#320: How to Build a Community People Trust with Matt Carnevale

#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you’re thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their opinion on what “community” actually means and whether you should build a private community like Exit Five or focus more broadly on community building.

Timestamps

• (00:02) - – Matt’s path from BDR to Head of Community at Exit Five
  
• (08:29) - – What “community” actually means (and what it definitely isn’t)
  
• (13:14) - – Why most B2B communities fail before they ever get traction
  
• (17:54) - – Community vs. content: what gets people in vs. what makes them stay
  
• (22:29) - – Why Slack groups aren’t a strategy
  
• (27:14) - – Treating community like a product, not a marketing channel
  
• (34:48) - – The role of trust, curation, and saying no to the wrong people
  
• (40:23) - – What community managers actually do behind the scenes
  
• (47:18) - – How in-person events changed the Exit Five community
  
• (53:28) - – The biggest lessons Matt’s learned after two years building Exit Five

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***

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***

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Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.

Dave [0:00:02]: Matthew Carnevale you've gone about hey what's I just Say?

Dave [0:00:21]: Did I

Matt [0:00:22]: say.

Matt [0:00:22]: Yeah.

Matt [0:00:23]: You didn't

Dave [0:00:23]: I doing.

Dave [0:00:24]: You know Mister Matthews.

Dave [0:00:25]: He's had a community at Exit Five.

Dave [0:00:27]: Matt.

Dave [0:00:28]: Good to have me on.

Dave [0:00:29]: Thanks for calling out my show, Matt.

Matt [0:00:31]: Yeah.

Matt [0:00:31]: Of course.

Matt [0:00:32]: It's been a while since we did one just you and me.

Matt [0:00:34]: I think that was, like, the early days we were doing that.

Matt [0:00:37]: So it's been a minute.

Matt [0:00:37]: It's been a minute.

Dave [0:00:38]: You're supposed to say long time listener.

Dave [0:00:40]: Well, I guess, we've done these in the past where I went on a hot sit.

Dave [0:00:45]: We're I'm gonna do these every week and then just cancel them all just stop it.

Matt [0:00:49]: Yeah.

Matt [0:00:49]: It's down most down.

Dave [0:00:51]: Found about.

Dave [0:00:51]: Alright.

Dave [0:00:52]: Well, I'm super excited.

Dave [0:00:53]: We're hot.

Dave [0:00:53]: Man, I've told everybody, while I'm coming hot.

Dave [0:00:55]: The podcast is a real thing.

Dave [0:00:57]: For me this year.

Dave [0:00:58]: I'm gonna invest more time in it, and I thought having you on would be a fun way to do that.

Dave [0:01:04]: Who knows, we'll we'll we'll rate today's session and we'll get the feedback and we'll see if you can be of recurring guest on on my show.

Dave [0:01:11]: I know there's obviously rumors of, you know, possibly having your own podcast of some kind heading into twenty twenty six, if I'm been able to check with management on that.

Dave [0:01:20]: We'll see.

Dave [0:01:20]: So...

Dave [0:01:21]: But for today, we're gonna have a nice great conversation.

Dave [0:01:24]: And, okay.

Dave [0:01:26]: Your head of community at like six five.

Dave [0:01:27]: You are actually now currently the second longest tenured employee.

Dave [0:01:32]: We count Dan Dan account.

Dave [0:01:33]: He's the first person.

Dave [0:01:34]: He's my business partner.

Dave [0:01:36]: I'd say, you're the first full type person Exit Five will coming up on on two years?

Dave [0:01:41]: Just curious, can you tell people roughly free wine, how did you get the job at exit thought?

Dave [0:01:47]: Like, how did you even come into the...

Dave [0:01:49]: Our universe?

Matt [0:01:50]: I guess, I'll just rewind a little bit further started my career in sales.

Matt [0:01:54]: I was actually...

Matt [0:01:55]: I was a Bd a company selling marketing software to Smb.

Matt [0:01:58]: I was doing, like, seventy five to a hundred cold calls a day.

Matt [0:02:02]: Absolutely hated it.

Matt [0:02:03]: Within that company, you know, within in about six months to a year transition into marketing.

Matt [0:02:08]: And then that's really where my, like, journey started in B marketing.

Matt [0:02:13]: So prior to joining, Exit Five.

Matt [0:02:15]: I was in house B marketer.

Matt [0:02:16]: And I was a member of Exit Five, and I love the community.

Matt [0:02:19]: I loved, you know, all the stuff that you were putting out, Dave podcast, So I was always always like, super att to, like, what I of five I was doing, and then I saw he brought on Dan and maybe, like, within a month of him being at Exit Five or less he had shared a part time social media and community person.

Matt [0:02:35]: And at the time, I had, like, zero experience either.

Matt [0:02:40]: Like, Obviously did my own, like, social media to an extent, but not really anything with community, but I really knew at that point in my career.

Matt [0:02:47]: I wanted to work with some, like, elite elite marketers and I viewed you that way.

Matt [0:02:50]: I view Dan that way.

Matt [0:02:51]: So I was like, let me see if I can wedge my way into this.

Matt [0:02:54]: So, yeah.

Matt [0:02:55]: So what I did was I I sent a a cold email to Dan, and it's funny because at the time,

Dave [0:03:00]: Daniel J Daniel Jay Murphy.

Matt [0:03:03]: Dan Jay Murphy.

Dave [0:03:04]: Did I call Dan.

Dave [0:03:04]: I'd like, I call Dan.

Dave [0:03:05]: Called Daniel and, Daniel.

Dave [0:03:06]: Didn't you say there was an doing fine emails like I Daniel.

Matt [0:03:10]: I said, hi, Daniel.

Dave [0:03:12]: Hi, Daniel.

Matt [0:03:13]: Hey, it's just way too inform.

Matt [0:03:14]: Hi.

Dave [0:03:16]: You would yeah you would say

Matt [0:03:17]: Hi.

Matt [0:03:17]: Hi daniel.

Matt [0:03:18]: Hi, Daniel.

Matt [0:03:19]: So he sent to a Cold.

Matt [0:03:21]: At the time my testimonial of the community was front Smack on the homepage.

Matt [0:03:26]: Part of my pictures is, like, look like, I understand what you wanna hear what Dave wants to hear about the community.

Matt [0:03:32]: Like, I know how to position this to other marketers.

Matt [0:03:34]: I was like, I'm not really a social or community person, but like, I could do it all.

Matt [0:03:38]: I can learn on the fly, just like, pitching a bit of my accomplishments.

Matt [0:03:41]: He was like, sure let's jump on a call.

Matt [0:03:43]: Before the call, I actually had an idea to create a Youtube video with, like, my top five things I would do to grow the Exit Five community if I were to get hired, and I I edited it.

Matt [0:03:53]: Nothing crazy, but just some simple cuts And I sent that off to Dan prior to the interview.

Matt [0:03:57]: And I think that's...

Matt [0:03:58]: When I was creating it, I kinda knew I was like, I think this is gonna get me the job.

Matt [0:04:01]: And then when I sent it, I was like, I'm pretty sure this is, like, a sick play, and he loved it.

Matt [0:04:07]: He was looking forward to the call, And on that call, Yeah.

Matt [0:04:10]: We got to talk about that.

Matt [0:04:11]: It was great.

Matt [0:04:11]: I got to, like, reframe it around my ideas.

Matt [0:04:13]: And then That was it.

Matt [0:04:14]: And then you guys hired me and then eventually came on full time within, like, a month or so and rest his history.

Dave [0:04:20]: Well, you've done a awesome job.

Dave [0:04:21]: You should be super proud of the last.

Dave [0:04:23]: Two years because you made nice still carousel.

Dave [0:04:25]: The other day.

Dave [0:04:26]: On, like, Linkedin just kinda recap, recap and growth.

Dave [0:04:30]: And I think the numbers are great.

Dave [0:04:31]: We talk about them off, you know, I I talked about him in my in my post or ever in show this morning and we've doubled revenue in the company three years row, which is amazing.

Dave [0:04:40]: But there's just something and I think you having worked the other companies.

Dave [0:04:44]: I think you feel this out too.

Dave [0:04:45]: There's just something that I feel with what we're doing.

Dave [0:04:48]: That's, like, the math is one thing.

Dave [0:04:50]: It's just so obvious.

Dave [0:04:51]: Right?

Dave [0:04:52]: Do you still feel that way?

Dave [0:04:53]: Two years in?

Matt [0:04:54]: Yeah.

Matt [0:04:54]: Absolutely.

Matt [0:04:55]: I've also, like, worked at other companies where, you know, we had revenue growth and, like, people were buying stuff, but there was that feeling of people love us as a brand and trust us a ton.

Matt [0:05:07]: It and it almost feels like whatever we wanna go put out there is is gonna work because we have that that trust.

Matt [0:05:13]: We have a good story to tell.

Matt [0:05:15]: So, yeah.

Matt [0:05:16]: That's something that I feel every day, and that's what has made this like the you know, super rare opportunity for me.

Matt [0:05:21]: I know if this happens often.

Dave [0:05:23]: Yeah.

Dave [0:05:23]: I don't think it does.

Dave [0:05:24]: And it kicks me up at I is like, you want it.

Dave [0:05:28]: This is what you want with any company with any any product but the brand's trust recognition.

Dave [0:05:33]: I think we have this channel in our slack called Love love slash proof.

Dave [0:05:38]: I don't know why I needed did that.

Dave [0:05:40]: Or.

Dave [0:05:40]: Where we share just like the things that people say about Exit Five online, and and we see it all the time that...

Dave [0:05:46]: It's not normal.

Dave [0:05:46]: We have this amazing connection to customers and they're getting jobs and getting promoted and making friends and meeting each other and when you have that, then you can kinda, like, introduce more things and new products into that stream and people are more likely to, like, try them because of that.

Dave [0:06:02]: But it also is the thing that keeps me up at night because it's like, that's the thing that we can't we can't lose that.

Dave [0:06:08]: You need to, like, ob access over that that response.

Dave [0:06:12]: And so it's, like, every email that goes out is this good enough.

Dave [0:06:15]: Every podcast is is is this good enough.

Dave [0:06:17]: And I...

Dave [0:06:17]: Maybe it's just, like, sick.

Dave [0:06:20]: It's this toxic trade.

Dave [0:06:22]: But I think one you just keep leveling up, and I'm I'm the actually this past week.

Dave [0:06:26]: I'm in binging a bunch of you...

Dave [0:06:28]: Ever seen that deck got a be good center the founder podcast.

Dave [0:06:31]: Okay.

Dave [0:06:32]: He's become huge, and he has great ramp ads on podcast can't by the way.

Dave [0:06:36]: And he he just basically does biographies.

Dave [0:06:39]: He he takes and shares his notes on by pizza and auto buy our defeats of founders.

Dave [0:06:44]: And He's not everyone from, like, this morning at the Gym I listen to the bio fear from the founder of Red, which is amazing.

Dave [0:06:50]: Like, Talking about I'm marketing case study and brandon.

Dave [0:06:52]: And anyway, any of these successful founders it's like this, the obsession over, like, the product, the quality.

Dave [0:06:59]: So I think, like, we kinda stumbled our way into this business by having it be this like Dave side project thing, but the best decision ever was to, like, spend money in hire, bring you in, and bring other people and invest because then you're almost, like, forced to make it great.

Dave [0:07:13]: Right Like, now we're trapped.

Dave [0:07:16]: There's there's seven people on the team.

Dave [0:07:18]: We got a bit, you know, expense for next year.

Dave [0:07:20]: Everything's real.

Dave [0:07:20]: It's been this amazing forcing function to, like, half the continue level know.

Matt [0:07:25]: Yeah.

Matt [0:07:25]: Exactly.

Matt [0:07:26]: Exactly.

Matt [0:07:26]: I love that.

