Podcast Transcript

EP101 - Robert Katai

[00:05:05] Sean Steele: G'day everybody. And welcome back to the ScaleHQ Podcast. Welcome back to our regular listeners and to anybody joining us for the first time. We're so excited to have you here. Welcome to 2024. Actually, this is our first podcast for 2024. So, you are the first one cab off the rank. Robert, my guest this week is Robert Katai, seasoned B2B Marketing Consultant, Founder of the B2B Creator Newsletter. 15 years now in marketing. It makes you sound old, Robert, 15 years in marketing, social media, content marketing, and you've had campaigns on, I know some of the bigger platforms that people would love to have their campaigns land on like Adweek, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and I know you do a fair bit of speaking around, you know, positioning and content strategy and things that are coming digitally, but all really tailored to the context of B2B content marketing. Is that a sort of fair summary? Have I missed anything important?

[00:05:56] Robert Katai: You just made my day, Sean, with all these great insights and all these days description. I will just take this description and send it to all my friends to just remind them that who I am.

[00:06:12] Sean Steele: You can put it on your voicemail. I give you a full permission.

[00:06:15] Robert Katai: Great. “Hey, you just reach out Robert. And because maybe you forget, but let's see who I am.”

[00:06:20] Sean Steele: That's right. “Just in case you forgot who I was, here's a little summary.”

[00:06:23] Robert Katai: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:06:25] Sean Steele: Well, actually you know, we're only two… and this is not something that I would usually say to somebody in Europe, but now I get to because you're about two and a half hours away from me. You're in, I assume you're in Romania at the moment.

[00:06:35] Robert Katai: Yeah. In Romania in Cluj Napoca. Cluj, it's the as today we can say is the Silicon Valley of Romania. There are a lot of startups, IT companies, and all these technology companies burning, that are, let's say, born here.

[00:06:55] Sean Steele: Okay, nice. Well, I'm now based in Cyprus. I think you probably know that, but that means I'm, you know, in Australian terms, two and a half hours is like a stone's throw away because, you know, everything takes a long time to get to here

[00:07:07] Robert Katai: How is the weather in Cyprus now?

[00:07:09] Sean Steele: The weather's pretty, actually today, it's pretty beautiful. Yeah. 21 degrees - 20 degrees. It's nice. But next week it's going to get to seven degrees overnight. So, that'll be the coldest it's been so far for winter.

[00:07:21] Robert Katai: Welcome in Europe.

[00:07:23] Sean Steele: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, look, you know, I guess a bit of a context for our audience for today, Robert, you know, one of the focuses on ScaleHQ late last year and going into 24 is, building more scalable customer acquisition systems for our audience, because ultimately, you know, you can get so far, off word of mouth and brand reputation and so on. And it's absolutely critical and important and it is the best way to build your business. However, ultimately, if you want to keep scaling, and scaling with some level of predictability, you need some predictable sources of leads and sales to scale. And one of the ingredients in your marketing mix is of course content marketing. And there's a lot of Founders in that one to 10 mil range who don't really understand content marketing and it's super noisy. And it's even more noisy in the last 12 months as a result of, you know, ChatGPT and the sort of proliferation of pretty dodgy written copywriting and so on. So, there's a lot of stuff going on and I'm interested today in you helping the audience think through how do they cut through that noise? How do they, if they're trying to invest in content marketing, which is going to build credibility. They can be used to attract clients that can be used perhaps to bring clients through the funnel, but ultimately, we're trying to like get some cut through on that. And I just love to hear your ideas on how people can do that differently. How does that sound as a setup?

[00:08:45] Robert Katai: Oh, wow. Okay, that's good. That's good. So, let's see, for from the start, who do you think that will listen to this podcast? That it's a person like an executive and he wants to build his own audience or maybe it's a marketer that's behind in a company, it's behind in a startup and he wants to build this brand? So, let's start there.

[00:09:08] Sean Steele: Let's start there. Well, that's a great question. And maybe we should pick one because we're going to have a mix in this audience. And typically, we're going to have Founders who are running their business. But, you know, a lot of these Founders are still at the stage where people still buy because of the Founder and the Founders, personal brand credibility. Let's say they might have a recruitment firm with 10 or 20 people, or they might have a accounting firm with 10 or 20 people. And so ultimately their personal brand in some way sits alongside that. And some of these Founders may have a marketing resource, but I would say that more likely to be lower level might, you know, like content marketer, a marketing coordinator, like not a marketing strategist, if you know what I mean. So, they're kind of making it up as they go along from a marketing strategy perspective. But if part of your, you know, reading some of the stuff that you've been doing, I got the sense that you help Founders really think about their personal brand alongside their business brand. So, maybe let's focus on that and let's talk to those Founders who recognise there’s actually a bit of value in their story and it may not be that they're entirely selling them. But there's two profiles happening here. You know, there's some brand credibility that's actually attractive.

