Dan Martell - Growth Through Publicity (Not Paid Ads) with Adrian Salamunovic @ CanvasPop

00:00:00.000 Think long-term, stay laser-focused, solve a problem, right, and be obsessed with solving

00:00:05.000 that one thing, and it's just a matter of time for success.

00:00:08.720 Admission sequence start.

00:00:10.780 Three, two, one.

00:00:21.820 Adrian, what's up, man?

00:00:24.000 Dude, this is so good.

00:00:25.600 Literally one of my good buddies on the show, so really excited to have you here.

00:00:29.480 You're author of free PR, Cameron Herold co-authored with you, Adrian Salomonovich.

00:00:35.480 That's a cool way to say it.

00:00:36.580 Yeah.

00:00:36.720 I know it's, whatever.

00:00:37.980 You were like, you don't sound like the guy that would say that.

00:00:39.900 And I mean, the people you got to endorse your book, I mean, just incredible people like

00:00:44.640 Vern Harnish, Peter Shankman, Richard Karlgaard, and Dan Martell.

00:00:48.160 Look at that.

00:00:48.840 You're on there.

00:00:49.900 That was fun, man.

00:00:50.940 I appreciate that.

00:00:53.220 So obviously you're a PR guy or you wouldn't have written a book on it.

00:00:56.940 That's right.

00:00:57.340 But for those that might not be familiar with your work, background, serial entrepreneur, give us the quick 60 seconds.

00:01:04.320 Yeah, actually, I don't consider myself a PR guy.

00:01:06.620 I'm a founder like you that had to teach myself PR in order to get my message out because I bootstrapped a lot of companies.

00:01:13.000 And, yeah, I'm a serial entrepreneur.

00:01:14.300 I like to start companies, build companies, work with entrepreneurs.

00:01:17.820 I started a company called Canvas Pop.

00:01:19.760 Just exited, so that's good.

00:01:21.200 Congrats, man.

00:01:21.980 I'm a customer.

00:01:22.860 I love it.

00:01:23.320 I use it for all my canvases.

00:01:25.200 Every Christmas, we buy a bunch of stuff.

00:01:27.340 put it all around our house.

00:01:28.720 And you also said, you guys did the pillows, right?

00:01:31.100 Yeah, we did those just for you.

00:01:32.500 We did those just for you.

00:01:33.700 We did a couple of, I'm wearing my Martell swag right here.

00:01:36.440 Always be branding.

00:01:38.280 Yeah, if anybody knows, and you know this,

00:01:40.280 if you see somebody with my logo,

00:01:41.980 it's because I gave them that.

00:01:43.340 You can't buy it.

00:01:44.240 People are like, where's your merch store?

00:01:45.540 I'm like, it doesn't work like that in my world.

00:01:47.460 It's a gift.

00:01:48.400 Now, I want to keep gifting.

00:01:49.980 You were like, give me, so I got some Yeti mugs coming for you.

00:01:52.660 Awesome.

00:01:53.160 Some hats.

00:01:54.880 But in regards to PR, because Cameron has always been known.

00:01:59.200 That's one of his things he likes to talk about.

00:02:01.300 What did you guys learn at CanvasPop?

00:02:04.200 Is it CanvasPop the company that you kind of really

00:02:07.000 figured that out?

00:02:07.720 Well, I'll tell you the story.

00:02:08.800 It started with DNA11, a company that makes art from your DNA.

00:02:12.320 This is true.

00:02:12.940 I remember that.

00:02:13.600 12 years ago.

00:02:14.500 Yeah.

00:02:14.840 And like anything, it was just an idea, something fun to do.

00:02:18.220 We were taking DNA samples just to remind you.

00:02:20.980 Take a DNA sample, take a photo of it,

00:02:22.480 and turn it into a piece of art, right?

00:02:24.120 Wasn't supposed to be a company.

00:02:25.680 Back in the day, what did that cost?

00:02:28.440 Well, that's funny.

00:02:29.280 We started them at $1,200 and sold like two.

00:02:32.400 And then I said, well, we've got a pricing problem.

00:02:34.180 So I said, let's split it in half and do it for $600.

00:02:36.440 And we went, started selling like crazy.

00:02:38.400 So the average price is around $500, $500 or $600.

00:02:41.320 So it's designed for the mainstream markets.

00:02:42.740 This is before 23andMe.

00:02:44.520 So we were doing one of the first consumer genomics

00:02:46.600 companies, actually.

00:02:47.460 That's what I'm saying, is like there was real costs

00:02:49.140 in doing this DNA test.

00:02:50.500 There was, there was.

00:02:51.680 And, you know, we're one of the first companies to do consumer genomics as e-commerce, like where you would order a kit, get the kit.

00:02:58.840 This is before 23andMe, so we had to figure out a lot of stuff.

00:03:01.760 And it wasn't supposed to be a business, but it turned out doing over a million in revenue in about 14 months.

00:03:06.680 So, you know, a lot of SaaS companies have a hard time scaling up to a million bucks in 14 months.

00:03:10.480 And we did it without any funding.

00:03:12.560 Zero funding.

00:03:13.800 It was before Kickstarter.

00:03:15.180 Facebook was just kind of starting then.

00:03:17.100 And so we had to figure it out.

00:03:18.680 We had to figure out how to get the word out.

00:03:20.900 Well, DNA 11, it's a pretty remarkable company, right?

00:03:23.740 I mean, people will talk.

00:03:24.680 It's a good story.

00:03:25.360 It's a good story.

00:03:26.400 So then when we started Canvas Pop, which we spun out of DNA 11,

00:03:29.640 and that's almost eight years ago, nine years ago,

00:03:33.700 wanted to see if we could do it again.

00:03:35.200 Can we do it with something that's much more ordinary?

00:03:36.900 Printing photos, an online photo printing company.

00:03:39.720 And we did.

00:03:40.080 We got even more PR.

00:03:41.420 And what I learned is if you know how to tell a story,

00:03:45.760 if you know how to tell your story, whether it's to investors,

00:03:49.220 whether it's to your employees, stakeholders, journalists,

00:03:52.320 you're a more powerful company.

00:03:53.820 And if you can learn how to make anything remarkable

00:03:56.420 by using angles, like understanding how

00:03:58.400 to tell your story properly, then people will pay attention,

00:04:01.220 and then people will spread the word for you.

00:04:03.460 And that's all earned media and PR.

00:04:05.480 How does somebody take a boring thing

00:04:07.520 and turn it into a powerful story?

00:04:09.380 What's the elements of a powerful story from your perspective?

00:04:12.180 I think anything can be interesting.

00:04:14.600 So an example is my co-author, Cameron

00:04:17.720 Harold was the COO for almost a decade at 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

00:04:22.800 It's a junk removal service.

00:04:24.500 If there's anything less interesting, in my opinion, than a junk removal, I don't know.

00:04:27.880 Find it, right?

00:04:28.440 It's pretty unsexy.

00:04:29.740 But they were able to get a ton of press by creating the story behind the brand, by doing charity events, by doing stunts.

00:04:38.820 So even if the thing that you're selling isn't that interesting, you can make it interesting by telling the stories of the founders, the story behind how you started the company.

00:04:46.820 You could talk about your company culture.

00:04:48.820 You can talk about other things that are going on in society.

00:04:51.960 Like right now, we're on a podcast, right?

00:04:54.280 You don't keep telling a Dan Martell story over and over.

00:04:57.240 You invite interesting people onto your podcast.

00:04:59.020 So there's always a way to make something interesting.

00:05:01.920 Always.

00:05:02.440 And what about like the folks that don't consider themselves good storytellers?

00:05:07.200 Like what are the elements of a good story that you feel the media is going to pick up on?

00:05:11.960 Yeah, I think there's a few things.

00:05:13.680 I mean, in the book, we talk about the five different types of angles or stories that you can come up with.

00:05:18.840 But one of the more popular ones is the idea of the slaying the dragon, as they say.