Matt [0:07:27]: I love those things that just force you to do the thing and money's always a great one that forces you to wanna make something worth it.

Matt [0:07:34]: So...

Dave [0:07:35]: Yeah.

Dave [0:07:35]: Money why seems to store.

Dave [0:07:36]: Alright.

Dave [0:07:37]: I got a bunch of things on our on our list.

Dave [0:07:38]: I think that the biggest thing I wanted to talk to you about is community.

Dave [0:07:43]: We guys have I've had a community on.

Dave [0:07:45]: You've you've two years in this role.

Dave [0:07:48]: We've spent a lot of time together and so I think you could also, like, effectively speak for me on, Michael colleagues about community.

Dave [0:07:55]: What's interesting about Exit Five Was like, I think we got here based on a bunch of efforts of mine at past companies where I think that...

Dave [0:08:04]: This is the kind of key ingredient now.

Dave [0:08:06]: Like, I've never been amazing, like, hardcore demand gen first.

Dave [0:08:09]: It's always been, like, audi building and community building.

Dave [0:08:11]: So I think we've gotten to take a lot of those lessons and now apply them to identify where this is our business.

Dave [0:08:16]: But this topic...

Dave [0:08:18]: I wanna have you on now because this topic is super relevant heading into twenty twenty six.

Dave [0:08:22]: Like, I'm a bigger believer than ever that because of all the Ai stuff, like, real professional networks, communities connecting people in real ways, real humans connecting is, like, I don't know what that trend is called that I'm super bullish on that.

Dave [0:08:36]: And so if I was, like, a Vc or trying to, like, raise money for Exit Five.

Dave [0:08:40]: I would, like, go on that.

Dave [0:08:41]: But maybe I wanna use our time together today to really go deep on on community, defining a community lessons from Exit Five, and I'm just gonna, like, interview, like, your you're my guess and, honestly have some things say.

Dave [0:08:53]: K.

Dave [0:08:53]: First thing is, like, how do we define it this term community?

Dave [0:08:57]: It's such a hot topic it being marketing today.

Dave [0:09:00]: What does community mean to you when you think about that is is community?

Dave [0:09:04]: Oh, Exit Five.

Dave [0:09:05]: The Exit Five community is hosted on circle on its private to pay thing.

Dave [0:09:09]: Is that a community?

Dave [0:09:09]: How do we...

Dave [0:09:10]: How do you decide that?

Matt [0:09:11]: Yeah.

Matt [0:09:11]: So I don't know if I if I got this definition from you from someone else from myself, but I define it as, like any group of people that have a shared interest.

Matt [0:09:21]: So for example, if I were to say, the soccer community.

Matt [0:09:25]: I'm referring to anyone who has some kind of interest in soccer.

Dave [0:09:29]: Wait this soccer, like, capital s soccer.

Dave [0:09:32]: They don't have, like a circle community that you that you log into deal You, I.

Dave [0:09:36]: They did your.

Matt [0:09:38]: This Facebook group.

Matt [0:09:39]: If I were to say I'm trying to grow the soccer community, I mean that I'm trying to grow the amount of people who are interested in that thing.

Matt [0:09:45]: Now if I were to say, I've created this thing called the Toronto Soccer Club and I want you to join, that's also a community, but it's more of like, a a more defined gate around what that community is.

Matt [0:09:56]: That's a specific group.

Matt [0:09:57]: So that's kinda how it differentiate, like, you know, what does community broadly?

Matt [0:10:01]: And then, like, what does need to have a community?

Matt [0:10:03]: That means to have this more defined space where a specific group of people come to do a specific thing.

Dave [0:10:08]: Yeah.

Dave [0:10:08]: I agree with that I think that's...

Dave [0:10:10]: Like, I think in my town, we become our kids are school.

Dave [0:10:14]: We've made a lot of friends, neighbors, whatever we become more active in our local town that is also a community.

Dave [0:10:19]: Right?

Dave [0:10:20]: The community of of this south.

Matt [0:10:22]: Now in a b to b setting, like, that's where people are gonna be?

Matt [0:10:26]: Well, what does that mean to B to b company.

Matt [0:10:27]: I think it it translates.

Matt [0:10:28]: Right?

Matt [0:10:28]: It's like, if you are a company that sells some kind solution building community would mean building the amount of people who have an interest in what you're doing?

Matt [0:10:36]: Right?

Matt [0:10:37]: So it's, like, there's some crossover with, like, awareness and brand building, but, like, that's essentially what you're trying to do.

Matt [0:10:42]: It could be people that don't follow you at all in social, but they pay attention to your stuff.

Matt [0:10:46]: It could be people that volume and social, people that subscribe to newsletter customers, All those people, are you building community?

Dave [0:10:52]: Yeah.

Dave [0:10:52]: I like that.

Dave [0:10:53]: Let's build on that for a second because I think...

Dave [0:10:55]: So in the context of community for B.

Dave [0:10:57]: Right?

Dave [0:10:58]: You would never...

Dave [0:10:58]: Whatever never works is just deciding that you should go do something.

Dave [0:11:02]: And that's I think, like, where does community fit in V, we should first go go back and just talk about, like, marketing strategy for b to b for a second.

Dave [0:11:11]: And I think one thing that always works is in b to b, if you think of it as, like, the context someone has his work.

Dave [0:11:20]: Right?

Dave [0:11:20]: This is my job.

Dave [0:11:21]: Work in Hr or work in accounting or work in finance or work marketing.

Dave [0:11:25]: The goal of your marketing for the company for you as a B2b company.

Dave [0:11:30]: Is like, one strategy.

Dave [0:11:32]: Not everyone's...

Dave [0:11:33]: You don't have to do this, but this can be one way.

Dave [0:11:36]: You can create an advantage.

Dave [0:11:37]: Right?

Dave [0:11:37]: Is to be, like, less try to be a great resource for those people.

Dave [0:11:41]: That turns out to be a great marketing strategies.

Dave [0:11:44]: Like, and this applies in personal life too, like, I'm super to crossfit.

Dave [0:11:47]: Right?

Dave [0:11:48]: I'm gonna join a community.

Dave [0:11:49]: That's gonna teach me how to be better and share trends and, you know, meet other people.

Dave [0:11:53]: No no different than accounting or Hr finance.

Dave [0:11:55]: And when you think about what we've done with Exit Five.

Dave [0:11:58]: It's, like, oh, we're just tapping into, like, it started with Dave.

Dave [0:12:02]: Like, this found this guy, Dave, like, he worked in this industry, he built up a bunch of experience in this industry, launched a community connecting other people in that industry.

Dave [0:12:10]: Our job is to now, like, create content and educate and entertain and inform people who work in that industry.

Matt [0:12:16]: Yeah.

Matt [0:12:16]: Exactly.

Matt [0:12:17]: Exactly.

Matt [0:12:18]: No.

Matt [0:12:18]: I think it's a great play.

Matt [0:12:19]: I think that's what you, you know, did at drift, what we're doing now.

Matt [0:12:22]: So, yeah.

Matt [0:12:22]: I love.

Dave [0:12:23]: So then it's, like, okay.

Dave [0:12:24]: Inside the company, But then it's like, this is where it gets like that.

Dave [0:12:27]: It's like, okay.

Dave [0:12:27]: So should we create a community, which is different.

Dave [0:12:29]: It's like, it's vital common software.

Dave [0:12:31]: Right?

Dave [0:12:32]: I would wanna lead with education and teaching people and making them feel smarter and building trust.

Dave [0:12:38]: Right?

Dave [0:12:38]: To build community around that, You could have events, You could have podcasts, so you could just have a funny social media account and you could have community at that.

Dave [0:12:46]: You don't necessarily need to build private community.

Matt [0:12:50]: Yeah.

Matt [0:12:50]: Exactly.

Matt [0:12:50]: That...

Matt [0:12:51]: That's the thing.

Matt [0:12:51]: And I think that's where, like, not gonna say people get tripped up, but they sometimes dis associate creating a community with, like, well, what is the goal?

Matt [0:12:59]: And, like, if you just work backers from, like, well, why do I wanna create this private community space.

Matt [0:13:04]: I think then you realize, well, there's probably ten other ways to solve this problem or to hit this goal.

Matt [0:13:10]: Like, is building a Slack community really the way I go do that.

Matt [0:13:13]: I think it's important to ask yourself that question.

Matt [0:13:15]: I've had many members of Exit Five on Linkedin, asked me over the years, like, hey, we wanna start a community.

Matt [0:13:22]: What should we do?

Matt [0:13:23]: And I'm, like, why do you wanna start it?

Matt [0:13:24]: And they're like, well, we wanna, like, get our prospects into this community and like, they're gonna talk to Each other and it's gonna nurture them, and maybe they'll become customers and I'm like, well, can you just...

Matt [0:13:33]: Start newsletter, or can you just write more in social like, why a community.

Matt [0:13:36]: And I think that's the part where it's like, that's where you really have to, like, dig deep and it's like, do we really have the resources to do this, the knowledge in house.

Matt [0:13:44]: It's not just something we do, like, five hours a meet.

Matt [0:13:46]: It's...

Matt [0:13:46]: It could be someone's full time job.

Matt [0:13:48]: So That's where I think you need to, like, really weigh.

Dave [0:13:52]: Yeah.

Dave [0:13:52]: And I think it's interesting.

Dave [0:13:53]: It's interesting to think about how the mechanics of this work.

Dave [0:13:56]: And it depends on what the community is.

Dave [0:13:58]: You know, there's, like, back in the day, it used to be every company would just kinda have a Slack channel and you'd would try to create a Slack, you, Slack around a particular topic and get people in there.

Dave [0:14:08]: But that eventually that goes to zero because nobody's really managing it or it's just kinda like the content intern has to manage it.

Dave [0:14:15]: And then if you do a good job of it at all, and everybody wants, like, turn it into a sales channel or, like, hey, we got five hundred active members in our community, but, like, pipeline is down this month.

Dave [0:14:25]: But there's gotta be people in there, we could sell a widget to, and then that's kinda of where it starts to break down.

Matt [0:14:30]: I almost think, like, if you...

Matt [0:14:31]: It's not gonna happen in all cases Like you said, it depends on the goal of the community.

Matt [0:14:35]: If it's like a support community, maybe it's it's different.

Matt [0:14:38]: And, like, if it's a community where you're trying to build brand and acquisition, but I almost like the play of what if you made it, like, a paid community.

Matt [0:14:46]: Even you're a B2B company and had a software to sell, But what if you made it a paid community and, like, really treated that thing, like a product and separate thing that you're trying to grow.

Matt [0:14:53]: I think that can be a good forcing function to be, like, Well, we're already generating some revenue from it.

Matt [0:14:58]: So we don't necessarily need to, like, treat it as a sales engine.

Matt [0:15:01]: We're gonna treat it, like, a product with an individual manager of that product and just try and grow subscribers and really investment in it.

Matt [0:15:07]: I think that could be a cool play too.

Dave [0:15:09]: We had some examples in here.

Dave [0:15:10]: So, like, Then these exist are these example like you and profit cloud code at a community?

Matt [0:15:16]: Yeah.

Matt [0:15:16]: So cloud code, I know...

Matt [0:15:18]: I don't know if they have a community managed by the company.

Matt [0:15:22]: I know that there's obviously, like, huge red threads related to it.

Matt [0:15:26]: And I know that those are super active, of course.

Matt [0:15:29]: I think and same with lovable.

Matt [0:15:30]: I think in any case where you have dissolution that is, like, on some kind of cutting edge, like, people are gonna wanna talk to each other and swap notes.

Matt [0:15:38]: So I think there's was a natural demand.

Dave [0:15:40]: Yeah.

