Thought leadership content can be scaled to become a consultancy Discover why your business needs an ecommerce and tech consultant Content creation nees to be any thought leader’s priority Learn why consistency is key to expanding your influence Use platforms like TikTok and Youtube Shorts for content creation
00:00-05:17 | How to get started in ecommerce and tech consulting 05:17-11:06 | Why are consultants necessary for B2B tech sales? 11:06-16:03 | The right and wrong questions to ask your ecommerce consultant 16:03-23:31 | Why thought leaders need to create content for their expertise 23:31-27:31 | TikTok can help you be conscice with your thought leadership 27:31-31:14 | Build a business with 100% inbound leads through content creation 31:14-39:12 | Find the best content creation strategy for your brand 39:12-44:42 | How NOT to do business on LinkedIn 44:42-47:42 | Get connected to Jason Greenwood 
“If you're not posting consistently, your audience won't know when to listen to you.” - Jason Greenwood “I see so many people going about this the wrong way—instead of being a magnet, they're trying to be a lasso, and in my experience, lassos just don't work.” - Jason Greenwood “You're not a thought leader if you're not putting your thoughts out there into the world.” - Jason Greenwood “I'm a firm believer in the phrase, “Limitation is what breeds innovation”.” - Kap Chatfield “If they can't count on you to consistently drop content, then they're probably not going to pay attention to you because they don't know when they should pay attention to you.” - Jason Greenwood “The better reputation you have, the more business you're going to get, the more respected you'll be, the more opportunities you'll have.” - Jason Greenwood “That short video content, that punchy, right-to-the-point video content forces you to get to your point quickly, because you only have 60 seconds or less—and everybody loves it when you get to the point.” - Jason Greenwood “To become a more effective communicator, a platform like TikTok helps you articulate your thought leadership in a way that's easier to consume, and thus easier to follow, which makes you a more effective thought leader.” - Kap Chatfield “When you show your expertise, you put it out there on a regular basis, and then when people have a need for that expertise, you're naturally and automatically top of mind.” - Jason Greenwood “Once you start to build up that content flywheel, that consistency, that credibility and that reputation in the market—only good things can come from that.” - Jason Greenwood “There's something really valuable in digesting information, having an initial take on it and communicating that in a way that's efficient.” - Kap Chatfield- Rveal’s website: rveal.media
- Rveal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rvealmedia/
- Rveal’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC69p14R2ccMdyUbbmdlWCEw
Full transcription:
Kap Chatfield 00:20
Hey guys, welcome back to B2B Podcasting. Today, our guest is Jason Greenwood. He is the lead consultant of Greenwood Consulting. And he's also the host of At The Coalface Podcast, a podcast where he goes deep into E commerce slash omni channel SAS tech and trends. Basically that's his, that's his area of expertise. He's been a consultant in this space for over 20 years now, he gets speaking engagements all over helping big b2b companies understand how do you move to an E commerce platform? What tech do you need? What tech stacks you need? Especially after COVID-19, I'm sure that's been huge. So Jason, so excited to have you on the show today to talk about your expertise and how you're leveraging your own show to build your brand.
Jason Greenwood 01:02
Fantastic to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Kap Chatfield 01:06
You bet. So let's just jump right into your expertise real quick. So you're in an area that I feel like not a lot of people are, you know, choosing to go to school for. It's not necessarily something that kids say, "I want to be this when I grew up". So you're in a very specialized area of b2b tech consulting. What got you into this world of E commerce tech consulting?
Jason Greenwood 01:30
Yeah, look, I've been in E commerce for over 20 years, and I've worked across agency retailer and I had my own e commerce pure play for almost eight years as well. And and look, it's it's been a journey. And it's a very exciting journey. I kind of fell into E commerce, I mean, I think there's probably a lot of people that have a similar story, especially if you've been in E commerce, as long as I have. E commerce is easy now, in many respects, versus when I first started out, there was a lot of distrust and mistrust by the general public in E commerce. They didn't know whether when they paid online, they didn't know if their money was going to go into a black hole, and whether they were ever going to see the goods. And that was it took a long time. You know, it was a it was for those that sort of grew up in the in the E commerce era, over say the last five to 10 years, where it just feels completely natural. It wasn't like that, in the beginning, it took a lot of convincing and, you know, brands had to work really, really hard to prove that they were legit. And and when I first started out, I kind of fell into it. I had a I had a friend who we had a mutual friend who owned an agency down in Christchurch, where I was living in the South Island of New Zealand at the time. And I was sort of between jobs and and he had an opportunity to come and work in his agency very early on. And they were an E commerce agency developing ecommerce websites and doing e commerce marketing for businesses. And he happened to be American. I'm American. I've been living in New Zealand for over 25 years now. But but he happened to be American, I'm American originally. And so we hit it off pretty quick. And I had an opportunity to go work for his agency. And then after about a year of working in the agency a little bit longer actually, I started my own e commerce pure play with a friend of mine, selling memory cards into the New Zealand market. This was the the very early days of memory cards for cameras and phones. And so the opportunity was massive. We imported from overseas, we warehoused locally, we shipped direct to consumer. So it was a really exciting time. And, and that's how I got started. And then and then after I and then after that, I I we did that full time and then we sold that business off and then I went back into the agency space. And really enjoyed it. And then worked for retailer went back, bought into an agency, director of solutions for an agency. And then and then basically right before I I started, Greenwood Consulting, I realized, hey, there's there's a really big demand, particularly because of COVID. This was after COVID was well underway. This was almost 12 months into COVID. So I've been I've been running my own company since November of 2020. So basically the the virtually the beginning of 2021. I've had my consultancy up and running. And what I realized is that I consult across the depth and breadth of commerce. So I don't just consult on you know which ecommerce platform you use, but or need to use or should use or is a good fit for your business but also the entire commerce stack. So ERP CRM, CDP, Pim, WMS OMS point of sale systems integration and the like. And the reason why I can consult on that is because as a retailer, I've implemented most of these technologies at one point or another. Plus, I've consulted to so many companies in the agency space that needed this, this help, that I really have that full stack understanding of technology, and I discovered that most retailers when they go to an agency, or you know, let's say 50%, let's call it 50% of retailers when they go to an agency and say, hey, you know, we want you to build a website. You know, around that 50% just aren't ready for an agency. They don't know what they don't know. They don't know what they need, they don't know what they want, and they don't know how to figure it out. And so that that created a really golden opportunity for me to be able to go into the market and consult on that full stack and help them get their back end and their front end ready for E commerce omni channel.
