Matthew has leveraged his podcast to be a “pre-interview” of sorts for his own career and as a recruiting tool for employees in his company. 
The latest episode of B2B Podcasting is for any thought or business leader looking to leverage the time and effort of a video podcast into a major advantage for their industry.
Podcasting can help shift your career path to new opportunities A thought leadership podcast can sharpen you as a professional in your space Learn how to build relationships with other business leaders through a podcast Learn to build your business brand and reputation with content creation
00:00-10:23 | A podcast will allow you to build your brand and relationships in the B2B world 10:23-17:41 | Why don’t more CEO’s dive into creating thought leadership for themselves? 17:41-27:41 | Creating content will put you in front of your ideal audience every time 27:41-41:13 | Accelerate your thought leadership with the content you produce 
“A podcast is passive relationship building.” - Matthew Sciannella “LinkedIn is a great testing ground for topic ideas for your podcast.” - Matthew Sciannella “There’s no better way to create awareness for your company than to do LinkedIn and to do it really well.” - Matthew Sciannella “I’m much less interested in creating a massive following and more interested in creating the RIGHT following.” - Matthew Sciannella
Full Transcription:
Kap Chatfield 00:20
Hey gang, welcome back to B2B podcasting. I'm your host, Kap Chatfield, CEO of Rveal Media. Today. Our guest is Matthew Sciannella. He is the strategy director at Gorilla 76 and he is going deep with his content creation. He's found a real niche in creating some very valuable content in a very, I'd say an untapped space but truly a goldmine of opportunity. It's the industrial space, and he's got a show, he's the co host of that show. The other host is MJ Peters, but his name is Matthew Sciannella. He's the co host of The Industrial Marketing Show. And we are so excited to have him on the show today to talk about all things podcasting, all things about getting technical with your thought leadership, even in industries where it seems like a podcast might not be a good fit. I think Matthew can show us otherwise. So Matthew, thanks so much for joining us on the show today.
Matthew Sciannella 01:08
What's up, Kap? Happy to be here, man, thanks for having me on.
Kap Chatfield 01:12
You bet. I'm really excited to connect, I mean, people aren't going to be able to see the pre show call that we just, we had to cut short. But clearly, you and I both get very excited about the opportunity that comes in with this, what I believe is the most elegant and the most effective format of content creation today, which is podcasting, which we will get into a little bit about how you are how you're leveraging your show to help establish yourself as a thought leader in your space. I know that recruiting for your company is also a big thing that your podcast has helped you do. But before we get there, let's talk a little bit about what you're actually doing for Gorilla 76. Tell us about the company and tell us what you're doing for them.
Matthew Sciannella 01:51
Yeah, man. So Gorilla is a full service marketing agency. We're a bit of a rare bird in that in that regard today. So we'll do web development, sort of like like light web development, not very expensive websites, we do foundational aspects around market research, content strategy, content creation, content distribution, standing up CRMs and then, you know, reporting on that. And we're very focused on producing pipeline for our clients, most of whom have not had a marketing do not have a marketing department or by and large have a very small marketing team, and they're very stretched thin. And so we we help supplement expertise for them. And basically, what you do is you get, you get four people on your account in terms of like a demand gen person and who's a strategist, a Content Manager, a project manager, and then also, you know, videography or web dev if needed. So you get a lot of resources for working with us. And it helps really spend a lot of our clients marketing programs for usually very quickly, like within the first year. So,
Kap Chatfield 03:00
That's, that's awesome, man. And you guys are clearly doing some really interesting stuff. Your show as I, as I mentioned, it's called The Industrial Marketing Show. I can imagine there's a lot of people in the B2B space, particularly in the industrial industry or sector, they're probably like, how on earth have you been able to do a show for this long around set something that seems like I don't see a lot of innovation in that space? So let's just jump right into it. What got you guys starting to do this Industrial Marketing Show? Why do you think it was needed?
