The New Rules of B2B Influencer Marketing with Chris Davis

[00:00:00] Chris: Just because you've got a million followers, yes, that is a benefit and it will continue to be a benefit, but it's not the only decider of how many people see your content now. So you can have a creator with a thousand followers. But their content will be seen by a million people because the content itself was great, whereas in in the past, that would never have happened.
[00:00:19] Mike: My name's Mike Lander and you are listening to Higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales, RFPs, negotiations, and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders. Ground leaders and procurement leaders, please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.
Chris, thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle, all the B2B sales for podcast. It's great to have you as a guest.
[00:00:48] Chris: Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:49] Mike: Yeah, we met via Emma.
[00:00:51] Chris: We did the famous Emma. Yes.
[00:00:53] Mike: Yeah, she's brilliant. I mean, she's really brilliant. And this isn't an advert, she's not sponsoring the show, but Emma and her team Beckon are really, really good on the kind of the whole marketing based prospecting and selling.
It's she's, yeah. Brilliant. Really, really good. So for the listeners, who are you? Chris, what do you do and what's your favorite song and why? I'm
[00:01:11] Chris: the UK managing director of Hype Tap. So Hype Tap is an influencer marketing agency We originally founded in Australia. And then the founder, Dutch, moved over to the UK about two and a half years ago, um, to establish sort of the, the UK and EU presence.
So I joined about four or five months ago, but I've been in the influence of marketing space for over 10 years now. I've set up and. Worked out and run various other influencer agencies, and I was introduced to Dutch last year and he kinda showed me under the hood of, of the business they've, they've built here, which is great.
So I was really excited to join because I feel like hype tap's quite a different proposition to what else is in the market in, in the influencer space in the uk.
[00:01:54] Mike: Okay. Perfect. Favorite song and why?
[00:01:57] Chris: Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot that. So as, as we were just discussing, I've had about six options up until now.
The night Crawl has pushed the feeling on. Do you know that
one?
[00:02:08] Mike: Oh, I don't know that. Oh, no, I do know that. I do know that. I do know that. Yes. Why
[00:02:14] Chris: so? It reminds me of my, it reminds me of my youth. I sound really old.
[00:02:18] Mike: Yeah, yeah,
[00:02:19] Chris: yeah. No, it reminds me of being younger. It was just one of those first songs that really got me into dance music, and I remember being in my car, dance music.
I remember being in my cousin's car listening to it. And I was like, what's this? And then it's just one of those songs that I cannot hear it for a long time, and then I'll hear it and it still evokes those same emotions, you know, whenever I hear it, if, if you're out. It's just, it's just a happy song. It's great.
And it's been remixed and used and sampled so many times. So
[00:02:47] Mike: it has, it's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant song. I used to go to bar mad. In London on a regular basis, which was a dance club. About 20 of us used to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Same sort of thing. Just lots of songs that remind me of those kind of.
Just like younger times. Not better, just different. But glad I've got those memories, like obviously you are as well. So let's get into questions, Chris. So let's start with something really simple and basic. Can you explain the influencer industry to our listeners? Kind of where did it come from, where's it going in B2C?
What are the implications for B2B in the coming years? Because everyone talks about influencer. I'm not sure we, including me all understand it properly.
[00:03:30] Chris: Yeah. So obviously I, I did know this question before we started, so I've, I've been thinking about exactly, and I was, I was thinking about how do I tell my, my family who don't work in the industry, what influencer marketing is, and maybe I don't use this term, but I kind of talk around this.
I, I like to refer to it as. It's word of mouth advertising really at its core and word of mouth. Advertising is the oldest form of advertising. You know, if you've got friends or someone that you, you, you hold their opinion in high regard and they tell you you should go and see this film, you are more likely to go and see that film because someone has recommended it to you.
[00:04:04] Mike: That's right.
[00:04:05] Chris: And influencer marketing. Is the modern word for something that's been going on for hundreds of years in terms of, you can look back and see. It depends what you, what you read, but there's like. Newspaper adverts where they were referring that the king likes this product and so they've attached the King's name to something.
So it's like endorsement, but it's just evolved and evolved and evolved. And then the world, the word influencer sort of came around around about 2014, and that denoted someone who had an audience predominantly on social media platforms that could then be used to influence people. Now the word influence is just in its very sort of essence.