Kap Chatfield 05:17
Whoa, that's a that's amazing. I mean, you also just threw out some crazy abbreviations for software that I've never even heard before. So you're clearly you're clearly more fit to do that, then, then I would be and I know that we had mentioned on the pre show call that what you're talking about when it comes to e commerce is not your your typical Shopify and WooCommerce sort of, you know, things which is very like b2c oriented. It's very solopreneur oriented. You're talking about, I mean, why don't you just give us an idea of like, how big are the companies that you're serving that need this sort of expertise?
Jason Greenwood 05:52
Yeah, my, my ICP, or my ideal customer profile is any business that's doing around 3 million or more in annual revenue currently. At that point, they typically not only can afford me, but they also have the resources to execute on the roadmaps that I work with them to put together in terms of improving their business, scaling up their business, growing their business and, and implementing technology that's flexible and scalable to help them get there. And so that's really my ICP. And I and I don't focus on you, you rightly point out, I really don't focus on those vanilla b2c retailers that are maybe selling widgets or selling, you know, selling other people's stuff. I focus on really complex omni channel environments, primarily that b2b, really complex b2b environments where b2b businesses have much greater needs in terms of the complexity of their sales lifecycle, their products tend to be much more complex, their customer engagement model tends to be much more complex. They tend to have complex customer groups, price lists, tiered pricing, you know, negotiated trade pricing, negotiated trade trade deals. They tend to need to do things like send out samples, they need to, they need to be able to sell on credit, they need to, they need to, they just have lots of complexity in their business. Sometimes their products have super complex product models, you know, bundles and kits and grouped products and, and you know, they've got they've just have much more complex business processes and business cycles than then your typical b2c business. And that's really where I shine. And that's where I can really help them. And there's, there's no one else and handset and from a consultancy perspective that I'm aware of, outside the agency space that really focuses on these much more complex commerce models than your traditional pure play b2c retail model, where someone you know is running it from their basement of their house or something like that, and maybe doing drop shipping by Shopify. That's, you know, that as a side hustle, that's amazing. And some of these businesses go onto pop like popcorn, and they turn into big companies or Amazon native brands, or something like that. But, but for me, I focus on those those those, you know, pretty solid businesses that have proven that they're solid, and then they're looking to rapidly move into hyperscale mode, and then I can help them do that.
Kap Chatfield 08:17
You mentioned something that I felt like was gonna be a great transition to the next question that I had. And that was for you to really, you know, you basically, you saw an opportunity in the market, you saw some whitespace, where you could, we could go in and you could kind of like stake some claim of dominance and expertise. What was what in general is missing from E commerce consulting that you think you're able to bring to the table? Is it exclusively that people aren't, consultants in that space, aren't being able to are able to consult these bigger, more complex solutions? Or is would you say that there's a, there's other angles to your brand that sets you apart from the pack?