Dave [0:15:40]: Like, Holly, I did a thing with Holly from H agent, like, she runs the marketing, gonna to be marketing that Hey gen, and they they do, like, Ai avatar, Ai video stuff, and they have a huge community.

Dave [0:15:53]: And I was like, oh, I didn't expect that.

Dave [0:15:55]: It's like, all people who are kinda make a Ai video and thinking in that Ai video space.

Dave [0:16:00]: Right?

Matt [0:16:01]: Yeah.

Matt [0:16:01]: Yeah.

Matt [0:16:01]: Which makes sense.

Matt [0:16:02]: They have stuff to, like, tips to share with one another.

Matt [0:16:04]: So in that case, it absolutely makes sense.

Matt [0:16:07]: Yeah.

Dave [0:16:07]: I kinda think that for most almost everyone doing what we're doing actually, is it's not the right move inside of a company.

Matt [0:16:14]: Yeah.

Matt [0:16:14]: Okay.

Matt [0:16:15]: Why is that?

Dave [0:16:16]: The only way I think it can work internally is if someone at the, like, highest level of the company, fully believes in that approach and isn't worried about trying to, like, measure it to be, like, well, we have this many people working on it or we're, like, we can do it, but we can only have one person on it,

Matt [0:16:31]: and it

Dave [0:16:32]: has to be, like, only twenty hours a week.

Dave [0:16:33]: It's like, well, you're spending.

Dave [0:16:34]: You know you're spending any time to invest.

Dave [0:16:35]: And so whereas, like, I'll just shoot my personal experience.

Dave [0:16:39]: I went to start another company.

Dave [0:16:40]: I fully believe in this approach of having a community community building.

Dave [0:16:44]: And so, like, I would be, if no.

Dave [0:16:45]: We're gonna do it.

Dave [0:16:46]: Here's why I know the benefits are, like, it's actually gonna become this constant engine and, like, people will spread word out, and it actually becomes it up on one more beach channel.

Dave [0:16:54]: If you treat it like a product in all those reasons.

Dave [0:16:56]: It breaks down if you're like, well, we're doing it for six months and it's either working or not.

Dave [0:17:00]: Hey, you're probably not gonna give it long enough time to be successful inside of a company.

Dave [0:17:04]: And then b, what you define as successful as most often gonna be like, well, it needs to lead to, like, sales meetings to pipeline.

Dave [0:17:11]: It's not different, Like any one of our sponsors.

Dave [0:17:13]: What do they...

Dave [0:17:14]: They all want the same thing.

Dave [0:17:15]: You know, what pipeline.

Dave [0:17:16]: Yeah.

Matt [0:17:17]: Wait yeah.

Dave [0:17:17]: Does this thing drive meetings.

Dave [0:17:18]: And so it's like, wow, great.

Dave [0:17:19]: Like, is this great community and, like, everybody loves it, but, like, pipeline has been flat for six months.

Dave [0:17:25]: Do you think that, you know.

Dave [0:17:26]: Eventually, someone's gonna wanna, like crack into that x somehow?

Matt [0:17:30]: Yeah.

Matt [0:17:30]: You're right.

Matt [0:17:30]: Great.

Matt [0:17:30]: Totally Totally felt out for it.

Dave [0:17:32]: Versus like, I don't know.

Dave [0:17:33]: How could you think of it more is if you sold this Cfo and you're like, no.

Dave [0:17:37]: We're just literally gonna like, run a Cfo community because we think it's an amazing thing for a brand and reputation.

Dave [0:17:43]: And what's gonna come that is, like, amazing word mouth and connections and goodwill, and, you know, you're meet a bunch of people Well, you're gonna also dropped sales from that?

Matt [0:17:53]: Yeah.

Matt [0:17:53]: Yeah.

Matt [0:17:54]: Exactly.

Matt [0:17:54]: Exactly.

Matt [0:17:55]: Yeah.

Matt [0:17:55]: When you look at it as well, we just wanna grow the community around our brand and the amount of people who care about us, like, but that's kinda like, just marketing too.

Matt [0:18:02]: Right?

Matt [0:18:02]: That's community building.

Dave [0:18:04]: Yes.

Dave [0:18:04]: But it's like nobody, but that's the stuff that, like, you need to like, how do we measure that, man?

Dave [0:18:08]: How do we know that's working Matt?

Dave [0:18:09]: Like, how we only got three meetings from that effort this quarter.

Dave [0:18:12]: It's like, I and you with dance sometimes, like, the podcast downloads?

Dave [0:18:16]: That's an example.

Dave [0:18:16]: Right?

Dave [0:18:17]: Like, He just wants them to go up up up.

Dave [0:18:19]: I'm like, that's just not how this work it.

Dave [0:18:21]: Unless you're like the most popular consumer level show I'm not David Center.

Dave [0:18:26]: We're doing marketing in your hands.

Dave [0:18:27]: I want it to be great.

Dave [0:18:28]: Does work like that.

Dave [0:18:29]: There's many other benefits.

Dave [0:18:30]: So I think that's why it breaks inside the company.

Dave [0:18:32]: I don't think it has to do though.

Dave [0:18:34]: I think it just has to be, like, treated it at the level of treated, which is like, a real product because you've seen it.

Dave [0:18:40]: Otherwise, it just becomes, like a place for you to, like, post updates about your company and then eventually does.

Matt [0:18:46]: Yeah.

Matt [0:18:46]: Exactly.

Matt [0:18:47]: I think that's another thing where it breaks down to is, like, people wanna create community, but don't have anyone in house who knows how to do community.

Matt [0:18:54]: So it kinda just becomes another channel for you to communicate updates and webinars with your customers through another platform.

Matt [0:19:01]: So it's kinda, like, dies off.

Dave [0:19:04]: I was hoping think it's really hard to do without expertise in house.

Dave [0:19:06]: Not on managing a community.

Dave [0:19:08]: I'd rather have the subject Matter expertise in house, and then we'll learn how to do the community manager first if we had community manager, but, like, all fluff and not any substance, actually, like, leave the community with.

Matt [0:19:20]: Yeah.

Matt [0:19:20]: Exactly.

Matt [0:19:20]: I think just speaking from experience.

Matt [0:19:22]: I had no community experience going into this, but it was easy for me to pick up because I'm, like, these are my people.

Matt [0:19:28]: These are all B2B marketers.

Matt [0:19:29]: And, like, I just have to find ways to serve them through this platform, but, I could do that for anything through content, whatever it is, but it's, like, I just happen to learn it through community.

Matt [0:19:37]: So I think anyone could learn...

Matt [0:19:38]: Communities not that complicated when it's, like, you use an individual understand the audience and, like, could learn some cool plays long way.

Dave [0:19:46]: The community management playbook.

Dave [0:19:47]: Let's talk about how it's evolved.

Dave [0:19:49]: What we thought it was two years ago and what it is now, and I'll believe you in, like, what I'm trying to get at mad is how it used to be the thinking from, like, discussion board to, like, It's all about who's in the room and the connection.

Dave [0:20:02]: We're...

Dave [0:20:02]: We've learned so much.

Dave [0:20:03]: I, I wanna kind of on that with.

Matt [0:20:05]: Yeah.

Matt [0:20:05]: Even speaking from, like, you know, I was an Exit Five member prior to joining Exit Five.

Matt [0:20:10]: I think there was a time when you knew a community was successful when there was just a lot of discussion happening all day long.

Matt [0:20:18]: There was posts there was comments.

Matt [0:20:20]: And people on the outside I would look at that and Their, this is an active buzzing community.

Matt [0:20:24]: And I I still think some of that does exist today.

Matt [0:20:26]: I think people want to see activity in a community.

Matt [0:20:28]: But I think in this time period, the amount of noise online has gone up a lot.

Matt [0:20:35]: And people don't wanna just log into another platform and another community and just see more noise.

Matt [0:20:41]: They wanna log into something and go to place where there is discussion and people that they can trust.

Matt [0:20:46]: And I think that's where communities evolved to is are the people who are creating and managing the community, like creating that environment of trust Meaning, do I trust the people around me that they're gonna know what I'm talking about, and they've been there before or on the same journey?

Matt [0:21:00]: I think that's a really important thing today and where it's evolved to.

Matt [0:21:04]: A lot of people that I'm speaking to now around, like, why community?

Matt [0:21:08]: Why do you wanna join our community it's because they want to...

Matt [0:21:11]: They don't want, like, to have to catch up on a hundred discussions a week.

Matt [0:21:15]: They just wanna know, like, there's a solid smaller group of people in here that I could trust that wanna have an issue I could tap into them.

Matt [0:21:22]: So I think that's one of the big differences I've seen anyways.

Dave [0:21:26]: Yeah.

Dave [0:21:26]: I like that.

Dave [0:21:27]: It's like, there's certain things that I'm gonna go to chat And ask question and R with Chat About, but there's certain things that I want.

Dave [0:21:34]: We have a group text of of, friend like and I are a friend, like parent friends, and there's specific things that we would post there and would probably wouldn't just like, post something Linkedin.

Dave [0:21:43]: It would be like, hey.

Dave [0:21:44]: Anyone, you know, anyone work with someone and so who are right?

Dave [0:21:47]: Like, her anyone have this teacher last...

Dave [0:21:48]: Did you have this teacher last year?

Dave [0:21:50]: And it's like, in our world.

Dave [0:21:51]: If you're a Cmo, are you gonna go to Reddit and post, like, hey.

Dave [0:21:55]: If you ever worked with this P agency before...

Dave [0:21:58]: Yeah.

Dave [0:21:58]: If you you never do that?

Dave [0:22:00]: No.

Dave [0:22:00]: If you don't have, like, six people on speak out to be able to text what do you do?

Dave [0:22:04]: So I think that's that's been the biggest eye opening thing.

Dave [0:22:07]: Now, the the content stuff does Matter.

Dave [0:22:09]: Like, we can't have can't have post and how that that gets no engagement.

Dave [0:22:13]: Like, you have to have people in that are active, but I I think you're totally right that it's it's the quality thing.

Dave [0:22:18]: Like, I wanna ask a specific Posting this in this room for a specific reason.

Matt [0:22:22]: Yeah.

Matt [0:22:22]: And as you, you know, I think you move up the ladder in your career a bit, the trust becomes even more important.

Matt [0:22:28]: I think if you're a a junior marketer, like, I was when I first joined next Exit Five, I'm, like, if anyone could give me any insight on my content strategy.

Matt [0:22:36]: I'm so happy to hear.

Matt [0:22:38]: Yeah.

Matt [0:22:38]: Where god.

Matt [0:22:39]: But, like, you're the Cmo of a two hundred million dollar company of a fifty five person team, like, your purview really different.

Matt [0:22:47]: You don't really need the basics to one zero one?

Matt [0:22:49]: You need...

Matt [0:22:49]: What are my most elite peers doing?

Matt [0:22:51]: Like, how are they thinking about this?

Matt [0:22:53]: Like, that's really important of a knowledge gap for me to fill?

Dave [0:22:56]: I'm just...

Dave [0:22:56]: I wanna paint the picture more of, like, the role of the value of community the role of, like, a community manager here for a company?

Dave [0:23:03]: Because theoretically, it's like, if you got people, you just let them talk to each.

Dave [0:23:07]: Like, what do we have to?

Dave [0:23:08]: But it turns out, like,

Matt [0:23:09]: there's a

Dave [0:23:10]: lot that goes on behind the scenes to run and ineffective community.

Dave [0:23:13]: Let's put some of that on take?

Dave [0:23:14]: Because, you know, when you just were saying, like, how a lot of times They'll just hire the lowest common denominator and just give it to someone.

Dave [0:23:20]: I'll give it to the content person, and they'll just kinda do it.

Dave [0:23:22]: Maybe just just let's red on, like, what are all the things that go on across all of our communities in in a month.

Matt [0:23:29]: Yeah.

