The marketing movement by refined labs. Welcome back to the marketing movement. My name is Todd Clouser. I'm a senior brand marketing manager here at Refine Labs.
And today I'm sitting down with Mateo Elvira. He's a former SDR-turned-content creator and agency owner. And we're gonna talk about how the role of the SDR and content creation are now merging among Gen Z salespeople. All right, Mateo, so I know you come from an SDR background.
And I can say I've done the same. So as a marketer, what caused you from going from sales doing SDR work into the content creation field? Honestly, I think part of it became just like habit. I think during pandemic, I just found myself spending more time on TikTok.
We were all at home. We had extra time. And myself and probably along with the rest of the world, I just found myself being fixated with video content. I've always been really big into video content, but just kind of taking that leap.
And I think TikTok is such a special place where it's fun to make one. And you don't really need to be a super professional videographer, storyteller. It's just fun to be a part of the party, so to speak. So I think the pandemic kind of really accelerated that.
And to me, trying to talk. And then afterwards, I started to see like there was just so much reach, so much engagement. It was just blowing up. And there had to be an opportunity for businesses to really take advantage of this platform.
And so it honestly started off with me just being a consumer of TikTok and me enjoying the content that's on there, having fun making content that's on there. And it just led to everything moving into me doing this full time and building this agency. So it honestly started with me just being a huge fan and a consumer of TikTok, to be honest with you. So let me ask you this.
When you were doing SDR work, you bounced around to a couple different companies as an SDR. When you started creating content, one was that during your tenure as an SDR. And did you see that people started recognizing you from that content and it made your job easier in that role? You know, my first like approach in content was actually a podcast.
So when I was an SDR, I started a podcast called the Sales Dev Squad Podcast. It was just gonna be me documenting my journey, like being an SDR, helping other SDRs, interviewing other sales leaders. And so that was sort of my first take at content creation. And it was really cool because I ended up doing like 60 plus episodes is something that I actually did for like two years.
So like while I was working full time, I was like interviewing like sales leaders and BP of sales, like a couple of times a month or a couple of times a week and just like forcing myself to like be consistent with it, forcing myself to like, reach out to new people and network with them and ask if they wanna be on the podcast. So that was really my first like stat at content creation. It's something that propelled me to like learn about podcasts, learn about like, okay, how do I take this podcast, and then I started into like a couple of micro pieces of content. How do I make this into a couple of TikToks?
And so it really forced me to like look at things from the lens of a marketer to understand like, okay, how do I reverse engineer like topic ideas for a podcast? How do I find the best portions of this podcast that my audience will resonate with? And so the whole media side of it really allowed me to like get a taste of what it's like to be on the marketing side of things. But at the same time, I was still working full time as like a sales rep like cold calling.
So part of me was like, hmm, I'm posting content on LinkedIn that's getting decent engagement. I'm having fun with it. I think it's like, I think it's doing its job. And on the other end, like I'm cold calling and I'm bothering people.
Like there has to be some sort of balance here or some one way where like I'm able to get my message in a way that's like the audience wants to consume it and receive it. So it was that cool balance of like doing both of those jobs at once and seeing like, which one did I enjoy doing more? Really? And what did people on the other end actually enjoy more too?
So it was this cool balance and I have to be honest with you. Yeah, and I think, I think for the people listening, this is a perfect transition into like what we really want to talk about on this episode, which is, what is the future of the SDR role as Gen Z is coming into these entry level sales positions. They've grown up in the content creation, TikTok era. For sure.
How does all that stuff kind of merge? Because I had the same experience as you now given this was, for me this was with YouTube, but like I started as an SDR and I was terrible at it. Like I was miserable coming into work, you know, dialing 100 times a day. Like I couldn't get, like I can't say it anymore clear.
Like I was just really bad and I got cussed out all day long. So like for me, I was like, I'm either gonna quit or I'm gonna figure out a different way to do this. And yeah, I had, I was lucky enough to have a little runway. So I was able to start a YouTube channel and that kind of propelled that forward.
