Jason and Sam Yarborough dive into the marketing world with special guest Mason Cosby.
Mason shares his journey of becoming an authentic marketer through building trust with his audience. From valuable content creation to relationship-building in person, this pod is packed with tips on driving authentic connections through everything you do.
Plus, don't miss Mason's personal story of encountering his favorite band, King's Kaleidoscope, and his unexpected opportunity to perform with them.
And make sure to check out the new saxophone jingle Mason comes up with near the end!
Subscribe & Listen On:
Highlights:
00:02:14 Sell better together, go further faster.
00:06:46 Authenticity: How it helps career progress.
00:08:23 Building LinkedIn relationships with B2B buyers was key.
00:12:13 Don't claim expertise, focus on personal experiences.
00:17:18 Balancing personal brand evolution while serving the audience.
00:19:42 Marketing Ladder Show helps people find jobs.
00:24:14 Helping people without expectation, building connections.
00:27:18 Create value, solve peripheral problems, add intentional value, help customers land jobs.
00:32:23 Tactical plan to build relationships for partnerships.
00:35:08 The value in partnership programs.
00:41:16 The T-shaped marketer understands various marketing disciplines and specializes in one specific area.
00:45:05 Partnerships form better teams by combining skills.
00:50:16 Build relationships in-person.
00:53:59 Deeply love King's Kaleidoscope, a Christian alternative rock band.
00:56:33 Saxophone solo.
Transcript:
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Huh
Jason Yarborough 0:09
do welcome to the Friends with Benefits podcast, a business podcast about revenue generating partnerships, not a podcast about business time with friends. We're your co hosting couple. I'm Jason.
Sam Yarborough 0:23
And I'm Sam. Welcome to the show friends.
Jason Yarborough 0:26
Welcome back to the show. Friends. We're coming at you strong today with episode number nine in episode I am particularly excited about because it's a really good friend of mine. No doubt you're here because you saw the episode posted. So you know that we've got the one and only Mason Ghazi with us here today. He is a marketer, a podcaster champion of people, which is my favorite thing about him. He's a LinkedIn influencer. We'll talk about that in a little bit. He's a husband, a soon to be father, and just an all around great person. You're all gonna love this show and get to know Mason, Mason, my man, welcome to the show.
Mason Cosby 1:03
I say this, whenever somebody gives me a particularly kind intro. And you you have just given me a really, really kind intro and my head is just so massively inflated, I'm not gonna be able to leave my office. It's really becoming a problem because people keep interrupting me like that. And it's like, it's got to come out eventually. So one, thank you for the kind words,
Sam Yarborough 1:21
I don't know, I think that just means it's true.
Jason Yarborough 1:23
You're, you're I think you're about a month away or it from the when the show airs maybe a couple weeks away from having a baby. So you're about to get humbled and deflated real fast, dude, don't worry about it.
Mason Cosby 1:35
That is that is true, there will be no sleep.
Sam Yarborough 1:37
We're speaking from experience on that. 100%.
Jason Yarborough 1:39
And once you start losing that sleep, and you started getting the poopy diapers and everything all over you and vomit on you, like you're just that head deflates real fast. Yep. Yeah, can't wait. But it's great. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Anyway,
Sam Yarborough 1:54
best thing you'll ever do. Exactly.
Jason Yarborough 1:57
So what we'll kick things off, we'll keep the train from derailing too much, although I'm sure it's gonna happen quite a bit this show. But we'd like to ask the initial question, what does Friends with Benefits mean to you in the context of tech partnerships.
Mason Cosby 2:14
So I'm going to really, to your point, take this from kind of a more of a marketing lens. And I may have actually stolen this phrase from you a couple years back, but just being able to sell better together, and being able to go like, further, faster together. So especially right now, in the context of sales assembly, I'm a solo marketer that has a ton of partners that we get to work with. So really, I get the opportunity to look at the skill sets of the marketing teams of our partners, essentially, for like specific initiatives and specific projects say, we're not really two teams, we're one team, like, what are the skill sets that I bring with the technology, the tools that I bring, what do you bring? And then how do we come together essentially, as one team for the specific initiative to get this thing launched and help everybody grow together? So as I think about friends with benefits, I'm thinking through the lens of, again, how do we actually go further, faster together, because we can come together as marketers with the best of all of our different skill sets.
Jason Yarborough 3:11
I love that man. The two we're not two teams or one team. I've I really liked that concept. And I'll give a little bit of history here that Mason and I have been partners in previous companies before and I've witnessed you know that that mentality firsthand. And when I was at Terminus, you were back at Mojo with our friends Nicole's. You guys quickly became my number one partner, and you really embodied that we are one team, we're gonna do this together, everything that we do is going to revolve around each other. And that that think that's, you know, that's real. Well,
Sam Yarborough 3:49
I was just gonna comment there really quick. I've heard this a few times from you. And for those of you listening, this is Mason, a nice first conversation. So this is I've heard all this through the grapevine or through your LinkedIn post. But I really, really appreciate your sentiment that you come to the table, and understand your strengths, but then look to fill the peripheral with other people's strengths. And that's how you really build a great partnership. And you say that over and over and over. And it's clear that you really actually do that. Which is unique, so good on you.
Mason Cosby 4:25
I appreciate all the kind words. But again, really, practically, everybody benefits like almost a one person marker. And Jason, back to your point when we were working together in a partnership, Cassie, I was one person marketer. So again, there is that element where I can only do so much with so much time in the day. But if we can come together and recognize we have our own audiences, and even if it's just not even different skill sets have its audiences we have different audiences, we can amplify all of our methods together. So again, it's I've been blessed to have unintentionally landed in the partnership space just with the organizations that I've worked in and see In the power of just that kind of collaboration across organizations,
Jason Yarborough 5:03
no doubt, we need more marketers like you who truly, truly get it and want to, you know, build these partnerships and relationships outside of the work that that they're doing for their company Novo seems like with you, like most of your market is built with partners built with others outside of your own organization. So it sits doesn't really even sometimes I'm like, Where does Mason work again, because he's always doing all this other stuff with other people. And it always comes back to benefit cells as somebody in the team there. So I appreciate that about you.
