The Death of Safe Content: It’s Time to Be Bold in B2B with James Carbary

James Carbary: Study the media that you personally are consuming. Mm-Hmm, . And then try to reverse engineer. Why is it that I like this so much? Like, what is it that that is keeping me hooked on this?

John Common: Welcome to growth driver, brought to you by Intelligent Demand, where the best minds in B2B are redefining growth. Hey everybody. John, common here. You know, I have been on a tear lately about content. And we're going to keep it going in this episode. Um, check out this recent research about B2B content. 75 percent of B2B buyers now prefer video content over traditional written materials.

65 percent of B2B buyers have used a podcast to help them with a purchasing decision recently. 65 percent 60 percent of B2B buying decisions are influenced by content that is shared through dark social media. Channels. And then here's my personal John commons statistic. The majority of B2B content sucks.

How about that? It's timid. It's boring. It's moderately relevant at best. It's incredibly focused on the brand or the product instead of the customer and their challenges. Why, why is B2B content so bad? And how do you actually change that at your company? is what we're digging into today with my guest.

James Carberry is the founder of Sweetfish Media. It's a company, if you don't know about them, I bet you do, but it's a company that helps B2B brands create awesome podcasts. He co hosts a number of podcasts, including the B2B Growth Show. He's authored a really cool book. Called content based networking, which is how he and I met.

And he's also just super passionate about helping teams build audiences and build community and foster authentic human connection. James, my friend, welcome to growth driver. 

James Carbary: What an intro. This is a, this is going to be a blast, man. I'm, I'm really excited for this conversation. 

John Common: I try to pump people up, make them feel really welcome.

So dude, you were just in Iceland. Tell me why. Tell me what you, I was recently in Iceland too, but I didn't do something as cool. 

James Carbary: So I get a, I get a LinkedIn DM from a guy that says he's been a listener of our show of B2B growth for a while. And so I was like, you're already in my good graces because you've been a B2B growth listener for a while.

So, so I'm listening and he's at, he asked me if I want to, you know, fly across the world to Iceland to speak at this event. And I hate speaking Like, I love doing stuff like this. Um, and I, but I, but I really don't like the prep and all the, you know, making a deck and just the nerves of like, am I going to deliver it?

Well, and so it's just, it's not fun for me, but the guy was like, Hey, If you'll come out to Iceland, we'll fly out here, put you up for a few days. If you speak at this event and we'll bring your wife out. And I looked at the dates and the date was the day before our nine year wedding anniversary. So I was like, okay, you're telling me I can bring my wife to Iceland for our nine year anniversary.

I speak the day before our anniversary and you're going to like Take us on this countryside tour the day after the event on our nine year anniversary. My wife would murder me if I said no to this. Yeah. 

John Common: That's called winning. 

James Carbary: Yes. So, uh, so yeah, we just got back a couple of weeks ago and it was an absolute blast.

We joke around like, I guess our 10 year anniversary is going to be like sitting on the couch watching Netflix because we did the big thing on our nine year. 

John Common: Oh, that's great. Did you, did you guys get a chance to see some of that stuff? Stunning. Stunning. Stunning. Landscape. Oh my 

James Carbary: gosh. It was unreal. It's unreal.

Yeah. It's unreal. When you first get there, it looks like you're on the top of a volcano. Like the, the ground just is all, it's like it's black and it's, it's very strange, but like the hot springs were amazing. We did this like countryside tour, uh, the day after with, uh, Yeah. One of the guys that owns the marketing agency that put the event on his, his dad does these like tours and he's also a famous Icelandic actor.

And so he, he does these tours for like staying and Beyonce and like he knows all these famous celebrities. He's in a Hallmark Christmas movie that's coming out in a couple of months. So anyway, he's just a character, but yeah, it was a fantastic experience the whole way through and, and it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful over there.

John Common: Well, you deserve it, man. And, and I've been, uh, so does your wife, even though I've never met her, if she's been putting up with you for nine years, uh, 

James Carbary: she very much deserves it. 

John Common: By the way, one of the things I love about Iceland is I love how into Iceland. People from Iceland are have, you know, I'm sure, you know, like everything, all the signage is like, we're awesome.

It's like, they're like an indie rock band always, you know, they also 

James Carbary: have this weird thing where like, they're convinced that the person that actually like found America first was not Christopher Columbus. It was like a guy from Iceland. And he just like came back to Iceland and nobody like, I, I'd never heard the guy's name before, but that I had multiple people tell me like, you know, our guy actually found your country.

Like, what a, what a weird thing to try to tie your hat to, but 

John Common: okay. I bet they're not wrong. I'll just leave that there. All right, man. So I want to dive in with the most important question at the top, which is, And you are, you, this is why I invited you on to Growth Driver, you are truly, in my opinion, uniquely qualified to help us unpack this today, and that is, seriously, why is there so much, and it's well intended, I have, my heart goes out, but we gotta call a spade a spade, why is there so much bad, unengaging, ineffective content in B2B, James, tell us why.

James Carbary: Yeah, so, um, So we just, we just did this study on, um, the top 150 podcasts in the overall category in the business category. So top 75 overall top 75 in the business. And we're looking at everything from like posting cadence to production to topic format, all the, all the things. And, uh, got some really, some really interesting data that we pulled from this thing.

Um, but. The reason we did it is I think the answer to this question. And so the reason we did it is I think in B2B land, we are convinced that we are so different than how consumer brands build their brand that we don't study the folks that are actually putting out really good stuff. We study our peers and we study the other people that are, that are putting out, um, content that just doesn't engage humans on the other side of the screen.

And so the reason we wanted to study the top 150 bad gas, And not just the top B2B shows or just other B2B shows was for that exact reason. It's like, there's, there are people out there that are crushing it right now. You've got these content creators, you've got these consumer brands, you've got influencers, um, that have built these massive audiences by, you know, Being transparent by by having a particular angle by having a format that's fun and enticing by leaning into their personality.

And that's that's what we wanted to do is like, let's look at the people that are crushing this and start to be inspired. Not that we have to be a copycat by any means, but let's be inspired by the folks who are already doing this really well. Um, and. And learn from, from them as opposed to the other folks in our space that are, um, trying to not engage humans, but engage, you know, uh, companies, I guess.

And so I, I think that's a common misconception in B2B, but I think the root of it is we're not, we're not studying the right sources. 

John Common: Well, uh, what I, yeah, my, my, That's really interesting. The way, what I just wrote down, I, whenever I do growth driver, I always try to write down what, what I think I hear and what I wrote down was, why is so much B2B content not great?

And what I heard is you're saying we haven't set the bar. We're not looking at the right bar. 

James Carbary: Yeah. 

John Common: Yeah. And is your thesis, I think you just said it, your thesis is If you want to be, if you want to stand out in B2B, stop comparing yourself to other mediocre B2B companies. And you would say, go to, but when you say non B2B, you said, where should we go to?

Is it Hollywood? Is it B2C? Is it, is it transactional sort of a consumer brands? Like where do you go to for learning? Things that can and should be applied to our weird, maybe not so weird B2B use case. 

James Carbary: I look at my own personal consumption, if I'm being honest. So like I love, uh, I'm obviously wearing an Eagles hat right now.

I'm a big fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. And so I love the show New Heights from the Kelsey brothers. And so I'm, I'm, when I, when I study new heights and how they obviously have two big celebrities and, you know, future hall of famers, uh, that are personalities, but I think we can, we can learn from that.

