#127: LinkedIn | Video, Ads, and Slicing Fruit (with Tim Davidson)

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One, two, three, four.

Exit. Exit, exit.

Tim, it's funny to see you on the actual video. When I see that background and you have that shirt in the background on, I'm like, I think I'm watching one of your videos. That must be annoying though. Everybody says that. People say it to me like, I feel like I know you from the podcast. When you put yourself out there like that, everyone feels like they already know you before they. They hang out with you.

Well, I actually kind of like it. Especially when you go like the events or something and someone sees you. I feel like the conversation just goes better because they think they know you, which is fair. And hopefully they do know me.

Yeah.

Or they feel like they know me as long as I'm just like the right person doing the right thing.

Well, I think that's what's cool about video as a channel too. I think you can hear somebody's voice and see their mannerisms a little bit, and it's a little bit different. I. I often will meet with people and they're like, you're so much different. You're made nicer and different than I think that you come across on, like, the way you write on LinkedIn Sometimes I'm like, really?

Oh, yeah. That's the more interesting there is, like, when you only see people because of the profile picture and it's maybe like, profile picture. And then you actually see them and it's like this awkward, like, right. Oh, I do know you, but recognize the face.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to be 64 and like insanely jacked, and now I'm just a little old man.

I don't know you.

Thank you. You know, it's like I got all angles.

At least the shadows and the angles look good.

That's why, I mean, that's half of the game we hired here. You know, I hired people into the company. I got more time for. For arms. And it's obviously showing. Speaking of arms, you're the crazy guy who went to a trade show and this is the ultimate. Like this, this great front delts. Is that what that is? Is you standing there holding that sign forever? Where was that? Dreamforce.

I've done it. Probably like eight events, but yeah, Dreamforce, Zaster, all of them. My records, I think my record now is four minutes and I have a video on. I just can't remember exactly what it was, but 4 minutes, 37 seconds holding it.

It's pretty good. All right, I want to talk about your content. You and creating content. But first, just backstory. I think a lot of people that will listen to this podcast will feel like they've seen your content on LinkedIn, but many people, maybe beyond the surface level, don't know who you are. So share your story a little bit. Who you are, what you've done for work, and what Your experience in B2B marketing has been to date. Little career rewind?

Yeah, absolutely. I actually went to school for zoology. That never worked out because I failed at biology. But I came back to marketing. Still wanted to be a hyena trainer, but ended up just training people to buy things, which is kind of cool. But I currently am. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

The podcast hosted me is not going to let you just gloss over that. You. Yeah, so I was, you know, I went to. I was a zoologist and I was training hyenas. Anyway, so I got into marketing. Like, excuse Me what? I'm sorry, sir.

Well, that was my goal. I wanted to be a hyena trainer because I saw it at the zoo. I saw the trainers just training the hyenas that they thought was the coolest thing. I'm a big nature love kind of thing. And first day is college. Was going to be a zoologist and.

It was hyenas specifically. Is a hyena a cat?

Is it a. No.

I'm trying to think about what family is a hyena in?

I don't technically know, but I'm assuming they're more in the. It might be like a mix of a dog, cat.

All right, so what I'm saying is like it had to have been a hyena or like any. Were there any species of large cats that you would have been happy to train?

Any species. I think dolphin was the next step just because I grew up loving dolphins and I've swam with dolphins before and I just loved it. So like all those things made me want to be like a trainer.

Sure.

But I just failed out of biology. So I went to the. The easiest course and. Which was business and marketing.

Oh, wow, that's. I feel so good about myself.

Well, I ended up loving it, which is good. But right now I work at a company called. Well, I started a company called B2B Riz. It's a ABM with LinkedIn ads consulting firm. Basically it's just me. I'm just trying to do great work. But my background. For the last four years I worked at a company called Directive, which is a performance marketing agency. And I support B2B SaaS. And I started off on the client side, but grew into only being marketing for the marketing agency. And we grew from, you know, 30 employees when I started to 160. And throughout that, loved it, learned a lot, went to events, held signs, cut fruit and interviewed people. It was really amazing. But I saw a little gap and just there's that trend too. A lot of the good, you know, and I say good marketers. Just a lot of the marketers that were in house, either they get let go or they're just kind of moving on and being working with companies solo. I thought that I loved that trend and I saw an opportunity and took it.