Feels a bit nefarious, like to feel like you are influencing someone. Feels a bit misleading, doesn't it? But it's, that's where it, that's where it came from and I think the, it kind of really started on, on blogs and then sort of evolved into YouTube, and then YouTube then evolved into it, not obviously the platform itself, but then Instagram came along and then TikTok.
And so the platforms have all changed, but the premise of influencer marketing is still someone who has built an audience on one of these platforms, and then brands will pay them to. Almost endorse their product to the audience that follow or engage with them. And so as an influencer marketing agency, we would be the ones that would work with the brand.
We would help 'em devise a strategy, identify the audiences they're trying to reach, and then say, okay, these are the type of creators you should be working with if you want to reach these type of audiences. And in what would be guide them on creative or anything like that as well. So hopefully that's a, a simple enough way of, of summarizing but to go to your next point about where's it going in B2B and B2C
[00:05:43] Mike: and just before that, Chris, I'm assuming that this is a lot about trust.
The reason the influencer marketing works is back to your first point. If, if I know you and trust you and you know me and you recommend something, I'm likely to go. I trust Chris, so I'll, I'll at least investigate what he is recommended. And at his basic level, that's what we're talking about, isn't it?
You have to broadly trust the person, the influencer. In some way, shape, or form to be able to act on what they're saying.
[00:06:18] Chris: Exactly. The most overused phrase in influencer marketing is authenticity. And I think authenticity just implies trust, right? Like trust is the most important thing. Authenticity is, you know, people saying, oh, you need to be true to yourself.
And these kind of things. That's, that's all well and good, but if you are, I think fundamentally it comes down to if you are talking about a product. You don't really truly believe in it. That's, you're losing trust there. You're being authentic. Exactly. You're losing trust. You're being
[00:06:49] Mike: an authentic,
[00:06:50] Chris: exactly.
And it's the same way if like one of your friends did something like that, your opinion of their recommendation would deteriorate as well. So,
[00:06:58] Mike: and there are strict rules out there as well about influencers, about what they can and can't do on their platforms. I think that's changed as well, hasn't it in the last few years.
[00:07:05] Chris: It's constantly changing. Yeah. The compliance around influencer disclaiming content and paid for partnerships and gifted partnerships as well has completely evolved. So now it has to be clearly disclaimed that it's a hashtag ad hashtag spawn, which needs to be clear and visible. And there's just so many others, like it was HFSS, now it's called Unhealthy Food.
Is that right? The unhealthy. The less, the less healthy food that's now coming as well. But then again, compliance, we, we could talk about compliance a lot, couldn't we? 'cause there's conversations around how comes Oreo are allowed to advertise on Piccadilly Circus, but they're not allowed to advertise through a social platform, through a creator.
So there's, there's a lot going on with that
[00:07:42] Mike: and brands really care about it. The reason I mention it is brands really care about compliance and regulations because. Yeah, they, uh, because there are massive consequences, both reputationally but also legally for them. So if you don't know about governance and the legality of influencer marketing, then you probably shouldn't be in the space.
And that's your job is to advise them.
[00:08:02] Chris: Exactly, yes. And, and it's, it used to be that the, the brands were the only ones that are punished, but there's now been some regulations coming in that mean that creators can suffer some consequences as well now. So yeah, it is, it's a, it's a very hot topic as it should be, and yeah, you just need to really do your.
Due diligence before you, you, you get involved in something like that.
[00:08:20] Mike: And hence the need for an agency that understands influencer marketing. That's why brands would work within with an agency rather than going straight to an influencer.
[00:08:27] Chris: Yeah, exactly. And like we say, it's constantly changing. But then there's also the, one of the big things that I find, you know, people who have.
Sort of first dipping their toe into the water of, of this kind of medium is you are obviously working with human beings. You are not working with inventory. Inventory that is, you know, controlled and, and bought, and sold, traded. Whereas when you are working with human beings, you are working with human beings, you actually have lives as well.
So, you know, things do go wrong, things can go wrong. You know, certain creators that you work with might not have the experience that another creator would have. So you need to. Have more considerations about how you work with them and how you guide them. And you know, there'll be a lot of new creators that won't be as.
Hot on regulations and what needs to be disclaimed and how they disclaimed. So again, that comes down to the, ultimately the brand and the agency need to be able to hold their hand and, and have that conversation guide creators who maybe don't have that experience. It's a very manual job,
[00:09:23] Mike: but it won't be for long because AI, as we know, will have a big role in that because you can encode the regulations and you can coach young creators using ai.