[00:10:23] Robert Katai: That's really interesting because you are talking about the brand credibility and even if I'm a digital marketer, I'm writing down everything in my notebook. I love having a lot of nodes and just writing down and sketching everything and I wrote down here like two ideas with a personal brand, but mostly you emphasise on the brand credibility. And I believe that now we are living in this world where content marketing, let's say it's everywhere. We can see everywhere a content piece, wherever we wake up in the morning, we go to the shower, we go to the toilet, we open up our phone, we open up on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, whatever, and there is content. And what I observed lately is that, the brands that are starting having, especially in the B2B industry, the brands that are having, more traction are the brands that started like heavily investing in two main strategies. One, it's the organic content. So that's what we can see. It's happening at HubSpot. And yes, we can take the idea on the product. It's good. Like the product. It's a good product. If you put it in the market, people will get understand that it's a normal product that it's solving the problem. So, we have the base. But how can we get these people like being aware of the product and being aware of the solution the product is giving and being aware of the benefits of the product is giving. So, the people today are smarter than, let's say, in the past because the consumer, it's more aware that they are marketed. So that's really interesting because we can see this even in the B2B industry. The B2B audiences, I believe it's a very smart audience, so they don't just want to buy a product if they don't understand the solution for their problem, and if they don't understand that, that brand is understanding their solution. So, I'm getting back to my hypothesis because there are the two brands, there are the two strategies that these big brands started like leveraging up. So, it's the content marketing. And I know that I listened a few days ago on a podcast episode on exit five with Dave Gerrard and I believe it was the CMO from HubSpot and they talked about the idea that how important is these days, not just write content, not just publish content, but this content should have like a face. So, who is that face? And I'm going back to HubSpot because yes, even if they are like a big company, but if you look at what they are doing, like they are doing sometimes the unscalable stuff and the unmeasurable stuff that now it's just like getting them a win-win situation. For example, they started like doing the SEO content and the SEO blog, but in the same time you have Dharmesh who's like an awesome people, who's like an awesome person, who's building his personal brand, just like tweeting out, putting tweets, putting LinkedIn posts, putting blogs, putting like, let's say, interviews at my first million. And he presented like how ChatGPT and how AI is working. And now he's having this newsletter where he's talking about the AI from a business and from a CTO point of view. And that's really interesting.

[00:14:07] Sean Steele: Sorry, is Dharmesh a HubSpot employee or…?

[00:14:11] Robert Katai: He is one of the Founders.

[00:14:13] Sean Steele: One of the Founders. Okay. 

[00:14:15] Robert Katai: Yeah, so he's one of the Founders and because he's one of the Founders, he understands also the industry, also the product and also let's say the benefits of it. So that, this is how I see it. Like a Founder. When you start something, you understand the problem. You are the one that understanding the problem as a Founder and you as a Founder, understand the market, let's say, questions. So, you are the bridges between your market and your product. And now I believe it's your responsibility to start talking about. But you can't just go out and say that – Hey, my product is the best product. You should buy my product. So, this week we just released three features. Next week we will release two features. And the other week we have like, I don't know 25 bugs fixed it. Nobody cares about this. Everybody cares about the story behind. Like, how can you attract that attention? And people are scrolling on the internet and they don't just want to see an ad that is talking about, let's say, the product. They want to see a person that is educating or informing, or let's say, entertaining in a way or another. So, they can start building the audience. And the idea on the building, the audience is very interesting lately. But I somehow believe that a Founder, and I'm going back to the idea that a Founder to build credibility, the Founder should start like helping people, not because he wants to build an audience and he wants to build the credibility, because it's in DNA to help people. So, if you are a Founder…

[00:16:04] Sean Steele: And to understand and solve that problem that the business was built around in the first place.

