Stewart Hillhouse's conference content playbook

[00:00:00] Maximizing Conference Content with Stewart Hillhouse, Head of Content at Mutiny

[00:00:00] Ramli John: In person events are back on the table.

[00:00:02] Ramli John: Yes, after being apart from each other during the pandemic, people are looking for human connections to meet colleagues, friends, and customers.

[00:00:08] Ramli John: The problem with in person events like conferences is that they're expensive.

[00:00:12] Ramli John: You'd have to buy flights, hotels and meals for your team, plus the tickets.

[00:00:16] Ramli John: So to get the most bang for your buck is top of mind for a lot of marketing teams.

[00:00:21] Ramli John: That's where Stewart Hillhouse, head of content at Mutiny, got the brilliant idea to make the most of having subject matter experts in the same room.

[00:00:28] Ramli John: He started interviewing them and posting up short clips on LinkedIn.

[00:00:31] Ramli John: He saw engagement of these types of content perform well, so much so that he started doing it for all the events.

[00:00:37] Ramli John: He goes with the meeting team.

[00:00:39] Ramli John: Today, he shares his conference content playbook in his Marketing Powers episode.

[00:00:43] Ramli John: You learn, first, how Stewart creates content during in person events.

[00:00:46] Ramli John: Second, equipment that he records with.

[00:00:49] Ramli John: Third, how he distributes the content to get the most reach.

[00:00:52] Ramli John: And number four, a career power up that's helped accelerate his career.

[00:00:56] Ramli John: Before we jump in, I created a free power up cheat sheet to help you apply Stewart Hillhouse's Conference content playbook.

[00:01:03] Ramli John: You can grab that@marketingpowerups.com or find it in the description or show notes or somewhere on the screen.

[00:01:09] Modern Content Consumption Patterns and Marketing Strategies

[00:01:09] Ramli John: Ready?

[00:01:10] Ramli John: Let's go.

[00:01:11] Stewart Hillhouse: Marketing power ups.

[00:01:14] Stewart Hillhouse: Ready, go.

[00:01:19] Stewart Hillhouse: Here's your host, Rambly John.

[00:01:22] Ramli John: But how are you thinking about content?

[00:01:24] Ramli John: Strategy or content?

[00:01:26] Ramli John: I guess mix, so to speak.

[00:01:31] Ramli John: How are you thinking about that mix of short form, videos, interview, and then there's blog, and then there's Playbooks and other things.

[00:01:42] Stewart Hillhouse: One thing that I have been trying to apply is strategy is like a very loaded word.

[00:01:51] Stewart Hillhouse: No one really knows what it means.

[00:01:53] Stewart Hillhouse: It's pretty mushy, it's amorphous, but it's also super important.

[00:01:57] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I was always freaking out.

[00:01:59] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, what is a strategy?

[00:02:02] Stewart Hillhouse: How much detail do I need to go into?

[00:02:03] Stewart Hillhouse: What do I need to talk about?

[00:02:04] Stewart Hillhouse: How is this important?

[00:02:06] Stewart Hillhouse: And it was simplified to be by Ryan, the head of marketing at Mutiny.

[00:02:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And he said, stop thinking about strategy.

[00:02:13] Stewart Hillhouse: Start thinking about what is the point of view.

[00:02:16] Stewart Hillhouse: Your strategy is your point of view and your hypothesis of what you want to do that will help you accomplish the goal.

[00:02:25] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that made it much simpler.

[00:02:27] Stewart Hillhouse: When you're thinking about your content is like, what is our point of view on content and how it's going to be shown to our audience and will turn into leads and sales calls down the funnel, right?

[00:02:44] Stewart Hillhouse: And that made it so much simpler for me.

[00:02:46] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, okay, well, what's my point of view?

[00:02:47] Stewart Hillhouse: My point of view is based on.

[00:02:51] Stewart Hillhouse: To find my point of view, I essentially went through a checklist of like, what does my content consumption habits look like?

[00:02:59] Stewart Hillhouse: And then I chatted with other people who are in our ideal customer persona.

[00:03:04] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, what does your media and content consumption habits look like?

[00:03:07] Stewart Hillhouse: And so when I was thinking about it for myself, I'm like, I really now consume more video, short form video, and sometime long form video.

[00:03:19] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm talking like ten to 15, like, you know, four to 15 minutes, let's say that is like medium length video.

[00:03:28] Stewart Hillhouse: And sometimes I'll click into a blog, but I'm not clicking into the blog to read every word.

[00:03:35] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm kind of like skimming it to see if there's any cool pictures or interesting call outs and summaries and stuff like that.

[00:03:45] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm also reading sometimes thread style, like longer micro blog style, like 200, 300 words, very choppy and quick hit.

[00:03:57] Stewart Hillhouse: Very few long form reading going on in my life now.

[00:04:02] Stewart Hillhouse: Same.

[00:04:03] Stewart Hillhouse: And I was hearing similar things.

[00:04:05] Stewart Hillhouse: You're laughing.

[00:04:06] Stewart Hillhouse: Does yours sound pretty similar to that?

[00:04:08] Ramli John: It is, exactly.

[00:04:08] Ramli John: You're like, exactly what you say.

[00:04:11] Ramli John: More videos, short form YouTube, rather than reading blogs and blogs, I'll just be skimming through the headings.

[00:04:19] Ramli John: This is helpful for me.

[00:04:20] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, exactly.

[00:04:22] Stewart Hillhouse: So it was that sort of realization that I helped inform our strategy.

[00:04:29] Stewart Hillhouse: Again, it's like, what is the point of view?

[00:04:30] Stewart Hillhouse: So our new point of view is like, everyone, or not everyone, but the people we want to reach, we want to reach them in a way that is convenient but is not empty calories.

[00:04:43] Stewart Hillhouse: We don't want it to be just in your feed for the sake of being in your feed with bubble gum fluff.

[00:04:48] Stewart Hillhouse: We want it to be like nuggets of smartness wrapped in something that's convenient to you so that you can consume it on your own time and give away all of our best ideas so that it's not like a click through.

[00:05:05] Stewart Hillhouse: Our friend Amanda Nativid has kind of coined zero click content.

[00:05:09] Stewart Hillhouse: You just give all of the information up front.

[00:05:12] Stewart Hillhouse: You're not trying to clickbait them and say, check out the full post over here.

[00:05:19] Stewart Hillhouse: I do that tactic, but I give away 80% of the ideas within the social post or the newsletter or whatever we're trying to do.

[00:05:27] Stewart Hillhouse: So that's sort of the high level strategy, is create content in the format that I would want to read.

[00:05:38] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that's sort of how I've adjusted my point of view away from more traditional SEO style, long form written blog posts that live on your website.

[00:05:47] Stewart Hillhouse: And your whole point is to try and get people to your website.

[00:05:50] Stewart Hillhouse: Now I'm trying to think about how can I get my idea out there and in the minds of as many people as possible of our ICP and not necessarily need it to be a direct line to website traffic, even though we have website traffic goals.

[00:06:11] Stewart Hillhouse: I want the messaging.