00:05:24.240 You know, the person that had a challenge.

00:05:25.820 David and Goliath?

00:05:26.380 Sorry?

00:05:26.800 Like the David and Goliath?

00:05:28.180 Exactly.

00:05:28.840 The David and Goliath.

00:05:29.500 The underdog.

00:05:30.020 The underdog.

00:05:31.160 We actually had Toby on a few episodes ago, and his thing was, we're going to arm the rebels.

00:05:38.000 Oh, interesting.

00:05:38.940 Against Amazon.

00:05:39.880 Oh, right.

00:05:40.560 So you have the enemy.

00:05:41.500 Yeah.

00:05:41.840 Amazon's the animal, arm the rebels,

00:05:44.000 because they're taking over this whole e-commerce

00:05:46.020 and they're squeezing the margins.

00:05:47.260 We want to bring it back to the small people. 1.00

00:05:49.600 And when he said that, it was like, oh, that's a good book.

00:05:52.600 Same thing, right?

00:05:53.400 Yeah.

00:05:53.900 And Shopify are great storytellers.

00:05:55.760 Harley also great at sort of identifying that angle

00:05:59.620 and then telling that story.

00:06:01.360 Amplify it.

00:06:01.980 Amplifying it.

00:06:03.080 World class, world class.

00:06:04.320 That's right.

00:06:04.860 So we're all good storytellers.

00:06:06.440 I think we tell ourselves, oh, I'm an introvert

00:06:08.860 or I'm not good at storytelling.

00:06:10.460 Oh, interesting.

00:06:11.000 You think every, if you're human, you're communicating your storytelling.

00:06:14.700 Absolutely.

00:06:15.580 That's what humanity is based on, right?

00:06:17.020 Humanity has existed on a series of stories being told over generations.

00:06:21.060 And that's what books are about.

00:06:23.540 That's what movies are about.

00:06:24.600 That's what all entertainment's based on.

00:06:26.360 At the end of the day, we're all humans.

00:06:27.680 And we all relate to each other through storytelling, right?

00:06:30.920 It's almost like stories are the glue of the learnings.

00:06:34.160 Because really, if you think about back in the day with whatever tribes,

00:06:38.460 They had to teach the next generation to don't eat this mushroom, don't do this.

00:06:43.220 And it was almost like story was the thing that we could remember to pass along those lessons.

00:06:49.780 That's right.

00:06:50.420 How does that, you know, translate into PR?

00:06:55.540 Great.

00:06:56.180 Great question.

00:06:57.140 All right.

00:06:57.360 That's a great transition right there.

00:06:58.720 Because in fact, you just hit the nail on the head.

00:07:01.540 If you want to get a lot of PR, what you want to do is not say, look, look what I'm selling.

00:07:06.160 Look how cool we are.

00:07:06.660 Look how cool we are. Look how much we've raised.

00:07:08.820 You can get PR for those things.

00:07:10.200 But really, the ultimate way to get PR is to teach people something, right?

00:07:14.580 You're going to get on more podcasts if you say,

00:07:16.320 look, I know how to help you raise money.

00:07:19.220 If you tune into the podcast, you're going to learn something, right?

00:07:22.160 And so what I always tell people is,

00:07:24.100 if you want to be very, very successful in PR and storytelling,

00:07:27.020 always think what's in it for the audience, right?

00:07:29.620 Don't think about what you want to show off.

00:07:31.420 Think about what information you might have,

00:07:33.760 what kind of value you have that you can pass on to others.

00:07:35.920 And that's how you're going to get into Inc. Magazine.

00:07:38.500 That's how you're going to get on podcasts like this,

00:07:40.720 is you want to help others, right?

00:07:42.280 And that's a number.

00:07:43.000 And you know that very well.

00:07:44.800 But that's the one big idea I want to share with everybody,

00:07:47.560 is when you're pitching the media,

00:07:49.360 think of the knowledge that you have that you can bring value to.

00:07:52.240 To their reader, to their audience, their viewer.

00:07:54.520 Yeah, and talk about that.

00:07:55.260 I remember, I think it was Mike McDermott a few episodes ago

00:07:58.720 from FreshBooks, he said, because I asked him,

00:08:00.760 I said, why do you, you know, he went on this workshop tour.

00:08:03.940 He speaks at all events.

00:08:05.080 And he gave credit to 37 Signals about the idea.

00:08:11.860 He said, when we started, we realized

00:08:13.920 we could either outspend or we could outteach.

00:08:16.360 And it was through that education

00:08:18.840 as just such a critical thing.

00:08:20.440 And I guess what you're saying is we all

00:08:22.220 have something that we know.

00:08:23.920 If we built a company, we probably

00:08:25.320 know how to do a thing in our company.

00:08:27.080 Exactly.

00:08:28.280 It's either getting press or productivity,

00:08:31.320 whatever your thing is.

00:08:32.700 And if you could align with the outlet that has that audience interested in that topic and then you just wrap your business into that narrative, that's how you get.

00:08:43.420 That's how you get outside audiences.

00:08:45.140 Now, what's really popular now and has been for the last few years is content marketing, right?

00:08:49.060 You develop the content and then you propagate that content.

00:08:52.340 You build your own media outlet almost.

00:08:53.920 That's right.

00:08:54.240 You're really great at that, right?

00:08:55.640 You have your YouTube channel.

00:08:57.240 You have your medium that you're always posting information.

00:09:00.320 And that is really great to have that home base.

00:09:03.800 What this book and what we're about really is doing, do that, for sure do that.

00:09:08.900 But at the beginning, you can use other outlets that already have huge audiences and leverage those audiences to bring them into you, right?

00:09:16.500 So that's what we're about.

00:09:17.460 We're about big outlets, going where your audience is, getting in the tech crunches, the inks, the fortunes, the Forbes, et cetera, teaching you how to do that to drive that traffic back to you.

00:09:27.720 And so you've got to do both.

00:09:28.480 You got to do the external stuff and the internal stuff.

00:09:30.520 What are, I mean, Adrian, in the world of less people reading newspapers

00:09:34.960 and maybe watching the news, what do you think are the future of media?

00:09:42.960 Yeah, I think the future.

00:09:43.760 How should people think about media?

00:09:44.800 Because I know you have a paid versus earned and this whole strategy

00:09:47.760 around that model.

00:09:49.460 It's really multi-channel.

00:09:51.000 I mean, and so you can't rely on one thing anymore, right?

00:09:55.340 When we actually started this company, if you got on Good Morning

00:09:58.100 america with a consumer product or today's show your sales would spike you'd do a hundred thousand

00:10:02.640 dollars in a day right if you're an author you get on oprah boom you're yeah it's over right and so

00:10:07.320 there was it was a good thing because i was really good at getting on those top tier things but it was

00:10:12.100 a bottleneck so it meant it meant only a few people got to get that level of exposure yeah

00:10:17.200 today even 10 years if you look 10 years ahead now any of us can be our own radio station our own

00:10:23.900 TV station, our own newspaper, our own, right? We could all create our own content. So I do think

00:10:28.580 the future is definitely continuing to create your own brand and your own content, but there

00:10:33.320 are still mediums and there are still trusted publications that are impartial and third-party

00:10:38.640 that people trust. If you think of the New York Times or you think of PCMag, I mean, you want to

00:10:44.080 read a review on software or something like that or a new piece of hardware, you're going to trust

00:10:49.680 PC mag over some random blogger, right?

00:10:52.500 And so I still believe the big logos, the big media outlets,

00:10:56.520 have an intrinsic value, credibility,

00:10:59.880 and third-party credibility that they can bring to you.

00:11:02.340 But you've got to go multi-strategy.

00:11:03.620 You can't just do that, just PR.

00:11:05.820 And you can't just do content.

00:11:08.380 And you can't just do paid, or else you'll

00:11:10.160 blow your entire budget.

00:11:11.080 So you need to combine these things,

00:11:13.180 and it's about omni-channel marketing.

