35.696
a good percentage of your customers feel the same way.

00:22:36.516 --> 00:22:45.166
Hmm. Okay. Okay. So let's say that we don't, I'm working at a SaaS company right now. And I'm like

00:22:45.166 --> 00:22:51.646
the marketing executive or I'm the founder and we don't have any kind of personality in our branding

00:22:51.646 --> 00:23:01.006
at all. Like step by step, what would you have me do in order to start creating or incorporating a

00:23:01.006 --> 00:23:02.748
a personality into the marketing?

00:23:03.504 --> 00:23:07.166
Oh, so what I would do first, figure out who's going to do it, right?

00:23:07.166 --> 00:23:09.546
Who has the desire to do it?

00:23:09.546 --> 00:23:15.864
Probably the biggest thing. Desire over talent is almost more important because you will be able to develop yourself

00:23:15.946 --> 00:23:18.526
if you have the strong desire to do so.

00:23:18.526 --> 00:23:23.186
But of course, natural talent helps too. It's best to have both the desire and the talent.

00:23:23.186 --> 00:23:27.099
So who has the desire and the potential to do this?

00:23:27.446 --> 00:23:33.406
And then, and it can be more than one person. You can ask a couple of people in your company to do it like part-time and see which one

00:23:33.406 --> 00:23:38.793
takes off. There's no fast rule about this.

00:23:38.966 --> 00:23:44.566
I work with startups all the time. My big thing is experiment, experiment, experiment.

00:23:44.906 --> 00:23:54.146
Also, you want these people to always be trying new things. You want them to always be pushing the limits.

00:23:54.146 --> 00:23:59.286
You want them to think about what could I do that nobody else in our industry is doing?

00:23:59.286 --> 00:24:02.186
Could I do this in a way that other people aren't?

00:24:02.186 --> 00:24:10.126
Could I run a game show based on my SaaS product? Could I do a talk show about SaaS?

00:24:10.126 --> 00:24:12.886
A lot of people are doing that. There's a lot of different things.

00:24:12.886 --> 00:24:17.426
But could I do something really weird, a kind of like SaaS reality show?

00:24:17.426 --> 00:24:20.285
So things to get people's attention.

00:24:20.699 --> 00:24:24.606
If you're a marketing person, you want to get people's attention while also providing

00:24:24.606 --> 00:24:30.268
them useful things. So this is where you would start.

00:24:30.406 --> 00:24:36.300
What I would do is basically say, like if you're the CEO and you wanna be the personality, great.

00:24:36.726 --> 00:24:38.145
But you don't have to do all the work.

00:24:38.266 --> 00:24:42.187
You can go to your marketing person and say, look, I want you, you know who I am, right?

00:24:42.306 --> 00:24:47.286
I want you to tell me the most interesting things about myself and I want you to start coming up with,

00:24:47.286 --> 00:24:49.317
brainstorming like 20 different ideas

00:24:49.446 --> 00:24:55.718
on how I could get out there on social media, how I could make our content really, really interesting.

00:24:55.826 --> 00:24:59.706
And yes, I might not write all the content myself. I might have my team write it.

00:24:59.706 --> 00:25:04.414
I might hire third parties, third party consultants to write the content,

00:25:04.526 --> 00:25:09.122
but I would tell them to do it in my voice. And then you have to start to develop your voice.

00:25:09.266 --> 00:25:13.726
So you may already have one, but you may not. And what you want to work with

00:25:13.726 --> 00:25:15.786
is somebody who can help you do that.

00:25:15.786 --> 00:25:21.086
Like how do you develop your voice? Do you have a nickname that people can remember?

00:25:21.086 --> 00:25:26.086
You have something catchy about, you know, about you or about your company that really

00:25:26.086 --> 00:25:27.986
resonates with people.

00:25:28.171 --> 00:25:29.674
What resonates with people?

00:25:30.006 --> 00:25:33.766
And again, I want to stress it, you know, coming up with great.

00:25:34.508 --> 00:25:38.838
Brand, great media, great engagement with your customers, great content.

00:25:39.208 --> 00:25:42.878
It's all about experimentation and measuring the results.

00:25:43.196 --> 00:25:47.438
So just like any marketing campaign, it's like your personality.

00:25:47.661 --> 00:25:52.438
You can adapt to find out what people actually respond to.