Like, okay, the talent. Matters. Um, in a lot of B2B content, uh, the talent is like an afterthought. They think that, Oh, just because this particular executive at the company is willing to do it, doesn't mean that they are actually the best person suited to be your on air personality. I think we have to put a lot more thought into who are the on air personalities that we are platforming.

Um, when you look at, when we look across the landscape and we're studying like the, the top performing shows. I think you could do it, not just shows. You could, you could look at like Instagram, like creators. You could look at big LinkedIn creators. You could, regardless of what it is, like whatever your personal content consumption habits are, start studying those things.

And I think you'll see some trends. I think you'll find that they are. increasingly personality led. They're, they're not leading with, um, dry corporate stuffy buttoned up. I say the exact right thing all the time. They're leaning into their imperfection. They're leaning into their expertise as well. And like sharing that openly, which is something I learned from Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey on that show.

Like when they start talking about the, the gritty nuances. of playing tight end or being the center for your 15 year career or however long Jason was in, in the NFL. Like I don't understand what they're saying half the time, but I'm like tuned in and I, I want to pay attention because they're not afraid to like go all in with like the nitty gritty details.

Um, and that's part of what. Makes the show enticing. And so that, that's what I would say to, to answer your question is like study the media that you personally are consuming and then try to reverse engineer. Why is it that I like this so much? Like, what is it that, that is keeping me hooked on this? Um, Sometimes it's really great storytelling.

Uh, I think there's, there's probably a lack of marketers studying that craft like they should. I, I love Jay Kunzo's new, new podcast, um, where he's really dissecting like the signature stories. He just had Seth Godin on his show, um, and dissecting like the signature stories that a lot of these, um, uh, public communicators tell on stages.

And online and stuff. And so I think it's, it's just a matter of studying the right sources. 

John Common: Yeah. That's really, that's really good. You know, hearing you talk, um, I'm trying to imagine that I'm a, I don't know, like a B2B director, maybe VP of content of communications of brand, or even a CMO listening to this right now.

And they're probably, if I'm being honest, and if I know our audience fairly well, uh, I would say they're saying, yeah, they're. James and John are onto something, but they would say, but so I want to talk about the butt. So, Hey, I love your recommendations, James, but how do I create and then execute a strategy that takes your advice and actually makes it Doable.

So like, how do I take that as advice and actually execute? So I'll call that a strategy or a plan. Second is you're saying things like, Hey, you gotta have talent. You gotta, you know, be inspired by non B2B. They often have budgets that B2B especially these days don't have. So cost what advice, and I'm not trying to argue, but I'm trying to be real.

So strategy. Cost. And then the third piece might be the biggest. And I, and I'm, I wrote down courage, maybe the CMO who's listening to this episode, being inspired to do, to create better content is, is like, yeah, I want to do that, but how do I. Even a CMO, let alone a VP or a director. How do I get my organization to have the courage to, uh, what did you say?

To, to do great storytelling, to lean into imperfection. So let's let, let's unpack those. And again, I don't, I don't expect you'd have a framework for this. I just want to talk with you about it. What advice would you give real deal Marketing and sales teams around creating a plan. They can execute overcoming cost constraints and also getting the courage to do it.

Yeah. 

James Carbary: So, so for the first one, one of the biggest shifts that we've started making with our clients that has had a, for, for such a tiny, seemingly tiny shift, it has had an outsized impact. On their ability to do to really execute a personality led media strategy and it's, it's a simple format shift. And so there are, uh, there are some folks that, um, I mean, and I wrote a book called kind of based networking that was all about doing interview based shows.

B2B growth for years and years and years was an interview based show. There are still great interview based shows. Joe wrote one of the most popular podcasts on the planet, interview based show. This show, great interview based show. So this is not to poo poo any and all interview based shows, but for, for what I'm seeing, the tea leaves that I'm reading and going, okay, how can we do this in B2B land?

One way. To, to dial up personality in your content is a simple shift from interview, like interviewing people to doing what we call co hosted commentary. And the difference there, it seems it's, it's, it's the decision that's, that can be made at the, you know, at the, if you make it at the very beginning of this, like, okay, what's our strategy going to be?

How are we actually going to create this content? Um, it has, it It has a massive difference. Um, I listened to client shows that are just interview based shows, um, versus the folks that are, it's, it's two or more people from their team that are throwing in their two cents on things that are happening.

Like more relevant, timely things are happening in the lives of their buyers of their market. And so we made this shift with B2B growth a couple of years ago, and we went from interviewing a VP of marketing at a B2B SaaS company in every single episode to Benji and I, you know, Doing commentary on something Chris Walker said on LinkedIn or a viral tweet that somebody, uh, that Sam par from the hustle posted that got everybody talking or whatever the case may be and the engagement we saw.

Um, people DMing us on LinkedIn, um, the, the, just the performance of the clips that came out of the show, the engagement of the show, the average view time of the YouTube videos that came off of the show. It seemed like everything got better when we made that simple shift. And the And what I found is when you're a, um, when you're a kind of a solo consultant, um, or like a, uh, one man band doing what I call content based networking or like an interview based show with the intent of.

Doing business development with somebody that could become a client for you. That makes a lot of sense when you're like a very early stage business and like one or two deals a month are game changing. Like I remember that that season of sweetfish when it's like I needed to just do as many interviews as I possibly could because I gotta eat and I gotta, I gotta make sure there are groceries on the table and every episode I did was the equivalent of You know, a relationship with somebody that could one day buy from us.

Now I didn't treat those interviews like salesy things. I wasn't like pounding them upside the head at the end of the interview. It was like, Oh, you should buy from us. But naturally you become friends with these people. And a lot of that did turn into business for us. But as the business evolved and grew and, and I, with you working with larger businesses, you know, this, like, 

John Common: yeah, 

James Carbary: I was just found that like these mid market or enterprise companies, they didn't, they weren't, they weren't Is into the idea of of doing content based networking like they didn't care about their interviews turning in like the guests turning into new business for them.

John Common: So you're saying is go from interview to commentary. Yeah. You know what? When you said that, I immediately thought of what, uh, the Manning brothers. 

James Carbary: Yes. We're 

John Common: doing on Monday night football. Monday night football. That's what they're doing. 

James Carbary: Yep. And so, so here, here's why, here's why it changes the, the game so much.

Um, data box did this survey and they asked, I think it was 140 different companies that had podcasts. They were like, what's the goal of your podcast? I think 76 percent of them said the goal was thought leadership or brand awareness. And again, that, that makes a lot of sense. Like you are trying to change the perception of the problem you solve in your market.

When, when you're a mid, mid market enterprise size company, you're not necessarily concerned with like onesie twosie deals. Like you, you, you want to change, How the market thinks about something. And so you want thought leadership, you want brand awareness. But when you think of, when, when we studied the, the best shows in the world, it was like the majority, the lion's share of them, I think it was like 65 percent of them were not interview based shows.

And the ones that were interview based shows, they were interviewing like A list celebrities, or, you know, it's, it's somebody like a Joe Rogan who just has The skill set of interviewing at that level is just, it's a different skill set. And I think everybody thinks they can do it. And, um, it's so much easier and it actually allows you to hold onto the thought leadership yourself.

When the guest doesn't rotate every week, instead you're compounding chemistry with a co host. And so with the Kelsey brothers and with the Manning brothers, They've obviously got decades of built in chemistry because they're brothers. But when you think about, um, care, uh, uh, is it Scott Galloway and it's not carefisher.

