167: Logan Lyles On Podcast Prospecting

What's poppin' y'all, it's your man James, Say What Sales Buckley. Welcome to another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft, Gong, Vanilla Soft, Vidyard, Proposify, Owler, Zoom Info, and our newest partner, Loom Cube. Check them out, pretty cool. On this episode, we're talking to Logan Lyles, Director of Partnerships at Sweetfish Media and host of the B2B Growth Show podcast. Logan is going to talk all things media and how podcasts and other forms of content can be revenue-generating machines as long as they're correctly created and leveraged appropriately by sales reps. He's also going to talk about how reps can use content engagement as a catalyst for new conversations, which is their entire purpose in life.

Makes perfect sense, right? So human. Check us out at ondemand.jbarrows.com where you too can invest in your sales. skills, develop a personal brand, learn how to do social selling correctly, close more deals, and ultimately hit your sales quota consistently. Here's John and Logan. Let's get ready to make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. We'll make it happen Mondays. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend. Mine was pretty decent. The Patriots actually won, and they're showing two and one. And I'm probably a sore spot for my host here because we just talked about how his team's 0-3. But I'm actually really interested in having this conversation because it is very related to what you are listening to right now, which is this podcast.

So Logan Lyles, Director of Partnerships over at Sweetfish Media and co-host of B2B Growth Show. How are you, my friend? I am doing fantastic. Besides being 0-3 in fantasy and the Broncos being 0-3. So yeah, football sucks for me this year so far. I'm a little bit bitter, but man, I'm really excited. I've been a listener of the show for a couple of years. You and the team have been good friends with James and our team over at Sweetfish. So I'm excited, man, to be on the show. Yeah. And I appreciate that. I mean, because I've been a fan of James for a while too, as far as what he was doing over at Sweetfish. And when did James start that? When did Sweetfish start up? It's almost five years now.

So he was actually talking to people about podcasting and getting weird looks like, wait, dude, didn't podcasting die with the iPod? And he's like, no, but you... And so it's actually kind of interesting. It's related to what we're going to be talking about today. We were a blog writing agency. James started doing podcasting and was like, wait a second, what if I invite prospects to be a guest on a podcast? He got an 80% reply rate, and that's when we made our pivot into B2B podcasting. Nice. So again, and because the context is important here, explain what Sweetfish is just to make sure that people are crystal clear, and then we'll dive into why I think this is a really, really important conversation for people to listen to.

Yeah. So as I mentioned, we work in the world of podcasting. We pivoted from being a blog writing agency to specifically a podcast agency for B2B brands. We're working on kind of a media side to the business, but that's kind of future looking, just like you guys are. But we are a podcast agency for B2B brands. So we help B2B companies launch and produce a podcast, and we kind of bookend around them, setting them up as the host of the show, doing a lot of the post-production work, maybe helping them pre-interview, get the guests and that sort of stuff. But we come at it specifically in that podcasting isn't just a content thing. It's not just an awareness thing for marketing. It should be an account-based play.

And that comes from this strategy that we've developed called content-based networking that James kind of stumbled into four or five years ago when we made that pivot into podcasting. So we focus on producing podcasts where folks are using it for content and brand awareness, but we say, hey, at least 50% of the guests of your podcast should be people who fit your buyer persona. That way you're doing the one-to-one while you're doing the one-to-many. So that's the space we play in and kind of who we help and how we came to do it. Yeah, and I think so it's that angle that we're going to talk about today is not just a podcast, but a podcast to drive meetings with target accounts, right? And that is the unique spin on this.

But it's funny because, you know, James, five years ago, I think we actually might've even started our podcast around the same time. And it was such a deep, I had the same mentality, right? Because I was trying to do all this stuff with Facebook Live and Instagram and all these different things, right? And I remember my team came to me and they're like, John, we got to do a podcast. And at first I was like, dude, what? Like, isn't that like 1990, you know what I mean? Like, like, like that seems like old school to me, right? But so I, it was like this default thing. I was like, fine, whatever. And I was doing these interviews on, um, on, on Facebook through zoom and whatever. And I said, you know what, just, why don't you just take this and rip the audio and turn it into a podcast?

I don't give a shit, right? Whatever. Cause I'm like, I can't do yet another thing here. All right, guys. And, uh, and it's funny because it has become by far our biggest reaching from an audience standpoint. I mean, outside of LinkedIn and all that stuff, but, but like legit, the number one kind of marketing and sales channel we have is, is podcast. Now I started it because I wanted to, this is how I learn, right? I learned by, by getting people like, I'm not a big reader. I don't like, you know, I, I like talking to people who are smarter than me and I ask them questions and this is how I learn. And by proxy, hopefully the audience does too. But what I found is this transition to when I do get somebody who's high quality, you know, in a tier one account, VP of sales, CMO, something like that on my podcast, we have a real genuine conversation and it's almost inevitable that they end up reaching out or somebody from their company reaches out to me and says, Hey John, you know, would, you know, I think we might be interested in some of your services here and it, and I didn't pitch them at all.

