Jonathan Pipek 🔱

I attended a great panel this morning at Denver Startup Week called "How Hiring Fractional Talent Can Drive Quick Wins for Small and Medium Size Businesses." I'm about to hit my one year anniversary of becoming a fractional SEO Director, and a lot of what the panel discussed really resonated with what I see as the value I bring to my clients every day. Some of the key advantages of working with fractional talent include: - You are able to hire higher caliber talent than you may be able to afford if you were to hire a full-time employee. - You get a brutally honest voice in the room. We aren't politicking or angling for a promotion. Your success is our success too. - You get quicker execution from fractional talent. Onboarding is shorter, meetings are fewer, and there is more intentionality around our goals and work because our time is more limited. - Your organization benefits from us working with other clients. We will get you out of the "we've always done it this way" mindset and provider fresh perspectives on how others have approached your challenges. If you're looking for fractional SEO or content strategy help, or you are interested in getting into the fractional world, my DMs are open! #denverstartupweek #fractionalleader #fractionalhiring #fractionaladvantage

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🚨 PSA: Please, please, please collect data. You've been avoiding it for years. Worried that it might hurt your brand or lower sign-ups. But here’s the truth: responsible data collection won’t kill your subscription biz. It fuels better targeting by sending positive signals—helping you better understand and find more of your best-fit customers. Do it ethically? Goes without saying. Integrate fully? Everywhere you can. Necessary for growth? Absolutely. The future of scaling depends on how well you know your customers. Don’t leave your growth to chance.

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In case you haven't seen it yet, Michigan Founders Fund is launching a Pre-Accelerator and it's going to be *AWESOME*! ❤️ 🧤 🚀 We're partnering with the experts at gener8tor on a program designed to support underrepresented founders across Michigan, offering personalized coaching, access to mentors, and non-dilutive funding. The goal? Prep more early-stage founders for future accelerators and investment opportunities, and help them build incredible high-growth companies right here in Michigan. We're hiring for someone to help run the program. If you or someone you know are interested, check out the application (link in the comments) and come join the team :) #startups #founders #michigan

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I’ve never really told you all what I actually do for a living, so here you go Pisgah Peaks Ventures builds & manages fractional marketing team for SMBs that are doing under 10-15 M ARR. The teams could be anywhere from 2 to 20+ individuals. Hiring for PT marketing roles can be a big drain on small businesses. They're unsure of who to hire, how to train, and they def don't want to manage them. This keeps costs in check (no office space here!) + avoids costly benefits / W2 wages. Perfect clients for us? B2B companies with 1-2 internal marketing team members Dispensaries with 2-5 locations. Soloprenuers who are scaling from 6 > 7 figures. A few years ago we started investing into other small businesses & at this point have equity in a handful of other SMBs. The goal? By 45; be able to live off the proceeds of our portfolio and golf 4X a week. To my network.... Tell us What do you do? Why do you do it? Post in the comments!

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When a client came to us last year and asked us if we could build their full operations for their Political Action Committee on HubSpot, I was excited, to say the least. Yeah, figuring out how to build it was hard. Then, building it was even harder. But as I sit here and prepare my portion for "Your can build WHAT for WHO on HubSpot" for Partner Day at #INBOUND24, I am damn proud of the Digital Reach Online Solutions team and the all-stars that work here. We built a freaking canvassing application that can be used in the field by entire organizations that is run on HubSpot 🤯 All of the functionality of the market's standard bearers BUT with HubSpot's powerful database and robust set of productivity and tracking tools. The reporting. The sequences. The task management. The marketing automation. ALL of it! Like, WHAT?! 🙀 Remember this. If it doesn't scare you. If it doesn't seem hard as hell to accomplish. If it can be done by anyone. It probably won't move the needle like you want it to. MASSIVE shout out to our whole team, especially Karen Senette 🏳️‍🌈, Tiaan André Loots, and Sarah Morton...and of course, Melvin Medina who was bold enough to ask the question, what if... 🤔 Cheers 🥂 to continuing to revolutionize how PACs make a big impact for every day people 🫱🏻‍🫲🏽. We are just getting started 🥳

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⚙️ What (less known) tools do you absolutely LOVE 😍 and can't live without? Here are 3 of my top... 1. Geekbot - Regular Slack async standup tool that's super easy to use. Helps me know what's going on with everyone on my team but also keeps my 1:1s more streamlined (no updates needed). 2. Screen Studio - Awesome, inexpensive tool to record screen sharing and walkthrough videos like this one. 3. PhantomBuster - Nifty automation tool that saves me a ton of time, especially with LinkedIn and social media automation. What other tools would you add to this list?

