Transcript
Stuart P Turner (Host): Hello, welcome back or welcome if this is your first time listening I am Stuart P Turner and this is the flow state podcast.
Now today I am excited to be talking to Alex Boyd who is the co-founder of Aware. Aware is a LinkedIn product that can help you and your team leverage the network more effectively to support your business objectives. Now it’s a cool product We use it I’ve used a few I I like this one the best.
Um and if you might indulge me briefly for a slightly longer intro than usual Alex and I both come from similar backgrounds. Um we both run service- based businesses We both built software products. Uh I’m currently doing both Alex is purely focused on the product side. So this discussion was really interesting for me. Um diving into some of my own uh you know successes and traumas from from that experience sharing those with Alex from his perspective in the US uh and really just digging into um how we’re addressing those challenges building startup businesses the relationships you know the highs the lows the whole gamut.
So I hope you enjoyed the conversation Let’s get stuck in Thanks for joining and welcome to the show. Um by way of a quick intro can you give us a quick sort of personal summary of uh of who you are and what you’re up to at the moment? Um and then we can dive into what I think will be quite an interesting conversation on the perils and pitfalls and benefits of LinkedIn.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Sure Uh thank you for having me on Stu. Um my uh what I’m working on is Aware It’s a tool to help founders sales teams LinkedIn agencies anyone doing LinkedIn do it better faster. Um engagement analytics CR that type of thing. Um the reason that I’m the co-founder of Aware is because um both I personally as a creator and seller um and as the founder of a agency that I’ve recently exited these last several years have been using LinkedIn for you know paying mortgage paying salary and growing a business with it and closing you know millions of dollars in revenue from my LinkedIn presence.
And so naturally as I did that there were areas where I thought well this should be better this should be better This should be better I want to be able to do this and the the tool just didn’t exist. So it sort of gave rise naturally to like okay well if you want to see the um this be be the SAS you want to see in the world as the goes right of course. Um so that’s where I came from. Um and yeah before that I was a seller head of sales. Um and before that I was a a broker Before that I did catering in high school or college. Um before that I was a young Wii one not doing any work at all. So um yeah right of me getting here has been um kind of through finance and and then tech and accounting through sales sales leadership. Uh took a detour in sort of marketing content um and all kind of converged around LinkedIn recently. So that’s kind of the the the what brought me here the why and a bit of the what of you know what what I’m doing now.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah look that thanks for sharing that because I think this is one of the things that I found quite interesting about you when we first started talking actually was your you know your how you’ve arrived at what you’re doing now is quite similar to my my background of like you know have lots of problems there are many software solutions allegedly out there but you never quite find the one that does exactly what you want. Um and obviously you know as an advocate of that way of you know deciding to build something I think that’s I think that’s awesome. Um and look I know I know this isn’t strictly speaking in in our notes actually but um I think you know given that obviously you’ve used uh I assume all the all the tools that are out there at the moment and you mentioned you’re still using LinkedIn as a a sort of pillar of building your business like you know do you think it’s still super important to have it there in your you know your business growth mix Like what’s your what’s your current hot take on on LinkedIn right now before we get into some of the use cases.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah Um is it super important Uh no I’m I’m definitely I’m always going to argue both sides. There are so many businesses for whom LinkedIn just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yeah Um there are also businesses for whom LinkedIn would make a lot of sense but they simply use different channels and they do perfectly well with it. Um I think in terms of so that that’s my actually hot take My hot take is not you have to use LinkedIn. It’s like no here’s a system if you want it that leverages LinkedIn but like you don’t have to do it This is just a good one Here are some benefits of it. Um but it’s not the only way. Um it’s not the only path that I’ve taught at all. Um it’s a path that I’ve chosen.
So if you’re in B2B if you’re in marketing if you’re selling to HR like you know anything where the the people you’re selling to are kind of professionals behind a desk it’s it’s hard to get away from the value of it. Yeah Um can you take other paths Sure. Um if you sell to plant managers field people um somewhere where the target market is not behind a desk less of a good use case you definitely still can. Um that’s a good use case.
But like for those that um use LinkedIn then it’s it’s the place to be It’s the water hole. Um the one caveat on that is people will say “Oh well you know tax professionals don’t use LinkedIn.” Yeah they don’t post but they do lurk They do use it for education They do use it for a lot of things. They just don’t you know post selfie videos. Um yeah So the caveat there is like uh when I say use I mean like use as in login have an account login actively I don’t mean our creators. There are a very low portion of creators um of executives out there and we don’t want to sell to credits We want to sell to people who are not creating. Um so that’s my take on LinkedIn Um not required very good idea um if you are selling to the sort of you know behind the desk kind of crowd.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Right Yeah Look I think that’s um interesting nuance that you don’t often hear in uh the you know the immediate reactions when you say like look we’re gonna we’re going to do LinkedIn right in a company.
And um also a good segue into into starting to sort of talk about why it’s I guess why it is important if your audience is on there. But I think um you raised a couple of interesting points there which is obviously the general context like from my um my kind of uh time on the network and talking to people is that it’s got a bit weird recently. Like there’s a lot of to your point like the creator side I think like any social network is a small somewhat annoying minority of people who just play the algorithm game right typically because they run a business that relies on them doing that stuff.
Um but I’ve also seen I’m sure you’ve seen the same things There’s a lot of commentary around you know people using it kind of like a dating site which I like you know potentially on board with It’s a bit a bit of a reach I think but um there’s that going on There’s a lot of like the random fluff content that people seem to hate. There’s a lot of the new feature stuff coming out all the time People saying it’s like become Facebook you know in the sort of early 2000s.
So uh you know in terms of um how you how you kind of address that do do you think those are big issues or can we just kind of ignore all that weird stuff and get on with our day-to-day jobs?
Alex Boyd (Guest): You know it’s funny I had um a lot of this question I trained a couple hundred sales reps last week at an on-site for a major fintech company and a lot of them brought this up They said “Well it’s it’s becoming Facebook.” And all sorts of all manner of similar like sort of complaints about what LinkedIn is becoming. Yeah Um almost as if I could solve them. Um could you could you not solve them in the session was that like I’m thinking like um unless you are in a position of influence at LinkedIn or Microsoft you’re not you’re not influencing what LinkedIn is becoming as a product um nor does what nor is it a monolith.