Jason Greenwood 08:58
Yeah, I think it's a it's a combination. But you rightly point out, there's very few consultants that have worked across across the full breadth and depth of the Commerce stack. They'll specialize maybe in one, maybe two areas. But they also don't necessarily have practical experience in implementing the technologies that they're consulting on. So oftentimes, consultancies agencies and the like, they, they have only ever done that. So when they maybe when they work for an agency, they've only ever worked across the theory side of things. They've only ever worked across the architecture side of things. They haven't, they haven't necessarily implemented those things from the merchant side. And as a result of that, they only have one view of that or when you look at the vendors of these technology products, oftentimes the people that work for those vendor technologies, they've never worked on either the agency side or the merchant side. And so they don't, they don't necessarily have the real world grasp of how their products are actually working inside a merchant environment. And so for me, it's a combination of huge gap in the market around skills and expertise in this area, because we have to, when you think about e commerce, it's still a relatively young industry. You know, we're looking really at less than 20 years. You know, when I first started out, everything to do with E commerce was hard, lots of it was bespoke, there wasn't a lot of out of the box stuff that just worked. And, you know, it just it took a long time for the industry to mature to the point where now, we have SAS tech, SAS technologies that are available for just about every single component of the business stack, not just the E commerce stack, but we're talking the ERP the really complex, heavy lifting back end technologies. You know, we've got systems like NetSuite now, which are full SAS platforms that can run the entire company. And so, because of that, we now have much more modern stacks that are more easy to integrate together, share data with each other, talk to each other. And if you know how to architect those components together, you can have a really, really flexible, really scalable business, but it takes someone that's been there and done that to be able to help you achieve those outcomes.
Kap Chatfield 11:06
One of the things I love about, despite last year being an extremely challenging year for really the entire world. I love that there's I'm a firm believer in the phrase that sometimes limitation is is what breeds innovation. And so here you are, I mean, you have all this experience, 20 plus years, you just started your consultancy late last year. And I mean, it's so cool to see how much content you're putting out. And you're able to like really just, you're able to, you know, share with the world this expertise that that you are developing on a daily basis. And we'll talk more about the content in just a second. But regarding your expertise and how you interact with your clients, one question I like to ask different thought leaders on our show. The first one is, what's one question that you get asked all the time by your clients that you really are thinking inside, "That's the wrong question to ask".
Jason Greenwood 12:01
Yeah, they look, the question that I get asked routinely is, you know, which e commerce platform should we use? And look, that's, that's a, that seems like a very logical question when you come to an ecommerce consultant, right? It's, hey, we're looking at growing, we're looking at scaling, we're looking maybe maybe even sometimes doing ecommerce for the very first time, or we're looking to replatform to something that's going to fit our business a little bit better. And that's a very common question. But I think often what's missing from that question is, let's look at where the business is in its lifecycle as a business full stop. Because what an MVP or a minimum viable product or a minimum viable approach for every business is slightly different. You know, if a business has already got an e commerce website, and let's say they're on generation three of their e commerce website. They've had two e commerce platforms before and they've you know, they've been around for 10 years transacting online. Well, their MVP, and their expectations of this new experience that they're looking to build is much, much higher than a business, because I'm working with with brands that both are already trading online and I sometimes go in and work with b2b brands, for example, that have only ever had field sales reps and BDRs and BDMs and and salespeople, or maybe even physical, retail b2b stores, if it's like autoparts, or something like that. And they're looking to implement econ for the very first time. So MVP for them looks very, very different to a business that's been trading online for 10 years. And so you kind of have to meet them where they are. But oftentimes, the question is more about, okay, which business processes are you looking to automate? Are you looking to bring digital capabilities to? That's oftentimes the first question and then we have to look at their data, we have to look at their product data, we have to look at their customer data, but but oftentimes that question around what e commerce platform should we use? There's a whole lot of groundwork that we have to do before we ever ever get to the answer of that question.
Kap Chatfield 13:58
That's really helpful. I'm gonna ask, ask a follow up question. And I'm hesitating to ask it, because I feel like you might have already answered it. But I want to see if maybe there's a different angle, because you basically broke down, you know, what really, they should be looking at is like, let's look at the business. What, like, what stage of the lifecycle is your business in? What business processes do you want to automate? So the follow up question that I typically ask would be, what is a question that you wish your clients asked you more? And I'm sure maybe that would fall in there. But are there, is there some other question that comes to mind where you're like, "Man, when they ask me this, or if they would ever ask me this, that's where I really come alive".
Jason Greenwood 14:40
Yeah, I would, I would say if they simply came to me and said, "Where are the digital gaps in our business?" And oftentimes, when I first go in, the first thing I typically ask after we've sort of done the pleasantries, and they, they know, I know, they know who I am and they know what I'm capable of doing. And I've sort of outlined what my services are and how we engage, and once we get back past that sort of really first very, you know, foundational parts of our engagement so that they understand what they can expect, but, as an outcome of engaging with me. The first thing I typically will ask them to do is I'll say, "can you show me your product data? And can you show me your customer data? As a sample, of just show me a sample of your product data, typically, that's going to be in their ERP or some back end system, and can you show me your customer data?" And once they do that, very quickly, usually, you know, in less than 10 minutes, I can, just by looking at those two pieces of data and the business, I can I can I already know, I can innately know, where are the gaps? Where are the challenges? What are the problems that they're facing? How much work are we going to have to do to get their business really, truly digitally fit and digitally ready to even be able to go online or to significantly up level up or upscale their e commerce operations and their omni channel operations? Once I look at their product and customer data, it will tell me mostly all I need to know.
