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Transcript

Jess Phillips (00:01.551)
guys welcome back to the social standard podcast my guest today is Karina Owen she is a chief brand evangelist for purple cork and we are gonna get down into the weeds on what it means to be an evangelist what this trend is and what you need to know so Karina what’s up and welcome

Corrina Owens (00:16.254)
Hey Jess, thanks so much for having me on. I’m a huge fan of your podcast. So it’s just such a treat for me to be able to join.

Jess Phillips (00:20.855)
Yeah, that’s so awesome. I’m glad to hear it. And as I alluded, I want to talk all about like what it means to be an evangelist. So before we do that, just tell me a little bit about like, how did you become an evangelist for Purple Quark?

Corrina Owens (01:37.954)
Yes, so it’s a great story. I work for Purple Cork. We’re a virtual experience solution. So we curate very specialized experiences for vineyards across the world that you need exclusive access to for B2B audiences. And I actually was Purple Cork’s second customer. So three years ago when she launched during 2020, so the height of when everything was beginning to go digital, I was her second customer right behind Sixth Sense, if you’re familiar with Sixth Sense. And…

Jess Phillips (02:03.783)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (02:06.702)
I have just been a fan ever since. So I was probably one of her most raving fans for what she offers. And so I have been taking her, of course, with me from company to company, putting her into all our programs, putting Purple Cork into all our programs. But then I’ve also just been the dark social. I’ve been talking to my peers and advising them on who should they select for these types of experiences. And so I’ve been evangelizing her just organically for a while. And so she came at a point where she was really needing to, she was experiencing hyper growth.

And she reached out to me and we talked about what a collaboration could look like and it ended up turning into really a full-time position. So it’s really just a great strategy that she deployed to think about, hey, how can I take my best fit customer and utilize them full-time?

Jess Phillips (02:48.475)
Super smart. Wow. Okay. I want to get into that in a lot of detail shortly. But before we do that, let’s just since you are an evangelist, tell me like what does it mean to be an evangelist in 2023?

Corrina Owens (03:02.646)
Yeah, I think for B2B especially, it’s going to look quite a bit different than maybe what people would typically consider. My role, like I sit within the marketing C-suite, right? But I’m of course involved in sales efforts. I’m involved heavily in operations, pricing, positioning and packaging, like that all falls under me too and my work with our co-founder. But it’s just encompassing of how can we best get our message out to the market. And I’m really kind of a channel essentially, is how I think that most founders could think about.

what is an evangelist going to be? So you could have an internal subject matter expert, so SMEs, like that could be how you see an evangelist, how you leverage third-party research firms, you could see that as an evangelist, especially if your category is really new, and maybe those things like garden and quarts and stone exist for you, and you wanna be seen with more of that enterprise audience, that’s how you could be thinking about an evangelist. But I think it looks different from company to company, but certainly all those different types of roles and responsibilities I described could fall under what an evangelist would do.

Jess Phillips (04:01.735)
Okay, that makes a little bit more sense to me because I had mentioned this earlier, but before we had got connected, I did a search on LinkedIn and just for the word evangelist. And there were like 24,000 people that have evangelists in their title somewhere. And I thought, how? How?

How is that possible that so many people could have that? Now, I think there are definitely going to be some that have a religious bend, which we can kind of, even if you omit those, let’s say half of them are that. So 12,000 people, that’s still quite a lot. And this is just in the U S so, you know, to me that, that smells like a trend a little bit. And I also think that if you look at, if you look a little bit deeper,

Corrina Owens (04:20.651)
Right.

Jess Phillips (04:38.979)
I’m guessing that there are a lot of people who are evangelists that don’t necessarily have that in their title. So I think probably one of the best examples I have right now is Salesforce. They had been in the press recently paying Matthew McConaughey, like $10 million to, you know, to be an ambassador for them. And really he’s kind of an evangelist in a lot of ways, right?

Corrina Owens (04:53.623)
Right.

Corrina Owens (04:58.75)
You’re spot on. I think even to LinkedIn recently, they’re not, I don’t think they’re calling him that, but God, what is the rapper? No, no, Snoop Dogg. They actually brought on, yeah. They brought him on. I started seeing him all over LinkedIn. That’s where I pretty much spent all my time creating content. And I was like, oh, smart. Okay, they’re taking a celebrity. I mean, the play in, I’ll be curious to see how that plays out because I don’t know how targeted that.

Jess Phillips (05:07.792)
Oh, Snoop Dogg, yeah.

Jess Phillips (05:13.755)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (05:22.766)
approach is, right? Like how targeted is that audience other than just being like a Matthew McConaughey figurehead, right? But yeah, I think that’s the goal. I think that also like influencers, right? That’s certainly a different way to look at it too. But I think the ideal should be that you’re really… So I talked about before how like she brought on her best fit customer, me. That’s how I think you should really look at it. Especially when you’re thinking about startups and more niche industries, like you really want to highlight…

Jess Phillips (05:27.899)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (05:49.602)
who is your core customer, who are your subject matter experts, and it’s not gonna be these celebrities. Maybe that’s going to draw an initial attention, but it’s certainly not gonna help you scale quickly.