Like if to all the posts and people who are posting things you think they quote unquote shouldn’t be posting they are but you can unfollow them It’s just that simple of like either you don’t use it you use it but you curate it in the way that makes sense to you or um you accept what you get and there’s there’s no like in none of those options is complaining about what it is or is becoming hopeful to your revenue goals. It’s like yeah maybe all those things are true in some cases but I can unfollow the people I don’t like I can carve out my own circle I can take a break from it I can not use it. But like the um there’s this I think people have this sort of it used to be the golden age where it was just a site and I like that Well tough block because LinkedIn wants to make more money and just having a resume site does not create a lot of engagement. So there you freaking go So yeah maybe those things are true. Um but it doesn’t have to affect any of us It could just be true and then you go over this corner of LinkedIn do your own thing and make it whatever you want it to be.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Yeah I think it’s I mean obviously reassuring to hear that that’s come up from uh from such a large group as well cuz I think um I have a lot of the same conversations where you just I think people naturally tend to fixate on uh sort of not not necessarily the wrong things but um well no I suppose it is the wrong things right. I mean you you know it’s much easier to kind of winge about something than it is to sort of sit down and actually work out how to you know just do do something that seems a bit difficult right.
And like I think um probably some offense to all the sales people that that might listen to this but you know they’re not necessarily the uh the people that are your go-to for doing stuff that seems hard are they? Like they’re always looking for like the fastest way to revenue which is which is fine That’s kind of part of the job. But I do feel like social media you know has become a challenge for everybody now right? To your point around the the direction and the algorithms that you kind of feel like you’re fighting against it does it does make it difficult to sometimes just achieve something that should be simple.
Alex Boyd (Guest): That’s true Yeah I mean there there there is it is harder to just post anything of the let’s assume if you keep the quality of post message everything else constant. Um it’s harder to achieve more sheer eyeballs today than it was to say four years ago 10 years ago. And that’s that’s that’s even that’s a sharper critique than it’s becoming Facebook which is more of like a loose vague critique the critique of like it is more difficult to have business success on LinkedIn that okay yeah that’s that’s fair.
Is it still worth doing in an age where it’s harder to get organic reach? Um I think we’re still very much in the age where you can get plenty and enough. Um it’s just not quite as easy that’s okay. Um the the question still is you know accept the reality in front of you um is it the best place to reach people you want to reach or you know the alternative is um okay well Tik Tok has fantastic organic reach right now but who are you reaching?
So um there may come a time when I say yeah LinkedIn’s not the place unless you pay and in which case it’s too expensive and it doesn’t make sense anymore for smaller players who aren’t having like enterprise budgets but until that time I don’t think we’re there yet. Um and it’s just like I said accept the landscape of social media as it is play the game how you will you know win it if you want. But the complaining isn’t making any money right? So like it’s just a question of do you want to do stuff that makes you money or not? Um that uh that’s a question most people don’t contemplate too often.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah And it’s that it’s a funny one A because I you know what I like about what what you’re doing with um with aware and you know the reason that we even I guess started having this conversation is like we as in we like at flow state like adopt exactly the same approach of my background is like SEO originally and um e-commerce and then you know I moved over to B2B like probably eight eight or nine years ago to sort of focus.
But the yeah the magic of LinkedIn to me as a business tool for any of your common use cases is exactly that there’s still as a channel there’s still quite a good balance of the option of organic reach and direct communication which is not freely available in many places now um balanced with not amazing paid options but you know not terrible either compared to other social networks.
Whereas if you look at a journey like the one that Facebook or now Meta have been on who are obviously a bit further ahead like you know we had the heyday of like oh great you can reach loads of people for free this is awesome then they started realizing that you know that it actually costs a lot of money to run Facebook and they needed to skew towards the advertising model whereas now they’re just you know they’re dominated by advertising and there’s very few places at least for us and and our clients that are useful on Facebook now.
Whereas if you’re a small business for example like it’s I would be like look great yeah there’s some ways you can make it work for for free still. Um but yeah to me like I think if you put the winging aside that’s where a lot of the value of like LinkedIn is it’s like it combines a big free database with a lot of very interesting ways for you to create a relatively cheap destination um and just talk to people that you would never be able to talk to right. Like you’re not going to get them on the phone very very surprised if you could get an email in front of them out of nowhere. Like it’s it’s pretty useful just on paper I think.
Alex Boyd (Guest): I think so too That’s why I’m continuing to to um you know double down per se but I’m just continuing uh I’m singling down I’m just continuing I like it I’ve been I’m 1.2xing down I’m doing 20% How about that I’m not even doubling down That’s an exaggeration. Um but it’s it’s it’s like if it were a stock it’d be a hold you know. Um maybe even a mild buy It’s not a strong buy It’s not a sell It’s between hold and a mild buy basically.
Stuart P Turner (Host): I like that I like that’s a good analogy I think. Yeah Um and look I think um I’m keen to kind of get into uh some of the you know some of the details of of why you’re you know you’ve now moved from service to software as well just based on what you’re seeing because uh you raised this in in the sort of the notes we were putting together about the challenges around the network.
So going back to that point you just raised of you know one if you’ve answered the question of yes LinkedIn’s a relevant channel for us there’s a load of other questions that immediately start to emerge there of like am I going to try and get my sales team on board Do we all need to become LinkedIn’s top voice 2024 You know what what are we doing What’s our strategy for the channel? Um and I know a common question that comes up that that you raised as well is like do do we do it in house Do we just trust people to do stuff where there’s very limited oversight you know at a sort of aggregate level or do we outsource this to someone else and then risk being another one of those boilerplate you know spam outreach template number three companies? Like what what are your thoughts on how that’s all working and and what what have your experiences been you know running your own service business in that space and doing it for yourself versus what’s happening right now? If that isn’t too broad a series of questions to answer.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah that um like how do you so let’s you know let’s say you’re a B2B organization you’re just a person you’re you’re a company how do we make LinkedIn work as a team? um uh it’s kind of like any channel right like let’s say you’re you were going to do um SEO in earnest. Um did you hire for that specific count on your team do you have good marketers who happen to be good at paid design brand product marketing but you just don’t have an SEO freaking pro on your team that’s case for an agency.
And And um between that there’s obviously you know good and bad agencies. So it’s not the case that the flowchart isn’t I don’t have it on my team I hire any agency It’s I don’t have on my team I hire only a good agency Same thing for LinkedIn. So like um the the difference is there are many fewer marketers who know how to do LinkedIn organic executive social because this is more rare skill. So it’s less likely you’ll have somebody on your team who is really good at that.
As a result it’s um well they’re also agencies popping up by the dozen every week for these days. Um I had one of one of the first um LinkedIn I say the first of like some sort of weird golden age thing but um there were many fewer agencies doing organic LinkedIn posts for executives um when when I started doing that. Um and uh so you know it’s often a good idea to get a good agency.
Um so what are the different outcomes you can see? Well you you hire an agency and they do fluff content Well you pick the wrong agency. Um you you say “No we’re going to do it in house In-house is always better.” You produce fluff content. Um which I’ve seen often. Um I’ I’ve of I’ve seen it both ways where like the agency produces bad stuff they bring in a house it’s better I’ve seen it where um they bring it in house worse.
