[00:00:00] Dave Polykoff: so you want to start a personal brand, but you're not too sure where to start. I mean, there's content creation, there's social profiles, there's branding. Well, that's why I have on today, Matt Kretzmann, who's going to walk us through his BCT formula for knowing how to launch a brand. And grow a successful personal brand.
[00:00:20] Dave Polykoff: Matt is a digital marketing innovator and LinkedIn strategist. Who's turned personal tragedy into a mission of impact from founding a children's home in India to becoming a globe trotting marketing consultant. Matt's journey as an. Inspiring as it is instructive as the founder of Stormbreaker digital and lead storm AI, Matt has helped countless B2B companies and entrepreneurs harness the power of LinkedIn to skyrocket.
[00:00:48] Dave Polykoff: Their growth is unique BCT formula, which we'll talk about today. Brand content and traffic has enabled clients. To 10 X the revenue and build global networks. [00:01:00] Matt's not just about lead generation though. He's a digital strategist with wire buzz, a growth consultant and an AI enthusiast, always pushing the boundaries of what's possible in marketing.
[00:01:10] Dave Polykoff: His expertise has taken him around the world. Three times closing multiple million dollar deals from Dubai to Dublin. Wow. Wow. Currently Matt is co authoring the LinkedIn advantage with Tony Geary. The results guy. It has developed the LinkedIn power score assessment tool with a passion for innovation and talent for turning connections into opportunities.
[00:01:32] Dave Polykoff: Matt Kretzmann is here to share insights on leveraging LinkedIn, embracing AI marketing and building resilient businesses in our digital age. Please welcome Matt Kretzmann.
[00:01:44] Matt Cretzman: Yeah, Dave, thanks so much, man. Uh, pumped to chat with you today and nerd out on branding and marketing stuff.
[00:01:56] Dave Polykoff: Absolutely. Yeah, I know we're, we're in similar spaces, which is why I love [00:02:00] having people like you on the show, because I think we get into some really good topics, um,
[00:02:04] Dave Polykoff: especially for our audience. Who's who's here to learn that. So,
[00:02:07] Dave Polykoff: um, you know, hell of an intro, I should say. Um, sounds
[00:02:13] Matt Cretzman: you gave it. I appreciate that, man.
[00:02:15] Dave Polykoff: right.
[00:02:16] Matt Cretzman: put it together. It's like, man, I do all those things. Yeah. And I'm only 38. Geez,
[00:02:21] Dave Polykoff: I mean, globe trotter around the world marketer expert.
[00:02:26] Dave Polykoff: Um, I do have to ask though, as the founder of Stormbreaker digital Stormbreaker,
[00:02:33] Dave Polykoff: where did, where did the word Stormbreaker come from?
[00:02:36] Matt Cretzman: Oh, that's great. Uh, great question. Over the years I've had maybe four people kind of get it right off the bat. Um, so it's from a movie
[00:02:47] Dave Polykoff: I have my hunch, but
[00:02:48] Matt Cretzman: yep. Yep. Once
[00:02:50] Matt Cretzman: you want to take a guess at which movie, huh?
[00:02:53] Dave Polykoff: Are you a Marvel fan?
[00:02:54] Matt Cretzman: Uh, yes. I'm a marble fan. You're getting, getting warmer.
[00:02:58] Dave Polykoff: Is this, is this [00:03:00] Stormbreaker, the Thor's, uh, axe?
[00:03:02] Dave Polykoff: I
[00:03:05] Matt Cretzman: There you go. Number five.
[00:03:07] Dave Polykoff: my Marvel nerdiness. Yeah,
[00:03:10] Matt Cretzman: There you go. You're a big time nerd. I knew it.
[00:03:12] Dave Polykoff: yeah, no. When I
[00:03:13] Dave Polykoff: saw that, I was like, please tell me that's where it's from.
[00:03:16] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. And if the lightning on the website doesn't kind of give it away, you know, um, yeah, I actually, uh, and kind of relevant to our topic with the branding, you know, I started my agency back in, uh, like early 2020 and, um, but late 2019 even, and the name that I gave, uh, I gave the, the business was Indoor Marketing, I N D U R.
[00:03:36] Matt Cretzman: Marketing. And it was the dumbest name ever. Like at the time, like I'm being super clever because the I N was like the LinkedIn kind of icon. It was the LinkedIn logo. And so I was kind of telling people, you know, like, and I'm like, you know, what's a word that means so much to me. And I'm like, you know, endurance, you know, and cause of that season of my life, I've learned, like, that's one of my words and in multiple seasons, I've had different words, but you know, [00:04:00] uh, the tendency is, and we, you probably talk about this.
[00:04:02] Matt Cretzman: I do all the time too. The tendency when we're branding something is we, we brand something after something special to us, which means nothing to anybody else. And so it took me a little bit of time after spelling the words so many times, I was like, you know, people would be like, is that an it company?
[00:04:21] Matt Cretzman: What is that? What do you actually do? I'm like, all right, you know what, it's time for a rebrand. All right. And so, yeah, I picked Stormbreaker digital. Hopefully the digital makes it a little bit, a little bit more clear and Stormbreakers kind of that, you know, grittiness that, um, uh, it just kind of like a cultural vibe for how we, you know, do work.
[00:04:38] Matt Cretzman: But, um, you know, when branding it's best to not think about what's really cool and meaningful to me as much as it is, what will resonate most with my ideal clients so that they actually get it and it excites them. So, so Stormbreaker digital is it. Yeah.
[00:04:54] Dave Polykoff: No, I feel that because I've always racked, I we're serial [00:05:00] entrepreneurs. We've probably started dozens and dozens of failed side projects, but the most
[00:05:06] Dave Polykoff: fun part of it is kind of coming up with the name and the logo and, And that name, as you say, it always goes back to something that you want to get super creative and abstract and
[00:05:17] Dave Polykoff: it's the fun part.
[00:05:18] Dave Polykoff: But then you realize that sometimes it's just being on the nose is probably the most important thing. I mean,
[00:05:25] Dave Polykoff: Apple companies like Apple kind of got away with it because you have no idea what the hell. That company did, if you just heard the
[00:05:31] Dave Polykoff: word Apple, but, uh,
[00:05:33] Dave Polykoff: yeah, sometimes it's just like grow your brand LLC.
[00:05:37] Dave Polykoff: And like, that's, that's probably the best way to do it.
[00:05:40] Matt Cretzman: Right. Exactly. Yeah. We build cool websites LLC.
[00:05:45] Dave Polykoff: Easy enough to remember too.