Jess Phillips (05:59.275)
Yeah, but you know, I think that probably applies not just to small companies, but to big companies as well, right? Looking at your, what they call ICP, right? Your ideal customer profile, who is that and who embodies it? And I think what’s so interesting is this is exactly what we do in B2C influencer marketing, right? You come out, who is your target audience? Who looks like them? Who acts like them? Who is in that conversation naturally? Where are they in? Like, how do you then take your product and insert it? It’s really, it’s really no different, right? The only, I think the main,

Corrina Owens (06:06.434)
Yep. Yeah.

Corrina Owens (06:28.354)
Right.

Jess Phillips (06:29.189)
main difference if I’m understanding it properly is that evangelists are paid by the company as like a salaried position or some sort of like consulting like long-term fee almost like an ambassador

Corrina Owens (06:43.238)
Yeah, and I certainly know that a lot of titles for like B2B influencer marketing, you will see on LinkedIn profiles that they have something like brand ambassador or brand evangelist. And that’s not typically a full-time role. It typically is like a consulting engagement of some kind. But the chief evangelist is what from what I’m seeing the market that certainly does indicate that that’s a full-time C-suite position.

Jess Phillips (07:03.683)
Yeah, and I’ve seen that too. I know Canva has a chief evangelist. That was probably one of the larger brands that I had seen that had them. And I know Adobe is a client of ours. They also have several evangelists or people with evangelists in their title. And I do think it’s smart because you need people. You’re not gonna have.

Like, does Canva have a huge sales force, a huge sales team? And I don’t know, maybe they do, right? But to have someone who’s out in a public facing, who’s public facing, can draw a crowd, has real influence, and is not the CEO.

Corrina Owens (07:26.995)
Mm-hmm.

Corrina Owens (07:35.506)
Right, exactly. I think too, you know, my former company was Gong, if you’re familiar with them, and our former CMO, so our first CMO, he transitioned from being a CMO to actually the chief evangelist, and we brought on a new CMO to be more operational. So I think that it depends too, you know, the stage you’re at with your company, right? We do have, they do have a pretty decent sales force, but they didn’t want to completely lose that.

Jess Phillips (07:40.017)
Yes.

Corrina Owens (08:00.194)
brand integrity because he helped build the brand. He knows the audience inside and out. He’s built all those relationships, but he didn’t want to necessarily follow the trajectory of what a CMO path would look like. So they just transitioned him to be an evangelist. And that’s because he does embody what an ICP would, you know, talk about. That’s his audience, that’s his network. And that’s his way to keep being with the company.

Jess Phillips (08:20.391)
That’s so interesting. So it’s a little bit CMO, a little bit salesperson, a little bit business development, really.

Corrina Owens (08:29.686)
Yeah, I would say that it’s pretty important that you do have some sales acumen to be in this role because I’m constantly interfacing with clients and prospects and forecasting our pipeline. You know, and I’m lucky that I made sure that was something that I developed in my career, that I was in all forecasting calls and pipeline meetings, et cetera. So I feel really confident. I’ve even been a quota carrier before, so I feel very confident to do that. And I think it’s a necessary skill. I do think that.

you need to not only know how to communicate a message, but how to deliver that message and pivot based on what the client is asking of you.

Jess Phillips (09:04.431)
Yeah, and that makes perfect sense. Anyone who’s at the C level should be able to do that. Right? Yeah. I mean, I think that, but to me that’s so interesting because if you think about like what…

Corrina Owens (09:09.886)
Oh great, fair, yeah.

Jess Phillips (09:16.647)
Hmm. I guess the way that I naturally sort of go with that is like, okay sure an evangelist a chief evangelist Let’s work on the fact that this is someone who is Showed up they’re showing up. They are an employee every single day at the company And they are an external evangelist because I know that there are internal and external ones as well, but they’re an external evangelist like What what is that?

job look like? Like how do you write a job description for that? What could, what should you expect of someone who is going to be your chief evangelist officer?

Corrina Owens (09:43.082)
Ha ha ha.

Corrina Owens (09:49.438)
Yeah, I think it’s very important to designate between the two rights. Because for a long time, in an informal way, I was acting like an evangelist for this brand. And I serve as a formal evangelist for other brands, too. And there is a difference. I think that when I’m working externally and I’m not on payroll, I’m not going to be able to do that.

I’m not necessarily always embedded into what does the pipeline look like, what does the forecast look like, what is our process, what are our new product development releases. I’m kind of on the back end of that. I think when you bring somebody in internally, they really need to have a ton of business acumen to know like, okay, how are we going to help grow this business, how are we gonna take it from X to Z? What are the crucial operational elements too that we need to be considering? What are the channels that we need to be focusing on and double downing on? How are we going to need, I talked about positioning earlier,

to grow to that. So that’s like marketing and product marketing specifically. So it’s very much, I hate the saying, but it’s really very much like a jack of all trades or a unicorn, right? Like you have to have a lot of entrepreneurial skill sets to be able to step into this role because it’s going to evolve beyond just being kind of like a spokesperson, which is what I would say external brand ambassadors are typically tasked with doing is to just push out a message, but there’s so much more that goes when you’re actually in the company, right?

but you’re actually refining it and you’re actually implementing strategies to help grow and scale the business.