Um it’s at the end of the day whether the the people who are working on this effort are paid through an agency payroll or they’re paid on your own payroll It doesn’t really matter. It matters what the brains are and a little bit what the tools are but like most people what the brains are that are doing this thing. Um whether those brains are compensated indirectly or directly that’s that’s less important.
Um so the sort of agency question is like it’s it’s just about the people regardless. Um the team uh do you get your sales team to do it Kind of. Most reps aren’t going to do anything Most sales people are not going to participate in this. They’re if they’re hitting goal do they need to Yeah Um no is my my position. But some a few will step up and say “This this somehow works for me I want to do it more.”. They’re just they’re sort of naturally selfmotivated. Those are your kind of social stars. They’re participating with marketing they’re doing more with the company. Um they’re the people you know who the company might want to dedicate resources to elevating um individually.
Um the main shift regardless of how you handle it is it’s not about the company page it’s about the people who work at the company and their interesting points of view. Yeah Um so however you do this whatever tools whatever posts whatever frequency whatever whatever anything uh you need to have something interesting to say and that’s the core of it.
Um my favorite tool for figuring out what you have that is interesting to say is the challenger sale or challenger customer bolt. Uh the um what’s wrong with the picture? Here’s why it’s worse than you think Here’s a new perspective and way of looking at it. Um here’s a new way of of going about that perspective and and finally here’s our product that you know lets you do that new way better um going through those steps intellectually rigorously usually if done right and if you have anything interesting to say will yield that stuff and then that’s the stuff you post about by and large.
Um I refer to that as strategic narrative. So if you get strategic narrative dialed in from there it’s just the choice of like okay who’s going to work on this who’s going to participate it’s sort of a typical like project to manage um once you get your sort of here’s what I want to say to the world um locked in and I don’t mean locked is like said and done but like this is broadly what we want to tell people. Um and I do that every day about LinkedIn I have a message about LinkedIn. Um which is sort of encapsulated by what we’ve been saying. Uh but then I distribute that narrative on LinkedIn and then the rest of is just details.
Yeah Um that’s how to do it as a team. Um I mostly talked about the distinctions that don’t matter as much which is agency in house post frequency who exactly works on it those things don’t matter as much as um what are you saying and why like it is saturated you need to stand out what’s your unique version and you figure that out the rest becomes for for any moderately skilled practitioner it becomes more more uh much more doable and easy.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah look I think you’ve touched on a number of interesting points there and I you know I I agree completely with your with your line of thinking like obviously coming from a marketing background you know that whole customer centricity piece and like just having something useful to say from a purely you know human perspective I think are two of the basics that often get like weirdly overlooked when people start obsessing over you know like how to do the the channel.
Um and you see this loads in you know like obviously as we’re talking social media like you you I’m sure have seen the same thing on like particularly Instagram and Tik Tok as you mentioned where there’s all this like trend like rubbish that like I mean obviously it’s not rubbish It works but you know like these are pure like what does Instagram want right now? You know what I would call fluff content because my business doesn’t run off that kind of content right I’m not like a fashion creator. But if I was and I was trying to resell you know sweat sweat shop fashion from Sheen or whatever I’d be like “Yeah I’d be all over that stuff because that’s what would work for for me in that you know possible future business that I might move into.”.
Um what I wanted to get your opinion on as well though just just touch on a couple of the points you made there is um we um so a common use case for us is exactly as you’ve said like trying to um blend together the sort of you know the sales and the marketing elements of communication on on LinkedIn and other channels.
And where we often um hit up against a few of those uh kind of sticking points that you raised is the you know we’re normally engaged by a marketer so they’re like okay great but they’re a B2B marketer. So they’re sort of you know the remitting encompasses a fair bit of like lead generation or demonstrating impact on revenue and all that sort of stuff. We obviously also then start talking to the sales people who we don’t you know we’re not engaged by but we have to work with and be friends with. So I’ve probably just alienated all of them with everything that I’ve just said so far in this in this show.
But um we often will find there’s a mix exactly as you’ve said of you know a few people who like get it they’re just you know they’re the the guns who are just out there just kind of trying everything and and doing stuff. Um but the rest tend to fall into a pretty broad pool of um people who are happy to work with us and just you know don’t want to spend the time. They’re happy for us just to kind of manage their profiles and ghostrite and and activate a load of that stuff. Um and then there’s always the contingent that you mentioned of you know the sort of naysayers who are like I think just get sucked into these programs because they kind of have to a little bit um and then end up kind of dragging the chain a bit because they’re just not really on board like they don’t really want to do it.
So how do you um how do you sort of approach um you know a group like that Have you got any sort of uh you know any of the cheat codes for making that work more effectively or is that just something that needs to be addressed on a kind of case by case basis as you as they come up?
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah it’s tough I mean there um I think a principle of selling that I apply to this is um you can’t really bring people to the exact attitude level you want. Like let’s say you as a you know marketer or agency or whoever is leading the charge you’re operating at like a enthusiasm level of eight and you’re going to get some eights some tens. Um maybe your scope of work includes working with a three your job is not to take the three and make them an eight the job is to take them to 4.2 and then uh do a little bit for them.
But like you’re not going to be able to um write as much content for them You’re not going be able to get as many interviews from them The interviews won’t be as good. Um so so it’s a losing battle to try to three attitude and make them an eight attitude with respect to this channel um if if there’s some reason why like you know the market has to hear from this person They’re just so credible and they’re the three you kind of have to strike them the minimum level of like finding a way to get them even a little bit more excited. But the the key is not to expect they’ll go above a you know a four or five.
Um and the skill is if you can even get them from a three and and not turn them into a one or two by doing it badly. Because there’s actually a lot of um this happens a lot when you when you delegate the like more junior marketer and you say “All right junior marketer we’re going to do this.” you have to interview this three out of 10 attitude on this channel person who is like much more senior than you highly technical and they do it badly and the person goes like loses even what little faith they did have.
Yeah So the bar for quality working with more reticent executives is ever more high because of that. The enthusiastic ones will talk to a wall or an AI program just yeah shoot content all day like boom and they’ll just talk on the computer because they’re just so jazzed about it which doesn’t work for the ones who aren’t as good. Um whether it’s good on camera good at interview explaining over interviews.
Um yeah there’s just that those people need a practiced hand. Um that’s often a big pitfall for running this in house is um you had the wrong person interview some of your executives now they want to do it even less and it just kind of destroyed your your chance for it until somebody new enters the picture. So that’s a that’s a pitfall of not having the right person on that. Um whereas you know if if you’re only working with executives that are pumped then you have more of a um your leash is longer basically.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Yeah Yeah look I think that that’s a really interesting point you raised there actually as well cuz we we haven’t done a lot of the um the executive side to be honest in in Flow State but we did do some in like the previous the previous place I worked at and um yeah everything you said kind of definitely definitely chimes with the experience of writing for them They’re a you know they’re a unique breed the uh sort of previous generation of sea sweetite types right? Who like you say just either seem to be very much one extreme or the other They’re like super gung-ho or they’re just like who the hell are you guys Like why why am I here?