[00:16:08] Robert Katai: Exactly. So, if you're a Founder, that's very interesting. When you are a Founder, you are focusing on your product and you're focusing on your market, on your audience, and who are your audience. But many Founders, they are just like, let's say, ignoring the idea that now they have this platform, now they have this free platform, like all the social media channels, all the podcasts, all the newsletters, and just take that 10 percent of your time on a week basis and just create the kind of content. And I know that not many Founders are like, for example, content creators, but in the same time, they are creators because they somehow create the solution for a problem. And I know that I'm talking a lot about the solution, the problem and the benefits. But here is, let's say, the real insight that many of us are ignoring it. So, how I see that is that the Founder, even if he's running the business, even if they want to, let's say, build the credibility, they should start, like, just creating weekly, let's say, daily, if they can put it, but first time, let's start weekly for six months. Start down for 30 minutes every week you create and the other 30 minutes you just start and talk with people. We have the CEO of Databox who is saying that he's posting daily on LinkedIn and that's helping him, and Databox, they are pretty big and that's helping him like getting all the customers insides, testing out features, testing out the messages, testing out ideas and just spreading the message. And one of the biggest responsibility of a Founder is to evangelise the product. So, the 2010 idea on just putting out your product outside and talk about your product, that's bad. Now we are living in the world where people are aware to that they are marketed so that's why you as a Founder, you must understand how can you connect easier with your audience so you can build that that bridge and you don't create content because you want to build an audience. You create content because you want to help somebody. So, when you have that audience of one in your mind, now your life will change.

[00:18:34] Sean Steele: Let me pause there, Robert, because I think it's a super interesting topic. Like I'm just, you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about a lot of the Founders that I know and that I connect with on a regular basis. And I know many of them are little bit scared of being the sort of face of the brand. They're a little bit, okay… they might be…Okay, technology wise, they might be in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, whatever. And actually, okay, so one part is then maybe not as current with technology and platforms and Snapchat and Instagram, whatever. But more importantly, I think they are nearly all building their business because they want to be able to exit at some point in future. I mean, yes, they built their business because they want to solve a problem and they thought they could do it really effectively, so they built this business. Great. After a period of time, they're going to want some kind of a return on that sacrifice that might be stepping back and installing management. That might be a partial sell down to management. That might be a full exit and I want to do something else, whatever it is. And so, I think a lot of them would go, I'm scared of the idea that I'm going to become part of our marketing machine when I'm working really hard to build this brand that sort of almost doesn't involve me and is actually a little bit faceless. But what's really interesting and what I hear you saying, and I think this is very true in a world where we are saturated with content. And if your business doesn't have some massive big point of differentiation, you actually do things pretty similar to a bunch of other people and you just, maybe you do it a bit better, or maybe you have a slightly different brand, but you can still build a good business that way. It doesn't have to be the most different thing in the world. However, then how do you get some cutthroat with that brand? And those Founders, what I do know is. They are talking to people in their industry every day. They are still talking to customers every day. They are still thinking about the problem and how do you solve that problem better and what are the problems in the industry. And to your point, they're almost the only person in the business, maybe not entirely the only person I've definitely seen some effective sort of, you know, employee content strategies, but they have to be pretty carefully selected because they have to be the right, you know, and they're going to be coming with a different perspective. They're not going to be talking about what's going on in the industry because they're not out there dealing with the major stakeholders, dealing with the other CEOs, talking to the biggest customers, you know, thinking about what's happening in the next 5-10 years, and that is really interesting content. And if you think about if you're a Founder listening to this and you go, ‘I don't think anybody really cares about my story. My story is not that interesting. It's not like this is a hero brand. They're not coming to my pest control company because I had some amazing experience around pest control. I didn't have a great experience. I didn't have some amazing game changing scenario.’ I'm sure nearly every Founder will find if they look at their Google analytics for their website, they'll find that the About Us page on their website is probably the second most visited page after the homepage, because everybody's curious about who are these people behind this thing? What are they about? Like beyond the product, the service, does it meet my need? What is the character? Who is it the person I'm buying from? It's kind of like, I guess if you go back to a Simon Sinek, you know, , they care about the “Why”, you know, they care about, why should I care about these people? Why should I do business with these people? And they want to connect with a personality. And I think the Founders could do a really interesting job of evangelising the brand by actually, to your point, it doesn't have to be some heavily curated, beautifully planned, perfectly produced kind of show stopping content strategy. But if you're out there talking to customers in industry we work, sharing that on a podcast, sharing that on a video, sharing that in a newsletter, sharing that in a format that makes sense to you, that you find easy to work in, that's natural for you. If you like talking, do it on a podcast or a video, if you like, I mean, if you like writing, do it on a blog or, you know, there's lots of ways and it gives a real asset to your team because at different points through the sales process, you may not be the one…I don't think it's about if you're doing that, that you all of a sudden have become the one dependent for sourcing customers, not that. Actually, if you think about a buyer's journey and at some point they've become aware of your brand and then they become interested and then they start evaluating you versus competitors, there's all sorts of different points where your team would be stoked to have an interview with the Founder or, you know, last week's commentary from the Founder about this is what's going on in the industry. It actually helps your entire business connect with your potential customers in the marketing process. And no one can do that in the same way a Founder can. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting way of getting cut through because I think it is more cluttered. And therefore, that is one of the only things that is truly unique about your business that nobody can take away from you is your perspective, at the top.