Matthew Sciannella 03:30
Man, the show was just kind of, so this is this is a true story. So I actually I was working in the welding industry at the time I decided to do the show. I was working for a welding equipment manufacturer based in Germany, I was their marketing director for the US and Canada. Podcasting was something that has always been in my life. Normally, it was like sports, right? Sports and news and stuff like that. But I was seeing podcasts become more of a thing in business. And there are a couple that I remember listening to early on, like Inbound Success and a couple others like that. And there was not a lot of there was no podcast, actually, that was really focused on the industrial space, particularly in marketing. And so I started my thought leadership kind of prop program on LinkedIn, I wanted to just be more active there just work on being more participatory. You know, sharing my ideas, getting my ideas challenged, sharpening my sword kind of on that stuff. And then a podcast just kind of become became this very natural extension of that thought leadership. And so I was looking for someone to do it with because I just needed somebody to bounce ideas off of. And so I met MJ on LinkedIn. MJ and I have never met in person ever. Even though we've been doing the podcast now for 79 episodes today. We've never met in person. And so we both sort of were like, Hey, do you want to do a podcast? We're like, Yeah, let's do a podcast. We had no idea we were doing like we stood up a Wix site. And, you know, we've discovered anchor where we host our podcasts on, I had to learn how to connect anchor to Apple podcast so it would distribute there. We started out recording on Zoom, I edited in iMovie, I still do to this day, if I need to edit it, and I just ship it on Anchor. And we were very low tech with that we don't do any video either. It's a side project for both of us. But we I like it as a megaphone to discuss things I'm seeing and talk about my ideas and it's obviously a much more expansive platform than what you could do on a LinkedIn or Twitter posts, for instance. So yeah, we're, we just started doing it. Gosh, it was March of last year, I want to say, March COVID with COVID. Yeah, I was working with got sent home and told to work from home. And I was like, I need a new project in my life. And this was kind of it. I wanted to see what kind of traction you could get with a podcast. And then by and large ended up kind of holding a lot of my career. I mean, I got noticed by the podcast, got offered a job at a startup from the podcast, took that job, didn't end up working out, wasn't a great fit for me. But then I ended up getting into Gorilla also largely because of the podcast because I had Joe who's our CEO, and my, my boss. I had him as one of my first guests on the show. And then from there, we just kind of cultivated a relationship. And I was able to reach out to him to tell him I was looking to change careers. At the point that the startup gig wasn't working out. And he ended up asking me if I was interested in interviewing for the job. And I did and here I am, over a little over a year later, directly into directing the strategy department. So yeah, the podcast has kind of been life changing for me, you know what I mean?
Kap Chatfield 06:41
That's awesome. So like, maybe you didn't know it at the time. But you were like, you leveraged a podcast episode as like a pre interview, interview for the job that you're in did.
Matthew Sciannella 06:53
I did, totally unbeknownst to me. And so it gives me a lot of this, like, this is part of the reason why I'm so bullish on podcast, I think it's like with any piece of content, it comes down to intent. But I remember I had James James Carberry on on a webinar. And you know, James, I'm sure. And like, it's great. Yeah. And I remember we were on this, we're talking about podcasting in the industrial space, and I just made this mention of it. So a podcast is, is basically passive relationship building. And that's really what it is because audio allows you to really get a sense of how people think and how they sound and what their thought process looks like. And you end up building relationships with those people, even though maybe you've never met them before. So like I think about all the podcasts I've listened to ever in my entire life. And I'll go through professional and non professional. So Tony Kornheiser Show, Bill Simmons Podcast, you know, State of Demand Gen, Inbound Success, you know? All these people, and that's like, you know, Tony Carozza, Bill Simmons Kathlyn Booth, Chris Walker, I feel like I know these people, even though I've never met any of them, except for Tony Kornheiser in person. And, you know, and that and but this podcast was the conduit by which I was able to build those relationships with those people in the first place, or feel like I was building that.
Kap Chatfield 08:10
I love the phrase. And we'll make a quote graphic out of this quote, for sure, because it's just so good. You said a podcast is passive relationship building. And that's a that's been a theme. I've seen it firsthand. I've it's been a theme that we've talked through with a handful of guests on our show. But it's so cool because, you know, I think you would agree based off of your saying that you kind of went through this phase where you took, oh, you took LinkedIn a lot more seriously, not just as like a resume portal, which I think the whole LinkedIn world is starting to understand. It's no longer just a place where you put your credentials and your work experience and your education experience. It's actually it's a content creation platform. And it's actually a it's a social networking tool. And so you, you can really get a lot out of it if you're proactive about putting content out and putting yourself out there and responding to other people's content and building those relationships. And when you have that content out there it allows somebody I mean, you like time capsule, these conversations, someone could go back and listen to an episode from last year, you started it in March last year, and they can they can get to know you from episode one. And you only have to put it out there once. So it's an extremely efficient way to build brand and to build residual relationships with people.