Kap Chatfield 16:03
I would love to jump right into the to this the second half of this show where you are leveraging your own show At The Coalface and you're, At The Coalface Podcast, excuse me, and you're using a digital newsletter. It's behind the paywall even, too, which I think is super fascinating. But you are leveraging this to help your you know either current customers, I understand that you have current your current customers get access to this to this newsletter, but you're also using it to build a brand for yourself and show that you are uniquely qualified to answer these questions for your clientele. So let me ask you just just you know, launching off into the deep end, when did you start that show? And what was the reason why you started that that podcast?
Jason Greenwood 16:51
Well, I think if we if we go back a little bit further, even before I answered this question, I think if we go back a little bit further to the very early days of 2018. So I started working for New Zealand's largest online retailer of natural health products, they're they're company called Health Post. And I started working for them as their e commerce manager in 2018, basically in January of 2018. And basically, I was I was started right after the new year. And I had been listening to and watching Gary Vaynerchuk for four years. And, you know, um, you know, whether you love him or whether you hate him, he is an absolute machine and a template when it comes to content production at scale, personal brand building at scale. You know, I don't think there's anyone that could say that he does that poorly. And I think he just, he kept kicking my ass with this constant questions of, you know, if you think you're a thought leader, well, you can't you're not a thought leader if you're not putting your thoughts out into the world and opening them up for critique. And so you're not you know, you you can be the great you can have the greatest ideas, you can have the greatest opinions, you can have the greatest theories. But if you're not putting them out there in the world, and you're not open, you're opening yourself up for critique and you're not trying to make the world a better place through your content, then what are you what are you doing? You know, you're deluding yourself, if you're never ever putting those unique thoughts out into the world, and trying to improve the world with those unique thoughts and trying to share your position on work, on your personal life on on what what you think is it takes to make the world a better place. If you're not if you're not doing that, well, then you're you're basically full of shit, is is effectively what Gary Vee would say, right?
Kap Chatfield 18:41
And just like that too.
Jason Greenwood 18:43
Yeah, and, and, you know, I guess I heard that enough times by that point that I decided, "Hey, okay, I'm gonna go all in on content". And I started out with a vlog on YouTube. And then, and then I found that that in the time, the turnaround time for recording video and editing video took too long. And I found that audio was easier. The turnaround times were easier. So I and I, right from the beginning, I always turned the audio of my video into a podcast. And so right from kind of day one, it wasn't just a vlog, it was always a podcast from day one. But then I dropped the video and really focused on audio, but I wasn't as consistent as I would like to be. But where I was ultra consistent, was putting out content to LinkedIn. And I committed to posting to LinkedIn literally every single day. And there's been literally probably since early 2018 till now there's been you know, I could probably count on two hands, the number of days that I've missed posting content on LinkedIn since early 2018.
Kap Chatfield 19:43
Good for you. Man, that's great.
Jason Greenwood 19:46
And so whilst I may have been not as consistent on the video, and not as consistent on the audio, I was always consistent on LinkedIn. And that's, you know, that's been borne out in my growth on LinkedIn. I've got over 22,000 followers now on LinkedIn and it's been an amazing experience. It's, you know, it drives, you know, I 100% of my company growth is based on inbound, inbound, inbound requests, inbound marketing. I don't do any, I don't do any outbound marketing, I don't do any lead gen marketing in terms of, you know, paid marketing, how to do any paid social. It's 100% organic content. And, you know, it's been phenomenal for me. And since I started really going all in on my podcast a few months ago, and started religiously dropping a new episode, every single Thursday, you know, 11am, New Zealand time. 9am Australian time, every week without fail, you know, the growth of my podcast is literally, you know, it's gone straight up almost. It's, it's unbelievable when you, you know, and I found that with my content on LinkedIn. Once I committed to that, and I was committed to dropping posts every single day consistently, my growth exploded on LinkedIn, and I experienced the exact same growth in my podcast once I started being consistent. And you know, that that started that that just resonated with me in the sense that, hey, it makes sense, if people can't count on you, and they don't know, when you're gonna, it's just random if it's once a month, or once every two weeks or three weeks or four weeks, you know, if they're, if they're, if they can't count on you to consistently drop content, then they're probably not going to pay attention to you because they don't know when they should pay attention to you. And also do I also now do LinkedIn live every single Friday and I've been doing that for three months now. Again, you know, I've I've, I've seen the the viewership of my LinkedIn Live episodes go through the roof and it it multi streams, it streams to LinkedIn live, elite, it streams to YouTube Live and it streams to Facebook Live. So I do a multi stream every single Friday and I've seen my watch-er-ship or listenership of that go through the roof, as I've become more consistent with that. And that's now a religious thing. It's just in my calendar every single Friday. And then my newsletter, my newsletter is ultra consistent, it's every single month. I also send out news e alerts for time sensitive stuff sprinkled throughout the month for my subscribers and my clients get access to my newsletter for free as part of their subscription with me as a business. And so it's starting to create, when I look at, when I look at this, and I look at it across the spectrum of content, and I'm now starting to create religiously on Tik Tok, and then repurpose my Tik Tok videos across Instagram, and YouTube. And, and also YouTube. So YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and I'm also repurposing that content across LinkedIn. It starts to create a content flywheel where people start to see your personal brand and you know, people some people hate that term "personal brand", let's just use the term "reputation" because most people can understand what it means to manage your own personal reputation in the market. And obviously, the better reputation you have, the more business you're going to get. The more respected you'll be, the more the more opportunities you'll have. You know, the my opportunities to speak at conferences and MC conferences and well now, partake in lots of virtual conferences and webinars have those opportunities have absolutely exploded, because I'm kind of everywhere all the time, and my face is kind of becoming more well known for right or wrong or for good or for bad. That's becoming a truism for me because I'm just working so hard on the content side of things. And it starts to build up a content flywheel that has its own momentum.
