Kris Hughes: Good and everything. All right, cool. Trying to mess with it.
Dan Mott: Hey, and welcome to another episode of just another LinkedIn live the show where we sit down with our fellow. So entrepreneurs to learn about the tactics and strategies they use in their business. So we can steal their ideas and apply them ourselves.
I’m your host, Dan Martin. Today, I’m hanging out with Chris Hughes. Thanks for being here, Chris. How’s it going, man?
Kris Hughes: Oh, I’m doing great. Good to be with you today. Thanks for the invite. Appreciate it. Yeah.
Dan Mott: Yeah, definitely. I was, I was excited to have you on, I know. Um, we cross paths a lot. We, we do a lot of the same things.
We talk a lot about the same things. So I was like, it’s, it’s, I’ve gotta have you on, man. It just doesn’t make sense. Not to . So just, uh, for, for the people who are watching, watching, whether they’re watching live or, or checking out the replay, um, why don’t you just, you know, give us a quick pitch, tell us, uh, a little bit about yourself and, and what you.
Kris Hughes: Yeah, for sure. So yeah, my name’s Chris Hughes, I’m the founders and NATA ventures. We’re based in Austin, Texas. Uh, we help people optimize their digital presence to transform their businesses in a variety of ways. Do have a lot of like low, low cost product offerings, like DIY LinkedIn profile audits. You can go through and like audit your own profile and notion and optimize that on your own.
We do those in person. As well, we do video repurposing for people that have long forum content that need that shortened down to shorter forum content. Uh, do some ghost writing. There are a couple people out there on LinkedIn that are actually me, that you may think somebody else it’s
Dan Mott: secretly me.
Kris Hughes: um, do some content repurposing as well, like content batching, where people give us ideas and we run.
You know, batches of 10, 10 posts a month or 20 posts a month. So they can just take those and share those. And that’s becoming really popular. We’ve had two, two new clients come on board for that lately. So I hear that refrain a lot. Like I’m sitting on a lot of content ideas. I just dunno what to do with them.
Uh, do I have time to structure ’em um, so that’s becoming a big one for us. And, uh, we did some generalized brand strategy coaching as well that people were stuck in their brand and they feel like they’re kind of bumping up against brick wall and just not getting the traction they used to. you kind of have a reframing process where we work through it with them and, and see where they can pivot and change their voice to get that new, fresh momentum.
Dan Mott: I love it, man. Um, you mentioned a lot of, a lot of things in there that I immediately want to dive into, so , um, I, I don’t even know where to start. So I know we were talking about this on the, on the back end. You already brought it up. And I think we we’ll kind of be like a recurring theme, but I, I love the idea of the, the LinkedIn profile.
So I know you you’ve done, uh, a lot of like one to one in person profile audits before, and then turned, uh, like an offering. Like, Hey, do it yourself here. Here’s like the option. What was that like? What did that process look for? Like what did it take to go from like doing it one to one, being able to actually ask those questions, to talk people through, to building a, like, build your own experience, journey going through that and how like, what’s that been like?
Sure.
Kris Hughes: Yeah. It did a, a live stream on this yesterday and really talking through the thought process there and you know, really what it came down to is I was hearing people say, you know, I know I need to. Overhaul my profile. I just don’t have time necessarily to sit down with you and like do that together.
Like I’d rather just take it and do it on my time and do it in bits and pieces. So we kept hearing that over and over again. And even like the clients we would have in the one-on-one audits were like, you know, it would’ve been great to have something. And I could have just walk through on, on my own. I ran a pole, got the same response in a poll.
Like the data was overwhelming that people would rather have it to do on their time. I just think we’re all kind of in a DIY mindset right now, because we’re also, uh, you know, the time suck of being a solopreneur. So that’s really where it came from. And, you know, the data was pretty solid. So the next thought was, you know, we gotta go out and build this as an MVP, like a minimally viable product.
We don’t want to have it be a resource suck and put a ton of time and money into it. You know, think about that break even point it’s that whole thing with passive income, all gurus out there will tell you, you know, it’s a great way to get rich quick, but the reality is you gotta break even first. . Yeah, exactly.
So what you do to keep that break even pretty low, and that’s why we chose. You know, notion is not perfect for something like this, but it’s workable. And, um, you know, we were able to build it in a way, a notion that was relatively easy and, and didn’t take too long and, uh, yeah, I’ve got good response from it so far.
Just have it tied, you know, through a simple payment through Stan, uh, that I used for like a payment backend and. Yeah. When people pay, they get the universal access link on notion. They don’t have to create a notion account. Nice. Um, they can access without having to create an account, even though it’s free.
And the experience to some extent is a little bit better if you have an account in certain ways, but you don’t have to. Um, so that was the thought process is just data driven. And then, you know, how can we treat it as an MVP? Keep it light, um, all around for everybody light lift and, uh, yeah, just keep it simple.
And, uh, Gotten some decent response and enough to think about, you know, what’s another iteration, Hey, that’s the whole reason to build products is like, it’s never gonna be perfect. You’re not gonna get rich. They tell you what you can do next, you know?
Dan Mott: Yeah. And I think that’s the important part, right?
Like building it in public and letting, getting, getting people’s feedback, especially people like, I, like, I did that with my course too. Like I just gave it away to a bunch of friends because I was like, I need your feedback. I don’t wanna just not have it be so. Um, that people don’t want. So . Yeah, for sure.
So you guys still in the MVP phase, are you guys like officially at like product, you know, like launch product version one, you know, ready to go?
Kris Hughes: Yeah. It’s out there. It’s live, launched it on, uh, on the first and had a, had a good number of people. Join, waiting list gave ’em a little early bird discount code to grab it, um, on launch day and yeah, went.
So
Dan Mott: good start. Yeah. So I know this is kind of like, and I, and I bring that up because I know this is one of the things that we kind of talked about and I’m you and I talked about this before we even went live that, uh, it seems to be a recurring theme for, for other solar entrepreneurs too. Like, um, we had Michelle on last week, Claire, the week before.
Hi Claire. Uh and both were like talking about the same thing, right? Building systems, building processes, building repeatable. Engines that we can use in our business. Right. Because as solar printers, we just don’t have the time to do all these things. And like a lot of times we have other priorities that we need to focus on, which means we have even less time for our business.
So, um, I think that’s gonna be, you know, a lot, a lot of the, you know, big theme for today’s conversation. Um, I know that’s, that’s a big thing for you, right? Like automating processes, um, and being able to create, uh, you know, build things that are going to lead to, uh, Uh, sorry, passive and predictable income and, and procedures within your business.
So, um, I know you and I like, you know, beforehand, we’re talking a little bit about, um, doing this on the lead gen side, doing it on the product side. Um, so like in terms of, of building, uh, passive predictable income streams, like what, what’s your main focus for, like right now, like you’ve got. You’ve got the, the DIY LinkedIn profile review out there.