Sam Yarborough 5:34
So for those of you who haven't had a conversation with you like myself, what is Mason Cosby's elevator pitch?
Mason Cosby 5:42
So do you want the I'll give you the long story short, the elevator pitch is that I, when I started my career, I thought I was going to be a pastor fell into this b2b tech world and recognized, man, I really love it here. And the reason I want to be a pastor, I really wanted to help people. So the reality of the b2b tech space is, I get to still live that out. It's very different, obviously, than pastoral ministry, but I get to help a lot of people. And that's helping them advance their careers, it's helping them build a better life for their family, it's helping them specifically in the context of sales, assembly we're or education company. So I get to help people literally do their jobs better. So they can provide better for their families so they can grow their companies. And as a result, everybody's better for it. So the elevator pitch is my goal, as a career professional is to really serve the b2b tech community, to the best of my ability and just genuinely helping them in advance themselves in individuals, which then in turn, helps them advance their companies. So that's kind of the elevator pitch of Mason causeway.
Sam Yarborough 6:44
That's a beautiful thing.
Jason Yarborough 6:46
Yep. I love that. And I get to sit here and spin on this for the next two hours. And I think we may have even hinted on this. In your podcast, when I joined you, many moons ago, kind of around my my career might trajectory and gotten on the same path as you and stumbled into the b2b space and landed as partnerships world, which very similar to it's kind of how your logic is minus worlds, like I get to sit in the middle of all these different teams, all these different companies and really understand and learn from them and help them drive the progression of their success. And that's really fulfilling in a in a b2b SaaS role, which sounds very strange and weird to say, but you get a lot of fulfillment, and you get to help different teams and people. So let's, let's talk a little bit about more about you, and how you're, you're able to do that, right? You, it's as No, no stranger to LinkedIn, you are, right, you post on a daily basis, and you embody this learning out loud thing that a lot people are talking about, and no one does it better than you. I want to talk to you too about a little bit about your, your voice on LinkedIn, and how you maintain authenticity, by posting every single day. Right, and kind of how you're able to leverage LinkedIn by doing so. So talk to us about how you AI, you kind of get started on down this LinkedIn path and how it's going to help progress your career, but how you've done it in an authentic manner.
Mason Cosby 8:23
So there's a couple couple things that go into this one. If we go all the way back to when I even started posting on LinkedIn. Again, I landed in this b2b tech space and was recognizing okay, I don't have, I've always been a really solo marketer, or really scrappy marketers, so recognize don't have massive budgets. So what's the best way to actually reach the buyers, it's probably going to be through building relationships on social, where to be the buyers typically hang out, it's gonna be LinkedIn. So like, that was the initial thing. I actually started on LinkedIn, when I was working at a loan agent, software company, in Jackson, Mississippi. So I was trying to connect with lenders and like that didn't that didn't work, cuz I'm not a lender. So to your point, I think I'm so kind of bullish on authenticity, because when I heard it on LinkedIn, I wasn't authentic. I tried and tried and tried to be this, like financial lending marketing expert, that had been on the job for three weeks. So clearly the data that I was talking about, and I just saw that completely fall flat, I mean, just zero results, hours upon hours upon hours, for like a year and a half, with nothing to show for it. And then I transitioned over to the agency space. And again, we've alluded to, but I worked with a company called Mojo Media Labs, and I was the marketer that marketed the agency. So as marketing marketing marketers, which is still to this day, one of the most fun jobs that I've ever had. And what I recognized in that is, the more I got to know the marketing space, the more I started to understand, yes, there are clear playbooks and strategies and tactics that people can run. But more often than not, it's one field I have no idea what they're doing, and they're just like doing their best to figure Robots gonna work right now. So instead of coming at it from this perspective of let me be this incredible expert that's got it all together, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. But here's what I'm trying. And it's easy working. And I'd report back into like I did, or it'd be like it didn't. And then again, just doing that for like, I think it's been three years now. People have tuned in. So I, I tried to be this authentic individual. Because again, I've tried it the other way, it doesn't work. And other things, when you continue to post things that aren't authentic, you constantly fear that you're gonna get found out. I don't fear about being found out right now. Because I've been, sometimes to my own detriment, very authentic. Tension, like shown me and this was a complete failure. But like, this is what I learned from it. So again, just working through those things. And then the final piece I want to be very clear on is it does ebb and flow. I learned this from Dan Sanchez, because I've been posting a lot more about my personal life. I think I've actually over indexed on that. Dan Sanchez has said like, if you think about your content as a meal, the personal life stuff should be more of a seasoning. And like the main meat and potatoes is your expertise in your actual professional life. So I probably over index want to be clear, like I don't have a fully figured out it ebbs and flows. Because I've actually recently seen some decrease in engagement. There's a variety of reasons behind that. But like, I think it's because I probably indexed so much. I'm like, I'm having a baby. And like, that's nice. But people typically follow me for like career and ABM advice, not right, my life evolve as I have a job.
Jason Yarborough 11:35
Now, so I totally understand that.
Sam Yarborough 11:38
I mean, I think that's amazing. And I appreciate your authenticity there. And just in your answer truly. I want to hear your advice for people who maybe are wanting to take that step and twofold. Maybe they don't know what their expertise is. So how do they get started? And you kind of alluded to that. But did you feel like you were an expert, or you were at least had enough skin in the game to have a voice when you started? And for somebody who is starting? What advice do you have for them to remain authentic?