All right. I got a couple. A bunch of things to go back there on. First, just more broadly, were there things about you you were going to study biology and zoology, but are there things about you as Tim, that you see now that are embedded traits of what might make you good at marketing? Or did you go and learn something? Because, like, I found out about myself over the years. I'm like, oh, yeah, I always. I was just kind of into writing and storytelling and did a bunch of public speaking and would always be the person somebody would, you know, ask to, like, help my college roommate. Hey, can you look at this? I know I tweaked the headline and I see that now and I'm like, oh, that's a lot of what I do today. And I can see the threads, but for some people it's like, no, I just got into marketing. Like, for me it was like, I got into it because I sucked at everything else and I didn't have a job and I found a PR internship at a time when I was broke and I just kind of went that path. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I mean, the real reason was because it was the easier course and I played sports in college and I just needed something that was fast and easy. Right. Just so I didn't sell out. But I did love psychology and I loved kind of the meaning behind, you know, why someone does something. I think that has played a part in my background and even the successes I've had because I always like to think a little bit differently. And I think that kind of plays into psychology at some point.

But like, where does your creativity come from? You obviously have to. You gotta be into like writing and scripting and somewhere in your history.

It's actually a hard question for me. Cause I don't. I would say I kind of grew up like that. I always had like a creative mind. I would also say, though, I try to give myself a lot of time to be creative and I've just learned over the years what makes me come up with these ideas or lets me have more freedom to do things that it might be creative. And then obviously just over the last few years, as I've seen the creativity kind of work, then I just went all in on it and I just tried more outlandish things or different things than everyone else is doing, and it just worked. So I just going to keep going.

And was there point in time, like when you started creating content on LinkedIn, for example, were you like, I'm going to try at some point? You must have had this idea to try your first video.

Yeah.

Do you remember that?

I do. So before I started videos, I was doing a lot of text posts pretty consistently for about six to eight months. And I was just running out of ideas on things to do. And I just saw like a plateau and then the video part came from. Cause this was kind of. The TikTok was already here, but a lot of people are. I just started watch. Getting obsessed with TikToks and just watching, observing what I was actually watching. I was like, oh, this. I feel like I could do this.

It didn't make do this meaning like make that style of video about a topic 100%.

I feel like I could do this. And don't get me wrong, first 20 videos sucked. They were terrible.

And wait, did you have any video editing experience? Like, did you film entirely on your phone and figure it out? Where were you on the video side? Spectrum.

In 2014, I had a GoPro, so I tried video editing, but I didn't do anything. Since then, I didn't have like any experience. I went on YouTube, looked up how to use Capcut, which is the app I use, and just kind of went down the rabbit hole from there.

Did you pick that app to do this with on purpose?

I just picked an app. It wasn't like purposely just because I've heard of it. It was more like that was the first app I saw and it looked. It was free.

Is this for editing videos on your phone?

You can use it for the desktop too. But I do a lot of my editing on the phone. I actually. That's my camera. Like, I bought an extra phone for my camera.

I love that. I'm asking, I'm trying to unpack that because I like to hear. I just think people miss. I don't know if misrate is the word, but like, you just got to kind of just like, not to be like overly Gary V. On you, but like, you kind of just have to start. And that is the thing that people just miss. It's like, man, I still make this mistake now. I'm like, we're working on new things for Exit 5, and I had this other idea and I was trying to make it like, too perfect and thinking about what the finish thing, I was like, you know what, I need to.

Just do like a little bit of.

This, like every day and like, don't really care. And I follow this guy on Instagram. His name is Colin Landforce, and he talks about, like golf brands and he's very into, like, consumer products and he's always breaking down brands and everything. He found this one TikTok, like, creator. This person like, made interesting, like looking bags out of leather and stuff. And like he scrolled all the way back to the beginning of this guy's page. He's like, three months ago, this guy was literally making, like, the shitty videos that you and I make. And I think about that all the time. I'm like, at some point, you just do enough of these, and, like, that one thing hits, and then you just. You build. And now you've been doing it for so long, like, you're better. You know how to use the tools better. It's like, I've been having a podcast for 10 years. I know how to use the tools a little bit now. And I think we just underrate that in so many examples. But you must have gotten into it without any expectations. Then. You seem like a pre. You're just like, fuck it. I'm just gonna start doing this and don't care where it goes.

I wouldn't say I said fuck it. The first video I created, I edited it as much as I could. I spent tons of time on it. I sat on it for about 10 days before posting.

Oh, so you're the opposite of me. You didn't say fuck it. You. You're like, I can't possibly post it. What was your thought? Were you worried about it?

Yeah, 100%. I was worried about what people would say. I only did text posts before that. I maybe put a picture out here and there.

What was the first video? Just for context, it was a skit.

I was doing characters, so me and someone else, and it was around Christmas time. And I think the video was something like that friend that always needs leads, or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I gave a gift box that had a lock on it, and it was a gated lead. It was such a silly thing.