[00:06:13] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, changing people's minds is more important, in my opinion, because it allows us to spread our message, especially in a time right now where it's a really tough market out there.

[00:06:25] Stewart Hillhouse: A lot of people who fall in your ICP are probably not ready to buy for one reason or another.

[00:06:31] Stewart Hillhouse: They might not have budget, their team might have been reduced.

[00:06:35] Stewart Hillhouse: They are probably just struggling to hit their own numbers.

[00:06:38] Stewart Hillhouse: They're not looking to bring on any new technology.

[00:06:40] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it's not necessarily about getting the deal right now.

[00:06:45] Stewart Hillhouse: It's about building the relationship so that when the market turns and when cash is abundant and when growth is on people's minds, we'll be first in line for like, oh, I need that tool.

[00:06:56] Stewart Hillhouse: I've been reading their shit for two years.

[00:06:58] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm ready to buy now.

[00:07:00] Ramli John: I want to double click on what you said, that it's around.

[00:07:05] Ramli John: WhaT we just said earlier around gaining attention is easy if you have that mass appeal, which often feels like you call it bubble gum fluff.

[00:07:19] Ramli John: And providing that wisdom is super important in changing the mindset you just talked a little bit about is really important there.

[00:07:29] The Process of Creating Event Interview Style Content for B2B Company

[00:07:29] Ramli John: And I guess where I'm trying to get into one of the pieces that I really love that you're doing that I actually haven't seen as much.

[00:07:38] Ramli John: I haven't seen any other B two B company do this, which is like, I totally love.

[00:07:42] Ramli John: You're doing like interview style where you're holding a mic, you're in person, and then there's the mute.

[00:07:47] Ramli John: Is it the raccoon?

[00:07:48] Ramli John: It's the mutiny Raccoon logo.

[00:07:51] Ramli John: There's one where you're interviewing Colin White from clear a bit and you're talking about effective growth.

[00:07:57] Ramli John: What does that mean?

[00:07:59] Ramli John: Such great.

[00:07:59] Ramli John: It's short, less than a minute, vertical video, very high level.

[00:08:03] Ramli John: You're giving gold nuggets of wisdom.

[00:08:06] Ramli John: I'm curious how that got started.

[00:08:10] Ramli John: You have this hypothesis that you're talking about now.

[00:08:13] Ramli John: You want to create content and how you consume it and how your potential customers at mutiny consumes it.

[00:08:21] Ramli John: How did it go from there to like, let's go to events, have this mic with this logo, interview them, and then post it up as vertical videos.

[00:08:32] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah.

[00:08:35] Stewart Hillhouse: So once we had that point of view and the strategy, I was like, okay, well, how do we capture content, particularly then we kind of looked at each format.

[00:08:45] Stewart Hillhouse: It's like, okay, we have an engine for generating written stuff.

[00:08:50] Stewart Hillhouse: These are our playbooks where we interview B, two B marketers, like practitioners, and then they present a win that they've had, like a conversion win that they've had, and they go through all the levels of like, here was our hypothesis, here was the challenge we were trying to overcome.

[00:09:08] Stewart Hillhouse: Here are the steps we took, and here's a solution.

[00:09:11] Stewart Hillhouse: So that sort of filled the gap of written stuff.

[00:09:13] Stewart Hillhouse: It's like we've got these good written formats, and we sprinkle in the occasional blog post that's just classic how to content and some thought leadership and stuff like that.

[00:09:24] Stewart Hillhouse: Then I was like, okay, but how do we get some video that is differentiated and not just recordings of Zoom calls or podcast style stuff?

[00:09:35] Stewart Hillhouse: Nothing against that.

[00:09:36] Stewart Hillhouse: I was just not interested in doing it.

[00:09:38] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I was like, well, I'm going to a conference next month.

[00:09:43] Stewart Hillhouse: That's part of my role anyways, so why don't I just buy a microphone?

[00:09:48] Stewart Hillhouse: Because I've been seeing other.

[00:09:50] Stewart Hillhouse: If you go on TikTok real or YouTube shorts, there's a very popular format where you've got the person on the street, Sora style interviews.

[00:10:01] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I was like, okay, let me just try that.

[00:10:03] Stewart Hillhouse: I haven't seen that at an event.

[00:10:04] Stewart Hillhouse: I've seen very produced event content where people hire a camera crew and sit people down in a corner and do 45 minutes long podcast interviews at events.

[00:10:15] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm not interested in that.

[00:10:16] Stewart Hillhouse: I want to see if I can just take my iPhone and this little mic and see if I can film five or ten conversations at this conference.

[00:10:24] Stewart Hillhouse: And so the first conference I went to, I was totally under prepared.

[00:10:27] Stewart Hillhouse: I just had my mic.

[00:10:28] Stewart Hillhouse: I'd never done this before.

[00:10:29] Stewart Hillhouse: And so the first person I tapped on, I was like, hey, can I chat with you for a few minutes and film it?

[00:10:34] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah.

[00:10:35] Stewart Hillhouse: Okay.

[00:10:35] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I didn't have a good script.

[00:10:37] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't have a good plan going in, and I started asking these podcast style questions where I was like, tell me about a challenge that you had.

[00:10:46] Stewart Hillhouse: And I tried to get really in depth with them, but keep in mind, we're on the trade show floor.

[00:10:51] Stewart Hillhouse: There's people walking in front of the camera.

[00:10:54] Stewart Hillhouse: They're distracted.

[00:10:56] Stewart Hillhouse: They're seeing prospects at their booth, and they're like, oh, man, I should really be talking to the prospect, not this interview, kid.

[00:11:02] Stewart Hillhouse: So there was a lot of variables that is different than this style of conversation where you and I booked this in the calendar.

[00:11:08] Stewart Hillhouse: We're talking for an hour, like, we know what's going on.

[00:11:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I learned a lot from that.

[00:11:12] Stewart Hillhouse: So the interview ended up being two or three minutes, and it kind of danced around, and I tried to make it conversational, but then the footage at the end, I went to go look at it and send it to the editor, and it just wasn't great because the questions didn't match the format I was trying to go after, because the finished product is 30 seconds to 60 seconds.

[00:11:35] Stewart Hillhouse: Sound bite, interesting visual, one thing, like one takeaway.

[00:11:42] Stewart Hillhouse: And the raw footage that I was trying to make was, like, three minutes of a conversation that meandered and had a whole bunch of topics that we'd covered on and wasn't tight.

[00:11:55] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it didn't work out as source material for that format.

[00:12:01] Stewart Hillhouse: So then the next conference I went to, I asked, like, one question repeatedly to four or five different people and got different answers, and that was a better use of my time.

[00:12:14] Stewart Hillhouse: But then all of a sudden, when I was posting them on LinkedIn, I was like, oh, well, this is probably kind of annoying for the audience where it's like they see the same thing three times in one week.

[00:12:23] Stewart Hillhouse: Okay, so now I'm sort of, like, refining it every conference I go to, and now I've started to kind of become known at conferences where people are like, oh, I've seen the video.

[00:12:34] Stewart Hillhouse: Is that the mic?