[00:23:38] Robert Katai: There are, you said like a lot of stuff here and I just started like writing down, so let's put it like that. You are scared the idea of being a part of your marketing machine, and that's interesting, and you just want to see what's the return of investments or your sacrifice. So, you want to let the board that it's starting, let's say, building it. And you're starting like being scared of the idea of being the marketing machine is scared on what people will say about you. But in the same time, you are talking with the audience. You are talking with your customers. You are just, I don't know, let's say, talking with a lot of people because that's what you do as a Founder. You are talking with your in house, let's say, employees, with customers, with partners and all this stuff.

[00:24:30] Sean Steele: Suppliers. Yeah.

[00:24:31] Robert Katai: Exactly. So that's interesting. If you are talking with them every time, when you start, like, let's say before a meet, a general meet, you just ask them – Hey man, it's okay if I record that this discussion. It won't be as a public discussion about you, but I want to see how am I doing it. And if I can say something, maybe I can put it myself on my LinkedIn or on my Instagram or on my YouTube. So, in that way, you can have, let's say, your goals, content strategy. You just record them and you put it on a drive and you have your goals content strategy that it's looking on your ideas, so you don't put the face on the customer. You don't put the face on the audience. You just put your face there. And every time you have something to say that goes content strategist can take that small snippet of content. Maybe it's a video. Maybe let's say it's an idea that can be written down as a LinkedIn post, as a newsletter, as a as an article, as a blog article and in that way you just took your idea from, from intimate from personal to public, and that's how you build it, let's say in public. But at the same time, you don't need any way, let's say any investment as resources to write down, to figure it out, how to publish it on LinkedIn. You just invest those PR money that you already invested. Take, let's say, 50% from that, pay a person that, let's say, it's your own personal content strategist and it's helping you position yourself, let's say, as a tough leadership in the industry. And it's very simple to start. Let's say, here's one idea that I said, you're already talking with the people. But let's say that you don't want to record, you feel embarrassed to ask them, ‘Hey, I want to record this conversation.’ So, you say that, ‘Hey, I want to be a content writer, but I don't know how to start.’ So, you start like, let's say, create a content. You write a one piece of article, a one piece of 500 words of article. That's all you need. You write it down and you set it like your story, your idea, everything there that should have like, after people will read that piece of content, they should leave with what one idea. So, what's the one idea people will leave after consuming my content. After doing that, send it to 10 friends. Sending directly to 10 friends and ask them, ‘Hey, what do you think about it? Is this crap or is this something that I can start doing that?’ And in that way, you will start getting, let's say, feedback and testimony, and maybe from 10 friends, 7 will say, man, you're doing pretty great, let's do that. And from that part, you will start like writing down for 90 days, day by day and publish it. Publishing, it doesn't matter like the engagement, it doesn't matter the impressions, it doesn't matter who will see it, it doesn't matter the company. You just publish. Now you're building up this muscle of publishing. And today I just talked about with one of my friends about the idea with finite game and infinite game what Simon Sinek is talking about in the infinite game. Like you're starting this lifestyle of something, but the finite game is that you start it and then you finish it. And what's next? But what's interesting is that I can start like having this infinite game lifestyle if I don't understand the motivation after the finite game. So, if I want to start building up muscles and if I want to be get a little bit fit, I need like a motivation and I will start like a diet for let's say 21 days or stuff like that. And after those 21 days, I can see like. – Hey man, now I can take that shirt and, and, and, and look good in that shirt. So, okay, and now I can start like building up this infinite lifestyle. So, this is with the content strategy too.

[00:28:47] Sean Steele: So, what you're saying is, if you're trying to build this as a practice, cause you think there is some merit in doing it, then you are going to need some kind of a positive feedback loop at some point, but you don't need much, but actually that positive feedback loop is what continues to propel you in the future. For example, whilst you're in a zoom conversation, you're talking about a customer, you're both talking about how awful it is in your industry right now, because there's this problem, this problem, this problem. And, you know, whilst you're in the middle of the conversation, if you haven't recorded it, just write down one sentence on whatever that kind of idea was that you were both talking about. Write a small post, record a one minute audio file, do something straight after that call, if you haven't recorded it to capture that, gather those ideas for 90 days, start publishing the ideas. But as soon as you, if you were to show that to your team and they go, ‘Hey, that'd be an amazing piece of content for me to use in my email.’ You know, when I send out emails to customers who are at this stage, they would love to hear something like that because it would show that we're current and we're thinking about the future and we understand what the problems are and all builds our credibility as a team, as a brand of people who've got their finger on the pulse. So it's still, you know, customers still interfacing with the business, but they're getting the value out of that Founders.