Yeah, no, I get it, though, because you're like, I'm gonna. It's like, if people have only seen the text post. Basically, you're like, all of a sudden now performing, and you're like, whoa, I didn't know he could do an impression. And, like, I didn't know that. It's like, I had contacts my whole life, and one day I didn't have my contacts, and I had to wear my glasses to the office, and everyone was like, whoa, whoa. I didn't know you wore glasses. It's like, all right, get over it. Like, you know, when you. When you post that first video, all of a sudden it's like, oh, now Tim's like this video guy. What does he think he's acting or something? And I get that.

Yeah, yeah. But. And then the. The beauty was, you know, I. I knew some people from LinkedIn, so all the Comments were good because they were just nice people, you know?

Right, Go. Yeah, that's because you didn't post it to Twitter first. If you had Twitter here first, you would have been toast.

Yeah, that's a whole nother. Or TikTok. TikTok will rip you apart.

And so did you make a decision to just focus on LinkedIn? Like, I want to make these videos, but I don't want to be in the TikTok world.

Yeah. So when I first started, I was doing LinkedIn and TikTok that well, as I got the videos better, I was like, I'll do a LinkedIn and TikTok.

It's a cat's butt in this video right now. It's so Perfect.

I did TikTok and I tried Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts for a long time, but I was just seeing way more traction on LinkedIn. And so I just told myself I can spend more time on LinkedIn and see much more attraction. Which sucks also because now I'm pigeonholed and I'll repurpose sometimes to TikTok. But it's really just all LinkedIn for me because I see more value from it right now.

I know that's how it is for me. I could spend all these times on any other channel, but like when I do anything on LinkedIn, it. It works more.

Exactly.

What's your thought? What's your opinion of Twitter? I recently am trying to go back on the game, so I'm curious to hear what your opinion is.

It's one of those things where I would love to. It's just I can either spend more time on LinkedIn. If I was gonna spend more time on anything else, it would be YouTube. Cause I still think I need to get there. It's just been on my to do. Like, I have a post it note about it.

Like, you've made a thousand videos. You have a post it on your desk that says YouTube.

Well, I have. It's just the problem with YouTube is the YouTube shorts is one minute. All my LinkedIn videos are like minute and a half. And then the longer videos, you need like a different setup.

So it's like the issue is not. It's not a repurposing issue. It's like if you want to go do YouTube, you got to shoot new content for it.

100%. Yeah.

And is this your lane? Like, tell me about now. So now you've been making videos for a while. How do you figure out how often to make videos? Do you have a goal? Take me into the process and what you're doing weekly. I'm interested.

I'm not as detail oriented as that. I don't have like a schedule, I guess.

Such a creative. Such a creative. I don't know. I don't have a schedule. I just. When ideas come, you get a video, Dave.

I mean, pretty much. Well, not really. I mean, I try to do as many as possible. It just depends on how much time and what I'm doing.

But does something drive it? Like, now that you have your own business, is it going to be like, do you see, like, yeah, I want to build a bigger audience on LinkedIn because it helps my business or is it just like, truly, it's fun to do and if I happen to think of a video this month, I'll make one.

It is fun to do. They also, from my experience, they perform better than text for me now. And so I will default to video, whether that's about something about my business or I don't talk about like a lot of different things. It's pretty pigeonholed.

You either have a video or like some rant about something on text.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

And just out of curiosity, like, how much? I don't know if business value is the right word, but, like, is it worth you, like, not writing anything for two weeks on LinkedIn but using that two weeks to make an awesome next video and just posting that video, is that better than if you were posting something every day for two weeks?

I actually don't think so. I actually feel like there's a lot of value in posting more consistently. Luckily, my videos don't take two weeks, so I don't have to worry about that. They maybe take now, they maybe take an hour, hour and a half.

So you kind of have the, you're trying to go for the best of both worlds. You're like trying to make good content and pros frequently.

100%. Yeah. I mean, actually I found the. My best kind of frequency is twice a day. Now that's hard, I know with videos and text, but that would be my best kind of frequency if I can get to that.

What common mistakes do you see? People that want to focus on LinkedIn as a content platform, whether to help their company grow to they have a consulting practice or they're a freelance designer or marketer. What mistakes do you see A lot of people that don't, don't actually get traction?

I think it's all the classic ones. One, not starting. I mean, if you don't start, you're. You're screwed. I think there's also just and I don't know how to like frame this but there's some people that are better at seeing what works and what's not and kind of adapting than others. I feel like there is some people that will just post every single day and they just don't adapt as well as some others or try something new and it just kind of gets the same kind of traction which is not much.