What’s next? What are you working
Kris Hughes: on now? Yeah, I like that one a lot. And, and just kind of the, the notion of that I have ebook out there that I push, um, you know, kind of a little bit more in the background and, you know, people that are more kind of in the ecosystem, Laurie is on with us today, you know, she’s example of somebody that has purchased that in the past.
So it’s like, you know, just kind of having that sitting in the background. I don’t push those as heavily necessarily, but like if you land on that, Page, you’ll see everything that’s there. So, you know, the stuff that is more passive and is like a down downloadable piece or stuff that you can, you know, that’s DIY for you that you can work with easily.
You know, I always think of income pillars as like passive, you know, transactional, fractional and recurring. So there’s like the four, uh, kind of pillars that I work off of passes the work in progress. nice, you know, um, always and learning more about it. Learning primarily that’s a hell of a lot of work.
Um, yeah, but I think within that work, you can learn how you can adapt it and, and, you know, really make it work for you in the background. I mean, ultimately that’s the goal, just how you get there. nice. Yeah. Always once, once successful, you can spin it out. I’ve had a lot fail, man. I’ve anybody that says they have it’s full of it because you’re gonna put stuff out there it’s gonna fall flat and yeah.
But I think you learn a lot from those on how to adapt to the next one and, and make it stronger and make it. So,
Dan Mott: well, what’s really cool about doing that is, is if you do like super low. Um, like, uh, like low pricing, low value offers. Those tend to be significantly easier to build. So it’s gonna take you a lot less time to be able to put out there, get the feedback and then iterate from there, which is nice as opposed to spending, like, all right, I’m gonna build like Keystone course.
I’m gonna spend like a hundred hours building it. I’m going to pay designers to help me make it pretty. I’m gonna sink all this money in SI time and money into it and then release it. And. Crickets is that like, I know. Oh yeah. You can think
Kris Hughes: about the break even with that too. I mean, there’s a difference in break.
Even of me paying $5 for my notion account and whatever the man hours are worth, there’s a break even versus paying, you know, a developer thousands of dollars and all the man hours are tied to that. You’re trying to get to like. Five grand six grand before you break Haven. Yeah. Right. No, thanks.
Dan Mott: well, that’s why I actually, so I did that with my course I, um, same thing, right?
I did it as like, I, I signed up for podium. It was like $400 for the year. So that was my sound cost. Um, but with the, the recording process, I was like, I’m gonna use loom to record. And if you use the free version of loom, it’s, it’s a limited five minutes. And I said to myself, this is, I’m actually gonna treat this as a challenge and I’m going to make.
Right. Like have lessons that the modules within the lesson are five minutes or. Except I think I have one that’s like 20 minutes because it was a live recording. And then I, I put in the courses like bonus content, but every other lesson is five minutes or less. And I was like, I did this as a challenge to myself.
And it actually, like, I’ve gotten so much positive feedback from it because the lessons are quick. Right. Like, and you don’t have to go in and be like, all right, I watched this one lesson. It’s an hour long. And then now you’re going to apply it a week later and then you’re like, crap, what did Dan say? Or, you know what I was looking to say?
And then you have to skim back through that whole thing. It’s like, boom, no, it’s right there. And so I was like, I was really happy that it did that because it saved me the, the cost of having to invest in another tool in order to build the product. Yeah. Um, and it also like challenged me creatively and it ended up being a positive experience for people who actually purchased my course, which was really.
Kris Hughes: Yeah, and looms. Awesome for that, man. That’s a fantastic free tool for for what you get from it. And yeah, it does force you to be compact. I found, I used it in shooting the videos for each of the modules and. Profile audit too. And I was found myself like outta the corner of my eye watching the clock.
Yeah. The same way as like shooting a tick clock video. And you’re like looking down yeah. Trying not to look down like, oh, like I’m popping up against time. So yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Dan Mott: That’s, that’s how you can tell that the video’s going on long is my eyes keep darting down to the bottom.
Kris Hughes: yeah, everybody watching.
That’s a little trick. that happens.
Dan Mott: Yeah, Laurie, great point. Uh, creating valuable resources does not need to be complicated. Yeah. I think it needs to be the opposite. Right? Like making it easy, leveraging the, the tools, the resources, the knowledge that we already have to turn it into a product or a free resource that we can easily put out.
Just reduces the amount of time that goes into the back end of just creating, right? Like what do I need to do in order to create this? No, I already have that process laid out. So. Absolutely. Awesome. So, so from products, it sounds like you’ve got, you’ve already got two live you’ve already got, um, you know, oh, I was gonna ask you too.
I, I forgot we, we kind of moved on from this, but, um, have you seen that having products have led to more, um, cause most of your services are, um, done for you services, right? Mm-hmm have you noticed that your free products have led, led to more customers, um, purchasing your services as a.
Kris Hughes: Certainly like you can see the interest level tip from people that are interacting with my content or with Julie’s content.
And, you know, for reference to my wife, Julie Fure works with me as well in the business. Um, you can see on our content of people that are engaged with that, that kind end up buying one of the lighter offerings like the profile audit or, or the book, or we have power hours where people can just buy an hour of our time and talk about whatever they want, which has been cool.
Cuz some of those have flipped over. Like a recognition that there’s a greater problem there than just the problem they wanted to talk about. That turns into, you know, that next step, which could be content creation. That that’s what they need done, or they just want to talk through brands. So yeah, there is a funnel there and that’s pretty definable and we’re starting to see results from that.
And that’s certainly what I would like to make more predictable and obvious, um, yeah, going forward and in terms of how I have stuff laid out on the products page. It’s very clear, um, of the tier and kind of the escalation of, of what. From one
Dan Mott: point to the next nice. Um, on the, the back end, like what do your like upsell processes look like in terms of just like drip campaigns or just even, even, even if it’s manual, right?
Like sales process that you have to like, alright, right. Hey, this person purchased this. I’m gonna wait two weeks and then re you know, reach out to them with a message. Like what, what does that kind of whole process look
Kris Hughes: like? Yeah. Drips work in progress. We actually restructuring that. Cause we were talking a little bit offline thinking about creating a, a new newsletter.
I’ve had a few iterations of newsletters in the past. Didn’t go particularly well. so trying to think about this one and how it can be better and really what we want it to be. Yeah. Um, so I think, you know, the drip we’re, we’re riding in tandem with that and to, to make it more consistent as we. And having onboarding sequences, people join, have the newsletter going forward.
Now it is more manual. You know, somebody grabs an audit or we have a power hour. I give ’em some time to sit on it and then, then reach back out usually by DM. So I, my DMS are flowing all the time, different ways, just having different types of conversations with different people, depending on where I, where I know they are interest wise or just building relationships.
That’s a big part. Yeah, I put in that work, you just throw stuff out in the wind and cross your fingers. You’re gonna get what you put in. Yeah. So,
Dan Mott: yeah, I’ve um, I’ve tried, I’ve been trying to spend more time because it, it can be overwhelming to try and keep up with the amount of DMS and like, I’ve just accepted that.