[00:12:35] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that's kind of cool, where people actually wanting to chat.

[00:12:40] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, it's kind of evolved that way.

[00:12:42] Stewart Hillhouse: But honestly, it felt like sort of just an AhA moment where I'm like, I'm at these conferences anyways.

[00:12:48] Stewart Hillhouse: Why wouldn't I just film something super low stakes, super cheap?

[00:12:52] Stewart Hillhouse: And then the secret is sort of in making the editing look good and distributing it in any way.

[00:12:59] Stewart Hillhouse: So I'm still getting better at the distribution and figuring out how to get it out there.

[00:13:04] Stewart Hillhouse: But I just saw this format as something that smart that a lot of independent creators were doing.

[00:13:09] Stewart Hillhouse: And I'm like, what would one of those look like at a B Two B event?

[00:13:12] Stewart Hillhouse: And, yeah, it's been fun.

[00:13:14] Stewart Hillhouse: And just, you need to have the personality of someone who is okay going up to people at a conference and nervously asking them to do an interview, but you kind of build that skin after a while, and it becomes more comfortable after a while.

[00:13:26] Leveraging Mobile Devices and Social Strategies for B2B Event Marketing

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[00:14:12] Ramli John: I love this so much.

[00:14:14] Ramli John: It's inspired by what YouTubers on consumer side is doing.

[00:14:18] Ramli John: I think the one that I recall that's very similar format is like this guy interviewing people who have really expensive cars and they ask them, what do you do?

[00:14:28] Ramli John: And how did you get here to buy this?

[00:14:31] Ramli John: I don't know, 500 Grand Lamborghini.

[00:14:33] Ramli John: And this is such a great example of taking inspirations.

[00:14:39] Ramli John: I guess what I'm trying to get at is often we see the same thing in B two B where another B two B is inspired by another B two B company and we end up all doing the same thing.

[00:14:49] Ramli John: And what you've done really well is like, hey, I'm going to be inspired by something outside of B two B, at least what YouTubers are doing or reels or TikTokers.

[00:14:58] Ramli John: And I'm going to bring this into this space and very unique.

[00:15:02] Ramli John: And it's easy to.

[00:15:04] Ramli John: You said people now know you for being this guy.

[00:15:08] Stewart Hillhouse: Really?

[00:15:11] Ramli John: Do people actually come up to you and be like, oh, you're that guy that does this?

[00:15:15] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, sometimes.

[00:15:15] Stewart Hillhouse: I mean, it's a little bit more like, I've also started putting the mic.

[00:15:21] Stewart Hillhouse: I hold the mic in my hand as I'm walking around the trade floor and I make it obvious I'm carrying a mic and people are like, what's that?

[00:15:28] Stewart Hillhouse: And then I tell them about the shtick.

[00:15:30] Stewart Hillhouse: And that's sort of a natural flow to have a conversation.

[00:15:33] Stewart Hillhouse: And I'm like, well, you want to talk about this?

[00:15:37] Stewart Hillhouse: Can I record?

[00:15:38] Stewart Hillhouse: But literally I'm walking around with my iPhone XR.

[00:15:43] Stewart Hillhouse: I don't even have a good camera on this, and I film it and I've got five clips at the end of the conference and I send that to an editor, and then that's sort of it.

[00:15:53] Ramli John: You're already getting into the technical side in terms of equipment.

[00:15:57] Ramli John: You got your phone.

[00:15:58] Ramli John: What did you end up using for your mic?

[00:16:00] Ramli John: I'm curious if people wanted to try this.

[00:16:03] Ramli John: What was that mic that you bought?

[00:16:06] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, there's a couple of different.

[00:16:08] Stewart Hillhouse: The style of microphone is called a Lavalier mic or a LAv mic.

[00:16:12] Stewart Hillhouse: And those are the kind of mics that you would see people have clipped on their shirt.

[00:16:17] Stewart Hillhouse: And so you can get a wireless version or you can get a wired version.

[00:16:20] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it kind of depends on what your budget is.

[00:16:23] Stewart Hillhouse: The wireless ones are a little bit more expensive.

[00:16:26] Stewart Hillhouse: The brands don't matter, in my opinion.

[00:16:30] Stewart Hillhouse: If you just Google, like, wireless LAv mic, just find the one that kind of makes the most sense for you.

[00:16:35] Stewart Hillhouse: Some people buy proper microphones that look like a microphone, or the one that I bought looks like a little Tic Tac.

[00:16:47] Stewart Hillhouse: It's a Tic tac, like the pack that Tic Tacs come in.

[00:16:51] Stewart Hillhouse: It's like an inch by half an inch sort of little rectangle thing, and that clips on your shirt, and it allows you to record stuff wirelessly.

[00:16:59] Stewart Hillhouse: And then it just plugs into your phone, and so you can just film.

[00:17:03] Stewart Hillhouse: Or if you want to use a fancy SLR camera, it's just an audio input, so you can have great audio.

[00:17:10] Stewart Hillhouse: On an iPhone, the same audio would happen on a big DSLR camera.

[00:17:15] Ramli John: That's cool.

[00:17:15] Ramli John: And then who was holding your.

[00:17:17] Ramli John: Did you have a tripod for your phone or somebody?

[00:17:20] Ramli John: One of your mutating teammates was, like, walking around with you so it looks like you're a celebrity because you got.

[00:17:27] Stewart Hillhouse: A camera guy I know around with.

[00:17:29] Ramli John: You, and you have a mic.

[00:17:31] Stewart Hillhouse: Totally.

[00:17:32] Stewart Hillhouse: I've tried a couple of different things.

[00:17:36] Stewart Hillhouse: Going unprepared and just walking around with an iPhone is, like, the most grassroots, but inevitably, you'll need to find someone to hold the camera.

[00:17:44] Stewart Hillhouse: And so what I would do is I would go to someone's booth, and we'd be chatting, and I'd be like, oh, can we film a thing?

[00:17:50] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, sure.

[00:17:51] Stewart Hillhouse: And then I would have to turn and talk and ask one of their colleagues, lIke, the people who are on the booth, and I'm like, hey, can you film us?

[00:17:59] Stewart Hillhouse: And then I'm taking them off the booth.

[00:18:00] Stewart Hillhouse: So I learned that that's maybe not the best way, because essentially you're occupying two people's time who are paying a lot of money to be at that conference and have their booth.

[00:18:11] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that wasn't always the best move at conferences where I have other people from mutiny there.

[00:18:17] Stewart Hillhouse: Sometimes I say, hey, can you just come with me for five minutes and hold the camera?

[00:18:21] Stewart Hillhouse: They're happy to do that.

[00:18:22] Stewart Hillhouse: I think next time I'm going to bring my own little telescopic, like a little tiny tripod just so I can have it in my pocket.

[00:18:29] Stewart Hillhouse: And it's like, hey, can we film?

[00:18:30] Stewart Hillhouse: Great.

[00:18:31] Stewart Hillhouse: And I'll just extend this little tripod and then just a little selfie holder and have it stand on the floor and film it.