Kap Chatfield 23:31
I love that you're getting into Tik Tok, even though you're there would be I could imagine there's so much pushback even from the audience right now. Like, why would does his audience even live on Tik Tock? Like why? Why are why is he focusing on using that platform? I could have a lot of assumptions. I I feel like there's a lot of good reasons for why you would, but why would you start with Tik Tock?
Jason Greenwood 23:55
Yeah, look, I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is, similar to LinkedIn and less so on LinkedIn since April of this year, when they killed the algorithm of LinkedIn and they they killed organic reach on LinkedIn starting in about April. It's still very good. LinkedIn is still very good from an organic perspective. But it's nowhere near as good as it used to be. It's nowhere near as easy to get cut through on LinkedIn on now, as it was pre April of this year. They've tricked tweak their algorithm heavily. They've minimized connection request limits. And so LinkedIn is definitely harder. It's still amazing and it's still an incredible opportunity, but it's much harder. Link. Tik Tok is similar in the sense that it has incredible organic reach. And so you can get cut through and you can break through on Tik Tock by being on the feed page, the homepage, not just on the following page because it defaults to the "for you" page, right? It defaults to that that feed type of scenario where you get exposed to new content and new creators on Tik Tok by default. Now you can tap that button at the top which is who you're following, and you can see a chronological order of content from the people that you're following. But that's not the default and 99% of the people don't tap that button, they, they just follow the feed and the feed is algorithmically driven. And it drives a tremendous amount of organic growth and organic traffic to your profile. But the other thing that I love about Tik Tock is their creator tools. Their creator tools are amazing. And so you know, your ability to add music, your ability to add stickers, your ability to add transitions, and, and filters. Your ability to do lots of things on Tik Tock as a creator, and and your ability to download those creative videos, and then reuse those across multiple platforms. It's a pretty amazing platform when it comes to the creator experience. And so for me, it was just a no brainer, you know, it's a no brainer, and especially now that YouTube announced that their Beta shorts program, which is their competitor to Tik Tok, they're getting over 6.5 billion with a B views of shorts per day, right now on YouTube. So and the program is still in beta. And so I could either go out and create native content for shorts, or I could repurpose my Tik Tock content, which is perfectly It perfectly fits the shorts model because it's against under 60 second clips, maximum. And it fits the reels model perfectly, because because those if fits their 60 second model. So for me, that short video content that short, punchy, right to the point video content that it forces you to get to your point quickly, because you only have 60 seconds or less, man, that's been an exercise in frustration in some respects. But it also has forced me to be really concise with the topics that I'm talking about. And everybody loves you know, everybody loves it when you get to the point.
Kap Chatfield 26:47
Oh, man, I'm taking that personally. I think that's such a great challenge in being a communicator. Because you know, the benefit of a podcast is you can kind of pontificate can go on and on. And what's I mean, I love I mean, the whole show is called B2B Podcasting. So don't get me wrong, I think it's there's such a unique advantage to using a platform like this, where you can actually hold an audience's attention for a number of minutes, because they can consume it passively while they're doing something else. But to become a more effective communicator, a platform like Tik Tock, as you're saying, it helps you articulate your thought leadership in a way that's easier to consume, and thus easier to follow, which makes you a more effective thought leader. So I love that, I think that's, that's brilliant, I want to go back to what you were saying. You made a comment that I do not want to just gloss over, because I think this is a remarkable statistic. But you said that 100% of your business coming in these days, your business development can be attributed to inbound. So leveraging the content on these various platforms. Can you dive into that a little bit more?