And I imagine that industry is gonna change quite a lot in the next few years, I would've thought.
[00:09:40] Chris: Yeah, I think, I think with ev, as with every industry, how AI is used for genuine benefit is still quite up in the air. I think at Hype Tap we only use AI for helping support from a resource perspective and a productivity perspective.
We also have it built into our, into our technology as well. So we can do like. Visual recognition and speech to text and things like that, which means that it, it makes it easier for us to find creators because we can go in and be as granular as say, we can type Golden Retriever into our technology and it will find us the creators that are featuring golden retrievers in their content, which is obviously a huge benefit and is a big, big benefit to the team when we're, we're kind of on a time crunch and we need to find creators quickly.
[00:10:26] Mike: As opposed to the spreadsheet that we used to use.
[00:10:29] Chris: And manual and manual searching as well.
[00:10:31] Mike: And manual searching. Exactly. Which
[00:10:33] Chris: takes a long time.
[00:10:35] Mike: So I think people that are listening would go, yeah, recognize it in B2C, can see it in consumer brands, but what's the relevance to B2B and where's that going?
[00:10:45] Chris: Well, B2B I think is, I don't wanna say it's always sort of following B2C, but, but it, the crux of it, it's still very much the same job that we're trying to do. Right. You know, we're. Uh, we're trying to think from a customer per customer perspective. We're trying to find the customer where they are, and I think that the fine line that you need to tackle when you're moving into B2B is you need to be cognizant of not.
Pissing people off. Really. You're not, you don't wanna turn up in places where they don't wanna see you. Yes. Obviously a lot of people consider that, you know, I have my work life and I have my social life, and as a, as a B2B business, you wanna show up where your audience are. You want to be sort of like respectful and turn up at a time when they're willing to be spoken to.
So I think that would obviously then lean into using platforms like LinkedIn or maybe Reddit or somewhere that people go to where they are. Thinking about work or they're trying to educate themselves as something for work, that's where you go and you would find the creators in those spaces and those platforms.
That being said, we all still use Instagram, TikTok, Facebook for work purposes as well, and I know that I follow, like, you know, the perfect example for, for people in our industry, I'd say is Rob Mayhew,
[00:11:55] Mike: right? Yes, exactly. Yeah.
[00:11:56] Chris: Good example. He's a, he's a great example of, he's creating workplace fun, poking fun at, at kind of the agency world,
[00:12:04] Mike: but with real messages in it that actually everyone can go.
Oh yeah, I can see that.
[00:12:11] Chris: Exactly.
[00:12:11] Mike: Yeah, that does happen. Yeah,
[00:12:13] Chris: and I think I've seen Rob do some work with kind of like software businesses and things like that, people like businesses who are trying to reach those kind of agency decision makers, which is perfect. You know, you are reaching these people, they, they're engaging from a work perspective.
There's, there's an obvious contextual link between why would this software company be working with Rob and trying to reach that audience. But then I also think that the, the way that the platforms themselves have evolved as well. Like, we obviously think of all of these as social media, but if you think about the last few years, they, they're not really social media anymore.
Like Instagram and TikTok are now more entertainment platforms. Like I, I can't remember the last time I scrolled through and only saw my friends. I mean, I see a friend of mine once every. 10 swipes now. Now it's, it's the creators you follow, it's the the publisher pages that you follow. So it's really turned into that entertainment platform.
And so I think, you know, from a B2B point of view, what that then brings up is you're starting to. You're starting to see the different communities that develop and you like. The great thing about that is that you can find a creator for any kind of niche like Rob May is very niche, you know, he's a, he's creating humor around agency life that is a niche, very specific to those of us who work in the land and and agency world.
But if you're another brand and you are looking to reach entrepreneurs, there is a whole sway of entrepreneurs on. Instagram and TikTok now call it documenting their founder's journey, all of these kind of things. So if you are trying to reach SMEs and entrepreneurs, like I pronounce that quite funny, isn't I, entrepreneurs, the, the like, that you are gonna be able to find a creator that reaches the audience you are trying to reach.
So that's, that's one of the beauties of it. And I think that's constantly evolving and it's like we work with some brands that, that are really getting very niche with the, with the people they're trying to reach. And that makes our job more interesting in trying to find the creators. Reach that audience.