00:25:52.792 --> 00:25:55.958
And if you just keep trying the same thing over and over and it's not working,

00:25:56.321 --> 00:25:57.284
you're never going to grow.

00:25:57.662 --> 00:26:00.878
You're never going to grow your audience. You're never going to grow yourself.

00:26:00.878 --> 00:26:07.502
So the really key is to take risks. And this is something so you have to have the person

00:26:07.574 --> 00:26:13.518
being the spokesperson, somebody who's willing to you look at all the great spokespeople out there

00:26:13.605 --> 00:26:18.558
in the world today, whether they're, you know, entertainers, whether they're business people,

00:26:18.558 --> 00:26:24.048
whether they're politicians, whatever they are, they take risks, like they go out on an edge,

00:26:24.246 --> 00:26:30.478
and literally say what they think. And it may be controversial, it may not be, they're pushing the

00:26:30.478 --> 00:26:34.558
limits, they're trying different things and they're trying many, many different channels

00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:41.438
to figure out which ones work for them. So this is the way to do it and you should do it with your

00:26:41.438 --> 00:26:46.950
team. So with either outside consultants coming in and really helping you shape this or with

00:26:47.211 --> 00:26:52.318
or a combination with your internal team that can help you carry this out and come up with the ideas.

00:26:52.318 --> 00:26:56.318
Because as a CEO or one of the founders, you're super busy doing a ton of stuff.

00:26:57.293 --> 00:27:02.598
I don't want to do all the legwork. You want to hand all that off and you want to have them come to you with these ideas

00:27:02.785 --> 00:27:05.071
and you say, okay, I like that one.

00:27:05.318 --> 00:27:06.026
Let's give it a shot.

00:27:06.318 --> 00:27:13.558
Let's see what happens. Have you heard of this chat GPT stuff that's been in the industry?

00:27:13.558 --> 00:27:15.199
Oh yeah. Yes.

00:27:15.558 --> 00:27:21.558
So chat GPT, it's everywhere, right? Everybody's talking about open AI and all that they're doing.

00:27:21.779 --> 00:27:24.273
I have a lot of startups working in that space.

00:27:24.598 --> 00:27:30.878
It's great for marketing. I actually acquired this earlier on before it became super hyped.

00:27:30.878 --> 00:27:32.558
I went out there and started using it.

00:27:32.558 --> 00:27:38.178
There are a number of companies out there like Jasper and WriteSonic and all these different

00:27:38.178 --> 00:27:44.744
companies that make platforms that use it. I got on early on those platforms to start experimenting.

00:27:45.058 --> 00:27:50.878
The beauty of it is in today's world, you don't have to literally write all the content

00:27:50.878 --> 00:27:53.341
yourself. You don't even have to have a marketing person write it.

00:27:53.558 --> 00:27:58.558
If you are good at using one of these platforms, you can put in a bunch of keywords and outcomes an article.

00:27:58.558 --> 00:28:05.678
Now, that article isn't going to be ready for prime time. You're still going to have to have somebody rewrite that article and you're going to want

00:28:05.678 --> 00:28:08.918
to weave your brand into it and your messaging into it and everything else.

00:28:08.918 --> 00:28:13.518
But it can give you a basis like a rough draft to start from.

00:28:14.290 --> 00:28:19.460
Yeah, and for anybody who's listening to this and hasn't heard of this GPT stuff yet, it's

00:28:19.460 --> 00:28:25.903
basically a AI that can understand what you write and what you tell it.

00:28:26.180 --> 00:28:30.380
And then you can you can literally ask it to like generate like a blog post or generate

00:28:30.380 --> 00:28:32.340
something that looks like an email.

00:28:32.340 --> 00:28:39.540
So I've been playing with it recently. And I've just been thinking like, this will really speed up the time it takes to create

00:28:39.540 --> 00:28:40.800
content.

00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:46.680
And so if I maybe asked it to write, like, maybe if I had like a summary of my recent

00:28:46.680 --> 00:28:51.580
experience or like some thoughts I had around a certain subject, asked it to write that

00:28:51.580 --> 00:28:56.880
and then just spend some time like just making sure that it's in my brand voice, that's could

00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:01.957
be another outlet for content creation as opposed to like getting an agency.

00:29:02.620 --> 00:29:07.720
So let's say you're a SaaS company that appeals to the fashion market, right?