How important is like having a niche or having a topic though in that Because I think I've even noticed this in myself like for basically like I grew all my social grew when I kind of just talked about marketing and specifically B2B marketing. Now as Dave, as a human with a brain and feelings I'm like I'm so much more than that. However, that doesn't work to drive traffic and build growth online for whatever reason. And so I have to like I found myself like when I just used social for fun and was just talking about here's what I'm doing and I did this thing and here's a work thing. It doesn't work now that I'm kind of like focusing exclusively on Exit 5 and B2B marketing as the content the social stuff has been growing very fast Again I think there's a lesson in there. Like I've seen somebody like if you look at like a Justin Welsh, he blew up in the last year or two he didn't really talk about 15 different topics. He be all he did was talk about solopreneurship. Here's how to build this, here's how to quit your job, here's a blah blah railing against throwing rocks at the company side and I think that works well. Do you think if you just made stuff about all industries like how much of your focus on B2B marketing has been intentional as a strategy here to.

Your point, it's been mine especially has been very intentional. I also think yes you do need to niche in now don't get me wrong like just an example for me, I talk about B2B marketing. I talk about probably very specific things but it's more than just one topic. I could just talk about LinkedIn ads all day and ABM all day but I also talk about the B2B buying process because I also think that plays into further funnel of your LinkedIn ads and ABM not B2B events because I find those very interesting. That's a part of abm.

But do you find yourself like when you go to create content you have like The. I'm like, tim, thinking about B2B stuff. You're not just, like, randomly posting personal anecdotes on LinkedIn?

Yeah, it's. For me, it always starts with B2B stuff. That said, I do like to sprinkle in personal stuff. An example of that is I just made a video where I made a crib while talking about abm.

So you were putting together a crib?

I was putting together a crib and talking about ABM at the same time. So I sprinkle in personal stuff. Love that. Like that.

Did you just get the crib for fun, or are you expecting a child?

Expecting a child.

Congratulations. First one.

First one. Yep. In May.

That's awesome. Best thing that ever happened to me.

I'm very excited, hands down.

And I love that it's a rite of passage, putting that crib together. And only a true creator would also film that process.

Well, that's the funny thing is I. My wife was like, oh, I'll help you do that. And I was like, no, I got this.

I got it.

I got this. Oh, I got it. I'll do this right now.

Don't even worry about it.

I also get awkward if, like, someone's watching me do it. Dude, it just sounds so weird.

Do you follow that guy? Nikki Cass, you know who that is?

I do. I don't follow. I know who that is, though.

He makes, like, videos of, like, he just does impressions and he's pretending to be, like, an umpire or he does. Makes videos that's like, yeah, he makes pizza sometimes.

Yeah.

Or he'll be like, NFL miked up videos. Be like. And he's out in his backyard, and he's in his clothes, and he's just like, yeah, he's dressed like a maniac, and he's tackling these trash bags of leaves and everything. It's like the life of a creator. You're like, the other side of that, right?

It's so funny. Exactly. Like the neighbor that's watching sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

And he'll make an impression of them. He's like, Brenda, he's over there again, tackling the bags and stuff. And I just think of, like, your wife is like, all right, Tim, just go put that crib together. Let me know when it's done.

It's pretty much how it goes. Same with, like, fruit cutting or, like, anything. I have so many knives now. It's. She's just like, all right, do your thing.

All right. And then. Wait, where did the fruit cutting? So the fruit cutting was, like, a Later addition.

Right.

I kind of, in my head at least I saw you as this guy is talking about B2B marketing, but he's making that. He's doing this in a kind of fun, tiktokish style. Then I think you created this like super niche of you started doing it while cutting fruit, which is like a genius creative, like, hook move. But where the heck did that come from?

Well, I think there's a theme here. I was actually running out of ideas with the skits too, because you can't really talk about a certain topic and kind of like when you have to like do a skit with it. And I hate talking head. It's just not for me. It never worked for me. Just talking head and actually TikTok. I watched myself watching a couple things. People telling stories while they're cooking, unboxing videos and telling stories. And then someone was actually cutting in pineapple, but he's doing a voiceover. And so I tried all three. I tried the fruit cutting, cooking and unboxing through cutting hit. I was like, all right, I can go with so many knives, so many different types of fruit. I've learned a lot about fruit since then. So many avenues there. So I went with it.

And then is that a less scripted video? Like, are you truly just ranting and cutting fruit? And then you're gonna go edit that to be a little tighter later?

Pretty much. I always start with the topic and there's maybe like bullet points.