So I think for B2B, it is just about really understanding, as with any other way of marketing, understanding your customer, where are they showing up? Who are they listening to? And then engaging with those guys or people that look like them.
[00:14:18] Mike: And this is back to the niche thing I big believer in as a creator, as a solopreneur, now I need to be an inch wide and the mile deep.
[00:14:28] Chris: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Mike: The trick is making sure that that inch wide is, you can generate some money out of it, otherwise you starve to death. And that there's enough interest in that niche for people to go, yeah, okay, Mike's got a point of view on RFPs or procurement insights, whatever it might be. Uh, I'll follow him. And then eventually some brand would go, oh, well, we're trying to reach people that are interested in procurement and RFPs.
Oh, Mike's the influencer. Maybe that's in that space. Is what you're basically trying to get to, isn't that I expect.
[00:14:57] Chris: Exactly. And I think one of the things that, that I think gets forgotten as well is the reason that these creators and. I'd include yourself in this. Like the reason that that you are able to build an audience is that you are giving value to that audience and you're doing so for free on the whole, you know, you are, you are giving this value, so there's a reason that they're following you and there's a reason that you are building trust with them, which then makes you more valuable.
And there's one sort of like very nerdy thing that I like to talk about with, with influencer marketing is that there's this theory called Dunbar's number. Have you ever heard about this?
[00:15:29] Mike: No, I haven't heard of that. I'm always interested in a model and a, and a theory. Definitely.
[00:15:32] Chris: Yeah. This was a, an anthropologist called Mr.
Dunbar, I don't can't remember his first name. He did this study in the nineties and he was talking about how humans can only have 150 relationships and can only maintain 150 relationships in their brain. And that doesn't mean that, you know, you've got 150 best friends. This could be acquaintances, like a long, long standing.
And so what he said was. You can only have 150, but the interesting thing is that your brain can't distinguish between what's real and what's digital. So like this is another reason why influencer marketing has done so well, is because we build this trust and this relationship with, with people online, and our brain can't distinguish the difference between the two.
It really goes back to that word of mouth type things. Trust that you are building. It's almost like you, Mike, have hundreds and thousands of of friends that are listening to your comments. So that trust and that value, as you would with any friendship in real life needs to be established and grown over time.
[00:16:30] Mike: So, I mean, that's interesting because o, obviously I've got the podcast is what we're doing now. I started it out as I love the format and I like talking to interesting people, and I get to meet new people doing the podcast and I focused on a topic which is B2B, sales, negotiation, and procurement. I'm now at episode 127 or something and it's had like, I don't know, 48,000, 50,000 downloads, and it's a top five global podcast across all categories, and it's like I'm a very intentional person.
Normally. I didn't intend to do that. But there's clearly a bunch of people that trust in what I say, and the people that I bring on the show, and they know they're gonna get value from it and it's free. And they know each week when they show up, there'll be some practical advice for someone on something they're trying.
And that again, is what we're talking about. I'm building an audience through a medium that I happen to love around a particular niche topic, and it's about building trust with the audience. They only come back. 'cause they trust that the next person on is gonna be a good person and they're gonna fit with the values that I have.
[00:17:39] Chris: Yeah. This goes into kind of, I guess we could say where the, the negativity around influencer marketing comes from is that you tell your story there where you are talking about how you, you genuinely did it from a place of, of passion and
[00:17:53] Mike: Yeah.
[00:17:53] Chris: And interest.
[00:17:53] Mike: There's a real interest, just real fascination.
[00:17:56] Chris: And there was no intention to be. I wanna be an influencer. I wanna make money doing this. And I think when, when I started in the influencer space, I worked for a talent management company called Gleam, who were kind of like the first talent managers in the space who looked after influencers. And one of the things that we, I noticed in the six, seven years that I was there was starting out the talent that we represented.
Had all started from that point. Like there was no industry, no one knew what an influencer was. They'd all just started creating videos and YouTube videos in their bedroom and just sharing them online because that's what they did. All of a sudden, the audiences just grew and skyrocketed and this, and that's where this industry came from, is people with genuine passions.
Now I think you now hear a lot of sort of naysayers on the outside saying, oh look, everyone's in it just for a quick buck and things like that. And I think. The reason that there are theories like that is that when people saw that people could make a lot of money in this industry, a lot of people came into this industry, not with that genuine intent.