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Today Monday! 9am PT (or if you can't make it, sign up to get the replay). Can't wait to join: - Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, - Zach Kitschke, CMO of Canva, - and Jeff Titterton, CMO of Stripe for "A CMO's Guide to AI, efficiency and engagement" ->> How are marketing teams actually using AI in production? ->> What are the biggest obstacles? ->> How do you navigate the changing search and search ad landscape? ->> How should you approach governance, privacy, and safety? ->> How do you get more of your team to adopt and get productive with AI? These are just a few of the questions we'll be answering. Join us! Registration link in the first comment. #AI #CMOs #Bestpractices

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Thanks to Joseph Nyahay for having me on your podcast! Loved hearing about your marketing niche as well - great to focus on conversions! Being an "active listener" and asking smart questions was not just what made me a good reporter, it's what is making me a good marketer today as well. Here's to traveling more in 2024 and beyond! #marketing #fCMO #podcasts

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One of my favorite things to do is break down complex tech topics into terms that are easy for regular people to understand. I've had a lot of great opportunities to do this at CNET, and I'm especially proud of this Managed vs Unmanaged Hosting breakdown. Like many aspects of web hosting, every person (and every web host) you ask seems to have a different definition of "managed hosting". I had several conversations with my editor about how WE defined it, and together we came up with something we were happy with. Check it out if you're curious about these types of web hosting, or if you want to see a sample of my writing before you hire me!

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Awesome blog published by Ben S. on why we created Abode 💡 What resonates most with me is that the traditional post-offer experience is disconnected... We ask our incoming hires to change their entire means of communicating via their phones and use what one of our partners referenced as "🐌 mail". And expect them to be just as engaged as we are as full-time employees! It's crazy when you put yourself in your incoming hires shoes and think of all of the systems we ask them to use before they even join us. Why not give them one centralized dashboard to go to for everything from communication to community to events? 🤔 The whole article is below, I recommend giving it a read!

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#SocialListening for product iteration, innovation, and development?! 👀 Yep. Happens all the time. Well, around B Squared Media, LLC. 😎 If you're in #ProductDevelopment or product marketing, take a gander at my quick three-step tip for using social listening tools to help your products fly off the shelves. 🛍 I promise, it's easier than you think! 😉 --- 👋 I'm Brooke. 💚 The Social Care lady.  💬 I chat about digital #CX. ➕ Click follow on my profile to see more posts like this.  🫶 Want to work together? Let's chat!

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Who should own product launches? Derek Osgood thinks it should be one product marketer per product line. Launches are one of those distributed tasks that sit at the intersection of a bunch of roles. It feels like everyone and no one is responsible for them. On this week's #GrowandTell, Derek shared his experience launching *billions* of dollars in games at PlayStation, where 90% of a game's sales happen in the first 90 days. Derek says the best launches come from one product marketer owning each product line or customer segment. They act as air traffic control for their product, coordinating customer discovery, market research, demand gen, messaging, internal training, collateral creation, and executing the launch itself. They're backed by a platform product marketing team that acts as shared services across your product lines. Big fan of that approach. -- Loved going deep on Derek's time leading launches at PlayStation and Rippling. We also talked about founding Ignition, his go-to-market platform for better product launches. You can watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gh73Q_JY