Mason Cosby 12:13
twofold. So the first, the first answer is no. And I would actually still say to this day, I don't feel like I'm truly all that much of an expert. Like I've only really been in b2b period for like, five years at this point. So I mean, I like I would not claim to be a true expert. Um, I've put in a lot of hours, I've worked a lot, 80 hour weeks to get to this point. So like, I've accelerated that on that front. But the reality is like, there are people that are 1520 years into this thing, I'm a way smarter than I am. So I don't claim that authenticity, or not playing the expertise in that sense. Where I claim is, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is what's working, this is what isn't. So it's very tailored to what I'm doing. And again, if we think back, and I've been really thinking through this, I don't even guys know Alex or Mozi. But like the best piece of advice that I've gotten from Alex for Mozi. He's like a very large, up and coming like business guru type person is like when you're creating content, stop saying you should do X. And like focus on this is what I did. And these are the results. Because the I think I actually had this as a LinkedIn post, there have been times in my overall journey on LinkedIn past three years where I have for like a really, I've gotten high on my own supply. I look at my content like man, like I'm, I'm starting to get pretty smart here. And that's when my content typically 10. Because I no longer come at it from the perspective of an authentic person that's learning actively. And I started dictating what other people should do versus saying, Here's what I'm actively doing. This is what's working, this is what's not. So again, the lesson for other people to take is do what I just recommended, like don't say, this is what you should do say like, this is what I'm doing. Because again, from my own perspective, my own experience, the more I've leaned into what I'm doing, and saying this is what's worked for me, the more people tend to engage because we don't like to be dictated to we just like to follow others that are being successful and kind of leading the charge.
Sam Yarborough 14:10
And it opens up an open conversation
Jason Yarborough 14:12
sort of Bashir in personal experience.
Sam Yarborough 14:14
Yeah, he's like, this is what I'm doing. What do you think not? This is what you should do. Good luck.
Jason Yarborough 14:20
And there's a lot of like, psychology and how do you how you accelerate learning within that, right? There's, I think a lot of science I read a lot about this is about how we can accelerate our learning by actually talking about the things we're learning and having those open conversations. Like once you get to the place where you feel like you have enough experience a little bit of an opinion, then you start talking about it, injecting it into conversation, and then you're learning just hits this acceleration path that it wouldn't otherwise hit. So there's a lot of value and dislike, what you've actually been doing over the last three years so while others may have been in the space for 15 years or five years probably matches their fit years of experience because you're having those conversations with those people, and probably challenging their methodology.
Mason Cosby 15:08
Yeah, I agree with all of that. And again, I think through the years of experience peace with the understanding that we quantify years of experience with the understanding that it's kind of typically a 40 hour work week, and you're not typically doing so much in communities and like, learning for other people, like we're so from that perspective, and we think years of experience, that's the frame. But for me personally, and I've shared this fairly frequently in public, but like, I have either been doing like I have 64 certifications on my LinkedIn, because when I started in this career field, I had no idea what I was doing. So I just went and got as many free certifications as I could. And then from there, I started a podcast and I started seeking to VPs and CMOS across a variety of disciplines in the marketing space. And then from there, since I've left the agency space, I started to do some minor consulting and some freelance work again. So again, all of those things compound to where I'm at right now, I'm probably working close to 60 hours a week, I love it. But that compounding effect of not just 40 hours for sales assembly, but 40 hours for sales assembly 10 at this other organization where they're doing things completely differently. I'm like a small part of their overall structure, and then one where I'm literally just like their fractional consultant, that is poking holes in their entire strategy. So like, all of that comes together to where you get this compounding effect of learning and accelerated growth.
Jason Yarborough 16:24
Incredible, I love that there's a, there's a lot of people to learn within that, especially as they, you know, think about taking on the beast that is LinkedIn, you know, a, but the damn work in you got it, you got to do the work, you got to be willing to invest the time and, you know, men, it requires 64 certifications, but you know, at least, you know, put the time in to get the knowledge that you need, you know, whether it's, you know, starting your own podcast, starting to talk about what you're learning. One of the things that I kind of wanted to kind of rewind on a bit is kind of that authenticity. And we'll kind of wrap this topic up here. But how long did it take you to kind of overcome that that fear of being vulnerable? On LinkedIn and sharing and feeling like you know, you're going to be discovered or seen for not knowing what you're talking about? Yeah, I'm
Sam Yarborough 17:13
asking for a friend on that one.
Jason Yarborough 17:15
I'm not taking notes.
Mason Cosby 17:17
I don't think you're gonna love the answer. It comes in waves. So I think for example, we'll use the example of gravity you know, when I when I with mojo before we were required, we put together this massive day long virtual conference called EBM Athan, and I think that's probably when I was like, the height of my confidence and authenticity. Because I had been able to pull together 20 sessions for a day long virtual conference, all around ABM, I proved all the content like I was in the throes of working with some of the top experts on Account Based Marketing. So I felt really confident at that moment when we got acquired. And my role changed pretty dramatically, just about a two month period where I really Frogger word got sucked at my job, because we were in the throes of an acquisition, didn't feel super confident up. Eventually, I got better at my job, felt really confident again, I'll be blunt, like my again, my engagement right now today is pretty down. And I'm still figuring out within the overarching brand narrative sales simply like where does my specific voice tie in to sales assembly, but also still being unique and authentic. So like, if you were to ask me, I feel a lot more confident than I did, like two months ago, in my own voice and authenticity on that front. But like, it's something that I'm still figuring out. And I think you have to figure out the one thing that I don't hear a lot people talk about when it comes to personal brand, is it's personal. And we as people should change over time. So it's that balance of your audience gets to know you for something. But then you also evolve as a person. So how do you strike the balance of evolving your brand, personally, but also still serving that audience. And again, I think that's my ebbs and flows with kind of how I feel confident or feel fully authentic and what I'm posting. So that's why I continue to put in the reps every day, regardless of how authentic or inauthentic I'm feeling or confident I'm feeling because I know the more I put out there, the more feedback I get. And then I can continue to refine and figure out word, my voice perfectly fits in that moment.
Jason Yarborough 19:16
That's awesome. Love that another Gerbrand is one of you know, being a being a helper and being a servant, you know, on LinkedIn to people. And I think that's very evident in your podcast, the marketing ladder, which I would love for you to tell us a little bit about that real quickly, and how you've been able to use the marking ladder to really, you know, help your community through your personal brand on LinkedIn.