They've just come in because they want to make money. But I think you'll find, as you've just said, those people that come in and do that will clearly be found out eventually. And they do kind of fall, they do fall to the wayside. So it's,
[00:19:09] Mike: I've made nothing out the podcast. There's a reason I don't have advertising is not that I think it's bad, just because it, it doesn't really fit with me.
I, I don't, the listeners come to listen to the guest and I'm there to basically orchestrate the conversation, but therefore the, I haven't monetized the show. Now, in the future, there might be a way of doing that, I don't know, but I'm carrying along the journey. And so you're right. People think, oh, you know, people make all this money being an influencer.
And I'm like, nah, you gen. Unless you're Mr. Beast or someone, you genuinely don't.
[00:19:43] Chris: Yeah. It's only the top sort of,
[00:19:44] Mike: uh, the tiny percentage. Exactly.
[00:19:46] Chris: Yeah. Top 1%. And I think actually there was some stat, 'cause there was a stat that I used to roll out at Gleam back in the day, which was when Gleem started, or sorry, when we did this sort of presentations.
This was what, 20 17, 20 18. We were saying that. There was around about 300,000 people globally who would classify themselves as a creator. Whereas fast forward to a couple of years ago, that number's now in the multi multimillion. So there's multi multimillions of people who now classify themselves as a creator, and that's how they make their money.
Whereas if you look at the average income of a creator. It is well below how much you would need to earn in order to make that your, your primary earnings or primary living. I mean, well below minimum wage.
[00:20:32] Mike: Well, minimum wage, yeah.
[00:20:34] Chris: So it's, again, everyone talks about this being, you know, everyone's just out here making a quick buck and stuff.
It's really not, and it's a lot of hard work and dedication and commitment and,
[00:20:44] Mike: but very, very little income. I, I, I think you're right. I think 98%, 99% of influencers, they have to have another job. Because they can't rely on that to provide their primary income to support them and their family doesn't work.
[00:20:58] Chris: Exactly. And it's easy for me to sit on the, on the brand side with the agencies where we are kind of paying the creators, but from a creator's point of view, an individual creator, unless you are in that top 1%, that that brand revenue is not guaranteed and it's not consistent, you know, you, you might get one brand deal a year or if that.
You, you've gotta find other ways to monetize your, your audience or monetize your page. And so it's, it's not just a, when you are an an influencer, you're not just making money purely through brand deals. You make money elsewhere as well. So the, the ones that really do sustain and, and sort. Carry on for the longest time are the ones that find ways to keep that consistent level of revenue coming in and not having to rely on brand deals.
And then that kind of leads us into the interesting platforms at the moment, like Substack, which I'm fascinated by and I subscribed to quite a few people. But that is paid for content. It's, it is written form content. It does have imagery, video, and audio as well, but it's predominantly long form written content.
And so I subscribe to a few people and pay. Two, three pound a month to then subscribe to their content. And I really love Substack now. It's kind of my, my platform of choice. Yeah, it, it is great. But that again, goes back to, I guess you could go back to the old school of like where newspapers came from.
You'd pay for newspapers, you'd pay for opinions, and now Substack allowing that to be brought to the fore again.
[00:22:30] Mike: And give us a clue, Chris, just without, obviously don't reveal any names, you wouldn't. But broadly a brand deal with an influencer. Just kind of scale it. Typically, what's a brand? Typically playing for an influencer, don't take the extremes, but like, just like the norm.
[00:22:46] Chris: So as horrible and sorry to just completely defer this question. It, how long is a piece of string? It depends on
[00:22:54] Mike: creates. It, it, it really is massively massive variance.
[00:22:58] Chris: We still do tend to kind of use follower number and attribute value to the follower number. However, follower number is becoming less and less important because the way that the platforms themselves, predominantly the, the main platforms at Instagram and TikTok, the way that they are now surfacing content is more AI driven and it's more driven by the the individual piece of content itself.
So with TikTok, who kind of pioneered this. You upload a piece of content, they then expose that to a certain amount of people. If they engage with it, it then gets exposed to another amount of people, and so it's kind of built in virality. So I remember a friend of mine during the pandemic, she just uploaded one video to TikTok.