So you think about pivot, like they're doing co hosted commentary really well. Scott actually does co hosted commentary with another guy on his team, uh, on his prof G market show. Um, you study all these and you go, Oh, There's something to this, like even back to like news anchors, like there's multiple news anchors.

Now they're not doing as much commentary or I guess, I guess like Fox news. But that like, it's, it's, uh, when you're throwing in your two cents on a topic that is relevant to your buyers, And you can weave in your point of view or your belief about something into that commentary. It bolsters and strengthens what you say is your goal, which is thought leadership, as opposed to in an interview, the natural disposition of an interview.

It's like, like what we're doing here, right? Like you brought me onto the show. And so naturally you're like, Hey, I want to hear your thoughts on this thing. But for, for your business, You, it would make sense that you want to maintain that thought leadership. You want the folks finding and discovering the show, which then, which then you go another angle.

It's like, well, how is my show going to grow then if I'm not tapping into the guests that are going to promote it? And what I found, I mean, we had, we've had Simon Sinek on B2B growth. We've had Gary Vee on B2B growth. We've had Noah Kagan. We've had like really big names. I thought we're going to explode the growth of our show.

And when I go back and look at the numbers, those episodes are some of our, Like, frankly, some of our lowest performing episodes because the folks that you think like, Oh, they're a big name. They're going to promote the show. Well, they've already got their own content engine running. They don't need a clip from your podcast to fuel their content engine.

They're famous because they've already dialed that in. And so. The likelihood that those folks are even going to share the content from that you did with them is, is I found to be pretty low. Um, well, some people would push back. Some people, obviously everybody has different experiences with this stuff.

If, if a guest isn't really driving audience growth. for the show because they're not promoting it. And you're not getting the thought leadership out of it because you're, you're not front and center. Like you're, you're giving that away to your guest. And there's not chemistry being compounded by the host and a co host interacting and building that chemistry episode after episode, after episode.

Because it resets back to zero when next week you have another guest on the show. So that is, that is one very tactical thing that I think if anybody listening to this going like, okay, if I, if I want to build a strategy around incorporating more personality into the content that we put up, I would be saying, find the executives.

Or subject matter experts within your org that, that, that their expertise, your will be genuinely helpful to your market and put them in an environment where they can comment on the things that your market is already talking about. Um, then that, that's, that's great. That's going to position the show really well.

Um, you can use that as sales, sales enablement content, depending on whatever topic they're doing commentary on. Um, it works great for social clips. Like it can, it can slot into so many different pieces of your content strategy. But if you, if you don't get the format of it right up front, uh, and, and this was very painful for us, man, like.

We had over a hundred clients at one point and all of them, we had them doing interview based shows. So it was, it was extremely painful for me to have this realization of like, the most aging content is not actually an interview. It's co hosted commentary. We had to like pivot our entire, like it's, we still got a lot of clients doing interviews that like don't want to move off of it.

So it was very, very painful for me as a business owner executing this stuff for people. But At the end of the day, I just, I have that much conviction that it is. That it is actually the right move and, and now that we're, we're, we're about a year into this transition and we're starting, you know, our, our newer clients are coming out with this format.

I'm listening to their shows going, this is so much different. Like whenever you're talking to somebody who's a relatively new connection, maybe you've only talked to them once or twice before you, you actually are, are very like, you're very good at like making someone feel comfortable right out of the gate.

But a lot of people aren't, don't. Don't necessarily have that, that gifting and it sounds very stiff. So, right. And you being like, ah, you know, I'm not really crapping on that. Actually, you know, I am crapping on that, like, like that, that subtle nuance, like not a lot of people have that ability. And so when you're talking to someone, New, especially if you're doing content based networking and they're a prospect for you, you're not going to want to push back on them.

You're not going to like, you don't want to do anything to create friction in that relationship because ultimately your, your, your bigger agenda is I want to do business with this person. Which, 

John Common: which is, which is the, which is why this is the strategy section, evidently of this, right. It's like, you know, you're putting your finger on some of the strategic flaws, I think that have emerged as this, as this.

Strategy as this way to build awareness and content. All right. So what I'm hearing is, Hey, you might want to think about moving from interview based to co host commentary. And then I think what I also heard you say is don't pretend that just anybody can do it. You need to have chemistry. You need to have someone.

Well, actually, I'm going to turn that into a question. What, what are some of the traits of a good co host team? 

James Carbary: So you look at the, have you ever listened to all in? 

John Common: I love it. 

James Carbary: I 

John Common: hate that. I love it, but I kind of love it. 

James Carbary: I love that show. I 

John Common: think they're a bunch of billionaire douchebags there. I said it, but keep going.

All right. Yeah. 

James Carbary: So, uh, so there's a couple of different things in what you just said. So they're all a bunch of billionaire douchebags. 

John Common: Yeah, they are. 

James Carbary: They, they, one of, one of them is not, I think the, the, uh, the one guy is not, the moderator is not a billionaire. The other guys are, 

John Common: that's 

James Carbary: an interesting, that's an like, it's interesting.

It 

John Common: also, it also makes it. It's insufferable because you can see the ass kissing happening 

James Carbary: in real time in 

John Common: your ear. But anyway, they are, 

James Carbary: they are doing straight up co hosted commentary, right? Like they're talking about political business. I mean, when that, that episode where they talked about founder mode, but because they're all billionaires, they obviously have deep subject matter expertise.

John Common: Right. 

James Carbary: In something you don't become a billionaire by being an idiot. Yes. And so their commentary packs a punch because it's like these guys, obviously, I might not agree with everything they say, but they obviously have an informed point of view on a lot of stuff because you don't make the kind of investments they've made to hit the hit the target.

Hit the billionaire status without being pretty smart 

John Common: by the way, for our audience, just in case it's not apparent. I just called him billionaire douchebags. Guess who's not a billionaire, John Common. It's easy for me to, you know, anyway, 

James Carbary: so, so I think I, I think one of the things that's obvious too, when you observe that show, they spend a lot of time with each other.

Not on camera. So I think how that show came to be, they were all playing poker together. They had like a weekly poker, poker game that they were playing. And then the pandemic happened. They had to stop doing, playing poker together. And so they were like, Hey, look, we should do this podcast. And so I think the more time you can get your co host team going to lunches together, like go, like if, if they're on your team, like go send them to New York city for the day or like Create a fun experience for them to have like shared memories together.

So one of the things we do, so we just bought this, my wife and I just bought a house right down the street from our house. We call it the creator house. So we've got four different video podcast sets. We've then we've got four guest bedrooms upstairs. Cool. And we've started the, we started, uh, producing these shows that sweetfish owns.

So we have a bunch of shows that we produce for clients and then we have our own shows. One's like for rev ops leaders, one's for chief information security officers. We go and we put together these co host teams and when we bring them into Orlando to film, it's, it's a requirement that they come in the night before so that we can go to dinner together.

And like, just like last week we, with our rev ops co hosts, we went axe, you know, we threw axes At a, at a right. You know, a wall of wood. Um, we had snow cones together. We did dinner, we chopped it up. Um, and then e even like during the day before we started doing the commentary episodes, we did a bunch of other activities together that just gave us, we did some social content together.