I didn't even, you know, I mean, they know what I do, but it's because of the dialogue. So, so let's, let's kind of, let's back up a little bit here with kind of the, because you're talking right now, but the value of podcasting, obviously from a business standpoint, you know, that type of thing, but let's talk about the individual, like, cause that's the angle here, right? Is that individual and it doesn't necessarily have to be a CEO or anything like that. You're talking about sales reps starting a podcast, right? Walk us through this whole approach here and why it's, it's, it's having an impact for the people that you're working with. Yeah. So, I mean, it goes back to when you introduced me, I head up sales at Sweetfish and I'm the primary co-host of our podcast.

And I've been doing that for two years. Now I kind of jumped into an existing podcast with Sweetfish and I was employee number four. So, I mean, there's that context, but I mean, I think you could follow the, the game plan, the playbook that I've been following for the last two years, I mean, you can host for free on anchor. You can record for almost free or pretty much free on zoom. Um, and you could, it's more about the strategy than it is necessarily the fancy tech or the microphone or anything like that. Right. And we see it consistently, John, like with some of our customers, we're like, you should stop trying to chase influencers to be guests in your podcast. Literally take your target account list, reach out to them.

And instead of going cold outbound and just saying, Hey, let's book a discovery meeting, say, Hey, we have a podcast. That's all about sales leadership, or that's all about HR leaders, or it's all about cybersecurity, whatever your prospects care about so that they say, yeah, I can talk on that. Right. It's an ego stroke. Um, and I, I don't care how, who your prospect is, they're probably getting a few more podcast pitches than, than they were before, but their reply rates are just going to be insanely higher. Now you posted about this when you went on your RV trip and you went two weeks without checking your email, James and I saw that screenshot and there was a part there that was like podcast guest pitches.

Right. And do you remember what the percentage was? It was actually not insignificant. You know what I mean? Like for, for me, I mean, it was like 5% or something. It wasn't like 40%. No, but 5% of 2000, you know what I mean? Like, that's my point. It's like, like, there was still like from, and that's why I think it goes to your point of like influencers. Like we get inundated right now with those types of requests, but VPs of sales don't CMOs don't. Right. Yes. That, and that's exactly where I was going is like, if you're only getting 5%, which is not insignificant, it's something there, but like your prospect, who's a CIO or who is an HR manager or, or whoever it is, you know, they're, they're not getting a lot of that.

And if they are, they're getting the 500 word PR pitch emails that you and I have talked about as podcasters that we just hate. And if it's just instead of, Hey, we can drive X revenue by dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah for manufacturing companies, just like you want to hop on zoom for 15 minutes. And it's instead you sell the manufacturers and you say, Hey, I, so here, here would be my, my recommendation to start for a sales rep. Like you don't even have to start and say, I have a podcast. Just say, Hey, I'm doing an interview series and I'm doing 20 minute short interviews with insert buyer persona, manufacturing executives up for being my guest test that on a hundred people. And I guarantee you it will be better than your 2% reply rate on your best day on cold out.

And again, you know, and, and identifying them specifically. Right. Um, now the question I have with this is, okay, the company versus the individual, right? Um, should this be your VP of sale? Like, so let's, let's talk about sales, right? Um, should this be your VP of sales or somebody else in your company? Should companies think about it this way, where it's like, Hey, we should have somebody internally start a podcast and then have their sales reps go out and, and get people for the podcast and that approach, or should the sales rep and what's the difference? And like, if you're a business right now thinking if you're in marketing right now, cause I think there's a, there's a, I'm still seeing this, this hesitance from marketing departments to try to control the message, right?

They don't want, they're, they're still very, I mean, James is a perfect example of this. I, you know, I'm not going to name the company that he used to work for, but he was working for a company and he was all about his personal brand. And this, the, the marketing department was just like, Nope, sorry, man. Like we, you can't say that you can't do that. You have to be under our umbrella here. So how should a company think about this? Right. As far as having a point person that sales reps drive a podcast guest to versus a sales rep doing this for their only gen possibilities. Yeah, I think like you talked about it, being the podcast host yourself, there is just some magic that happens when you invest time, you shine the spotlight on them and you talk shop and you show genuine curiosity.

You know, you and Daniel from Sendosa were just talking about this in cold outreach. Like, don't send me crap swag. Send me something that shows you genuinely care. So if, if the salesperson, if a few enterprise AEs could be the co-hosts of a show and marketing could kind of be the ringleader, I think that's, that's some serious magic. Now let's say you're in an organization where, you know, that that's not going to happen or whatever. And you're a salesperson listening to this. I think find the person in marketing who's super jazzed about ABM right now and say, look, I have an idea. Like, don't, don't go blast and annoy the heck all out of all these target accounts. Here are the target accounts in my patch.

I can go invite them. You can invite them. I can run the interview. You can run the interview. We can kind of run a play. Uh, like after the interview, I send them something with a quote that they said, and I send them a little gift and like, there's ways that you can play it. So I think ideally salespeople interviewing their prospects and showing them that I'm credible, uh, I'm relevant. I'm shining the spotlight on you. I think that is like the Mecca, but there are a lot of organizations for a number of reasons where that won't happen. So if you're a salesperson listening to this, go to marketing, speak in their terms, talk about ABM and tell them like, you guys can slice and dice it. You can control what video clips we get out of it and how you use all that stuff.