She'd never posted before. She didn't have an audience. She didn't have anyone following her. She uploaded to TikTok, and I think she got 140,000 views in the space of 24 hours on this recipe that she'd made. Now. Because TikTok have kind of led with that new form of content amplification. It doesn't matter how many followers you have, because if the content's great and everyone loves it, it's a real, it's a true content democracy now, and that's how you get the scale and you get that kind of virality.
So actually, just because you've got a million followers, yes, that is a benefit and it will continue to be a benefit, but it's not the only decider of how many people see your content now. So you can have a creator with a thousand followers. Their content will be seen by a million people because the content itself was great, whereas in, in the past, that would never have happened because it would've only been exposed to your followers, so you would've been maxed out at a thousand people.
So it is really interesting how that the algorithms have evolved and how content distribution has evolved as well.
[00:24:37] Mike: So, contents of time, just in kinda like two or three minutes, just tell the story about, talk about your experience on LinkedIn. About writing, thought leadership content on cutting edge topics, kind of, you know, what did you learn?
So why did you do it? What was it? What did you learn? And how do you balance the reader's immediate need with a longer term ambition? Just 'cause obviously thought leadership's becoming a big topic again. My God, I used to do this in the 1990s. It was a big topic. Then it's come back again. I've just written a big piece of thought leadership and it's worked.
It's done what I wanted, but just talk about your experience and what did you learn?
[00:25:14] Chris: So I, I started posting on LinkedIn consistently last year. I was working with a business that we were, we were starting from scratch. We were trying to, the product was quite a forward thinking product in terms of it. We felt like it was the evolution of influencer.
It was around about brands creating their own IP on social media, and then almost becoming the producers themselves. And I still believe that's the future and, and the business is still going, but we obviously had no marketing budget. We were brand new. And so we had to find ways to, to kind of get our viewpoint and our thoughts out there.
So LinkedIn was the, the primary way we could do that. And so to do that, I was talking about this. This kind of, I guess you could say, quite new idea. I was doing it more out of what interested me and what I found interesting. I wasn't really selling anything. I wasn't really pushing the business or the product.
I mean, I wa I was, because I was talking about the theory behind why we were doing what we were doing, but I was more writing because I found it interesting and, and I found what I was writing. Interesting. And then this was last year before the algorithm changed on LinkedIn and. A few of my posts went, I guess you could call them semi viral.
Loads of likes, loads of views, quite a few comments, some conversation below. It was great and I thought, oh, this is working. It's really, really good. But I wasn't getting the conversations with the brands that I was looking for, and I had to have a think about it. 'cause I was like, but. I thought that's all you did.
You just wrote content online and you put it out there and then people come to you and it's great. And that's that kind
[00:26:41] Mike: of, yeah. And then they go, all Can I talk to you about it?
[00:26:43] Chris: Exactly. And it wasn't the case. It wasn't until I started being a bit more specific and methodical about what I was saying, that things started to change and I, you know.
Had a few leads through it and things like that.
[00:26:57] Mike: So what did you do, Chris, in that moment? What did you change to go from people going, this is interesting to, I'd like to talk to you.
[00:27:07] Chris: So I had a lot of conversations with, with brands that we were talking to at the time, and I started to notice the patterns in what their challenges actually were.
And I think the way that we were talking about the product wasn't addressing the challenges they had right now. They were all saying, this is a great idea. We love the, we love the premise, we love where, where the thinking is going. But that's a end of, this was last year. So this, they were saying this is an end of 2026 conversation.
So I was like, hmm, right, but what are the actual challenges you have at the moment? So I started to then hone in on those and I started to write content around the challenges they actually had at this present time. I was on a podcast last year with Patrick Ryan. I dunno if you know Patrick. He's the ex CCO of PhD, I believe.
And when I, when I was talking about that at the time, he was saying, and this has always stuck with me, is that we were, I was trying to sell clients a Bentley when all they actually wanted was a secondhand Volkswagen. It was like that really changed the way that I thought about it in that yes, I wanna be selling this Bentley.
I wanna be selling this, you know, million, million pound deal that has all these bells and whistles. That's fantastic for various different reasons, but actually what they need is a secondhand Volkswagen to get 'em to and from work and they don't want to spend a million pounds on a car. And that was then really got me thinking differently.