Jess Phillips (11:13.507)
I mean, that almost sounds like a CEO, right?

Corrina Owens (11:17.566)
Well, I do say that I’m very lucky that I feel like I’m writing shotgun here with our CEO, right? Like I’m like her right hand. We’re constantly in meetings talking about how we’re going to grow the business. What is it going to look like not just now, but what is it going to look like in five years, maybe 10 years? And it involves like all aspects of marketing. And I do think that when I’ve stepped into, because I’ve been working predominantly in SaaS my whole career.

I do think that when I’ve stepped into organizations, especially when I’ve had such a direct line to the CEO, that’s what I found to be lacking as a skillset is, okay, how are we going to market ourselves? How are we gonna position ourselves? And then how are we going to do that from stage to stage? Because many of these early startups don’t hire.

a chief marketing officer to their staff for quite some time. I won’t see for many A, B companies, series A, series B, I don’t see them have a chief marketing officer. They might have a director or even just a marketing manager, but that level of seniority is typically not seen. So that skillset that you have after working decades in an industry, specifically in marketing, really is complimentary to be right side by side as a CEO.

Jess Phillips (12:26.011)
Hmm, that’s interesting. And that makes sense, I think, for smaller businesses, right? So is that maybe, is that the differentiation then? If you are an evangelist of some sort for a small to medium-sized business, you are up there partnering on go-to-market, on product, kind of that jack-of-all-trades role. But as you then look at larger companies, like a Salesforce, like a Canva, like an Adobe, those guys, you’re not going to get that direct level with the CEO.

Corrina Owens (12:32.504)
for sure.

Jess Phillips (12:56.285)
or even the CMO potentially. So they are likely leveraging evangelists more as external-facing spokesmen and women. Spokespeople.

Corrina Owens (13:04.558)
Spokespeople. Yeah, I would say, I mean, I think that the best examples you described would probably be Adobe and Salesforce. I think there’s probably a lot more division with the C-suite there, but I would think Canva, like I would think that Chief Evangelist is side by side with the CMO, if not the CEO as well, because it’s so much about managing that subject matter expert to be the brand, essentially, right, like they’re becoming the brand, and that’s what makes influencer marketing today just so important because, you know.

Jess Phillips (13:11.194)
Okay.

Jess Phillips (13:24.059)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (13:32.042)
We can’t be everywhere at once. We can’t optimize every channel to the fullest. So, you know, especially in the age two of AI, you know, content’s gonna really start to become really commoditized. And what’s gonna really matter is the relationships that you have and the relationships that people within your company have with your key, you know, stakeholders that you want to sell business to. So I think that it’s a very new role and there’s a lot that I think can be

can be done to maybe formalize it a bit more to make it more accessible. But I do think that marketers who are looking to level up their career are really, really well suited to step into a role like this, maybe then the introductory path to CMO.

Jess Phillips (14:13.179)
Yes, I love that. I think that’s so smart. And I love that you brought up the AI component because I do think that that, I mean, that’s huge. We see that on our end as well, right? We have a whole sort of LinkedIn strategy. We do a lot of things. We do the podcast, hello. And all of these sort of like…

Corrina Owens (14:24.834)
Hehehe

Jess Phillips (14:28.647)
Like we want to, you know, we want to pull people in instead of pushing our message out necessarily. And that is that’s a requirement of every single business now. And I think that we’re seeing that from the startups in the SAS and the Martech space, especially are leading the way. Right. And then I think that we’re going to continue to see these guys build bridges so that larger companies can go in and figure that out.

Corrina Owens (14:36.423)
Mm-hmm.

Corrina Owens (14:48.45)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (14:49.199)
Wow, super interesting stuff though. I mean, it just, I can’t get over the parallels that you draw from, you know, so many traditional marketing like ways, like influencer marketing ambassadors, or even look at like, you know, I just saw an ad that Serena Williams had done for Lincoln.

Corrina Owens (15:05.762)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (15:05.859)
Right? That’s also the same. Like she embodies what they were going after. And they kind of show her and her lifestyle there. So obviously the evangelists aren’t necessarily in the ads per se, but it just feels so similar. So, you know, that and you couple, I think also with the fact that everybody, every business is now needs a face and a personal, some sort of personalization. And so I just almost wonder if the chief evangelist officer or, you know, whatever the title ultimately is, this evangelist role.

Corrina Owens (15:10.701)
Mm.

Corrina Owens (15:33.966)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (15:34.419)
isn’t just humanizing the brand in another way.

Corrina Owens (15:38.486)
Yeah, I think it’s a modern look on what should marketing look like? How should it be utilized? You know, I think that for, you know, so many SaaS companies and tech companies, it’s you’re in spreadsheets, right? You’re you’re crunching out like conversions for, you know, X dollar to this conversion. And you’re losing that relationship aspect. I mean, there’s so many organizations that I walk into and there’s nobody on the marketing team, no matter the size, that has maybe ever spoken directly with a customer. And it just blows my mind.