Cause I have, I have multiple emails. I have my, I have slack messages. I have DMS and links, so it’s just like keeping up a communication can be a huge time suck. So I was just like, I early on accepted. Like I’m just gonna condition people from the beginning to not expect an immediate response from me.
Like so’s sometimes I don’t respond to emails for like a week or more. Sometimes I don’t respond to DM for a week or more. I’ve had DM conversations that go on for like weeks. So I’m always looking like, how do I cuz right. There’s it’s it’s balance. There’s the importance of having an actual conversation, not just like spamming people with messages that kind of direct them around.
So like how do you use triggers? How do like by, by someone taking a specific action to then trigger, even if in a DM, I have to do that manually. I can’t offer. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not gonna automate that. Um, or really, I don’t think the tools have exist to send a DM automatically buy a trigger. Right. You’re just
Kris Hughes: scheduling it.
That would be nice. If so, right? Yeah. I just. I’ve I’ve, you know, really believe in the psychology of this and recognizing moments. Yeah. Um, I think it’s partially recognizing when somebody is telling you I need help. yeah. They may not say the words I need help. Yeah. Um, but a couple of like, I. I had talked to a guy yesterday, it’s probably gonna turn into a ghost writing opportunity.
And that came from just being in my Twitter feed and seeing a couple things happening. I kind of duck my nose in and got a conversation, got a referral from somebody else that led to a conversation. So it’s not always, um, you know, like a hard process of like, okay, DM one here, DM two here a week or two low later, DM three here another week or two later.
It’s like recognizing what you’re hearing in the conversations, but subtext. This person’s telling me that they want to have a conversation. Yeah. But they’re telling me that I have to capitalize on that. Cause they’re not gonna come out and say, let’s chat. It’s more like,
Dan Mott: no, no one ever says pick my mind.
Kris Hughes: but here it’s, it’s like hearing what’s being said, without it being said directly put the subtext of it. And I think the better you get at that, the more you can recognize opportunities to actually to chat and be a little bit more aggressive about, you know, setting somebody up for a convers.
Dan Mott: Yeah, I think that’s important too, because a lot of times people will assume they know what we do or have expectations of what we can do for them.
Right. So just because they want to work for us, work with us doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily a good fit to so. Having that conversation is equally as important to qualify them. So that way we make sure that we’re not wasting time. Yes. Their time or ours by hopping on a call and spending a half hour with someone that we can’t actually help.
So yeah, exactly.
Kris Hughes: Or getting in a, in a place where you get started and end up having to fire the client or know that they’re gonna let you go, cuz. Yeah, exactly. Either of those are fun and we’ve all been through it. I’m sure.
Dan Mott: No. Yeah. Those are some painful learning experiences. .
Kris Hughes: I had one early on of the guy that wanted, that, you know, ended up wanting to pay me about a quarter of what I typically charged.
And I was in yes mode as I was getting started and took it on. And he, I was getting texts eight o’clock at night and phone calls. Like, I don’t like this, this needs to be fixed. I’m like sitting on the couch with my wife watching TV. I’m like, it’s it gonna work, man? I like fired him like a month in. And that, that was a big trigger for me.
Like. Okay. Here’s, gotta be looking for this in the future, you know, and be cognizant you gotta protect it, you know?
Dan Mott: Yeah. I mean, that’s, I did the same thing when I was first getting started. I was like, all right, I’m I’m gonna do this, this, you know, and I, I would just kind of say, I want, I needed money. I needed to support my family.
So I was like, yes, like, I’ll take this. Yeah. And it was completely industry that I had no experience with. And like, I learned the hard way, like this, this sucks. And like I had to, after, after a month in, I was like, I’m gonna give you another month for free, and then we’re gonna stop working together.
Kris Hughes: So yeah, yeah.
Yep. Those are painful, man. But you learn a lot from ’em so yeah.
Dan Mott: Awesome. So, um, productizing your offerings, uh, in terms of being able to passive income, stream’s actually leading to, towards creating more lead generation for you, which is really awesome. Uh, cause I know that that’s one of your goals as well.
So is there anything else that you’re doing outside of the outside of trying to upsell services on top of product sales? Um, anything else that you’re building systems to help you create more passive lead generat?
Kris Hughes: Yeah, Zapier, you know, Zapier works a lot on my behalf in the background. Um, kind of moving things from one place to another, as I mentioned earlier.
Yeah. I live in notion. So anytime certain action actions happen, you know, somebody buys a product or they enter on our email list, you know, that’s all noted on their cards and notion via Zapier. Um, so I’ve got a good. Visual funnel there, visual visualization of a board where I can see where everybody kind of is in the ecosystem.
That’s been really helpful for me to know like how to structure conversations and when it’s the right time to reach out and like trigger that next touchpoint. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I’m, I’m very visual in that respect. So setting up a lot of visual stuff that I can use as reference points and go back and look out occasionally and just.
Who’s where what to do. Yeah. Talked a little bit about it in the past. Like, I, I tend to track activity at a really granular level too. Like if somebody comes and interacts with my posts, they like a post they comment, I kind of go back and I make a note every time that happens. So I can have like a separation of this person’s really deeply locked in this person.
Maybe isn’t as much, this is somebody that’s kind of new to my world and just see how that evolves. And that helps. Helps me think about, you know, where they are and what to do next.
Dan Mott: Yeah. That’s, that’s super interesting cuz that’s, that’s a really manual process to have to go do that. uh, I actually, for a while I was trying to build a tool that would actually, that would actually capture that data.
Yeah. But LinkedIn’s APIs are so limiting and they really don’t want like people coming in. So, um, We like we had to explore writing code that was basically scraping LinkedIn, which they don’t like you to do, but we were literally doing it for the exclusive reason of, I just wanna see, like, I wanna create a database of who’s actually engaging in my content.
So I know like brand personal brand affinity. Um, and like, it was just too much work. It was LinkedIn would like fight us to the death over it. And which is like why I gave up on the project. But like, I think that data, that information is so incredibly important. Right. Like, it’s, it’s a very manual labor in terms its process.
So like, it is how do you, how do you balance doing that? Like when is it too much? Like when you kind of miss. .
Kris Hughes: Yeah. I mean, and I’m realistic that I’m not gonna catch every single thing because of now. And honestly, I think LinkedIn’s notifications are kind of broken to be blunt because their notifications, like, I will see something happen.
Yeah. I’ll see something happen on my post. Like, okay. That person has commented and then I’ll get the notifications. They commented like 30 minutes later. Yeah, wait, wait, wait. Okay. So that makes it really hard to do that manually. So it’s more like capturing it in a moment in time, right? Like when I have the time to sit down and do it, I’ll just go back and tabulate.
It I’m realistic. I’m not, I’m missing stuff along way.