00:11:14.720 I think that's the future.

00:11:16.180 How do you sell a founder on the cost of time or money

00:11:20.440 to do this stuff?

00:11:21.580 Yeah, well, it's got to be done.

00:11:23.560 I mean, almost every industry, there's exceptions,

00:11:27.460 need to do some form of earned media, right?

00:11:29.780 Some form of PR.

00:11:32.300 And so it's a simple equation of you either hire an agency,

00:11:36.360 like everybody else does, and nine out of 10 times,

00:11:39.740 you spend a bunch of money, you get very little results,

00:11:42.500 usually with most PR firms, and the cycle continues, right?

00:11:45.800 Or you can break the madness and say,

00:11:47.780 I'm doing something wrong.

00:11:48.980 I've got a great story.

00:11:50.720 Why are my competitors getting impressed and we're not?

00:11:53.060 Well, the key in our position, Cameron and I,

00:11:56.780 is what we teach companies to do, is bring it in-house.

00:11:59.040 I mean, you bring your content writing probably in-house.

00:12:02.760 You probably have in-house marketing team.

00:12:04.800 You probably have an in-house graphic designer.

00:12:06.500 When you're at that level, you should consider bringing

00:12:09.140 a million-plus in revenue kind of level.

00:12:10.860 I think so.

00:12:11.240 I think around a million, 100K MRR if you're SaaS.

00:12:15.740 on one 1.2 million, you should be starting to really think

00:12:19.640 about owning your entire marketing stack

00:12:21.640 on the core competency side, right?

00:12:23.560 And that includes communications, PR content,

00:12:26.800 and probably even paid for some people at that level,

00:12:29.720 you wanna start bringing that in house.

00:12:31.380 But I believe in owning, creating an internal mini agency

00:12:35.680 because you know, Dan, if you have, and you know this,

00:12:38.600 like you've built a team.

00:12:40.020 And so when you have people that are dedicated to you,

00:12:42.720 they think about you 24 seven,

00:12:45.040 They're working for you.

00:12:46.040 They're seeing those opportunities, too.

00:12:47.680 That's right.

00:12:48.460 Right, like it's hard for an agency

00:12:50.200 to see what's happening on a week-to-week basis

00:12:52.160 to go like, oh, that's newsworthy.

00:12:55.440 Thank goodness we saw that.

00:12:56.740 We got to cue that release up.

00:12:59.160 Exactly.

00:12:59.860 And by having that team next to you,

00:13:01.440 they're breathing, eating, sleeping your culture. 0.98

00:13:03.880 So they know they have an intrinsic radar for opportunity.

00:13:07.040 And PR and earned media often happens

00:13:10.060 when you don't expect it, right?

00:13:11.040 It's a creative process.

00:13:12.460 It's a creative process, also a spontaneous process.

00:13:14.640 reactive.

00:13:15.660 And having somebody thinking about you that's

00:13:18.020 part of your team is going to get you so many results

00:13:20.580 in the long term.

00:13:22.240 I do think a lot of founders want the quick pill, right?

00:13:25.400 They say, well, I just want to get some press,

00:13:27.460 and I want to move on.

00:13:28.520 But nothing is like that.

00:13:29.400 They want to pay their $10,000 retainer,

00:13:32.280 get me on TechCrunch, Inc, blah, blah, blah.

00:13:34.600 Doesn't work.

00:13:35.440 And nor does it actually, in today's world,

00:13:38.040 I feel like drive a lot of sales, right?

00:13:41.980 It's really this ongoing process.

00:13:45.520 And it's not even about me.

00:13:46.740 I mean, you talk tactically in the book about how to do this.

00:13:50.420 In regards to a few strategies we can leave listeners with,

00:13:54.520 what are those things?

00:13:55.380 If somebody wants to get more press and do it themselves,

00:13:57.780 are there strategies, tools, outlets?

00:14:02.240 When I talk about PR, I like to drive ROI.

00:14:05.560 By ROI, I mean strictly revenue, driving real traffic

00:14:08.940 that can convert.

00:14:09.920 And so on that note, I think one of the things

00:14:12.260 I really like to encourage most, you know,

00:14:14.500 your audience is mostly SaaS founders.

00:14:16.260 And so let's just say you have a SaaS product

00:14:18.380 and you know who you're on.

00:14:20.380 So first of all, know your audience.

00:14:21.980 I'm assuming you have market fit

00:14:23.380 and I'm assuming you know who your audience is.

00:14:25.320 Providing you have those two, you're ready to do some PR.

00:14:27.600 And one of the things that we've seen work really well

00:14:29.840 is going out and essentially finding your lookalike,

00:14:33.880 finding the company that's closest to you

00:14:36.580 but isn't a direct competitor, right?

00:14:39.000 So I've got a company that I advise called HiveAge.

00:14:43.000 They're a FreshBooks competitor type of idea.

00:14:45.000 And HiveAge's lookalike might be Expensify, right?

00:14:49.000 The company that does expense tracking.

00:14:51.000 Corporate expenses, yeah.

00:14:52.000 So I'll kind of walk you through this real quick.

00:14:54.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:14:55.000 The idea is find your lookalike.

00:14:56.000 Your lookalike's a company that looks like you, 0.93

00:14:58.000 is an aspirational version of your company.

00:15:00.000 They're getting a lot of press, and they're in a similar industry.

00:15:03.000 The idea being that if a journalist wrote about Expensify,

00:15:07.000 they're likely to be interested in Hive Age.

00:15:09.240 That industry, yeah.

00:15:10.080 Or that industry, whatever it is.

00:15:11.620 So you find your lookalike, you go to Google News,

00:15:14.520 and you search for your lookalike,

00:15:15.740 and see who's writing about your lookalike.

00:15:17.200 Do you use a domain, like their domain, or their name, or?

00:15:20.500 Their brand name.

00:15:21.400 So if you know who your lookalike is, Expensify.

00:15:23.480 You go to Google News, type in Expensify,

00:15:25.580 and you find the last six to 12 months of journalists

00:15:27.880 that have written about Expensify.

00:15:29.200 Cool.

00:15:29.700 You make sure they're positive articles,

00:15:31.520 and then you just literally go journalist by journalist

00:15:34.220 and pitch them and say, hey, you wrote about Expensify.

00:15:36.280 you're probably interested in my accounting software

00:15:38.620 because they're similar,

00:15:39.660 here's how we're different or better or whatever.

00:15:41.900 You have to have your unique differentiator.

00:15:43.540 You do that a hundred times,

00:15:44.760 you're gonna get six or seven stories, right?

00:15:47.200 Whoa.

00:15:48.040 It's a lot of effort.

00:15:48.880 Yeah, but I mean, six or seven stories.

00:15:51.680 Again, what's powerful, I think, Adrian,

00:15:54.340 is the fact that you get to leverage

00:15:56.400 somebody else's audience.

00:15:57.480 That's right.

00:15:58.460 I mean, that's like whatever outlet is,

00:16:00.180 even if they get, you know, 20,000 uniques a month,

00:16:02.580 you get eyes on you, that's-

00:16:05.480 And the link juice.

00:16:06.820 So you get the SEO authority.

00:16:08.220 You get the traffic you can plug in.

00:16:09.800 Now, speaking of plugging in existing traffic,

00:16:11.660 similar strategy, we've talked about this before,

00:16:14.240 is sort of the idea of leveraging reviews.

00:16:17.640 And I think reviews are the most powerful editorial

00:16:21.860 that you can get.

00:16:22.500 Because let's be honest, when people are reading reviews,

00:16:24.620 they're interested in purchasing.

00:16:26.220 The purchase intent is very strong.

00:16:27.360 High intent for reviews.

00:16:28.660 Very high intent.

00:16:29.240 So you have the G2 crowds, the GetApps,

00:16:32.840 All these different review sites now in the B2B SaaS space.

00:16:37.240 Capteras.

00:16:37.980 Capteras, exactly.