00:29:07.720 --> 00:29:11.440
You have a platform for the fashion market and you want to write articles about the fashion

00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:16.760
market, you can literally type in, you know, different brands and different things and

00:29:16.760 --> 00:29:21.800
it will all the keywords and it will literally write an article for you on whatever it is

00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:23.160
you want to write on.

00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:30.720
Now the articles aren't guaranteed to be good, but they give you many versions to choose from.

00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:35.600
So like, and different tools work differently. So the chat GTP is pretty good.

00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:38.974
You give it a couple examples and it can literally spit out a bunch of stuff.

00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:44.970
There are other platforms that allow you to kind of do it. They take you through step by step writing the article.

00:29:45.520 --> 00:29:50.155
So there are a lot of AI platforms out there now for copywriting, for content creation,

00:29:50.520 --> 00:29:57.537
for social media. They'll literally write posts for you on Instagram posts, LinkedIn posts, Twitter posts.

00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:04.340
They'll write all that for you. They will help you with outreach for sales, all sorts of different stuff.

00:30:04.340 --> 00:30:05.252
It's amazing.

00:30:05.783 --> 00:30:10.840
If you're a content creator out there, or you have a SaaS company and you work in marketing

00:30:10.840 --> 00:30:13.273
or whatever, you need to be all over this.

00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:23.544
So what pitfalls do you think people might fall into as they're trying to develop this personality or this brand voice?

00:30:24.600 --> 00:30:29.180
So the pitfalls are, the biggest one is time. Like you get distracted, you get busy,

00:30:29.360 --> 00:30:33.267
and you're onto the next thing and you don't follow up on it because it takes time.

00:30:33.320 --> 00:30:38.488
Developing a voice, developing a following, really reaching out to your customers

00:30:38.560 --> 00:30:40.946
doesn't happen overnight.

00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:44.718
So that's the first thing. It's like six months, a year,

00:30:45.180 --> 00:30:47.904
before you even start to see like amazing results

00:30:48.100 --> 00:30:49.720
on a consistent basis.

00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:58.720
Number two is not only time, but if you are talking to people, what's your message?

00:30:58.920 --> 00:31:02.569
You want to have clear, you want to know, Like.

00:31:03.433 --> 00:31:09.843
The person is just an embodiment of the company's personality and values, right?

00:31:09.843 --> 00:31:13.363
So you need to be expressing what are my values?

00:31:13.588 --> 00:31:17.891
Why? What do I care about? Why am I doing this company? Right?

00:31:18.283 --> 00:31:21.363
Am I doing it just to make as much money as I can from my customers?

00:31:21.933 --> 00:31:30.083
Or do I really care about helping my customers? Because when you're speaking in a voice, the voice has to if the voice

00:31:30.083 --> 00:31:33.643
This isn't around really benefiting your customers.

00:31:33.643 --> 00:31:40.199
If that isn't your mission and doesn't come through, don't do it because it's not going to come out right.

00:31:40.503 --> 00:31:43.963
Like I said before, your goal isn't to sell people on your product.

00:31:43.963 --> 00:31:51.383
Your goal is to inform, educate, entertain people. Inform, educate, and entertain.

00:31:51.383 --> 00:31:52.550
That's what you want to do.

00:31:52.783 --> 00:31:58.103
You want to do it in a way that is commensurate with your overall company values.

00:31:58.103 --> 00:32:00.063
What are you trying to do in this world?

00:32:00.063 --> 00:32:04.643
Are you, some companies that I know of that are SaaS based companies, like they've, they

00:32:04.643 --> 00:32:09.363
have ones in the Bay area, ones that do platforms for team management.

00:32:09.654 --> 00:32:17.043
There's some famous ones. And one of them, their founders are very focused on providing good company culture, good, you

00:32:17.043 --> 00:32:23.022
know, really doing, making their company and their customers super happy.

00:32:23.283 --> 00:32:31.403
They're all about, you know, making them super happy. comes through in all their messaging, in all their decision making. So you can talk about

00:32:31.403 --> 00:32:35.803
decisions that your company is making, your SaaS company is making internally.

00:32:36.391 --> 00:32:41.837
And externally, why did you make this decision to remove this feature from your product?