[00:18:40] Stewart Hillhouse: It is much more fun to have a film, not a crew.

[00:18:43] Stewart Hillhouse: It doesn't need to be a crew.

[00:18:44] Stewart Hillhouse: But when we were at this one conference, JK Sparks, who's head of marketing at Audience plus he and I were sort of content buddies at that conference.

[00:18:54] Stewart Hillhouse: And so we'd run around and I'd film him doing interviews and then he'd film me doing interviews.

[00:18:59] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it's much more fun to do it in a pair.

[00:19:02] Stewart Hillhouse: Same thing with Nolan McCoy and Arthur Castillo from Chili Piper.

[00:19:10] Stewart Hillhouse: I've gone to conferences with them and they've done a similar style where they have the two of them and they can kind of go back and there's a, there's the cheap, free way to do it, and then there's the more expensive way.

[00:19:21] Stewart Hillhouse: And honestly, the outcome is the same.

[00:19:23] Stewart Hillhouse: Right?

[00:19:24] Stewart Hillhouse: It's a matter of what works for me and what makes it more fun.

[00:19:30] Stewart Hillhouse: Because at the end of the day, it should be fun.

[00:19:33] Stewart Hillhouse: And it is fun.

[00:19:35] The Power of Content Marketing and Creativity in Brand Storytelling

[00:19:35] Stewart Hillhouse: And content, I think, is one of the more fun marketing functions, if not, maybe at the whole company.

[00:19:42] Stewart Hillhouse: I think content is just so fun because it's public facing.

[00:19:46] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, everything we do is seen by everyone.

[00:19:50] Stewart Hillhouse: In the best world is seen by everyone.

[00:19:51] Stewart Hillhouse: Realistically, anything we post is seen by like 5% of our audience.

[00:19:55] Stewart Hillhouse: So people don't care as much as we think they do.

[00:19:58] Stewart Hillhouse: But everyone, people notice when we do stuff because it's out there.

[00:20:03] Stewart Hillhouse: So internal team is like, oh, cool, that was a great post, or whatever.

[00:20:07] Stewart Hillhouse: Externally, people are like, oh, this is cool, I'm going to check it out and become a customer.

[00:20:11] Stewart Hillhouse: But then also, there's no right or wrong way to do content either.

[00:20:16] Stewart Hillhouse: So you can do these experiments and try new stuff.

[00:20:20] Stewart Hillhouse: And I'm not a video guy by trade.

[00:20:25] Stewart Hillhouse: I kind of came into content from the long form writing style, but I was like, I see an opportunity.

[00:20:30] Stewart Hillhouse: I think I should buy this microphone.

[00:20:32] Stewart Hillhouse: I think I need to figure out how to edit these.

[00:20:34] Stewart Hillhouse: Oh, this is hard.

[00:20:35] Stewart Hillhouse: Maybe I should hire someone.

[00:20:36] Stewart Hillhouse: I figured out a format so there's a lot of learning opportunities and the outcome is something that's tangible and you can actually look at and click on and watch versus like, oh, I created a new dashboard that's seen by a couple of people.

[00:20:52] Stewart Hillhouse: I love this role because it's application of the things you're learning right away, and then you get feedback if it's working or not.

[00:21:04] Ramli John: I totally love that.

[00:21:05] Ramli John: And you said something there that's interesting.

[00:21:06] Ramli John: You mentioned that.

[00:21:10] Ramli John: You mentioned something earlier where you're like, really, marketing is about changing behavior or changing somebody's Mindset.

[00:21:16] Ramli John: And you walking around with this mutiny mascot, people start attaching that to your personality.

[00:21:24] Ramli John: And when they're looking for something related to something mutiny can do, you're top of mind for them, essentially.

[00:21:31] Ramli John: And that's what this might not be the deep goal.

[00:21:37] Ramli John: It's more so like, let's create something fun that is educational, but on the back end it's like, oh, this is fun, this is cool.

[00:21:45] Ramli John: And we can actually use this product.

[00:21:47] Ramli John: So I think that's really great.

[00:21:50] Stewart Hillhouse: That's why I think the combination of being interesting, whether you do that by being funny or having a shtick or having really clean editing, there's a lot of ways to get people's attention that's not just being big and going for that wow factor or cringe.

[00:22:12] Stewart Hillhouse: There's a lot of ways you get people's attention emotionally.

[00:22:17] Stewart Hillhouse: But then once you have it, that next step is like, what are you going to do with it?

[00:22:21] Stewart Hillhouse: And I think you're always going to be better off presenting information and being educational versus just being a hot take with no substance or just judging things or just tearing stuff down.

[00:22:41] Stewart Hillhouse: I think it's useful to actually apply a little bit of that extra mile of like, here's something that you can learn.

[00:22:49] Stewart Hillhouse: Thank you for paying attention to this.

[00:22:51] Stewart Hillhouse: Now you can move on.

[00:22:52] Ramli John: That's so good.

[00:22:54] Understanding how to edit videos for LinkedIn with Stewart Hillhouse

[00:22:54] Ramli John: You also said something interesting earlier around.

[00:22:58] Ramli John: Part of this process is the editing part.

[00:23:02] Ramli John: I'm curious.

[00:23:04] Ramli John: You've done enough of this to know what probably good looks like when you're about to post it.

[00:23:10] Ramli John: Is there anything specific that you're looking for?

[00:23:12] Ramli John: Like maybe quick takes or maybe emojis or.

[00:23:14] Ramli John: I'm not entirely sure.

[00:23:15] Ramli John: I'm curious.

[00:23:16] Ramli John: What?

[00:23:16] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, I mean, I'm still experimenting and I don't have like, LinkedIn has terrible analytics, so not the same as YouTube where you can see the second that someone clicked away and you can see retention.

[00:23:29] Stewart Hillhouse: LinkedIn is know rookie style analytics.

[00:23:35] Stewart Hillhouse: It's really based on taste.

[00:23:36] Stewart Hillhouse: I think you can look like anyone you want with your editing.

[00:23:42] Stewart Hillhouse: If you just find an editor, whether you find a cheap one or an expensive one or an agency, if you just send them clips of YouTubers or TikTokers and say, I want it to look like this, they'll be able to replicate it very easily.

[00:23:57] Stewart Hillhouse: So it's a dime a dozen.

[00:24:01] Stewart Hillhouse: It's up to you to be like, I want to establish this look and feel and make it our own.

[00:24:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And people might copy it.

[00:24:13] Stewart Hillhouse: But if you have substance and a noticeable style, I think that's all you can do.

[00:24:19] Stewart Hillhouse: And just continue that style and keep it consistent for weeks and months and then change it if you want to evolve it a little bit.

[00:24:27] Stewart Hillhouse: I would say one of the biggest inspirations I've had for how I want things edited.

[00:24:34] Stewart Hillhouse: And this isn't saying that people have crappy attention spans.

[00:24:39] Stewart Hillhouse: I think that's up for grabs.

[00:24:43] Stewart Hillhouse: That's a null argument.

[00:24:44] Stewart Hillhouse: It's like, who cares?

[00:24:45] Stewart Hillhouse: We are who we are.