It's kind of like a really good prompt, actually. So I. I was working with this guy the other day and they were like, hey, we'll make a bunch of video clips of you. I'm gonna interview. We'll make a bunch of video clips you can use for social. And I was like, yeah, I'm good on camera. I got this. And I was really bad at it. It was really hard. He'd ask me a question and he'd be like. But it was things like three hot takes about social media.

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And I'm like, like I'm really bad at coming up with things on the spot like that. Right. But there's something about that format which is almost like going for a walk and you're just like, all right, I'm just gonna like talk about SEO while I make a salad. Right? It's kind of like a genius little trick to get content out and it happens to be fun to film and make for interesting watching.

Yeah. And, and don't get me wrong, it says behind the scenes there has been Times where I'll be editing and be like, I gotta add this in, and I'll get another piece of fruit, and I'll get the same shirt on, and I'll just start trying to cut. Sometimes it's not in order, but no one really notices, luckily.

So you have to go back and add that scene. You're not gonna.

Not always. Sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, oh, this hook would've been way better. There's just, like, things like that I'll add in.

And then we talked a little bit about, like, what's the mistakes people make. Do you see any. Any mistakes with video? Like, can you just take a video, upload it to LinkedIn, do. How much does the thumbnail matter? That type of stuff. Are you noticing anything interesting there?

I don't have real data on this. I always add a thumbnail, but it's basically just a title text for the first two seconds. And I feel like that's what I use, like, the thumbnail for LinkedIn, but it's.

The thumbnail is like a screenshot of the video and it has title on it, or it's separate and it's just the title.

Yeah. So it's just whatever the video would be. And I just add a title. And mine always green and has, like, white text. And so it's not technically a thumbnail, but I think of it as the thumbnail. And then whatever is behind it is just the start of the video. Right. I feel like that works when I've not done it. I just. I don't think you get people to stop as much depending on your title.

Got it.

The first two seconds also matter. I've found.

Oh, I'm seeing. I'm looking at one right now. Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Yeah. You see, like, the green.

Yeah.

I've had people say, like, now that I see the green or even my. What's called the background music, people are like, oh, that's Tim's video. I'm like, oh, that's perfect. Like, I try to do more of those now where people associate me with a certain thing. And that's why I think of, like, the thumbnail.

Yeah, nice. I'm just lost on your page now.

Then, like, first two seconds I found has mattered. Like the A cut. Like, getting people to, like, those cuts, like, the first two seconds, and then you can.

Oh, so it's like an intentional hook. Like, you have the text somewhat. This is. Are we over chatbots for B2B yet? The first two seconds of the video, the screen starts with A green. With a green background text with you behind it. Are we over chatbots for B2B yet? And then you catch an onion right out of the gate. I think that's an onion.

Maybe garlic or a pepper.

Just trying to paint a picture for those listening at home.

You'll notice on that, too. So I think of it as a thumbnail, even though it's just part of the video. There's googly eyes on a pepper.

There is.

So there's things like that I try to sneak in there, too, that help and people will comment on it. And that, to me, I think that's a win.

Yeah. And this is being filmed on your iPhone.

On the iPhone.

On the iPhone. And you got a Bluetooth, like, lav mic or something on your apron.

Yeah, it's a Holly. Hollyland. I think it was like $100 on Amazon.

Shout out to Hollyland. Thank you.

Yeah. And Lollipop. Give that sponsor here.

It's Olipop, not Lollipop. Geez, dude, there goes the sponsorship you might get.

I don't even know Lollipop brand, but maybe that's the brand.

Yeah. Also shout out to I'm bald, if you didn't know at home. Shout out to Imperial Hats. It's a great hat. Exit 5 hat. Thank you for that. So, yeah, Ollipop, if you're listening. Or Lollipop. Well, we'll take either one. We'll take either one. This is cool. A little breakdown. I like those little nuggets. Make the videos. What is this guy talking about? Does he have googly eyes on a banana?

All right.

Yeah. And then what about. Okay, so the thumbnail matters, but it's really you, the edit and the scripting matters. Like, you got to have that hook. And that's true for all these platforms today.

Yeah, that's so important.

And does the hook have to be something you say, or is it like the fact that you caught this onion? Like, was that your hook for something like that?

It could be either. So it could be something you say, because mine are naturally cutting fruit or something like. Those have worked for me. Like, if I have a pineapple and that's the first cut, and it's like, from an ax. That's a good hook because that. That, like. Oh, okay. What the. Yeah, it's like that step back, what's going on?

And do you edit? Where do you edit?

The Cap Cut.

Cap Cut app.

Cap Cut app. It's actually. But it's called Cap Cut. It's an app on the phone also for Desktop. And I just add it right on the phone.

It's an easy way to edit. Cap cut. And then what do they do? You can do captions and all your animations and everything in there.