Jason Greenwood 27:54
Yeah, it's true. You know, it's it's referral business. And it also comes from my content. So, you know, I get I get DMS almost daily from brands that that are looking to work with someone who can help them level up their business. And, you know, it I'll admit I'm not a great fit for 100% of those inbound requests. But if I didn't have that pipeline of inbound queries of people reaching out to me and saying, hey, you know, thinking you might be a great fit, I've been watching your content for six months, or I've been listening to your podcast for six months, or, or, Hey, Joe follows you. And he said, I have to follow you. And man, he was right, I really, I really enjoy your content or, or, you know, that's just it feels like that's the new way business is done. You know, you show your expertise, you put it out there on a regular basis. And then when people have a need for that expertise, you're naturally and automatically top of mind. And so therefore, because you're consistently out there, even if they forgot your name, in the intervening time, all of a sudden, now when your next piece of content comes out, it's like oh, yeah, that's right. It's Jason. That's right. Oh, all that's right. That's right. That's right. I knew I was thinking of this guy who posts on a regular basis. And I knew I needed some help with E commerce and we're a b2b business, so whatever, but maybe I couldn't even remember his name. But but now Oh, yeah. Okay, now I know, I've just seen a new piece of content from him go up. This is the guy, I knew this is the guy I needed to talk to, I'm gonna reach out to him. And and I've seen that happen on so many occasions now where people reach out and and sometimes they don't even necessarily reach out right then and there for a business opportunity. But what they'll do is they'll reach out and they'll say, you know, love your content, really enjoying it, learning a lot, you know, not ready to not ready to hire you right now. But you know, in six months time, we're going to be doing X, Y and Zed and we'd love to work with you. So I'm going to come back and I'm going to talk to you then. The number of times that I've received messages like that it's, I've probably lost count of the times I've received messages like that. But it definitely, you know, once you started to build up that content flywheel, once you started to build up that consistency, once you started to build up that credibility, and that reputation in the market, you know, only good things can come from that. You know, sure, you have to put yourself out there. Sure it takes a bit of effort. Sure it takes a little bit of investment of not only time, but some decent equipment, to have the production quality that makes it worthwhile for people to listen to you and, you know, getting a podcasting mic and a few other bits and pieces. You know, maybe even a vlogging camera, and, you know, but the reality is, is that for my content on Tik Tok, for example, that I repurpose, it's 100% shot on my iPhone. And even though I have wireless mics and everything that can connect to my iPhone, I don't use any of it. I shoot it quick. It's shot in one take, I do all my editing inside, inside Tik Tock, I do all my post production directly inside Tik Tock, and I post it straight away, like within an hour of it being shot, it's being posted. And then it's being repurposed within a half an hour after that across two other major platforms, two to three other major platforms in near real time. So speed for me is much, much more important than production quality. And being able to get your ideas out there rapidly, for me is a winning formula.
Kap Chatfield 31:14
I would love to hear your perspective on the, the balance, the tension, between bulk creating, in other words, like creating a ton of content in advance, so you can schedule it out, especially if you're really busy having you know, being able to create some sort of consistent content calendar. And then also what you're doing is like this discipline, this daily discipline of creating on the fly. Do you have anything to say and about the tension between those two things?
Jason Greenwood 31:42
Yeah, look, I think I think that works for some people, like some people will write like, you know, seven LinkedIn posts at the beginning of their week in a document. And then they'll they'll, you know, progressively put those out over the following seven days. That's never worked for me, I you know, I consume content from our industry on a regular basis, across, you know, I'm a subscriber to probably 100 different newsletters. So I receive over 1000 emails a month, from our industry, from various sources in our industry. And I don't necessarily read every word of every, you know, newsletter that I receive. But I have a steady stream of current topical news happening in the industry that always prompts original thought for me, or at least an original response, or giving my take, my commentary on that piece of news or that industry development. So that the industries come to rely on me as kind of that, that curator of that flood. You know, no one, most people, most people other than me, don't want to subscribe to 1000 different industry newsletters around ecommerce and digital. They just they just don't want to do that because they don't have the time to sift through those 1000 newsletters. Right? But for me, it provides a steady stream of topical, relevant, timely content that then spurs other thought by me. And so I never ever have a short and I've got a lot of original thoughts all the time anyway, just based on the work that I'm doing with clients, based on what I'm seeing in the industry, based on platform and technology news that's coming out from the vendors and partners that I work with. You know, I've got many, many different sources of that content thinking of that content generation flywheel, I've always got a source. I'm never short of ideas. It's more like, How can I pick the one or two things today that are going to be the most relevant, the most punchy and the most helpful for my audience? It's more of what don't I say, as opposed to what I do say.
Kap Chatfield 33:38
I think one thing that you said too that is, you know, as far as all the content that you're consuming, to, to stay up on the trends. I fell on that same tension as well, because it's, I think it's, it's smart to have some sort of consistent framework so that you can provide Meteor content and get ahead so that you're not like kind of burning the wick at both ends, so to speak. But things are changing in the market so rapidly, if you're trying to schedule out content, like months in advance, it's gonna probably be irrelevant by the time that it actually goes live. So there's something really valuable and even as you know, circling back to the being concise in your communication, there's something really valuable in in digesting information, having a an initial take on it and communicating that in a way that's efficient. And then also, what you're what you're probably learning too is efficient methods for content creation. One of the things that you just said that really stuck out to me was you're creating natively in the app so that you're actually you know, you're not spending all this time using like, some sort of editing software or using a DSLR. You're using, what is what lives in your pocket. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And now I do want to talk more about the content consumption element because I think that's really important for somebody who's listening who's, maybe they're in the consultative space, maybe they're a coach, or maybe they're their brand their business is actually they are they generate business by being the thought leader in their space. I think one thing that CEOs and founders and the C-suite level thought leaders, they they can neglect is the importance of, of consuming that content and then distributing that content with their own voice. So what is uh, what is, let me let me ask this, how does your content consumption affect what you're putting out on the podcast? Do you take like, something from from the RSS feed or from the articles that you're reading and create a specific episode out of that? How, if you could help our audience understand how to take what you're learning, and craft these really remarkable episodes out of it? I think that'd be helpful.