And it’s just because that’s not what traditionally marketers are set up to do these days. They’re just set up to kind of be hands on keyboards, pushing out ads and pushing out emails, but that actual interaction and relationship with your audience, typically is just happening with sales, but it shouldn’t be, right? Like that should serve a particular purpose. So I do think that probably will continue to be the future again, especially as things become more heavily reliant on.

using AI to solve for so many of these things that marketers have been typically tasked with.

Jess Phillips (16:38.531)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I like that, though. I think I always see AI as a tool, not a replacement feature. And so I do believe that there’s a lot that we can do with AI to free people up, but then to free people up on these sort of administrative tasks, which don’t really truly add any value. Like, what’s your value, you know, as a person to a company? It’s your ability to be a person. Right. And so to be to be a person with other people and so to figure out those connections and focus your time and effort on the relationships, I think is really

Corrina Owens (16:59.987)
Exactly.

Jess Phillips (17:08.195)
Really wise. And so, gosh, this makes me very excited about the evangelist role. I just, I wonder what, I wonder where we are in the cycle of evangelism, right? It seems like we’re early days still, but I’m gonna be very curious to see how the likes of these larger brands start to adapt these sort of roles. I mean, is there anyone big or small besides yourself that you think is doing a really good job leveraging one or many evangelists?

Corrina Owens (17:09.374)
Yes, 100%.

Corrina Owens (17:16.117)
Mm-hmm.

Corrina Owens (17:26.347)
Right.

Corrina Owens (17:35.326)
Yeah, I mean, I was very impressed with my former company, Gong, actually taking that approach with our CMO, because again, he built the company from the ground up. Excuse me. He built the ground up with the CEO. So he was completely embedded with what the brand is, the future of it, where is it going, who are our customers and who are our must have customers. And he can eloquently speak to that across, you know, speaking circuits and with clients. So it made perfect sense for the evolution for his trajectory at Gong.

to pivot maybe from CMO to do something that he was best suited to do, right? Which is to be that relationship arm and not be so in the weeds with growing a marketing team to your point that is still very much in the weeds, right? Doing a lot of administrative tasks, you know, pay per click, managing agencies, et cetera. Like, is that the best use of your time? Probably not, if you’re already at a stage where, you know, you’re well known as a brand and you’re hoping to expand it and to get into maybe the sales forces of the world.

And then I think too, you know, I’m excited for these smaller companies who have kind of really already taken a really good look at what should our marketing influencing spend and program look like. I’m really excited for them to start to see like, okay, how can I move beyond maybe bringing these individuals on as advisors and maybe actually incorporate them more into, you know, a W-2 environment? I think something that set me up really well too for this kind of career trajectory was

even though I always maintain my marketing roles as a W2 employee, I was always working in some capacity as an advisor for different tech firms. And that allowed me to get in the door. And I did have some, or do have stake at some of these companies too, but it’s not a full-time position. So it’s just a unique way to think about, hey, what does income look like for me these days? And I think with everybody kind of pivoting from, or most companies, I do see pivoting, doing lots of layoffs.

not wanting to hire on these super expensive marketers that are 10 year and really costly, they are looking at, okay, what does a model look like where I’m actually bringing in house, the voice of the customer, our best brand ambassadors, what does that look like to actually have them full time to advise us on product launches or strategy or positioning, getting our word out there, versus maybe a more traditional marketing setup that just seems to be a little bit dated for today’s environment.

Jess Phillips (19:54.524)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that really echoes, I think, what we have seen in the last couple of years, especially in and around COVID, where you have a lot of these platforms where you can go and just hire someone like a fiver. For example, you could hire a great dev to come in and help you do five or six things, and they’re an expertise, and then that’s perfect. You pay them, and then they can move on. You can do it with a copywriter. You can do it with a PowerPoint expert, whoever it is. You get to tap into all of these great, these people with great skills, great skillsets, great minds, great creativity.

but without the need to pay what it would take to get 100% of their time, especially when you probably don’t need it, realistically, right?

Corrina Owens (20:31.787)
Right.

100%, exactly. You don’t really need 100% of their time, right? I mean, these creators, like, they know how to budget their time. They know how to prioritize. They know how to get you what they know is going to help convert at the highest rate for you. So yeah, it really frees up a lot of budget, a lot of constraints, a lot of time. And it gives people, I think, the flexibility most people would really want, which is to really have more control and more ownership, but maybe not own their own business, right? So that’s a way that you can be a self-starter,

to take on all that responsibility to run your own company.

Jess Phillips (21:07.011)
Yeah, and you still get to monetize your network. Right? Hmm, wow, interesting stuff. I mean, gosh, it’s like, my mind is sort of just on fire with all these different ideas. But if you were, let’s say if you are…

Corrina Owens (21:09.354)
100%. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (21:20.239)
You’re a company and you’re going to hire an evangelist. Okay, great. You know, I listened to that podcast. Karina sold me. I think we need an evangelist. What do you recommend for people to say, to lay out in terms of, like to set up a successful relationship? How could you set up a successful relationship when you’re hiring an evangelist?