Matt [0:23:29]: So in every community setting, you need to have at least, like, one thing could be, like, a a live event, it could be...

Matt [0:23:36]: We do, like, asynchronous events, which I could talk about in a sec, But some kind of event every month where it's, like, If I'm an individual part of that community.

Matt [0:23:43]: If I do nothing, but go to that once a month or go to it every couple of months, I could get value from that membership.

Matt [0:23:50]: Right?

Matt [0:23:50]: Because it's like...

Dave [0:23:51]: At least one recurring thing.

Dave [0:23:52]: Right?

Matt [0:23:53]: Yeah.

Matt [0:23:53]: At least one, to start anyways, I think that's good.

Matt [0:23:56]: I think you need, like, just, like, high level, some way to connect members with one and another for those who wanna do it.

Matt [0:24:03]: So if I I'm a member of the community, let's say I'm part of some kind of community.

Matt [0:24:06]: I wanna speak to other people like me in that community every now and then.

Matt [0:24:10]: So if you as a community, company can connect me with other heads of communities, for example, like, that would be a valuable thing as a member of a community.

Matt [0:24:18]: So I think that's super important is some way of forcing connect because I think we talked about this earlier but we're...

Dave [0:24:25]: What would an exactly that after?

Dave [0:24:26]: How force connection?

Matt [0:24:28]: Yeah.

Matt [0:24:28]: So there's a couple of things.

Matt [0:24:29]: One is having some kind of match making program, something we invested in, maybe, like, two years ago now, but it's just very simply, like, I opt into it in every single month.

Matt [0:24:38]: Based on my challenges, I can meet with another marketer like me.

Matt [0:24:42]: That tool does a lot of heavy lifting for you of matching people one another.

Matt [0:24:46]: That's been a really, really great play.

Matt [0:24:48]: Another way to force connection is, you know, I think inevitably when you put people...

Matt [0:24:53]: Let's see, you put a hundred people into gonna be, there are people who are gonna ask questions because there are some people who just kinda get that.

Matt [0:24:59]: But whether people actually answer with anything insightful is a whole other thing.

Matt [0:25:04]: And I think what's worked really well for us is just like, upon onboarding and intake of the members collecting some basic information about them and their experience, and then when a relevant question comes up, force tagging that person in the conversation has been like, a game changer for engagement for us.

Matt [0:25:21]: Because I think also people wanna be nudge like, not everyone knows how to use community no Matter how much you tell them.

Matt [0:25:26]: So it's on use it as a management of the community to, like, pull people into conversations, say, no, you need to speak to tom.

Matt [0:25:33]: Like, he really gets Google ads.

Matt [0:25:34]: Tom may, I look at the community every day.

Matt [0:25:37]: But if you can pull them in once a month, then think a great play.

Dave [0:25:41]: Yeah.

Dave [0:25:41]: This is good.

Dave [0:25:41]: You're getting at some like the secret sauce, which is like, how much we've learned that we need to invest in, like, on onboarding and understanding who, if this is a people platform and what we're betting on is, like, real human real human connection, then the differentiator is, like, how well do you know these people?

Dave [0:25:57]: And I remember saying next you were checking in people for a event in New York.

Dave [0:26:02]: And I'm looking I I don't know if everybody like you do.

Dave [0:26:05]: I know some people, but I know everybody.

Dave [0:26:07]: I'm looking at my phone trying to scam people and you're, like, oh, harvey that's Tom.

Dave [0:26:10]: That's married.

Dave [0:26:11]: That's meredith.

Dave [0:26:12]: I'm like, how do you know this speaker here Be did a my job.

Dave [0:26:14]: And that has to be the job.

Dave [0:26:15]: Right?

Dave [0:26:15]: And so it's like, the what you learn about someone switch to the point about, like, if you're running a community inside of your company.

Dave [0:26:19]: Can you just automate this out or skinny send this out to the intern?

Dave [0:26:23]: Like, not if you're just gonna just do some pull like, and I've been in communities where this is like, hey, what's everyone?

Dave [0:26:29]: You know, like, tell me a challenge you have right now?

Dave [0:26:32]: And say, well, why I it here?

Dave [0:26:34]: Right?

Dave [0:26:35]: We're, like, for me, personally, as a founder, I'm in a community, I'm in hampton, and hampton great for me to be able to be like, I have a question because they have vetted people to a certain level.

Dave [0:26:47]: I know that at least if I post in there, I'm gonna...

Dave [0:26:50]: I'm gonna do.

Dave [0:26:51]: Perfect example.

Dave [0:26:52]: Deciding on a holiday gift for the team this year.

Dave [0:26:55]: Have terrible shopper.

Dave [0:26:56]: I don't know what other people are interested in.

Dave [0:26:59]: I post hampton.

Dave [0:27:00]: And it became really popular post because it was a great topic.

Dave [0:27:03]: There's a bunch of founders being, like, you know, what are you getting for your team this year?

Dave [0:27:06]: There's amazing.

Dave [0:27:08]: People had all different levels of answers, and one guy goes cash.

Dave [0:27:12]: You know what always works cash.

Dave [0:27:13]: Four figures of green always works.

Dave [0:27:16]: That's how I interpret anyway.

Dave [0:27:17]: And then I like, alright, done.

Dave [0:27:19]: That's what I'm doing.

Dave [0:27:19]: Cash.

Dave [0:27:20]: And it so like things like that, but that's because it it carried the room.

Dave [0:27:23]: Right?

Dave [0:27:23]: Over your...

Dave [0:27:23]: Yeah, I think it's just easy to.

Dave [0:27:25]: Like, yeah.

Dave [0:27:25]: Do match.

Dave [0:27:25]: What does that really mean?

Dave [0:27:27]: Well, you need to know people you need to know what they're interested in and need to know what works And what doesn't work?

Dave [0:27:31]: There.

Dave [0:27:31]: There's a lot in there.

Dave [0:27:32]: And so it's like that.

Dave [0:27:33]: That is the product.

Dave [0:27:34]: If you can't just have the intern or someone just posts right like a conversation starter.

Dave [0:27:38]: There's a lot of community os that has to happen behind the scenes where these things to be effective.

Matt [0:27:43]: Yeah.

Matt [0:27:43]: And I think that plays into like, another another big lesson of c the room.

Matt [0:27:47]: When of your community is just, like, open reign to everybody.

Matt [0:27:49]: I think it's probably gonna let some people that maybe don't mix as well,

Dave [0:27:54]: the roof raf.

Dave [0:27:55]: The roof

Matt [0:27:56]: kid out.

Matt [0:27:56]: Yeah.

Dave [0:27:57]: Could come out.

Matt [0:27:58]: Exactly.

Matt [0:27:58]: Exactly.

Matt [0:27:59]: You know, because people have different incentives for a community and ideally, if you're running a community, you wanna, like, curate a group of people that have the same incentive of when our case.

Matt [0:28:08]: It's, like, we always talk about, like, the business owner versus in house Speed marketer and their incentives are a little bit different.

Matt [0:28:13]: I think they've coexist well, but I think there's always a case to be made of...

Matt [0:28:17]: You kinda have to pick who your people are for that community and, like, just bet on that.

Dave [0:28:21]: Yeah.

Dave [0:28:21]: I mean, I think I think, like, a do...

Dave [0:28:22]: Like, Are using Hampton on an example Right?

Dave [0:28:24]: The reason I've worked is because it's exclusively founders, and so therefore you can understand it relate to the problems of a founder.

Dave [0:28:31]: We've found that there are different needs to someone, I think it's different depending on the community.

Dave [0:28:35]: There's different needs to someone who's maybe and a works at agency or works in house.

Dave [0:28:39]: But there's enough common ground with the with the threat of, like, working in B to marketing and having knowledge and a lot of agency folks have like, deep expertise.

Dave [0:28:48]: The problem is, like, ninety nine point nine percent of the agency people is great.

Dave [0:28:54]: You get one or two people that mask dm your whole community, like, pitching your services, and that's why people are, urge heard you guys don't like agencies it's...

Dave [0:29:02]: We know it's not that.

Dave [0:29:03]: It's it's, like, most often if there is a bad actor of some kind, it's usually not, like, in house Vp marketing, it's some, you know, a hundred million dollar revenue new companies some solo contractor freelancer or solar premier, which, you know, That's for a culture.

Matt [0:29:19]: Yeah.

Matt [0:29:19]: And that stuff always slips through the cracks, and it's it's all good.

Matt [0:29:22]: It's unfortunate though in some ways because, like, it's like that hold that phrase.

Matt [0:29:26]: I don't know who set it, but, like, trust is is gained and gained in drops lost in buckets.

Matt [0:29:30]: So it's, like, sometimes those things happen.

Matt [0:29:33]: And then, like, at the end of the year people are, like, you know, community is great, but, like, way too many agencies are posting, and it's, like, I know for a fact, there was, like, maybe one or two posts for the whole year, but it's, like, that's enough for them to, like, have that sour taste.

Dave [0:29:46]: I don't know.

Dave [0:29:46]: I I I'm also such a believer of, like, I think we can continue to shake this and, like, quality Matters, attendees Matter, but, like, we can drive...

Dave [0:29:54]: I think a lot of it...

Dave [0:29:55]: You...

Dave [0:29:55]: We use this in analogy.

Dave [0:29:56]: A lot of it is, like, having a gym membership in and, like, I'll see someone churn and Like, I'm just not using it.

Dave [0:30:01]: Not a reflection that like, the equipment doesn't work if you've use it.

Dave [0:30:04]: We need to give more training and coaching and give people more compelling reasons.

Dave [0:30:08]: I do think that focus is great in any community.

Dave [0:30:11]: The more you can be the sharper you can be focused.

Dave [0:30:15]: You know, if I could niche down a community to, like, late thirties dads in vermont working on Internet businesses, that community would be a mate for me.

Dave [0:30:27]: Right?

Dave [0:30:27]: The churn would be low and, like, the engagement would be really high.

Dave [0:30:31]: It's just, like, finding the right balance.

Dave [0:30:32]: So I think we've we've gone wide with B to marketing, and I think we're, like, honing in on on certain areas.

Dave [0:30:39]: Right?

Dave [0:30:40]: That I think we're.

Dave [0:30:40]: Just...

Dave [0:30:41]: I think continuing to focus.

Dave [0:30:42]: The hard part is, like, it makes some people unhappy, and you have to say no to some people in order to grow.

Dave [0:30:48]: But, like, I don't go back and study any business of all time ever.

Dave [0:30:52]: They always almost shift their market as they grow.

Dave [0:30:55]: Right?

Matt [0:30:56]: Yeah.

Matt [0:30:56]: Exactly.

Matt [0:30:57]: Like, the word community is it's inclusive by nature.

Matt [0:31:00]: So I think some people think that...

Matt [0:31:02]: Oh, if you're doing community, like, I should be in.

Matt [0:31:04]: Yeah.

Dave [0:31:05]: Is it interesting insight.

Dave [0:31:06]: Yeah.

Matt [0:31:07]: Yeah.

Matt [0:31:07]: Communities is actually very much...

Matt [0:31:08]: It's like anything.

Matt [0:31:09]: We're building this for a specific person and, like, if you don't fit that, then this isn't gonna be for you.

Matt [0:31:13]: Like this isn't the right product for you.

Dave [0:31:14]: That's right.

Dave [0:31:15]: Me, we only have gluten in our pizzas.

Dave [0:31:17]: Yeah.

Dave [0:31:18]: Like, I thought this is great.

Dave [0:31:19]: You shared this here other today.

Dave [0:31:20]: We'll give him a shout to Jay Classes for me.

Dave [0:31:22]: My community is hampton.

Dave [0:31:24]: Yours is J that creator, what's it call creator Science creator lab.

Matt [0:31:28]: Yeah.

Matt [0:31:28]: The lab the lab.