Mason Cosby 19:42
Yeah, so there's a couple of pieces to the marketing ladder. One. The show was actually helped about 30 people land jobs, which has been just awesome to see that's outstanding. So I like of everything that I've done with the marketing ladder in the past about two years. Like that's the thing I'm the most proud of I'm so as we look at how I've been able to use the marketing ladder, it's like kind of threefold to one. Yes, I would say that my personal brand kind of blew up to some extent after the marketing ladder was started, because I started to have these really influential people that would come and talk to me about their careers. And some guests were very vulnerable, very authentic, and telling their career story really, for the first time and the only place that they had. So I just think about some of the leaders that like were really vulnerable and authentic. I got like, really, essentially, like exclusive content, because it wasn't about like, your strategies, which most people go to talk about, was like, What's your story? Like? How did you get to where you are today? That's, that's one piece. The second piece is that career side of helping people land jobs every single month, I would compile a list of everybody that had been on the show that was actively hiring. And I would post that and tagged everybody. And that those posts always typically got a lot of engagement, because it was super practical. And it helped both parties. So if you'd been on the show, you get highlighted some of the hiring, if you're looking for a job, you got to find a single place where you can actually reach out directly to the hiring manager. And that's where the show ended up becoming is this idea, get get career advice to your potential future boss. So you've listened to the episode and then personalize your outreach to a hiring manager based on what they had said in the episode. So that all came together really well. And then from a business perspective, I did work in an ABM agency. And I was very intentional in the way that I built my LinkedIn network to actually include a lot of our target accounts. So I would end up actually having a target account on the show. I'd help them hire somebody. So then the hiring manager that was the decision maker for buying an ABM program really liked me personally, because I helped them find talent. And then that talent like because I have to find a job so that I had two internal evangelists for Mason Cosby that wanted to see me succeed. And then when they needed support lender marketing progress now like we really need an agency, they either knew that I worked at an agency, or they would just reach out to me and be like, hey, Mason, you're well connected, who do you know? And say, why know me, you want to come talk to me about building your ABM program. And like, we actually were able to source about a million dollars out of out of the podcast and closed about four or five different companies that had been on the show as an unintended byproduct. So they think about, like, the ways that the marketing ladder has benefited the community. And then me personally, like, it's those three big things, of helping people land jobs, I think it gave me the confidence to have a voice and a lot of ways, but then also, like it did clearly tie back to revenue for the organization that worked out.
Jason Yarborough 22:31
Yeah, that, yeah, there's, there's a lot to unpack here. This is truly, you know, embodies like what we were talking about, you know, as far as like purpose built relationships within partnerships, so like, what you were doing was like, kind of the partnership motion. For me, step one. And any partnership that I build is like, how do we provide value out the gate, first and foremost, and you were providing instrumental value to these target accounts that you were going after?
Sam Yarborough 22:56
I also think that that's something either people, individuals or companies struggle with when they see people creating personal brands, because it seems, it seems peripheral, it seems fluffy. And until you can bring the circle together and show like my personal brand is adding value to the company. And you've done that in like, here's how, here's the revenue, I'm driving because of it. I don't think people often connect those dots and think all the way through that. But the power of what you just described, is unmatched. Truly, like a company alone, people don't connect with companies or brands, they connect with people. And you've, you've shown that. And you've provided value, through and through to these people. And again, we're here to talk about relationships, that is the basis of this podcast. So building those one to one relationships and helping people first, as you mentioned, they come back to you time and time again, in ways that are potentially unexpected. That's amazing. So you've kind of talked about this, but how do you make sure that your networking your relationships remain mutually beneficial, and it's not transactional in nature?
Mason Cosby 24:13
I think I'm at at it, like an unintentional advantage here. Because I just genuinely like helping people. And I don't typically do it with any expectation of anything in return. And then it's like a really pleasant surprise when it happens. And like I just kind of, at this point, having done it for a couple of years. For lack of a word, and I know that people are gonna hate this answer, but like, it's not super strategic in nature. It's just like, look, I recognize the more I give value to other people and actually genuinely benefit them and help them the more that they're going to like me and when they inevitably need my help, they will come to me, I wasn't gonna happen next month or next year or even like three years from now, but the reality is, it's going to happen and like, let's think about this podcast, Jason, I think like three years ago, and like, we are still connected, we're still friends and like, who knows what this relationship will turn into. And I have no expectation that will turn into anything, but it might. And that's cool. And like, that's it. So from that perspective, like, I don't have necessarily like a 17 step sequence of like how I build a friendship first. And then like, have all the appropriate touch points and attribution to then say, at this point, I'll make the ask. I just help people. But and then when it makes sense, I asked.
Jason Yarborough 25:36
Well, it's like in Robert Cialdini, his book Influence, he talks about the law of reciprocity. Yes. Right. And people will remember what you do for them. And you know, whether TierPoint, it's three months, three years, eight years down the road, like they remember, and it'll always come back, you know, and that's the power of providing value is, you know, maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn't, but the law of influence says it will, but just do do the right thing, because it's the right thing and hope people. Yeah,
Sam Yarborough 26:06
so I have a question on this. And I'm coming out of left field a little bit here. So apologies. Obviously, Jason, no balls, working partnerships, a lot of the people we talk to are from that discipline. And this is not a new concept, add value first. But a lot of times people don't know where to start and adding value. I think we've kind of alluded to this, you have carved out a niche for you in helping people find jobs helping people grow in their careers. And that has come around to add value to you personally, and to your company. In the partnership World Value sometimes takes the lens of referrals or leads. And those aren't always like, ready on a silver platter. So for Do you have any advice on where to look to add value? Because sometimes people don't even know what to ask for. But clearly, you stepped up and you just add value wherever you see it needed. How do you how do you find that for people? And how can you offer advice for somebody who's like, I want to show up and help. But people aren't asking for it?