Corrina Owens (21:38.122)
Yeah, I think it’s super important to know what are the qualities and skill sets that you’re looking for and does that individual have those skill sets and qualities, but also what metrics are you trying to achieve? Because I think most content creators, as an example, or most people that would be evangelists, they’re going to be able to come in and maybe do a wide variety of needs for you, right? They could ghost write for you or they could evaluate your product launch, your product offerings. So being very clear and specific, and that can be like a quarter to quarter basis about what you’re expecting from them and why.

and then making sure that you’re in consistent communication with them as well, because you’re still training them and you should, whether they’re full-time or part-time, you should still treat them as if they’re a full-time employee and be very clear about your expectations and make sure that they have everything they need to be successful. So that can be tools and technologies, or that could just be having adequate vision into what is the direction that the company is hoping to go in. But it can be structured to exactly what you need, and I think that’s what

individuals, content creators, B2B influencers, I think that’s what they’re best suited for, right? It’s leveraging their network, leveraging their voice, leveraging their persona to build and engage and trust your audience. So I think that looking at it through that lens and then tailoring it to be super specific of these are the metrics we probably want to achieve, but also understanding that there may be some soft metrics and learnings throughout the process. So being adaptable to adjust that.

Jess Phillips (23:05.591)
Yeah, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. Oh my gosh. No, that was really helpful. You’re throwing a lot of good information at me. I’m trying to process all of it eloquently. But I do think that makes sense. And it’s very similar to how we would go out and secure an influencer, right? You have a contract that you set up with your basic stuff, and then you have basically a brief that outlines everything, all the expectations, and what we’re gonna do. So it sounds very…

Corrina Owens (23:06.678)
Was that helpful? I feel like I was all over the place.

Corrina Owens (23:12.771)
Oh, good. Good. Okay.

Jess Phillips (23:28.375)
It might be a little common sense, but it’s helpful to hear someone actually talk about, you know, what the nitty gritty of this could really look like, you know, because there are so many different directions you can go. And I think it’s helpful to just I always think it’s helpful to set expectations in the, you know, in the front and center. Now, how would you how would you recommend someone goes and finds an evangelist? Do you think that it’s something that you go and seek out? Do you think it’s something that you just sort of need to be out?

Corrina Owens (23:35.422)
Right. Yep.

Corrina Owens (23:48.801)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (23:53.399)
in the market, kind of like how you found purple cork, it just sort of happened serendipitously. Like what if you don’t have any, what if, you know, XYZ company doesn’t have a Karina who’s out there kind of naturally doing this? How do you find someone who would be really good for this?

Corrina Owens (23:56.653)
Right.

Corrina Owens (24:07.21)
Yeah, I think that, I mean, it’s going to sound really basic, but if you’re not already living and breathing the same content and the same virtual watering holes, as I call them, that your audience is, you’re kind of already starting behind. So I think that it’s super important that you are engaged in those communities. You can start to spot, like, hey, like that.

Jess Phillips (24:11.259)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (24:25.27)
that personality or that tonality, that is really like, that fits in very well with our brand. I wonder if they’re very familiar with our products or to build relationships or just look in your own client base and see if you find these amazing advocates that you maybe do client, you know, case study with. Maybe they actually have the flexibility, you know, to actually take on a part-time position to do that for you where it benefits them independently. There’s a lot you need to be mindful of as far as like contracts that you have with your employees and things like that.

I think in the B2B space and it would be for the B2C. But oftentimes it’s just finding that best fit customer. And if you have a really strong content marketing team, especially in place at your organization already, you can actually help to shape their voice if they’re not already out there crafting their own narrative, posting on LinkedIn, creating video content on TikTok, et cetera. If you already have a solid marketing team that can help them kind of get up to speed about

What does good look like? How do they typically do their editing process? You can essentially sell to them as like, hey, this is just a program that we’re offering for people where we’re gonna have our team actually take you through what does it look like to post daily on LinkedIn? How do we as a brand actually structure our content? We wanna use your voice, but we wanna give you some templates, just get started out. That was actually something I was just about to launch prior to leading Gong and joining Purple Quark. Because we struggled with reaching a C-suite audience because we were really solid with frontline sellers and frontline managers.

but it was a struggle for us to get vocal advocates in the C-suite who was ultimately who we were trying to target in enterprise. And I said, look, we can train them. We’re well-equipped as a marketing team to have our content team and our product marketing team work with these individuals. And essentially what we’re doing is we’re giving a gift to them. So we’re gonna give them access and exclusive insight into what product releases are coming down the road. Maybe even you can give them the product for free that they can use in their own efforts, whether that be for personal or business.

but you’re also giving them education on what does good look like, and how can you start to replicate this, and how can you start to find and refine that voice.

Jess Phillips (26:29.839)
Yes, 100%. I cannot believe the parallels that happen, between just even like influencer marketing 1.0 and this. And I guess this is why when I had…

Corrina Owens (26:39.087)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (26:42.891)
uh, our mutual, our mutual friend, Nick Bennett, on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. That’s what he’s, he laid it out and he said, look, I look at B2B influencers in four categories, uh, influencers, creators, evangelists, and, uh, SMEs, right? Subject Matter Experts. And it’s so true. It’s like every single one of those types as an influencer, it’s just, they all bring about something slightly different. And I think there’s, you know, it’s, they’re also not mutually exclusive because I would assume that a subject matter expert could very easily and could probably be, um,

Corrina Owens (27:08.578)
Right.