00:32:42.321 --> 00:32:48.733
Well, did you do it for the benefit of the customer? Did you do it for, what did you do it?

00:32:48.801 --> 00:32:52.955
What reasoning, was it causing problems? Was there something?

00:32:53.101 --> 00:32:58.122
If you add a feature right to your product, or you may change a direction of the product,

00:32:58.241 --> 00:33:03.041
this platform can become extremely valuable as a dialogue with your customers

00:33:03.041 --> 00:33:06.314
for them understanding your thought process and your mission.

00:33:06.404 --> 00:33:13.881
And if you don't have a really good, well thought out mission for your company that goes beyond just making money,

00:33:13.881 --> 00:33:15.812
we all wanna make money, we know that,

00:33:15.881 --> 00:33:22.861
but beyond that of giving back to your employees, giving back to your customers and giving back to society,

00:33:22.861 --> 00:33:25.957
how do those three things tie together

00:33:26.101 --> 00:33:28.271
with your mission of growing your business?

00:33:28.343 --> 00:33:34.921
If you can do that and your personality can evolve and everything you say comes from that point outwards,

00:33:34.921 --> 00:33:38.533
then you will suddenly, you will have something very powerful.

00:33:38.621 --> 00:33:41.765
Like your voice will develop on its own, your messaging will develop.

00:33:41.841 --> 00:33:46.561
And this isn't something you can just get out of chat GDP or another AI program.

00:33:46.561 --> 00:33:51.082
This is why I say you can use them to get the facts, the information.

00:33:51.201 --> 00:33:55.681
Like they're really good at like writing an informational article that's kind of dry.

00:33:55.681 --> 00:33:59.521
But then, and you can even have them write it in certain styles.

00:33:59.521 --> 00:34:03.801
Like you could say, write it like Joe Rogan. and they actually would write it like,

00:34:03.801 --> 00:34:08.601
but you don't wanna do that personality if you're not a Joe Rogan type or whatever you are, right?

00:34:09.761 --> 00:34:13.210
But you can ask them to write it in different personality styles,

00:34:13.282 --> 00:34:16.321
but at the end of the day, it's best if you have your own

00:34:16.321 --> 00:34:19.361
because your own is going to reflect your values,

00:34:19.361 --> 00:34:21.339
your mission, like everything I said.

00:34:21.441 --> 00:34:25.525
And then you can start to think creatively about how you tie that in.

00:34:25.701 --> 00:34:27.983
And that's what will end up resonating with people.

00:34:28.613 --> 00:34:34.703
Okay. So first, it's start with like your mission statement and your values and trying

00:34:34.703 --> 00:34:41.283
to see like how is my company aligned with that? And then you look at like each of the

00:34:41.283 --> 00:34:46.303
pieces of content you're putting out there. So like if it's a new feature release or like

00:34:46.303 --> 00:34:50.303
some new development in your company that you're already sharing, you just make sure

00:34:50.303 --> 00:34:55.242
to incorporate your reasoning and decision making and how it like how all of that like,

00:34:55.963 --> 00:34:59.130
aligns with your values and you put that in the, yeah.

00:35:00.004 --> 00:35:02.603
People want to see why you're making the decisions you're making.

00:35:02.603 --> 00:35:03.262
They're dependent upon you.

00:35:03.650 --> 00:35:06.763
So if they're using your SaaS platform, they bet their business on you. Right.

00:35:06.843 --> 00:35:10.803
Right. And the more critical your SaaS platform is to their business, the more critical,

00:35:10.879 --> 00:35:12.363
you know, to their future. Right.

00:35:12.652 --> 00:35:18.923
So they want to know number one, can they trust you? Number two, are you going to be around number three, where are you headed?

00:35:19.163 --> 00:35:22.403
Like with this product and where, why should I stick with you?

00:35:22.403 --> 00:35:28.803
If they're thinking of, you know, or, you know, if they love you, they're never going to leave you, right? And they trust you and they and they see your vision

00:35:28.803 --> 00:35:33.043
and where you're going. They may even wait for you to catch up to competitors. You know,

00:35:33.043 --> 00:35:37.123
competitor may release a new hot feature ahead of you that they really want, but they're

00:35:37.123 --> 00:35:40.723
like, no, no, no, we're going to stick. We're going to wait with this SaaS product because

00:35:40.723 --> 00:35:45.483
we know if we speak to them and we tell them we want it, they're going to respond. And,

00:35:46.014 --> 00:35:50.043
and that dialogue between you and your customers is what you're developing. And if you're developing

00:35:50.043 --> 00:35:54.683
it from a personality base, it's even more powerful because you know, we companies can

00:35:54.683 --> 00:35:59.283
say everything, but if they say it in a very dry voice, we tend not to really believe them.