Matthew Sciannella 09:27
For sure. And also is it's a testing ground for topic ideas for my show, even the show we did this week. It started out as a LinkedIn post and I kind of just wanted to hear what people said in response to the post. I the topic was why aren't more industrial executives on LinkedIn doing thought leadership? And I got some replies and it made me think and spin my wheels more and then I will talk to MJ about it, I was like we should talk about this because I have my thoughts on why this happens and how you can overcome it. And so we ended up making an episode out of that, but I really use LinkedIn as sort of a test balloon for a lot of things I want to expand on and other content mediums where you can be more expansive. And it works for me very well. I enjoy doing that a lot. So and I'll do it in the inverse too, sometimes, if we have an episode, and it works really well. But for the most part, I'm using LinkedIn as kind of that, that proving ground for ideas that I want to do in a podcast or in a webinar.
Kap Chatfield 10:23
I want to, I want to hit on the very thing you just talked about. I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about it. Why do you think more industrial CEOs are not currently on LinkedIn building personal brand?
Matthew Sciannella 10:37
Alright, so my short answer to this is most executives don't like the polarity of what thought leadership on LinkedIn is. I mean, a lot of executives want to play the middle, they don't want to upset people with their thoughts and their point of view, which I think is I think, is interesting overall, because I think the great companies out there, have detractors and have raving fans. You look at companies, like even the greatest manufacturing companies out there right now like Tesla, right? There are people who hate Tesla, and there's people who love Tesla, and it's because their CEO is has a lot of polarity to him, whether you love or hate Elon Musk. I mean, that's, that's an extreme example. But there's other examples of that as well, in the space, I think that's part of the reason is executives don't like the polarity, they feel like they hire their marketing team to do social media for them, even though I think the missed opportunity is that most people want to follow an individual more than a company, because an individual is someone who can rally people around an idea or a point of view, on their category. And, and the other reasons is, I just think, you know, they they have their their timeline of expectations is unrealistic. So when you look to do something like that, if you're honest with yourself, and you know, it's going to take 12 months of consistency, it's like exercising, right? You need to like build that muscle up and you got to keep that going. And you know, when you don't see results after 60 days, it's very easy to just dismiss it and say it doesn't work, even though it takes a lot more time than that. And then there's other aspects of it that are a little more tactical, like who you connect with and participating in other people's conversations. And, you know, there's a lot of discipline to work into that. And I just think a lot of industrial executives, don't feel there's a lot of upshot for it for them. But I would counter that by saying that there's no better way to create awareness for your company, on a on a macro level than to do LinkedIn and do it really well. And if you look at the timeline of how industrial, the industrial sector adopts, you know, cutting edge marketing tactics and strategies, you know, the 3, 4, 5 years behind a lot of tech companies. And so that opportunity for industrial is really right now, you know, because people in tech have been doing it now for a couple years, maybe two, three years. So this is sort of the time to grab the mantle and start making that work for yourself, while, while it's still possible. But I think by and large oh, and I think another reason is, a lot of the marketers that industrial executives hire are very inexperienced, so they don't have the wherewithal to develop a strategy like that with the CEO or the president, or the subject matter expert, the executive subject matter expert in their company. And, and if they if they had someone who was more experienced who could help cultivate that strategy, they would probably get to the result they were looking at still in that same timeline, but the execution would be a lot better. So there's a there's those are several reasons, in my opinion, why it doesn't happen. I think all of those ultimately are excuses, because I think it's very possible. And also CEOs just have to want to do it. They have to see the value of it. Like they'll be like, oh, yeah, I see the value of it, but I just don't have time. Well, if you made time, you know, you probably would be able to grow, to grow support around your point of view on the market and what you're trying to accomplish.
Kap Chatfield 13:54
I I want to talk briefly about the power of personal brand for the and how it affects the entire organization. You just made this comment you said there's no better way to create awareness for your company than to do LinkedIn and to do it really well. And I think, you know, sometimes, I understand, I can really empathize with the CEO who says I don't want to make it about me, it's about the company. And I get that because you mentioned it can be a polarizing thing to be a thought leader. Leadership is always polarizing. I think we got to remember that, you're not going to please everybody. But I think in business, what we got to remember is like, number one, you're your customer isn't everybody. And the more that you can differentiate yourself about who your customer base really is, you're going to attract the right people and you're going to repel the wrong people. And that's actually going to help your business in the long run. So that's the first thing I would say. And the second thing I would say, there's a book I would recommend you check it out. It's it's pretty interesting. It's called The Human Brand. And there's a part in the book where it talks about how, a few decades ago before the world of digital and social media, the most powerful brand element that a company could have was the owners face. And what they meant by that was like when when, when a lot of you know, market activity was done locally, like you'd go to your local butcher, you'd go to your local florist, you go to your local dry cleaners, you would go and you would see the owners face like you'd see them firsthand. And that was a more powerful interaction than seeing like a corporate logo or seeing a font type or seeing a color palette that matched that brand. There was the person's face. And what's amazing about creating content like this on LinkedIn, or really anywhere, but just doing it consistently, is you're you're you're constantly putting out your most valuable brand asset, which is your face.