[00:05:46] Matt Cretzman: Easy enough.
[00:05:48] Dave Polykoff: my, my agency is a Zen post and I, even that is like, Oh, I'm like, I'm thinking like, all right, Zen. You get like, you know, the monk and the
[00:05:59] Dave Polykoff: meditation, [00:06:00] like we make it easy. And then there's post, which is,
[00:06:03] Dave Polykoff: you know, posting content and all that kind of stuff.
[00:06:04] Dave Polykoff: I would think, Oh, people would understand Zen post. I can't tell you how many people I've asked, like, what's Zen mean or Zen? Are you saying Zen posts like that to clarify? I'm like, man, I thought I was being super clever with this name and it is not
[00:06:20] Matt Cretzman: yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I, I can kind of get it, you know, uh, if you're making posting less stress free, which, uh, you know, like reaching Zen. Right. Would kind of be a place of peace and stuff. So I, I kind of get it, but you know, maybe not for everybody. I may be a little bit more cultured than most given where I've been.
[00:06:41] Dave Polykoff: Sure. Well, let's, uh, let's jump in more to Brandon. Cause you have your BCT formula and talk us through like
[00:06:49] Matt Cretzman: Yeah.
[00:06:50] Dave Polykoff: one high level, what it is and then how it came about, how you actually created this formula.
[00:06:58] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Um, good question. [00:07:00] So I, when I, when I started out the first, like one to two years, I was known as, uh, I was the LinkedIn guy. Um, I was the lead generation guy. And, um, That's a good thing and a bad thing because, you know, people's tendency, at least in, in that period of my life was, Oh, well, so you're really good at getting me leads.
[00:07:20] Matt Cretzman: It doesn't really matter anything, anything about my product or my branding, or the fact that I haven't posted since 2008, um, you're going to get me leads. And so after just, you know, running successful and fail, you know, failure slash learning experiments with clients, which by the way, if you haven't figured out how to take your product to market, you're Uh, and sell it to a complete stranger than what you're really hiring a marketing firm to do is called product research, market research, um, just a little side note there.
[00:07:50] Matt Cretzman: Um, and so, you know, after doing a lot of market research kind of campaigns, it kind of came to the conclusion that, you know, there's some commonalities between campaigns that win and those that don't. [00:08:00] And, you know, uh, only 3%, um, probably spitballing statistics that you also quote, but helpful for our listeners, only 3 percent of the, uh, of your total audience is ready to buy at any moment in time.
[00:08:12] Matt Cretzman: So 97 percent or not. So the question is like, which one are you going to focus on? If you've got a million bucks to blow on ads, then fine, go ahead and compete. But if not, you're focusing on the 97%. Well, that requires a whole lot of education. Um, and inspiration and really meaningful content and really good positioning and, and, and branding.
[00:08:29] Matt Cretzman: And so just over time of, uh, just running, you know, client campaigns and, and, uh, just doing marketing work. I realized like those were the three, those were the three common traits that translated to, uh, successful and really happy engagements and those that, um, had gaps and opportunities for growth. And so BCT kind of became the process by which I would view, uh, Uh, I would, it, it colored my world and it's, it's how I viewed, you know, marketing campaigns and really companies and, you know, put them through the [00:09:00] filters.
[00:09:00] Matt Cretzman: Like, do I want to work with these people? Do I not? And if not, uh, if I don't think they're ready, then that's a really honest conversation. Um, if you're not clearly articulating who you are and who you're not and why it matters to the 97 percent and educating, then the traffic campaigns are really, again, it's, it's market research at that point, you're testing and trying to figure out what works and what does it and, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as that's the expectation.
[00:09:27] Matt Cretzman: So, BCT is just a good formula and it's not. You know, there may be like one or two other letters you could tack onto that. But as a whole, if your business isn't growing the way you'd like it to, that's a great foundational place to start. Um, and we can jump into, well, you know, how do I analyze that? What kind of questions should I be asking?
[00:09:47] Matt Cretzman: Um, fortunately we live in an era with AI that can do a lot, if not all of the work for you, if you know which, how to ask it and stuff, but so that's, that's kind of a high level that's BCT.
[00:09:59] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. [00:10:00] Yeah. And we're going to get into AI today as well. Cause I know you, um, you have your, your foundation in AI, uh, With a lot of this, so I don't want to jump ahead, but you mentioned something there. That's really important where if you're not growing online, look at these, some, some of these foundational things.
[00:10:22] Dave Polykoff: We face this a lot as impose as well, where sometimes people don't want to move forward with us because they feel as though some of the things that we cover in our services, they've already covered. Like they, they know, Oh, I have that figured out. And. Kind of our pushback is, well, if you did have that figured out and you were doing some of these things that we're telling you, you should be doing, then you will be seeing better results and you haven't been.
[00:10:50] Dave Polykoff: So it's almost a little bit like, Oh, I want to lose weight. And I have my diet figured out. And it's like, well, no, let's, uh, let's audit this [00:11:00] diet and make sure you really do, you know,
[00:11:02] Dave Polykoff: you really are hitting certain amount of calories per day. Um, what
[00:11:06] Dave Polykoff: are some of the things that people should be thinking about?
[00:11:09] Dave Polykoff: When they think, Oh, I have this figured out, you know, I don't need to go through these, this process, but yet I'm not seeing success with my personal brand and my content lead generation. What are some of the kind of the trip wires that people are kind of running over with understanding what they actually should be auditing with their marketing?
[00:11:29] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Um, so foundationally when I'm talking to people about brand, um, there's four or five things that I look for, um, that give an indication of where their brand needs to go, what improvement needs to be done. Um, if I don't clearly understand their origin story or the backstory, right. Or the Genesis. Um, and this, this shouldn't take that long, right?
[00:11:55] Matt Cretzman: This shouldn't like, especially on LinkedIn, you know, if you're going to be active on LinkedIn at all, like your [00:12:00] profile is so, so important. Like the profile is, it's, it's essentially a reflection of who you are. Um, so if I can't come to your profile and somewhere understand the journey that brought you here, then.
[00:12:13] Matt Cretzman: That's a big, that's a big mess, right? Because, uh, facts tell stories sell and you have to be able to tell the story, which communicates trust, relatability, um, you know, emotional connectiveness with your ideal audience and ideal customers or clients, whatever. So origin story is a really big one. Um, you know, if you haven't clearly mapped out your personas, and this would be a question that, you know, I, I would, we as marketers would probably be able to do their work and, and kind of tell if this was done properly, but, um, for business owners, like, you know, have you, have you done some kind of persona work at all?