Dan Mott: Yeah. But I think too, like combining it with there’s, there’s certain people that we remember if we see them pop up over and over and over again, you kind of start to recognize them. And then just maybe noting that. Is like a, a quick way to do that.
Sure. Um, so where, where are you capturing all this data in, in notion? Or do you put it in your CRM? Like how do you, like, where do you have this notion in notion? Yep. Gotcha. Yep. Do, do you use notion as your CRM or
Kris Hughes: essentially? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s just because I have all my project planning in there already.
And like, as I’m thinking about other potential projects down the road, I’m writing in there all the time and iterating and all my client notes and meeting notes. um, everything I do in my fractional worlds that are, you know, um, I have on the side, it’s all I in there. Yeah. I just keep it and keep it simple.
Dan Mott: keep it one. So I have, cuz I like that’s something I struggle with is I have data all over the place and I don’t have it centralized, which, which makes it difficult to right when I need to go capture that information. Which is fine. Like, I, I can go look in a couple places and that’s not too big of a deal, but right.
Like obviously, like if I can save, if I can save a second here a second there a minute here, a minute there, that adds up really quick. Of course. So I use, I use HubSpot as my CRM and I, I just use right. I just use the free version. Cause I don’t need all the, I have active campaign as my marketing automation.
So like I do all my stuff there, so that stuff lives in two separate places, but really I use HubSpot for my meeting notes. So every single call that I have, I take notes. Even if it’s just like one thing, right. Or something, especially if it’s like someone who wants to work with me, um, then I take a lot more notes or if I’m coaching someone or whatever it it is.
Um, but all that stuff is extremely useful for keeping the con, right? Like you said, keeping the conversation going. If I haven’t talked to someone in 12 months, I’m not gonna remember what we talked about. Sometimes I don’t even remember if I’ve talked to you in the past. Right? Like I’ve talked to so many people.
Um, so for me to quickly go in and just search by your name and then see, what did I actually talk to you? When was that meeting? What did we talk about? What were my takeaway? Right. Um, really enabled me to like, have that have a much better conversation and, and keep the moving
Kris Hughes: so allows for personalization and makes it more organic and, you know, kind of a more natural conversation when you’ve got those touch points to refer back to that’s good stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
Dan Mott: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I’d love to, I’d love to figure out ways to be able to like, even too, just in active campaign, I wanna have more, more data in there because I really just collect, right? Like my lead form collects your, uh, collects like email name and stuff like that. So that way I can personalize emails, but, um, I’m definitely missing a lot of data, which I know I could capitalize on.
That’s only going to not only help me in my process more, but then also create a better experience for people. Like if I. Hey, what do you actually care about? What do you wanna hear? Make sure I’m not just hitting you with everything and spamming you so, or sending you something that you’ve already downloaded.
Like
Kris Hughes: oh yeah, boy I’ve had that happen. I had to, I had a really bad experience with an automation sequence, not too long ago from somebody who I grabbed a, a freebie. And, uh, I got like the next email I got was thanks for booking a call. nice. And then, and then like from the call booking, it went into a.
They were like selling me on products. I’m like, I grabbed a freebie from you and all sudden you think I booked a call? Like what? And I, I sent, ’em a DM. I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, you need to look your drip. It is way off. And they like got offended, you know, like really
Dan Mott: I’m do that to people like you have a typo in here.
And I, and like, I always get like appreciation from it. But like I love when people do that because I. You know how often I, I set those things and then I forget it for 6, 12, 6, 9, 12 months. And then I come back and look at the data and then update from there. But like, I still might catch that, not catch that typo or whatever.
So like, you can sell
Kris Hughes: that into the end of the earth, but if you’re creating that much stuff, you’re gonna miss things. Yeah, exactly.
Dan Mott: yeah. Especially when you start integrate leg, you use Xavier to integrate all these tools and like you make one change here and then it just like screws up the entire workflow and you don’t realize it because you’re not going through it yourself.
And that’s
Kris Hughes: hardly perfect. I mean, you definitely have to go back and, and review it and make sure everything’s still working correctly and not do it once a week. But yeah, it. No technology is a hundred percent
Dan Mott: that’s damn sharing. awesome. So you, uh, I know you talked about a newsletter. Um, so, so talking more about like, you know, we’ve talked about creating product to generate leads, um, having more data to, uh, to, to generate leads and having better insights into that.
And I know that, like we talked beforehand, you mentioned it, uh, while we’ve been live creating a newsletter and how you’ve I did the same thing. Right. I. I think I’m on like the third or fourth version of my newsletter, uh, start and stop and start and stop. But this has been the, the most successful one. I, I do it every single week and I’m on, I think yesterday sent out addition 62.
So I’m, I’m over a year now. Okay. Um, yeah. And, and no end insight, like, right. I’m in a, I’m in a groove I’ve I’ve plans for improving it and, and keep going forward. But like, I really enjoy the process. I have someone helping me out it’s really locked in, so, uh, I’ve been happy with it, but, um, I know it was, it’s always tough, like getting that started.
So like what, um, so are you, you strategically looking to start a newsletter or wanting to start a, a newsletter because, um, for more of like, nurture for like what, what, like, what’s kind of the goals
Kris Hughes: around it. Yeah, rebuilding, uh, you know, the audience I do have, I have a list of a couple of hundred just from over the course of time when it pulls people back in kind of reintroduce the company in a different way.
Cuz it’s always been me as me. Yeah. And now I’m pushing much more forward because Julie’s with me and, and helping. And when I get her face and. And her out there too, because she works in kind of a different niche. She works in the arts marketing world and kind of with, with performing arts companies and helping them restructure and also individual performing artists.
Gotcha. Um, so she’s gonna do some of that work, so wanna help her get out there and, and show her face as part of the company. So I’m gonna talk about content in both those realms and, um, yeah, I think it’s just reintroducing us as a company rather than Chris is Chris. Cuz it’s always just been me. Yeah.
Like Z’s been there in the backgrounds. But I’ve never pushed it. It’s been. So
that’s,
Dan Mott: well, I think, especially on LinkedIn where it’s, it’s, it’s real. I mean, the way that pages work, it’s really hard to build pages versus building our own profile. So it’s really easy to lead with your personal brand and then time, like I’m the same way, right?
Like I’ve always been like before I even started working for like before I was full time working for myself and I went, I made the jump pretty quick. Like I quit my quit, my job, but I like knew it was coming. So it was like, all right, my company’s six stream media. I decided on that. I bought the domain and all that.
So I’ve always had it in the background and I have kinda like, you know, like I still post three times a week, but I do that. Like I repurpose my content. I have a whole system in place that automate, like I have someone who repurpose my content, puts it up there and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s always been in the background.
So it’s like, when do you make that transition to, to like now start pushing more of your brand? And I think that that’s a good point, right? Like when you have more people on your team that need. To leverage the like, especially if you’re planning on growing your team too, like leverage the personal brand to help those people Excel, which is really
Kris Hughes: good.