Mason Cosby 27:18
Yeah, I've got one. I'm gonna be really like, bracing on this. Three years ago, nobody asked me for help ever. I mean, I had been in an agency for like three months in the b2b tech space for three months, like, why would anybody asked me for help? At that time, I didn't have anything of value to offer. And then I'll say that from the perspective of like, I'm not valuable, like I understand that, as a human, I have intrinsic value, but for the market at large. And I get asked on the podcast, nobody asked me for help, to me anyway, because nobody knew I existed or had anything of value. So firstly, go create something that's valuable that people would be interested in asking your help for. And like that could be a podcast, like that's not super complicated on that front, like go build something of value. So that's the first thing. Second thing, once you have it, there's three approaches that I would recommend. The first is solve a peripheral problem for your ideal customers. So again, if you think back to when I was an agency, the problem that they had was they needed to build marketing programs that were successful. And the ways in which they could do that were there were a lot of ways, one of them would be hiring an agency, one of them would be hiring another person, or they wouldn't be buying technology, like those are kind of the three big things. We had tech partnerships. So they needed support around technology, we could route them that way. We offered agency services. So we were that one. The third way, though, was helping them get talent. So again, we solve a peripheral problem for our best fit customers, and then actually help them land talent. So that was a clear value add regardless, and that worked for partnerships that worked with her for potential customers that worked with our existing customers, like back will always work. And it's the same thing over here at self assembly, like we're a skill development company. So a lot of what we actually do just to help people out is we help connect people so that they can land a job, phone official product offer, for example, but adds a lot of value. So that's first thing. Second thing surance figure out how I specifically add value, pick who you want to add value for, there's only so much time in the day. So take an account based approach actually adding value, and then just be like really intentional. So other things that we're talking about here sales assembly is, you know, we've got two sellers, and me as kind of a revenue team for memberships version, I think like 400 people, and say, for the next six months, we are these 400 people's biggest fans, and like we're just going to be everywhere for them. And we're going to make sure that they have so much it for us, we're going to help them in any way shape or form that we can. So that Jason to your point around the law of reciprocity, the more that we help them, like the conversion rate on that's probably gonna be like what 20% will actually say let's go, you know, have a conversation with sales Embley when he had like, 100 deals this year, we've already got like 40 So from that perspective, if we He chose 400 people and became their biggest fan for six months, it's likely that we would see the rest of the deals come in through a variety of methods, but like that's one of them. So just get like really intentional and focused on who you're going to add value to, as opposed to this vague idea of like, I'm going to add value, like get specific. And then the third one is, again, it's a bit circuitous. I think about the customer, as like a job, person to help land or helping them find people to land jobs, I also look at our customers that have either say layoffs that have seen, you know, they just, they get let go, like, whatever that looks like, if you have an existing customer that loves you already, helping them land a job, regardless of where they land, is a great way to have them bring you in. So again, there's three ways two of them are jobs, again, after years of doing a lot of job placement, but like looking at your ideal customers, and figuring out how you can help them find talent, looking at who do I want to provide so much value to that I just become their number one fan for like six months to a year. And lastly, if you have people that are your existing customers that love you, if they get let go for any reason, helping them land a job, so they'll bring you to the next organization. And again, there's no expectation like hell be when the job if you bring me in, but like, it's going to naturally happen. Like if I help you get a job, you're gonna love me even more. So when you see the problem that we solve, you relate already our solution with go give them a call a sales assembly.
Jason Yarborough 31:37
Love that. It's incredible. And it's $1 revolving around this thing of value yet again. So like, I've got this concept of value builds trust, trust creates relationships and relationships will eventually create ROI in the b2b context, right? And never seek out that ROI. But it will happen again, like the law of reciprocity, so like you're seeing this firsthand at it sells assembly. And I love that and also kind of want to jump back into point number two, he said to be their biggest fan. So I've taken 400 people so to say and being their biggest fan like how do you are cells assembly you and Matt Jenna, whoever my VI How are you guys showing up for these people to be their biggest fan?
Mason Cosby 32:23
Yeah, so we're gonna get really tactical for a moment, when I think about the split of what I am proposing, Jenna and I. So Jenna is our a person that's over sponsorship, partnership type approaches, we're going to pick 100 people. Because typically what's happening is, and this has been really interesting, since I've started, I was actually functioned kind of as a solutions engineer for our partnerships. So whenever the partnerships get to a potential stage in the deal cycle, General will wrote me back in and will essentially like CO create a marketing plan together. So that before they signed the contract, they actually have a clear understanding of, hey, if we were to go to market together, this is what this partnership could look like. From there to help on the front end, I'm going to start getting way more intentional around who I'm engaging with, so that when we actually start to engage in some level of conversation, there's an existing relationship there, as opposed to like, Let's just see who could sponsor and partner like, we're picking out a list of like 50, sales, tech type companies that I'm gonna go and build relationships with, with the inevitable goal that they might be great partners. If not, they may be great, like, it's just gonna be good to have those relationships, regardless of what the outcome looks like. So again, I'm gonna go become the number one fan for like, probably 100 People probably isn't VPs of marketing and CMOS across all 50 different organizations. So that's the first one, whether that would then break down is when I do my daily LinkedIn content, like, I'm gonna have a folder of the people that I'm going to follow. And I'm gonna break that out on a daily basis. So I'm gonna go and you can eat for 20 people. So over the course of a week, I'll hit all 100. So again, I just hit every single person, every single week. And again, no sales pitch, just like commenting liking, showing up inviting them onto a pod, Catholic, whatever that needs to look like. From there, we're gonna do the exact same thing was sales from the membership perspective and focus on CROs and VPs of sales, we're gonna break that up across like 300. And then we've got two sellers on that front. They're gonna be really focused on becoming the biggest fan for those CROs and those VPs of sales and then supporting and helping wherever they can and whatever they're talking about. So that could be helping them land, somebody that's going to work at that organization, or it could be, hey, you're struggling with X y&z topic, we've actually got resources and content on this. So again, just showing up constantly, with the inevitable intent that the more that if somebody showed up on your content is super helpful and valuable. For three to six months, you're probably going to mention to just go check out their profile. So like, Who is this person? And again, exactly, you'll see and we set up our landing or our profile pages landing pages to where it routes them towards you. like take a tour, see our product, here's how it can be valuable for you and everything's unguided from that perspective. So it mean, it's truly a value first approach.