00:35:59.283 --> 00:36:04.363
But if it's a personality putting their reputation on the line and saying, no, no, no, we are,

00:36:04.363 --> 00:36:08.143
I'm listening to you. I'm listening to all of you. I may not make all the decisions you

00:36:08.143 --> 00:36:12.923
want when I make them, but I will explain why I make those decisions, how I come to

00:36:12.923 --> 00:36:16.543
them, what my thought process is and where we're going in the future. I'll always be

00:36:16.543 --> 00:36:19.143
transparent with you. That's what your customers want.

00:36:20.205 --> 00:36:28.083
Yeah, that makes so much sense. But it seems like whenever I've heard advice like that, it's aimed from a leader talking

00:36:28.083 --> 00:36:29.243
to their employees.

00:36:29.243 --> 00:36:35.963
I never heard it framed that way with a leader talking to their customers. Their customers?

00:36:36.247 --> 00:36:46.523
Yeah. There are people out there who are really good at speaking to their customers.

00:36:46.523 --> 00:36:50.923
Like you said, most of them are in the consumer space that I hear, you know, there's somebody

00:36:50.923 --> 00:36:53.963
speaking, you know, you talk about like Elon Musk out there, right?

00:36:54.135 --> 00:36:59.883
Well, he isn't the best example lately because he sort of fallen off the rails, in my opinion.

00:36:59.883 --> 00:37:06.763
But early in the days of Tesla, he was like, pretty incredible at speaking to his customers, right?

00:37:07.089 --> 00:37:10.283
He was like, really passionate. He knew who his customers were.

00:37:10.283 --> 00:37:13.163
He was, you know, giving them a vision for the company.

00:37:13.163 --> 00:37:15.963
He had his personality out there. Really, really good.

00:37:15.963 --> 00:37:18.563
Lately he's gotten distracted with Twitter and politics

00:37:18.563 --> 00:37:21.123
and all these other things, which I think are hurting his brand,

00:37:21.203 --> 00:37:22.258
but that's a whole nother.

00:37:22.798 --> 00:37:31.048
Episode. But there are people out there, you know, Tom's, they did the Tom's shoes where they give

00:37:31.048 --> 00:37:36.728
one shoe away and for every shoe you buy, that was the core of their value. And Tom himself was the

00:37:36.728 --> 00:37:45.608
CEO of Tom's products and his whole product line really spoke to the customers. So whatever your

00:37:45.608 --> 00:37:52.488
product is, you can do this. And if you even look today, big companies like Salesforce out there,

00:37:52.488 --> 00:37:58.248
You know, there is Mark Benioff and he is talking and people relate to him and he is doing lots of.

00:37:58.816 --> 00:38:04.728
Philanthropic things and lots of, you know, his personality is kind of integrated with Salesforce.

00:38:04.728 --> 00:38:11.128
Salesforce wouldn't be the same without Mark Benioff. You look at Amazon, right? Jeff Bezos

00:38:11.128 --> 00:38:16.088
has been tied up. He's kind of moved on now. I have a new CEO, but, you know, in the early days

00:38:16.088 --> 00:38:22.168
of Amazon, all through it, it was his promises to his customers. He was making those promises.

00:38:22.168 --> 00:38:27.608
He was like, we will always ship our products ahead. We will make it super easy for you to

00:38:27.608 --> 00:38:33.448
return. You know, it was, you know, Jeff Bezos was everywhere. You look at Bill Gates with

00:38:33.448 --> 00:38:38.728
Microsoft, he's moved on now, right? He has this foundation that he's focused on, but it was always

00:38:38.728 --> 00:38:44.648
Bill Gates upfront, leading the charge, Steve Jobs of Apple, it doesn't matter. Great companies

00:38:44.736 --> 00:38:49.940
that grow big. They have personalities at the top and those personalities speak.

00:38:50.408 --> 00:38:55.323
To the vision of the company, to who the company is, to what those companies' values are.