[00:12:49] Matt Cretzman: Um, You know, to really unpack, uh, you know, who they are, what they care about, their challenges, you know, their fears and all that emotional stuff. Um, and then if you're a [00:13:00] consultant or an author speaker or a coach, I would look for, do you have any, do you have a signature framework? Is there something unique to you that you are bringing to the market that is your secret sauce?
[00:13:15] Matt Cretzman: Right. And that's again, like, I could look at the profile and kind of understand if that's true or not in a, Dave, in a, in a seat, like an ocean of John Maxwell coaches, leadership coaches, health coaches, uh, you know, and AI consultants now, right? Like, Uh, EOS, there's, you know, um, IPAC, like there's a billion coaches.
[00:13:36] Matt Cretzman: This is super, super important and not that complicated. So having a signature framework is massive for differentiating yourself and positioning yourself as an expert, even above, you know, their peers. Um, website, right? Personal brand, website, authority, website, high converting website. Please stop making websites like brochures.
[00:13:55] Matt Cretzman: Okay. This isn't, you know, 1995. [00:14:00] So, um, you know, those, those are a couple of simple things to look for. You know, do they have a book, uh, that communicates authority? Um, and all of these things, yes, like we're at an amazing time with AI that, that can help develop these foundational assets. But those are like some of the things that are, are big, um, and can make a significant difference.
[00:14:20] Matt Cretzman: And us marketers really appreciate that because you've given us some ammo, you know, to kind of work with as we go out and hunt, uh, new business for our clients.
[00:14:28] Dave Polykoff: sure. Absolutely. So it sounds like some of that stuff, we start to get into the concept of branding. Like what, what is it that you need to have in place from a brand perspective to have a successful personal brand? And so I want to start diving into this BCT formula. I may have mentioned some in your previous answer, but like when you look at branding one, like how are you defining that from a personal brand perspective, but also what's kind of like the checklist of things that you We need to be looking at from a branding perspective, whether [00:15:00] that's, you know, visual identity or, uh, you said target market, um, stories, et cetera.
[00:15:06] Dave Polykoff: What, what kind of is encompassed under your brand bucket?
[00:15:12] Matt Cretzman: Um, yeah, I mean, all the things that I just mentioned, those are all like foundational pieces and, and, you know, we could say like manifestations of your brand. Um, ultimately you, you know, you understand branding is the impression that you leave on people when, when they think about you, it's like, what are they thinking when you're not there?
[00:15:29] Matt Cretzman: Right. What are they telling their friends about you or, or your, your vision and how are you communicating that properly? Um, it's, it's all of the aspirational, emotional things that, you know, you really want to want to portray, um, to people to really can, you know, help people clarify you want to, your brand should clarify, right.
[00:15:48] Matt Cretzman: It should clarify. Uh, if I'm looking at you, it should clarify, I like this guy and he understands me and therefore I want to be like him, uh, or I don't like that at [00:16:00] all, I think he's completely wrong and he's not for me, like we're sometimes afraid, I think it's in our human nature to, to draw a line and, and the question is like, are we making it easy, uh, for other people to decide which side of the line they're on, you know?
[00:16:16] Dave Polykoff: that's a important point here too, is you mentioned two, two different things. One is, does this person get me, which. Then requires that the coach consultant, whomever understands their target market, like they deeply understand their pains, desires, wants, needs, maybe a little bit because they were them five years ago,
[00:16:43] Dave Polykoff: or they've just worked with them for so long that they just know them inside and out.
[00:16:47] Dave Polykoff: Um, and the other thing was. Not just do they get me, but do I like them? And
[00:16:54] Dave Polykoff: that's a little bit more of like a personal taste thing. Right. And then that kind of gets us into things like [00:17:00] expressing your personality through video and all that to kind of, or, you know, within your content, your, your writing.
[00:17:05] Dave Polykoff: So kind
[00:17:07] Dave Polykoff: of talk to me through, how do you see when someone, cause this is where I think a lot of people get tripped up is like, Oh, my content's not working. It's not resonating. And I think this is a large part of why is because do you really understand your target market? Do you understand their pains wants needs?
[00:17:24] Dave Polykoff: And are you translating that well into your content? Because you can just decide to, you know, Oh, I think this is going to be a great topic. I'll just, you know, create a YouTube video or a LinkedIn post about it. But if it's not like really resonating with. Something that is a deep desire or pain of your client.
[00:17:44] Dave Polykoff: It's not going to translate into sales. So how do people truly understand, or what's the practice, the best practice to really understand their target market so that they can make sure their target market goes, okay, this guy gets me,
[00:17:59] Matt Cretzman: [00:18:00] Yeah, perfect. Great question. Um, I mean, the most obvious number one, um, if, if you've been there, then it's, you get it right. Like there's no substitute for having gone through the journey yourself. Um, the second thing, if, um, you know, if you, if you haven't had firsthand experience in the challenges that, um, That, that you're trying to solve for your target market.
[00:18:24] Matt Cretzman: I mean, number two, the most obvious, not easy, not scalable. Uh, everybody wants things to be scalable today, but, uh, to a certain extent, maybe not so much, but pick up the phone and call them, right? Talk to your ideal audience. Um, you can run campaigns on LinkedIn, start that conversation. And honestly, like these are the best types of campaigns, the campaigns where you don't necessarily have an agenda.
[00:18:50] Matt Cretzman: But you're just wanting to empathize and understand your target market. And, you know, messaging like, you know, Hey, I'm launching a product to help [00:19:00] X, you know, overcome why, um, just have a couple of questions. Could you give me five minutes? Cause I want to help you. Are you kidding me? Like people would be much more inclined than, Hey, I built this product for you guys, and I think it's really going to take your, like, shut up.
[00:19:15] Matt Cretzman: Okay. Stop it.
[00:19:17] Dave Polykoff: I have to
[00:19:17] Matt Cretzman: That is everybody.
[00:19:19] Dave Polykoff: That like, you know, early on, I'm being like in the tech space and being a serial entrepreneur or whatever, and having all these side projects, a lot of the time it is, let me build in a silo, launch it and go, who wants this? You know, if you build it, they will come. But one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned is that you need to build in public, build with your
[00:19:42] Dave Polykoff: audience, have that community and get that feedback.
[00:19:45] Dave Polykoff: Yeah, for, for what you're saying in the sense of like,
[00:19:48] Dave Polykoff: You need to know if what you're building is correct, right? Not just how to incorporate into your content, but also like the offer you have, is that going to solve the pain point of your, of your [00:20:00] ideal client? And then, yeah, you have to talk to them to understand that.