Jason Yarborough 35:07
That's incredible. And there's so much to take from here for like the partnership initiative and partnership programs as well. In the fact that a, one of the most valuable things you can do is find that right partner that you can go to market with and be able to build that relationship. Right. And anytime I'm working with partners, I'm identifying those top tier partners I'm going to go to market with it's really identifying the value there in the Better Together story a given how we go further faster those things, and really understanding that the nature of the relationship, but but also like something you said it as well as engaging with with those accounts, right. So if I'm working with all these partners, again, if we were partnering together, like really helping support them in the market, right, maybe S S T M, if I may support the market support, whatever it might be else's point of view, do Fraser support? How do we support our partners out there in the market and going and being a part of their network their community, and elevating their voice and providing value there, especially for someone like yourself who, you know, is is quite prolific in the LinkedIn space and can provide a lot of eyeballs onto a brand that may not get it otherwise. So there's a lot of lot of value in support to market and trademark in that right now. And by the way, by the end, it's also mean, I wrote down another thing too, that I just kind of wanted to quickly highlight no at no point other than to talk about it. But you said it's good to have the relationship. Throughout my career in partnerships. I've always taken the calls, I've always taken the interviews have always is whether or not I'm open to taking on new partners or not have always found value in meeting new people and having the relationship and then continuing to esteem them in the market support that to market. I'm going to defer the vocal now. But I love that it is it is great to have the really show especially for those of us in in sales or marketing or partnership role, you never know again, like when that's going to come back. And when that relationship when that call you took that never was intended to end up with anything other than to meet and learn from the like, it'll come back one of those days.
Sam Yarborough 37:30
So I want to I want to go back to kind of what you were just talking about, there's so much to to, I'm literally going to make my sales team listening to this episode, Jr. But
Jason Yarborough 37:40
most of this Mason is for us like just not we don't I don't think we do a podcast for ourselves.
Sam Yarborough 37:47
No doubt, like if anybody listens, bonus, but so you just posted and I'm gonna quote you here, getting your potential customers actively involved in your content program is probably the best way to build a relationship and have them root for you long term. So we just kind of talked about that here. But one thing I want to kind of dive into a little bit more is, the way I read this is this is like your corporate content program, which can sometimes be a little stuffy can sometimes feel inauthentic if the voice isn't correct. But what you just talked about is person to person relationships. So how do you bridge the gap there from like, you have a company strategy, company campaigns, content program, and then the individuals are the ones that are actually moving the dirt that are building those relationships? Can you kind of talk about how you bridge the gap?
Mason Cosby 38:46
I have to be really honest of I'm, I can talk to it. But admittedly, like I've worked in primarily smaller organizations where we had a very people first go to market kind of as a as a standard approach. So even in our corporate content, it was always about the people that were sharing that expertise. So it was never, I mean, it was always we'll go back to Mojo as an example, like we created Mojo blog content. But it was always like, here's the person that worked at Mojo that had these thoughts that then created this content. So even from that perspective, like it wasn't a I think even at one point, I just stopped posting on the Mojo company page for like a year because it just like, we saw so much better success from a personal perspective, that like the corporate content wasn't needed. It was a waste of time for us. So I like I think the balance there is yes, like if you have that corporate content engine going cool. But like at the end of the day, if you build a podcast, you probably gonna have a host like somebody's got to host it. So then can you turn that person into kind of the main person that people build a relationship with and see and see value from? So again, even with the sales as Only podcast. Like we have a rotating set of people that are involved and kind of host that show. And we post about it from our company page. But the outreach is always from an individual, the connections and the relationships are always built from an individual. So I hear what you're saying, I just don't. I think if you just have it focused around like an individual that's going to be focused on building relationships, you should work out even if it comes to our company in a corporate page, because at the end of the day, like a clip of somebody is still a person. So does that answer the question?
Sam Yarborough 40:32
Totally. And I love that approach, too. Because what I heard you say, and I, this is I'm leading into what I want to ask you next, but you have you elevate different people in your company, to be experts on certain things, is kind of what I'm hearing you say, and then that whole thing creates the company. Companies are just an illusion, they're made up of people. And so if we go to market as people, we're going to be more successful. And again, we're here talking about people to people relationships. So that makes sense. I've also heard you talk about the quote unquote, T shaped marketer. So let me stop there. Can you explain what that is for people who've never heard that before?
Mason Cosby 41:16
Yeah, so the idea of that T shaped marketer is this concept that there's a lot of disciplines across marketing. So you've got paid and you got organic, and you've got PR, like, there's just a ton of stuff that you can do in marketing. So the idea is, you get a breadth of understanding across the discipline, that is marketing, which realistically has like 15 sub disciplines within it, and you figure out where you're going to be best suited. And like there's a bunch of jokes about about like, there's the creative marketer, but there's also then like, the marketing ops person I like those are both marketing, but there's a totally different people. So
yes, both super needed. But you need to, then you need to figure out where you're going to land and then you go super deep in that one specific area. But the value having the breadth of understanding is twofold. One is you get the breadth of understanding, you then understand all of your potential options before you dedicate a couple to a few years of like, owning a specific lane. Like if you're going to do this, right, you've got to stick to a lane for a really long time to actually get deep expertise. The second thing is within a marketing team, you should have a lot of collaboration. So you need to understand the high level concepts around the differences in how do we do potentially a content pillar program versus more of a volume blog content program. So again, both of those are SEO strategies. But the ways in which you execute those are radically different, and will have different outcomes depending on the ways in which you do it. Content pillar, big bets, quantity content, that's kind of like surface level, you get a lot more at bats. So again, different approaches, different strategies, and it just depends on the sorry, I'm getting really nerdy for a moment, but like depends on where you're at go. Industry is from an SEO kind of maturity stage. So I would never claim to be a deep SEO expert. But like, I've used sem rush, and I created a ton of blog content and like, reached first page of Google on a number of occasions, because I was in like a not super mature SEO industry. So a quantity content strategy would work better, there are some getting a wider range versus when I was in the agency space, I tried the quantity approach didn't work, because SEO was super, super saturated for agencies. So I went quality and created content pillar pages and released like 10,000 word ungated content to the rank really high for specific so like, again, recognizing that, like vast discipline of marketing, I can then have a conversation and to understand the strategy and then understand within my deep expertise, what I can do to support the overarching marketing strategy. And the other thing is if you're working with agencies, if you have an understanding across the breadth of the discipline, you can smell BS from a mile away for people that don't know what they're talking about, but just use a bunch of jargon to make it sound that they know they're talking about.