I just want to conduct the interview or I want to work with you to pick the accounts, pick the decision makers, and I want to work with you on my follow-up afterwards. So I think you could kind of go down either path, depending on what's kind of the pulse within the sales and marketing org at your specific organization. Gotcha. And how do you like, what's the tact here, right? So I, I can, I, I appreciate the, Hey, I got a podcast and I'm interviewing other people like you to get insights and whatever it is, a little bit of an ego, you know, I've been following you for a little while, so let's have this conversation. Right. And, and, you know, I always say, you don't want to go into something with the, with the goal of, uh, that like a self-serving outcome.

Right. So, you know, for instance, I tell people like, if you're going to start a company, it always cracks me up when I hear people start companies and they're saying, Oh yeah, you know, we're going to start this. I'm going to grow to this. I'm going to sell it for that. Right. Like if you get into startups and entrepreneurship with the idea of selling your company, you'll probably never sell it. Right. You got to get into doing this because you love what you do and you're providing a really good service or a really good, whatever. And eventually it might get sold. Right. That's the better way to do it. Um, it's the same thing. Like you don't want this bait and switch, right. Where I don't want to like trick you into something.

And then all of a sudden hard pitch, because that's, I mean, the immediate turnoff for me. Right. Like, I'll give you a quick example. This douchebag who just reached out to me on LinkedIn, this guy reached out and said, Hey, John, I talked to James, you know, he seems like a really good guy, you know, and, and, uh, and he was personal. He actually said, you know, uh, I forget what he had commented on with my post or something like that. And he's like, so can I get some time on your calendar? And I was like, look, dude, yeah, I appreciate it, but I don't really have time to get on a call with every single rep that I can, you know, every single person that asks for my time, I get 10 of these requests, like informational interviews or, Hey, let's see how we can help each other.

You know, that type of bullshit. Right. And it says, look, if there's something specific you want to ask, right. Then let me know. And, and if, and if I can help with that, or if I, if there's something there, I'll jump on a call with you. Right. He then pings me this email with this like cheesy ass piece of shit. Hey, I, you know, I hear you charge for your time. So here's a dollar for your time. Give me your address and whatever. And it was this obvious ploy to pitch me on something. I mean, obvious. At first I was like, Oh, cool. Like this guy's nice. He talked to James. He did some research on me. He made a comment on one of my posts. Like, all right, cool. You know, I'm happy to engage with him.

But then as soon as he wouldn't answer my question of why he wanted to talk to me, I was like, you're a douchebag, dude. Like, fuck off. So how do you, how do you avoid that with this approach? Right. You're, you want me on your podcast? Okay, cool. But then at the end, if you're like, Hey, by the way, we got this great service that can sell your shit. I'm like, dude, you're like, that was, that was great, John. And now 15 minute pitch. And it feels like the timeshare presentation after the free lunch. Right. That's that will do more damage than going cold outbound and getting ignored because that's just like, blah, right. It feels that way. And I struggled with this two years ago. I jumped in and I was so excited.

I was so bought in on this strategy. And I was like, cause I sold like you, I came up in the ranks and copy your sales. I sold copiers for 10 years, a little bit later than you did. I kind of missed the heyday. I heard people like making banks, selling copiers. I'm like, I'm kind of struggling. I'm doing okay. But so anyway, um, I, I went from that, which was still very much like smile and dial, like using outdated CRMs, not Salesforce, not HubSpot, none of that. Like go collect business cards, come back, you know, walk in the door. Who's the decision maker on the office. So anyway, I came from all that and I was like, this is amazing. This is sweet. But then I was like, how do I do it? How do I make the turn?

And you know, my short answer is it's more art than science, right? It still comes down to your people skills, which I'm a big believer. Like automation is going to do a ton of stuff for salespeople, but the people who can only press buttons are going to be, you know, they're going to deliver less value. The people who really have those good EQ skills as a sales rep, they're going to shine because they're going to be even more valuable. So that's, that's where the magic happens here, but I can, I can kind of give you more than a, it, it just depends, right? Some of the things you can do is in your interview, whether it's a full-blown podcast or whether it's an interview series or your LinkedIn live series, or, Hey, I'm going to ask you these questions.

I'm going to kick it to marketing and to turn it into a blog. You could do it a couple of different ways. Make one of your questions, you know, what's the biggest challenge you're trying to overcome with your team this quarter that creates great content. It's time bound and it's a trigger question for you. Now you got to ask that question and not always be looking for yourself. Like if John, you say like, Hey, we've never really done much with paid social and you know, we're going to try that out. I'm like, sweet. I know, uh, this guy, AJ Wilcox, uh, they like, we have nothing to do with running LinkedIn ads, but he's your guy. And so asking those trigger questions with where can I help and not always just pouncing on the, where can I help for myself?

But, and so asking that question in the interview will allow you to, you know, say something post interview where you can add some value. Now let's say that someone, let's say, you know, John, you're a CMO and I have you on the podcast and you're, and you answer that question with, Hey, we've really been trying to make an ABM play and we haven't quite figured it out yet. And so that's a perfect time for me to say, well, the way we think about podcasting fits into that. So I, I might ask that question. Like, Hey, you mentioned you guys were talking to ABM. We, we have this strategy where podcasting actually fits into ABM or is that worth talking about? Or is that way out of left field? Like, I don't want this to feel like the timeshare presentation after the free lunch and just speak to the elephant in the room and just say something like, well, I, I, I couldn't not ask and just make it very apparent that like, you know, what's happening.