[00:30:09] Robert Katai: There are five benefits you have while building your personal brand. The first one is for your customers. They can start knowing about you, about the brand and everything. Then there is for, let's say, the  partners.

[00:30:27] Sean Steele: Partners. 

[00:30:28] Robert Katai: Exactly. The one you can partnership and they want…Hey, I want to partner with Sean because of I understand his mindset. I understand his, let's say his purpose, his values. And I want to connect my values with his values. And now we are doing this podcast because we connected you. You saw me, what this guy from Romania is doing and hey, now you forgive me for rescheduling two times, but you really wanted to do this. And I was like, man, Sean is just like a heaven sent for doing that because he's so kind. And now our values are connecting doing this podcast. The third one, there are the amplifiers, the one that are watching this, let's say, or watching this podcast or are consuming your content on LinkedIn, and they just can just share it with their friends, with their family, with their colleagues, or with just repost it on their profile. And there are the amplifiers of your content. And the fourth one, there are the employees. Employees need a voice outside and employees needs to, let's say, brag about the person, brag about, let's say, as a CEO that is not just like in the office. Nobody knows him. There is in the black office with the lights turned off and he just don't want to come out and just talk and just to, let's say, represent our company. We need a voice like the competition is having the voice and you should also have a voice. And the fifth one is the new talent. You can bring up new talent because you have, let's say, a personal credibility. So, this is what I'm building up for.

[00:32:15] Sean Steele: I want to jump into a couple of those because I think that's, you know, I wasn't even thinking about a couple of those, but it's super true when you think about, because if I want to connect this into some of the things I know that Founders really think about, if you think about your team members and you're a CEO and part of what you're trying to do is have these kind of regular rhythms of communication, talking about the vision and all the rest, but it's quite a scripted present-y kind of a process. And this actually allows your team to get inside the mind of you and hear how you feel about things and your philosophies and what's going on in the industry. And no one else is going to give that to them, but you don't actually have to direct it to them, but they still have access to it. And I think that's a really, you know, people often ask, I hear this kind of myth, like, you know, there's no one works hard anymore. There's no discretionary effort. No one will go above and beyond. And I think, would you ever go above and beyond for something that you don't care about? And then how can you expect your team to care about something that they don't understand? Like you actually have to bring them into your world and to your point, the Founder is usually very motivated by solving a particular kind of problem, so they are always thinking about that problem. I think it's a really interesting opportunity for employees or existing employees. And the new talent side couldn't agree with you more. We've done numerous podcasts on. How do you access impact players or A players, whatever you want to call it. Typically those people are not out there looking for jobs. Like they're gainfully employed. They're being paid well. They're being looked after. So, you actually have to go and find those people. It's a proactive sourcing job. And so, then the question is, if you're a small, bit smaller business, and you're trying to attract somebody who's already been to where you want to go, how are you going to attract them to your journey? Because they've got to get professional development, they've got to see something in that journey. And I tell you why they come. They come because of the Founder. So how are you going to attract them into the mind of the Founder? Being able to send them small snippets from a podcast, allowing them to absorb and have their own experience of you, where you're not having to talk directly to them. You know, you're talking about something else. They get access to that new talent, absolutely is a critical benefactor of you having a personal brand because they come because of the Founder, they come for almost no other reason other than the Founder, more accountability, whether they are concentrated, really hardcore period of professional development, because they're going to be super challenged. But it comes from buying into the Founder and their vision and their philosophies in the first place. So, this is an incredible way to get access to that beyond the buyer's journey.

[00:34:58] Robert Katai: So, let me tell you, I don't know if you've heard about Rand Fishkin.

[00:35:03] Sean Steele: No.

[00:35:04] Robert Katai: Rand Fishkin, he's one of the most smartest digital marketer in the world. So, Rand, he built up Moz. It was one of the best SEO tool in the world. I don't know where are they now.

[00:35:19] Sean Steele: MOZ, is it?