Oh, yeah, you can do everything. Captions. You can do, like, the captions that are. Have, like. They have, like, animation captions, and you can add the cuts on there. You can edit fully. You can add in audio. You can add in what's called, like, transition stuff. It's got everything.

So I want to talk about you starting B2B. Riz in a second, but while we're still talking about video, did you ever contemplate, like, creating a business in this space?

No, I technically do in the sense of it's not really video, but I have, like, sponsorships, so it's part of the kind of income.

Yeah, I mean, like, you've kind of cracked an interesting playbook, and a lot of people are trying to figure out what works on Social. Like, you could have packaged that up and help other companies or people do something similar. I wonder.

Yeah, it's never really crossed my mind. And I wonder if that's because I. I like doing it the way I do it, and I know that's not gonna work for everyone, so I don't want to sell something like that.

Yeah.

Like, I'll help people. Like, I'll give tips where I can, but I just. Yeah, I'm not sure if my system would work for a lot of people.

And it's so. It's so character driven. You have a vision for, like, this. It's got to be done in your personality.

That's the thing. The personality, I think, helps with it. And obviously not everyone's gonna have the same personality, so I don't know if I can. What I do would help with others. I think that the concepts work. It's just more of the nitty gritty stuff. Yeah.

All right, let's spend some time on abm. Also, is the Riz. Is that slang for charisma?

It is.

Somebody told me that the other day they said this has, as the kids say, the Riz. And then I just put that together that this is the Riz.

It is. I think a lot of people just don't understand it, which is fine with me. But I also like the name.

They don't understand it. Does it? Oh, please. There are way worse names, and I don't know what they mean. Like, oh, true.

I mean, that's. Yeah, yeah. I bought the domain, like, months ago. And what do people want?

You I'm starting my new ABM agency, Growth Impact IO. Like this is what better B2B Riz. There you go. And sorry to Growth Impact if you're offended by that.

The IO though, that's always cool.

The IO always works because you can't get a freaking domain. That's a real issue. There are no dot coms left.

No, no, no, not even close.

Right. All right, so anyway, so you decide to go on your own. You teach people, you do ABM consulting. What does that mean? What does ABM mean? What do you mostly help people do?

Yeah, so I've actually niched down into ABM with LinkedIn ads. And the reason I did that because I don't think of ABM as the very targeted one to one that can be it. That's fine. Or 100 account lists. I think of it as more just a more targeted approach to demand generation or marketing. It's pretty much the same thing. And so I run a lot of ABM campaigns and anything. However, with the 100 account list with 10,000 accounts, LinkedIn ads has always been the best place for the results and distribution. And so I decided to just go all in on it because you don't need an avian platform for LinkedIn. And so I help people build out a strategy, execute on a strategy that's going to help them get more revenue pipeline from target accounts. And the caveat there is the target account list does not have to be a hundred thousand.

Well, this is great. All right, so let's give people some. Let's talk about LinkedIn ads. Then people will enjoy this. So what's the first step? It's something like why LinkedIn? And then what would you consider advertising on LinkedIn?

So for why LinkedIn? Because at least in my opinion is the best place for B2B ever. I mean the things you can do on LinkedIn are crazy. You can from an ad targeting standpoint. Yeah.

Okay, tell me about those in a second. But first, what is the typical like inventory that you're buying on LinkedIn? Is it sidebar post feeds? I'm not. I have no idea.

Yeah, so it's typically going to be within the feed. Just like those ads you see when you're scrolling through your feed and LinkedIn or the message AD1. I think that's also just a tactic that's been pretty successful over time.

Like people DMing me telling give me a $10 Domino's gift card if I get a demo of their software.

Yeah, I'm just not sure Domino's is the best offer there. But yeah, it's that message. Type of message. All right.

Okay, then let's go back to targeting. Yeah. What's possible from a targeting standpoint?

I mean, you can go as narrow as typing in the exact company that you want to target and target down to the titles, the departments, the interests. You can get really, really granular all through LinkedIn. No third party needed, which is the craziest thing.

That is amazing. And just to like, slim down all the tool, like to just have one place to focus. Yeah. What offer works or what offers or approach works best here? Because, okay, this is great. I can show ads to this one account that I want to sell to. But like, what do I do? Do I show them a blog post? Do I make them download some content? Do I just say, call me now? What works?

Yeah. So it obviously depends. But you almost want all of it, right? Because depending on where they are in their stage, you don't typically know. But if they are obviously in your sales, likely you'll know. But if it's just like an account that you don't know if they are interested or not, you want to have some education. So that could be through a blog post and you're just kind of giving that information through the actual post. And so they don't even have to go to the page or they do go to the page. Thought leader ads. So basically just advertising your post about some company and it just looks organic, but it's still promoted by the company. Those type of things are working really well because people will buy from people.