00:16:38.960 Right?

00:16:39.560 But in the consumer space, you've

00:16:40.980 got all these top 10 sites, listicle sites.

00:16:44.300 I mean, and here's how you find them.

00:16:45.720 It's really simple.

00:16:46.440 You take your product category.

00:16:47.680 Let's say, again, it's accounting software.

00:16:49.460 Say top. 0.64

00:16:50.420 Top accounting software, best accounting software

00:16:52.840 or accounting software reviews, right?

00:16:55.220 And you just go find positions editorial.

00:16:57.420 Of course, you don't want it to be your competitors,

00:16:59.180 but your editorials position one, three, and five

00:17:02.140 or editorial, you click on those, you pitch them,

00:17:04.920 and you say, I've noticed you're reviewing accounting

00:17:06.460 software.

00:17:07.300 We don't see our platform.

00:17:08.640 Oh, you're saying reviews, not review sites.

00:17:10.960 You're talking about reviews of your competitors, editorials.

00:17:13.980 Roundups, right?

00:17:15.100 There'll be five or six or seven software platforms

00:17:17.680 reviewed on one page.

00:17:19.280 Why don't you get in there and be number one,

00:17:21.220 or even number nine?

00:17:22.660 Yeah, be on the list.

00:17:23.980 That's right.

00:17:24.480 So you're interjecting on an existing, first of all,

00:17:26.400 a page has high, high link authority.

00:17:28.420 Because it showed up on the first search.

00:17:30.260 It showed up.

00:17:31.020 It's getting tens of thousands of views per month

00:17:34.200 for your category with people with a high buy intent.

00:17:36.900 If you could just slide in there,

00:17:38.140 if you can convince that Jones.

00:17:38.980 Do people update old posts often?

00:17:40.460 They do.

00:17:41.300 See, I think that would be a limiting belief

00:17:42.860 that people would probably have

00:17:44.320 that would stop them from doing this.

00:17:45.720 They're like, well.

00:17:47.040 They love keeping it fresh.

00:17:47.960 That's how it stays.

00:17:48.840 Keep it fresh.

00:17:49.560 Yeah.

00:17:50.060 They want to keep those review pages fresh.

00:17:51.960 And if you can slide one of your competitors out

00:17:53.620 and get in that and say they only have 10 slots,

00:17:56.340 you do it by bribing them.

00:17:57.340 Essentially, what I mean by bribe

00:17:58.800 is I mean giving them free product,

00:18:00.020 giving them a free access to your software.

00:18:02.540 And that's a way that you kind of get them to review it.

00:18:05.000 Build a relationship too.

00:18:05.960 I mean, they might not even know who the other founders

00:18:08.300 are of those products.

00:18:09.180 Correct.

00:18:09.680 And here's the other thing.

00:18:10.540 If you get in there, let's just say they update that.

00:18:12.560 Slide into the list.

00:18:13.460 You're sliding in.

00:18:14.180 You're just sliding in.

00:18:15.280 But the other thing is, let's just

00:18:17.000 say they can update that page.

00:18:18.200 Maybe they'll write a feature review on just you,

00:18:20.920 because they want to do, you know?

00:18:22.100 So you don't know until you ask.

00:18:23.820 And I think the misconceptions, and this

00:18:26.240 is the real idea that I want to kind of get

00:18:29.040 across your audience is that PR is difficult

00:18:32.060 or has to be done by an agency.

00:18:34.140 No one is better telling the story than the founder

00:18:36.420 or the founding team or a member of your own marketing team.

00:18:39.300 So that's a myth.

00:18:40.480 PR is super easy if you know how.

00:18:42.900 They think it's about relationships.

00:18:44.760 It isn't.

00:18:46.560 The relationship does almost nothing for you for getting PR.

00:18:49.500 You've got to be able to tell a good story.

00:18:51.120 So I believe that any company can do their own PR.

00:18:53.420 I think they can do it more cost effectively

00:18:55.560 and get better results long term by bringing it in-house.

00:18:58.600 And that's what the book and the course is all about, really.

00:19:01.040 It's that simple of an idea.

00:19:02.980 You do your own marketing in-house,

00:19:04.760 you should be doing your own PR in-house as well.

00:19:06.560 And it's something you can do all year.

00:19:08.440 So are there sites, again, I'm asking you questions.

00:19:12.220 We've talked about this at length, off-air,

00:19:14.440 because you're one of my good buddies,

00:19:15.260 but sites that people could use, like Haro, other tools,

00:19:21.020 Just Reach Out, or other, like, what are the tools

00:19:23.060 that people could look at to help them with this?

00:19:25.300 Yeah, I mean, there is Just Reach Out.

00:19:27.000 It's a cool platform.

00:19:28.740 So Just Reach Out is a platform that

00:19:31.140 allows you to scan for opportunities

00:19:34.140 and manage PR opportunities.

00:19:35.620 So it's a platform.

00:19:36.540 It's one of my coaching clients, full disclosure.

00:19:38.380 That's right.

00:19:38.820 But that's why I know about it.

00:19:39.780 Great guy and a very interesting product.

00:19:42.900 Harrow is free.

00:19:43.740 Help a reporter out. 0.99

00:19:45.440 It's worth signing up for.

00:19:46.600 Is it still worth it?

00:19:47.380 I don't know.

00:19:48.440 The quality's gone.

00:19:49.540 Peter Shankman is actually the founder of Harrow.

00:19:52.380 There he is, yeah.

00:19:53.220 Wrote our forward for the book.

00:19:55.020 Oh, he wrote the forward.

00:19:55.780 He wrote the forward.

00:19:56.440 was written by Peter.

00:19:58.820 I think what's happened with Harrow is the Scission

00:20:01.720 bottom, which is a large PR database company.

00:20:04.840 And the quality of the leads are not

00:20:08.140 going to be all like inks and Fortune and Wired magazine.

00:20:11.140 But occasionally, they do come through.

00:20:12.940 So what I usually do is I only pitch the publications.

00:20:16.600 Like, say somebody's looking for an opportunity,

00:20:18.220 I look for tier ones, right?

00:20:19.400 They often disclose who the publication is.

00:20:23.080 So I only pitch tier one now at this point.

00:20:25.060 But if you, you know, invest five minutes a day

00:20:27.760 to scan those HARO emails, you go to helpareporterout.com.

00:20:31.660 Subscribe.

00:20:32.540 Subscribe.

00:20:33.100 It's worth doing.

00:20:35.080 Often what I'll do is I'll get a junior marketing associate

00:20:37.180 at my company or the person in charge of PR,

00:20:39.420 if you have that person.

00:20:40.660 Just scan those every day.

00:20:41.780 Or even your virtual assistant.

00:20:43.360 I mean, somebody.

00:20:44.240 Somebody.

00:20:44.740 Somebody go pay attention.

00:20:46.660 And it's easy, right?

00:20:47.820 And one hit in Inc. or Fortune or TechCrunch.

00:20:50.680 Sometimes TechCrunch, I mean, it's occasional.

00:20:52.640 But you want to look for these opportunities.

00:20:54.140 And no matter what, you're going to get

00:20:55.400 link juice from these opportunities.

00:20:56.820 So Harrow's still relevant.

00:21:00.760 I think there's just a lot of tools out there.

00:21:02.860 We like Muckrack for email list management.

00:21:05.500 It's a great product.

00:21:07.600 I think, though, that this industry of PR management

00:21:12.040 and outreach has to be disrupted.

00:21:14.000 There hasn't been a major ..

00:21:15.560 I also coach Presley.

00:21:16.940 I know they do online media kits.

00:21:19.420 Yep.

00:21:20.160 They're more of a ..

00:21:22.100 They started like that, and now they're

00:21:23.560 doing for really large companies like Shimano and others.

00:21:26.200 They manage their press rooms more or less, right?

00:21:29.620 And that's a great company, but that's

00:21:31.300 not an outreach solution, right?