So it's building that comradery. Ideally, you know, in a setting where you're doing this in-house for your company, you've got some other. Ways to do that. Us, it's kind of, we have to fast track it. Cause it's like, we can't ask you to stay here for an entire week. We've only got you for a couple of days. So I think that's one way to do it is like increase the amount of time these folks are spending together so that they can build that chemistry off air.

Because when you have it off air, it's, it's much easier for it to show up on air. The other thing I would be is that I would be coaching them to do. And I try to say this as much as I possibly can, but do not be afraid to push back when you, when, when somebody says something and you even have an inkling of like, ah, I don't know that I buy into that.

I kind of disagree with that. If there's even an inkling of a thought there, say it. Push back because that friction is actually what creates a better listener experience. Yeah. Like that, that whole idea, like if, if, if it just becomes like a head nod and I'm very agreeable, like it's the nature of my personality.

I, I tend to be extremely agreeable Uh, it actually hurts me from a media perspective, but you've got other people that I, one of my best friends is this way. He just naturally default to like, I think that's BS. And, uh, he, and, and he shot like tries to tamper that back because societally that's kind of awkward and weird, but in, in media.

Yeah. It actually is a superpower. And so when you observe that, like, I would actually, as I'm putting together this, like, who are the Avengers going to be that hosts this show? I would be intentionally trying to plant some people on that squad, whether it's two, three, four people. Um, At least have one that is like not afraid to punch back because that's another dynamic and all in if you watch it those guys I just watch freeberg and um sax Go ham on one another totally over this nuclear like this nuclear thing and sax is like no, you know I don't want you know I don't want a nuclear power plant in my backyard and I know a lot of people that wouldn't either And freeberg's like hold up like This is exactly why we haven't made more advancements in nuclear because people like you are fear mongering over something That shouldn't actually be like and I was like, oh snap like these two are are getting after it and now i'm paying attention Yes, right.

Yes. I'm i'm tuned in and so I think if you have trust and credibility with somebody Because you've spent a lot of time off air developing that relationship, right? You're way more comfortable Bringing the heat but it can also be coached because we've seen it like Even though these people that we're putting together, they haven't spent a lot of time off air because they don't work at the same companies.

They don't know each other that well. They've had a dinner or two together before we get them on air, but just saying like, as the executive producer of the show, whether you're the VP of marketing or whatever, um, just saying like, Hey, We need you guys to disagree. Like we, we need you to push back on one another.

We need you to have dissenting points of view. Um, that, that tends to, I've, I've found people really are receptive to that and, uh, giving them the prompt of like, Hey, if there's, if there's even a little bit of like, I'd push back on that, lean into it and go for it. Um, and I think people naturally understand that.

Like, okay, that, that makes sense. Like my own, I lean in whenever I hear that kind of stuff in the media that I consume. So it makes sense to them that they would need to do that in the media they're producing. 

John Common: Growth goals are tough to hit. I know it, you know it, and the kind people in intelligent demand know it too.

That's why they have a team of experts across the board. Media content, creative rev ops, and strategy who know how to work together and with you to crush your revenue growth goals. Reach out to him at intelligent demand. com schedule a free consult, talk some shop. All right. So let's talk about cost for a second.

So, um, cause that's all, I mean, that is an omnipresent thing and it has only become more present as budgets have gotten more and more, um, scrutinized, precious and scrutinized. So, um, Tell me the way we think about it at ID, and this isn't necessarily original, but it's still not actually done very well out there in the world of B2B marketing, is if you go about the enormous job of trying to create engaging content for your B2B go to market strategy and growth engine, end to end.

James Carbary: Yeah. 

John Common: And if you go about the doing of that as a series of. Oh gosh, I need a ham sandwich. I need to go conceive of a ham sandwich. Make the ham sandwich. Oh, I need another ham sandwich. I know I need a turkey sandwich, but instead what we recommend is step back and really think about it as content pillars, content themes, content strategies, and then align your company level editorial calendar Or point of view, yeah, shit that you care about calendar, um, to those pillars and themes and then maybe even start driving shows.

Whether it's interviews or commentary, yeah, and then atomizing is one way to think of it. But sometimes it's not atomizing an episode or a, or a content pillar or piece. It's more like the various knock on effects. So for instance, maybe, maybe you and I do this episode, it resonates. And then I invite you back.

For a, uh, invite only customer panel, uh, you know what I mean? Like, so it's not that we're atomizing the episode. It's that we're extending it and unpacking it more and more. And if you think about it that way, if that makes any sense, which is you're stepping back and thinking about it from a pillar and a.

And a, and a, and a, uh, longitudinal standpoint, all of a sudden you go, wait a minute, I'm not thinking about my content needs as 1 million pieces of content. I'm thinking of my content needs as five or six pillars that. That all of a sudden I now do have the budget maybe to fund six things that are expertly atomized and extended instead of a million things is the way that I'm thinking about it and talking about it the way you would recommend 

James Carbary: that.

That's exactly how we're thinking about it. And, and there's, I think there's this Um, desire or, uh, belief in, inside of some marketing orgs that you, you want everything to be like this kind of Netflix quality. Like we've got to go top shelf. Everything's got to be like top of the line. Um, I remember my, my, my friend, um, My, uh, I won't say his name, but a lot of people listening to this would know who he is.

And when he was at a former, uh, company, he was like, we're going to do this. We're going to rent out this center. I think it was in San Francisco. It was a big city. So it was very expensive to rent out this, uh, Theater. And he was going to film like a six episode series. It was going to be high craft, you know, high editorial, very fancy.

He probably spent north of six figures on these six episodes and realized very quickly that the mileage that you get out of those six top shelf episodes did not even come close to justifying. The, the expense of what it was and now in this season of his career, he's, he's actually thinking way more about like internal and external creators and the, the, uh, we, I use this term a lot, but like, I, I think we need to be celebritizing our, uh, people and figuring out like what are the things that align with our point of view that they get really excited about that we could build a series of around them because I'm just so bullish on like personality led personality led well to to do personality led you got to have the personalities to build around whether it's a team of co hosts whether it's you know I I think b2b influencer marketing is is going to look like what clue Has started doing so.

Clue is this product they sell to product marketers. Um, and it's like a hybrid consulting versus sass solution. But I think there are value to like 275 million us. They're based in Canada, so they're doing really, really well. And they have a ton of different series. Um, Inside of what I call a media brand.

So clue is their corporate brand. Their media brand is called the compete network. And then inside of their media brand, they have a wide variety of personal brands. Some of those personal brands are internal to the clue team. Uh, Adam is, is one of these, like, Their content marketing leader, he's one of the personalities in the show, but a lot of their other personal brands or their personalities are external, like folks that are already have celebrities for product marketers.

And they've gone to them and they've said, Hey, we want to build a series around you for the compete network. And we're going to handle the, the, the pre production, the production of it. We're going to do the, the promotion and everything. And they've got this effect where it's like, Hey, if we can add value to this creator, That wants more.

A lot of times they're consultants or folks that already have a good size audience, but it's like, Hey, if you're going to produce a top shelf series for me, I'm, you know, and I don't know what the arrangement is here. I don't want to speak on behalf of clue. It's very affordable, if not even free because you can offer the value of the brand that has the media brand.

to say, Hey, we're going to cross promote this series against all of the other series that we're producing with other creators in this space. And so it ends up being enough value for the creator to say, yeah, I'll go on ahead and do it. The trick for the, for this to work. And I think be as effective as it has been is they haven't just allowed all of their shows to be the classic kind of B2B interview based show.