So, and it’s just leveraging personal brands back to the company brand. Like our profiles look exactly the same. We sound very similar. no, and it’s, it’s on purpose. Cause as her, you have the same last as her presence grows, you know, we’ll be able to pull more attention to the brand, um, step by.
Dan Mott: Yeah. So, um, I know you said that you’ve, you’ve built a list, um, because this is something that I’m like I’m always looking to do too.
My list has actually been kind of stagnant and I I’ve done that on purpose because for a number of reasons, but yeah. Um, what, like what’s, what are some of your list building strategies?
Kris Hughes: Yeah, I’ve always called calls to action and LinkedIn end content, typically in the past, like when I’ve kind of resurrected something or like started a new newsletter, it typically comes from there.
I’ll. Lean in on that call to action for a while. And it becomes pretty organic. I’m very playful with kind of pitching a newsletter cuz you know, my CTAs are, you know, typically something like, you know, I know you don’t have enough newsletters clogging your inbox. So I guess what you’re in luck. Uh, here’s another.
Yep. And that tends to work because you know, people are bombarded with them all the time. Yeah. I’m sure it’s true for you too, but I’ve got, I, I made a point to start unsubscribing stuff recently, as I was like, what is this? You know, so I know we all have a lot of ’em, so I’d just like to kind of be playful about it.
And you know, our tone in those is always, you know, kind of playful. I use gifts a lot. Y’all probably seen it if you see my content, um, not too serious. And I follow that same flow over, like, I want to give information, but also. Entertaining. So people come back, usually get 40, 45% open rates on stuff I’ve done in the past.
I try to keep it there. Yeah, exactly. Um, but I’m very playful about the CTA approach because I know people are, are tired of it. I got particularly tired of the LinkedIn newsletters and like getting bombarded with the notifications. Is that true? it’s like guys. I
Dan Mott: just wrote an email newsletter about why you shouldn’t do LinkedIn newsletters.
Kris Hughes: love it. It’s like the whole point of a newsletter is to pull people off of the platforms. Right? Exactly. So why would you build one on the platform? Somebody tell me if I’m missing something, but that’s
Dan Mott: yeah, no, I’m with you. That’s my main argument. And I think too, the fact that, I mean, , they don’t do a good enough job of, and we’ll see, like, as these new kind of features roll out with like the, the discover stuff that LinkedIn’s doing, but I never see newsletters in feed, even the ones that I’m subscribed to like, so they don’t, they’re not prioritized in feed, which means that they’re competing in, in the notifications, which, and I’ve turned off almost I’ve turned off like 95% of my notifications because LinkedIn has way too many of them.
I, my, my opinion is it’s harder to compete in notifications than it is in to compete in.
Kris Hughes: Yeah, no doubt. And they come at random times. Yeah. Like you’re right. I’ve never, I’ve intentionally subscribed to a couple that I would love to see, but I don’t know when they’re there. I’m not gonna go search ’em out.
I don’t have time. yeah. So yeah, that is that’s. I would rather build externally. There’s so much more control.
Dan Mott: Yeah. So I, um, I’m cuz I’m the same way. Right? Like I, I actually subscribe to a lot of newsletters because like if I meet someone new and, and like, I like enjoy their content, I wanna see you. Right.
Like, okay, awesome. I like your content on LinkedIn. Like what, what does the back end look like? Right. I also like to just write, I like, I like to reverse engineer what people are doing and see like what I can take from them. So like, oh, that’s really cool. How can I apply that? So I sign up for a lot of newsletters and then, like I said, I’m, I’m rarely in my inbox anyway.
So then I go in and it’s like, newsletter, newsletter. I’m just like, shit. So I’m, I like, I have a very high churn rate for me as the consumer. Like there’s very few that have made it through and, and I’m actually like, I’m tr like, this is one of the things I’m learning from. It is like, I don’t need, I send, cause I send my newsletter once a week.
And that’s the only email I send. If you’re subscribed to my newsletter. And I’m like, and I was, I’ve like gone back and forth. Do I do this? Unless it’s a drip campaign, but that’s triggered and it’s different. Yeah, sure. Um, but like people who send too many emails, like I have, I have some where I’m just like, I have three or four emails on the same day from the same person.
And I’m like, That’s that’s too much. Let’s describe. Yeah. I’m like, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re gone. Like I, I can’t do it. I just, I don’t have the time. Right. Like, yeah. It always comes back to time. I don’t have time to just keep consuming and consuming or the
Kris Hughes: brain space. Like if it’s, if you’re hitting me that often you’re, you’re, you’re losing me by diminishing returns, kicks in like the second email, probably
Dan Mott: like, yeah.
Well, especially like, if I, if I don’t, cause I’m not reading them when you send them to me, I’m reading the first five that you send me all at once. So right. Um, so yeah, that’s and even too, like, even, um, in my ki and I actually realized, I was like, my shit, my newsletter is starting to get longer. Um, so I’m like, I need brevity is a big thing for me.
I’m just like, I gotta keep my newsletter short because I know that the newsletters that I regulate, the, the ones that stay in my inbox for the longest time are the ones that are. Either short quick and to the point mm-hmm or they’re so value packed that they hold my attention from section to section.
Right. So I’m like, how do I continue to replicate that? And, and I try and do the same thing. Like I repurpose a lot of my LinkedIn content. Yeah. And then turn it into my newsletter. So like my first section is. A LinkedIn post. My second section is, um, a LinkedIn. I do one LinkedIn poll every single week. I do my last week’s poll and I put it in there because it’s still live.
People can go engage on it still. And then, uh, so that’s all it is. And that’s all it historically has been. I’ve. Done events in the past, like when, uh, I was doing power hour, uh, the last LinkedIn live show. Yeah. Um, I would promote that, but it was, there was like still a level of disconnect there too. So I think now that I’m doing this show, um, and rather than promote next week’s episode, because I want people want.
Like content on demand. I don’t wanna like now subscribe and then I might not even sh I like, I don’t wanna register for a show that I might not even go to . Um, so I want to have this content repurposed and be able to watch past episodes on demand. That’s kind of, I like that. That’s the next iteration I’ll play with.
So yeah. That’s I
Kris Hughes: like that structure a lot. That’s a good kind of variety and it keeps people whirl in from one thing to the next. So that’s good like that. Yeah.
Dan Mott: Awesome. Um, So I know we’ve been, we’ve been talking about creating passive income streams, predictable systems. Um, let’s, let’s shift gears a little bit.
So let’s, let’s talk about what you do. Um, and you do a lot, right? It’s around content, it’s around ghost writing. Um, there’s, there’s a lot of LinkedIn stuff in there. So tell me, how do you, how do you take these things that you, that you either teach through your products or, you know, like, uh, one-on-one sessions or the services that you provide for your clients?
How, like, what do you learn from that? How do you take that stuff and actually apply it to your own business? Like what’s, what’s your thinking behind that?