Matt [0:31:29]: Yeah.

Matt [0:31:29]: The lab.

Matt [0:31:30]: Yep.

Dave [0:31:30]: The lab.

Dave [0:31:30]: And, you shared this and this is...

Dave [0:31:32]: Which I thought was great.

Dave [0:31:33]: I don't share too much inside info as you know, but this is one that I like.

Dave [0:31:38]: You found.

Dave [0:31:38]: The way that Jay frames gray areas with community and has them written up.

Dave [0:31:42]: I think it's really good because there's been a lot of things that have come up over the years with us where it's like, what are the lines of self promotion or promoting.

Dave [0:31:50]: You know, people say, I, I I'll get messages all the time Like hey, Dave I wasn't gonna post this, but, like, I'm worried about being self emotional and like, if you have to message the founder or if you didn't message me to, like, ask that probably it's gonna be like that.

Dave [0:32:02]: But then I...

Dave [0:32:03]: It's long this weird position because then someone will then Helped be like, Don't really have the perfect answer back to I'm, like, I'm reading this.

Dave [0:32:09]: It's like, the saying of, like porn.

Dave [0:32:11]: Like, you know and when you see it It's like, I can tell you this this post feels like garbage to me it feels like spam, and either is something that was copied from someone linkedin and he's changed.

Dave [0:32:21]: We got that before or it was, like, this is like a straight up promo, but disguised, like, look, come on.

Dave [0:32:28]: I'm being nice.

Dave [0:32:28]: Of helping people for free.

Dave [0:32:29]: Like, I so I just think even just labeling it as a book.

Dave [0:32:32]: This is kind of, like, it's a people business and people business.

Dave [0:32:35]: There's gonna be a lot of things that are not black and white they're gray.

Dave [0:32:38]: And so I think just acknowledging we have gray areas and so in his and wrote sometimes.

Dave [0:32:43]: Solicitation or self promotions a little bit of a gray area.

Dave [0:32:46]: In general, we're pretty strict about removing posters and do sharing links that continuity you've published The reason is simple in a community of hundreds of content creators if we allowed sharing if any link the whole fee would be flooded with each other's content ten.

Dave [0:32:57]: The result would be everyone sharing at each other then talking to each other.

Dave [0:33:02]: And Jay's honestly great.

Dave [0:33:04]: Good fan pissed up, but the way that they frame that is perfect.

Dave [0:33:07]: That's what you want.

Dave [0:33:08]: Or you want you want people talking to each other, not at each other, and it's like, if you I read your post, it sounds like you're talking at me.

Matt [0:33:15]: Exactly.

Matt [0:33:15]: That was such a good framing And this is something, like, I used to say in the beginning was, like, what if everyone did it?

Matt [0:33:20]: It's like, well, what if everyone just shared their thought leadership out post.

Matt [0:33:25]: Like, this community would go to shit.

Matt [0:33:26]: It would just be like a mini linkedin

Dave [0:33:28]: passive amazing.

Dave [0:33:28]: I have a book steroids and one of the books that we rent our kids that's called up.

Dave [0:33:32]: What if everyone did that.

Dave [0:33:33]: And it's like, some kids in the launch of the party.

Dave [0:33:35]: He throws his trash on the ground and leave it, and it's like, well would everyone?

Dave [0:33:39]: Well, you know, what everyone did that?

Matt [0:33:41]: Yeah.

Matt [0:33:41]: Great luck.

Dave [0:33:42]: But I think one thing we've learned also, it's just, like...

Dave [0:33:44]: And I don't wanna...

Dave [0:33:45]: I think community managers man don't get enough shout out and don't get enough, like, recognition over it for...

Dave [0:33:50]: That's why these things succeed in companies.

Dave [0:33:53]: Because I do think there's just quite literally some level of, like, hours that you need to put in.

Dave [0:33:59]: I think just us like replying to every post, reading every comment.

Dave [0:34:03]: Something we've been, like, nuts about over the last year.

Dave [0:34:06]: Like, anyone that I see that doesn't have a real hedgehog profile picture like, I you know how think on it.

Dave [0:34:11]: And I'm sending it to you.

Dave [0:34:13]: And it's like, those are just the details that you need to be there all the time.

Dave [0:34:16]: And so are you willing to invest in a community and now this thing is kinda always on twenty four seven or are you gonna, like, invest?

Dave [0:34:23]: Are you ready to be there path level.

Matt [0:34:25]: Yeah.

Matt [0:34:25]: Exactly.

Matt [0:34:25]: Exactly.

Matt [0:34:26]: Because, like, the people on the other end, the members, they're not there all the time.

Matt [0:34:29]: They're just popping in every now and then.

Matt [0:34:31]: So when they're popping in, they need to have a good experience.

Matt [0:34:34]: If they don't have a good experience they're never coming back.

Matt [0:34:35]: So that's why I use a community manager.

Matt [0:34:37]: It's like, yeah, You need to be there.

Matt [0:34:38]: And you need to, like, make sure it's always good for everyone coming in and when they come in.

Dave [0:34:42]: Alright.

Dave [0:34:42]: So this was in our list, most underrated community plays.

Dave [0:34:45]: We talked about a bunch of staff, tagging branding in relevant people relevant members.

Dave [0:34:49]: In person events, we haven't really hit on it, but I think we we learned amazing lesson over the last year, really, which is in person, what happens online.

Dave [0:34:59]: And so if you have people who initially connected.

Dave [0:35:01]: Like, our events feel like, incredibly warm from to get go.

Dave [0:35:04]: And the reason is because makes fifty percent of the people already have had some form of interaction online.

Dave [0:35:10]: It's Like, that.

Dave [0:35:11]: That's Matt.

Dave [0:35:11]: I recognize, when me go say save what's up.

Dave [0:35:13]: That creates an incredible connection, so we're gonna continue to do more of that.

Dave [0:35:16]: Like...

Dave [0:35:17]: And that's made our...

Dave [0:35:17]: Unexpected benefit me is like, the in person things have made online better in a way that I couldn't have anticipated.

Matt [0:35:23]: Yeah.

Matt [0:35:23]: Yeah.

Matt [0:35:23]: Exactly.

Matt [0:35:24]: Exactly.

Matt [0:35:24]: It it warms it warms people has been great.

Dave [0:35:27]: Well, just, like, now, takes up at O'brien or that's example.

Dave [0:35:30]: If I see a comment from her.

Dave [0:35:32]: I feel like I know her now is, I can like, read the comment or, like, Charlie Riley messaging the all time.

Dave [0:35:38]: Right?

Dave [0:35:38]: You know people now.

Dave [0:35:39]: It's I'm like, I understand the context of that of which they said that.

Dave [0:35:42]: Market market what's upcoming.

Dave [0:35:44]: This is a great lesson time you think for any marketing.

Dave [0:35:46]: And this is why, like, as a marketer having access to the roadmap and being involved in the crowd roadmap and development of your company Matters because so often in marketing.

Dave [0:35:54]: Like, you...

Dave [0:35:55]: You might not be here yet, but you can talk about where it's going and what's coming next And so I think us having stuff lined up about what's happening in the community this month, these something that is drives engagement and membership.

Dave [0:36:06]: You talked about pure connection, most overrated.

Dave [0:36:09]: What doesn't move the needle, but people think virtual events.

Dave [0:36:12]: Yeah.

Matt [0:36:14]: Yeah.

Matt [0:36:14]: I think virtual events can be overrated in community.

Matt [0:36:17]: We still do them.

Matt [0:36:18]: I'm not saying we don't do them, but I think Whenever I've speak spoken to people who are, like, starting a community, Like, their brain...

Matt [0:36:24]: The first place their brain goes to is, like, oh, like bringing these, like, virtual events every month.

Matt [0:36:28]: Like, almost like a webinar where it's like, a couple people from our company are gonna, like, talk at our members.

Matt [0:36:33]: And I just don't think that is why people join community.

Matt [0:36:37]: I think maybe they had some kind hook in, but I don't think they join to get talk at.

Matt [0:36:41]: I think there's plenty of mediums out there where you can get talk at from smart people.

Matt [0:36:46]: They joined to meet others like them.

Matt [0:36:48]: So if your whole play is, like, a virtual event every month where, like, the team is talking at the members.

Matt [0:36:54]: I just think that's not gonna be super interesting time anyone in there.

Matt [0:36:56]: So you could have them, but, like, maybe instead of we're gonna talk to you that month.

Matt [0:37:01]: It's like, every month one member is gonna spot, like, one interesting thing they're doing, and that's not gonna be relevant to everyone in the community, but it's like, great.

Matt [0:37:07]: Like, we're gonna get ten fifty people there.

Matt [0:37:09]: This person's gonna talk but how they do x y zed.

Matt [0:37:12]: It's gonna be more of an open discussion where you can come off mute and actually talk.

Matt [0:37:15]: I think that's more how I would run these virtual events versus just like the typical way.

Dave [0:37:22]: Content.

Dave [0:37:22]: Good for getting people door, but not as much for making them stay.

Dave [0:37:25]: That's where you need to learn lean into pure connection.

Dave [0:37:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:37:27]: I think the meta lesson that we've learned is.

Dave [0:37:30]: We need to have marketing, education and content because that's what's gonna get someone to come in but the sticky feature is when you actually make a friend meet someone.

Dave [0:37:39]: We have countless the stories of those people.

Dave [0:37:41]: That's the thing that we wanna foster more.

Dave [0:37:43]: If it was just, like, positioned as exitfive.com.

Dave [0:37:47]: Hang out with other marketing people.

Dave [0:37:49]: Like, I don't I don't think that hits in the same way.

Dave [0:37:51]: And so it needs to be, like, learn about Ai, but then I also met someone at this event was really interesting.

Matt [0:37:57]: Yeah.

Matt [0:37:57]: And that's why it's, like, super important to market what's upcoming.

Matt [0:38:00]: Your content your events.

Matt [0:38:01]: That's what's gonna get people to say, like, oh, they have these like, round tables where they talk about custom Gp.

Matt [0:38:07]: Like, that's pretty cool.

Matt [0:38:08]: Like, maybe maybe Join for a month and go to the first one.

Matt [0:38:11]: And then when they join, that's when they, like, Oh, no.

Matt [0:38:13]: Like, I met a couple cool people there, like, oh, they also have this like, match program where I can meet other demand marketers like, oh, like, yeah.

Matt [0:38:20]: Maybe this this is worth keeping every single month.

Matt [0:38:22]: So I think that's...

Matt [0:38:23]: You can use that to hook people in, but then it's the other stuff I guys seem can to stay.

Dave [0:38:28]: I said, I can grant you three wishes right now for community I to five.

Dave [0:38:31]: Each one of your things, I think is the secret sauce.

Dave [0:38:34]: I don't wanna expose publicly.

Matt [0:38:36]: That's fine.

Dave [0:38:37]: But those are good.

Dave [0:38:38]: I agree.

Dave [0:38:38]: Let's go do those things.

Dave [0:38:39]: I have some listener to questions I wanna go through with you.

Dave [0:38:42]: That'll be fun.

Dave [0:38:43]: But I wanna...

Dave [0:38:43]: Let's wrap up this first.

Dave [0:38:45]: I'd like this one.

Dave [0:38:45]: I like this question that I wrote.

Dave [0:38:47]: Coming up on two years here.

Dave [0:38:48]: Second longest tenured year employee.

Dave [0:38:49]: Just overall, we're reflecting back in the last two years of your career work, community marketing, which you learned.

Dave [0:38:55]: Curious to...

Dave [0:38:56]: You wrote some good stuff here I wonder if you can call it to memory and try to talk to it.

Dave [0:39:00]: You said this.

Dave [0:39:01]: I really does Matter...

Dave [0:39:02]: It really does Matter already work.