They know that, you know, what's happening and it's just all out there in the open. So I would say one, don't go into it with just the sale in mind, go in with it. How can I just add value, build the relationship and look for those triggers along the way to where it naturally happens. I mean, it's just like anything else, like selling copiers for 10 years. It was a lot of like chamber of commerce stuff and that sort of old school networking. And there was a way to have those conversations, right. Where, you know, you could tell the salespeople who knew how to like, Oh yeah, like we should make this turn and I should actually talk about what I do versus the people that are just like, hi, hi, nice to meet you, John.

I'm Logan. Hey, we produce podcasts. Like it just comes back to sales one-on-one. A lot of it does because I think that there is some, I mean, I'm trying to think of the approach that would work with me. Right. Um, especially if I'm like a senior level executive and that sort of thing, you know, I think the, the summaries, I think you have to your point, you have to give way more before you ask, like the whole Gary Vee, jab, jab, jab, right hook. Right. So if you did a pure podcast, whatever, and then, uh, afterwards you produced it with like snippets and had like a transcription and like maybe a couple of videos that were purely for them, right? Not, not with your brand on it or anything like that, but just took a couple of snippets and put like their logo on it or something like that and said, Hey, you know, not for anything.

I, you know, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. Here's the assets, you know, here, here's a video for you and we cut it up a couple of times. So if you wanted to share this on social, please do, you know, here's a transcription and here's the post itself. Uh, so here, like, so give, right. And then, Hey, by the way, you know, you had mentioned something during our conversation about this. Is there somebody on your team? I might be able to have that conversation with a little bit more detail because effectively, obviously that's what we do here. So almost not even going after you, but almost being a sub like, Hey, here's all this value that I just hopefully provided you and is going to help your brand get exposure here and almost like, like a PS version of it.

Like, Hey, by the way, you had mentioned this and it really kind of caught my attention. Got me thinking about you guys. Not sure if, you know, we can solve that problem, but would there be somebody on your team? I could have that conversation with that to me would be like, all right, you know what I mean? Sure. Like if you and I had real good rapport on that and you weren't hardcore about your ask on that and it was, it was, and you didn't come right out with the ask, but you gave me something first, then I think I'd might be open to that too. Yeah. I love that play. And you could break that up. You know, you could, Hey, here's your episode went live. Here's the link two days later. Hey, here's a video at like kind of slow play it a little bit.

Like just, just slow it down a little, like add a little finesse, add a little romance to it. Right. Like take, make those steps. Then maybe you send the PS a little bit, a little bit afterwards. The context is, is key. As you always say, content is King context is God, right? Like this is where marketing gets the content and sales gets the context all in one punch. Right. And that's what I love about it. Um, I think the other thing that's really that a lot of people fail to do is after you make that ask, find a way to give again, because if it's give, give, give, give, give, ask, then it depending on kind of the, the timing of it, it's like, Oh, well, all that was just building to the ask. But if you, if you take time to like, there's a number of ways you could add value.

You could ask to make an introduction. You can share another piece of content. You could, you know, give them a shout out. You could tag them in something, whatever the case is, but try to find a way to give, even build it into your process to give after you ask, because then it shows that like, Hey, I asked, but that's not the only thing I was after. You know, it's kind of like when someone's like, Hey John, how was the RV trip? By the way, we got this great solution for you. Now, if I was like, Hey, if I was like, Hey John, you know, something you said made me think of this. And like, is this worth talking about by the way, you know, hope your ankles feeling better and sorry about, you know, the RV thing or whatever.

And I say it afterwards, then it's like, Oh, Logan wasn't just saying that pleasantry to get to the ask. He actually gave a crap. Right. Yeah. And I think we, I talk about that all the time, the give a shit factor, right? Like being genuine with your ask, being genuine with your interest. Um, you know, and I think that, that, that's goes all the way to the selection of who you want to have on that podcast. Right. Like why, just because they're a prospect for you doesn't mean they should be on your podcast. They should be on your podcast because they are, yes, they are in your, in your realm, but they, you know, there's something about them that got you to say, Oh, that, that's, that person seems interesting.

You know what I mean? That there's something that I could learn from that person or whatever it is during this discussion. And I can obviously bring value to them by helping expand their brand itself. All right, everybody. I hope you're enjoying this episode. Logan is talking about some big things when it comes to how to leverage, create, and target accounts using podcasts, content, and other forms of media. Pretty amazing. Today, we are highlighting Matt Barra of Cisco. Matt recently joined JB sales on demand. And after learning how to tear out his accounts, he now knows where to spend his time as he moves through his daily routine. Welcome to the family, Matt. Keep evolving with us. We see you, pal.

So I, I definitely think, you know, it's a, it's a unique, cause I, everybody's looking right now for different ways to stand out. Right. And, and podcasts, I could see a lot of people saying, yeah, but there's 8 billion podcasts on here, Logan. Like, you know, so who the fuck, you know, who cares? Like, no, who's going to listen. Right. And that's not the point of this, right? The point of this is education and engagement with your target audience from that ABM standpoint. Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's what we've always said. Like, it's hilarious. We have a top 100 show in B2B growth. And James will tell you that for years, he didn't give a crap about the audience. Right. Like, not that we didn't care, but like, we didn't give a crap about building the audience because we were driving revenue through building relationships with guests that we, that we had on the show.