Jess Phillips (27:12.805)
should probably be an evangelist as well. Yeah.

Corrina Owens (27:15.398)
Exactly, 100%. I was just going to say, those are beautiful categories to break it down. But I think what you would find is like if you took the lens of like, let me find my best fit customer and try and put them into this type of role, part time or full time, they would check all those boxes. Because you’ve already identified, this is our ICP. This is the persona. We know what they look like. We know what their problems are. We know what their interests are. You’re just pushing them into a different lens. You’re elevating them a bit more beyond just like a standard case study of see you, goodbye, we’re done here.

But I do think that the aspect as far as like, what can brands do to actually, to your point, if there’s not a Nick Bennett already ready to go, how can they actually create a Nick Bennett? And we can help them do that. And a lot of our time, I think, would be better spent actually equipping our audience to not just be really good consumers of our product or our solution, but to actually be really good advocates, to actually train them how to be really good at relationship building.

Jess Phillips (28:09.551)
Yes.

Corrina Owens (28:13.442)
how to be really good at product positioning, how to be really good at compelling narratives. So I think that would be a really wise tactic for most marketing teams to consider and take a look into.

Jess Phillips (28:26.339)
I couldn’t agree more. I think that’s a thousand percent spot on. We actually had, I had the former senior social director of Peloton come on the podcast. And she was talking, I was so good, you know, when she was talking about how, like how they took cast members, right? And, and basically turn them into these social media superstars effectively. And the whole way that they laid that out was, was really brilliant. And you’re respectively saying the same thing, do the same thing, but do it instead of

Corrina Owens (28:36.626)
I love that episode.

Corrina Owens (28:42.716)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (28:56.233)
For instance, it was the instructors, right? Instead of doing that, what’s the pipeline for like employees or customers to creators and influencers and advocates? What does that pipeline look like and how do we build it? And I think that is genius, like in and of itself. I mean, you don’t need to worry as much about finding them as you do is creating them. And I do think I see a lot of…

Corrina Owens (28:58.719)
Mm-hmm.

Corrina Owens (29:06.422)
100%.

Jess Phillips (29:17.747)
smaller sort of SaaS and MarTech companies starting to really figure that out. I think that the, I do think that larger brands are pretty far behind on that. But the reality is, is those larger brands have even more resources. Right? Yeah. So I mean, if you’ve got 5,000 employees and 15,000 customers, for example, like within that huge haystack, you know, there are going to be tons and tons of people who could be, who can and should be advocates for you. And I think even the FTC knows this because

Corrina Owens (29:32.108)
Yeah.

Corrina Owens (29:46.028)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (29:47.561)
because they had come out with a lot of rules and regulations on disclosure, right? Years and years ago saying, okay, if you’re an employee, you still need to disclose that you’re actually an employee because technically you are paid by them. Whether or not you’re paid to talk about this online or elsewhere, you still have to disclose it. So it’s odd that the FTC might have actually foreseen something that the rest of the industry didn’t. But yeah, but you know, hey, I guess that’s a feather in their cap a little bit.

Corrina Owens (30:04.322)
Right, right.

Corrina Owens (30:10.762)
It is interesting, yeah.

Jess Phillips (30:16.767)
But yeah, I think that’s super smart to actually try to grow your own. And it’s actually something that we’re working on internally at the social standard. And so some of our employees right now are actually in the middle of a LinkedIn mastery course where they’re doing something with an individual who’s got a good solid LinkedIn following, he’s got a little class. And so we’re trying to help inform and honestly just inspire confidence because to your point, so many people want to do it. They just don’t really know how to step into the light, if you will.

Corrina Owens (30:42.878)
100%. Yeah, and to your point, I mean, I think that’s a great example of how you can actually build that up internally with your team. It’s a solid strategy. I totally recommend it. I think it’s table stakes for companies to just be treating their employees like that. But I would say, too, for those that are thinking maybe, oh, maybe we should just start here, wait how that works out before we talk to external, I would say maybe don’t.

be that take a risk and actually do try to reach out to those customers first because they’re more likely to have a positive experience with you. They’re less like in the weeds of the day-to-day job environment, right? And they’re less likely to quote unquote turnover, right? Because even if they move jobs, they’re still going to have the ability to be attached to you. So I’ve moved jobs, right? I’ve been a marketer now.

at three different jobs where I’ve been an advisor for tech companies. That didn’t affect them at all, right? I didn’t leave them as an employee. I just left the brand that I was currently at and I actually elevated it for them because I took them to another brand where I could also pitch the product and also be seen for my expertise as being advisor with that company. So it’s just such a low hanging fruit opportunity. And I think only limiting it to seeing it.

Jess Phillips (31:44.387)
Yes.

Corrina Owens (31:51.998)
of what can we do for our employees. I think that’s just table stakes. I think that people need to realize like the massive opportunity of having an advocate for you that is a customer that is likely to move. And I think that’s a good thing that they’re likely to move.