Kris Hughes: Yeah, that’s great. Um, I think every one of those client relationships is an opportunity to rethink my own positioning of my own brand and you know, my own content strategy, mine.
Yeah. It’s, it’s shifted fairly often, um, and informed like how I approach tone in the mixture. I tend to get a good response from video. Like I’m fairly natural. I’ve been doing it for so long in different capacities. I have been a podcaster done video forever trying to lean back on that some as a, as a core piece.
Um, like you, I just launched a new, uh, LinkedIn live once a week. So yeah, I mean, it’s just trying to figure that out. Um, you know, really how does, how people found you inform what you should be doing with your mix? Like. they’re telling you, like, this is how I got here. You know, it’s because of this, but always asking that question, you have to ask, like, how would you find me?
Why, why are you here? Yeah. You know, because so many, and I’ve made this point a trillion times over for everybody that’s watching lurkers will become your clients. Yep. It is. Rarely sometimes but rarely people that are really locked in and talking to you a lot. It’s people that pop up and say, Hey, I’ve been watching your content for five months.
Let’s talk about what you do. but that’s your audience, not your community or people that you never see until there they are. yep. That’s been my experience. I don’t know if that holds true for everybody, but yeah. I mean, it really does. I mean, true. That’s why I think about just staying consistent and you know, it’s, it’s a cliche, but it’s true because that’s how you get those people to come outta the woodwork and, and talk.
Yeah. So.
Dan Mott: Yeah. I mean, it, it really, I mean, people say it all the time. I’ve seen it from my own experience. It definitely does. Um, I even like I did a, I did a pretty, um, solid audit this week on my core sales and trying to understand like, where do it, like I’ve historically like throughout my entire career.
Right? Like I come from like, B2B sales and then did B2B marketing and then started sixth degree media. Like when I, when I quit my job three and a half years ago. So I’ve always, always, always sold services and like conversations as a component. And now that I’m excu, like I stopped coaching and I’m exclusively selling my LinkedIn course now my LinkedIn social selling course now.
So it’s really weird to be selling product and I’m like, I don’t have to like get on the conversation. Like, in fact, like I’ve never sold a course because of a conversation that I had, all my course sales come from my content, from my landing pages, from like all these things. So it’s it, that’s like, it’s, it’s going through this whole new learning process for me now, which is really interesting, but right.
Um, Yeah. I learned that the, the amount of people who purchased my course that were not connection, not first degree connections is ridiculous. so I’m like, right. That needs to now be like a part of my, my strategy. That needs to be a part of my thinking that like, I need to reach new people in order to do that.
And then also on the, the, the back side of thinking, like, how do I improve my newsletter? How do I improve my long form and more strategic content to help me continue to nurture people and actually get them encouraged enough to be able to. Uh, enticed to be able to wanna buy my course. Right. So of course, um, there’s kinda like two components of thinking there, like how do I double down on the success that I’ve had and how do I fix the problem, right.
That I should be fixing, because historically, like you said, right. The, the being able to, even though they’re silent, being able to nurture those contacts, to get them to the point where they’re ready to make a purchase. Yep. Right. Like how do I solve for that now that I’m pushing product, as opposed to in the past where I’ve been able to do that with services successfully.
So it’s a really interesting concept
Kris Hughes: there. Interesting shift. Yeah. Um, no doubt, but you know, I I’m big and always am pushing people. My, even my content batching clients, like when I turn over content to ’em like, I’m gonna give you this content, but you’ve got to engage. Like, if you just post and ghosts yep.
Watch your fingers. You will get what you get, you know, I’m not gonna be, I saw somebody make a great point about, you know, ghost writing and making sure that you’re upfront and you tell people like, I am not your SDR. I’m your writer. yeah. There’s a big difference. Is your responsibility to recognize leads like having done
Dan Mott: both personally?
I can. There’s definitely a difference. .
Kris Hughes: You know, because if there’s an expectation that you’re gonna be watching their DMS or watching how people interact with their content, oh, that’s your responsibility. Yeah. So, you know, some of the frustrations come sometimes if, if that one side of the work is done and the other side’s not done to amplify it or make it work, then there’re gonna be a disconnect.
But when that’s, when it’s locked in it’s together, you know, good things can happen. So,
Dan Mott: do you ever, do you ever use that as part of your qualification process, like looking at how engaged people are and, and telling them like, Hey, listen, if you’re not going to do this, or like, can you tell that, like, someone’s not going to put in the work and then it like, won’t work with them as a result.
Kris Hughes: Yeah. It’s hard. I probably should. , you know, a little bit more deeply than I do. Um, you know, as part of like some of my ghost writing packages, I actually do the interaction myself. So I go into the niches of like, On their behalf. Yeah. Um, but not planning to do a lot of that in the future much rather would do the batching and turn stuff over and make sure that I’ve got the commitment from those clients that they’re gonna do the other side of it, that they’re gonna do the engagement work and, uh, they’re gonna recognize the opportunities.
Yeah. You know, um, Because that’s, that’s their job.
Dan Mott: my job. I think too. That’s that’s um, there’s, there’s actually two components to that, right? There’s the creating the content that has to resonate with, with your audience, which they’re outsourcing to you, which is the best thing that they can do right out of the, out of the three things that need to happen is the best thing that they can do, because you can, like, you have the experience you can extract from them what their audience cares about.
Create content. That’s going to speak directly to them. You have the writing chops and the content creation chops to be able to create content. That’s gonna re. But then there’s the, the next component of, yes, they need to engage. They need to be able to reply to comments. They need to go engage on other people’s posts to be able to kind of like right.
Content alone is not enough. I’ve I’ve always said if, if I had a gun to my head and I could only choose, create content or go engage on other people’s posts, I would never create. All day. Yep. Yep. Um, and I think then there’s, there’s the piece that a lot of people miss that happens in between that. Right, right.
Like they comment on, they create great content, they engage on their own posts, they engage on other people’s posts, but then they sit back and wait for leads to come to them. And like, there’s a lot of, like you said, right. Like, and I don’t know if this was before we went live or during, during the conversation that you said.
Um, there’s a lot of like. These soft hand raises. There’s a lot of these, these, these UN mentioned things that are said in conversation that we need to be able to pick up on, to know like, Hey, this person’s actually interested in me being able to help them. And I need to ask good questions to get them to the point where they can actually say awesome.
Now I know exactly how Chris can help me. And I, and I wanna learn more about this. Like how, how can I work with you? Yeah. It’s
Kris Hughes: recognizing subtext, right? Yeah. Cause like, so people are not gonna come say, Hey, I need your help. Like that doesn not happen.
Dan Mott: yeah. If it, and if it happens in the comments true, right?
Like it’s right. Like you said, where I’m tracking, how often people are engaging with me, that to me, right. There is an indicator that there’s right. Like you still have to qualify them both demographically, then start a conversation and psychographically qualify them to see if there’s an actual need, but.