Now today we've been at it for so long. We, we think you can get the best of both worlds. But I think for the salespeople out there realizing that, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, you've said before, like, if you want to do something different and you're not sure if your boss will say, yes, don't, don't ask for it. Just say, Hey, I ran this test and then I saw this. So I would say like, take a list of your target accounts, you know, like you don't even have to like get, go to marketing and figure out what's the name of the show. And is this going to be a corporately branded podcast? Just say, Hey, I'm doing an interview series. Like give the name of the series that is kind of flattering, like the successful sales leader, like just something like that, that strokes, there you go, run the outreach, look at the reply rates, look at the booked rates, and then take that to your marketing leader or your sales leader and say, Hey, I want to, I want to help us run this play.

And I think it will help for my patch, but I think it will help the organization as we're trying to get sales and marketing doing, you know, account-based everything together. Um, I think there are some really good examples that people can look to because I think, you know, people might say, well, Logan, you guys sell podcasting. So it's very natural to like have a conversation about podcasting after you interview someone on a podcast and, you know, John, you've got it, you've got a big name in the sales space. So, you know, people are going to say yes. Um, you know, I I've seen this in sales, Chad Sanderson with value selling associates, if you look at his podcast, the B2B revenue executive experience, um, Joe Toste, uh, at Nagaro, big global IT services company.

Um, he's the host of a podcast and he's actually shared with me, you know, how he does a lot of what you're talking about, John. I think if people go follow Joe Toste, T O S T E, you can see some of the content he posts from his guests, how he makes them look like rock stars. He's done some of the stuff you've talked about, like sending them, Hey, you said this, this was awesome. Like, and then just, you know, making, making an ask that isn't just like right in your face. Um, and then another one in the, uh, uh, Oh, Scott Ingram, like everybody, everybody thinks about Scott when it comes to his sales stuff and the sales success stories. A lot of people don't realize he's the host of inspired marketing.

And he was the host of that show for years, interviewing marketers that they sold to it relationship one. Right. Like, so it's not just a Logan. I don't sell podcasting or I don't have a name like John Barrows. The strategy isn't going to work for me. There are people out there who are executing this. Um, and, uh, anyway, we, we, it's been interesting because we actually thought it starting sweet fish when we got into podcasting, we were like, this is going to be the play for sales leaders. And sales was like, go talk to marketing. And we talked to marketing and they don't care about accounts. They just care about the reach. But now that marketing is kind of coming around to account-based and now we're like, okay, look, this is like the most ninja account-based move that you can make together.

Like find the salesperson who's, who wants to do content and find the marketing person who's super excited about ABM, put them together and watch some magic happen. Yeah. And I think there, there, there does have to be a little bit of self-reflection on this too, as far as if, if you're thinking about this, right. Cause you know, we talk about this a lot, which is, you know, genuine curiosity. You and I have talked about this, right. I think the, you know, the, the, I'm, you know, I don't, I'm not the smartest kid out there or any of that stuff, but I think I've been blessed with the fact that I've always been genuinely curious. And I think actually it stems from me knowing I'm not the smartest kid in the room.

Right. So I, I like, uh, I like interviewing people. I enjoy asking questions. I dig deeper because I am genuinely curious on how this stuff works. If you're not that type of person, first of all, you know, you're probably not great in sales. Uh, but second of all, I was going to say the same thing. I was like, please tell me he's not going to skip over that point. No, no, you're definitely not. I mean, you could get by without being genuine. I think genuine curiosity though. I think there's a very, very small part of our population that is genuinely curious, right? Not, not curious to an end, not curious because not discovery curious. So I can find out what your problem is, but like actually curious to the point where they're asking questions that matter, uh, and those are the best interviewers I've ever come across.

And so I think there is a little bit of that self-reflection of, are you, are you doing this, uh, you know, with a true lens of learning education and, and brand and those types of things, or are you really just trying to get this person to buy some shit from you? Right. And if that's the case, then I beg you not to do it. But if you are somebody who is like, Hey, this is a way I could learn, you know what I mean? This is a way I could learn about my audience and I can engage with my audience and whether something comes out of it or not, so be it, but at least it'll give me some, some, uh, added benefit of learning. Yeah. I think if you take that approach, you're going to be fun. You're going to be, you know, surprised to find that literally you have podcast interviews or video interviews, or however you approach this strategy of content-based networking.

And people are like, wait, what do you do? Like, I've literally had the same sort of thing, John. Like, people are like, is there somebody at sweet fish I could talk to? And I'm just like, yeah, me right here. Let's have it. Um, but then also like salespeople are fighting for attention and the, and to prove that they're credible. And I just don't think that loading up, you know, three things from your sales enablement tool and saying, Hey, John, here's this article. I thought you would love it proves your credibility at all. But let's say you do 12 of these interviews and no deals like come right out of it. One of those people might refer you and say, Hey, this CIO, I know over here, uh, you know, they should, they should meet with you.