[00:35:21] Robert Katai: Exactly, Moz. So, Rand started like a blog. SEO Moz was a blog and then he started like from and he started like building up blogging and doing the consultant stuff and then build up SEO Moz as a tool, but then he exited from Moz and he started a new tool. It was called the SparkToro. SparkToro is now an audience research tool. And Moz and the Rand started writing content on the blog and now you're a Founder and he also had his Twitter profile with hundreds of thousands of people following him. He is writing, he's putting up a company and he's doing the content like writing on blog and everything and sending the newsletter. So, now Rand it's a blogger. It's a Founder. Let's say he's already having his personal brand. But he has a lot of on his table and he hired Amanda Natividad. So, Amanda, she's now a well-known person in the content marketing industry because she pointed out and she coined it out the term of ‘zero click content’. But zero click content, it was a term that Rand Fishkin started with the zero click search. When you start searching for something, Google is giving you directly the answers on the front page. So now you are losing traffic from your websites because people are not clicking to go on your website and he's now building up on that. So, on that foundation, Amanda came and she took all these responsibilities as a marketer, as blogger, as a social media marketer for SparkToro. And she started out like pointing out and coining out the idea on the zero click content. What's the zero click content? Because you want to help people, you are publishing on social media natively without asking people to click on your blog, to click on your podcast. And in that way, people started like associating your name with that category. And in that way, we start building a credibility in that category. And from that, from time to time, you can just, ‘Hey, I have a webinar. If that's something for you, feel free to sign up’ or stuff like that. But Amanda, because Rand had this, let's say DNA of a content creator, for her, it was very easy to get in the company and to start like build upon that. And now we have like a company of three persons. It's Casey, who's the CTO, it's Rand, who's the CEO, and it's Amanda, who's the VP of Marketing, and they are like doing a job of 10s of people as marketers, as paid advertising, as SEO and everything only build on these two personal brands. So that was very, very interesting to see in the B2B industry where you have the Founder, you hire, let's say a marketer with the creator DNA. And in that way, with these two, let's say, powerful distribution tools, channels, if I can say that your brand is just growing exponentially. So now we are living in the world where personal brand is not just the face of a cover. It's just like a happy picture with smiley faces and all this stuff and a good about page. Because if you are sending me an email – Hey, Robert, I want to connect with you. I want to start working with you. And I'm looking up at you, at Googling you and LinkedIn you and tweeting you. And I won't see anything about Sean. I'm just deleting that email. I'm sorry. But if I see that - hey, Sean is having a perspective, an idea, I can associate his name with business, with scaling up businesses, with helping people. Yeah, man, let's connect and see how we can work each other. Or maybe just like being on, see that we can be on the same page and just being here and whenever an opportunity is just pumping up, we can just talk about it. So, this is what content is doing right now. And there are a lot of examples in the B2B industry. So, that's why I believe that right now, not just the Founders, but also, let's say in house creators, the people that can become the face of the companies, the people that can be, let's say, can build up their audience and people can start following them. And from time to time, they can just say that ‘Hey, I'm working at this company and we are doing that. So, if you feel that it's working for you, just sign you up and let me know that. How can I help?’ And that's all. Like people are using social media, not just to entertain, but also to inform and get informed, also to educate and get educate. So that's why a Founder should and must understand the power of social media and content marketing.

[00:41:00] Sean Steele: So, Robert, if you were a Founder listening today and you were like, hmm, okay, Robert has changed my mind. I have been hiding in the shadows. Because I didn't want to be attached to the marketing machine and I thought I would be sucked into the wheel and I would never be able to get out. And my whole goal is to have this thing kind of run on its own or run out of management or be able to sell it or whatever. Your challenge is, well, it's not necessarily going to stop you doing that. You take Richard Branson. What a great example. You know, Virgin's not going to stop because, you know, Richard Brenson has still got his own personal brand out there. He's part of the marketing machine in some ways, absolutely, because there is a reference point. He's out there evangelising the brand and what it stands for, but he's not out there saying, we've got these fantastic products inside Virgin Airlines and we've got prices on this and blah, blah, blah. He's sort of living the values through him, his personal experiences, his professional experiences, he's sharing his perspective on issues that for him, his perspective matter. If you were, I'd heard a good…one of the guys I'd interviewed on this podcast and said, “The best way to do start your content strategy is to figure out the method that you are attracted to the most.” Again, if you like talking, maybe a podcast, if you don't mind being on camera, maybe do video. If you really like writing, do a blog, do a newsletter, do something, but whatever the starting point is for you, you know, lots of content can kind of fall off the back of it, but start with the one that makes the most sense that's going to have the least amount of resistance for you. My question for you is, let's say that you had a Founder listening today. They're like, Robert has changed my mind. I want to get on this bandwagon, but I don't have time and nor do I want to get trapped in having to, I'm happy to capture the content opportunities. I'm happy to capture that conversation. I'm having to write down that idea. I'm having to notate that idea into audio. I'm happy to talk at ChatGPT for five seconds or whatever. And I want somebody else to figure out what to do with that content. How would you guide them on what kind of skillset to look for? If you were going to only hire like kind of one person, who's your sort of personal content marketer, what skills, what experience would you look for?

[00:43:17] Robert Katai: Yeah. Okay. So, do you have a team or you are a solo Founder?