They really have thought about format differentiation. And so they've got, they've got a show where it's like, um, I think they call it like 60 ish seconds or something. And it's basically a personality doing a 60 second breakdown on the news that happened for, for product marketers that week. They've got another one where it's co hosted in this consultant.

He's like a creator guy in the product marketing space and a co host. Analyze a, um, a versus page, like the, the, where it's like our product versus this, uh, it's like a competitor page. 

John Common: Yeah. And so 

James Carbary: they, they, they break down like what, you know, whatever that would be Coke versus Pepsi or whatever. Yeah. And so they've come up with all these interesting angles and concepts for these shows.

They've gone to external creators and said, Hey, we want to build the show around you. Would you be up for doing this? And those creators do tend to actually promote those shows. Unlike what I said earlier, where it's like a lot of these big names don't necessarily do that. But when you've put in that kind of effort to like coming up with a compelling angle, being They've got the packaging nailed down really tight.

So like the thumbnails look really dope. The way they do trailers for these different series looks really dope. So these creators are like, Oh, actually like this would actually be really helpful if I promoted this to my audience, because it makes me look you've made me look. Yeah. So, um, so anyway, so I, I think what, uh, all, all that to say, I think there are, there are ways to do this in very cost effective ways.

Todd Clouser from audience plus, I've heard him say that like a lot of the creators they work with at audience plus like external creators, it's, you can, you can do an entire series with a creator for less than 500 bucks an episode. Now that's not for every creator. Um, but. There's it is, it is more affordable than what, because we're such an, we're, we're in the early days of, of what this game is looking like.

The playbook is being written right now. So I think there's a unique opportunity to, to really build around this, uh, in the early days, but that's, Uh, I have not found that like something is as expensive as you make it to be. Um, and, uh, and I, and I think you can accomplish a lot of really creative, uh, content output, uh, without, again, like going to co host a commentary like that.

That is not a, that's not a cost thing. That's a, that's a strategy. 

John Common: That's a strategy thing. 

James Carbary: Yeah, 

John Common: you know, um, I uh, I don't know if you, you know, I've never really talked about this, but uh, my whole life, uh, and really my whole life, I've been a singer and a songwriter and I'm touring musician and I've played in bands and made records and no one would care or no, but, but the reason I bring it up is, um, in the seventies and even in the eighties, It was extremely expensive to make a record.

Yeah. Very expensive. You know where I'm going with this is, um, and then we saw the democratization of recording tools, DAW software, microphone cost drop, but quality went through the roof. And, um, and the, the, the active recording itself just got easier. Yeah. And now in the 70s, if you're in Led Zeppelin, you need to literally go to Scotland, rent a castle and make, you know, Led Zeppelin three or whatever, but, but you don't have to do that.

Now you can, and I literally, I'm an example of someone who's made I several very dope records in my home with my band and they sound fantastic. Now, no one cares about them because I'm not famous, but, but, but the recording of it, and I bring that up because. I think that has been happening in this, in this world of video and audio around content.

I know it has, you know, you see, you know, descript and squad cast and on and on and on. And, um, I guess my point, it's both a point and I want to see if, if, if you agree with this is,

You still have to have a good song so you can have a cheap microphone and garage band But if your song sucks and you don't know how to deliver that song Nobody gives a shit about your song or your single or your record And that's what I think I hear you saying is i'm asking about cost. I think there's a strategic component I think about costs, but I think there's also, where do you set the bar?

Does it need to be a canned film festival quality piece of video? Probably not. But what I'm hearing is you got to have a good song. You've got to have a good show idea. 

James Carbary: Yeah. Yeah. A good concept. Yeah. A good, I think it really comes down to, and again, this feels like bordering on the edge of eye rolly because so many people are talking about it today, but It does your point of view right.

Resonate with Yeah. The person on the other end that you're trying to influence their thinking. And so like, that's how 

John Common: we started this episode. I'm I, I'm, I'm just trying to talk truth and be like it's not Yeah. Can we just say it's not Yeah. And, and I think, I mean, if it's not obvious, the whole reason I had you on Growth Drivers, I'm like, I think what you're doing and what we're doing on Growth Driver and what the thing that we're talking about, I think is one of the major ways that we can.

Stop making shitty B2B content. 

James Carbary: And actually like having, it's funny, we did this, we did this probably four or five years ago. Now it was a while ago. We did this original research where we surveyed a hundred VPs of marketing and we asked them 10 different questions and we boiled down their answers pre AI.

So it took way longer than it should have to like synthesize all this information. Yeah. What was, what was astonishing to me? One of the questions we asked was what's a commonly held belief about this industry, about marketing that you passionately disagree with. And nine times out of 10, somebody would say something that was in no way, shape or form different than what the other, you know, a hundred people that they all said the same thing.

And, but they, they were convinced they had conviction that their belief was so unique and against the grain. And it was like, I've just talked to a hundred people. You guys all think the same thing. Like you're all, you're all being influenced by Gary Vee, by Chris Walker, by Dave Gearheart. Um, and, and so when you really start to study, like, I think it is crazy to me how prolific guys like Alex Ramosi, Gary Vee, Chris Walker, those are three guys that come to mind that have just an insane number of seemingly hot takes that where it's like they have.

Their, their ability to communicate something that seems to be pretty contrarian to what everybody else thinks. I think Seth Godin is pretty similar here. And I'm like, that is crazy to me. Like that. And I don't think that's a very common thing, but because those guys have gotten so big, I think there's become this, at least for me anyway, this belief that like, man, if I don't have the volume of hot takes or like contrarian beliefs, um, Then I can't create content because I just don't have that many ideas.

And like, I do, you can only beat this, beat one idea to death. Do 

John Common: you believe 

James Carbary: that? I, I, I've come to not believe that. And I actually think that the format change that we talked about earlier. Yes. I think if those guys shifted into doing commentary style content. They would actually not put nearly as much pressure on having a new idea.

John Common: Yeah. 

James Carbary: So frequently, and, and they could get a lot more like, cause I, when I think about all four of those guys that I've listed, I actually no longer consume their content. They were insanely helpful to me in a particular season. 

John Common: Yeah. 

James Carbary: Where That like with Gary Vee, it was early in my entrepreneurial journey and like his like hustle grit grind.

Like you're going to have to do stuff that nobody else wants to do. I desperately needed that for a particular part of my journey. Um, Chris Walker, similar thing, Alex Ramosi, similar thing. Like, but I get to a point where I'm like, okay, like I've heard your stick and like time to move on. There's a lot of people out there putting out content that are helpful for like the stage I'm in now.

Right. And I think if all four of those guys shifted to where they were doing commentary on things that were mattered for the people that they were trying to influence, but it wasn't relying on their own thought. It was like, Hey, Warren Buffett just did this thing that I think we all, I think we all need to be thinking about what he just did in this way.

I would want to tune into just like I want to tune into all in. I want to turn into my first million because those guys are constantly talking about things that are, are important. Uh, that are commentary on other things that are happening in the, in the wider world of, um, their expertise. 

John Common: Yeah, that resonates with me.

Um, I, I, uh, I am getting real tired of the hot take industrial complex, man. I, I really am. I, it's so, it's so exhausting, frankly. It's also, um, I'll just call it out. I, I, I, It often strikes me as kind of like aggressively male and bro y also, and I'm like, I don't know why, but it sure does. And last time I checked, over 50 percent of People who drive, go to market and marketing aren't sales are women who, and I can't speak for them.