Or, you know, after the fact you take those little videos that you have marketing post-produced for you, and you're reaching out now and not just saying like, Hey, I know CIOs. You're like, Hey, I was interviewing this CIO over here. And he mentioned this, this might be, you know, good content for you. Like then you can actually feed your, your, your own credibility as you start to do outreach. So it has a multiplying effect is, you know, as, as you said, it, James says it all the time, you've got to play the long game. And I realized that that's hard when you got a quota to hit, you got, you know, a monthly number to make, but the more that you invest in the long game, the more that that, that short game gets easier, right?

Like nothing solves anything like a big fat pipeline. Like you always say. Exactly. And you know, it's funny. It's the same switch that I made with social selling, right? You know, Gen X or, you know, and social selling hit, I was like, Oh, what the fuck? You know, like really like tweeting and posting and all this. Like, I really just, I really found it bothersome. And I, I, I found it fake. I'm like, why do I want to develop a following of, you know, random ass people? Like, what's the point of this? And, and we're, we're really switched for me. And this is the same thing with podcast is, you know, when I started looking at it as educating myself first, right? So with social, there's all these, there's all these resources like Feedly and all these different things out there, right?

That can feed you information about stuff that is relevant to you, your industry, the personas that you go after. And what I did was I started using those tools to learn, uh, for myself. And then when I came across something that I thought was interesting and I learned something from that's when I would share it, right? So then I would say, Hey, really interesting article here. My key takeaways were X, Y, and Z. And what it did was obviously, you know, I started building my brand because it was, it took a lot longer, right? Because it wasn't this 10,000 followers overnight. It was like a very slow roll, but it gave me credibility. It also gave me things to talk about. So for instance, when I was doing research on these personas or whatever it was and reading this information, when I would get into conversations with them, I had better things to talk about than me qualifying you or, you know, asking you my piece of shit band questions.

And I think the same thing on podcasts, right? Like I, there's more than a few times where I've been in conversations with totally outside, you know, VPs of sales that were not on my podcast. And I'll be like, you know, that's actually, it's interesting. It's interesting. You brought that up. I was actually on my podcast the other day with VP of sales, whoever, and they were talking about the same damn thing, man. Like help me understand a little bit more. And the credibility, A, the credibility would be the knowledge that you get by being genuinely curious and focusing on the personas you want to go after translates to your point of this multiplying effect of business acumen, of better conversations, of you being a better interviewer, which leads to being a better sales professional, right?

Yeah, absolutely, man. I've seen it, you know, two years ago when I joined Sweetfish, like I said, I came from 10 years of selling copiers and I had a journalism degree. So I always kind of had this interest in content once it started to come up. And I saw it as a way for sales to kind of scale their impact. But I always worked in an organization where there was no marketing. It was like, why should we pay for marketing? We have salespeople, we're buying you business cards, like that's it. Um, I jumped in and I like a couple months in, I interviewed the former CMO of Marketo. I'm like, I'm way out of my depth with markets here. Like I'm just a salesperson who knows enough about marketing to be dangerous.

But over time, I think I can hold my own with, with any marketer. And I, I, I, I can guarantee you that the other deals that I'm working, whether that was outbound or it came inbound or they never listened to our podcast or I never had them on the podcast. It has helped me sell to other marketers. So I think what you're saying, they're exactly that scenario, whether you sell the VPs of sales or VPs of marketing or SaaS founders or who the heck ever, this is going to make you a better salesperson. It's going to build your brand. It's going to give you some connections that, you know, you can't always be looking at, well, how many interviews that I have and how many opportunities, because, you know, you might have someone in a year later, they come back around.

It goes back to like, treat it to the, the in-person networking. Like you understand that, you know, you, you build the relationships and, you know, it's like what Gary Vee says, what's, what's the ROI on your mom, right? Like you gotta, you gotta be in it for the long game, but it's a multiplying effect. You know, I was reading atomic habits from James clear. Right. And he talks about this bamboo that grows underground for like years and years and years. And then once it breaks through, it starts shooting up at like feet per day or whatever. I was like, you know, for salespeople, like one, I think that's kind of how content goes, but I think that that's also, you know, and maybe you don't always have control over being at a company for a long time or being in the same industry for a long time.

But like, as one of my old sand sales managers used to say, you know, no matter how long you're going to be in the house, you plant the garden. So, you know, if you're only going to be selling to CIOs for a year, like act like you're going to be selling to CIOs for the rest of your life. Like, how do I understand them? How do I add value? How do I, you know, become a master connector within this world of it leaders now, if in two years I'm selling to HR leaders, I got to start again. But heck, if you're only kind of halfway in, you're never really going to get the results. And I think, you know, this strategy is part of that, but there's obviously a lot of ways that you could go about it. I think that's, that's the bigger thing that I think salespeople really need to, really need to think about.

Again, the long game accelerates the short game in a lot of, a lot of cases. No question about it. And, you know, for a lot of those sales reps who have that itch to become an entrepreneur and kind of go off on their own, I tell people all the time, based on what I know now, you know, and how much money I've spent in certain areas from a marketing standpoint, I'll tell you right now, a podcast is the easiest way to get massive type, you know, all sorts of different types of content. Because all you have to do is light up a zoom like this, get a decent microphone, and interview whoever, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever the hell the topic is, I don't care. And what you have is you have a video asset.