[00:20:03] Dave Polykoff: And I know AI is a big part of your world. So is there a way to incorporate AI into figuring that out as well?
[00:20:11] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Yeah. So, so chat GPT, uh, is great for research and strategy. Um, and then Claude is just phenomenal for copywriting. It's, it's, uh, Man, it's a, it's a superpower. If you can figure out how to use these things the right way. Um, so I'll give you an example. So, uh, last week I was hanging out with my dad, um, in Canada, which is where I'm from, um, now living in Texas.
[00:20:34] Matt Cretzman: I got here as fast as I could love Canada, but I really love Texas. Um, and so we were doing some, what's that?
[00:20:42] Dave Polykoff: Back to the warm weather.
[00:20:43] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Back to the warm weather. It's raining, but I'll take it. No complaints. Um, yeah, we, we were doing this. So I sat down with him for about three hours. Um, and here's a never done any branding, nothing, no marketing, nothing.
[00:20:57] Matt Cretzman: So if I can do it for him, you, you can do it. Whoever's [00:21:00] listening to this and you're like, I've never done brand work or I can't even, I don't know where to start with brand. Here's a really simple process. So, uh, go to your LinkedIn profile. If your profile, if your profile is super basic, um, and again, my dad hadn't touched his LinkedIn in like 15 years, super basic.
[00:21:18] Matt Cretzman: Um, there was like a whole, like a resume, basically it was a resume, right? Um, and so go to your LinkedIn profile and desktop, uh, click the three buttons beside ad section and, uh, you can download as PDF. Download your LinkedIn profile as a PDF, and then you can take it over to, uh, to, I would go straight to Claude.
[00:21:38] Matt Cretzman: Go to Claude if you want. I like Claude projects. It's 20 bucks a month, uh, but it kind of gives you like ChatGPT has custom GPTs, where you can give it specified knowledge, um, and that's the same thing with Claude projects, which, by the way, AI is only as good as two things, the knowledge it has, and your ability to ask it really good questions and give it direction.
[00:21:58] Matt Cretzman: It's just like a human. So if [00:22:00] you have those two things, then the output is going to be really high. And so give the resume the give the resume, the PDF to Claude, and then just ask this question. Just like you were talking to a human. Here's the prompt. My name is, I'm giving you, uh, I'm uploading a PDF of my LinkedIn bio because I need your help developing a personal brand.
[00:22:18] Matt Cretzman: Take a look at my experience and, um, and the about section and help me do a full brand development, uh, fill in any gaps that may be missing. And I want you to think about how this could relate to my ideal audience or ICPs. Um, I would like hit enter, it's going to do a ton of research and it's going to spit out at least a V1 of a pretty darn good, um, you know, brand summary or positioning of you, you might need to clarify like your experience somewhere, um, or your roles.
[00:22:52] Matt Cretzman: If you don't have any descriptors, just kind of tell it like. When I worked here, I did this when I worked there, I did that. Um, and then from [00:23:00] there, um, you really just want to, it'll give you, it'll give you vision mission statement. Um, and what I would tell it then, depending on your goals, like, if you wanted to move into consulting or coaching, then I would say, you know, excellent.
[00:23:12] Matt Cretzman: Thank you so much. Always be kind to AI. You never know when they're going to take over. Uh, and then, and then say, I want your help developing this into some consulting services. Help me understand who of my ideal audience may be struggling with things that I, in my experience, may be able to help them with.
[00:23:31] Matt Cretzman: And connect the dots. And then you would go into there. I would probably buy like the third or fourth prompt. Um, then start talking about, you know, in your messaging, add emotion. It's best if you tell AI specifically, Claude, I want you when we're writing content, right? Once you do full personal brand development, everything, then it has a pretty clear understanding of who you are and you know, what you do and who you should talk to.
[00:23:55] Matt Cretzman: So if you're going to get into content, then I would say, I want you to write, for [00:24:00] instance, maybe a LinkedIn post. Um, and I'm just kind of riffing here, but this is what we do. I want you to write a LinkedIn post, make sure the, the first two lines are a really strong hook and has a cliffhanger on the second line.
[00:24:15] Matt Cretzman: So people click, see more, and I literally would type this and tell it that, um, I want you to write from first person, make it conversational and story driven. And then have a defined call to action at the end towards my whatever, you know, opt in or lead magnet or whatever. Um, and now that's like, that'll give you some really great content.
[00:24:35] Matt Cretzman: If you want to take it to the next level, um, go to chat GPT, take all of the information that we just did in this exercise and put it into a Google doc, give that Google doc to chat GPT, just the basic one is fine. And then say, you know, again, like, Hey, my name is so and so here. I'm uploading to this chat, a document about my personal brand.
[00:24:56] Matt Cretzman: I want you to do some research and give me stories. [00:25:00] Or, or articles that are trending about topics that I should focus on creating content around. Uh, these can be historical, they can be up to date, relevant, trending, whatever. Give me a mixed bag. You can say that or, and some statistics that might coincide with that.
[00:25:18] Matt Cretzman: Enter. And then it's going to give you like all of this information, pick the story or the article that you like. And then you can say, great, I like this one. Let's unpack that a little bit more. Most people don't know this, but ChatGPT is like the world's largest library. If you have a question about a book, go to ChatGPT and, you know, ask it, Hey, what books relate to these topics?
[00:25:39] Matt Cretzman: Here's my brand and it'll give them to you. And then you could say, awesome. Give me direct quotes from this book that relate to the point I'm trying to make in this article. And it'll actually like pull it right out of there and give it to you. So then you could take all of that research, go back to Claude.
[00:25:57] Matt Cretzman: I would have a separate custom, like Claude [00:26:00] project for content. And then I would go into the content, upload all of that stuff. And then you would, you know, you would want to select one article focused article and then go give it to Claude and say, now let's write an article on the topic. Here's all the information, blah, blah, blah, write it in my voice, make, and then, and then communicate emotion, right?
[00:26:19] Matt Cretzman: Make the person feel. A certain way, um, so that it comes out in the writing.
[00:26:25] Hey, Dave here... obviously, but I want to just pause this episode real quick and say, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Brand Science. I hope that you're getting as much value as a viewer or listener as I've gotten as a host.
[00:26:39] And if you are getting value from this episode, It must mean that you enjoy nerding out on all things personal branding, content creation, and strategy, which means you're my type of person. So I want to connect. Once you're done this episode, go down to the show notes where you'll find my LinkedIn profile. Click on that link, head over to my [00:27:00] profile and send me a request. When you send the request, there'll be that little pop-up that comes up, that you can add a note in the request.