[00:24:47] Using Tried and True Techniques From Entertainment for Short Form Video

[00:24:47] Stewart Hillhouse: But the thing I want to focus on is what are tried and true techniques that the entertainment and media industry has done for years that you can apply to short form video, which just happens to be the format of the times, right?

[00:25:02] Stewart Hillhouse: And so one format that isn't popular now, but has been popular at time is music videos.

[00:25:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And if you go watch a music video, go watch any pop song or any rap song or any hip hop song that was, like, popular a couple of years ago.

[00:25:21] Stewart Hillhouse: Go look at the music.

[00:25:22] Stewart Hillhouse: Go watch a music video.

[00:25:24] Stewart Hillhouse: You'll notice that there's a cut every one to 3 seconds.

[00:25:31] Stewart Hillhouse: It's fast.

[00:25:32] Stewart Hillhouse: It's not like it's staring at the singer for 30 seconds and then cutting to some broll and then coming back to the singer.

[00:25:42] Stewart Hillhouse: It's a quick clip of the singer from close up.

[00:25:44] Stewart Hillhouse: Then it's a broll shot of some dancers.

[00:25:47] Stewart Hillhouse: Then it's a wide shot of the band, and then it's an overview shot of the drummer.

[00:25:51] Stewart Hillhouse: And then it's tight in on the lyricist again.

[00:25:54] Stewart Hillhouse: And then it goes back to Broll.

[00:25:55] Stewart Hillhouse: And then they just have so many camera angles and so much footage, and it's super quick and then it syncs with the music.

[00:26:03] Stewart Hillhouse: There's a lot you can learn there from just editing.

[00:26:06] Stewart Hillhouse: And so a rule of thumb, and you can overdo it.

[00:26:10] Stewart Hillhouse: Like some people, you'll watch their TikToks and it's like it zooms in on their face, and then there's an emoji, and then there's broll, and then it zooms out and there's a lot of dopamine stuff going on there.

[00:26:21] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I don't think that's actually necessarily good taste if you're just like throwing emojis just for the sake of like, oh, I saw a popular TikTok or use a ton of emojis.

[00:26:30] Stewart Hillhouse: We're still representing a B two B brand, so we want there to be some type of thoughtfulness and tastefulness.

[00:26:35] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I think you can balance that where you're like, okay, I see the tactic they're using here, and now I'm just going to apply our filter of good taste and style and try it in a different format.

[00:26:48] Stewart Hillhouse: And so, yeah, I think the quick cuts make sense, but I roll my eyes and I lose trust when I see unnecessary use of emojis and editing just because that's what they thought they should do.

[00:27:07] Ramli John: I really feel like what you're doing right now should inspire a lot of B two B marketers where you're taking a lot of inspiration outside of B two B.

[00:27:16] Ramli John: You looked at those YouTubers, those TikTokErs who are interviewing rich people.

[00:27:20] Ramli John: You're talking about music videos.

[00:27:23] Ramli John: I really love this.

[00:27:24] Ramli John: I feel like for the longest time, even now, a lot of BB marketing is like, they look very similar and you're taking a really different approach to this.

[00:27:35] Ramli John: I think if there's a takeaway from people who are listening right now, go get inspired with something outside of your work and take that to your work.

[00:27:43] Ramli John: And that's what you're doing really well here.

[00:27:45] Stewart Hillhouse: Thanks, man.

[00:27:46] Stewart Hillhouse: And I think you can apply this in a smaller way.

[00:27:50] Stewart Hillhouse: It doesn't need to be starting a new whole content format.

[00:27:55] Stewart Hillhouse: There is a big lift and a commitment that needs to happen.

[00:27:59] Stewart Hillhouse: If you're, let's say, starting video and your company has no video resources yet, that's a big step.

[00:28:09] Stewart Hillhouse: And so there's ways of tiptoeing in that I think is important for people to try out.

[00:28:14] Stewart Hillhouse on Repurposing Content into New Formats

[00:28:14] Stewart Hillhouse: So let's say you've got already a ton of blog post content and you've got a huge deep library of that.

[00:28:20] Stewart Hillhouse: I say the first step you should take is like, what's a proof of concept?

[00:28:26] Stewart Hillhouse: The same way a TV show doesn't get made just off of the description and they're like, great, green light you.

[00:28:34] Stewart Hillhouse: For ten seasons, every TV show starts with a pilot, which is a one episode proof of concept.

[00:28:43] Stewart Hillhouse: To show the check writers, here's what this is going to look like.

[00:28:48] Stewart Hillhouse: Because we're talking about audio and visual stuff.

[00:28:52] Stewart Hillhouse: Those don't translate well to words.

[00:28:55] Stewart Hillhouse: You need to see it.

[00:28:56] Stewart Hillhouse: You need to experience it.

[00:28:57] Stewart Hillhouse: You need to get audience reaction.

[00:28:59] Stewart Hillhouse: And so before going all in on a new series or a new direction, what you can do is you can repurpose your existing stuff, like a blog post or a newsletter.

[00:29:09] Stewart Hillhouse: And what I'd say the step would be is to then record yourself or whoever in your company you're going to have as the face and do it like, super low budget.

[00:29:19] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, use your iPhone, use your existing office set up.

[00:29:23] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, I don't even have anything on the wall.

[00:29:24] Stewart Hillhouse: Compared to you, your office looks great.

[00:29:26] Stewart Hillhouse: I don't even have good lighting.

[00:29:29] Stewart Hillhouse: Do it low cost.

[00:29:30] Stewart Hillhouse: Try to get it as close to it as possible without spending too much money.

[00:29:36] Stewart Hillhouse: Maybe you have to edit it yourself the first couple of times just to try it out and see what's possible.

[00:29:42] Stewart Hillhouse: And then show that around to your company and get buy in on that episode, that pilot to be like, here's a new pilot I want to try.

[00:29:50] Stewart Hillhouse: Is everyone okay with this?

[00:29:52] Stewart Hillhouse: Versus trying to get buy in from your CEO or your head of marketing with a concept?

[00:29:57] Stewart Hillhouse: They're going to be like, I don't know their immediate reactions.

[00:30:00] Stewart Hillhouse: No, because they can't see it.

[00:30:02] Stewart Hillhouse: But if you go to them with a 32nd two minute long video saying, here's a new series I'd like to launch.

[00:30:09] Stewart Hillhouse: Here's the first episode.

[00:30:11] Stewart Hillhouse: Can I have a couple of.

[00:30:14] Stewart Hillhouse: Get the next ten episodes done.

[00:30:16] Stewart Hillhouse: That's a much easier ask.

[00:30:18] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that's what I'm doing.

[00:30:20] Stewart Hillhouse: That's what I did with the Raccoon mic at conferences that I was like, I originally did it with no microphone and just interviewing people with my iPhone, and it was good enough that it was like, oh, this is cool.

[00:30:31] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, Stu, go to the next conference and up the production quality a little bit.

[00:30:35] Stewart Hillhouse: And so now it kind of snowballed a little bit.