Matthew Sciannella 15:50
Right. And you right? I mean, I should add a caveat to this on the industrial side, because actually MJ made a really good counterpoint that I agreed with, when she told me that part of it is like, it depends if the CEO or the executive at the company is, you know, a founder CEO, or they're like a guy brought in from the outside to manage in a CEO capacity. Because, you know, when I when I talk about, like those great manufacturing companies out there, and their CEOs who are polarizing figures, but rally people around them, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, right? And these are all manufacturing companies, by and large, but they're all they're all like the inventor of that company. By and large, they created the product. So if you have in your space, if you work for a midsize company and you have a second generation business owner, or you have like that founder or CEO, or you have like a two-subject matter expert in your VP spot, or your director spot who like knows the knows that category super well, because they're in it every day, you can build it around them, it doesn't have to be the CEO. Just find that subject matter expert who has true true technical expertise in it, along with a strong point of view on the way things should be in regards to your space, and you can create some magic, you just need to have the right execution in place.
Kap Chatfield 17:09
I love that I love the clarity around that. Because the CEO can be for certain organizations, the CEO, and the subject matter expert are the same person, one of our biggest clients as a company actually does they do skilled labor staffing for the industrial space. And so we've gotten to work pretty pretty closely with them, and helping them with their marketing in that space. And it's an interesting place, but it actually there is a lot of opportunity there. But I want to hear firsthand from you. What would you say particularly in your experience with doing your podcast in the industrial space?
Matthew Sciannella 17:41
I think almost any space has audience for this. I serve marketers in the manufacturing space, right? So you know, obviously, the first objection you're gonna hear is, oh, well, it's marketing and marketers do this thing. And this is a marketer thing. But I would say like, you know, Joe's my CEO, Joe Sullivan, has another podcast called The Manufacturing Executive more tailored towards the CEO level. And we get several inquiries a month from people and we ask how you hear about us, and they're like, Oh, I saw your podcast, or I saw your stuff on LinkedIn, from your podcast clips. And then there's other people that I know, like, Jason Becker, who runs The Art Junkies Podcast, and that is, that is a podcast for welders, you know? It's welding professionals and like, they're like, Oh, welders don't listen to podcasts. Well, you know, kind of BS, I mean, Jason, I've had Jason on my show, and he gets 1000s of listens a month on his podcast, and he's got a huge following as a result. He's leveraged it into sponsorships and monetized it for himself. Like, so I just, I just know that they're your audience in some way, shape, or form is there, it's not that you're it's not whether your audience is there, it's whether your intent is right, and you're making content to try to add value to their lives, to help them do their job better, or find a better opportunity for them, or paint or give them a new insight that maybe they're not aware of. If you're just doing a podcast that kind of talk about your products, or talking about your product category, and how you guys do well in it that's not really interesting to most people. You're gonna end up making a podcast largely for your company, and not really for your audience. And so when you look at people who do it well, in the industrial space, their focus is on providing value to anybody who could possibly be a customer to them, regardless of whether it's the benefit to them or not. And that ultimately is a hard thing for companies to do consistently. And really, in any content format, whether you're doing webinars, blogs, or, or podcasts or anything else. But that's ultimately where you end up gaining the most traction. It takes the longest to get there. It takes it takes the most discipline, but ultimately, it's where the greatest upshot lies for you in any organic content program that you you you stay claim to.
Kap Chatfield 19:55
I think you even mentioned before we started the recording that you're not necessarily seeing astronomical downloads and listens, but you're talking to the right person. And that's that's how you're bringing value and actually building a community.