Jason Greenwood 35:49
Sure. So my podcast is a different beast to my posts on LinkedIn, to my Tik Tock content and to my newsletter content. My my newsletter content, my Tik Toc content and my in my my LinkedIn content tend to be focused on really relevant and even my even my LinkedIn lives every Friday. They're based on relevant topical news in the moment, right? They're based on say, the prior week or the prior months, major industry news, major moves in the industry by, by, by tech platform providers, by retailers, by marketplaces, by brands, you know, I'm really watching for all anything related to E com, Omni channel and digital, I'm really watching out for that really topical stuff that's really relevant in the moment for those channels. Because that's really the focus of those channels for me, it's its relevancy and its currency.
Kap Chatfield 36:42
Gotcha.
Jason Greenwood 36:43
My podcast is very, it's much more strategic in the sense that it's got to be more timeless. I don't focus on current news in my podcast at all. My podcast is very narrow, and it's very niche. And the reason why I made it very narrow and very niche is because there's probably, let's say, roughly 20 major global ecommerce podcasts out there. I don't consider myself a major global podcast yet, I'm still on a growth trajectory myself. But if we look at the sort of top 20 podcasts in the world around ecommerce and omni channel, 99% of them, in fact, all of them that I've ever listened to, they focus on almost anything related to e commerce, that could be current news, that could be merchant stories, that could be technology information, that could be digital marketing news, or digital marketing service providers that come on and give tips and tricks. It is pretty much a free for all in terms of the topics that they will cover in relation to e commerce. Me, I didn't want to do that because, A it's it would be easier. Sure, if I went down that path, because I could I could cover almost any topic related even tangentially to ecommerce so I guess it would give me more content opportunities. But it would just drop me straight into that sea of sameness of all the other e commerce podcasts that are out there. And I was never going to win and and I was never going to be able to differentiate myself based on my skill set and my experience in that environment. So I chose to go hyper niche on the tech side. So the SAS tech ecommerce and omni channel SAS tech and trends side of the industry. Because that's where I'm strong as a senior Solution Architect for many years in the industry. I can ask the relevant questions I can ask the kind of questions I know the audience is going to want to know the answer to. I can engage really deeply with the tech providers and vendors, I can ask really smart questions of them that that really digs deep into what their tech is capable of and how it fits into the broader commerce stack. And so it provides a really interesting dialogue. I think it educates me. At the same time it's educating the audience and and it provides just such a rich, fertile battleground for that, you know that that robust discussion to happen between me and the guest. And the banter that comes out of that. So for me, it was it was that fit that made the most sense for my podcast.
Kap Chatfield 39:12
When you get your inbound leads where do you sense that most of them are coming from? Are they coming from Tik Tok? Are they coming from LinkedIn? Are they coming from a podcast episode or your newsletter? Or do you sense that, hey, it's like they're, they've actually moved a lot of them or are getting touches from all these different points.
Jason Greenwood 39:30
Because I post almost all of my content at some point or another to LinkedIn. It's 100, I would say 90, 90 plus percent of it is coming via LinkedIn. Because regardless of where I've produced the content or initially distributed the content, you know, I've got my own podcast company page on LinkedIn. I've got my own newsletter, company page on LinkedIn. I've got I've got my own LinkedIn Live company page on LinkedIn. So when this content goes out, it goes against my personal profile. But I also post the links to those episodes and that content on the company pages for those for those channels of content, those content channels. And as a result of that, almost everyone will see my content at some point or another or at least see a reference to that content at one point or another on my personal LinkedIn profile. And so that's what typically starts the flywheel, they'll see a piece of content from me, they're stopped following my LinkedIn profile, then they'll start seeing, Oh, I didn't even know this guy had a podcast. Oh, he's posted that his his new episode is dropped, oh, I didn't even know this guy had a newsletter. Oh, he's just dropped a post about the fact that his latest newsletters dropped. Oh, I didn't know this guy did LinkedIn live, oh, he's just dropped the fact that he's got this new this new LinkedIn live posts. So it starts to build on itself. And it starts to be a pyramid of content that you can just continue to stack and stack and stack.
Kap Chatfield 41:02
So if I'm hearing you correctly, I mean, it makes complete sense, I'm experiencing the same thing with my own brand. LinkedIn obviously is a the term social media, it's a, it's a social networking platform, where you can find people in your industry or people from other industries that you want to do business with. And that's really where you can build connections. So that's like the, that's the front door for people to experience any of the content that you're creating on these other platforms. So it's really that's become like a distribution vehicle for you, which just makes complete sense.