[00:27:07] Just tell me that you found me from a brand science episode so I know that you are one of those loyal, awesome listeners of mine. And let's connect and learn together. Anyway, just want to say, love you. Thanks for listening. Let's connect on LinkedIn and a yeah. Back to the episode.
[00:27:23] Dave Polykoff: I want to jump into content shortly here, but I want to make sure we, uh, touch a little bit more on branding too, because I know it sounds like AI has, can really give you kind of the zero to one. Hey, if you've never been in marketing before, don't really understand how to translate what you have into kind of an outline of a, of a brand.
[00:27:43] Dave Polykoff: It's a
[00:27:43] Dave Polykoff: good way to start there. One thing is storytelling in your branding and understanding who you are. And how that plays into your branding and kind of like your overall tone [00:28:00] and schtick, do you have any opinions on like, okay, you mentioned there's so many different coaches out there, right? How do you stand out?
[00:28:06] Dave Polykoff: And I think the branding part of it is really the element there to help you stand out online.
[00:28:12] Dave Polykoff: How does, how does kind of defining who you are. Um, and representing that through either your content, maybe even your visual identity in order to stand out in the market, play into kind of your branding strategy, especially just because there's a lot of sea of sameness, uh, online, uh, people find what's working and then they go, okay, I'm going to do that.
[00:28:37] Dave Polykoff: It's a lot of copy paste. So, um.
[00:28:39] Dave Polykoff: What's kind of the best way to define your brand and your tone so that you can then next steps, then represent that through your content.
[00:28:49] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Um, you know, it's, I mean, a couple of different ways, like it's an exercise, right, you should be doing exercises if you want to use, uh, you know, these tools that I've talked about, maybe some of the [00:29:00] processes, but have it, if you haven't found your voice and identify like, yes, this is my writing style.
[00:29:07] Matt Cretzman: Um, you should, you should, you should know when, when you read it, like you should know what's what you're comfortable with, what you're not. Um, and just, you know, you could have, you know, you can have AI and tell it to write, you know, an article. Um, and my, and like what we're talking about as well is not like, you know, don't just go on like, Hey, I, I write an article that should be based on like your experiences and your expertise and maybe some real life stories, but if you get it to write it in certain different ways, Um, you know, right.
[00:29:36] Matt Cretzman: And may actually you want, here's a great example. Who do you like to read that resonates with you? You know, I follow a lot of people online. I'm like, man, these guys get it. Like, I love reading their stuff. So that, that, that to me says like, that's kind of my voice to a degree. I still have a very unique way of saying things because, you know, I know me, I'm sarcastic, I'm a little [00:30:00] witty.
[00:30:00] Matt Cretzman: Um, you know, I'm not an intellectual. That much. Um, although I love nerding out and like, so I know my voice, like I know what sounds like me, but it's going to take some time and experimentation for you to just, just get in the process of writing, just, you know, right. And, and have AI, you know, help you out.
[00:30:17] Matt Cretzman: Um, and then look at your finished product and then you could go to people who know you best and say, Hey, I, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to hone in on my writing style or my voice a little bit more clearly. Would you say this sounds like me, you know, and then just, just have the mask. And once you do that a few times over, um, then, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty straightforward to then replicate that voice or that tone in different, uh, pieces of content.
[00:30:45] Matt Cretzman: But I mean, ultimately. You know, three years ago, we would have went to a branding expert and they would have taken us through all these different exercises. You know, what's your brand archetype, right? Like, are you, uh, are you a fox? Like, are you a falcon? You know, are you the [00:31:00] challenger? Like, which one are you?
[00:31:01] Matt Cretzman: And you could certainly do those experiments and you can have a, I, you know, walk you through those experiments. Um, but ultimately, like the proof is really going to be in the pudding and until you actually like, get out there. Sure. And just experiment. It's going to be hard for you to really put your finger on and say like, yeah, this is me.
[00:31:18] Matt Cretzman: This is my style. Um, and so just from, you know, just, you learn by doing and that's really hit, you know, jump out of the nest as John Maxwell says, and build your wings on the way down. You know, you'll learn how to fly in most cases before you fall to the ground,
[00:31:34] Dave Polykoff: Sure.
[00:31:35] Dave Polykoff: So this is, all right, so we have a good idea of branding, um, like who we are, what we need for that, and then now we need to translate that into kind of the C part of this formula, the content side. what's
[00:31:47] Dave Polykoff: what's kind of your strategies behind content? What's the importance of publishing content?
[00:31:51] Dave Polykoff: Let's start there in terms of having, well, gaining leads, having a successful personal brand. What, what's kind of the [00:32:00] importance of publishing content showing up?
[00:32:03] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. So there's, you know, uh, obviously what we're doing right now is like the best form of content. It's long form content. This is, you know, um, people still, there's the perception of authority when you're on TV. Well, guess what? TV 2. 0 is podcasting and, you know, live streaming. So, and YouTube channels. So you should have.
[00:32:21] Matt Cretzman: Some kind of a content outlet outlet somewhere where you're consistently contributing to content and your brand, um, and stuff. I'm a huge fan of YouTube. I think, you know, most people should have a YouTube channel, um, just because it's long form, it's searchable, it ranks, and it's usually stuff. That's always going to be relevant to a degree if you do it right.
[00:32:40] Matt Cretzman: But, um, yeah, you know, aside from that, um, Content types. So when you're starting out, you're trying to build your tribe and you're trying to build trust and an audience. So, and, and people make decisions based on trust. So, um, and here's trust, right? It's the same actions. [00:33:00] Overtime equals trust. Um, not everybody, we live in a microwave era, right?
[00:33:06] Matt Cretzman: In instance, society, not everybody who has the patience and they want to invest, uh, you know, a significant amount of time and energy and money into becoming that world recognized authority in their domain of expertise. So what you can do is you can borrow trust. So ask yourself the question or chat GBT, Hey, who in this industry Who are some of the biggest voices that speak about X fill in the blank.
[00:33:34] Matt Cretzman: Um, and most people don't know this too, but you can actually go, go to chat, chat to BT and say, who are the top voices on LinkedIn in, and then fill in that blank, whatever that is. Um, if you even Google, uh, LinkedIn top voice, um, um, topics, uh, it'll give you a website that has like a hundred different.
[00:33:57] Matt Cretzman: Words, you know, or [00:34:00] topics that you can speak about on LinkedIn and become a top voice. So once you have that list of people that already have a following, already have a brand already have trust. Go to them and ask and say, Hey, I'm, can we partner up in some capacity? Can I interview you like we're doing right now?