[00:43:22] Sean Steele: Let's assume you've got a team, but there's very few in marketing. So let's assume, you know, you've got a whole business. It has got very few marketers in it. You've been kind of relying on agencies or whatever. , and then you're the Founder.

[00:43:33] Robert Katai: Can you hire somebody? Can you work with somebody or can you pay more to somebody from your team to help you with that?

[00:43:43] Sean Steele: Hmm. Okay. Yeah. You could look internally into the team for someone who has the natural skills. Sure.

[00:43:39] Robert Katai: Great. Okay. Let's say that you want to pay somebody with, I don't know. – Hey man, I want to do that. I see that you're doing pretty well and I trust you because you're one of the first employees, so help me build that. Okay. So, you have a team and you want to pay somebody to do that for you. So, from that part, you have only five, I believe there are five steps and that's helping me also when I'm starting like thinking and working with my clients on that. So, first of all, what's the one topic that you're the expert for? What's the one topic that even your wife or even your husband is telling you that ‘I'm sick of hearing you all days about this topic.’ And when you are looking at your Google search, you will see that everything is around that topic. And when you are, let's say, looking at your YouTube channel, it's only about that topic. Maybe it's your industry. Maybe it's something that you're passionate about and you saw that in your industry it's a problem. So, it's one topic. So that this should be. And one topic, for example, for me, a topic is the B2B creator. So, I'm coming up from a background of B2B industry. And I also have this content creator DNA. So, I mix them up. So, it's a B2B creator. And I'm talking a lot about B2B creator and now they are two types of B2B creators. There are the external B2B creators, the Founders like Sahil Bloom and Cody Sanchez, Semper and all these parts that are talking to a B2B industry and creating content for a B2B industry. And in the same time, the B2B creators are also in house creators that are creating content on their platform, representing the company. There can be the team Davidson. They can be the Todd Klaus from Lavender. They can be Obaid Durrani from HockeyStack. So, these are the in-house creator that are building up their personal brand and building their audiences and connecting the audience with the company where they are working. So, this is my category. This is my, let's say my one topic, my industry, it's in the B2B industry, but mostly in the MarTech industry. So, find out your one topic and what's your industry. If you have this one, what's the one type of content you can create, but you love, and you also love to consume, maybe you love to consume, let's say short videos. Hey, I can be very, let's say, energetic and I can create like 25 videos on a month and can be published. Okay. That's great. So, one type of content doesn't have to be like 100 type, one type of content. The other one is one platform. You should only focus on one platform. What's the one platform you want to leverage? And if you look back, the one platform is connected somehow with the one content. The one content is somehow connected with the industry. The industry is somehow connected with the topic. And in the fourth step should be the timeline. How long should I want to do that? And never do like three months, always do like nine months, one year or two years, do that and be consistent with that. Nobody will see results after like one month or three months because there is a lot of content that a lot of people are creating content. So, you need time and people need time for them to establish you in their mind. And after that you have the purpose, like, what do I want? What do I want to achieve? Writing all these things down and talking with that, let's say with that personal content strategist, personal creator that is helping you building up your let's say your personal brand, your platform, your audiences. And from that, you can say like, Hey… But make the purpose like more achievable. I want to build like 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. And I know these are vanity metrics, but this can be also help you like go in this, let's say, in this marketing machine. Because from that, you can also write like, ‘Hey, I want to write a book. I want to be a speaker. I want to help the business like do an exit and all this stuff.’ But create like an achievable purpose in the amount of time you are putting out. So, starting from this, this will help you start, I believe, even right now, because you have your pen, your paper, write down all this and what's interesting now go back after six months and look or three months. When you are in this journey and look at this topic, the industry, the content, the platform, the timeline, the purpose is anything can be changed so I can do my work better. And in that place, you are not alone. You're working with somebody. You can't do that alone because you also can't build a scalable business alone. Yeah, you can build a company of one, but that's not scalable. That's a lifestyle business.