00:21:32.800 But just even the PR back in the day when I did that scale,

00:21:36.280 like there weren't really tools.

00:21:37.660 No.

00:21:38.160 No, you just like spreadsheets, emails.

00:21:40.280 That's right.

00:21:40.780 And you made it work.

00:21:41.500 And you know what?

00:21:41.880 That still works.

00:21:42.620 Yeah.

00:21:43.120 To be honest, like- You don't need to buy stuff

00:21:45.000 if you want to just put in the time.

00:21:46.600 You don't, if you have the time.

00:21:47.920 Yeah, it's totally worth doing.

00:21:49.040 And I tell a lot of founders, like building media lists

00:21:51.320 seems like a waste of time.

00:21:52.640 But if you're under a million in revenue and you're spending an hour in the evening building a media list, what you're doing is research, right?

00:21:58.380 You're out there researching.

00:21:58.880 For your own market.

00:22:00.160 That's right.

00:22:00.440 You should know this stuff.

00:22:01.580 That's right.

00:22:02.120 Like, if you can't tell me the top 10 books for your category, it's amateur hour.

00:22:06.520 That's right.

00:22:06.900 Like, I mean, you should know what are the top blogs, what are the top online Facebook groups, what are the top thought leaders, YouTube channels.

00:22:15.120 Many don't.

00:22:15.560 They don't know.

00:22:16.400 They don't know what their audience is.

00:22:17.300 I coach them.

00:22:18.020 And I'm like, hey, like, if you can't tell me this, then how do you truly know your customer?

00:22:22.100 That's right.

00:22:22.640 And so doing media research, going out there researching

00:22:26.420 the review sites that we just talked about.

00:22:28.040 It's just market research.

00:22:29.420 Yeah, it's called foundational marketing.

00:22:31.320 You should be doing it every evening anyways.

00:22:32.780 And I mean, one of the ways I suggest

00:22:34.160 is they could just ask their customers.

00:22:35.480 If they're like, well, how do I find that out?

00:22:36.780 It's like, send a survey, get them.

00:22:39.080 What events do they go to?

00:22:40.620 Common sense.

00:22:41.360 Yeah.

00:22:42.520 What are your thoughts on podcasts?

00:22:44.200 Podcasts are great.

00:22:45.360 I love podcasts.

00:22:46.240 I think this year is the year of the podcast.

00:22:48.240 It's crazy.

00:22:49.240 It's huge.

00:22:49.700 Because it's been forever, and it was like,

00:22:51.700 is it ever going to be a thing?

00:22:53.940 But there's something in the water now

00:22:56.140 where podcasts are getting, I think it's probably

00:22:58.780 Spotify's distribution.

00:23:00.000 There's a lot of distribution now for audio,

00:23:02.920 and it's the intimacy level of it.

00:23:06.080 That's why I wanted to do this podcast,

00:23:07.940 to make sure that the audio quality was great.

00:23:11.260 It's neat.

00:23:11.760 Great investment, because for a few thousand dollars,

00:23:14.580 you can set up a podcast.

00:23:16.000 Get your own audience.

00:23:17.700 So both doing podcasts and hosting podcasts

00:23:20.320 I'm a huge fan of.

00:23:21.580 I'm curious about your thoughts on being on podcasts.

00:23:23.920 Well, I'm here, right?

00:23:24.940 Yeah.

00:23:26.440 For founders.

00:23:27.400 For founders, absolutely.

00:23:28.620 It's great.

00:23:29.320 I mean, first of all, usually we have cameras here today,

00:23:32.620 but usually you don't even have to comb your hair, right?

00:23:35.040 It's easy to do.

00:23:35.720 You could do it from anywhere.

00:23:37.000 I have a Yeti mic in my office.

00:23:40.040 I plug it in.

00:23:41.880 I do podcasts every week.

00:23:44.020 And it's because it doesn't take a lot of preparation.

00:23:45.760 It's conversational.

00:23:46.960 It's evergreen.

00:23:47.800 You can keep reusing it.

00:23:50.300 even if 20 people are listening, practice your storytelling

00:23:53.900 and your pitch, which is what we cover in the book as well,

00:23:56.700 is making sure you can actually bridge to a pitch or, yeah.

00:24:01.100 And even if 20 people are listening, here's the thing,

00:24:03.740 if they're listening to that podcast with you speaking on it,

00:24:05.900 you've got a level of engagement you can't get with any other medium.

00:24:08.300 It is the most engaged medium, hands down.

00:24:10.460 Absolutely, right?

00:24:11.820 So I think podcasts, look, I'm sticking to this.

00:24:14.540 I think this is the year of the podcast.

00:24:15.900 I think the next few years are going

00:24:18.380 going to be the year of the podcast.

00:24:20.300 So we're going to see more programmatic advertising

00:24:23.980 in podcasts.

00:24:24.980 It's crazy it hasn't really come out at scale.

00:24:26.780 It's insane.

00:24:27.380 Yeah.

00:24:27.980 It's still a manual process of what

00:24:30.340 are people's rates and negotiating.

00:24:32.780 It's crazy.

00:24:33.400 Where's the ad words of podcasts?

00:24:35.300 I don't know.

00:24:35.980 And I don't know why that doesn't exist yet.

00:24:37.880 I mean, companies like Stitcher and others

00:24:40.580 should be figuring this out.

00:24:41.380 Maybe they are.

00:24:42.660 Spotify makes it really easy to purchase advertising.

00:24:46.820 Apparently, it's super cost effective.

00:24:48.360 Apparently, it's super cost-effective still.

00:24:50.200 All right, you might hear some Dan Martell ads

00:24:51.500 coming across your podcast soon.

00:24:52.860 You should run an experiment.

00:24:54.640 Matt Whitaker, no-notes.com, Ascent.

00:24:57.440 Yeah, OK.

00:24:58.260 Ascent Compliance and No Notes has been testing it,

00:25:00.400 saying it's getting great conversion on Spotify.

00:25:03.600 But yeah, that's another thing that's

00:25:04.860 got to be disrupted.

00:25:05.540 I mean, somebody needs to create, for you as a podcaster,

00:25:08.540 be able to monetize your old content, click of a button.

00:25:12.700 But also, as a brand that wanted to sell stuff,

00:25:16.020 I would love to advertise in those in between slots on podcasts.

00:25:18.800 Super niche, yeah.

00:25:19.680 Yeah, super focused and super targeted.

00:25:22.000 But I'm sure somebody's working on it.

00:25:23.480 But the fact that we don't know who that is means there's nothing at scale.

00:25:27.380 There's nothing at scale, yeah, right?

00:25:29.360 Huh.

00:25:30.080 What do you, obviously, I think you've moved on from CanvasPop.

00:25:33.780 Yeah.

00:25:34.840 What do you think's next for you?

00:25:36.640 Well, I mean, we've talked about this often.

00:25:38.840 Not that you haven't been keeping busy writing books and all that fun stuff.

00:25:41.300 No, I mean, I needed, so I got really burnt out at CanvasPop

00:25:44.440 and just a decade of working on something I was passionate about

00:25:47.860 and stopped being passionate about.

00:25:49.100 So I was super burnt out, to be honest, like really burnt out.

00:25:52.900 And so I've taken the last year and a bit off.

00:25:56.240 I'm going to take another year off, you know.

00:25:58.300 And just when I say off, I mean network, go to conferences,

00:26:01.780 spend some me time, work on fitness.

00:26:02.960 Just not commit to one thing.

00:26:04.940 Just, yeah, just explore.

00:26:06.300 Advisory, right?

00:26:07.520 And I think what's, you know, what I'm thinking about

00:26:10.660 is becoming a very proactive investor.

00:26:13.700 So somebody that brings a lot of value to the table, because the idea of just cutting checks and having to say no to 99% of people coming to me, it doesn't excite me.

00:26:22.960 I want to create a platform that brings value.

00:26:25.980 And then in turn, the end of the funnel is investment, right?

00:26:30.280 We can get people money, invest.