[00:34:16] Matt Cretzman: I'm hosting a fireside chat, a panel, whatever I'd love to feature you. Borrowing trust from other people's audiences is really one of the fastest, if not the fastest ways to create content that. Can be perceived as authority content and it's a whole lot easier. It's the Oprah effect, man. You know, Oprah became who she is because she got up on stage, brought in the experts and gave her two cents on, you know, their take on, on stuff.
[00:34:42] Matt Cretzman: Um, and so that's, you know, that's like a great way of, of, of creating content that helps build authority and build trust. Um, since we're both kind of like LinkedIn nerds, and I think a lot of our audience is probably thinking about LinkedIn, get a LinkedIn newsletter. LinkedIn newsletters are as boring and [00:35:00] bland and vanilla as it sounds, a newsletter on LinkedIn, I promise you, it is a great hack, um, for, for, for getting an audience, um, for a few different reasons.
[00:35:11] Matt Cretzman: One, um, if you brand the newsletter again, after your ideal client, make it something that's interesting, not super boring and, you know. It news 2020. No, don't. Okay. Make it interesting. Um, and then you can use that as outreach, you know, as a strategy to outreach. I'm writing an article on you seem to be an expert in.
[00:35:33] Matt Cretzman: Can I, do you mind if I grab 5 minutes and just ask you a few questions or get a quote from you? That's a great, you know, point of leverage to start a conversation with somebody who's got, you know, 25, 50, 75, 000 followers on linkedin. Great. They've got a well established brand. That's really easy. And then when you're creating content and posting articles under your newsletter, P all people have to do is subscribe, hit that check button.
[00:35:56] Matt Cretzman: Yes. And then every time you publish an [00:36:00] article, you send a push notification to their phone. Right? Like, man, you can do that for free. If you just want to go and create a newsletter, you know, now you're creeping on people's phones really anytime you want. And, uh, what you can also do is you can post long form YouTube videos.
[00:36:15] Matt Cretzman: Um, the strategy that I've, that I've kind of coined the term is the content domino. So if you put that link in a post, they're going to slap your hand, the algorithm will, and it's not really going to go as, as far as it would if you did put it in an article, cause you can embed that video right within the article.
[00:36:31] Matt Cretzman: So that's a nice little hack. Um, the strategy that I, that I've kind of coined the term is the content domino. So content domino long form piece of what's the one action really the, you know, the answer to the question is, um, like, what's the one action that you can do consistently, uh, sustainably, that will create a lot of really good content for you, uh, and your brand.
[00:36:56] Matt Cretzman: That's usually like an interview or something like that. The content domino is like [00:37:00] really simple way to think about it. Um, and usually what we do is we pair that with like a LinkedIn Use LinkedIn events, host a live stream or something or a live or that panel as a LinkedIn event, get some collaborators, get them to check.
[00:37:16] Matt Cretzman: Yes. As a collaborator, they share on their profile, you get in front of their audience. They're bringing them with them. You go live, you record a long piece of content, goes to your LinkedIn newsletter, rinse and repeat every month, just rinse and repeat. That's a really nice, sustainable way to create content.
[00:37:34] Matt Cretzman: But, uh, I mean, ultimately, you know, be, be, be real. And I, I try to, man, think creatively as, as, as much as possible. Um, cause there's a, it's never been easier to create content. So we gotta be, you gotta like raise the bar or have some kind of unique angle, ideally. And here's the thing, like people will watch you.
[00:37:59] Matt Cretzman: [00:38:00] Um, if you're you, if you show up as you, you'll find people will watch you. As big or as small as you may be at this point in building your personal brand over some big gurus, because they feel like they can relate to you or you speak in a, you know, you think like them, right? So they'll feel that connectedness to you than they will other people.
[00:38:22] Matt Cretzman: And so don't be afraid to just jump out there and just show up and be you create content. Um, cause people will, they'll appreciate that. They'll, they'll appreciate that authenticity. Last, my last point is, uh, we can't talk about content without talking about videos right now on LinkedIn. Like it's, it's nuts.
[00:38:40] Matt Cretzman: Uh, 0. 5 percent of Lincoln's total user base, you
[00:38:42] Dave Polykoff: I just posted a video the other day where it was talking about how to optimize your. LinkedIn profile, and I don't know if this is small beans to some people, but uh, it got like, uh, like 500,000 impressions or something like that, or like [00:39:00] 300,000 unique or 200 some thousand unique views.
[00:39:04] Dave Polykoff: And I posted the following day. I said I just got 12.7 Madison Square Garden. Amount of views, uh, you know, seats worth of views. By publishing a video on a free, uh, platform and you know, how much would that be worth to you to get that amount of eyeballs and luckily like LinkedIn is free, it's crazy how much
[00:39:31] Dave Polykoff: it's, it's really trying to push LinkedIn.
[00:39:32] Dave Polykoff: And that, I know that's a large strategy of mine right now is. Vertical video since LinkedIn is coming out with its reels, tick tock feed,
[00:39:41] Dave Polykoff: uh, fairly soon.
[00:39:43] Matt Cretzman: Yep, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Walker is another great guy that I love to follow. Um, he, he preaches it all the time and it's funny. He'll, he'll, if you follow, have you, you follow Chris, you gotta follow Chris. Chris is awesome. He's like, he's amazing with demand generation and just like content creation.
[00:39:59] Matt Cretzman: It's [00:40:00] funny. Shout out to Chris. My boy. Love you, bro. Um, Chris, Chris, this is a little tip. Chris will like say things on Instagram that he won't say on LinkedIn. And sometimes he like, you know, like says something really exciting or kind of vents a little bit on Instagram about LinkedIn. And he said that very thing.
[00:40:15] Matt Cretzman: He's like, people don't understand what's happening right now with LinkedIn video. Like y'all are over here competing on Instagram and TikTok. You know, and posting your videos here, but if you just posted it on LinkedIn and tried to build a brand on LinkedIn, you would get 10 X the results, you know? And then he's like, one person's going to follow my advice right here and become a millionaire.
[00:40:36] Matt Cretzman: Everybody else, they're just going to ignore it. They're like, it's true. That's true. Yeah.
[00:40:45] Dave Polykoff: because it's, it's not a natural thing. You know, we don't, we, we get taught how to write and type in and, you know, we go to English class. And we learn how to form grammatically correct sentences, but we're never really taught how to [00:41:00] do that in front of a camera naturally, like growing up, depending on how old you are, you know, you were in front of a camera where you had to prop it on your shoulder and it was like, whatever.