Matthew Sciannella 20:09
Yeah, I'm much less interested in building this enormous following and trying to get as many listeners as possible. I'm more interested in making sure that the people who do listen to my show are exactly the kind of people I want to talk to, who are in the same space, same spot in their career I was five years ago, and I'm hoping to accelerate it for them, and they find value and whether they want to work with me or not, that's okay. Some of them want to work with me in regards of working for my company. So like, I've been able to take people who have listened to my podcast, and I've been able to recruit them to work for Gorilla as a result, people who otherwise were like not necessarily looking to change their current company, I was able to either get them into an interview, whether it worked out or not, or I was able to actually just outright hire them, make an offer and bring them on board, which has been amazing. Because it it really and when we're talking about executives, and why aren't they doing thought leadership on LinkedIn? I think one other thing, you know, guy like Dave Gerhart says all the time, what's the selfish benefit? Well, for your CEO, you can paint the selfish benefit of if you want to attract top talent to your company, there's no better way to do that than like, then being being the CEO everyone wants to work for and you do that by, you know, expressing a ton of valuable thought leadership on an organic social platform, whether that's LinkedIn or whether it's Instagram or anywhere, right? And so if you're, and especially now, everyone in manufacturing is like oh there's a labor shortage, I can't get workers. Well, what are you doing to make yourself desirable to work for if you're going to just hide behind you know, your screen or not get out there and beat the drum for your company, or your category or industry, and be the kind of person that people want to work for, you're going to just be like anyone else that's just resume collecting and just, you know, checking people off a criteria with their HR manager. So, you know, for me, I've the podcast is not just opened up career opportunities for me, it's opened up career opportunities for other people, because I've been able to kind of find people who I've had who identify with my outlook on how marketing should be in the industrial space and have been able to bring them in. And that accelerates really their onboarding process, like the person I brought in recently she's killing it. She's three weeks in, and it's almost like she's been there three months. And it's no secret to me, that people who I reach out to and ask if they're interested in interviewing, because they I know that they engage with my stuff, but I knew that they listened to me. There's no secret, they do better because I've been following them too. I mean, one person that the same person I brought on board, she was starting her own thought leadership on LinkedIn, I noticed her, I know another company was also noticing her as well. And I reached out and we know brought her on. And like her interview was just, it was just so seamless. It was one of the easiest interview process I've ever had in my life. It's because this person had been attending my webinars, listening to my podcast, reading my stuff on LinkedIn, and it was just like, like listening to a miniature version of myself. And I know groupthink isn't necessarily the greatest thing in the world sometimes. But when you're trying to scale a program that we're trying to do with our clients, it's important that the learning curve for people you bring in is as short as possible, so they can ramp. And so for these people, this person I brought on, I mean, that's definitely been the case. And I credit what we've been doing on the podcast in the in the content space, really, with helping facilitate that.
Kap Chatfield 23:21
I want to leave the B2B brand leaders out there with that one thing: if you're in a place right now, where you're trying to hire, and you're trying to hire, right, because we all we all know, hiring wrong ends up costing you more in the long run. And so to avoid that, creating content can help you attract the right talent to your team. And I just think gosh, it's so cool that you guys are doing that.
Matthew Sciannella 23:44
I would especially think if you're if you're an industrial exec or any executive anywhere, for that matter, if you're a CEO of anything, think about the most important hires you make for your company. VP of sales, your VP of engineering, your VP of product, your VP marketing, you know, these people are on LinkedIn in some way, shape, or form. And they're definitely finding people that they're like, Oh, I I, I vibe with this guy's worldview, or I don't vibe with this guy's worldview. This guy looks like someone I want to work for, this guy doesn't look like someone I want to look for. Or this woman like she she gets it, like she gets it. She aligns right with my values, you know? You have a chance, your opportunity to do that is by being out there and active, whether that's Twitter or LinkedIn, or a podcast or what have you. Or ideally, you would do all three of those things in some capacity. And you're basically sitting there and peep and you're attracting people who want to work for you all the time. And I mean, you look at examples like like Chris Walker at Refine Labs, I mean, he's got I mean, almost anybody he brings in because he's been doing that so long on LinkedIn, I mean, people who interview with his company they're all like, right aligned with his worldview and a great fit for him. And it's because he's recruiting people who already are in his content funnel, right? And so that for you as an industrial executive, or you as any kind of executive, same same premise right? You want to bring great talent to your company? Yes, part of it is comp and part of it is benefits and part of it is like, you know, work-life balance. But the other part of it is, are you the kind of person that you want to work for? It's hard, if you're letting people that you over a 5, 6, 7, 8 month period, because you're active on social or you have a podcast, and people are building a relationship with you passively, it's a lot easier for people to know for sure whether they want to work for you or not than if they just spend an hour with you in an interview, right?