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Low Hanging Fruits are the death of CRO programs. Ok, now that I have your attention, let me nuance my take here. My core belief is that programs are doomed to fail when teams myopically focus on getting early wins. Because as we observe business growth, clear trends separate those who dominate their market vs those who stagnantly grow. I know I don’t have to tell you about the difficult decisions companies make when growth stagnates : pausing projects, reorganization, layoffs… The focus on Low Hanging Fruits is harmful because all the efforts are invested looking at hacks and drawing inspiration form whatever trend of the moment. Sometimes, they don’t pan out as wins anyway, and that can lead to a grim outlook. Other times, they find wins but can’t build upon them. Get a car from 0 to 60 and then stop pressing on the gaz. People shift you on the highway and eventually you are stopped on the sideline watching everyone else pass you without a second look. So what’s the problem? Well, they still haven’t identified what blocks users from becoming customers on the website. They show up empty-ended to board meetings with nothing to show for. The better solution is to forget about the Low Hanging Fruits. Instead, build a process to capture insights and build a feedback loop with website users. The two outcomes are either you will find wins and be able to easily re-apply the insight in future tests, or find no wins but you will have a clear narrative of what blocks users, what was attempted to resolve that and what are the next solutions in mind. That completely changes the dynamic of the board meeting. When we compare both situations with winning tests, one is set up to win again, while the other is back to the drawing board, hoping a new hack will produce a win for them. When you build a customer feedback loop, you naturally stumble across the “Low Hanging Fruits” with insights stacking. But because this is customer-focused rather than a hot trend, it’s more likely to have impact for your customers and your business.

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Was chatting with Gabi yesterday about all things referrals. There's one huge benefit to asking for referrals that most folks don't consider: It's a great way to qualify prospects out. Think about it - if I’ve been trying to break into an account for a while, let's say I decide to ask Gabi for an introduction to Jen, who is the my target within that account… If I'm doing this the right way, I'm sending Gabi an email, requesting an introduction, that he can simply forward along to Jen to see if she's open to meeting with me. In that email includes, of course, some context around Sales Assembly and a compelling reason to meet with me. And it gives Jen the chance to opt in, or out, of the introduction. If Jen reads that email and responds to Gabi that: - Now's not a good time - They'd never be able to put together budget - The problem Sales Assembly solves was just solved through another solution That's all great intel! Now I don't have to keep banging my head against a wall trying to get in touch with Jen or someone else at her org. My time can be invested elsewhere. - If now's not a good time, I can try again in a few months. - If they just bought a competing solution, I can try again before their renewal. Regardless, I can spend my time trying to get in touch with prospects that might actually wanna talk to me, and ignore the ones who dont. *inb4 Jen says she would never agree to meet with me, and is surprised that anybody does.

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Recently, I read a blog post that detailed on the return of content marketers. I couldn't agree more on this thought process. The essay delved upon the loss of senior content experts, many moving to product marketing and leadership roles. Personally, I'm too a B2B marketer who started out in content (writing ebooks, case studies, blog posts, social snippets, and what not). I took a leap into product marketing because of my love for software products (my engineering appetite led me here) and my passion for marketing. In this AI era, for a B2B SaaS product to work, we need specialized, extremely helpful, and aesthetically appealing content. That means, once a content-turned product marketer person can now flock to content anytime - they will be welcomed with full hands. Also, many of the marketing leaders I follow have had the chance to work in content marketing and product marketing. Both experiences are invaluable. I'm really happy to have this skillset mix and rising marketing ladder is something I look forward to every day. Becoming a wholesome B2B marketer is my aspiration, and my short-term goal is to master product marketing before I juggle to content. And finally, I knew I could write well from my 6th grade, but I never thought that writing leverage can put me in a marketing track that I love and adore. That brings us to my marketing rant! Hit me up if you need some help choosing content over product marketing or vice versa. #B2Bmarketing #contentmarketing #productmarketing #contentwriter

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One of the most common things 8 figure agencies reach out to me for is to help with their business Culture. Culture is what your people say and do when you are not around. It is not gift cards, and it is not incentives Its group performance Focus on influencing performance It's not giving people a carrot to chase after. Let me know what you think

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Playing with podcast and short form video recording. What should I use? Descript? Riverside.fm? 🔶🔸Mason Cosby🔸🔶 Jess Bahr🚀 any thoughts? Others? Also... Tools I'm loving right now - Superhuman Apollo.io Reclaim.ai Slack OpenAI Asana GSuite

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What makes great content today? ✍️ I've been interviewing content marketers the last little while and asking them this question. I did not appreciate how much I'd love the answers. Each candidate gave a somewhat different answer, each still totally resonated and kind of built on on another. I really liked the last point in particular. It makes me think of Gong's content strategy. They get to analyze millions (billions?) of hours of sales calls and related data to come up with unique insights 📈. Talk about building your moat 🏰. BTW - I think this applies to marketing AND sales copy. Time to kill the "Just following up email" and move towards "Saw this article, thought of you and wanted to share, how are things?". What do you think? 👋 Sincerely still a human, Evan

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