Sam Yarborough 44:06
Man doing it every every youngster I'm like, I have 45 questions to follow up with you. I love the concept of this T shaped insert job description here because I think it absolutely applies to partner people too. I mean, we've talked about this a lot. It's not a new concept to that partner, people should be quote unquote, mini CEOs. And that's because we have to be dangerous enough in all buying units, all orders within the company to be able to help to be able to insert ourselves, whatever it is see us product sales, marketing. You have to be able to speak the language but it's unrealistic as you're saying to be an expert in all of those. So, in your experience, Mason, how have you found success in building teams or Finding partners to fill areas that you're not deep on.
Mason Cosby 45:04
So I would, I'm gonna go more of a partnership route because to this to this day, the largest team that I've formerly been on is like three people. So like I've never, never like built a massive team personally. But from a partnership perspective, like being really honest, so I always come in and say like, I'm not a graphic designer, I'm not a paid media expert. I'm really good at content. I'm like, half decent at operations. If you need some, like really basic operations, and I'm really I have a really good strategy brain around a call based marketing. That's my skill set. What do you guys got? And like, recognizing, okay, how do we then marry these two things together. And from there, once you've married those two things together, it's pretty clear where the gaps are. And you can then have a conversation around how we fill these gaps. So like, I'll give you a quick example, a sales assembly, suck at design, like it's, it's the greatest gap for me personally, they have premium Canva, it was still terrible, I had just can't do it, I do not have that on. So we got a tool called Design pickle, it's a funny name. But they have unlimited graphic design for like 1000 bucks a month. So we can then queue everything up. And now I have a design resource. Well, and I'm gonna be clear, there's no calls, there's no like, really deep communication, is it going to be the most incredible design in the world? No, but it's a great value for us. So we need pretty basic design needs, I just suck. Like, it's just not my skill set. So then let's go partner Simon. Sales assembly, is a skill development company that doesn't have a ton of like, really, really deep data that's captured through a piece of technology. So we're looking at starting to do more report based and data driven content moving forward. So as I go to our partners, I can say, hey, I want to help, I want to see the current data set that you guys have around this topic, I'll take that data, I'll then use that data to then survey our audience of about 7000 sellers, to see how they are then using that data to then better their sales game, and up their skills. So again, we can take the data that our partners have as a practical example, and then actually use that in surveys to then create content with our audience. So again, if we think about partnership sales is in Blake, super active, super engaged audience of like seven 8000 people, partners, there, especially in the tech space, tons of access to actionable data. But now how do you marry those two things together to one, share that data with the audience, but then also get the audience insights and reactions to the data. So again, that's how a partnership can work really, really well. Again, recognizing the different skill sets and different capabilities of all the organizations to come together to then create a better team.
Jason Yarborough 47:56
Yeah, it's I think it's more about going back to what you said, like knowing the gaps, you got to have that that breadth of knowledge, to even identify a gap. But if we sat in partnerships, and didn't really understand, like, what product was doing, or what marketing was doing, we wouldn't know where a gap was to be filled. Like my last role, I saw a gap and our partners were involved in marketing, I was able to go to the marketing team and kind of build that story, paint that story for them, and made a massive difference in what we were driving from a revenue perspective. Right? Same thing with product, you have to have at least enough understanding of what they're doing, how product works with their building, to identify a gap. And that's one of the things I talk to young partner leaders about all the time is like buddy up with every department you can and this is a great follow up to last week's conversation with Mike stocker he talks about having the four lenses your partnerships views everything through four lenses sales marketing, see as a product, you got to be able to see through those lenses.
Sam Yarborough 49:00
They also what I just heard you say in anything could just deserves highlighting again, is being humble enough to know your strengths and admit your weaknesses, both personally and as a company. And I think a lot of people go to market and say we can do it all will serve you and that doesn't work. If you're trying that stop it. And that's where the value of partnerships both internally with other marketers with other teams but also externally can really that's how you grow at scale. Simply put,
Jason Yarborough 49:38
yep. I love that. I think this is a good place to start to bring it in for a landing here. Two questions to end the thing related to LinkedIn. One, you've got some some fun little stuff in your profile. One is a link that goes out to a little questionnaire to fill out and I'm quite curious it One of the questions and what you're learning from it, you have a question that says, want to connect about professional development with revenue leaders to see how leaders are investing in themselves and their teams? Are you learning anything interesting about how revenue leaders and their teams are investing in themselves?
Mason Cosby 50:16
Yeah, so I'm going to take this from really the angle of like, where's the greatest skill gap that we're that we're hearing about, and then how leaders are trying to invest in their teams and kind of in themselves to help fill that gap. If you follow Matt Greene, he's talked a lot about this recently. But if you think about the past five years for career professional in sales, you know, somebody graduated like 2018 2019, they're probably an SDR, they then got promoted to an AE, and then three months later, COVID head, and then they have only had a world of remote sales until like, six, seven months ago. And now what we're seeing is, like we're doing a lot more in person, sellers are being encouraged to go back in person. And when people have done surveys, and we've, we've talked with a lot of our CROs about like, Okay, well, people are not going back in person, they're really hesitant to do it. Why is it? It's because again, if you think about it, they literally never had to do it. Like, they just it's not been a skill that they've had to learn, they're used to the 30 Minute Zoom meeting, and relationships and sales have become incredibly transactional, because we have 30 minutes. And then I'm done. And I move on my next meeting. And they get to know how to build that deep of a relationship. Because you come in down, I have my two calls with you demand you to do to discovery, and I pass you off to RCSD didn't like, manage you forever. So from that perspective, the greatest gap that we're seeing right now is like the actual ability to go and build relationships, and actually do that in person. Because again,
if you're used to a 30 minute zoom call, and you have to go to a three hour happy hour, and like make small talk. How do you do that?