[00:41:08] Dave Polykoff: And it's just a little home videos. And then over the time, you know, the cameras got smaller, they got into our pockets and it became easier to record ourselves. And then social media came, became a thing. And we can now, Oh, put those videos online and have results from that. But no one tells us how to like show up and be an authority on camera.
[00:41:29] Dave Polykoff: So it's, It, it's
[00:41:31] Dave Polykoff: not, it's not for everyone in the sense of like, it doesn't come naturally for everyone, but it's for everyone in the sense of like, we kept talking about this in the sense that you want to make sure you can represent who you are so that. If you're a coach consultant and you're gonna be spending time with people, they need to know what your personality is.
[00:41:53] Dave Polykoff: And, you know, if I'm going to be working out with you in the gym as my fitness trainer, if I'm going to be going to, [00:42:00] uh, you know, open houses, cause you're my realtor, or you're just my coach. And like, I'm going to be on zoom calls. What's your personality? Do I like you? Whatever. And like video is the number one source for doing that.
[00:42:12] Dave Polykoff: So it's a, it's critical, but it's very, it can be very, uh, uh, a difficult thing for people to, to press record and show up.
[00:42:22] Matt Cretzman: Sure. Yeah, I got, I got some hacks for that, bro. Uh, okay. A couple of hacks. All right. So there's a couple of tools that I highly recommend people use. Uh, Descript is great for cleaning up the video, um, and chopping it up into different social media pieces. Um, Opus Pro is a great, You know, tool, give it like that long form video and it just like cleans it all up and dices it up into reels, which is super nice.
[00:42:47] Matt Cretzman: Um, get munch. com is another great tool where you can give it again, like your zoom call and it'll go through and analyze it. And with I, it'll select the highest performing clips. It'll write the captions for it, the hashtags. [00:43:00] I'm not really a big fan of the captions. Um, but, but it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you anyways.
[00:43:05] Matt Cretzman: And then there's another tool that I'm testing out right now called LetterDrop. Um, LetterDrop is really interesting. Great for sales teams. Oh my gosh. Uh, I've been looking for a tool like this for a long time. And so, uh, man, so what, what do you can do is you can connect it to fireflies, which everybody has an AI note taker nowadays, amazing world we live in.
[00:43:24] Matt Cretzman: So you can connect it to your fireflies and then, um, letter drop will analyze and pull in and create content from your fireflies, recorded meetings. In your voice, uh, for everybody on your sales team or yourself. So, you know, you're already like in front of the camera, why not use the video content that you're already creating in zoom calls, whatever those are, sales or internal or whatever, where you're kind of communicating your expertise and it's really authentic.
[00:43:54] Matt Cretzman: Like that's the easiest, lowest hanging fruit for you to create content. Um, and you know, the, the other one, [00:44:00] like get into. You know, you, you gotta think like, what are the, what are the habits? Like, what are the workflows that I can incorporate into my routine that make it easy for me to create video? Um, I've got one client she's been consistently creating video for two years.
[00:44:14] Matt Cretzman: It's nuts. And she said, it's just. Automatic. So what she does is right after a meeting with a client, she'll think of something from that meeting that was like a really good point, or they asked her a question. They had a challenge and she helped them navigate it. And then boom, right away, right after the meeting, just put up her phone on a tripod.
[00:44:33] Matt Cretzman: Tell that story to, to the camera. That's it. It's fresh. You're probably passionate about it, which means you're going to deliver it, uh, the best, you know, in the best way. And you know, that's it.
[00:44:45] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. I think that's the number one point of advice I would give anyone who's starting out with content creation and you're trying to come up with a strategy is try to figure out how it already incorporates into. Your existing life, right? [00:45:00] Because it's like I always use this analogy, but it's like starting a fitness routine where all right, if you now have to carve out an hour and a half to get to a gym and then you go and you try to do these workouts that you've never done before.
[00:45:15] Dave Polykoff: You're going to quit basically in a week, but if you kind of just incorporate some exercises into an already existing schedule and you start small and you just maybe take the stairs instead of the elevator, blah, blah, blah, then it's much easier to grow towards a like larger content strategy. Same thing with just content.
[00:45:35] Dave Polykoff: Like you're saying, if you're already having business meetings, if you're already having sales calls, like start there. And incorporated it, you know, and translate that into content. Um, and then, yeah, for, for how I see my, my own content strategy, I look at it as kind of like top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel type content, I'm categorizing, okay.
[00:45:57] Dave Polykoff: Top of funnel content. This is going to be more [00:46:00] about talking about industry news. I'm talking about my personal stories and journeys. Basically connecting me with the industry. Where can I pull that content from? And a lot of my, uh, podcast interviews, we talk about just like what's trending, what's going on, like thoughts on the industry.
[00:46:18] Dave Polykoff: So I go, okay, let me pull that from my podcast episodes and then translate that into a used to script as well. And make some 20, 30 second clips and then details posted one of that on my LinkedIn today, actually, um, you know, middle of funnel content. This is like more demonstrative content where I'm going to show you, okay, I can, I've told you, I can talk the talk, but this is me showing you, I can walk the walk and you know, that's, uh, we do, uh, now dedicated times with me and my business partner.
[00:46:45] Dave Polykoff: We do teardowns. Where you talk about kind of piggybacking authority. We do teardowns of top industry, personal brands in the space, Justin Welch, Dan Co. We're doing one on Sophie Miller. Um, so now we're like looking at, [00:47:00] okay, what are the specifics of their personal brand blueprint that we're giving kind of instructive, uh, Demonstrative.
[00:47:07] Dave Polykoff: Step by step processes to kind of repeat, um, for people who want to also implement that into their own personal brand, clip that up. And now that's, that's stuff I can use for my middle of conduct. So it's a matter of just like getting it on the schedule and then working it into your, your calendar. Do you, when it comes to content creation, how much of that should be planned?
[00:47:31] Dave Polykoff: And scheduled and how much of that is like, okay, what do I want to post today?
[00:47:36] Matt Cretzman: Uh, I mean, I think, I think it'd be a win if you get like 80 percent of your content scheduled, um, and then just, you know, kind of leave the 20 percent for something impromptu, um, it, and it's not easy, but you should like, think ahead, like three months, right? Think ahead three months at least. And just think about.
[00:47:52] Matt Cretzman: Um, you know, what, you know, what you can create that there's going to be evergreen content, there's going to be evergreen content. That's always going to be relative. Um, [00:48:00] and then there's going to be more, um, you know, time sensitive content that you should be posting, whether it's an event or release or, you know, an offer or something like that, that's time sensitive.