00:26:32.460 So I see some form of high leverage, high value investing.

00:26:36.560 what form that's going to take, whether it's a venture debt

00:26:39.200 company or private equity company or early stage incubator.

00:26:43.700 I don't know yet, but I know I want

00:26:45.380 to work with entrepreneurs.

00:26:46.820 I love working with guys like yourself

00:26:48.500 and collaborating with guys like you

00:26:50.480 and all of our friends that we work with.

00:26:54.320 It's great to bring them together

00:26:55.840 and help create new entities and new value in the marketplace

00:26:59.120 and then get paid at the end with the founders when

00:27:01.520 and if there's a huge exit.

00:27:03.060 So that excites me.

00:27:04.240 But as a builder, as a company builder,

00:27:07.100 I do struggle with the idea of being on the sidelines

00:27:09.640 and not getting to play the game.

00:27:11.080 So we'll figure it out.

00:27:12.220 What did, you know, when you mentioned you got burnt out,

00:27:16.000 for those listening that might feel that way,

00:27:17.720 what could you have done differently

00:27:19.380 that would have changed that, if anything?

00:27:22.920 I think that's a really insightful kind of question.

00:27:27.280 And I haven't spent enough time thinking about it.

00:27:29.900 But what I would say is, play the long game.

00:27:34.400 I think the biggest mistake we can make as founders

00:27:36.000 is thinking the exit's just around the corner, right?

00:27:38.400 And then when you're playing for the exit,

00:27:40.880 you're gonna get burnt out

00:27:41.880 because it could be a tunnel, a very long tunnel, right?

00:27:45.520 So you just gotta enjoy what you're doing.

00:27:47.720 Make sure you're satisfied from month to month,

00:27:49.760 day to day, year to year, right?

00:27:51.020 Work on the short term,

00:27:52.660 making sure you're happy, you're exercising,

00:27:55.000 you're doing the things you enjoy doing,

00:27:57.140 you're hiring the right team.

00:27:58.260 And then also think long, long term.

00:28:00.260 Long view.

00:28:01.260 Yeah, say I never want to sell this.

00:28:02.260 The way I think about it, as you say this,

00:28:04.260 it feels like kind of like riding your clutch.

00:28:06.260 Interesting.

00:28:07.260 Yeah, because you're like starting and going, starting.

00:28:09.260 Oh, yeah.

00:28:10.260 Right?

00:28:11.260 Because if you're in gear and you're going,

00:28:13.260 there's no friction on the clutch.

00:28:15.260 But if you're like looking at the short term,

00:28:17.260 if something doesn't happen.

00:28:19.260 You get disappointed.

00:28:20.260 Yeah, and then you've got to go back to the long game again,

00:28:22.260 which means you're in gear and then you've got to change.

00:28:24.260 You know what I mean?

00:28:25.260 And you lose that momentum.

00:28:26.260 at that. And that's exactly, I think, what we were doing. We bootstrapped. We were having a great

00:28:30.920 time. Our founder salaries were terrible. We weren't making any money, but we were super happy

00:28:35.740 because we were challenged and we were growing like crazy. And things got comfortable, right?

00:28:39.780 We started paying ourselves six-figure salaries. We started, you know, just getting more and more

00:28:44.280 comfortable. And I think comfort is not a great thing when you're building a startup. You want

00:28:48.200 to be hungry and you want to be constantly building, right? So I think lessons learned for

00:28:52.780 me are play the long game do not get distracted by shiny objects that's the

00:28:58.660 biggest thing I've noticed between when I look at the pattern recognition of all

00:29:02.260 my friends that have built hundred million dollar plus companies is they

00:29:06.760 were obsessively focused on the one thing right what we did a campus but we

00:29:12.160 got a little board of printing photos we said oh we should build a technology

00:29:15.380 platform we should we should build an API we should build a marketplace we

00:29:18.820 We should create an app that has nothing to do with our industry, PopKey, the GIF app.

00:29:24.660 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:29:25.100 You had like a whole like labs thing going on.

00:29:27.520 Yeah, we wanted to become Betaworks.

00:29:29.020 The problem was we wanted to become XBO or Betaworks or something like that.

00:29:32.940 And the idea was, wait, we didn't exit this company.

00:29:35.800 What business do we have?

00:29:36.780 Still have an active entity.

00:29:38.600 Right.

00:29:38.800 Right.

00:29:39.060 So I'm just being real here is my number one piece of advice to anyone out there listening

00:29:44.440 to this, you know, is even if you're feeling a little, find the innovation within the thing

00:29:49.900 that you're doing. Just don't start doing four or five different things or breaking things into

00:29:54.160 an agency and a product. Sometimes you have to do two things at once at the beginning to get

00:29:58.780 the engine going, but once you've found your groove, stay obsessively focused.

00:30:01.900 That was one thing Toby mentioned when we chatted. It was this singular question that is a recursive

00:30:09.000 question that continues to drive his decision making, which was how do we make it easier for

00:30:13.000 for people to build an online business.

00:30:14.540 Exactly.

00:30:15.600 And like, that's it.

00:30:16.720 And anywhere there was a friction along that journey,

00:30:19.580 his question to himself and the team was,

00:30:22.540 how do we smooth that bump out?

00:30:24.280 And distribution centers, right?

00:30:26.140 Like, you know, like just whenever it comes to that,

00:30:29.760 and I feel like that's an interesting way

00:30:31.500 to kind of like ask yourself,

00:30:32.880 what's the wrong you want to right in the world?

00:30:35.840 And is that interesting enough

00:30:38.240 to keep you focused for the long term?

00:30:40.600 That's it.

00:30:41.420 So think long term, stay laser focused, solve a problem, right?

00:30:46.520 And be obsessed with solving that one thing.

00:30:48.740 And it's just a matter of time for success.

00:30:51.300 I think some founders think, you know, if I can cast a wider net,

00:30:54.940 if I can open up the market.

00:30:56.060 You're worried you're missing an opportunity if you don't at least go explore it.

00:30:59.220 And you've seen this over and over.

00:31:00.400 I mean, the most successful entrepreneurs are laser focused.

00:31:02.200 Yeah, I mean, pretty much you can point to any of the people you admire from Elon, et cetera.

00:31:07.800 I mean, he's a bit of a weird one,

00:31:09.300 because he does run a couple of billion dollar companies.

00:31:11.680 Richard Branson has like 100 companies.

00:31:13.380 But he's not running 100 companies.

00:31:14.680 No, and he's laser focused on a brand.

00:31:16.360 That's right.

00:31:16.900 That's like, underneath the hood, there is a principle,

00:31:19.740 and it looks like that.

00:31:20.920 Look, if you're worth a billion dollars, OK,

00:31:23.100 you get to a billion.

00:31:23.580 You're now allowed to do that.

00:31:24.420 Go ahead.

00:31:24.920 Go ahead and diversify a few companies.

00:31:26.400 Get a little distracted.

00:31:27.360 But until then, stay focused.

00:31:29.920 So I do think Ellen's not a good example.

00:31:32.540 Richard Branson's not a good example.

00:31:33.700 These guys have built billion dollar companies

00:31:35.120 and then spread their wings.

00:31:36.360 Yeah.

00:31:37.060 Oh, you're right.

00:31:37.500 Before that, it was one thing.

00:31:41.260 And so, no, I think laser focus is the one thing I've seen 100% of the time.

00:31:45.680 And when it comes to back to the PR, if you do get clear on the mission and the wrong you want to write and that singular focus, then it feels like a snowball could happen.

00:31:56.520 Like it's going to inevitably happen over time because you know the writers, you know the space, you know what I mean?

00:32:02.640 You become the go-to information source.

00:32:05.220 Oh.

00:32:05.640 Right?

00:32:05.800 So that's exactly what, so we call it the PR flywheel, if you remember that.

00:32:10.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:10.820 So the order of snowball effect, same thing.

00:32:12.200 Yeah, yeah, the PR flywheel.