Jess Phillips (32:05.379)
Yes, exactly. You can take another, they can take you along with that. That’s what happens to us a lot of times when a person at one client moves, they go on and we go with them and it’s actually a great growth strategy for us. So I 100% hear you and I think that’s really wise. And I do think that it does make sense. Obviously, if you are Salesforce, you’re not just gonna go on Matthew McConaughey’s door and say, hey man, do you wanna like do that? You know, like there’s a whole way and a system and a process to do these sort of things. And I think, you know, that’s something even that obviously we at the social standard can help with.

Corrina Owens (32:16.075)
Right.

Jess Phillips (32:35.533)
because we can actually go out and help you discover who the right people are to be the face and the voice or an evangelist of your brand. So that’s really… Go ahead.

Corrina Owens (32:42.542)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I…

I was just going to say I’m very excited to see what you guys offer for the B2B audience because it’s just such a, there’s such an opportunity. And right now I would say that, you know, content creators and B2B influencers, like, you know, for some of us, that’s an advantage. We can use that to our advantage that there really isn’t something in place like that, like your solution offering. But for those that maybe need to get a bit more guidance and, you know, need help with like, hey, what does a contract look like? What’s fair? What’s equitable? That’s going to really help to really kind of standardize what does this look like for the B2B audience versus the B2C.

Jess Phillips (33:13.999)
100%, you might say the social standard, huh? So, that is definitely some of the ethos of our name, right? Is to set the standard in the space. And so we’re obviously excited to continue to do that in the B2B space. But I do think that there’s a lot of overlap there. And I mean, gosh, it’s just the influencer world is only growing. And I think that if you look at influencers simply as people with an Instagram following, you are certainly missing out on a tremendous amount

Corrina Owens (33:16.794)
I would, yeah, I love it.

Corrina Owens (33:40.394)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (33:44.033)
possibilities and possibly reach. And that sort of brings me to I guess my final question for you, which is do you think that an evangelist needs to have a sizable digital presence to be of value to a company?

Corrina Owens (34:00.438)
I don’t think so. In fact, I think that the more niche and direct their audience is, the more benefit you’re actually going to get from it.

Take for example, somebody that has 40K followers versus 10K followers. That 10K following is probably hyper specific to the role, right? So it’s gonna be their peers, the people that you wanna attract if that’s your ICP. Whereas the 40K may be a little bit more cumbersome. It may have a lot more titles and industries, et cetera. So I think that the more niche the audience, the more likely that you’re gonna get hyper focused, relevant content and expertise and also be more hyper targeted to like who do you really wanna reach.

which is probably going to be an audience that is more likely to convert and buy your product versus somebody that just has kind of like a glorified number of followers.

Jess Phillips (34:45.795)
Yeah, I think that’s right. I absolutely think that’s correct. I mean, it depends what your ultimate objectives are, but yeah, I agree. I think it’s size is not as, it’s just not as relevant in B2B because it’s still so new. But I guess the obvious follow-up question there though is do they need to have some sort of online presence?

Corrina Owens (34:56.949)
Mm-mm.

Corrina Owens (35:06.142)
I think it depends on what to your point, what is your objective. If it reaches objective, I think it’s certainly.

necessary and helpful because I do think it shows that there’s some kind of consistency and longevity. LinkedIn’s been amazing. I mean, it’s hurt some engagement, but they’ve been amazing about cleaning up inactive users and people that aren’t really actually active on LinkedIn and then making it to where it’s more discoverable for people to actually find people with their interests, with their content. So it is, you know, it’s a slow process, but it is getting better. But what I would say to that really large following nowadays on

it’s really hard to get to those six figure numbers and followings simply because.

a lot of what, you know, there’s so many inactive people on LinkedIn. It’s, I forget to stop, but it’s, it’s dreadfully painful how many people are actually active on LinkedIn versus people that are not. So those people with those large followings, they may have gotten viral with a very basic post that has nothing at all to do with your topic, your industry, or your focus. And that’s why you’re not really seeing those numbers get so inflated anymore. It’s because LinkedIn has done a really good job about making sure that if you’re

Jess Phillips (36:03.131)
Sure.

Corrina Owens (36:22.432)
relevant to what you claim to say you’re talking about. So it’s not going to be that common anymore for you to find people with those crazy numbers because LinkedIn is getting better and better about actually slashing those numbers. And so I would say look for the people with what seems to be a quality number of followers, but also look if they’re actually engaging with their people that comments on their posts because many of these content creators just kind of do a spray and pray method when it comes to content. They’ll put something up.

leave it and forget it. I would, if it were me, I would be looking at how are they engaging with them in response? Are they being thoughtful with their advice? Are they being thoughtful when there’s disagreement? Does it seem like there’s familiarity with them? Does it seem like they know their audience? That’s the difference for me over like vanity metrics, like likes and followers.

Jess Phillips (37:09.239)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s I think that’s 100% the case. We’ll just see how long it takes people to really get there and understand that. Right. Because it’s so much it’s I think we’ve all been so trained by Instagram and TikTok to go for like big numbers and virality and all this sort of stuff. But really, when you take a step back and you look at the B2B space. Niche’s are your best friend.