[00:48:08] Matt Cretzman: Um, so, you know, you can, um, Yeah, you can kind of think of it in that terms, but, um, there was something I was going to say, shoot, I just lost my train of thought, um, Brain fart,
[00:48:22] Dave Polykoff: We'll circle, yeah, we'll circle back to it. So I want to make sure we get, cause I know we're, we're, uh, we're really rolling here. So I want to make sure we still get to the concept of traffic.
[00:48:32] Dave Polykoff: So BCT we're on the traffic element of it. So we have a, we know who we're talking to. We know what makes us unique.
[00:48:39] Dave Polykoff: We're translating that into content. Now, how do you see the traffic side of things?
[00:48:44] Matt Cretzman: Um, yeah, I mean, really, you know, kind of, you could say 3 types of traffic paid inbound outbound. Um, and, um, I'm a big fan of outbound. I've been outbound for years. Um, and, you know, we kind of started this conversation saying that outbound really [00:49:00] works its best when it's. Um, you know, thank you, Adam Robinson, inbound, let outbound and, you know, content let outbound, there's all these like new terms for it, but, um, yeah, I love outbound.
[00:49:13] Matt Cretzman: So, you know, set up campaigns that make sense, run them on LinkedIn. Um, email is, uh, is a great channel. If you use it the right way to drive, to really drive people to your profile or to some kind of like a lead magnet or something, you Or invite them to something. Give first is really the mentality that you need to have over email.
[00:49:31] Matt Cretzman: Um, And then like the best type of in pound and it kind of dovetails with the content strategy, lead magnet type posts. What is something that's crazy? You talk about those teardowns, like, you know, Hey, I just spent 40 hours tearing down so and so experts, personal brand who wants, uh, you know, who wants the video.
[00:49:49] Matt Cretzman: Right. And the, and the cheat sheet, like that stuff's gonna, it's gonna perform really well. Another friend of mine, he's been giving away like lists for like, you know, the past couple of years, he now has [00:50:00] like, He's almost a million followers cause he just, he's the list broker. He just gives them away, but you've got to get the email, you know, give them your email to get the list.
[00:50:08] Matt Cretzman: So those are the types, in my opinion of the best, like inbound type where it's, it's, and it's done in conjunction with some kind of a lead magnet. And I would make that a big part of your content mix too. Um, is, is like high value giveaway type stuff. Um, and then ask, you know, obviously ask people to reshare it, you know, cause this will help your network.
[00:50:27] Matt Cretzman: Um, which kind of makes them feel like they're, you know, doing a whole lot of good, but, um, but yeah.
[00:50:33] Dave Polykoff: you mentioned a few different assets too, at the beginning of, of the chat in terms of personal websites, your basically your personal
[00:50:41] Dave Polykoff: personal brand sales page, which is like your LinkedIn profile. Essentially, um, you know, you
[00:50:46] Dave Polykoff: have lead magnets when we talk about driving traffic, where should we be thinking about driving the traffic to?
[00:50:54] Matt Cretzman: mean, it, it, well, I mean, it, it depends like ideal. It depends how long they've been hanging [00:51:00] around. Right. Um, and it depends on how fast you're, you know, your following is growing on LinkedIn. If you, if you're growing faster, that means you've got a lot of people that don't really know you. So you should probably think about putting them into your, you know, your top of funnel lead magnet versus like a middle of the funnel lead magnet, which might be a little bit longer or something like that.
[00:51:18] Matt Cretzman: So, I mean, it really depends in, in your strategy. Um, And, you know, ultimately test, like there may be people that would take advantage of a three part, you know, free video series or video training. And, and they would appreciate that more than, you know, a cheat sheet or a loom video, um, or a Google document.
[00:51:39] Matt Cretzman: Like it, it really just depends. So you should be testing them out consistently to see which one works the best.
[00:51:45] Dave Polykoff: One person I love that does traffic, uh, that directs traffic in a really creative way is Justin Welch. One of like the top
[00:51:56] Dave Polykoff: LinkedIn guys, right. The, uh, one of the founding [00:52:00] fathers. Um, and. His goal, his, his process, his personal brand blueprint is that he has, he highly puts emphasis on his personal brand website.
[00:52:10] Dave Polykoff: And what he does is he pushes everyone to his newsletter, but he
[00:52:14] Dave Polykoff: hosts all of his newsletters on his website natively. He doesn't have it on some separate newsletter hosting site. And then in his content, he breaks down, uh, a topic that people are really interested in. His ideal client is really interested in, and he goes at the end of it, by the way, I have a full playbook breakdown of this concept.
[00:52:37] Dave Polykoff: Um, here, and then links off to his. Personal brand website on his personal brand website. It's the newsletter where he's then promoting all of his offers, options to sign up for his newsletter, et cetera, et
[00:52:51] Dave Polykoff: cetera. So, you know, he's kind of capturing eyeballs and attention on his LinkedIn X slash Twitter,
[00:52:58] Dave Polykoff: and then he's going, if you're [00:53:00] interested in this.
[00:53:00] Dave Polykoff: I have the full breakdown on my personal website. So he's always driving people back to his owned asset and then from there selling them on that. So I just really love that kind of workflow that he does there where it's not always just something native. On the channel that you're, you're publishing content on, but also like, let's get you over to something that I control and I can
[00:53:19] Dave Polykoff: push my offers on more.
[00:53:20] Dave Polykoff: Yeah,
[00:53:21] Matt Cretzman: That's it. Yeah. Own your audience. Yep. As great as LinkedIn is and we love LinkedIn and you know, whatever social media channels, your favorite, you don't own it. So you got to figure out how you're going to own that audience. An email list, building an email list is something that, um, well, it'll benefit you forever.
[00:53:36] Dave Polykoff: yeah, yeah. Well, this has been awesome, Matt. I know we chatted for a while here, so I want to make sure if people want to learn more about you, this book that's coming out, um, your offers, where can they go? Dope.
[00:53:50] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Uh, macratsman. com is my personal site, but if you want it to kind of dip your toe in the water and get started, go to, um, go to LinkedIn power score. com. [00:54:00] And you can kind of take the, you know, the free assessment and it'll give you a good, good sense for where you're at, maybe what you need to improve, uh, to do better on LinkedIn.
[00:54:08] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. I'm going to go do that right now and I'll share it with you after this.
[00:54:12] Matt Cretzman: There you go.
[00:54:14] Dave Polykoff: All right,
[00:54:14] Dave Polykoff: Matt. Appreciate your time today, man.
[00:54:16] Matt Cretzman: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it.