[00:30:38] Stewart Hillhouse: But I'm doing that as we speak with repurposing written stuff and turning it into a video format.

[00:30:43] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I'll keep you posted on that.

[00:30:45] Stewart Hillhouse: But that's sort of just like the stages of getting a pilot and a proof of concept done so that people are interested in committing to that new format.

[00:30:56] Ramli John: That's so cool.

[00:30:57] Ramli John: I really love what you're doing here.

[00:30:59] Ramli John: Is there a name to.

[00:31:00] Ramli John: I'm not sure what this would be called.

[00:31:03] Ramli John: Interview TikTok style interviews on events.

[00:31:07] Ramli John: Do you have a name for this new.

[00:31:09] Ramli John: I don't know what this.

[00:31:13] Stewart Hillhouse: Is my opportunity to coin something.

[00:31:16] Stewart Hillhouse: Oh, man.

[00:31:17] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't come prepared with a cool name.

[00:31:19] Stewart Hillhouse: I mean, that format has a.

[00:31:21] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, I think it's Billy Eicher, who's, like, a comedian.

[00:31:25] Stewart Hillhouse: I think he called it, like, Billy on the street for a long time.

[00:31:28] Stewart Hillhouse: He's for sure not the first person to make interviews within the public on the street.

[00:31:32] Stewart Hillhouse: But I think it's been turned into, like, man on the street.

[00:31:36] Stewart Hillhouse: Man on Street.

[00:31:38] Stewart Hillhouse: On the street interviews.

[00:31:40] Ramli John: On the street interviews.

[00:31:41] Ramli John: That's it.

[00:31:42] Ramli John: On the street.

[00:31:43] Stewart Hillhouse: But I'm in conference hall.

[00:31:44] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm in air conditioned conference centers.

[00:31:48] Stewart Hillhouse: I need to come up with a better name than conference floor interviews or something like that.

[00:31:54] Stewart Hillhouse: Now.

[00:31:54] Stewart Hillhouse: They're fun, and it's just a cool way to meet people in real life.

[00:31:57] Stewart Hillhouse: That was sort of another thing just to throw out there is like, you haven't gone to an in person event this year.

[00:32:05] Stewart Hillhouse: Get out there.

[00:32:06] Stewart Hillhouse: It's so much more fun than just doing LinkedIn.

[00:32:09] Stewart Hillhouse: You need to meet people in real life.

[00:32:10] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, you and I haven't got to meet in real life yet.

[00:32:12] Stewart Hillhouse: We've had a number of phone calls and chats.

[00:32:15] Stewart Hillhouse: But when I finally bump into someone at a conference who I've LinkedIn or chat with or seen in the ether, you're just like, oh, you're a real person.

[00:32:25] Stewart Hillhouse: You're cool.

[00:32:26] Stewart Hillhouse: Let's go eat lunch together.

[00:32:28] Stewart Hillhouse: You just get so much more out of relationships when you see them in person.

[00:32:33] Stewart Hillhouse: So would highly recommend you get out there if you're feeling like the keyboard lifestyle is taking its toll on you.

[00:32:41] Ramli John: So good.

[00:32:41] Ramli John: I love that.

[00:32:42] Stewart Hillhouse on Career Power Ups and The Importance of Building a Marketing Skill Set and Network

[00:32:42] Ramli John: I want to shift gears and talk about career power ups.

[00:32:45] Ramli John: Those are things that help you accelerate your career.

[00:32:48] Ramli John: Now, you've been in marketing for some time now.

[00:32:50] Ramli John: In fast growing companies like Mutiny, you were also at demand curve before this.

[00:32:55] Ramli John: I'm curious.

[00:32:56] Ramli John: It could even be this.

[00:32:57] Ramli John: Meet people face to face.

[00:32:58] Ramli John: What's something that's helped you accelerate your career?

[00:33:02] Ramli John: And once again, it could be something like going to conferences or it could be something marketing or hard skill related.

[00:33:10] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, I mean, I'd say there's two things.

[00:33:13] Stewart Hillhouse: One is your skill set, and then the other thing is your network and your persona.

[00:33:19] Stewart Hillhouse: So I'll start with skill set.

[00:33:26] Stewart Hillhouse: The way I got into marketing was by brute force.

[00:33:29] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, I had no education in it.

[00:33:31] Stewart Hillhouse: I had no background in it.

[00:33:34] Stewart Hillhouse: Right before COVID started, I started a podcast with the thesis of all I want from this is to learn about this career path of marketing.

[00:33:49] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't even have a marketing job yet.

[00:33:50] Stewart Hillhouse: I was just like, I think this is a direction that could be interesting.

[00:33:55] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm going to reach out to people who look interesting on LinkedIn, try and book a call, chat with them, ask dumb questions, because I don't even know what marketing is yet.

[00:34:05] Stewart Hillhouse: And the outcome I was going for was, I want to be able to travel anywhere in the world and have a network of people I could reach out to and say, like, hey, can I get you dinner?

[00:34:15] Stewart Hillhouse: And I'm in your city, can I get you dinner?

[00:34:17] Stewart Hillhouse: That was kind of my thesis, and that without me planning it, ended up being the best accelerant for that early stage career as I possibly could have had for a couple of reasons.

[00:34:32] Stewart Hillhouse: One, I was meeting people, and that's just important in their job hunting, like, throwing your resume into the void doesn't feel like it works anymore.

[00:34:44] Stewart Hillhouse: And so you kind of need to have conversations and connections and people who know who you are as you're job hunting.

[00:34:51] Stewart Hillhouse: The second one was I was actually learning about the roles within marketing because I didn't know that performance marketing existed.

[00:35:01] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't know that brand marketing was different than SEO.

[00:35:04] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't know that what demand Gen meant.

[00:35:07] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't know that there were differentiations within the term of marketing.

[00:35:12] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that opened my eyes.

[00:35:13] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, oh, cool, okay, well, let's learn more about this performance thing.

[00:35:17] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I'd start interviewing a whole bunch of paid media people and learning about what ads and performance looks like.

[00:35:22] Stewart Hillhouse: And then I'd interview a bunch of brand people and then a bunch of content people.

[00:35:25] Stewart Hillhouse: I was like, oh, this content one's kind of cool.

[00:35:27] Stewart Hillhouse: I didn't know that existed.

[00:35:29] Stewart Hillhouse: And it wasn't until people who I was interviewing started saying, hey, can I hire you?

[00:35:34] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, what for?

[00:35:36] Stewart Hillhouse: They're like, this.

[00:35:37] Stewart Hillhouse: This is content.

[00:35:38] Stewart Hillhouse: You're interviewing me, and then you're posting it on your website and you're writing a newsletter.

[00:35:41] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, this is content marketing.

[00:35:42] Stewart Hillhouse: And that was like, oh, I didn't know that existed.

[00:35:46] Stewart Hillhouse: So it was able allowed me to test a bunch of different career paths without actually going down them, because I got to ask them about, what's your day to day look like?

[00:35:55] Stewart Hillhouse: How'd you get into this?

[00:35:56] Stewart Hillhouse: Why is this interesting to you?