I tweaked the way that was writing content and actually the engagement and the, and the comments and the, and the likes actually dropped. But what I got out of it was a few more dms, a few more conversations that actually had a real intent to them. But then it is evolved even further from that where. I started to get a bit disillusioned with LinkedIn because I was spending quite a lot of time over my posts and really thinking about what I was gonna say and things like that.
And I just started to see the amount of content increase and the amount of AI written content increase. It kind of put me off a little bit in terms of it felt like the noise was increasing and so the, the ability to cut through had changed. So I kind of stepped back from the platform. And since I've been at Hype Up, we've been focusing more on the, on the brand marketing strategy and the business.
I am intending to get back into LinkedIn, but I need to really think about it again now because I really, first of all, we wanna make sure that we're doing it around customer challenges, and I wanna actually be adding value to the people that actually read my posts. But I also need to be cognizant of this new AI driven world and how do we cut through?
But at the moment, the focus is on the business and making sure that we get the messaging correct there before I then start to think, okay, what's my individual strategy and what do I wanna be saying? That ties into what we are saying as a business. So it is interesting and I've got a bit of a love hate relationship with LinkedIn.
I've gotta be honest.
[00:29:51] Mike: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people do.
[00:29:53] Chris: I think I'm, I'm gonna be coming back soon, but it's just, I just really need to think about how do I attack it this time?
[00:30:00] Mike: So as a live, kind of like mini micro case study, last year, December, I wrote an a, an article, a long form article about what I thought was gonna be the agency reset in 2026.
I read. Half a dozen different, very well referenced third party reports. And I pulled that all together with my thinking observations and working with chat GPT as a kind of co-writer for like six weeks. And I produced this report called The Marketing Agency Reset 2026. Anyone listening wants it, then just message me.
But that's all about, basically we now are at a position whereby, um, time-based commercial models are dead. So this year, if you don't get your head around that as an agency, you won't die this year, but it'll be a death of a of a thousand cuts over time. Clients will just stop engaging with you. You have to change it towards outputs and outcomes, and I explain a way of doing that and all the research behind it.
I've had more requests via comment on the post I've written for that report in the last two weeks of all the comments I had last year. So I've had close to probably nearly a hundred people asking for it last year. I probably got a hundred comments or less over the entire year. So I'm thinking as a live case study, that's a success story.
However, no one has said, could we have a follow up meeting to discuss this, which is interesting. To your point, I didn't write it to generate work. I wrote it because it was important to me and I thought important to the industry, so it served its purpose, but I can't do that forever and make no money because the family starves.
So I'm missing something about, well, how do you get people to go? And actually, I need to talk to you about it. I think it's because it's too big, Chris. It's like, whoa, I've gotta change my entire commercial model. That's an enormous elephant to eat. They want the first bite, to your point, they want the beaten up whole Volvo, not the Bentley.
[00:32:10] Chris: Exactly. I think what you've, you just said there is that, I think that's where LinkedIn strategy really comes in, isn't it? You know, the, the whole message that you're trying to say, but how do you break that down into courses? Exactly. Not literal courses,
[00:32:26] Mike: workshops, whatever it might be. Yeah,
[00:32:28] Chris: yeah. By size
[00:32:29] Mike: chunks.
[00:32:30] Chris: How do you tackle 0.1 before you progress onto 0.2, 0.3? And I think that's where the strategy comes in, right?
[00:32:37] Mike: So maybe we should have a follow up conversation offline about our learning together.
[00:32:42] Chris: Yeah,
[00:32:43] Mike: actually how do you do that? That could be quite interesting. So Chris, it's been fascinating. Thank you.
Really fascinating. What are your kind of top three tips? And if you think about it from the perspective of, you know, someone's listening in the car, their an agency leader may be, or they're running a professional services firm and they're thinking about thought leadership and about content and about. O being an influencer, what are your kind of couple of tips for how to approach it and how to make it a success?
[00:33:11] Chris: Well, in terms of being an influencer, I dunno if I can give the advice on that because I, I, I certainly am not one of those. But,
[00:33:17] Mike: or actually turn it around. Chris, what advice would you give to people, to suppliers whereby, what are brands looking for? What do brands, what are brands really interested in?
'cause that's what you do every day.
[00:33:27] Chris: Yeah, so I think the, the main things are. I think even from when I started my career 15 plus years ago, the way that we sell has changed quite a lot. I think in terms of now it's much more evade. It always has been a long-term game, but it's more about what value are we giving to someone else in order to establish that relationship.