Dave [0:39:03]: Okay.

Matt [0:39:04]: Yeah.

Matt [0:39:04]: Oh, yeah.

Matt [0:39:05]: Okay.

Matt [0:39:05]: That's good one.

Matt [0:39:06]: Yeah.

Matt [0:39:06]: So that's been a big lesson for me.

Matt [0:39:08]: It's just like, you learn a lot more working under really great leadership when you have really good product market fit.

Dave [0:39:15]: Facts.

Dave [0:39:15]: Just cut cut.

Dave [0:39:16]: Click that first part.

Dave [0:39:18]: Click that.

Matt [0:39:19]: So go find that.

Matt [0:39:20]: Go find.

Matt [0:39:21]: Go once into that...

Dave [0:39:23]: It really doesn't Matter where you where you work, just the the importance of that.

Dave [0:39:27]: Like, I sorry.

Dave [0:39:27]: I took us offline with the with with a joke.

Dave [0:39:30]: But I do think...

Dave [0:39:31]: And that made me think, like, sometimes when I read people's comments on my east be posts on Linkedin or comments in at five, almost always...

Dave [0:39:38]: The common denominator of, like, marketing or or enjoyment at work is almost always directly correlate back to this this part.

Dave [0:39:47]: Isn't it?

Matt [0:39:48]: Yeah.

Matt [0:39:48]: Yeah.

Matt [0:39:49]: Yeah.

Matt [0:39:49]: Exactly.

Matt [0:39:49]: It's like, the leadership is jan, the products doesn't work that well.

Matt [0:39:53]: Like, it's always those things that break it.

Matt [0:39:56]: So that's why it's like, you can always face all the problems.

Dave [0:39:59]: Just, like, I know You've told me about some of your tasks work experience like an end.

Dave [0:40:02]: I think maybe one of the things here, I've seen for you is, like, we almost have to, like, train these things out of you because here it's like, I don't know how you figured it out you come.

Dave [0:40:12]: Wait, really?

Dave [0:40:14]: Like, you got, you know, it's a small company, it's early.

Dave [0:40:16]: It's, like, if you have the the playbook where, like, so many times in marketing, and I'm was talking about this with just yesterday.

Dave [0:40:22]: If you have people who don't get it or don't get business or or don't...

Dave [0:40:26]: You don't see things I, maybe they do get it, but it's just not on your way.

Dave [0:40:29]: It's impossible to work when, like, you're second guessing yourself or constantly or you're having to be asked at justify something that you did, like, every time we breathe.

Matt [0:40:38]: Yeah.

Matt [0:40:38]: Exactly.

Matt [0:40:39]: Like, that's a big one just having that that freedom into, like, go and and move fast and ship and break things.

Matt [0:40:45]: Like, most people are, like, they feel that if they go and do that, like, someone's gonna yell them for some things.

Matt [0:40:50]: They don't really, like, just go execute at a fast level.

Matt [0:40:54]: So, yeah.

Matt [0:40:54]: Exactly.

Matt [0:40:55]: Teaching those things Out of me is totally totally part of my experience.

Matt [0:40:58]: Yeah.

Dave [0:40:59]: That's why we're wrong like Beating me Marketing is have to be born be.

Dave [0:41:01]: But Yeah.

Dave [0:41:02]: Really someone inside of the company is like, I get that Dave, but, like, literally, I can't do shit because of every time we try...

Dave [0:41:08]: Every time we like, pitch a new idea to the team or we wanna do something like, no.

Dave [0:41:11]: Can't do that.

Dave [0:41:12]: Don't have to buy Don't end the time.

Dave [0:41:13]: Done I, like, okay.

Dave [0:41:14]: Be my bad.

Dave [0:41:14]: Like, I get that.

Dave [0:41:15]: That's exhausted.

Matt [0:41:16]: Yeah.

Matt [0:41:16]: It's like this really...

Matt [0:41:17]: I don't know how I was to tell you in that case.

Matt [0:41:19]: Like, it it does suck.

Matt [0:41:20]: Yeah.

Dave [0:41:22]: James should try to find a different.

Dave [0:41:23]: Go find a different job.

Matt [0:41:25]: Just work for a Uni unicorn.

Matt [0:41:26]: Like, are you stupid?

Matt [0:41:27]: Sorry.

Dave [0:41:29]: Well, let's say that, we do must be nice to be able to say that.

Dave [0:41:32]: I'm like, well you could...

Dave [0:41:33]: If there's a lot of tire marker.

Dave [0:41:35]: Do you.

Matt [0:41:36]: Just...

Matt [0:41:36]: Yeah.

Matt [0:41:36]: It's not always the big names.

Matt [0:41:37]: There's a lot of small companies that have this too.

Dave [0:41:40]: But it's sucks...

Dave [0:41:40]: I mean, I've talked to someone vp idea marketing for a former friend of mine that I've reached out recently.

Dave [0:41:46]: To send him a message.

Dave [0:41:48]: Actually, it's for, like, our fucking new ship event that we're doing give of sending invites.

Dave [0:41:52]: I haven't heard from this first a while.

Dave [0:41:53]: And they're were like, you know, I'm actually gonna...

Dave [0:41:56]: I'm at, I'm I'm taking a step back from marketing, Like, I I got laid off from my last three companies.

Dave [0:42:01]: And this g of the legitimate Vp mark.

Dave [0:42:03]: K just three companies bad in a row.

Dave [0:42:07]: It's like, god it sucks.

Matt [0:42:09]: Yeah.

Matt [0:42:09]: That's rough.

Matt [0:42:10]: That's rough.

Matt [0:42:11]: It's hard to see that

Dave [0:42:12]: from neo.

Dave [0:42:12]: Yeah.

Dave [0:42:12]: It is.

Dave [0:42:13]: Sometimes...

Dave [0:42:13]: Sometimes you know though.

Dave [0:42:15]: You're like, that on it.

Dave [0:42:16]: He was wearing those was weird open toe sandals in the.

Dave [0:42:19]: That shit gonna sign.

Dave [0:42:21]: The Bg is toes and the and the energy

Matt [0:42:27]: is toes.

Matt [0:42:27]: I don't see anyone that it works with the toes.

Dave [0:42:29]: Yeah Now, please all not.

Dave [0:42:31]: Another one is that you put in your notes here as a community.

Dave [0:42:34]: So Matters where you work.

Dave [0:42:36]: Okay.

Dave [0:42:36]: That's great.

Dave [0:42:36]: Maybe me feel good.

Dave [0:42:37]: Community is so much more than Facebook or Slack group.

Matt [0:42:40]: Yeah.

Matt [0:42:40]: Kinda what we talked about earlier is if community buildings part of the strategy, you're trying to grow the amount of people that have an interest, shared interest in what you do, what you're solving, It's not necessarily we're creating a Facebook or Slack Group or whatever.

Matt [0:42:53]: So I just think, like, that's something that before this, I didn't have that point of view, but now I I understand community building at a broader level, and I think it's actually, like, just not even not even talk about enough in that context.

Dave [0:43:07]: And then you talked about a little bit about something that's changes how you work.

Dave [0:43:11]: Do you need to...

Dave [0:43:12]: You said you to start the day early and hit the gym right away sleeping and doesn't do much for me.

Dave [0:43:16]: Making me feel too relax and lazy.

Dave [0:43:18]: We're get from home is great but the downside is it's too easy to be in rest mode need to shock myself early in the day and it'll carry through.

Matt [0:43:25]: Yeah.

Matt [0:43:25]: That's something that in past companies...

Matt [0:43:27]: And I think part of it his stemmed from, like, I'm now in an environment where I...

Matt [0:43:32]: I want to produce my best work and need to.

Matt [0:43:35]: You know, I think this company needs people are operating at their best, and what I've learned for me is, like, if I sleep in and start the day on a very relaxed note.

Matt [0:43:44]: I have a harder time really getting into it.

Matt [0:43:47]: For other people may not be the case.

Matt [0:43:48]: So I don't think this necessarily is the same for everyone.

Matt [0:43:51]: But for me, it's like, what works best for me is getting up super early, doing something that is kinda, I don't always think doing right away, and then it's, like, okay.

Matt [0:43:59]: Cool.

Matt [0:44:00]: I've kinda of been like, shocked to start the day.

Matt [0:44:02]: And now, like, I'm just more, like, higher frequency as some would say, throughout the day.

Dave [0:44:09]: A higher frequency, baby.

Dave [0:44:09]: I'm gonna do a workshop.

Dave [0:44:10]: I Chris message me.

Dave [0:44:11]: Like, you need to stop talking shit and come get yourself encoded and I'm gonna go and learn all about it.

Dave [0:44:17]: But I know.

Dave [0:44:18]: I think it's great.

Dave [0:44:18]: I believe in all that.

Dave [0:44:20]: But heightened...

Dave [0:44:20]: Like, totally a lot so much of that.

Dave [0:44:23]: It's true but the people who surround yourself because what you believe.

Dave [0:44:25]: Just last night, we sent you a picture from a post note I had in my closet.

Dave [0:44:30]: And it was goals that I had for this year and wrote the number down and posted put in the closet.

Dave [0:44:37]: And she said, hey, you did that.

Dave [0:44:38]: I said team did do that.

Dave [0:44:39]: And the same exact thing happened the year before.

Dave [0:44:41]: And the same exact thing happened the year before.

Dave [0:44:43]: Like, I believe that you speak things.

Dave [0:44:45]: Especially me if you write them down.

Dave [0:44:47]: On the routine thing, I I wanted to call that out because so many people that listen in this podcast on workers and they work from home.

Dave [0:44:54]: And I haven't worked through Covid, like, from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, it did feel Kinda like, I kinda did the same thing every day.

Dave [0:45:02]: I just would kinda like, roll out of bed and open on my laptop.

Dave [0:45:05]: I've always been no morning work workout guy, but I just mean, like, in the last couple years, something that I've changed.

Dave [0:45:11]: Is like, getting out of my house going over, I have a space here, but I'm gonna try to rent a space if I could or go somewhere putting on real close, being a real person, treating it like I am going into the office has helped me separate those two things.

Dave [0:45:25]: And, like, also shift into work mode.

Dave [0:45:27]: But it's also been an incredible advantage being able to work home because there are many many good things have come from, like, I'm just in my house and it's nine o'clock and I'm like, oh.

Dave [0:45:37]: Good idea.

Dave [0:45:37]: And I run out to office and so Like, there's trade off to both that.

Dave [0:45:40]: Or you get a friend if you get it out of breath.

Dave [0:45:42]: Like, audio note for me or something.

Matt [0:45:45]: Mh Exactly.

Matt [0:45:46]: Yeah.

Matt [0:45:46]: If you can bounce it.

Matt [0:45:47]: I think it's best for a world Sure.

Dave [0:45:50]: Alright.

Dave [0:45:50]: Let's take these questions from listeners.

Dave [0:45:51]: This one's from Allen.

Dave [0:45:53]: I want you to answer this, Matt.

Dave [0:45:54]: I wanna I wanna hear your opinion on how you would answer this, Alice.

Dave [0:45:57]: How do you decide I when to share founder struggles publicly versus keeping them private.

Dave [0:46:00]: This from like a confidence strategy standpoint.

Matt [0:46:04]: I'm not obviously not a founder, but I think individuals probably think that what they're holding close people are gonna be, like, highly att to and like, maybe wanna steal in some ways or, like, view them as weak.

Matt [0:46:17]: I don't think others view it that way, but at the same time, I still do think, like, you wanna keep some...

Matt [0:46:24]: I think perception Matters and I think you wanna keep some perception of, like, hey, like, we we kinda have her our our shit together here.

Matt [0:46:30]: Yeah.

Matt [0:46:30]: We we both these struggles to get everyone else, but, like, the ship not sinking or anything.