Um but I have actually found in a couple of the recent engagements we’ve had that um you know back to the point we were talking about about whether we’re doing things completely in house or not. We you know we’ve done some consulting with a couple of um startup businesses at a couple of different stages where they’re trying to get all this off the ground. You know we’re building the content strategy around a they’re product based businesses. So we’ve got obviously like the product marketing template is there but we’re like okay well you know how are we tying this to your specific you know sort of industry segments and customer challenges.
I’m um you know a big fan of the challenger the challenger approach as well um they’re really struggling to get a forum off the ground internally because they do have a lot of domain experts and a lot of product experts. But the um the leads of the programs that we’re running internally are just very much struggling to get any real enthusiasm around sharing that information. Um even for basic stuff like you know we’re trying to get like a quarterly newsletter type update off the ground and we’re like well who knows stuff and you’re like oh it’s three people who just don’t want to talk to us basically.
So um how have you like have you come across that before as well Alex? Like have you have you sort of if everyone’s just like really in transit and is just like whatever Do you do you just give up or is there a way to try and get them on board um you know via some other vehicle?
Alex Boyd (Guest): The only way usually it’s either give up or somebody above them um is able to um convince them basically like all right we need the VP of technology to be doing these things well it’s hire somebody else who knows the stuff consultant like get otherme from somewhere else um convince the CEO to convince the recent person to participate which can work if the CEO like pitches it differently right it can open their mind to it.
Um if neither of those things can happen you can do it but it won’t be as good. Um because you have to get like low quality expertise. Like every marketer or marketing agency knows when they’ve been put in the position of needing to deliver lowquality stuff because like that was the job. And you can either like give up and that just for for a variety of reasons you may not want to give up. You may occasionally want to put out lowquality stuff in the name of a larger mission. Um because in that one instance you just could not get the job done and you’re not going to throw in the towel as a result.
So it pains me to see but like sometimes um yeah like all right we’re going to mostly focus on the CEO but we also want to interview the CTO The CTO’s stuff is going to be not as good. Um way you can that is expectation setting. You can just communicate this to everybody politely like we’ve noticed less interest and uptake from this department on participate in the effort. Um use all the jargon you want to cushion the blow if you need to to make people feel good internally. Um but like set expectations that of what’s going to come out.
Um if you know it’s going to be less good tell people so um so that they’re ready for it. Um but yeah at the end of the day it’s a marketing initiative and if you um don’t have the expertise yourself can’t get it um then you can’t pull it out of thin air. In short of crazy shit like you know going and acquiring the expertise yourself which occasionally I’ve done in the in the rarest of circumstances.
Um for example I had to write myself I didn’t have to I chose uh was in kind of a bind and myself chose to write about 9,000 words worth of AI ethics content. Wow I just had to pick up the book Quite an undertaking straight away. There was no alternative but like reading this whole book back to front really understanding it and and doing that. So like sure maybe you say “Well Alex you’re not trying hard enough.” Yeah I’ I’ve done the thing where you try harder It’s not usually about that but um occasionally if you’re just an ultra badass marketer you become the expert you need.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Okay.
Alex Boyd (Guest): They do that That’s not um something most meds of marketing are if you’re willing to do. Uh but um I have done it. Um and it’s it’s great It’s my most satisfying way of being a marketer is to acquire the expertise on some level myself. Um right that.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Look I think um one of my old clients actually was uh who’s also a big advocate another finance guy as well um actually who uh he um he he phrased it as you know becoming a student of the market I think was the phrase he used cuz he was he he was your classic like um going back quite a few years now but I don’t think he’d you know I don’t think he gone to uni or any done any kind of higher education you know kind of left school got into finance and he was like just kind of learned it all on the job but he was you know your top 10% as you mentioned mentioned earlier kind of just threw himself at everything.
But I thought that really stuck with me cuz um you know that was that was how I learned all the digital stuff that I now know that you know like you just kind of forget I guess how you pick stuff up right? Like um I think you I think it’s really interesting just yeah hearing you talk through that that yeah you’re definitely in probably a small small um segment of the market I would say who would go to that extreme to get in there but it definitely helps you well maybe it doesn’t help I think it helps you get at least get a better idea of where you want to go around what you should be doing versus uh just sitting back and letting other people kind of dictate what the the direction of travel is for you.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah definitely I mean the the the higher up you go in marketing the more it’s a political job.
Stuart P Turner (Host): And look I think um you know jump jumping off from there as well just just kind of circling back around to um you know to the the sort of the the LinkedIn challenges I think where where we see a lot of uh I guess that tension just to your point around you know we’re not necessarily doing award-winning work all the time. It’s like content for social media at the end of the day I feel like um I’m trying to temper this you know it’s an ongoing challenge like that often particularly in marketing the standards are set probably unrealistically high. And I’m always like you know aiming to your point you’re aiming for like a 10 whereas you might just need like a three could be the incremental improvement right from the current 2.5.
Um do you feel like in the you know the sort of the customers that you guys have now with your previous relationships like has that been a challenge as well? Like is that is that sort of stopped progress or do you feel like that’s just you know that’s just us having unrealistic expectations and most people are like that’s not even an issue like nothing needs to be that good?
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah I mean they’re the ones for whom it just needs to be done preferably better. Um those are the most successful marketing teams of just like not letting perfection hold them back. I think um it’s funny because you say that and people like yeah that makes sense and they get into a lot of marketers hold agencies and consultants to a ridiculously higher standard than an in-house team. Um no matter no matter what the channel is LinkedIn or otherwise.
Um I’ll often see like the standard on an agency being so high like there was a typo in this I feel like this idea wasn’t communicated as strongly as it could have um they bring it back in house and the next thing they put out is like half as good at best and you’re like okay clearly like you know if your standard for an agency was a 9 out of 10 your in-house standard is like a five and the agency did an 8.5 and missed and in-house did a six and beat but it’s just expectations.
Um it goes back to the like regardless of whether your team is 1099 through an agency W2 you in-house full-time whatever whatever the thing is what are the brains this regardless of compensation what are the who are the people who are contributing to this um but I’ve definitely missed that like um if you’re going to bring it in the house set expectations accordingly if expectations are super high um I mean I get it if if it’s people you work with every day who are sort of quote unquote part of your team you’re going to try to be softer sometimes um where it’s easier to be less off on a quote unquote third party So you feel you can really like push them more. Um whether you can or can’t is kind of beyond the scope of this.