00:32:13.320 Break that down for people.

00:32:14.600 So, I mean, when you start off, you're starting from zero.

00:32:17.960 You're not an expert, right?

00:32:18.840 So you've got to tell people you're an expert.

00:32:20.760 Eventually, the journalists will come to you and say, well, you've been pitching us.

00:32:24.280 Okay, fine, we'll let you either write an article for us or we'll write about you.

00:32:27.620 And that's the beginning of the flywheel, right?

00:32:29.280 And then the next one's a little easier because now you have an article you can point to and say,

00:32:32.660 hey, look, Inc. wrote an article about our software.

00:32:34.860 we're credible so then you're more likely to get more press so the idea is

00:32:38.760 that getting PR creates more PR which creates more PR and before you know it

00:32:43.860 you're the go-to person and you're the thought leader you're the thought leader

00:32:47.940 nobody remembers why or how but it's because you push the flywheel you got it

00:32:52.380 going by self-promoting I think a lot of brilliant people have a hard time

00:32:55.740 self-promoting everybody yeah right I'm in the same bucket but if you don't do

00:32:59.760 it no one's if Dan can be the best-kept secret if you're still a secret it

00:33:04.380 doesn't serve the business. It's selfish. It's selfish. You're scared to tell people what you're

00:33:08.300 doing. I think it's selfish to not tell the world how great you are if you can bring value to the

00:33:13.120 world. And so doing it with the media, you're just doing it with a bigger speaker, right? So

00:33:18.420 you have an obligation. If you have a great product or a great message, you have an obligation to go

00:33:23.400 out in the media and use the media and work with the media to get the message out to a larger

00:33:27.360 audience, right? And that's how I like to look at it. You're creating value. You're not self-promoting,

00:33:31.320 creating value and to talk about the flywheel is once that message is out

00:33:35.880 there before you know it people you know dan martell if you want to talk about

00:33:39.320 sass anything to do with sass and building a

00:33:41.400 sass company dan martell you want to talk about social

00:33:44.760 media it's gary vaynerchuk you want to talk about pr it's adrian

00:33:48.520 right so you got to create a category become the expert how important is it

00:33:52.120 when you look at what i've seen um i think for me the first time i saw the

00:33:56.440 example is crowd crowd flower they they wanted to they wanted to own the

00:34:01.080 the word crowdfunding or crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing.

00:34:04.940 And then I think HubSpot with Inbound.

00:34:08.340 More recently, Drift with conversational marketing.

00:34:12.320 I don't know what even that, is that a category creation?

00:34:15.360 Yes, yes.

00:34:15.700 How important is that?

00:34:16.840 Is that?

00:34:17.100 Very.

00:34:17.600 OK, but do you need that?

00:34:18.860 Or can you latch on to somebody else's?

00:34:20.520 Do you need to create your own word?

00:34:21.640 Do you want to be the category king?

00:34:22.800 If you want to be the category king,

00:34:24.080 the best way to do it is to create the category.

00:34:25.880 Write the rules.

00:34:26.820 Write the rules, create the new category.

00:34:28.780 And those are all good examples.

00:34:29.840 Drift, Salesforce with CRM, and the cloud-based CRM,

00:34:32.840 and they created the cloud, right?

00:34:34.080 No more software.

00:34:34.460 Did they invent the cloud?

00:34:35.260 No.

00:34:36.020 But they called it the cloud.

00:34:37.340 They called it the cloud?

00:34:38.280 Yeah.

00:34:38.580 And the cloud's been existing forever.

00:34:40.280 It's called the internet.

00:34:41.220 But they were remarkable at saying, no, no, we created this.

00:34:44.460 It's so true, man.

00:34:45.080 We invented this.

00:34:46.340 And so it's often, there's a great book and a great guy

00:34:48.840 named Christopher Lockheed.

00:34:51.020 He is a fellow Canadian, former CMO of Adobe.

00:34:54.740 Christopher Lockheed, shout out to Christopher, great guy.

00:34:57.500 He has a book, two books, actually, that are really great.

00:35:03.620 Niche Down is his latest book.

00:35:05.480 Great book, yeah.

00:35:06.380 But the best book, one of the best books

00:35:08.160 I've ever read, Play Bigger, right?

00:35:10.000 It's about becoming a category king,

00:35:11.780 how to create a category, even if it already exists,

00:35:14.220 renaming it and making it your own category.

00:35:16.840 And then people will pay attention to you

00:35:18.280 because they're like, I haven't heard of that.

00:35:19.380 What is that?

00:35:20.060 Well, I had Wes Bush on recently,

00:35:22.160 and he was talking about product-led growth.

00:35:23.940 And I'm like, it sounds like just, like, it doesn't.

00:35:28.380 And it's like, but it is, and it isn't.

00:35:30.180 And that was kind of the joke is like,

00:35:32.060 now there's this thing called product-led growth,

00:35:35.040 which is just free trial or freemium.

00:35:37.320 Yes.

00:35:38.440 It's huge.

00:35:39.200 Yeah.

00:35:39.820 But you just got to give it a name.

00:35:41.220 Sometimes we think it's a thing,

00:35:43.100 but as soon as we give it a name, it

00:35:44.600 becomes a handle that people can now talk about.

00:35:46.980 That others use.

00:35:47.880 The lean startup now is a thing.

00:35:50.320 Yes.

00:35:51.180 Yes.

00:35:51.400 And that's one of the first things you told me,

00:35:53.240 It's like, if you're going to create a thing,

00:35:55.940 you need to name this, a reverse media search,

00:35:58.380 or you need to give it your techniques a name.

00:36:01.580 And you do that for every one of your frameworks.

00:36:02.820 I create a lot of frameworks.

00:36:04.320 Yeah, because to me, it's without it, again,

00:36:07.280 it goes back to that handle.

00:36:09.480 If your goal in education is to have somebody not only learn,

00:36:14.720 but retain them, and the key, this is like my ultimate goal,

00:36:17.840 if I know if I've done it right, that they can explain it

00:36:20.240 to somebody else and get it 80% right.

00:36:23.100 then I know that I've taught it well.

00:36:24.840 And one of the fundamentals is that it's a name.

00:36:28.020 It's got to have the PR flywheel.

00:36:31.740 I remember seeing the diagram and all the different PR outlets.

00:36:34.160 Yeah, it's funny how our brains work.

00:36:35.800 If you create a tag or a story, it'll stick.

00:36:38.980 And if you don't, it gets forgotten.

00:36:40.380 Yeah, well, it's almost like there's,

00:36:42.220 I mean, it's funny, but it's probably why we all have names.

00:36:45.480 You know what?

00:36:46.180 Yeah, otherwise you'd be forgotten.

00:36:47.940 Well, there's just nothing.

00:36:49.100 Our brain needs to take everything about the thing 0.74

00:36:51.780 and put it into some placeholder.

00:36:54.000 Like a little envelope in your brain.

00:36:55.380 You're right.

00:36:55.880 And we've got to write a name on it.

00:36:57.280 And that could just be like the thing.

00:36:59.440 And everybody should read those books,

00:37:01.580 because no matter what category they're in,

00:37:03.420 there are probably some low-hanging fruit,

00:37:04.920 something around them that they could be like, you know what?

00:37:07.500 And I guess this is what, when I look at inbound

00:37:10.560 conversational marketing, it's self-serving,

00:37:12.340 but there also needs to be a trend.

00:37:14.160 Like there needs to be, it's almost

00:37:16.880 like you want to attach yourself to a rocket ship,

00:37:19.240 not an anchor, you know what I mean?

00:37:21.240 Like, it's got to have forward movement.

00:37:22.860 So maybe is there a look at the search term volume

00:37:26.820 around some of this stuff to see what's, you know what I mean?

00:37:29.360 Like, is there value in like when Bitcoin's getting big,

00:37:32.120 you talk about-

00:37:32.960 Have you noticed that none of these movements

00:37:34.420 have had any search before?