Matt [0:46:34]: I do think that is important.

Matt [0:46:35]: If I were to spend, like, five grand a year in a product, and the founders constantly talking about their struggles and things that are, like, not going right?

Matt [0:46:42]: A part of me would be thinking, like, is this a sinking shit?

Matt [0:46:47]: Like I'm.

Dave [0:46:49]: That's absolutely true.

Matt [0:46:51]: So to an extent.

Matt [0:46:52]: I think less struggle is more, like, good stuff.

Dave [0:46:55]: Hey.

Dave [0:46:55]: We had a really...

Dave [0:46:56]: We have really shitty quarter.

Dave [0:46:57]: My marriage is falling apart.

Dave [0:46:59]: We missed our sales projections by fifty percent, and I gained twelve pounds.

Dave [0:47:04]: But, you know, I just...

Dave [0:47:05]: I wanted...

Dave [0:47:06]: I feel like I only post my friends on Linkedin.

Dave [0:47:08]: I just wanted to come here and keep real view hashtag.

Dave [0:47:10]: Not the threat.

Matt [0:47:12]: Yeah.

Matt [0:47:12]: It's like, okay.

Matt [0:47:13]: A little bit too much information.

Matt [0:47:14]: Like, this is, you know, so that's my two cents.

Dave [0:47:18]: Look, I think I'm ultimately, I see everything as marketing and so I think the game is...

Dave [0:47:22]: I think you wanna play a perception game and so I think part of it is, like, you, people people say like, well you need to seem to be more vulnerable.

Dave [0:47:28]: Share more loss, And I think it depends on depends on what you're writing.

Dave [0:47:31]: And so I think the way to do that is acknowledge that, like, there are challenges.

Dave [0:47:36]: Yeah there are...

Dave [0:47:37]: I I go post today talking about, like, man there or some shit that came up this year.

Dave [0:47:40]: That was Difficult card I didn't explain what it was.

Dave [0:47:42]: But just acknowledging and then that, like, I think, where does work is when you just come off with someone who everything is awesome all the time.

Dave [0:47:49]: Like, this is a win.

Dave [0:47:51]: And this is a win and this is what I think just don't wanna be that.

Dave [0:47:53]: Either.

Matt [0:47:53]: Yeah.

Matt [0:47:53]: Yeah.

Matt [0:47:54]: Exactly.

Matt [0:47:54]: I think that's the way to, like, relate to people on a personal level is acknowledging that It's not always easy all the time, but how a deep get his details is probably where you have to use some discernment.

Dave [0:48:06]: Okay.

Dave [0:48:06]: This question from Dave.

Dave [0:48:08]: Thought leadership is justin excuse for being loud online, and I'm sorry.

Dave [0:48:12]: I I noticed lady.

Dave [0:48:13]: I, let me read reread that again.

Dave [0:48:15]: I'm reading it as the way that people...

Dave [0:48:16]: This is...

Dave [0:48:17]: This must be what people do to me.

Dave [0:48:18]: They read my things and how they think Would say.

Dave [0:48:21]: Let me not project onto to this one.

Dave [0:48:22]: Dave, thought leadership is just an excuse for being loud online.

Dave [0:48:26]: And I'm curious what you'd say about it scanning Exit Five beyond marketing.

Dave [0:48:29]: Seems like a lot of folks are already doing that with their home brand.

Dave [0:48:32]: First, let's answer the first one.

Dave [0:48:34]: Matt, Reaction to thought leadership is just an excuse for being allowed online.

Matt [0:48:39]: I don't think people wanna be...

Matt [0:48:40]: I think

Dave [0:48:41]: sounds like a I hate to me.

Dave [0:48:42]: Sounds like a hate to me.

Dave [0:48:44]: That's not the energy that I want.

Dave [0:48:45]: I don't care all leadership is excuse for being loud online, Look, I think that if you have something that you are proud of that you have worked on that you've created and you wanna sell and get to others.

Dave [0:48:56]: Like, I think there's no shaming being loud about your product online.

Matt [0:49:00]: Yeah.

Matt [0:49:00]: And, like, thought leadership has maybe gotten a bad name in some ways.

Matt [0:49:03]: Like, if you're posting good stuff, online, Like, that's not an excuse for being loud.

Matt [0:49:08]: It's you're you're sharing your work and you're sharing good stuff and helping other people get smarter and learn.

Matt [0:49:12]: Like, That's that's an amazing thing.

Matt [0:49:14]: That's that's changed my life that content online from other people As so.

Dave [0:49:18]: Yep.

Dave [0:49:18]: Perfect.

Dave [0:49:18]: Example.

Dave [0:49:19]: Jeff was telling me yesterday about some founder of this Seo agency, like, put all this great data out about Ai and Seo and, like, keeping hearing or citing.

Dave [0:49:27]: And then she was mentioning it on on that podcast.

Dave [0:49:29]: It's like, that and literally that's thought leadership.

Dave [0:49:31]: They just did a good job of it.

Dave [0:49:32]: Right?

Dave [0:49:33]: And so I think, like, you know, those staying about, like, you know, me sitting on the back of my truck shirtless with a bag of money, you know, talking about, like, how, you know, I made six million dollars a year or whatever, Like, that's being loud online.

Dave [0:49:45]: That's...

Dave [0:49:45]: I don't think that that is advantageous.

Dave [0:49:47]: That's but that's not worth.

Dave [0:49:48]: Alright?

Dave [0:49:49]: I put this question on mixed you because I wanna clear that up and it's a objection on the here from founders a lot.

Dave [0:49:53]: It's, like, why they don't wanna, like, participate in marketing or, like, do any of the founder branch up is is for that reason.

Dave [0:49:59]: I think it's a false.

Matt [0:50:02]: Yeah.

Matt [0:50:02]: Agreed.

Dave [0:50:03]: This is from Needy.

Dave [0:50:04]: What are two or three signals that tell you the podcast is driving real pipeline for Exit Five, not just downloads.

Dave [0:50:09]: Always tuning for this at Connect.

Dave [0:50:11]: I mean, Matt, you've posted a couple podcasts episodes you've been in the mix?

Dave [0:50:16]: Feel what our businesses is as you see what the slack messages are I think the way that we tell is, like, quite literally people will tell us that they listen to the podcast.

Dave [0:50:24]: Like, I wish there was...

Dave [0:50:26]: Yeah.

Dave [0:50:26]: We just know.

Dave [0:50:27]: Like, I do look at downloads.

Dave [0:50:29]: We do look at audience.

Dave [0:50:30]: We wanna make sure people are listening.

Dave [0:50:32]: But I think if you'd worked at our company for any longer than, you know, three months, you will quickly realize how many people tell us if they signed out because they listen to the podcast at some.

Dave [0:50:41]: Now if it doesn't...

Dave [0:50:42]: It's not like that...

Dave [0:50:43]: I listen to the podcast and then I bought thing immediately.

Dave [0:50:46]: Right?

Dave [0:50:47]: But it's I joined...

Dave [0:50:48]: I've been listening to podcast for a long time or, you know, started listening to context whatever.

Dave [0:50:52]: People will tell you, that's number one.

Dave [0:50:53]: What else would you add to that?

Dave [0:50:54]: If you wanted to help someone understand the the impact about of a podcast?

Matt [0:50:59]: Yeah.

Matt [0:50:59]: I think, like, for us, it's...

Matt [0:51:00]: We have, like, tons of tons of customers, but we're a more high volume business.

Matt [0:51:04]: So we're gonna hear...

Matt [0:51:05]: We're gonna get data quicker on, like, why people are signing up.

Matt [0:51:08]: I think in a business that maybe doesn't get as many new customers or as much pipeline, you're gonna have less less swings in at bass on learning why people join But I think there's also so much to a podcast that isn't just like, yeah.

Matt [0:51:20]: Some people will tell you they signed up because the podcast.

Matt [0:51:22]: But, like, there's so much to it in a B2B company, You can meet an interview potential customers, and that could be a way to, like, build some pipeline and move people through.

Matt [0:51:30]: I think it's like those insights feed your marketing strategy, they could feed your product strategy if done correctly.

Matt [0:51:37]: So it's like, I don't know.

Matt [0:51:38]: If you're just gonna view podcast podcasts as, like another ad for you guys.

Matt [0:51:42]: Yeah.

Matt [0:51:43]: Maybe it's not gonna always directly turn into a customer, but if you're viewing it it is, like, an engine for a lot of things across the business, it's like, yeah.

Matt [0:51:50]: That should be having an impact on pipeline and business growth and product strategy.

Matt [0:51:54]: Then...

Matt [0:51:54]: Yeah.

Matt [0:51:55]: Absolutely Like...

Matt [0:51:56]: So part of that is, like, the selling of leadership as to why you're doing it in the first place.

Dave [0:52:00]: Yeah.

Dave [0:52:00]: I love that.

Dave [0:52:01]: The podcasting engine for your contact transcription.

Dave [0:52:04]: Not not just doing it.

Dave [0:52:05]: It could also be, like, you you'd started it...

Dave [0:52:07]: You'd start wanting to, like, get some shine to your top customers, and that's the goal of it.

Dave [0:52:11]: Right?

Dave [0:52:12]: You could answer that.

Dave [0:52:13]: Let's see.

Dave [0:52:14]: This one's from Alex.

Dave [0:52:15]: How do you plan and execute your podcast when you first started, and how does your podcast prep recording and post editing look out.

Dave [0:52:21]: So start my fur first podcast was twenty fourteen?

Dave [0:52:24]: That was...

Dave [0:52:25]: Eleven years almost twelve years ago.

Dave [0:52:28]: Oh, shit.

Dave [0:52:29]: And back that, I I was in person and knew...

Dave [0:52:31]: It was in boston and I would go around and I'm doing interviews with founders in Boston.

Dave [0:52:35]: And when I first started out, I would...

Dave [0:52:38]: Maybe this is why my podcast was good.

Dave [0:52:40]: Then is...

Dave [0:52:42]: I would just prep.

Dave [0:52:44]: I would I would over prep.

Dave [0:52:45]: And so if I was assuming the interview with Matt, I would listen a bunch of interviews and Matt.

Dave [0:52:48]: At beats stuff online and that's fine as much they could about Matt.

Dave [0:52:51]: A couple up my own questions and I have this long list of prep.

Dave [0:52:53]: But then I noticed really quickly once you get into a conversation because a good podcast is an actual conversation with someone not just sit back forth interview.

Dave [0:53:01]: I would end up throwing away all my notes because I then once you get into the flow with someone, you're not, so you're not so worried about, like, next question.

Dave [0:53:08]: Next question and I would have that to then, like, helped me come back to.

Dave [0:53:11]: And so if you're just starting out, I went over prepare.

Dave [0:53:14]: And then, obviously, it depends on the type of thing talking what david Send it's founder podcast before, that podcast is him doing hours of prep for someone for a guest interview or he's going through a book that you read.

Dave [0:53:27]: So that...

Dave [0:53:27]: That's gonna be different than this.

Dave [0:53:28]: Over crap really work backwards.

Dave [0:53:32]: Like what do you wanna get out of this episode?

Dave [0:53:34]: I think now because I've been doing it for, you know, over ten years or whatever.

Dave [0:53:38]: Like, I do just let it flow a little bit more.

Dave [0:53:40]: I have a sense of, like, what topic I wanna have, but I do know that the best conversations often are about the banter or not the, like, did he ask, Matt, the heart hitting question, and that's why people want listen and say you We do more of that.

Dave [0:53:52]: But now...

Dave [0:53:53]: And now we have a team.

Dave [0:53:54]: Right?

Dave [0:53:54]: So now, like, cup to five day now, Aaron everyone's writing all of our podcast notes.

Dave [0:53:58]: We work with Hatch, hatch dot fm behind the scenes.