Maybe they love some aggressive, like, like, I'm like, calm down, bro. Like, why are you angry? And even more so when, when, when they come up, sorry, I'm just, I'm just going off right now, but even more so when it's like, to your point, nobody has. a brilliantly insightful, actually unique hot take every day. So what that actually means is they start relying on their, their style and their personality.

And you, and after the, you know, whatever 20th or 30th clip, you're like, did you just tell me that, um, I don't know, I'll pick one. Uh, did you just tell me that people. Who want a product demo convert at a higher rate than people who download a white paper as if that's an insight. I'm like, yeah, no shit.

Like, you know what I mean? Like I hear this stuff and, and it's because they're just, they're in this hot take a treadmill. I totally agree with you. I, I really, yeah. I mean, there's gotta be more than one way to create really great content and hot. Look, contrarian is one way. And I think even in a, in a brand, I think that's a lever that you can pull.

It's okay to be contrarian. If you come at it, honestly, if you, if you, if you have an actual hot take, deliver it, but you don't, don't be Mr. Hot 

James Carbary: take. You know, we were Benji, Benji, my cohost for B2B growth. He, we, uh, we fly him in every. Every couple of months and we batch record for B2B growth. And so he was over at our creator house the other day, actually last, last Wednesday.

And we were, we had just recorded an episode or two and we were talking in the kitchen after we're between, uh, between recordings. And he was like, like, we're, we were talking about how there are all these different dials that you can dial up or down at a show level down to like an episode level. Or it could maybe be somewhere in the middle and it's like a series inside of your show.

We're going to really dial up contrarian belief or we're going to really dial up, um, uh, a, like interview style, like where we're just really curious about something. And we want to go out and yeah, journalism or, or, or dial up storytelling or like, there are all these like entertainment or education. Like, and I think when we get stuck in this pattern of thinking that they're the thing that resonates with us or the thing that we're particularly i've been very guilty of this the thing that i'm hot on that week is like oh narrative storytelling i'm like we're just gonna do everything is narrative and it's like all of these things are not like You can dial them up or down and that to me is like the beautiful part about this content playground is choosing like almost the analogy that Benji came up with was like, imagine having like a dashboard in a plane, like he was like, anytime I walk into a plane and I look left at the pilots that I was like, I'm always overwhelmed.

I'm like, Oh my gosh, like they're about to take me 30, 000 feet in the air. And like, they got to know where all these dials, what all these dials do and all these not like, and. He's like, but I, I wonder if we thought about our approach to content strategy. Content creation is more of like, we have all of these options that are at our fingertips.

Like we can dial this up, we can dial it, take this a little bit down. Um, we can move, move this a little bit to the side here based on the topic, based on who our audience for this particular piece of content is based on what we're trying to accomplish as a business, like based on all these different.

because you can't, like, I think I've been hearing Gearheart say this a lot lately, but like content marketing is just marketing. Like you need content to do everything now. It's not like you can't disassociate content from marketing, like whether it's on a billboard or in a magazine or digital stuff, like it is all content and knowing, like having a lens by which to view, okay, what, okay.

For this particular purpose and objective, what do we want to dial up and down and like, what are the dials that are exposure? And, and I think going back to what I said earlier, I think if we're actually studying the folks that are doing this really well, you're just going to add more and more dials and levers to your dashboard.

Because you're going to see like, Oh, like so much works. So many things can work. It's more than one color 

John Common: on the palette, the painter's palette. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be contrarian blue, contrarian blue. Yeah. That's really great. All right. So, so we've talked about, and by the way, we've talked about strategy.

We talked about how to think about cost or maybe a better word is investment. 

James Carbary: Yeah. 

John Common: Um, We're going to get to courage before I get, but before I go to courage, I, I, I bet what I'm about to say bugs you three times, 30 times more than it bugs me. You could be forgiven for thinking that what you and I are talking about is podcasting and that is not what, what you and I are talking about.

So what category, I increasingly think of this as, um, maybe conversational content or what term do you use to talk about this? Yeah. 

James Carbary: Yeah. So, I mean, we. You can, it's communication. It's, it's, it's funny you talking about conversational versus like when we, when we've done it, cause we've done a lot of thinking on, you know, interview based shows versus cohost commentary.

And really when you boil it down, it's like one of the reasons I think. you're able to do an interview based show and it still works is because this is actually a conversation for you. And most people that do interview based shows call it laziness, call it timidity or, or like a, uh, want a desire to be humble.

Um, you want to put all the attention and all of the spotlight on the person you're interviewing. So you just have a series of questions that you're running through, but there's no back and forth. There's no, like after every time I say something. You're not just rolling to your next set of questions.

Like your next question to ask me, like, which is you, you laugh like, but, but it is the, that is what is eating up the lion's share of this type of content in B2B land is, is people that are, Because they're busy executive, they don't have time to like really do the research on the guest or, or they don't really know much about the topic.

Benji and I even, we, we did a, we were playing around with like, can we do co hosted commentary and occasionally bring in a guest? And we brought in a guest a few months ago to talk about something that was outside of our curiosity and our subject matter expertise. And it showed like, I don't even think we went, we, we might've went live with one of the episodes that we did with this guy.

Great dude. He's a good friend of mine. What he was talking about was something outside of the scope of what Benji and I had an interest in and, and naturally didn't have any subject matter expertise in it because we hadn't really explored that. And we brought him on and it was a dud because it was, it was us teeing him up to talk with no engagement from us.

And so regardless of whether it's a video podcast or content for YouTube or it's a webinar or whatever, I think like figuring out that conversations, that's why co hosting commentary works so well. Cause these people know each other. They've got chemistry that's compounded over several episodes. They can have legitimate.

Yeah. Totally. And it is, that's what actually establishes thought leadership, right? Is like, I want to hear how John is thinking about something and you forego that if every episode of growth driver, you're just bringing on a new guest. To be the expert without you thoughtfully engaging or challenging or like sharing your two cents on like, yes, that and this other thing, or you know what, about what you just said that really pisses me off, that probably pisses you off even more.

Like it's like, it's that kind of stuff that actually builds affinity for you as the host. And this is your freaking show. It should be doing that. Like it should be driving that result for you. 

John Common: Look at you turning it back on me. You're getting all meta James. Damn. Damn. These are not the droids you're looking for.

All right. So courage, courage. And I didn't know we were going to go here, man. But that's the beauty of this thing that we do, man. So strategy, investment or cost. And the third thing, talk to me about And again, it's not for me. It's for our audience. Courage. How, what is a tip or some advice or a story, something that would make our audience say, wait a minute, maybe I don't have to be Anderson fucking Cooper.

Maybe, you know, maybe I don't have to be James Carbery. Can I, can we really do this here? It's a courage. Talk about the courage piece. 

James Carbary: Yeah, that's an interesting one, man. I, I, I think I've, I've probably had different answers for this over the years. Um, there are there, and we've worked with, I don't know, hundreds of companies.

I can only imagine the nuances of like, you're in a, you're in a highly regulated industry. You just can't say some stuff like commentary might be off the table for you because you can't do commentary without doing stepping on this toe or this regulator or like, and, and I, you know, My thing is like if you want to do if you want to push the boundary on content that really is engaging.