Yeah. Is that a newer thing?

That's a newer thing. Like, yeah, it's newer. Last half of 2023.

Cool. And if anybody's wondering if I'm out of the game, I'm so far out of the game, I don't know anything. I just get to interview people, which is great. You said those are performing well. Like just a plain text post that you write.

Text image, could be video. But it's basically like, all right, so say for. If I was doing it for my company, I put out a post about ABM or LinkedIn ads. Yep. And I see that it does really good organically. When I say good, maybe it gets like 100 likes, maybe gets 50 likes.

Sure.

Doesn't matter. As long as it's really targeted to my audience, then I can advertise to the companies I want to advertise to to the people I want to advertise to. That post. So not even have to worry about organic anymore.

Got It. And can you do that from a personal page or company page only?

The beauty of that is it's from a personal page.

Sweet.

So have my profile picture right there. It'll say promoted by B2B. Riz under the title and stuff.

But it's your post. And then is it just anybody that's connect anybody that is an employee of that account? Like, how do you set that up?

Yeah, so it's anyone that's an employee, but you can basically, like, you're an advisor for. I'm assuming you're still an advisor for a company. As long as they're listed under your company, you can use them.

Oh, cool. Wow.

All right.

And then what about the actual creative.

So for like, like a video ad or an image ad, it's not like the thought leader.

Oh, wait, no, no, don't answer that one yet. Rewind. So if you do something like that in the ad, like LinkedIn ad, where you're just trying to drive awareness, you just want to get them to read content. How do you know if that's working? How does that get measured through? Do you break this all up into steps and you're trying to pass Tim through a particular journey? How does it all tie together?

Yeah, I mean, so you do want to add in retargeting. Right. So if someone clicks on that, whether they click on the website or not, you can still do image click from the actual post. Ideally, you're adding them to like another retargeting bucket or an audience that has.

Then you're assuming that they've seen that first ad, clicked on it, you're going to send them a next one. That would be like a next step of some kind.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you want to build that up. It doesn't have to be just a demo action right there, but you want to build that up. But ideally, the educational piece is just one part of the advertising strategy. So I don't think funnels really work. You do want to move people, like, through, like a retargeting thing or to like, ideally. That'd be amazing if there was a funnel that actually worked. I just don't think that really works like that. Yeah, but you do want to have education. Then you can also have. All right, here's our unique value prop, here's our features. Like, you want to have different messaging that all comes together when you're targeting someone.

Which types of companies do well with LinkedIn ads? And then what are they? What I'm trying to get at and why I'm asking These questions is like I feel like the content and the offer matters so much and obviously having the right product for the right audience. But I always interested in hearing like what actually works.

Yeah, so you mentioned like what companies. I mean if you're marketing sales, that's a no brainer. There's. They're very, very active on LinkedIn but I would also say probably 75% of companies or audiences are still on LinkedIn. Maybe not as much HR, they're definitely on LinkedIn. IT cybersecurity, they're all on LinkedIn. Maybe if you're targeting 10 employee H vac companies, not a good place. But for the most part it's definitely the place where your buyers are and in terms of, you know, what is actually working. So one thing that you know, some people do hate. I will say it does work if you have the right process set up is those gift cards. But if as long as you lead with the value prop of your company and then the gift cards, the tailing part. So you don't lead with the gift card, you lead with the value prop, the intro of the call or the demo and the gift card could be the thing that pushes them over. Other things that work like I mentioned, like the thought leader ads and then you build up that awareness and then the retargeting, you basically build up, you know, demand generation through the retargeting bucket. And then that's where you'd have like a demo call to action or, or like messaging that's like all right, set up Your account in 7 minutes or less or something like that where it's like speed. Those messages also work pretty well.

What's exciting to you about this next phase going out on your own?

I like that I'm actually able to just control the whole thing so I can do it how I want and to learn through that process. I would also say I'm not trying to scale it. It's also just a lifestyle business so I can keep creating content like just building cool stuff. I know everyone says you don't. They don't want to scale it. I really don't think I'll.

Yeah. No. The more. Well the more you scale your business, the less time you're going to have to make content and exactly make videos. So. And there's kind of. You're interesting because you can kind of carve out this little niche now there is. You can build a business by creating videos. Yeah, like those things can really.

Yeah, yeah.

You can have sponsorships, you can do custom video. Like there's a whole world there, which I think is cool. I think that kids call it the creator economy. Tim, is what you're a part of today.