Those are the little soft hand raises that you need to be able to see like create content, engage in public, but then you need to keep your eye out for those things to know, like, I need to talk, I need to start a conversation with this person. Yeah. And now is the right time. Right? Like watching those indicators, watching those little flags that pop up to say, like, that’s, that’s what I, that’s literally my entire strategy.
Right. Like I look for profile views, comments, and when people are sending me connection requests. Yeah. And there’s, there’s so much subtext in that, that you can really like you just ask one or two of the right question. And it leads to a conversation that otherwise never would’ve happened or would happen six, 12 months down the
line.
Kris Hughes: I’ve got no hesitation at reaching out to people when they look at my profile and just saying, Hey, nice drop by the profile. How’s it going? Hope you’re having a good quarter. knock off
Dan Mott: and see what they say. Yeah. I used to be super awkward about that. And then now I I’ll call it out because I’m like, it’s, it’s funny to do it.
Right. Like I know
Kris Hughes: you, especially if you’re seeing it, same people several times and there’s no connection requests. It’s like, Hey, you’re why are you coming by? Like, you know, what’s happening so
Dan Mott: well, that’s what you’re doing is where you’re, you’re doing is super valuable. Right. Because I can go so your profile, right?
Like you can go look and you can see that I viewed your profile today. because I did, right? Like we’re, we’re getting ready to go live. And I’m like, all right, I need to grab information from his profile. So that way I can, you know, get ready. I needed to DM you. It’s like, Hey, here’s the streamy yard link to join, but you’re only gonna see that I viewed your profile this morning.
You’re not gonna see the 12 times I’ve viewed your profile this week as a result. So when you can kind of catch that data and, and see like profile view, profile, view, profile, view, profile view, right. That’s a really strong indicator that LinkedIn just doesn’t provide. Yeah.
Kris Hughes: Unfortunately, there are some, there are some metrics there that could be extremely helpful to all of us saying, get us more locked into the platform.
I know, but they’re
Dan Mott: more concerned with other things oh, so damn them. And they say they’re for the creators so, yeah. Right. I I’d love to see more conversion data too. Right. Like I wanna see, wanna see clicks. I wanna like, and they just don’t provide any of that. I was thinking about that the other day I was.
God, they really don’t do anything. Like, you know, I can go into, you know, like I, um, I can create like Bitly links and I can kind of like track how I can use Google analytics and stuff, but I, I don’t have the time to create a unique link for every single post. And I’m not gonna do that. Yep. But like, I would love to see that data from length, right?
Like I want to see more individual post performance so that way, cuz I can look at the engagement, I can say great. Like I’m gonna create more of this content because this is what my network wants to see for me. But if I don’t that’s shield
Kris Hughes: is so valuable. Like that’s, I mean, if you y’all, aren’t using shield.
Yeah. There’s a plug through shield. I look at it every
Dan Mott: single, every single week. Right? Like every Monday morning I go in and I pull down all of my, I, I catch it weekly. um, all my content, my profile views as a result. But even there, you can’t see the click through data, which, because it’s not available from LinkedIn.
So shield obviously can’t access it. Right. Um, like I said, I can use, I can use Bitly. I can use UTMs to, to pull that information, but it’s. I’m not gonna go create one for every post. I have, I have a UTM for, um, for, for posts. I have a UTM for, and then for each of my specific call to action, same thing for DM.
So I know like, alright, is it coming from my post? Is it coming from DMS? Right. Um, but again, I wanna see granular data. I wanna see like how individual posts are actually converting. So yeah. And
Kris Hughes: UTM creation is exhausting. I did way too much of that in my, in my previous life. I have no desire to do it anymore.
Yeah.
Dan Mott: Awesome. So, um, what a, a lot of the technical stuff, right. Can be. And I think that both you and I are are technical people, but there’s a lot of people out there who, who don’t even know what a UTM is or don’t use Zappier or don’t do all these things. So it, I think that that compiles it. Right? So like, what are, what, like, when you were just getting started, what were some of the basic things that you started doing to help automate your business, to build out systems?
Like where, where was getting started for.
Kris Hughes: Yeah, just all very manual and still a lot is to some extent. And, you know, I think it was just creating simple spreadsheets, even, you know, one of the first things I kind. Walked into was, um, you know, making a simple spreadsheet list of people that I like their content and just with their, you know, with their recent post URL, it can be that simple.
Yeah. And just going back and clicking on those every morning, checking out, seeing what they’ve listed now, you know, the bell icon supposedly is replaced up, but honestly, I don’t know that it works. I don’t use that thing that it does. I’ve stopped promoting. Like, yeah, I call
Dan Mott: bullshit on it. That’s another thing.
Yeah. despite the fact that I make my money by teaching other people how to use LinkedIn, I talk a lot of shit about LinkedIn well, yeah, we all do
Kris Hughes: so, but yeah, I mean something that simple or just bookmark URLs, people’s recent posts, right? Like go to their recent posts, bookmark that URL, just have those book marks easy to.
Yep. And that, you know, it just helps you see, you know, who’s creating good content that you wanna interact with and then, um, get a feel for when their posting times are and try to get in there and be one of the first comments. Yep. Leave good high value. Add cuz then just pull, profile, views back, um, to yourself in doing that.
Yeah. Um, so kind of just easy stuff to do from an interaction perspective. Keep it simple. Yeah.
Dan Mott: What’s really cool about that too. Is I never trust, right? Like the bell notifications, all that stuff. I, I don’t. I don’t think it works, so I don’t use it, which is why, like, I, I created, like I have a tribe tracker.
It’s one of the things I teach too. And it’s yeah. It’s just like, who do I care about? Who do I wanna see from? And, um, when I stop seeing those people in the feed, I go and power engage on their post. So like, I’ll go look at their last three to five posts and just go, uh, react and comment every single one.
And then now they start showing up on my feet again, which is so. I’m no longer at the mercy of the LinkedIn algorithm to say what content I wanna see by having a tribe tracker like that and saying, these are the people I wanna regularly engage with. When they start to disappear, I can go like spam, engage them.
So then that way they go back up on my feet and now I start to see them again. I can, right. Cause it’s, it’s my friends. It’s. Potential clients. It’s collaborators. It’s people that I wanna support. So I don’t wanna lose sight of them. I wanna make sure that I, I have them captured somewhere and be able to do that.
So, yeah,
Kris Hughes: that’s, that’s a great point. Good point. And you have to force that sometimes I’ve had people tell me, like, I’ll have somebody that used to really engage with my content a lot and they don’t for a long time and they’ll come and engage to the post, like, oh, I thought you disappeared. I haven’t seen you forever.
Oh, awesome. What happened, man? yeah, haven’t quit. you know, so. So that’s reciprocal there too. Yeah. Cause if you go and you just like resurface and people see you again, they, you know, you kind of peak that interest again and people come back, but yeah, you have to do that. Yeah, you do.
Dan Mott: Yeah. So I know we, we talked a bit on the, um, on the back end, this this’s one.