[00:35:57] Stewart Hillhouse: What's the opportunity look like?

[00:35:59] Stewart Hillhouse: Essentially, I did a reverse job interview where I was asking them.

[00:36:05] Stewart Hillhouse: I was like, do you like your job?

[00:36:09] Stewart Hillhouse: And then from there, I was like, okay, the content people seem like they're having the most fun, so let's go down that route.

[00:36:14] Stewart Hillhouse: And then by having that body of work 20 or 30 episodes, it's still amateurish.

[00:36:21] Stewart Hillhouse: Like, I didn't spend any money on this, I edited it myself.

[00:36:23] Stewart Hillhouse: I bought a $70 microphone that I'm still talking into today and that allowed me to have a body of work.

[00:36:31] Stewart Hillhouse: So when I was applying to jobs, I could just send a link.

[00:36:34] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that was sort of the third part of that early stage career trajectory is when you're applying the ability to send a link to someone that shows them, here's what I've done that's so cool.

[00:36:47] Stewart Hillhouse: Is infinitely more impressive than a resume in a PDF format.

[00:36:54] Stewart Hillhouse: And so I would say that to people, getting really early stage is like build that body of work doing something.

[00:36:59] Stewart Hillhouse: So if you're interested in the brand side, learn how to use Figma or illustrator and come up with some brand ideas.

[00:37:08] Stewart Hillhouse: Show people how well you can use AI.

[00:37:11] Stewart Hillhouse: Figure know I made a campaign.

[00:37:14] Stewart Hillhouse: Just make up these hypothetical fictitious marketing assets and build it.

[00:37:19] Stewart Hillhouse: And then you'll learn how to do marketing by just doing marketing, which means like learning how to get a website set up, learning how to get an email thing set up, learning how to create content, learning how to run ads.

[00:37:31] Stewart Hillhouse: Those just happen by doing it.

[00:37:33] Stewart Hillhouse: And then once you have that body of work, it's way more easy to get that first job.

[00:37:39] Stewart Hillhouse: And then, so then once I had a job, someone had to take a chance on me.

[00:37:43] Stewart Hillhouse: But then once you have your foot in the door, then you get a way better understanding of where to go.

[00:37:48] Stewart Hillhouse Shares Insights on Networking & Power-ups in Career Progression

[00:37:48] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that ties into the second power up, which is like your network and your ability to connect with people.

[00:37:56] Stewart Hillhouse: I still do this and you do this as well, is reach out to people who are your peers.

[00:38:02] Stewart Hillhouse: So, you know, people who are at the same level as you and just say like, hey, I want to just chat about our jobs, I'll share with what we're doing.

[00:38:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And I would love to hear how you're doing this and just purely connect with people just to have FaceTime with them.

[00:38:18] Stewart Hillhouse: And then the second part of that is also connect to people who are like a year and a half to two years ahead of you in the direction that you're interested in and try and learn what it takes for you to move into that next role or if that next role is even interesting to you and what their challenges are, so that you can have a better understanding of what's worth paying attention to, what's worth focusing on, and what stuff that you're actually pretty good at and you don't need to.

[00:38:47] Stewart Hillhouse: That's maybe the direction you should go because you're already good at it and you want to find stuff that feels like play to you, but looks like work to other people.

[00:38:57] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that was sort of where content came in for me, where it's like a lot of people are just like, oh, it's hard to do content.

[00:39:03] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm like, yeah, it is, but what else would I do?

[00:39:07] Ramli John: Yeah, that's so good.

[00:39:11] Ramli John: I resonate so much with what you said about it's so much more powerful and effective when you can share something that you've created to somebody and be like, hey, here's some of the stuff that I've done on the side.

[00:39:24] Ramli John: And imagine if I was working at your company, what I can do.

[00:39:28] Ramli John: And I feel like that's exactly what we talked about just earlier around, all the stuff that you're experimenting with and really helping build out what you're about to do next.

[00:39:40] Stewart Hillhouse: Another way to do it too is I've had friends who, when he quit working as an in house marketer and wanted to start up his own agency, he applied the exact same theory.

[00:39:52] Stewart Hillhouse: He was like, I'm going to find a bunch of customers that I would love to work with and I'm going to just go through their website and fill out forms and pretend I'm a customer and then document the experience and then follow up with them as like, hey, I just went through your entire onboarding flow.

[00:40:10] Stewart Hillhouse: Here's a bunch of stuff that I would suggest changing, or you can do better.

[00:40:17] Stewart Hillhouse: I can do this for you.

[00:40:20] Stewart Hillhouse: Let's chat.

[00:40:21] Stewart Hillhouse: Worst case, they say no or ignore you, in which case you've already documented a marketing case study and you now have assets and they just put down your website and you're like, here's what I would have done if I worked for so and so.

[00:40:34] Stewart Hillhouse: And that's how you can build up a body of work while applying to jobs or trying to get clients.

[00:40:40] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it kind of works both ways.

[00:40:42] Ramli John: That's so good.

[00:40:43] Ramli John: I love that.

[00:40:45] In Conversation with Stewart Hillhouse: The Role of Fun and Relationships in Marketing

[00:40:45] Ramli John: One final question.

[00:40:48] Ramli John: I've asked this a few times, but really, if you can send a message back to a younger version of you, a younger version of Stewart, it could be any kind of advice.

[00:40:59] Ramli John: Once again, it could be start that podcast sooner or say hello to more people.

[00:41:04] Ramli John: What would be an advice you'd give your younger self who might be starting out in marketing and really trying to figure out what is next for that person?

[00:41:19] Stewart Hillhouse: I'd say for that, what advice would I give my inner self?

[00:41:42] Stewart Hillhouse: I want to talk about the podcast stuff, but like, I know, no, but I'm trying to think if there's other ones that are more interesting because that's pretty common advice.

[00:41:54] Ramli John: It might not be so common to people who are tuning in.

[00:41:59] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah, no, true.

[00:42:07] Stewart Hillhouse: Yeah.

[00:42:08] Stewart Hillhouse: I guess advice I'd give to my younger self, starting off looking, getting into the marketing industry, and just trying to find that what the first thing is is pay attention to the things that you think are fun.

[00:42:27] Stewart Hillhouse: And I've kind of mentioned the word fun a few times.

[00:42:32] Stewart Hillhouse: Pay attention to the things that you find to be fun and find ways of doing more of that in the current role you're in.

[00:42:41] Stewart Hillhouse: So you might not be in the role that makes the most sense, but if there's a part of that or you see someone in the company who's having a lot of fun, find out how you can work with them and do the thing that they're doing as well as the thing you're doing.

[00:42:59] Stewart Hillhouse: I think that's sort of like an underappreciated thing and that I'm learning too.

[00:43:04] Stewart Hillhouse: I've had one in person in office job, and since then I've been fully remote.

[00:43:11] Stewart Hillhouse: And so now what I'm learning is like, remote is great for being wherever in the world you want to be, but it's really bad.

[00:43:19] Stewart Hillhouse: At is like developing deep relationships with your colleagues and becoming known within your company as someone who's cross functional and good to work with.