Kap Chatfield 25:27
100%? What, um, what are some goals that you guys have for taking your content creation to the next level? Have you guys been thinking about the future? You're just trying to stick to being consistent with what you're doing now?
Matthew Sciannella 25:40
Oh you mean, in terms of the podcast or?
Kap Chatfield 25:42
Exactly.
Matthew Sciannella 25:42
Okay, so the podcast, we've, so we used to do a lot of guests, and we recently expanded or we've done different things with format. And we've done a little bit more of just the two of us. I think we both, I think at first, when we were doing the podcast, this is the thing with any content program that you do, like you start one place, and then you you, you iterate, and you innovate. And so we started off with just guests, I think our first 30 episodes were just guests. And then finally, we were like, you know what? We're comfortable enough doing this and I'm feeling smart enough that I think we can just riff ourselves and talk topics. And so it's already become a little bit more about MJ and I bring people on and then we bring guests in a little bit more, a little bit more sporadically. And so for me, it's always trying to figure out like, what's the next thing we can talk about that, that's going to bring value to my audience? And who can I bring in who's going to who people are going to be interested in? And I've certainly sought big people out, I sought, you know, the Director of Public Relations for John Deere, I brought I brought other people in as well. But for me, it's like who are companies who are people, I can bring on that, that people, people know those companies and want to hear how they're doing things, or maybe they have an expertise that they want to know, or the other part of it is like, what what is happening right now in marketing, that maybe my audience isn't aware of that I can bring insight to earlier to them than where they would otherwise be able to find it? Because in some way, shape, or form, I'm probably experimenting with it either with myself, or with one of my clients for Gorilla. Or I also do a little freelance on the side, so maybe one of my freelance clients I'm doing that with. So for me, I'm always trying to stay up to date on things that are happening and trying to be ahead of that. So I can know when people ask me about it, how it works, and what the best practice is and how to execute on it properly. Because you know, it's one of those things where you never know it all. But you want to obviously be trying it before it becomes mainstream. And so I really look at my show as a way to talk about those things kind of before their CEOs or their directors of sales asks about it. So they can be a little bit ahead of the curve on it.
Kap Chatfield 27:41
I'm curious, would you say, because in that process, you have to do a lot of content consumption, you have to do a lot of research, got to continue to be a student of your craft, like it's, and I actually would say, you probably wouldn't say this about yourself, because I'm just by knowing you for as long as I've known you, it seems like you're humble enough, you'd be humble enough to be like, I'm not the thought leader. But I would call you a thought leader, particularly in industrial marketing, and hence the show that you got. And so it's such, it's such a unique space to have that, that expertise. And so that requires you as a thought leader, to continually be a student. Like you can't just say I've arrived, things are shifting all the time. It's like, it's a, it's an area where you got to continually be up on the trends. And the question I wanted to ask you is how like, how much time in a week would you say do you spend on investing in preparing for the content you're going to produce?
Matthew Sciannella 28:36
Um, I use, I usually blend what I'm doing day to day with clients with things I'm doing to to learn. And so lately, I've really been getting a lot into, like deeper reporting with my clients. And so I've been doing a lot of stuff with, with you know, just just just reporting more on on conversion points and stuff like that. So normally, I try to weave it into what I'm doing on a day to day basis. And when I learn stuff, I'm like, Whoa, and then I try to see how much does my team know about it, and my team is pretty smart. And so if they don't know about it, then I know that I have a value point that I can maybe you know, be a little louder about and talk about a little bit more. And so, I really weave learning is just something I'm just voracious at, if it's at it's something I'm reading or learn in a podcast and I literally stop and take my phone out and take my apple notes out and start typing it out. And then I immediately put it to work the next day almost like as a habit. I take like an hour, a few days a week in the morning, just just to mess around and like in in, in my in some of my clients sales forces or HubSpot, just to see like what I could do a little differently for them what value I can provide. And that allows me to sit there and have confidence whether to roll that out or propose that to them and then by proxy, decide if I want to talk about that as a content piece as well. So it's just one of those things where like I learn something, I want to put it to action immediately, I want to figure out what I know and what I don't know and then I want to, and then I want to put it to content almost immediately after.
Kap Chatfield 30:03
That's so smart. You're, so what you're doing is really maximizing all of your time. Because obviously you got to, you might need to do some research about, you know, if a client comes to you with a certain problem, or you're just discovering a problem as you're experimenting something with them, and you do a little bit of research on how to do it, you test it out, see if it works, if it doesn't work, either way, it's a learning experience. And you're using as your contact.