I really, this is one of my favorite topics, so I definitely wanted to touch on it. We talked on the back end. You came, you brought up it a little bit throughout the conversation, repurposing content. Tell me more about like what your, your repurposing strategy looks.
Kris Hughes: Sure. Uh, trying to be more, um, more deliberate about it now that I have a little bit more time to, but like with my live streams, I cut the way I approach my live stream, typically 30 minutes and I have like three sec or three sections, or if I talk about a single topic, I break it up into three parts.
And so each of those videos pretty naturally, or like a good extra content piece. Yeah. So I just cut those out and do script and caption those into script. Share a post around that with that video. Drive people back to the full live stream, so can see the full version. So that’s typically how I’m truing that for now.
Um, you know, that’s, that’s a big one for me. Um, never have really done much with YouTube. I know a lot of people will post their, like their lives to YouTube. Once they’re downloaded to have a second version there, probably something I should do. Um, I’ve got a pretty good two, a stream going now between to and here.
Yeah. Um, so if I’m shooting on to that performs, well, I’ll just pull down. Slack quick captions on it. I don’t care that it’s, you know, it’s vertical or whatever it that’s fine. And just share those tick to videos straight up. Those tend to do pretty well. So I’m always thinking, you know, if I’m shooting video in one place, wherever it is, I’m going to use it somewhere else in a different way.
So I’m not just shooting stuff. That’s like, I’m gonna shoot this three minute video for LinkedIn and I’m gonna share it. Yeah. It’s usually coming from some other place. Gotcha. And if you know something performs well, LinkedIn I’ll, I’ll do a video version on tech talk and tends to do well there or. So, see
Dan Mott: that’s that’s what’s really interesting is, is TikTok is a one way street.
You can take a tick, you can TikTok content and put it on LinkedIn and it’ll perform fine. Yeah. You cannot create content on LinkedIn and then try and move it over to TikTok. Like you said, you have to, you’re
Kris Hughes: gonna reread the post
I’ve seen people try. And no, and I’m not gonna, I don’t ride trends. I don’t do any of that bullshit. I don’t care about that. You know, you get what you get from me. I think everybody that follows me knows that, like I just stare at the camera, give value. Some people like it. I get 300 views of post, but I don’t care as I get good interaction.
It starts with conversations. Yeah. My whole view on, and that’s more important. I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. And if you like it, great. And it’ll pull some people out occasionally. That’s fine. I’m not trying to be an influencer. Couldn’t care less. Yeah.
Dan Mott: If anything, it’s more work. Like I look at having to reply to hundreds of comments every single day.
Most times like. Well, I don’t talk about shit. especially with like great post, great post. Oh geez.
Kris Hughes: Yeah. Or user 95 trillion or whatever, you know, trolling E so, yeah. Yeah.
Dan Mott: Um, so Claire says LinkedIn just launched clickable links to alpha testers. Maybe this data will be available. I.
Kris Hughes: Yeah, you have the clickable link in bio now, but I like, I even have that as a Bitly link, cuz they’re not giving us some mechanism on platform to track who’s clicking on those.
So I have ’em as a Bitly, I go and look at that Bitly. See if it’s working.
Dan Mott: Yeah. Yeah. Which is a pain in the, as I I’d love to. I’m glad to see that. They’re kind of like starting to consider these things, but I like, ah, shit, I don’t, I don’t hold my breath with a LinkedIn. That’s why like any new feature I’m.
I stick to the basics, right? Like, I’m just like, I’m gonna post content and feed LinkedIn lives are like the only like new, like it’s not even new anymore, but like the new feature that I gravitate towards, because like, there’s, there’s from a repurposing perspective, there’s so many things that you can do for it.
I love the live engagement. I also suck like, I power to you for being able to do this, but like, I can sit here and talk into my camera like that. I, I freeze up. I can’t do it. It’s just like, not me. So if I’m gonna do video content, it has to be. Yeah, right. Like that’s good interactive. And then I’ll cut that out and that works for me, but yeah.
Yeah. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s good to see that they’re kind of like progressing this way, but I mean, shit. Like, I feel like they they’re either super slow to take feedback and roll it out and actually implement it and it doesn’t end up evolving or dies on the vine. Like, and then they just like read like stories.
They tried to copy stories from, um, from Instagram and basically, and like snap, which copied it from. And, um, they ended up killing that or right. Like newsletters, the bell. I mean, we’ve talked shit on all of those throughout this conversation, so you know how I feel
Kris Hughes: about them? yep. No doubt. No doubt.
Dan Mott: Awesome. Well, Chris, thank you so much for being here. That’s been great. Yeah, I think. I love getting into the technical stuff too, but like all, all, some of my favorite topics here. So this is, this is really awesome. I’m really excited to see like what clips we can get of this. Cause I think for more public conversations for us to just, you know, keep talking with our, our networks about it.
Cause I think there’s some really important stuff in here. So, um, before I let you go, um, if people have made it this far, tell us, uh, you know, how we can stay in contact with you. Um, you know, what, what next steps are for, for keeping the conversation going.
Kris Hughes: Yeah. So LinkedIn is, you know, pretty much my home content wise.
You can follow me there. DM me there. Uh, TikTok is at Chris, the ghost, like K I S uh, T E ghost. I just took that from my ghostwriting side and yeah, whatever it’s a name. . Yeah. Um, and then the Zina ventures website. So Zina is Z a N a T E ventures.com. Uh, Zante Spanish for Grael and we have a ton of like those kind of black birds.
Uh, they kind of, uh, gritty black birds in, in Austin and really identify with that and the scrappiness of that. So that’s where the name comes from. So it’s, Zante ventures.com and, um, you see everything there that we’ve got products wise and you can, uh, see. A little bit more about Julie Fior and my wife’s a creative director and what we do together.
So.
Dan Mott: Awesome. I love it. And, um, you also, we, we talked a lot about the, uh, the DIY LinkedIn profile audit too. Yeah. So, um, that, that I know that’s right up on your website because we talked about that too. But if, if you could, um, just, you know, come back after, you know, after we drop off. Yeah. Uh, just drop a comment in the feeds that way people, you know, in a link directly to that, so people can go check it out.
Anything else you want there too. And then, like I said, for going back to repurposing, um, I’ll post this live to, or I’ll post this, uh, the recording and the transcript to the website and I’ll put the call to action there so people can check it out if they’re,
Kris Hughes: if they’re watching here. Yeah. Great. That sounds good.
Dan Mott: Awesome. Well, uh, if you were a, so entrepreneur, uh, who’s looking to talk business strategy, collaborate and find new opportunities. With people like Chris myself and more, uh, be sure to join the conversation on slack membership is free and you can find the link to join right on my profile in the future section or in that link right in the head of my profile.
Like we were just talking about and be sure to send me a DM while you’re while you are there. Uh, Chris, thanks for hanging out with us today and everyone who has been here watching. Thanks. Hope everyone has a great day. Okay.