Corrina Owens (37:17.089)
Yeah.

Corrina Owens (37:33.742)
I was gonna ask you, I mean, having served predominantly the B2C and now doing more with B2B, I mean, what do you find are like the benefits of B2B influencers maybe versus things that are more difficult to find with B2C influencers?

Jess Phillips (37:46.723)
Yeah, you know, I think I actually think that the benefits are really pretty much the same, right? I mean, you need you need someone else to you need to borrow someone else’s audience to show, you know, authenticity, to show like your, you know, your customer journey with the whole product. And then you just need more. You just need more noise in the space about your brand. To be totally honest, right. To your point about AI content being generated, it’s like this is the moment for me to be influencers because they are so good at connecting, at getting into those niches.

know, basically surfacing the most relevant content.

Corrina Owens (38:21.546)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (38:21.711)
at this, you know, in this point, at this stage, right? I mean, it’s like curation. Curation, right, is having its moment again. I think curation had its moment probably about 10 years ago. And then it was all about creation. It’s been create, create. And while you still need to create, I do think that you’re gonna see a lot of people who rise in popularity simply because they have an undeniable ability to curate the best and the brightest.

Corrina Owens (38:24.781)
Right.

Corrina Owens (38:35.345)
Mm-hmm.

Corrina Owens (38:46.466)
Well, and I think too, and maybe this is a biased opinion on my part, but I would think as just somebody that’s seen B2C influencers for my whole life versus what I see as B2B influencers, it does seem like there’s less noise with B2B influencers right now, and there is more of an emphasis on actual credibility versus maybe somebody, right, versus somebody maybe just like being able to throw up like a makeup tutorial, right? Like that’s fantastic, but I…

Jess Phillips (38:50.009)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (39:05.643)
Oh, 100%.

Jess Phillips (39:10.211)
Yep. But you don’t need a lot of credibility to show that the lip gloss looks good. You know. There’s… Ha ha ha!

Corrina Owens (39:16.726)
That’s fair. That’s a fair point. But I wonder like what would the ROI look like in comparison for like what you would pay a B2B influencer versus what you pay a B2C influencer. I would think it’s stronger on the B2B side.

Jess Phillips (39:23.708)
Mmm.

Jess Phillips (39:28.695)
Well, I think you have to look at, yeah, you definitely want to look at ROI, because I mean, your ACV is going to be a lot higher, you know, obviously on the B2B versus the B2C side. But, you know, the ROI metrics are very strong on B2C. So, you know, I think that I just think it’s a different, it’s just a different game, right? For the B2B, it’s a longer, a longer tail strategy because nobody, nobody signs up for Gong, like in three seconds after one post, right? So you need to hit your customer several times,

Corrina Owens (39:35.424)
Right?

Corrina Owens (39:40.785)
I believe that, yeah.

Corrina Owens (39:46.495)
Right.

Corrina Owens (39:56.267)
Right, right.

Jess Phillips (39:58.609)
is authenticity is of the utmost important with B2B influencers. Not to say it isn’t with B2C, but like you have less to lose if you buy that chapstick and you don’t like it. You know, it was five, six bucks, okay, no sweat off my back. But if you commit to, you know, a seven-figure deal with, you know, a huge, you know, a huge SaaS company and it doesn’t work, you’re gonna get fired.

Corrina Owens (40:09.897)
Yeah.

Right.

Corrina Owens (40:21.314)
Right.

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to say it, is that the authenticity really has to be ring true. And it really will probably ring true much longer with something like a B2B influencer. Yeah, it’s not considered just like a, it’s not a silver bullet. I guess that’s a really great way to like summarize this too, is like this is not a silver bullet strategy, it is definitely a long-term, but it’s one that when things are ever changing and we are constantly faced with what is real content versus automated and generated, I think this is a more tactful way

Jess Phillips (40:32.463)
Yeah, absolutely.

Corrina Owens (40:51.824)
to approach relationships and building your audience.

Jess Phillips (40:55.023)
100%. I totally agree. And look, Chief Evangelist, we’re going to start seeing a lot more of them. I think it’s an exciting time to do that. And I think, you know, absolutely, like I’m gonna be watching what’s going on in this space. There’s there’s no doubt. I’m super pumped about it. And I think I think our audience has probably a lot to learn from this. And if they want to connect with you, I’m gonna link down your LinkedIn below. So if anybody wants to check out Karina, go give her a follow on LinkedIn. Listen to her podcast. She’s got a great podcast as well. And yeah, Karina, it was a great-

Great conversation. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Corrina Owens (41:27.67)
Thank you, Jess, appreciate everything you’re doing. Thanks so much.

Jess Phillips (41:32.295)
All right. Yeah. I’m stopping it. Awesome. Hey, you did great. That was fun. It’s one of those things where I always feel like, with these conversations, I never walk away being like, oh, yeah, totally. I never even thought about that. But something about having somebody else say it just crystallizes in your mind so much better.

Corrina Owens (41:35.53)
Yeah, how was that?