Yeah I think a lot of people do that is because you know it’s harder to say well you know uh Jacob over in marketing is really trying his best And frankly the agency is kind of better but like he’s already on our payroll so.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Plus you know to your point you’re like I’ve got to like see that guy every day right Whereas your agency you can be like I just I’m not going to meet him I’ll just ignore them and you know just email instead. Yeah.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah and dude um you know I’m gonna email like uh you know more personally just all all the little things um whereas whole another podcast we could do about um how being a good buyer and procure of oh man you deal on everything and gets you better work but like that’s that’s a whole other thing which is true.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah yeah look happily could talk about that for forever as well like I won’t you know I won’t bore you with my endless series of uh complaints and you know rundown of of service life. But I think um you did you have just kind of reminded me actually like and and circling back around to something you mentioned earlier I think the the two points that are directly related to that um that I found have become easier I don’t know whether it’s just because I’m you know I’m running like a relatively small business now and like it’s everyone has to talk to me whether that’s good or bad um well they don’t have to but you know they they will at some point but I’ve actually found on you know on your point of um the in-house versus outsource like just we often are now brought in purely I think from a look we need someone to keep us accountable and keep things moving sort of motivation which I find quite interesting.
Because um where that ties to what you were saying before about you know whether you’re a good client or not whether you’re a good agency I’ve found that um as I’ve become sort somewhat older and more grizzled Like I’ve been holding back less when I’m not happy in meetings. And like when I was working for other agencies obviously my you know leeway to do that was more limited Couldn’t just go in and tell people what I really thought because I would be fired immediately. But now that I’m running my own business I can kind of be like look you know I I don’t have to work with anybody I mean obviously I need I need to make money to live but you know I’ve got I’ve got much less time for people who don’t treat me with the respect that I treat them and don’t you know it to your point if there’s unequal standards in a relationship like no time for that now. Like I’m like you’re not holding me to like some sort of 10 out of 10 standard if you yourself don’t uphold that same standard now.
So um now that you’ve shifted into sort of software world like have you found that that’s changed your relationships with your customers or like um are you still sort of maintaining that? And then as a sort of follow-up questions there I just um just want to touch on the the change in the nature of the relationship between service and software as well but like hold that thought for a minute and yeah let me know what you think on on the first one.
Alex Boyd (Guest): I mean they’re highly related right? I um I sought out this business model because I wanted a different relationship with the customers. Um uh the dynamics of like you know being able needing to kind of meter out my thoughts on their standard of work You don’t have to do that as a software provider. You can just like look all I’m doing is helping you be successful with the tool. Um for for those where it really matters and it makes sense pick and choose to dive in but it’s not my job to dive into your whole strategy.
Um and that’s that’s that was an intentional thing um that I wanted. So so yeah the the reason for switching from services to SAS was was for that primarily. Um part of it is just you know if you have an agency and you have 10 clients each of whom are 10% of your revenue then like each one matters a ton. So you kind of have to be a little more um you know attentive to the tone of every word in Slack and all these things in Slack It’s kind of emotionally exhausting if you’re someone like me who’s not necessarily um wired to enjoy that sort of thing than not.
Yeah Yeah Whereas if I mean you could be a software company with 10 customers too but that’s different. Usually you have many more customers than that and aware does. And so um no single customer relationship for better or worse is make or break. Um they’re they’re all important especially the you know larger paying ones but like um I don’t have to care uh nearly as much.
So there isn’t this like the worst thing about running agency is the cortisol spike of a of a client getting cranky. Yeah Fuck I got to dive in and like deal with that right like why are they cranky If they have a good reason I got to correct it If they’re not a good reason well what the hell is the reason? You know in that um with a with a software customer it’s like the the spike is much lower right? It’s a much flatter spike of like cranky customer like okay well you know I can kind of dive in and see what’s wrong. But um maybe this is just a critique of me that I should be better at handling those. But I just found that um it’s stressful over time to always be so vigilant about the the little things here and there and how smaller clients are um acting and feeling than a larger group. The larger group it’s just um the risk is more diffuse and that just feels better for me.
Um so it is uh your follow-up question and your main question are for me in one and the same that I wanted that new relationship in that way and that’s why I um you know became less operational in my agency to focus on on this.
Stuart P Turner (Host): That’s um like yeah thanks for sharing that cuz I think this is an often again an often overlooked side of working in agencies that like because I’ve I’ve done it for a long time as well now I think it’s like 20 20 plus years at this point of working in digital agencies is and um yeah I think you uh yeah you don’t often talk about this sort of you know cuz I get quite emotionally invested in like client relationships and you know obviously try not to get weirdly invested in them obviously but you know you you naturally do cuz you want to do a good job and you like get to know the people you’re working with.
Um but I had a very similar experience from you know our own previous like SAS business that was exactly the same where you sort of like a product either like does it does stuff and it doesn’t do stuff which immediately mentally for me like just puts it into a much simpler box to manage. Because you’re like well you know can you achieve what you want to achieve There’s a few sort of gray area bits around the edge where you’re like maybe you’re just not thinking about it the right way. But it’s like way easier just to be like look if you if you’re criticizing something that just is like a you know UI issue or a feature issue whatever It’s simple right You either you can fix it or you can’t fix it.
Um having said that though like do you find that you’re uh do you find that you’re getting kind of sucked back in a little bit to that sort of you know the more emotive side now Alex now that you you know you sort of made the official shift do do you feel like you’ll be able to maintain a bit more of a an emotional equilibrium with your um product customers versus your service customers?
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah it’s um it like I said it’s not gone it’s just more diffuse right? So now it’s more like like a broad undercurrent of we’re hearing from customers generally that they want to be able to do this and we don’t do it yet. Like that’s like a just it’s it’s good It’s motivation It pushes you forward to make the product better. Um I mean lots of the stuff we build is because it was the top rated feature request. Um so that’s still there There’s It’s not like you lose the desire to serve customers.
It’s just not you’re not um I’m no one customer’s bad mood that day can affect something big right? Um in because it’s less personal um whether the software does or doesn’t currently do a thing they want is not due to um whether you were trying hard right? Whereas versus versus like was this particular piece of content good enough It’s like well could we have worked harder Could we have done better And they think maybe if I had just like pushed them harder and there’s this weird tension that you don’t have.
Yeah Um it’s it’s it’s less personal by nature and it’s clearer It’s more defined of like um rather than maybe I can lead this team of people to do better It’s like did we or did we not build this feature we have not built it yet. Like maybe you can criticize us for having not built it yet but matter is we haven’t um doesn’t do that yet We think we might build it in the future at roughly this time but like either it does or doesn’t do it now.