Now that you can go throw on YouTube, you can throw on Facebook, you can throw, you can snip up and put on little, you know, LinkedIn, little pieces there. You have the audio, which obviously turns into podcast, and then you can even transcribe it into a blog post, right? So you can, I think this is something you guys do for, for, well, like if you get involved, like you'll just take the interview and slice it up, right? I'm like, you're giving, you're giving a great pitch for our atomizing content service. But like, no, like another thing is there, like you talked about transcribing, just written content. Like I interviewed a VP of marketing about how she goes in and looks at all the contact us and demo requests, form submissions from the day before.

And like, she walked through, like, this is how I do customer listening. And I, I make sure that our content from a marketing perspective is speaking the language of our customers. So I hopped off, I hopped off zoom, finished that interview. I wrote like a hundred word post on LinkedIn and people are like, Logan, this is great. This is such a great framework. And now like I, I tagged her in it and I said, it was like from, but that's the thing, right? Like James talks about it in his book, in content-based networking, Oprah became famous, not by telling her own story, right? She had an amazing story of like overcoming adversity and becoming, you know, a household name as a black woman and dah, dah, dah, dah, but like she didn't shine the spotlight on herself, right?

She was shining the spotlight on other people in that halo effect is, is what happened. And so, man, we could go down a ton of rabbit trails, but like, I think that it's come back to this, right? Like there's, there's potentially, if you frame it the right way and you just say, Hey, I want to learn about you, Mr. Or Mrs. X persona, you're going to get more yeses. You get relationships. Those might turn into opportunities. They might turn into referrals, but they're definitely going to increase your knowledge of, of the space. They're going to give you credibility. You're going to be able to create content, like who knows which of those five or six things I just rattled off is going to be the one that really hits it for you.

But know that like, it's going to be a worthwhile investment of taking that time and do it after hours. Like, don't go to your sales manager and say, I want to start a podcast and I want to spend half my day editing audio and dah, dah, dah, dah, like do it for free on anchor, find a, you know, find an audio editor on Fiverr to edit, just clean it up a little bit. Um, you, you can do some things to do this strategy without like going to marketing and saying, we need $40,000 to start a podcast and I want to be the host for the brand and everything like that. Like you can, you can run the strategy and see a lot of these benefits just, just by running the strategy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I think there's, like I said, there's so many, everybody's doing the same thing right now.

These days they're all, you know, blasting out emails or all making generic cold call. You know what I mean? They're still going through the motions and you know, the ones who are taking these type of unique approaches, not only are they benefiting them short term to your point of like, Hey, I'm, I'm driving leads and I'm educating myself and those types of things. But it's, it's, it's the longterm play of, you know, your brand is, is your brand, you know, it's going to carry you through the rest of your career. So let's, let's, you know, let's finish up with some of the additional benefits here of, you know, I mean, think about, you know, you at some point moving out of that industry and getting it, you know, looking for another job or whatever it is.

And you coming to the table with an interview of saying, Oh yeah, you know, I've got my own little podcast here. You know, I got X amount of followers and this is my approach to it. Like if I'm a VP of sales and I'm interviewing a sales rep, 25 year old kid or something like that SDR, whatever. But all of a sudden they tell me, well, yeah, kind of on the side, because I was trying to get creative here. We were, we were banging our heads up against the wall, not getting very meanings with tier one accounts. So what I did was I created this podcast and I started interviewing those executives and it actually turned into something here. Well, now that's an asset that you can pretty much carry with you almost everywhere you go.

And it's something that I look at you as a rep saying, Holy shit, man. Okay. All right. You're bringing, you're not only just bringing your skills to the table for me, you're bringing an asset to me and with reach, by the way, uh, it might not even be in your industry again, but it's still there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Scott Barker said something about this a while back in his email newsletter. He was like, imagine like being in the last stage of an interview. And like, one of the final questions is how many LinkedIn followers do you have? Like, he's like, and James and I looked at each other and we're like, we're probably not too far off from that because, you know, you just look at the plummeting reach of LinkedIn company pages and like anybody who's doing it really well.

Like Gong has, has, you know, individuals out there, you know, sharing content, being helpful, that sort of stuff. And like what you just said, like, are, are you going to tell me that like Morgan building his brand and having SDR Chronicles and all that, like didn't play a factor into him coming on board here? It was the number one reason. I mean, when, when he, cause I had seen him, right? So I had seen a couple of, and this was before LinkedIn was so busy, but you know, he was posting those little clips. I was like, oh, that's cool. That's cool. You know what I mean? But it was like, all right, good for that kid. Right. But then he had, the story is, you know, he, he did this one post that timing, whatever he did it where it was like, he had just gotten promoted.

He had been an SDR manager for a year. And he was like, you know what? Here's what I've learned, uh, as being an SDR and an SDR manager, here's what I've learned. And here are kind of my key takeaways slash values as it relates to being effective in this. And he listed out like five or six core values. And it just so happened that those core values lined up with mine. And that one video shifted, like all of a sudden turned my, like it clicked for me. And I was like, shit, wait a minute. That kid, that might be somebody that I could see bringing on board here. Like, cause I was, I loathed just going through the interview process and hire John's hiring trainers. And I'm like, Oh God, I don't want to do that.