If I think about the longest standing client relationships that I've got, they started out not with like a, a booking or. Yep. A job coming in. It was more through conversation and then how can I help? How can I share? And to be honest, that part was quite easy at the beginning because influencer, when I was, and I'm thinking more to my time in influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing was very. Early it, it was a, it was a whole new world and I had more experience than most in that space. So it was something that I could just come in and kind of, not consult, but have conversations and be like, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? This, this is how it generally tries to type, like this is how it generally works.
So very much establishing that value first and making sure that the other person sees that I. You are offering value without expecting anything in return, and I think that is one thing that's really important, and I think that that goes down to the world of influence as well. As we were saying earlier, when you're creating content, you're creating content without any kind of ulterior motive,
[00:34:48] Mike: direct commercial intent.
Exactly. You're writing because it's interesting and valuable.
[00:34:52] Chris: Other steps in terms of creating content and things like that. Just consistency is important. I found that last year when I was in a consistent flow. Everything became easier and you become more disciplined. And actually you'd be writing something and you go, oh, that's another idea.
I can turn that into a post. And I found that just the process of doing it made life much easier. And I'm finding that now where I've taken time out of LinkedIn, thought of getting back into it, is quite daunting. And I know I need to eat that elephant like you say. But I know once I get going again, that consistency will start to grow again.
And so, yeah, I, I, I would say that my, my main things are offering value and kind of building that relationship, building that trust without any kind of ulterior motive is, is the primary recommendation. I do.
[00:35:37] Mike: And I think also the thing I'd add is it's a long-term game. If you are not in it for the long term, don't bother because you won't, you won't cut through in three months.
[00:35:46] Chris: It's, it's one of those things, isn't it? Like where you, you know, we've all worked at businesses where. Let's just say you're in Q4. You are not looking like you're hit the dog. Exactly. Where? Where's this money gonna come from? Yeah. And it's like, oh, right. I
[00:35:58] Mike: hit the phones harder, guys.
[00:36:00] Chris: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Call more people. Yeah, call people.
[00:36:03] Mike: People. That'll help annoy. Annoy more people. It'll really help.
[00:36:06] Chris: Yeah, exactly.
[00:36:08] Mike: Send out more emails, use AI to personalize on a mass basis.
[00:36:13] Chris: Yeah.
[00:36:14] Mike: And we'll just cut through. Oh yeah. That's not worked. Yeah. Okay.
[00:36:20] Chris: Everything, everything is like, one thing that one of my old bosses always used to say is, if you're not hitting target now, that's 'cause you didn't do it in, you didn't do it six months ago.
Like
[00:36:28] Mike: I say, that's all the, all the salespeople that I coach and the sales leaders. I say if you've got a problem in the next eight weeks and you are gonna get fired if you don't hit your number in the next eight weeks, you may as well pack your bags now. 'cause you may hit it, it's possible. But it's highly unlikely you'll go from zero to hero in eight weeks and land half a million of work.
It's so unlikely.
[00:36:52] Chris: It's so true. And it's, you can see the indicators as well, can't you? And like, it's like at the moment where we're. Where we're kind of launching our whole new positioning and marketing strategy and everything from the beginning of this year, and at the moment it feels like we're doing a huge amount of work and we're not getting anything from it, but we have to keep reminding ourselves, we're not doing this for now, we're doing this for six months time.
A year's time. Exactly.
[00:37:15] Mike: You are filling the pipeline for the end of this year and beginning of next year.
[00:37:19] Chris: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:37:21] Mike: And you've got, you've just gotta be prepared to invest and stick with something that's working. Chris, it's been amazing. Thank you ever so much indeed for joining me. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:37:32] Chris: Well prepare yourselves on LinkedIn. I'm coming back.
[00:37:35] Mike: Yes, exactly.
[00:37:36] Chris: Yeah, so there's that hype tap. So, uh, the hype up website's, hype tap.com, and you can follow us on LinkedIn as well, on socials. And again, you'll be seeing more from us. We've got an event coming up. So yeah, predominantly LinkedIn, I'd say.
[00:37:48] Mike: Perfect. Chris, thanks. It's been a real pleasure.
[00:37:51] Chris: Thanks for having me, Mike.
[00:37:52] Mike: Thanks for listening to Higgle the B2B Sales Club podcast series with your host Mike Lander. Please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next episodes.