[00:43:30] Stewart Hillhouse: And I've been told by a number of people that as you progress in your career, yes, it's about your skill, but everyone who's five years into their career who's still around probably has within a couple of degrees the same amount of skills as you, or else you wouldn't be at that position.

[00:43:50] Stewart Hillhouse: So the differentiator at that point is like, do people in the company want to work with you?

[00:43:56] Stewart Hillhouse: Have you worked outside of just your bubble of like, oh, I just do content?

[00:44:01] Stewart Hillhouse: It's like, no.

[00:44:02] Stewart Hillhouse: Have you ever done a cross functional project with someone in product?

[00:44:06] Stewart Hillhouse: Do you talk to your customer success team?

[00:44:09] Stewart Hillhouse: Does the CEO have any idea what you do on a day to day basis?

[00:44:14] Stewart Hillhouse: Do you have any relationship with them?

[00:44:15] Stewart Hillhouse: These are the things that actually helps you progress within a company, but also sets you up for the next thing or the next company because you actually have a better grasp of the landscape.

[00:44:31] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that's something I'm trying to figure out.

[00:44:33] Stewart Hillhouse: I'm by no means good at this yet, but what I want to, I would say to my younger self is, don't be afraid to book time with your colleagues, to have 1520 minutes to shoot the shit and learn what they're working on and find way.

[00:44:48] Stewart Hillhouse: And maybe bring a little bit of something that you've prepared for them that they can use.

[00:44:52] Stewart Hillhouse: There's so many ways you can do it, and so it's about having relationships internally and externally, but it's also just about expanding your horizons and learning how a company works and what other people do in a day to day.

[00:45:06] Stewart Hillhouse: I think that's really lost in remote work, and so that's something I'm trying to work on as someone who's probably going to be remote for the foreseeable future is like, well, I want to have fun with other people, not just by myself.

[00:45:18] Stewart Hillhouse: And I repeated the word fun again there because it's going to be a long career, we're going to be doing stuff for a long time.

[00:45:25] Stewart Hillhouse: And if you're just typing away and then logging off and then that's no fun.

[00:45:30] Stewart Hillhouse: So I want to do stuff that is like equal parts fun and productive.

[00:45:36] Stewart Hillhouse: I find that to be my zone of genius when I'm feeling like I'm doing something productive and I have something tangible that I can finish with.

[00:45:44] Stewart Hillhouse: And the process was fun.

[00:45:46] Stewart Hillhouse: I don't get any type of joy or satisfaction out of the grind.

[00:45:53] Stewart Hillhouse: Sorry, big loud noise there.

[00:45:55] Stewart Hillhouse: I don't get any satisfaction out of the grind.

[00:45:57] Stewart Hillhouse: I can do stuff repeatedly and consistently if I find it to be fun and rewarding.

[00:46:04] Stewart Hillhouse: But if that fun aspect is gone and it's just a bummer, I know myself and I know I'm going to give up way too early.

[00:46:11] Stewart Hillhouse: So there needs to be something in there that is like a trickle of fun, even if it's a crappy thing that I'm working on.

[00:46:20] Ramli John: I feel like there's such good insight here about doing something that you find fun.

[00:46:27] Ramli John: Because if you find it fun, especially the audience will find it fun, hopefully.

[00:46:32] Ramli John: But I think the opposite is even true.

[00:46:34] Ramli John: If you're doing something that you don't find fun, I think it's super obvious, especially if you're on video.

[00:46:39] Ramli John: But even when you're writing, this guy is not having fun.

[00:46:43] Ramli John: And this piece of content is obviously created for, I don't know, SEO keywords.

[00:46:51] Ramli John: And there's no funness in this.

[00:46:54] Ramli John: And that's because of that, I think.

[00:46:55] Ramli John: It's not like great content, I feel like should be fun because fun, we're not just educating people with our content, we're also entertaining them a huge piece of it.

[00:47:06] Ramli John: And funness is super critical to our work.

[00:47:10] Stewart Hillhouse: And I think that's going to be the differentiator as we start figuring out, as AI really takes over our industry it's great at regurgitating.

[00:47:23] Stewart Hillhouse: It's better than me at I can't write a blog post in 2 seconds.

[00:47:28] Stewart Hillhouse: It can.

[00:47:29] Stewart Hillhouse: So the next version of AI is going to effectively replace the need for me to be a good writer.

[00:47:39] Stewart Hillhouse: I definitely recommend people still be good writers, and writing is awesome and it's a way of clarifying your thoughts.

[00:47:45] Stewart Hillhouse: I don't know how AI is going to impact written content, video content.

[00:47:50] Stewart Hillhouse: I can hypothesize and I'm using it actively, trying to be in the know of how to use it and be part of it.

[00:47:59] Stewart Hillhouse: But I think the major differentiator is going to be like it'll free up your time to be more fun and interesting and insightful than just the busy work of having your fingers on the keyboard pounding it out.

[00:48:17] Stewart Hillhouse: If the work is done, what is the human's work?

[00:48:21] Stewart Hillhouse: The human's work is to make it relatable and interesting and topical and timely and funny and cool and tasteful.

[00:48:31] Stewart Hillhouse: All these things can be AI replicated, but at the end of the day, it's up to us to become those curators of like yes, I could go that direction.

[00:48:41] Stewart Hillhouse: It's the same number of keyboard clicks to go that direction, which is cheesy and loud and fake and weird.

[00:48:50] Stewart Hillhouse: Or I can choose to go this direction, which is clean and tight and nice and fun.

[00:48:57] Stewart Hillhouse: Those are decisions that we get to make, and AI is helping us.

[00:49:02] Stewart Hillhouse: AI will do whatever you want it to do.

[00:49:05] Stewart Hillhouse: And so it's still up to us of what are we willing to do.

[00:49:09] Stewart Hillhouse: And so that's where it becomes having fun and learning new stuff and being interesting and being interested is the differentiator, at least for now.

[00:49:19] Stewart Hillhouse: This is my hypothesis going into the first inning of what AI is going to do for our careers.

[00:49:25] Stewart Hillhouse: Talk to me in three months and I'll have probably a very different perspective.

[00:49:28] Stewart Hillhouse: But for right now, it's like learn how to use the tool and learn how to inject your style and taste into everything you create with AI and build your own repertoire and your body of work of like this looks like a Stuart Hill house piece of content, whether it was AI or like, I want there to be my fingerprints all over it because I want to have know recognition.

[00:49:53] Marketing Powerups Episode Wrap Up

[00:49:53] Ramli John: If you enjoyed this episode, you'd love the Marketing Powerups newsletter.

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[00:50:12] Ramli John: I want to say thank you to you for listening.

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[00:50:29] Ramli John: Thanks to Mary Sullivan for creating the artwork and design.

[00:50:32] Ramli John: And thank you to Fisal Highgold for editing the intro video.

[00:50:35] Ramli John: And of course, thank you for listening.

[00:50:37] Ramli John: That's all for now.

[00:50:38] Ramli John: Have a powered update marketing power ups.

[00:50:45] Stewart Hillhouse: Until the next episode.