Dave [0:54:02]: They do all the post production heading.

Dave [0:54:03]: So we have, like a team and a company that helps doing that, but you can be so successful with quite literally like, an idea in a microphone, and I started with in the engineer at our company at the time, like, hey he was a Dj and He gave you some, like, eighty dollar Usb mic.

Dave [0:54:19]: And then I just did all the editing in myself in Garage on my laptop, and that was like, go about you you find literally every creator we talking about J Class before.

Dave [0:54:28]: Like, he's blown up on Youtube.

Dave [0:54:29]: If you go look at his Youtube videos and you sort them, and you go about oldest this news.

Dave [0:54:33]: You look at his old videos.

Dave [0:54:34]: Like, They have no views.

Dave [0:54:36]: Everyone has started that way.

Dave [0:54:38]: And so I think there's so much learning along way.

Dave [0:54:40]: So if you're gonna just do a podcasts, I commit to doing it, not care so much about the setup and the technical stuff in the equipment, commit to doing it and know that you'll gain reps.

Dave [0:54:50]: I mean, that, you've been doing more video podcast stuff and it's been two years.

Dave [0:54:54]: Just now you're, like, interested in the lights invested in the planet.

Dave [0:54:57]: It's got a microphone.

Dave [0:54:58]: Like, there's no need to do that.

Dave [0:54:59]: Before you have anything now it's the time to do that.

Matt [0:55:03]: Yeah.

Matt [0:55:03]: Agree.

Matt [0:55:03]: Agreed.

Dave [0:55:05]: Okay, Matt, You...

Dave [0:55:06]: I'll let you...

Dave [0:55:06]: I'll let you wrap.

Dave [0:55:07]: We can wrap You can pick any final question.

Dave [0:55:09]: Yeah.

Dave [0:55:09]: Don't you ask.

Dave [0:55:10]: I mean, you could...

Dave [0:55:11]: You could just, like, use your brain and ask meanwhile in a fun question when my you know, favorite drake album of all time, most overrated rapper...

Matt [0:55:20]: No.

Matt [0:55:20]: I I think I got it.

Matt [0:55:22]: What's a Ge Christmas look like?

Matt [0:55:23]: You you said you're having some some family over tonight.

Matt [0:55:25]: So what does that?

Dave [0:55:26]: On paper, a Ge, Christmas would be no Christmas would be juice a bunch of dealers people eating Chinese food somewhere.

Dave [0:55:33]: But now that we have ko ming families married, my wife's family, Celebrate Christmas.

Dave [0:55:39]: And by the way, we we just been rolling for the last eight days On, we're rolling in at Christmas.

Dave [0:55:44]: We're hosting at our beautiful house in the woods here.

Dave [0:55:49]: We're hosting this year.

Dave [0:55:50]: My kids.

Dave [0:55:51]: There's no school everybody's already going bananas.

Dave [0:55:53]: What's happening over there?

Dave [0:55:54]: Like, when I hang up with you on this, I'm I'm putting in my laptop of away.

Dave [0:55:57]: I'm going.

Dave [0:55:57]: No.

Dave [0:55:58]: I hate.

Dave [0:55:59]: I hate that image of people slams a laptop shut

Matt [0:56:01]: till Monday.

Matt [0:56:02]: I hate that.

Dave [0:56:04]: Every that.

Matt [0:56:04]: I hate that.

Matt [0:56:04]: Done post that in and I hate that.

Dave [0:56:08]: Everybody's coming here.

Dave [0:56:08]: We got people coming here.

Dave [0:56:10]: We, the woods stove is burning where we have have around Tacos tonight just a little easy meal that everyone can we wanna low maintenance, you know, tomorrow so much cleaned up.

Dave [0:56:19]: And then everybody will be here tomorrow.

Dave [0:56:22]: We'll do the tri...

Dave [0:56:24]: We've have adopted the tradition for my wife's side of the family.

Dave [0:56:26]: Don't tell everybody.

Dave [0:56:27]: Please don't tell everybody still cancel me.

Dave [0:56:29]: But we are taking a holiday tradition of burning our trash on Christmas, which is, one of the most American maybe even Canadian and joyful experience is that we're just seeing a whole pie of just crap.

Dave [0:56:42]: That's probably so terrible for you to be inhale and just being e.

Dave [0:56:46]: It's just very very very heart one.

Dave [0:56:50]: Yeah.

Dave [0:56:50]: And we'll be here.

Dave [0:56:51]: It's...

Dave [0:56:52]: We're, you know, tomorrow tomorrow's at day We're, like, what's so fun about my kids now?

Dave [0:56:56]: It's like, I get to be a kid again tomorrow.

Dave [0:56:58]: It's the best.

Dave [0:56:59]: Big guy played their toys open their presents all day.

Dave [0:57:02]: What do you y'all doing?

Matt [0:57:03]: Beautiful.

Matt [0:57:03]: Yeah.

Matt [0:57:04]: No.

Matt [0:57:04]: So tonight, tonight go to my parents and in Italian culture on Christmas Eve Yeah.

Matt [0:57:09]: Fish shit.

Dave [0:57:10]: Oh, tonight.

Dave [0:57:11]: Nice the fishes.

Dave [0:57:12]: Right?

Dave [0:57:12]: This is the business snip of seven fishes?

Matt [0:57:15]: Seven fishes Exactly.

Matt [0:57:16]: Exactly.

Dave [0:57:17]: Wow wow.

Dave [0:57:17]: What's your strategy for, like, eating today?

Dave [0:57:19]: I it a normal eating day or you're trying to, like,

Matt [0:57:23]: So you can't eat meat today.

Matt [0:57:24]: That's...

Matt [0:57:24]: Supposed to eat meat.

Matt [0:57:25]: So I'm gonna...

Matt [0:57:26]: Yeah.

Matt [0:57:27]: So I'm gonna do...

Matt [0:57:28]: I don't know, something maybe eggs for lunch, something like that.

Matt [0:57:31]: And then the strategy is is go damn hungry, but you don't...

Matt [0:57:34]: You know You're, too hungry and you eat that one thing and

Dave [0:57:36]: your dude.

Dave [0:57:37]: I I do that on Thanksgiving and I can never...

Dave [0:57:39]: Like, I just don't have the thanksgiving stamina because I don't need, and then I, like, come out of gate so hot, and I'm like, oh.

Matt [0:57:45]: Yeah.

Matt [0:57:45]: Yeah.

Matt [0:57:46]: Exactly.

Matt [0:57:46]: Exactly.

Matt [0:57:47]: Know, I think mixing in a glass of wine that always always makes you a little little bit more hungry.

Matt [0:57:51]: Oh.

Matt [0:57:52]: This gets spot.

Matt [0:57:55]: Yeah.

Matt [0:57:56]: Mixing in a glass of wine, you're good to go.

Dave [0:57:59]: Alright.

Dave [0:57:59]: And like, what about gifts?

Dave [0:58:01]: You have, like, a...

Dave [0:58:02]: You have give gifts for your family for fiance.

Dave [0:58:05]: What's the plan?

Matt [0:58:07]: Yeah.

Matt [0:58:07]: So typically, every year, it's like, everyone gets each other a gift.

Matt [0:58:10]: But this year, we decide to do white elephant with our families, which is super cool because it's, like, you just have to get one gift for one person.

Matt [0:58:19]: Because, like, I don't know about you, but I found, like, I'm just buying things for the sake of buying things now.

Matt [0:58:24]: Like, I've been with my fiance for eleven years, and it's, like, I gotta buy gifts for her family and her eleven times.

Matt [0:58:31]: I guess, over time you're just buying people things that they don't need.

Matt [0:58:34]: Right?

Matt [0:58:34]: So it's, like, one gift to one person.

Matt [0:58:36]: There's an element to surprise in it.

Matt [0:58:38]: I'm really excited to do that for the first year of this.

Dave [0:58:40]: That's great.

Dave [0:58:40]: I'm happy free you.

Dave [0:58:41]: It's also way more environmentally friendly, you review dramatically reduced the carbon footprint with more with that.

Dave [0:58:47]: I'm very happy.

Dave [0:58:48]: Now, we do that.

Dave [0:58:49]: Lia, we've done that for a while now.

Dave [0:58:51]: Which is great.

Dave [0:58:51]: I didn't know how to name white elephant.

Dave [0:58:52]: It sounds like a song.

Dave [0:58:54]: We just get batch with someone.

Dave [0:58:57]: I always get me his brother.

Dave [0:58:58]: I'm a great gift give.

Dave [0:59:01]: I'm not a good gift receiver.

Matt [0:59:04]: Yeah.

Matt [0:59:04]: Get you stuff.

Dave [0:59:06]: Who do you have to give the gift to?

Dave [0:59:07]: In uncle, like a random mo.

Matt [0:59:09]: I can't see say a lot.

Matt [0:59:10]: Can't see

Dave [0:59:11]: say a lot.

Dave [0:59:11]: Okay.

Dave [0:59:12]: Alright.

Dave [0:59:13]: I means I'm getting something biased guys since really it's really exciting.

Dave [0:59:17]: You can't hit it.

Dave [0:59:18]: You can't sit.

Dave [0:59:19]: Yeah.

Dave [0:59:19]: Well, Matt, Thank you.

Dave [0:59:21]: Thanks for hanging out Thanks hanging it out on today's episode of dave's marketing radio.

Dave [0:59:25]: Show Life.

Dave [0:59:26]: It's david your heart podcast.

Dave [0:59:28]: How will we know if it's working Matt, People will tell us.

Dave [0:59:31]: Go to Linkedin follow Matt.

Dave [0:59:34]: Alright.

Dave [0:59:34]: This is the call to action for today.

Dave [0:59:35]: Matt.

Dave [0:59:36]: I'm gonna know, go find Mag, he'll be length the show notes here.

Dave [0:59:40]: Matt has timestamp this.

Dave [0:59:43]: The time to this recording, Matt has thirteen thousand seven hundred and twenty two followers.

Dave [0:59:47]: I'm like, damn, that's pretty good man.

Dave [0:59:49]: You got screwed yesterday.

Dave [0:59:50]: By the way.

Dave [0:59:50]: Sixty five comment.

Dave [0:59:51]: Did Like eleven comments on that carousel man and like come on.

Dave [0:59:54]: Let's come back and give my voice on up.

Dave [0:59:56]: Thirteen thousand seven in twenty two five.

Dave [0:59:57]: Just blow him up.

Dave [0:59:58]: I need more followers for Matt.

Dave [1:00:00]: What happens?

Dave [1:00:01]: What happens is Matt gets too famous.

Dave [1:00:03]: I don't know if that'll be great.

Dave [1:00:04]: I would love that happened.

Dave [1:00:05]: So with Blow mats with blow match followers, if I wanna check by January first, he's gonna have fifteen thousand followers.

Dave [1:00:11]: I don't think have.

Dave [1:00:12]: That kinda of match, but let's see.

Dave [1:00:14]: Otherwise, thank you for listening to the show.

Dave [1:00:16]: We got a lot more great stuff coming in January.

Dave [1:00:18]: Go check out Matt on Linkedin, at all the great stuff on exitfive.com and we'll see you later.

Dave [1:00:24]: Hey.

Dave [1:00:28]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Dave [1:00:30]: If you like this episode.

Dave [1:00:31]: You know what?

Dave [1:00:31]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.

Dave [1:00:36]: I have something better for you.

Dave [1:00:37]: So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at Exit Five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, go check it out right now on our website, exitfive.com.

Dave [1:00:49]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B marketing, and there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.

Dave [1:00:56]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community, People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing planning.

Dave [1:01:03]: Ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are so to have a peer group.

Dave [1:01:12]: Or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.

Dave [1:01:17]: It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.

Dave [1:01:26]: Go check it out, learn more exitfive.com, and I will see you over there in the community.

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