00:38:55.478 --> 00:38:59.938
And this works all the way from small companies to large companies.

00:38:59.938 --> 00:39:03.659
If you look in your neighborhood, like the people you wanna work with,

00:39:03.978 --> 00:39:09.478
that you hire to do jobs for you, they often, it's their personality, who they are,

00:39:09.478 --> 00:39:11.635
you trust them, that's getting you to do it.

00:39:11.798 --> 00:39:15.638
That personality can scale with any size business, as I just showed.

00:39:15.638 --> 00:39:19.350
Like the largest, richest companies in the world.

00:39:19.478 --> 00:39:24.067
Tim Cook took over where, you know, he has a very different personality than Steve Jobs,

00:39:24.158 --> 00:39:28.469
but he sort of made Apple into what, you know, Tim Cook believes it should be,

00:39:28.558 --> 00:39:30.158
and it's social responsibilities.

00:39:30.158 --> 00:39:34.718
Tim Cook talks a lot about privacy and things that he cares about with Apple

00:39:34.718 --> 00:39:38.003
and quality and products, you know, he's out there.

00:39:38.298 --> 00:39:42.567
I don't care what business you are in the world today, if you aren't doing this,

00:39:42.698 --> 00:39:44.970
you are at a competitive disadvantage.

00:39:45.098 --> 00:39:49.158
Because if your competitors, and they get their messaging right,

00:39:49.158 --> 00:39:52.518
they get their personality right and they can communicate with you well.

00:39:55.038 --> 00:40:03.533
That is extremely powerful and they will have an edge over you in acquiring and retaining customers.

00:40:04.438 --> 00:40:10.478
Okay. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Now I need to go do some Toastmasters

00:40:10.478 --> 00:40:12.661
and get better at public speaking.

00:40:13.118 --> 00:40:21.398
Yes, absolutely. Go make a mission statement and put it on my website and see what happens and rock and roll with this content.

00:40:21.398 --> 00:40:26.638
And I'll tell you, like my business, Founderspace, like, you know, I'm out there, it's a B2B business.

00:40:26.638 --> 00:40:32.061
I'm out there working with startup founders. Most of them come to me because they hear who I am,

00:40:32.398 --> 00:40:36.138
my personality, my advice, and it totally resonates with them.

00:40:36.138 --> 00:40:39.998
Like, that's why they come to Founderspace. We're a lot more people than just me

00:40:39.998 --> 00:40:43.629
helping out the founders, but at the end of the day, I'm the tip of the spear.

00:40:43.798 --> 00:40:48.698
And I want, you know, your CEOs and your people out there be that tip of your spear.

00:40:49.310 --> 00:40:55.400
Hmm. Okay. Makes so much sense. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Do you have anything

00:40:55.400 --> 00:41:03.320
that you want to share in terms of like projects you're working on? Sure. Yes. I have several

00:41:03.320 --> 00:41:08.520
books that are geared towards entrepreneurs and I'll mention them. Make Elephants Fly.

00:41:09.250 --> 00:41:13.720
It's all about the process of radical innovation. So like it's how you take that big idea,

00:41:13.720 --> 00:41:18.040
your elephant and that seems impossible to get off the ground and you actually make it fly.

00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:24.120
Surviving a startup, which is just that, everything you need to know to actually survive,

00:41:25.229 --> 00:41:31.560
and grow and scale your business. My third book is The Five Forces That Change Everything.

00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:39.880
We had a chat about AI and the technology and where it's going. The Five Forces is about

00:41:39.880 --> 00:41:44.680
the main, all the emerging technologies, AI included, that are emerging right now,

00:41:44.854 --> 00:41:49.480
and how that will totally change the business landscape and our lives. So that's me.

00:41:49.607 --> 00:41:54.120
And if you want to contact me personally, like I love working with entrepreneurs, big and small.

00:41:55.480 --> 00:42:02.280
Just go to founderspace.com, founderspace.com and click contact. You'll find lots of videos and,

00:42:03.320 --> 00:42:09.320
all sorts of material out there. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, on Founderspace, or virtually any

00:42:09.320 --> 00:42:16.160
other social network. Okay, well thank you so much Steve. I appreciate you sharing your story. This This is awesome.

00:42:16.160 --> 00:42:17.901
My pleasure. been so much fun.