Um, and also I never wanted to hire a trainer. I wanted to hire a sales rep that could train, but also had a brand. And that one video is what sparked me to go have that conversation with Morgan. And I took him from being, and look, Terminus is a cool company. Don't get me wrong, but he was an SDR and an SDR manager. And that's it. He was, he was sitting in an office with the, being an SDR and SDR manager. And now, I mean, before COVID that kid ended up flying all over the world, training Salesforce and, you know, crazy ass companies at 26 years old, because he was, he was putting that content out there and he was focusing on his personal brand with this type of stuff. And it's actually not that hard to do.

Right. Yeah, absolutely, man. And LinkedIn has stories now. Well, at least for most of us. Uh, well, I don't know how many, it's slow rolling, but I mean, whatever it is like, and maybe you don't, maybe you don't love video, but you're really curious and you're a great interviewer or maybe you do have some writing skills or, or whatever it is. I just, I like the interview format and like podcasting because you know, the salesperson that's like, I want to go create content and I need a video studio and I need this and I need that. It's like invest a hundred bucks in a mic, buy it yourself, hop on zoom, which you already have an account. Like you can record and you know, an interview. And then, like you said, you can turn that into a number of things.

And then the way to pitch it to your manager is like, well, I'm having all these conversations with prospects. So they're kind of like, you know, if I want to put it in a deal stage, it's like a pre pre discovery call. So I'm not taking time away from prospecting. I'm just creating content while I'm doing it. I'm not sitting in the corner, hammering away on a blog post when I'm not a really good writer anyway. So, um, I think, you know, it keeps coming back to this, right? Like this strategy has compounding effects. You don't know which one's going to pop, but start down that path. I saw a quote the other day that was like, even if you're on the right track, if you're standing still, you're going to get run over.

So like start moving in a direction. Yep. Yeah. Just, and, and why not? Right. I mean, if it, if it isn't, if it's not working, if whatever you're doing right now, ain't working, might as well try some other different, unique, uh, you know, approaches and, and with the big, with the long game in play, I think that's the, the patience factor is the only nervous factor I have with, with reps getting into this, thinking it's that, you know, that silver bullet that I'm going to drive. No, no, no, no. This is, this is the long-term play here. This is your career. This is your brand. This is your, you know, exposure and all those. And if something happens short term, good for you, but don't look at it that way because this is, you know, your personal brand is what's going to carry you through the rest of your entire career.

And what people think of that is going to be critical to your success moving forward. So yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, anything else, any other last kind of tidbits of info or Intel that you could share with the audience that they should be thinking about, or as it relates to podcasts or starting their own or the business or anything like that? Yeah. I think whatever sort of content that, that you're looking to generate, like if you take this and you're like, I could do an interview series, I could turn it into video, or I could do a podcast, or I could do it for LinkedIn. Um, we're myself and James, our CEO, we're posting on LinkedIn all the time. Dan Sanchez, our director of audience growth.

He's kind of a little bit more marketing focused, but I'm posting on sales, marketing and podcasting and just content in general all the time on LinkedIn. So that's the best place to, to find me and hit me up, uh, with the DM. Let me know, uh, where you heard me, heard me on the show. And, um, I happy to, to share some stuff out there because, you know, it, it literally has changed the trajectory of my sales career. You know, I, I spent 10 years kind of hitting the, the plateau. Now I was in kind of a plateaued slash declining industry, but this strategy has changed the trajectory of my career, just like your story with Morgan. And so I just, I can't, I can't recommend enough that people, whether it's a podcast or whatever, um, that they go about the strategy to build their brand, but do it with a curia, a curious approach to learning from and highlighting the people that you're trying to sell to with the long game in mind, like you just said.

Um, and it's, it's going to pay dividends somewhere. You don't know necessarily where, but somewhere it is. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Logan. Well, just for everybody out there, it's Logan Lyles, L Y L E S, right? Yeah. You got it, man. All right. Perfect. And sweet fish media. So go check them out. Uh, definitely follow their podcast, right? What's your actual podcast called B2B growth, B2B growth. You can find it, uh, anywhere podcasts are sold. Awesome. Cool, man. Well, look, I appreciate it. And, uh, yeah. And, and, uh, I hope everybody got some things to think about on this one. Cause I, I will tell you, I had the same, you know, thought process on podcasts. Like, Oh, you know, whatever.

Nobody's going to listen, who cares? But like I said, to start this whole thing off, man, our podcast has grown to be one of our major channels of, and I can't tell you how often I bump into somebody or whatever. And they're like, Oh dude, I listened to your podcast. It's fucking fire. Like I, or somebody sent me your podcast and I want to talk to you about it. Like, cause I want to do some business with you and you know, it's been huge. So appreciate you coming on here, Logan. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me. No problem for everybody out there. Just like I always say, Hey, uh, even if you're having a shitty day, like they're easy to come by these days, but, uh, try to make somebody smile today.

Cause if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day. So we need a lot more of that these days. So thank you all very much for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon. Make it happen. This episode really changed the perspective when it comes to how content creation and media can be used to start conversations and build rapport. Thanks, Logan. We appreciate all your insights and thanks to sweet fish for letting you come on the show. You too can change your perspective by joining us at on demand.jbarrows.com today. Our aim is to arm you with the skills and best practices that impact your prospects and customers by focusing on them and not being just another sleazy sales rep. We all know there's too many of those out there.

So dive in your quota is going to thank you and visit us now at on demand.jbarrows.com to learn more. Let's make it happen. Everybody have a great week.