You have to be at a company that sounds like a throwaway answer, but like, you've got to be at a company that's willing to do that. And if, if you're in a space that is limited because of circumstances, well outside of your control, I think I just have to say like, go somewhere else. Like, wow. Like there, there, there are so many companies that need this kind of content and this kind of thinking, um, that are willing to do that are willing to do it.

And, and I think. The more and more you're seeing. Um, you know, the, the, these, this kind of creator economy pop up and seeing what Obed has done with, you know, taking hockey stack from nobody knowing who hockey stack was to now everybody bashing on their latest, you know, their latest original research.

Obed single handedly made that brand famous because he applied a creator. He applied creator thinking to that, that brand. You're seeing it happen with audience. Plus you're seeing it happen with clue. You're seeing it happen with motion. Um, you you're seeing more and more. Of these brands lean into this and you can argue like, Oh, that's only cause they sell to marketers.

We're seeing it happen with people that sell to finance and sell to other, other, uh, parts of the org, like HR, like the, the, I think. It's called HR dudes where they do these really hilarious skits about different awkward HR situations. And they get millions of views on tech talk and it's driven incredible.

I think it was, I think it's actually the guy, uh, one of the guys from ClickUp that did it. And so ClickUp has experienced incredible like brand uptick and they don't just sell to marketers, they're selling to like operations folks and like people that are figuring out how to, how to manage, uh, the operational components You know, these complex businesses.

And so, um, anyway, all that to say, um, I, If that's the wall that you just keep running into, like, I just can't get by and I can't get by and I can't get by in. Um, I think I tend to agree with Dave Gearheart's take that like, life's too short to work for a CEO that doesn't get it. But, um, but that has become kind of a trope now.

So I'm curious, like as, as someone who, you know, like you're obviously a strong critical thinker, like what's your, what's your take on that? Like, how do you get courage or your clients to I'm sitting here listening. 

John Common: I'm surprised that you said that a little bit to be, I mean, I, first of all, I totally get what you just said.

And I appreciate what you just said, because it's, you answered my question, honestly, about courage. And so I'm not saying you're crazy. I'm saying, wow, that's just a really truthful answer. And as I was listening to you just now answer, I was thinking to myself, is that that's definitely part of the answer, but I, my gut tells me it's not the whole answer.

And let me, let's just play with it here live. Like, I, I don't think you have to pack up your tent. And leave. I don't, if, if you work at a company that has never. Exhibited content courage. God, I hope not. I hope not. And maybe I'm a bit of an idealist. So, so I'm sitting here thinking, okay, what would you do?

And what maybe, you know, like, I think it's important, especially for our audience who are enterprise and mid market revenue leaders, marketing sales, product leaders. I think that they could hear this conversation that you and I are in the process of soon to be wrapping up and think that, Oh my God, I've got to, I've got to have personality.

James said I had to have personality and the way they talked about, you know, editorial, these, these words that sound like Hollywood and, and you could like end up in your, Head thinking that I've got to, I've got to do the all in podcast. Otherwise I'm going to fail or I'm not a billionaire. I'm going to say, I've got to come up with my company's version of Johnny Knoxville and jackass or something.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You know? And I, and I, I think what, again, what do you think about this? But I think that maybe part of the answer is anchoring back in the intersection of your ideal client profile, your personas, the problems that they are struggling with. And, and, and, and hoping to solve. So go back to your customer, which by the way, in B2B, it might be something that to the rest of the world is utterly boring, but it ain't boring to them.

Right. So they're like, Oh, how do I solve fucking enterprise CRM? Like. Now, that might be boring to 99 percent of the people on earth, but there's this small cohort where in your market, if you haven't created the enterprise CRM nerd, fast conversation creator thing, I would say that. We'll take some courage, but you don't have to be, you know, Anderson Cooper to pull it off.

James Carbary: Yeah. 

John Common: I mean, I think that, you know what I mean? I think if you niche down and you just say, it's not about, it's not just about having an amazing personality. It's also about doing something valuable to your, am I being quixotic? And 

James Carbary: no, no, I, I think, I think you're right on. That's what I love so much about co hosted commentary to be Frank is you can, um, what you do the commentary on.

There's a big lever there. Like we, we, we've even adjusted, like we, we were doing commentary on posts that have, that had gone viral on LinkedIn. And then we realized like, okay, that doesn't perform as well on YouTube because YouTube and, and LinkedIn are pretty disconnected. From an audience perspective.

And so we, then we started doing it on like bigger, bigger marketing topics. And so, you know, maybe it's, you know, or a report from a established brand or something. And so we've been playing with like, what do we do commentary on? And then we've also been dialing like, How much do we disagree with each other?

Like how much prep do we put in ahead of the commentary so that I, cause I found that I'm not as good on the fly, but if you give me an hour to think through the four topics that we're going to talk about, I've got thoughts on them. And so I've just got to make the time to actually put that on my calendar and do it.

And so that's what I love about this format is you can be as provocative or like. It's, it's really a matter of leaning into what makes you, you, and like trying to be as, as much you as you possibly can in a format that obviously your, that your company's not going to fire you over. But I don't, I think I would agree with your sentiment that you don't necessarily need an enormous amount of courage.

If you're grounded in like, Hey, we are trying to engage this very specific segment of the market that we've found to be our most profitable buying segment, we want the, and this is our bet for how we think we're going to engage them. And then when you take these clips from this episodic content, whether it's a webinar, whether it's a video podcast, whatever, and.

You can, you can start to guarantee the distribution of that content in front of those people through paid media. That's another thing we haven't, this is kind of a little bit off the, off the beaten path, but like, I don't, I don't hear enough people in, in B2B marketing talking about this, this concept of like, we literally know exactly who our buyer is.

We can take a piece of, What was otherwise just an organic piece of content and whether it be through thought leader ads or meta ads, we can then put dollars behind guaranteeing that that content gets in front of the exact people that we want it to get in front of. But you've got to decouple it from this mindset that every piece of paid media needs to have a direct conversion path.

This, this, this needs to create a demo. If you decouple that and go, no, this is, we're just going to spend whatever, we're going to take the 400, 000 a month that we spend in paid media. We're going to go, Hey, 50, 000 of that is just going to be guaranteed content distribution to make sure that the stuff that we're talking about our points of view, commentary on what this, that, whatever that we know injects our point of view into it.

And you can validate like, Hey, did this pop off on our, on our LinkedIn's Uh, on our CEO's linked in profile organically, that's a signal like, okay, let's put some money behind this. And so, uh, I love that. So anyway, so that it's getting into some of the nuances here, but I don't think you need a lot of, I don't think you actually need a whole lot of courage in most cases.

And I think the reason I said, just get out of there was because if you find yourself in a place where you're like, Oh, I need to work up the courage to do this. That to me communicates that the executive team. Is really not about it on this stuff and you were fighting a very strong uphill battle. Maybe it's just my personality, but I would just rather not, I would put myself in a different environment where I don't have to fight that battle.

John Common: Yeah, I think there's also some personal courage and I'll be vulnerable here on the show and say I mean even though i've spent a life i've literally spent my whole adult life Walking on stages and singing songs with bands and so i'm used to performing but even me And and also i'm every bit the freaking nerd that I seem like I am on this show Like I totally am into this shit that we talk about and even me I When I was, um, you could ask Nina who produces our show.

Uh, I was terrified to do the first couple of episodes. And I think there's a personal courage piece of it too. And, and I know that, uh, why I want to put words in your mouth, but let, what, what about those people that like, they haven't yet. They haven't yet stepped across the threshold to being a creator, but they got it.