Matthew Sciannella 30:25
Yeah, or sometimes you just see what you learn, right? So it's like, okay, if I, if I, if I structure my reporting like this, and then I run it like this, and then I figure out this, and then oh, what did I find out? Oh, that's really interesting that their current, the current reporting structure we're using doesn't show any of that. And so there's a boom insight for like a deep data dive. Here's how you deep data dive with your CRM. And then I can talk about, here's some fields that you need to have in and why you need to have it in and what what insight that shows you as a result, and then how to execute on that. So those are things that I like a lot. I did that I do that also with YouTube, or with YouTube ads, or any kind of, or any kind of, of paid social that I'm running or paid search. Same sort of premise, like I test something and see how it worked and then I sit there and I talk about it, or I or at least share that, share that with my audience. And so I find that very interesting. I also like it, because there's a hell of a lot more smart people, people smarter than I am, who will see that and then give me something else to think about. And then I'll go back into it and I'll try it again and I'll run it the way that they suggested and see what else I find out. So for me, it's just a constant feedback loop. And I just kind of use all of the tools that are at my disposal to make sure I maximize that opportunity to gain more to gain more experience and more insight.
Kap Chatfield 31:37
That's awesome, man. I love how when I'm posting stuff on LinkedIn, I've seen this as well. For those of you who are listening right now who haven't been taking, creating content for LinkedIn, seriously, up until this point, I really hope that this episode, challenges you and encourages you to get started and to really start not just posting your own stuff, but responding to other people's posts as well. Because it sounds like you and I are kind of similar in when when when I'm sharing content, and somebody doesn't just kind of leave like a thumbs up or like good post sort of, you know, shallow response, which I'm so grateful for that stuff. But sometimes people will leave very insightful comments, like kind of piggybacking on what I'm saying, or even challenging what I'm saying. And I get better because of that. And that finds its way into my content, as long as I can stay humble. But that's, I think that's such a great way to accelerate your growth as, as a leader and as, as an expert in this space.
Matthew Sciannella 32:37
Right. And I think the other thing is, especially given some of my some of the clients we serve who I mean, clients in the tech space, who are much more sophisticated, not all of them even, you know, follow all the practices of, you know, monitor demand gen and, and, and, you know, predicating your marketing around the right conversion point, ie like the quote request or the demo request form. And so to explain this to my clients, well, I need to have a story to tell them and I need to make sure I have that backed with data that they understand. And so for me doing the constant learning and iterating just gives me more competence in front of them. And also, the more that I practice it, the more I'm able to simplify how I communicate. And that is also extremely important, no matter who your client is, is simplifying the way that you communicate, what you want to report on, or what you want to what you want to experiment on and why and what you're expecting to get out of it. And so when you're just not, when you're not applying, you're learning, you're ultimately you're trying to explain in a too complicated way, because you haven't gotten the tool, you haven't gotten in the trenches, you haven't done it. And so when you do it, it crystallizes your thought process around it, makes it easier to explain to others who don't know.
Kap Chatfield 33:43
Simplicity is critical. And so I love that, you're refining your own thought leadership, the more that you just get reps in and start communicating that on these platforms. So we could we could go on forever. Matt, I'm so grateful for you jumping on the show today. And I want to kind of leave the audience with one last question if you can kind of speak into this. And if you have any, any stories that come to my mind, excuse me that come to your mind, you mentioned like your show has been a recruiting tool, it's actually kind of landed you an opportunity at the company that you're working at now. I really want to help B2B brand leaders, CEOs, sales leaders, marketing leaders, within these companies who are hesitant. Who are interested intrigued, but they've been hesitant about starting a show as a business development strategy. How would you encourage those those leaders who are on the fence still?