My end state would probably be have a client that I work with LinkedIn ads on and ABM. But I'm also the influencer. So it's like a mark tech company. And because I used myself when I was at Directive as like the influencer for advertising.

So you would be in the creative. That would be sick. That's a great funnel. Then you own the whole thing. That's a great idea.

It works really well too.

Somebody listening to this. Take Tim up on that.

That'd be the ideal state. Because the amount of things we can come up with is just crazy.

Let me ask you a question. Could I be growing Exit 5 with LinkedIn ads?

Probably. I will say Exit 5. You're trying to get like membership. It's a little bit small of a, you know, price point where LinkedIn ads might be as fruitful because it's typically more expensive, but it still works out for many companies.

Ah, interesting. So it's more expensive because the target you're able to target.

Yeah, it's the only place you can target literally the same right company.

So what would I need hundreds of members for this to work? Like how would you test into this? Like, and I mean, here's why I'm asking. I think we know which types of companies have or which types of people are good fits to be members based on title industry, all that stuff. I want to keep growing what we get. What we get that comes in. Why not? I can be targeted. I know which good customers look like. Why not spend and go try to make that work. The math is not going to work.

Actually could not think about it. You know what to do really well for you is you. I think you've posted about. If I just post about X at Vive, sometimes I get more subscribers. Just you can run a thought leader ad to the right companies. Like we were talking about the thought leader ads. You could sponsor your organic post that did that to the right companies to the right people. And that'd probably be work really well. Right?

But it would have to be. Does the sponsored post have to have like can I. Is it just that post or can I have a link?

And so it would be that post. Now it doesn't have like a call to action like the. The usual link, but you can still edit your post. So oftentimes I'll edit a post before I advertise to it and maybe Put like a link at the bottom or at the top.

Oh, so I could be like, I could take that post that said, like, oh, my business grows when I talk about it on LinkedIn more and I can explain what that business is and maybe have a promo code or something and try running a campaign that way.

Yep. And that helps with the tracking too, because you can put whatever UTM you want on that Yami Hill ClickUp.

Interesting. And then how would you go about testing that? Like, if I was going to carve out, like, do I say, all right, I'm going to take 2,500 bucks. Five grand. 500 bucks, 10 grand. What? How do you think about that?

Typically, I like to look at it based off the audience size. So you can kind of work backwards towards that because ideally you want to get in front of everyone in the audience size. So let's just say it's 10,000 people. I'm just doing easy math. 10,000 people. And the cost per a thousand impressions is a hundred dollars. Work back on how much you need to get in front of each person. Let's just say five to ten times through the month so you can see if it's viable. So you can see what the conversion.

Rate is.5 to 10 times. Just kind of as a benchmark of like, how much. How much people would have to see this message before they either respond or ignore it forever.

Yeah. And you, you can start with like Exit 5 retargeting website retargeting even as a. An easier bucket, like where typically they'd be, you know, already understand Exit 5. They might be easier to convert.

Yeah. Cool. All right, I want to help you out real quick. How can people work like you're building this creator business? How can people work with you? What type of interesting things are you doing? Or how are you partnering with companies and sponsors, et cetera.

So on the creator side, because I make videos, the video part is interesting because you can also use it in your advertising or people actually like, add me as a person for their company. Like, add me as like a. You can call it content creator advisor, whatever that is, and run ads through it. So if your audience is martech or sales tech, that might be a good idea is to, you know, see if we can work together on creating content together and just leverage that. Those kinds of videos from B2B. Riz, just check out B2B rizz.com and we can see if it would actually make sense to you.

Don't do that. No, no, don't. Not that many people. You we're not trying to break your balance. We do. You just said the wrong thing, right? You said, you just say this. I'm booked up with clients for B2B. Riz. If it's interesting to you, there's a wait list. You can go check it out. Put your name on the wait list because then you can control, like, who?

Oh, yeah, yeah. All right. Rewind a year. But I could, I might make some exceptions if you're the right fit.

I think it's going to be interesting here. People are going to continue to hire people like you and like others who are like, hey, go to this. We want you to go to this conference and like, make a bunch of content while you're there. I think there's a bunch of interesting things that you're. That you're circling around and I think it's cool, it's cool to hear you say, like, you know what? I don't want to scale the business. I want to have enough so I can spend my time creating. That's refreshing to hear. Tim, thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you.

Fun to just hang out and chat a little bit, talk shop with you. On the Exit 5 podcast people go to LinkedIn, send him a connection request or a follow, whatever it is, go and like one of his videos. Go check out his stuff. Tim Davidson, good to see you, man. I will see you later.

Thank you. Exit.

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