And so on a now to now basis um no bad mood can shift anything No nobody um suddenly has higher expectations of their software that is ne typically working for them and cancels it if it’s delivering value for them. Um you don’t usually um like use a product for a long time get pissed at it and all in one go cancel it. Yeah Generally right Like Slack Oh Slack was down Has anybody cancel Slack cuz it was down I don’t think so Does anyone cancel it ever I think once they’re in they’re in forever now aren’t they That’s pretty much it.
Yeah But an agency you wake up one morning you have one weird interaction and they just like send you an email like you know we’re giving notice like we were crushing it for you What’s your what’s your deal? Basically this happened months ago It was like we had we were um had just done a small case study of like how we you know just had these such clear attributable demonstrable revenue impacts. And then a couple more weird interactions between someone on the account team and someone on the client team who who you know like kind of weren’t personally compatible that much yet nevertheless were able to work together. That just doesn’t happen in software but it did here like you really shouldn’t be be winding this down um but the people involved it just the the amount of variables to manage just can get overwhelming whereas in software the the those amount of variables are um much smaller and much more contained.
Yeah So it’s it’s good practice for building equinimities to run an agency. And just like can I accept all these things but matter is is more difficult the bar for that is much higher than if you does you know the shoe fits or it doesn’t.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah And look I think um I mean again without getting too distracted like I’ve had Yeah I’ve had a lot of those experiences in the past of uh back when I was working in the UK and um I think it was in the first or second digital agency I was in just you know the firings for no reason basically where you’re like everything’s going well campaign’s going well delivering results you know change of decision maker or staff and suddenly they’re like oh we just don’t like you guys and you’re like yeah great that that’s the end of that chapter basically. Yeah good uh character building stuff I believe is how it’s um you know how it’s reframed when you look when you look back at it.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Uh yeah hopefully uh in some cases it does do that and you know a lot of my best learnings were from were reverse learnings that you know what not to do by what managers did that they shouldn’t have done early a big thing I learned from um but it can also work positively I could I could have just as well learned from what to do from good role models. So I’m not I’m not going to glorify uh the character building of it because that is the less preferable way to build character than possibly a thing. But um sure if if that happens we may as well take what we can from it.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah I yeah looking back on the yeah the range I would agree with that to be honest. Yeah I think it’s it’d be nice to have had the more you know the the uplifting ones instead of the um you’re fired and you guys suck for no reason experiences right? Um but lucky you you know sticking with that theme um and going back to what you were saying um at the start Alex I think what I’d be interested to hear from you about as well is the given that you’ve you’ve done the same thing right You’ve shifted from a service business into now a product business.
I often find that people will pick up your tool for example and you obviously you guys design it you’ll be like this is super straightforward to use you know like why why would you not know how it works? But I know from our past experience as well that often what you feel like you’ve laid out very um you know in a very clear and self-explanatory manner people just don’t get. Like are you so are you finding that the the knowledge that you have from your service experience is now benefiting you in running and selling the tool and like are you are you guys sharing that or are you keeping that all kind of behind the scenes like how’s that working currently and how do you sort of you know blend the two together?
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah I mean I’m starting to produce more content um for agencies on like um how to run and grow a great LinkedIn agency because we sell to them and that’s more the target market. So I’m starting to produce more about that. Um I was thinking about creating a miniourse and I was like okay if I’m going to create a mini course do I create like a LinkedIn commenting course or a how to grow your LinkedIn agency course? It’s like at first I thought it was obvious the former but now I’m thinking like you know which one do I prioritize?
Um and yeah the agency customers just tend to get it better. Uh they need less explanation. Um the individual solo users of aware will ask me like you know this person posted six minutes ago and I don’t see the post in a way yet. I’m like “Yeah can you think of any reason why that might be like why we might not have like a real time you know perfect data feed with LinkedIn?” Like you know think about it. Um but like it’s impossible to rename your lists The icon is over here versus right there Did you not just click on that one? So obviously I can’t say that.
So I’m more in like oh go into curious mode of like huh you’re right. Like and I I’ve learned to see those things um which don’t really happen as much in agencies because sophisticated relatively buyers that buy from agencies are usually like you know later in their career. You’re not you’re not um uh being procured by more junior people who who haven’t figured some of those things out. So you get less of that feedback whereas I’m finding as a product company owner um you get feedback from from people who are like um less thoughtful.
And so it I’m learning to be curious about that feedback because it it’s driving us to create a product that can be used by a group of both thoughtful and unthoughtful people. Uh which you know I could we could only sell to the sophisticated or I could say I would like to sell to um all groups people for example. For a while I was like we’re not going to add AI commenting It’s so bad. And then enough people asked for it and I was in my head I was like what do I want more to only work with people who don’t use AI comments or do I want to take their money like they want what if we just gave it to them?
Yeah And I don’t use it I’m not going to use it. But like it’s there now and aware you could you can use AI commenting and we kind of prefer for it to be a little bit better than the average We think it is but like um uh I I made that call and I I was just like give people what they want Stop Get off your high horse.
Right Even as an agency you might take a stand and say we don’t do this but as a product company well we’re the the um the bar for that goes down I think um uh it’s an interesting shift I’ve noticed. Um it’s a little bit less like quoteunquote noble in a way. Yeah Very noble like here’s the way we do things very prescriptive product. It’s like we serve you we serve you we serve you What do you want? Like you know a happy meal like agency like we’ll take you through very consultative challenger sale like uh product is a little more ordery where like I’m not going to tell you as much how to use it All I want is you to to um just stay with it for a long time Whatever is going to make you retain. Yeah we’re do that.
So um it’s the getting curious about the feedback from people whose feedback seems like like makes you do a double take of like that Okay. And then yeah then you you build it for them So that’s what I’ve been learning.
Stuart P Turner (Host): I had a very similar experience when I first started flow state when I finished up at the previous place of kind of you know we it’s pitched as kind of a bit of a hybrid where we we talk about being an agency cuz people get that but like we’ve you know we only we have a solution that we sell that is a like a growth program that we kind of I hate the word but like you know productized I guess it’s more of a scoping exercise but it just helps us lock down what we do so that we don’t get lost in conversations I’m sure are very familiar to you of like but can you do this and then how do you do this and could you also do this other thing because we’re trying to avoid that. Um and just stay focused.
But yeah I found the same thing when I started where I was like look you know this having been in previous agencies that did stick to the whole you know we’re like no we’re pure and we work like this and this is our you know flaming torch of like how we’re better than everyone else. And I was like well can’t really be bothered with that this time because to your point loads of people are always asking me for stuff. One of my mentors has always given me a fair bit of shit about this where because I was like I don’t want to do SEO anymore when I first started because I’ve been doing it for years. And he was like looks dude like if people are um asking you for SEO still and you can do it and you find it easy and boring why don’t you let them pay you money to do something that you find very easy? And I was like well I mean it sounds a bit stupid to say no when you when you phrase it like that. And he was like so um yeah that definitely you know what you were saying really sort of chimes with me away.