Matthew Sciannella 34:35
I think you have to go in with don't have sky high expectations for it. Look at it as very much a project that you want to try. It you have to approach it as a passion project. Like I want to see what I can get out of this if I do it right. And it's again, it all comes down to intent like focus on providing value to your audience. Leverage your network of your friends who you can bring on to kind of get get your get your thought process working and get into the practice of doing interviews or being an audio having an audio led content platform. Like the first couple podcasts MJ and I did sucked, like we were I was talking a million miles a minute, we were we were talking over each other, we were interrupting our guests. So it was just not good, right? But it's like anything else, you know, you keep working and by Episode 15, 20, you know, we had a good rhythm going on, and it was going much better. So I think when you ever you do any of these programs have a realistic expectation for yourself, don't say, we're gonna make a million dollars off of this podcast. Have the have the intent of like, I want to build the best podcast in my space for this category and I want to focus on providing value for people. And let's baseline where we're at after six months, and then figure out how we can do better the next six months, you know? But the focus should not be to get leads or sales, which is the wrong approach for a podcast or for LinkedIn thought leadership, for that matter. The goal should be to rally people around your point of view, or your message around your space or your category or your market. And so your goal shouldn't necessarily be like, I want all this engagement, it should be I want the right people to follow me. And I need to have the confidence that if I do it right, people will want to work for me and with me as a result. And so it's it's yes, it's a bit of a blind bet. But people invariably gravitate towards those who are not trying to sell them something, and then they want to work with them. And it just, it happens time and time and time again, if you look through people who have done it well, from you know, Marcus Sheridan, all the way to Chris Walker, these guys were not trying to sell anything they were they were doing nothing but espousing an idea. And people rallied around it. And now and now and once they, once people rallied around it, they were then able to monetize it for themselves. But start with rallying people around your idea first, then let the monetization happen as a buyer as a natural byproduct of that.
Kap Chatfield 37:03
So great, man, thanks. That's such a great point, especially in places and spaces where the product or the service they're providing, we just talked about this on a previous episode with another guest Nemanya. You guys gotta check out that episode, if you haven't already. But he was talking about how because he's in the software space. And people in that space are creating products and services, mostly products that the market doesn't even have the language to search for yet. So they have to do a lot of content creation, just to educate about, hey, this is how this is how we see things. These are the problems that we see, here's the here's the solutions we want to bring. And then people you start to build an audience that's like, oh, yeah, I resonate with that, like that, that's you're speaking my language. I didn't even realize I had a problem with that until you said that. And so that's how you build, you build that trust, you provide value, you build that relationship residually, as you had mentioned before, and then over time, it's it's a business, it will be a business development play, it's going to build brand. And when they when they're ready to buy, they're going to know who to go to, or if they're ready to work, they're going to know who they want to be hired by in your case. So that's,
Matthew Sciannella 38:13
Those people need social media more than anyone, right? Because there's no there's no keywords, what they're doing, right? They're not, they're not competing for market share, they're literally building a category, right? And that takes a long time and you need and you need, you need to do free things, you need to do low cost things, you need to do things that don't scale to figure that out to build to build momentum around what you're doing. Where I where I work market, the market exists and so you're competing for mindshare, in your market space but I think where a lot of companies get it, get it wrong is the feeling that their their their masthead of the of their company logo will carry it for them. When really the unlock is getting your dynamic subject matter expert in your company to be that, to be that masthead. That that is what will differentiate differentiate you amongst your amongst your competitors.
Kap Chatfield 39:06
Matt, dude you're a legend bro. I've this has been such a fun, fun conversation. And I think man, I hope our audience could keep up with how fast we're talking because we're just getting so excited about this topic. But it's so clear, because it's so clear that this has really helped transform your career. Doing taking your own content creation seriously, taking content based networking as you as you give the nod to Sweet Fish Media I love what they're doing. They're a huge inspiration to us in what we're doing. And so just thank you for jumping on the show today. I want to give you an opportunity just to allow people to connect with you. What's the best way for people to connect with you if they want to find you on LinkedIn?
Matthew Sciannella 39:46
Yeah, for sure. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Matthew Sciannella, I'm sure the spelling will be on the show notes. You can, okay, you can find me on Twitter as well at Matt Sciannella. My podcast The Industrial Marketing Show which I do with MJ Peters. Yes, it's focused on industrial marketing, but really the principles apply across any industry. There's, I think there's better podcasts to listen to if you're if you're in the tech or SAS space. But if you're in like an older industry, like healthcare, financial services, or industrial, like you'll learn a lot from there that maybe, maybe tech and SAS principles are a little over your head, like we really get, we really get pretty tactical and strategic there. So highly recommend the show. And then also follow up follow MJ my podcast partner because she's awesome and she is totally worth following, one of the one of the great strategic marketers that I've ever met. So yeah, just check all that out. And also my company, Gorilla 76, The Manufacturing Executive, which is the show that Joe Sullivan, my CEO runs, and we have a lot of great guests and content around that as well. So check us out on the podcast and Gorilla 76.com
Kap Chatfield 40:50
Matt, we'll put all that in the show notes. So if you guys are listening or watching you can check it out in the description. Give him a follow, see more of his content, just get inspired by what he's doing.
Matthew Sciannella 40:58
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.