Sam Yarborough 52:02
Yeah, people don't know. So
Mason Cosby 52:06
what we're seeing a lot of leaders doing is investing the time in themselves, and with their team to actually go out. And we're seeing a lot of great leaders lead from the front and show, hey, here's how you do this. And again, they go with a team. They're kind of like, feel like we're like doing a happy hour together with all the potential customers. And like the next day having a meeting and a post mortem and saying like, what did you do? Well, what, like, what didn't you do? Well, how can you do better next time. So like, those are the leaders that we're seeing are really doing a great job to Frogger like, have empathy for something that you would assume, Oh, if you're a seller, like you're gonna be great relationships with again, like practically have had to be for the past couple of years. And now we need to be again. So that's, I think, where people are really investing their time and their dollars into upping their team's abilities.
Sam Yarborough 52:56
That is not the answer. I expected. I was gonna say the same thing. That's crazy. But it makes total sense.
Jason Yarborough 53:03
Yeah, the need to coach to build relationships, or I made a reference a while back to like, how do we coach to curiosity? And I think that's kind of where we're at now is like, how do we, you know, Coach people to be more curious, to be able to have those conversations to build the relationship and to understand the nature of relationships. So that's kind of like that's been the theme of this whole podcast is value to build relationships. So there we go. All right. Let's talk about the golden elephant in the room. And we're going to wrap it up with the fun fact here. We've normally wrapped with a fun question, but we're gonna go a little different route of fun to end the show. There's a little nugget. In your bio, much like our friend Justin Keller mentioned something about a kings kaleidoscope. Tell us about the Kings kaleidoscope.
Mason Cosby 54:00
I couldn't be more happy they asked. So kings Kaleidoscope is an internationally renowned Christian alternative rock band that I deeply deeply love. Okay, so if you if you're in the podcast world, there was a podcast that was like eight episodes was called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Marsalis big massive church. Kings Kaleidoscope was the name band for Mars Hill, that then when things went really south of Mars Hill, they went on their own and have built an incredible band. So from that perspective, I'm like a deep deep fan.
And the the reference in the illusion that I make in the bio is when I was in college, a friend and I
we live in Jackson, Mississippi, we said hey, what if we like drove to LA and back and like over spring break? So we drove to LA and back. And while we were on the road, I have my friend recognized Oh kings Kaleidoscope Mason Sacred Band is playing on a missions conference at violence suit of author Angeles. And I just happen to bring my sax on with me because I have the skill that's only valuable if I have a saxophone. So he surprised me. And we wind and I got to hear things about his go live and in person for the first time. And then I went up after I was like super nervous about I was like, Hey, I love your music. Could I play like it's been a dream of mine to play with you kind of play with you guys are like you any good. And I was like, Yeah, I think I'm pretty decent. So they ended up letting me come to a soundcheck I played a single song they might call me up. And then after they were like, you're actually like, pretty good. So I hung out with them for an hour I got all their phone numbers and like, ended up the next month seeing them in Atlanta. And I met Lecrae and propaganda backstage at that concert. And I started to have conversations are ongoing on a European tour with them. And they were like we're on tour right now. Like we're gonna have to like put this on pause but like just he texting us like we'll get back to you when when they're done with this tour. And of letting it go because my church asked me to be a volunteer BBs director. So instead of going on a European tour with an international renowned band I
Jason Yarborough 56:13
choices lead VBS went to Vacation Bible School,
Sam Yarborough 56:16
I Mason, you are full of surprises.
Jason Yarborough 56:20
Yeah, seriously. Like we should have started the show off with this and talked about this a little bit. This is amazing. But we'll just have a V two. So tell us why kings Kaleidoscope is in your bio. What happens?
Mason Cosby 56:33
I mean, if you actually send me the message, Kings fly the scope. I put the third of the test to see if anybody will mention it. It's been there for three months. You're the first person to mention it. I'll send you a saxophone solo.
Jason Yarborough 56:44
I love that. That's so good. I'm just gonna send it to you just get a solo but
Sam Yarborough 56:49
what Well, wait, wait, I think this counts.
Jason Yarborough 56:51
Yeah, this actually can count kings kaleidoscope. Let me ask you this. I know you've listened to the podcast. Have you heard the intro music? I have heard the intro music. Okay, first thing what do you think about the intro music? What do you think? What do you think about it?
Sam Yarborough 57:05
Oh, there is some distain there. You know,
Mason Cosby 57:08
it's pretty all right. Oh, wow. I think I think there could be a different instrument used.
Jason Yarborough 57:14
Okay. Okay, let's go. Let's see what you got. Show us what you got.
Mason Cosby 57:18
I'm gonna finish this way
You're welcome.
Sam Yarborough 57:33
Oh, wow.
Jason Yarborough 57:36
That was the best thing to ever happen on this podcast. Hands down. Go down way to get no way to talk that I think we should just wrap the podcast in its entirety. Right there. Now it
Mason Cosby 57:48
was only episode 90 gonna make it to 10
Sam Yarborough 57:50
We're done. We can only go down from here.
Jason Yarborough 57:53
That's amazing. mazing thank you so much for hanging out. Thank you for that. Wonderful Friends with Benefits sack solo. cannot imagine a better way to end this year. Incredible. Such a pleasure.
Sam Yarborough 58:05
We'll see you next time friends. Take care.