[00:49:10] Sean Steele: Yeah. And you know, ultimately I always say to my clients, you can't be outside of the box when you're in the box. That's the problem. That's why people come to ScaleHQ for advice. Like you know, when you're inside the box, I need to get advice on ScaleHQ from people outside my box because I might be really good at seeing outside someone else's box and I can see things they can't see, but I can't see outside my own, and that's an issue. So, I agree with you. You've got to review with somebody else, otherwise you get stuck in a rut. You know, I'm conscious of how much time we've got left, but I really just want to reiterate those steps. If you feel like, if you have listened to this today and said – You know what, I think Robert's onto something. Here's an opportunity. Don't even go out and hire some person external to your business. Look at someone inside your team who's actually pretty savvy with marketing, knows you, trust you, has good sort of creative ideas and go, okay, how do I get this person to help me? Maybe it's over and above opportunity, maybe you can take some of their tasks off them, give them to somebody else and start with those five steps. What's the one topic you're an expert at? What's your industry? What's the one content type you're going to focus on? What's the one platform you're going to publish and distribute on? How long are you going to do this for? Is it going to be a year, two years? I agree with you. Anything less than a year is a bit crazy. And you know, if you think about any exponential curve takes a long, like watching the grass grow, you know, it's like a property investment strategy. It does like nothing for ages and ages and ages. And all of a sudden it builds, builds volume quite quickly towards the end, but you have to stick around for it. And then ultimately your purpose. What's some achievable goals that you can set for what you want this purpose to do probably for your audience, but also what are some metrics or some goals that will make you feel like it's become valuable? For me, for example, you know, when I set out to do this podcast, my goal was to make sure that I had different perspectives coming from other people on common problems that the Founders that we support at ScalaHQ would face because I would never fall under the trap of thinking that I have all the ideas on something. So, I wanted as many different perspectives so they can hear a lot of different perspectives and then choose the one that's right for them. Choose the one that resonates with them the most to solve that problem. And as a side benefit knowing that I am building, you know, I've just released my first course on building growth strategy for Founders. I also wanted to record podcasts that would get sufficient content out that I can help inform the book that I will produce that will also match with the course. So, there'll be a course, there'll be a book. And a lot of that has been informed by the podcast of the last two years. And so, yeah, I wasn't out there to turn on some massive marketing machine for new customers. It actually had different goals than that. So yeah, I think that's really sound advice. And then make sure you go back every six months and do a review with somebody else to see what you can do and improve. I'm conscious of our time, Robert. I know we're going to have to finish up. What's the one thing I haven't asked you or what's the thing that you really want to leave people with today to make sure they're thinking about this before they walk away from today's podcast? And I really value the time that you've spent with us today.

[00:52:07] Robert Katai: Oh, wow. Well, if they took the time to listen until this end, I believe that they already know what they should do and what they have to do. So, all they have to do is just get that LinkedIn page, get that Twitter, get that whatever, or get that Google Docs, write down your article and send it to your 10 friends and ask them for feedback. And if they give you the feedback, positive feedback, then take that article and publish it on LinkedIn. And if this helped you a lot, or this will help you like in a way or another, I believe that it will be like a great way to leave a review on this podcast or an Apple podcast or a comment or YouTube or whatever you're listening it and just tell Sean if you started and if you started like where do you want to go and how is this journey working for you? And maybe there will be a lot of people that are writing down or maybe there will be one or two, but just saying this to somebody and also saying this in public, ‘Hey, I'm on this journey.’ That will be like a great relief for these people.

[00:53:25] Sean Steele: That’s awesome, Robert. Thank you so much. And I'm really, I'm deeply grateful for the time that you spent in sharing your knowledge so freely. How would you encourage, if people wanted to learn more about the B2B Creator Newsletter, or to get in touch with you and ask you any questions, how would they get in touch with you? Or how would you encourage them to follow along with what you're doing?

[00:53:56] Robert Katai: If they want to get in touch with me and they are listening this podcast or watching this podcast, go on my LinkedIn and just write me a message. “Hey, I was listening to you on the ScaleHQ podcast, and I want to contact you. I want to talk with you.” Or if you want to know more about the B2B creator industry, more about how the smart in house creators are creating content or attracting audience or maintaining the audience, just sign up to the newsletter and read it, not just signing up, and also read it and reply if this will help you.

[00:54:22] Sean Steele: That's awesome. Robert, thank you so much. You know, big outtakes for me around, this is a really interesting way for Founders probably to come out of the shadows, find a way to get cut through and actually talk about stuff that they're really passionate about already. Like they're already passionate about this industry. They're already passionate about the problems. They're already talking to customers. This is not new stuff that you need to do. You get somebody alongside you to kind of pick this up and turn it into something as you go. But these are already experiences you're happening. So, it's actually a very efficient way of you helping your brand and your people get greater cut through in your positioning of your business. Because if you've got something to offer, if you've got something better to offer the market than all of your competitors, then it is absolutely incumbent upon you. It is your obligation to figure out how to scale. And if this is the thing that gets your brand better cut through than anything else that you've done, then it's worth trying. So, I really encourage people to listen, as Robert said, leave those reviews. Check in with Robert, please feel free to ask questions and we're very grateful for your time today, Robert Katai, thank you so much from ScaleHQ and our community.

[00:55:27] Robert Katai: Thank you very much for this awesome discussion.

[00:55:30] Sean Steele: My pleasure. Speak to you soon.