I just think again to your point about being maybe getting a bit too emotionally invested in what you’re doing like I just you know constantly have it thrown in my face that you’re like as much as I like you know get really behind what we’re delivering you ultimately you just have a you’ve got a business relationship right and that could be that could stop tomorrow for no reason. You know that I’m even aware of or something outside our control so yeah it’s definitely something I’ you know I think it’s an ongoing struggle right when you just kind of care about what you’re doing and you want to do it to a high standard um that I haven’t really found a a good balanced way to manage personally I think it’s just you know the ups and downs of of work life I guess.
Alex Boyd (Guest): I think so too Yeah I mean there’s no there’s no end to it. It’s just sort of leaning in different directions iterating getting a little better yourself you know improving your own emotional constitution your ability to handle those ups and downs that are external. Um but yeah it doesn’t as long as you’re in the market right if you are in the marketplace if you were in the bizaar no matter what you’re selling like there’s going to be some of that. Um the only way to not experience that is to be idle not be in the market and then you have a different problem.
Um so men in the arena so on and so forth like you know pick something that works that doesn’t um you know stress you out so much You can’t do your best work but you’re not going to get away from it You’re always going to have to deal with that. So it’s a matter of balancing the discomfort of growth with the opportunity.
And there are some things that would stress me out too much even though I’d make more money doing them. Uh if I did a speak engagement every month I would make more money. Uh it’s very lucrative work but it exhausts me and I just don’t want. So like there’s stuff like that where you just say we make these trade-offs for um you know I want to run an agency but I’m not going to do X even if I could make money because I just don’t feel like it. Um or because I’m not proud of it or whatever it is. But um there’s you know there’s there’s making too many of those trade-offs and being too pure and you give up too much opportunity. Um and that I can’t tell anyone where the right balance is You have to lean into it for yourself. But um it’s okay to make some I think definitely. You know there’s not there’s not like you need to do X Y and you need to do everything you asked just because you can make money from it like that is soulless. Um but like you said there’s no right answer You have to find the right balance for you.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Look I it’s good it’s good that you that you raise it I think cuz I um you know another theme that comes up a lot in these conversations is the you know just people tend to forget the human side of actually working particularly in B2B. Like I know people have this like weird mental disconnect when you’re working in the B2B industry that like there’s no human people there. It’s like no it’s business business and you’re like we’re like you know obviously you guys are the same like our entire business is essentially centered around remembering that you are trying to talk to people You’re not talking to a company the people are in the company that we’re trying to talk to right like.
Um so uh yeah it just seems again it’s just the basics I guess but that’s one of the big things that I think shapes a lot of our engagements is like you know it’s not like can we talk to aware we’re like no I I need to talk to like Alex aware like what is he interested in what’s he what’s he got to say for himself. Like it’s that that’s a big part of most of our planning and strategizing is all around that and you know back to your points around customer centricity I feel like that’s where a lot of the magic is that you just you know just be normal and remember that you’re talking to other people like It’s not super hard when you frame it like that.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah I mean in direct to consumer it’s it’s more obvious. Um it’s almost like harder in B2B because you have to get through the layers that everyone puts of like business speak and jargon around the real truth. So the talent is how can you not only be normal yourself but decipher what everyone else is saying in a world where nothing anyone says makes any sense? Yeah you can like speak at B2B and see past the veil If the mist is clear it’s so much easier if you if all you see is the mist like it’s going to seem real opaque.
So um that is the talent to develop in B2B. Uh can you cut through the noise and speak normally and then when everyone else isn’t speaking normally can you still understand what they’re saying? Um Yeah It’s like when you um can you speak two languages you go to the country and like maybe you start in French they respond in English and you’re like “Okay I’m gonna go to English but you know um I can do either one.”. Um it’s like “Do you speak BB Oh I spoke they spoke jargon to me I spoke back to them They spoke back Okay I’ll speak jargon back to you Did that work?” And then you can just kind of play with both. But um that’s the perennial problem in B2B. It’s not necessarily It’s almost like you can’t speak robot to them and be successful You have to speak normally. Um but can you understand uh it’s not too language kind of speak B2B kind of speak jargon but also understand jargon uh it needs to be its own language in Google translate I think.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Oh definitely I mean and and you guys obviously in the US I think you you guys uh potentially lead the way in incredible business jargon like I I haven’t seen the same dedication to the cause as I have for my you know anywhere else. But you know the UK is not too bad but it’s definitely not the same level. Um I I quite enjoy it I think is it is quite fun if you can remember to you know.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Australia is the best they are have the I think the least corporate bullshit in the way which is uh maybe even New Zealand would be um uh slightly even better right? um the Kiwis just don’t care about like the KPIs for your B2B SDR XDRs they just like they don’t choose to fry their brains in that way and I appreciate that. The um Americans 100% are totally okay with like zip up the suit and tie the vest and just say nothing at all for the next 30 minutes. Um yeah we’re all so glad we uh we were here for this uh you know this meeting about whatever it was Yeah I love it I love it.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Um well look let me winding back around to some corporate B2B um jargon chat just to to kind of I guess round off what we’ve been talking about Alex. Like I know um I’m sure you’re very aware as well both personally running your your own business and with your customers that um you know the the impact on revenue and focus on profitability obviously is very high on everyone’s radar this year um largely due to obviously a significant number of firings and market contraction but I kind of feel like it always should be but obviously it’s very acute focus on at the moment.
So talk to me about how you guys are um are kind of approaching that conversation at the moment because I know that you know SAS in particular is under a lot of pressure at the moment to you know like demonstrate his value in a in a tech stack in a business. So like where where are you guys at in that conversation and have you had any you know sort of interesting uh feedback on that front from your recent discussions? You mean for how we run the company or how our customers?
Alex Boyd (Guest): So for let me let me clarify for so for your customers you know if people are coming in they’re like look we you know aware seems interesting seems like a cool tool but like what’s it what’s it going to do for me you know how much money am I going to make if I if I use aware for my for my business? Yeah I mean um uh most of the people whose profiles are connected to aware are not strictly speaking SAS people um uh by the numbers. So that’s one good thing is um there’s a ton of like even of the agencies they don’t often serve like true you know venturebacked SAS. There definitely are venturebacks as customers in there like 100% but um a lot of them are consultants other service providers um lawyers people who are are coaches um agencies that serve those businesses you know marketers um so I’m I’m noticing like it’s such a wider aperture right instead of just focusing on the problems of B2B SAS which frankly I I I don’t want to just sell to B2B SAS because that’s cyclical like you said um uh so it’s an It’s a wider aperture I get to like see all the different types of problems. And it’s not necessarily as contracty as the rest of the market per se.