00:37:36.380 In fact, like inbound wasn't a thing, right?

00:37:38.420 No, they created, it was just called SEO.

00:37:40.380 It was made, yeah.

00:37:41.100 So they created-

00:37:41.940 Content market, it was actually called content marketing.

00:37:43.520 It was just content marketing, and they rebranded it,

00:37:45.520 rebranded it as something that, in fact,

00:37:47.560 it's the less search volume there is for that term,

00:37:50.160 the better.

00:37:50.940 In other words, you want to create the category

00:37:52.860 so that when people type in inbound, you own it.

00:37:55.400 You own an inbound.org.

00:37:56.520 It's your thing, right?

00:37:58.620 Now you own it, and now there's a movement built around it.

00:38:00.540 See, that's the key is the movement.

00:38:01.960 It's almost like you want to own the word

00:38:03.960 and then give it away as much as you can,

00:38:06.060 and you hope somebody grabs it and is like,

00:38:07.620 I like that product-led growth idea.

00:38:09.340 Let me go talk about it myself.

00:38:12.120 Exactly.

00:38:13.340 So I would say the opposite.

00:38:14.360 I don't think you want to latch on to an existing,

00:38:16.220 because it's going to be too hard.

00:38:17.680 When you latch on to it, unless it's

00:38:19.720 some sort of niche that has a ton of search traffic

00:38:22.280 but not a lot of relevancy.

00:38:24.140 But in most, I mean, if you look at almost all

00:38:26.060 these examples, right?

00:38:27.040 Conversational marketing, inbound, et cetera, et cetera.

00:38:31.420 There's lots of examples.

00:38:33.220 They created that niche.

00:38:34.120 They created that search volume.

00:38:35.260 The search volume didn't exist before.

00:38:36.040 But the key is they created a movement.

00:38:37.620 They created a movement.

00:38:38.740 They didn't say, I need to own this.

00:38:40.600 I'm going to empower it.

00:38:41.720 And if other people want to run with it,

00:38:43.280 become consultants around it, write books around it.

00:38:45.400 I should almost support it.

00:38:46.840 Yes.

00:38:48.220 That's fascinating.

00:38:49.220 Totally.

00:38:49.720 Like the guy from Brand Story, I mean,

00:38:51.320 that's actually one of the most, when people buy free PR,

00:38:53.980 they buy the book Brand Story for whatever.

00:38:55.980 It makes sense.

00:38:56.560 It makes sense the most often purchased together.

00:38:57.800 Yeah, they want to learn how to tell stories.

00:39:00.040 They have created an entire licensed platform.

00:39:03.120 Around Brand Story.

00:39:03.820 Around Brand Story.

00:39:04.980 And then they have consultants that can sign on to become

00:39:07.160 Brand Story certified.

00:39:08.480 Yeah.

00:39:08.900 I mean, how powerful is that, right?

00:39:11.300 And so authors can do it with creating platforms

00:39:15.300 around their books.

00:39:16.340 Brands can do it by creating conferences,

00:39:18.560 by creating movements, right?

00:39:22.020 Drift, amazing company for that.

00:39:25.080 You know, they've created books.

00:39:26.120 I was just impressed how quick they executed.

00:39:28.460 Yes, came out of nowhere.

00:39:30.100 Yeah, and it's just like they got the books, hyper growth.

00:39:33.200 They got conversational marketing.

00:39:35.340 I think it was one of the top books this year.

00:39:37.560 Like they did the conference.

00:39:41.660 But again, David and the team, they're

00:39:44.860 all incredible marketers.

00:39:46.960 It's like they've done this before.

00:39:48.340 But it's just like, it was really impressive watching just

00:39:51.160 how quick they were able to execute.

00:39:54.760 I believe you worked with Cameron as a business coach

00:39:57.040 during the Canvas Pop.

00:39:58.360 When you look back over that journey, let's call it 10 years,

00:40:02.680 from a personal growth point of view,

00:40:04.140 who did you need to become, Adrian,

00:40:06.200 to be the person to create that business?

00:40:09.040 Yeah, I mean, there's really a difference

00:40:11.900 between being the creator, the craftsman, the artist,

00:40:14.800 and the operator, right?

00:40:16.380 And so I thought I had to become the operator

00:40:18.720 to become a great business person.

00:40:19.920 I thought, okay, I hate accounting.

00:40:21.860 I'm not big into finance

00:40:24.040 and I'm not into that side of the business.

00:40:27.420 So I'm gonna force myself to be a better manager.

00:40:30.400 I'm gonna force myself to become a better finance person.

00:40:33.420 I think it's more or less about who you need to become

00:40:37.760 as to who you need to partner with, right?

00:40:39.740 And so my belief now, looking back over 10 years,

00:40:42.560 is coaches are great at helping you

00:40:44.560 identify your strengths and your weaknesses,

00:40:46.660 and giving you some been there, done that type of advice

00:40:48.880 to help accelerate your growth.

00:40:50.920 But one of the things I've learned, and I'm going to do this.

00:40:53.500 If I want to do it again five times faster,

00:40:56.020 the way I'm going to do it is absolutely

00:40:58.540 be self-aware, know where your weaknesses are,

00:41:01.780 and find the best people to complement your weaknesses.

00:41:04.800 Don't just partner with a friend because you

00:41:06.280 want to help them out or you want to work with them.

00:41:08.260 Don't find anyone like you.

00:41:09.340 You don't even have to like them,

00:41:10.900 but you don't have to be best friends with them.

00:41:12.520 In fact, try not to be best friends with them.

00:41:14.380 And try to just find the people that compliment

00:41:16.960 your skill set the best.

00:41:18.580 So find your void.

00:41:19.760 Hire them so you can focus on what you're naturally,

00:41:22.240 what comes to you effortlessly, and what you're really

00:41:24.440 incredible at.

00:41:25.540 And you focus on your swimming lane

00:41:27.340 and get other people in their swimming lanes.

00:41:29.060 And that's how you're going to get Drift-like growth,

00:41:31.700 Shopify-like growth, by everyone focusing.

00:41:35.260 And that's the big lesson learned.

00:41:36.760 Don't try to force yourself to do stuff you're not good at.

00:41:39.040 Like, that's it.

00:41:39.900 That's the bottom line for the next startup.

00:41:42.140 Adrian, one of the things I, you know, love about you is your energy is infectious, man.

00:41:47.240 You're an ideas guy.

00:41:48.760 You're always challenging and pushing.

00:41:52.520 And you see the bigger picture.

00:41:55.040 Many times when we sit down, you know, I'm like doing this thing.

00:41:57.360 And you're like, but what about this?

00:41:58.360 And what about that?

00:41:59.520 And you're so generous, man.

00:42:00.800 Like you came and spoke at my event continuously.

00:42:04.580 You are one of my biggest fans.

00:42:05.920 I just want to tell you how much I appreciate it.

00:42:07.440 Hey, man, it's mutual.

00:42:08.220 You know, I love you.

00:42:09.380 and keep bringing the great value

00:42:11.400 and teaching entrepreneurs what you do.

00:42:14.480 You know, I always get great feedback

00:42:16.580 from everyone that works with you or comes around you.

00:42:18.800 I highly recommend what you do

00:42:20.220 to everyone I know in the SaaS space.

00:42:21.980 So the respect is definitely mutual, brother.

00:42:25.020 Adrian, appreciate you, man.

00:42:25.940 Amen.

00:42:26.160 Thanks for coming on.

00:42:26.820 Thanks.

00:42:27.180 Thanks for watching this episode of Escape Velocity.

00:42:30.520 Be sure to like and subscribe

00:42:32.040 and leave a comment with your biggest insight

00:42:34.500 from our conversation.

00:42:35.980 Be sure to check out the next episode.

00:42:39.380 Thank you.

Dan Martell - March 11, 2021

Growth Through Publicity (Not Paid Ads) with Adrian Salamunovic @ CanvasPop

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