They got it in them, but they're just, they're scared. They're fearful. This is a good place to maybe end the episode. What advice would you give that person who really can and should, but hasn't done it yet? James, what advice, what 

James Carbary: somebody, somebody asked me this, um, Robert Katai, he's, he's doing a lot of, uh, analysis and commentary on B2B creators.

And he, he was talking to me about imposter syndrome. Yes. And, uh, And so that's what your question makes me think of. And the response I gave to him was think about the content you're creating being a conversation that you're having, going back to your point of like, this is, it's, it's conversational, a conversation that you're having with a friend at lunch.

So when you're having a, when you're having a conversation, when I'm, when I'm talking with my buddy Daniel and we're at Miller's L house, I'm not comparing What I'm saying to Daniel versus like, Oh, you know who he, he had lunch with somebody else earlier this week and they're probably dealing with like a more complex business problem.

And, you know, he wouldn't really want to engage with me on this because, you know, I'm sure that he's got other smarter friends that he's talking to about this stuff. And, and I, I wouldn't want to share my, you know, uh, my idea or my problem or whatever. And I think naturally the reason I haven't necessarily struggled with imposter syndrome as much is because I think is when I got to the root of it, I was like, I, cause that's how I think about when I go to post on LinkedIn, I genuinely am in the mindset of like, I, I'm, there's nobody else.

I am, I am unique. Like, like each of us is unique. Like there's only one of us. And so like my lived experience combined with what I nerd out about combined with the fact that I've got two little kids at home and a wife who's a dolphin trainer and like all this weird stuff that like makes me like one of one.

1. I am talking to the world through that lens and that doesn't diminish what john common says on linkedin or carlos odago or jess cook or you know like yeah we all are contributing to this thing in our own unique way and it and i think getting Unhitching yourself from this thing that it's competitive.

And it just like, how can I contribute uniquely to the journey I'm on? Like I'm nerding out on the nuances and finer points of, of media and how we can study. Macro media trends and apply it to engaging B2B buyers that for whatever reason God has chosen to make me fascinated with that. And so I'm just exploring that curiosity and that fascination, um, and communicating You know, communicating what I'm learning out with, you know, how I've screwed up doing that.

Um, what, what I, what I've done that's worked in that way, uh, or as I've, as I've fleshed out some of these ideas. And so that's, that's how I'm thinking about it. And I think if more people could think about it, like you're. You're having a conversation with, with a friend at lunch. Um, you don't need to compare yourself to, you know, the, the big name thought leader in your space.

Who's got, you know, 140, 000 followers. And, um, cause I guarantee if you talk to them, they would, they would tell you that 10 years prior they were in the same spot you were. And they just continued to show up and do the thing, you know, day after day after day. And one day they looked up and like, had, had built this, Trust with a whole lot of people.

Um, and so I, I think I also, I've seen a correlation, you know, you talking earlier about it being very bro. We in like this aggressive contrarian world, I've actually found with women particularly that are, that become clients of ours, there is like this, um, Insecurity about like, I'm not expert enough. Like I, you know, my company has chosen me to be the co host of the show that we're going to be doing with you guys.

But I just, I don't feel like I'm an ex. And we've literally, we've got a woman, she's a freaking doctor. Like she, like she's an actual doctor. And I'm like, you, so I, the, the, the, the thing that we say to those folks is, is some, somewhere in the ballpark of like, people don't want, it. People don't expect you to know all the things they want.

They need you to be relatable. And so the way, the way you become relatable is, is leaning into your lived experience, your own curiosities, your own questions. And the more truthful you can be in that way, um, The more you're going to resonate. And so if, if you're coming on and you're trying to have this facade of like, I am the all knowing expert that knows everything there is to know about demand generation or about this, this doctory thing that I do, well, you're going to end up looking like a prick.

And. And, but instead, if you go, no, I'm, I'm a unique individual that has a unique set of lived experiences, I'm going to talk through those things. I'm going to talk through the things that I've sucked out. I'm going to talk to the things that I've seen wins in. Um, and through doing that, I think it gives you that courage to, to go.

And then, and then you see that the internet outside of Reddit isn't quite Transcribed You know, it isn't as mean as you thought it was going to be, and it actually starts to become fun. 

John Common: Oh, man, James. Um, that's a great place to, to wrap. Thank you for bringing, this is fun. I knew it was going to be fun, but it was better than I thought.

And I love that. I love that we, uh, well, I know who you are, man. And, and I, when I was pre when I was doing my own prep work for today's episode, I. Stepped back and looked at my little prep sheet and I was like, I just got to open it right and then james and I are just gonna go man. And that's what we did Thank you for being well, first of all, thank you for doing what you do in the world you uh, Take your own advice that you just gave us you you clearly are passionate and curious and expert and human Um, I have personally benefited From what you do for a living and I haven't had a chance to, I don't want to be all awkward, but thank you man for, you've influenced me and, uh, and I know you've influenced our audience and I just appreciate you being on growth driver today.

James Carbary: Appreciate it, man. This is, this has been a blast and, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm excited to connect with your audience and, um, uh, hopefully we can, we can go on this, finish out the journey together. 

John Common: Totally. Hey, but one last thing before we wrap. Did you just say that your wife is a dolphin trainer? 

James Carbary: Yeah, man, it dominates every single conversation outside of work.

I I I'm so fascinated about what we do and i'm like we have this freaking creator house and we have all this stuff and like I okay the second I start to get Hi, I'm my own supply. We go to dinner with friends that like, don't care at all about business, which is most of the time. And it comes up that my wife is a dolphin trainer at Disney world.

And that the rest of the conversation just becomes about my wife's career. And, uh, so I just be, I realized like how, uh, how insignificant my, 

John Common: I hate to, I hate to pile on, but like, I really love you, James. It's true. I'm way more into, into knowing your wife, 

James Carbary: she's now getting, she's getting her master's in marine mammal science now.

So I'm like, I'm, I'm legitimately, I'm like, how can I leverage what I am really curious about with her? And I'm like, I'm just going to turn her into the Andrew Huberman of marine mammal science. So that's, that's my current mission is there's no way I 

John Common: was going to end this episode without being like, did he say dolphin trainer?

Okay. All right. For being on growth driver, James, thanks for everything you do, buddy. And you know, we'll talk soon. Okay. 

James Carbary: All right. Talk to you soon. 

John Common: Well, that was time well spent with James Carberry. Uh, he and I have known each other for a long time, but we've never had a conversation like that. I'm so glad we captured it.

Hey, thank you also for spending time with us today. Uh, if you like what you're here, I want you to do me the favor of Subscribing, following us, uh, in whatever channel you like. Uh, we're already there. I promise. And also most importantly, I want you to share this episode with anybody at your company who is trying to figure out how to create messaging and content that your audience gives a shit about.

So do that for me. And then look, if, uh, if you don't know this already, Growth Driver is brought to you by the kind and intelligent people at Intelligent Demand. So if you work at a company that's got a major growth goal that you're sweating, that you're trying to figure out a smarter, less costly way to achieve growth, Reach out to them.

Go to intelligent demand. com. Uh, and I want you to say, Hey, I'd like to have a conversation with a growth expert. They would love to talk to you. Shout out to growth driver when you do that. And, uh, anything else I guess is to say, just see you soon on growth driver and thanks for spending your time with us today.

Bye.