Um I’ve I’ve only really been selling this product in this market condition. So I can’t tell you what it would have been like to grow it two years ago or 2021. Um maybe it would have been easier and I would have been able to say “Oh yeah this is way harder.”. Um but all I know is this for this product in this condition. So um yeah I I’ve been seeing uh the the people who use aware typically do already understand how LinkedIn if done well leads to revenue. Um we’re not having to convince them of that especially.
Um so there’s like a level of consciousness problem. Um like there’s people who who just want sales and they’re like I’ll do it anyway I need to do it to get sales Maybe this LinkedIn tool will do it. And then there’s an extra thing to convince them of which is that doing LinkedIn in the right way in this way will lead you eventually if other things happen to selling more stuff. And people who get that already and just need to know how to do the LinkedIn part better. And those are the people we want to sell to whether it’s agencies that work with them or the end users.
Um right now we don’t have a solution for I just need more sales give it to me Like that that is a a pipe dream. But um that’s largely who buys outbound prospecting automation tools. Just like well it’s pretty obvious that if I contact a million potential customers I’ll get you know a thousand meetings and then 10 actual customers from it um uh short of like the leather rip type of tools um we just can’t really sell to that type of person or we do and they their retention rate is poor because they try LinkedIn for two months they haven’t gotten a bunch of sales from it like well no dumb like obviously.
But um we try to sell to people who have at least a moderate level of knowledge about LinkedIn and they at least intuitively understand if I do these things well you know with or without a tool they’ll lead revenue. Uh the tools typically helps me do them better. Um that is like the level of consciousness we kind of need. Um less about uh selling to venture back SAS that’s running out of money and needs our way now. It’s more like level of consciousness of the buyer.
Um at least for our target market. Um I wouldn’t mind having more venture back customer We just don’t currently have a ton of them. So um it’s a nice change to be honest. Um chamber at my last company where it was just only that and like oh it’s just all soaked in it all the time Just soaked in uh in the VC world. Um PE is even better than VC for that. Um private equity bank companies are easier to work with by far than.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Yeah Okay Yeah that’s interesting actually. Like um I mean again could have a whole other a whole other conversation around the uh the money people right? I think it’s uh it’s an interesting world over there right? It’s.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah I love that world. Um in some ways and in some ways I hate it. Um but but yeah I mean in short PEback companies are sort of more real. Like they’re not just focused on capital gain growth. They’re focused on in part current profitability So their marketing plans make more sense. Yeah. Uh there’s there’s not this like can we run at a break neck speed the next five years and sell it you know. They’re they’re like we want to sell it again in five to seven years but like you know the growth target is just simply more reasonable. Um the company’s more mature They focus on expenses getting more value from it. Uh a venture back company will overpay for splash and like speed whereas a pback company will um pay appropriately for good results which is like what an agency wants to hear. Yeah rather than like can I you know pay you more for three months if you burn yourself out helping us get to this next milestone then we dump you like the VC train is just like it’s fast and furious it’s just the mad max of high expectations but it at least makes sense.
Stuart P Turner (Host): That’s a really interesting distinction because we’re we’re sort of at the start of that journey with the uh with with the other business and um I’ve been you know very reticent just about taking a ton of money from anyone else just you know just from a purely personal perspective. But yeah we’ve just started to sort of dig into these uh yeah these differences and distinctions and like you know back to your points earlier I think a lot of it is you know what what is the level of personal alignment and if you’re going to have a purely transactional relationship like I mean you know like bank loans and stuff exist for a reason with less of the complexity right? So there’s uh yeah there’s a lot of um interesting considerations I think from from our our current conversations on that front.
Um yeah but look like let me um in terms of sort of uh where you guys are at. Um so I’m just conscious we’re uh we’ve been on for a full like over a compliment of time. Talk to me about what’s happening now and next with aware and with you guys Alex like what um you know if people want to talk to you if they want to find you guys use it like what what’s happening at the moment and what’s on the cards for the next six to 12 months for you guys?
Alex Boyd (Guest): Yeah Um I mean my LinkedIn profile as you might imagine is the best sort of place to um you know just ask questions connect. Um ideally someone would say I heard you on the you know flow state podcast. Um and it helps me drive traffic.
In terms of what we’re doing um we recently completed the acquisition of a small competitor. Um integrating their product customer base and website and SEO obviously which is the main into our website is kind of the main thing. Uh technically we’re we’re trying to um we see like the different levels of aware like we don’t have the best postuler out there but we’re the main product priority is getting that better. Um we do have the best engagement product out there. Um we’re still working on it but like it’s not as it’s already the best. Um we have an like I would say par or equivalent analytics product. Um so we’re we’re making some improvements to that but the area where we most fall down is postcheduling. Um it’s still good It’s just not as good as author up yet but we’re getting it better. Um so it’s going to be a lot better soon So that’s the main thing.
Um but yeah the acquisition integration isn’t changing that much from a product perspective. It’s mostly um taking the SEO juice uh using it as excuse to revamp our own website moving it the whole thing to web flow and then just 31 redirecting the crap out of all the other stuff that has the juice and putting it toward our stuff. So we’re just like scanning the SEO territory through that kind of classic M&A strategy that um I mean most people should do more of but don’t that’s a whole other podcast is like how did you how to approach acquiring websites for the SEO benefits of it whether expired or live preferably live but like uh I’ve done two deals in 2024 so far that rely on that thesis the second one it’s no different um it is a cash flow positive acquisition like you know the return on investment without SEO is like 80% a year in my view um or my projections rather.
Um but that’s next in the pipe for us. Um as far as after the next 3 months I actually don’t know. Um more features more marketing of course but um I’m I’m not sure exactly what that’ll look like. So uh missed uh clears my um clouds my vision more than 90 days out from now I think. Um so I don’t know It’s been three months I might have a different answer.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Awesome Well look I really appreciate you coming on Thanks very much for everything that you’ve just run through was like a ton to go at to be perfectly honest. So um obviously we’ll drop all the links to everything that we just mentioned below the episode. Um obviously find us on LinkedIn. Um and yeah look really appreciate your time Alex It was super interesting.
Alex Boyd (Guest): Absolutely It’s Thank you for having me on It was a great conversation.
Stuart P Turner (Host): Pleasure A pleasure. Well there you have it That conversation has certainly given me some things to think about which I will be doing at length in my next silent reflection time. We are back in a couple of weeks joined by the wonderful Ashton Tuckerman who coincidentally has also joined us in agency land this year. So continuing the theme in a couple of weeks look forward to more next time.