Jason Greenwood 41:33
It's like a hub. It's like a distribution hub, for sure. What I what I see most brands and even most personal brands doing horribly wrong on LinkedIn. So I never ever sell via LinkedIn, ever. You can you can look back across my posts, I don't either just don't do selling via LinkedIn, I don't do selling via LinkedIn DM, I don't do selling via my content. I don't push you know, I'll I'll distribute the fact that I've produced this content and sure for in the case of the newsletter, there's a small fee associated with it. So you know, I guess you could technically call that selling but, but I never, you know, openly sell and say hey, you know, com and, you know, come and do business with me. I'm a I'm a b2b consultant, if you want to level up your b2b e commerce game, then come and talk to me. Or I've got this new promotion, you know, get 10% off my consultancy services for the month of June, if you if you engage with me today, or, you know? None of those overt, I guess, selling techniques that I see all too often across all channels, including LinkedIn. I never slide into someone's DM and say, hey, you know, I saw your post, you know, hey, if you need some help, you know, hey, look, here's the link to my website. Here's a link to my Calendly booking. You know, I'd love to have a chat to you booking booking some time with me today. And look, I get those kind of DMS and I see those kind of posts literally on the daily. And I I have made it a practice whenever someone cold pitches me via DM, I immediately block them. I give them I don't even give them a response, they get an immediate block. And they will never have a chance to do business business with me ever. So so I just see so many people going about this the wrong way. Instead of being a magnet, they're trying to be a lasso and in my experience lassos just don't work.
Kap Chatfield 43:18
Oh, that's a mic drop quote. You'll see that in a quote graphic for sure. That's so good. It's so true, man. I It's so unfortunate, because I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I get those DMS, I think we all do I mean those that's like sponsored DMS and I also like have in my LinkedIn name, I have a couple of emojis like at the beginning of the name. And when they do those LinkedIn, DMS, it's automated. So I can tell it's automated because they include these emojis when they say my first name, and it like comes up with this question mark because it can't register it. And just like oh, that's so painful. So that's one thing I appreciate that you're you're really thinking about is building brand is about building trust with the market. And as soon as you start to try to come off too salesy, you're going to burn that bridge of trust. But because you're coming in and you're providing value, and as you mentioned earlier in this episode, you're showing up consistently, they know who to call when they have the problem. They know who to go to. So you're you're playing the long game, and I think it's gonna really reward you, I mean, you're already seeing it. You're seeing 100% of your business developments coming inbound. And that's, that's a really fun way to build a business because you get to just continue to be a thought leader, continue to learn, continue to share, share your notes, as I say with other students, and it's paying off for you. So, man, Jason, I just we're coming to the end of the episode here. I could not be more grateful for stuff, the stuff that you shared. You're clearly not just an expert at what you do in tech stacking, but you're also a serial content creator. You have the systems down. Obviously you're you're building, it's a small company that you have. But you're you're really leveraging some really unique techniques that I think our audience is going to be able to glean from to create their own content. So as we close it out, this is the opportunity for you to kind of pitch yourself or at least for how people can get connected with you. What's the best way for people to get connected with you personally, and your brand?
Jason Greenwood 45:21
On LinkedIn would probably be just the best, you know. Jason Greenwood on LinkedIn, you can't you hopefully can't miss me on LinkedIn. So yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can either follow me or reach out with a connection request. And I'm happy to connect with, with most people, I always before I accept the connection requests, I'll always go to somebody's profile. And I'll try to see you know, have they been interacting on LinkedIn at all? Have they been producing content at all? I try to focus on people that are pretty active on LinkedIn. But yeah, absolutely reach out to me on LinkedIn. You know, all you've got to do is Google Jason Greenwood. I'm typically in the top three results on LinkedIn. Sorry, on Google for Jason Greenwood. You can Google At The Coalface and you will see At The Coalface Podcast, you'll see At The Coalface Digest, you'll see everything related to At The Coalface because I really try to bring information from the Coalface of what I do, you know, because we're in the trenches, right? I'm in the trenches on the daily working with brands, and to help them level up their ecommerce digital game. And I'm really just trying to share that journey. You know, as as Gary Vaynerchuk is a fan of saying, you know, document don't create. And I've really tried to take that on board and make that part of what I do on the daily and trying to build that into my consistent process. So yeah, I'd say LinkedIn first and then just google me or Google At The Coalface and you'll be able to find kind of almost all my content that I produce. So that'd be awesome.
Kap Chatfield 46:43
Legend, yes, definitely check out the podcast, especially if you're trying to if you're in that place, as a company where you recognize you got to start taking ecommerce way more seriously. And you also don't want to waste a ton of time and resource messing around the wrong products. He's the guy to check out. Jason, bro, thanks again for jumping on the show today. This was so much fun.
Jason Greenwood 47:04
Absolutely. My pleasure. And let's do it again. Maybe maybe let's do it again in another 12 months, because I'm sure the industry will have changed a lot by then. And who knows? My content strategy may have may have changed a lot by then who knows? Maybe maybe I won't even put me pushing out content to LinkedIn in 12 months. Who knows?
Kap Chatfield 47:19
Who knows? Who knows? Good thing you're investing in Tik Tock right now. But yeah, I'll take you up on that. We'll see you in 12 months.
Jason Greenwood 47:24
Sounds good mate. Thanks.