But like, where do you see the future of the SDR role and like how that mixes in with marketing? I think, you know, SDRs are really like just many, many brand awareness agents. If you think about it, obviously there are appointment centers, but I think their main job and what they are really useful at is brand awareness. And so if we take the SDR role, which you gather a lot of insight hitting the phones, you get an idea of like, you know, what the prospects world is, what are their pain points, right?
And so you almost do a lot of market research by hitting the phones and doing all these top of final activities that, you know, you almost have a lot more insight than maybe like an AE might have if they're just receiving appointments. And so that insight I think can be easily translated to create content on the internet around the pain points that your solution solves in a creative way. And I think most of the SDRs right now are very young, probably my age, maybe a little bit older, maybe a little bit younger, but like they're tech savvy. And I think having them create content as a part of their role is something that I think not a lot of SDR works or even any SDRs are really taking advantage of, but it's a huge opportunity, especially if you are a B2B tool where other B2B buyers and leaders and influencers are on these platforms.
We see like Chili Piper is a good example, like they're super active on Instagram reels and TikTok, even from like a recruitment standpoint. And so we talk about like this opportunity for SaaS companies to get on these channels early and really stand out amongst the pack and leverage the people on your front lines that have so much creativity and so much insight at the same time, you kind of mix those together. You have something really, really special, but not a lot of companies are doing right now. And I think that's what it takes to stand out.
So that's just my thoughts. It's just so much insight, so much creativity. You got to use it or it's going to go to waste. So I think it's, you brought up an interesting point in that you gain a lot of insight when you're calling on customers.
And I think as a marketer who has called on customers before and also sat in on sales calls, you see a completely different dynamic when the person is talking to sales or when they're talking to marketing. There's definitely more of like a defensive stance when they're talking to a sales person. It's like, how can I get off the phone? Like I don't want to be an asshole, but like I need to hang up like right now I have other things to do.
Whereas when you're talking to somebody from a research standpoint or you're doing something like this on a podcast where it's, I just want to hear about your expertise and that sort of thing, it's people are way more inclined to talk to you. Yeah. But let me ask you this, because I know you're real big into TikTok. I'm real big into TikTok.
How do you think that SDRs that are looking to transition more into this content creation role and kind of like switch that balance from like heavy cold calling all day to like more content creation and using that to build their brand? How do you see people utilizing TikTok to make that happen? And like any tips on getting started or anything like that? Well, I mean, with TikTok, I think you really just have to get started, honestly.
Like TikTok is a platform where you don't really need to have super professional high-end super, I mean, this DSLR footage is great for a podcast, but I wouldn't necessarily use this for a TikTok. I prefer just using my phone. I think people often overthink TikTok. I think the simplest ideas do the best.
And these are ideas where you kind of don't really put too much effort and thought about it. You're like, hey, here's here's like a sound trend. I feel like I could just kind of tell a story through my company's brand lens or like a problem that we solve and just get it out there. And I think it's really democratizing storytelling in a way that, you know, it doesn't look weird if you just have like your SDRs making content on their phone and posting it out there.
So I think the best tip is really to get started and not to overthink it. And I think the more you put yourself in a position where you're just pushing yourself to get a few pieces out there a day and just see like, okay, which ones are doing well for you? Which ones are performing well? What are people gravitating towards?
And then from there, you kind of have some sort of direction as far as, okay, you know, we're doing well with these kinds of posts or these sort of audio trends are working well for us. Let's see if we can do more of them. So I think it's super scary because we look at LinkedIn and super corporate, super B2B, super professional. And then you have TikTok on the other end where it's super casual, super playful, sometimes a little crazy on an edgy sometimes.
But, you know, I think the best advice is just to like see what other B2B companies are doing, try to tell it in your own brand story. But just like, just get a few posts out there and see like what does well, get a few posts out there and just internalize like the results and the feedback and how it does. And I think you might be surprised that your first couple of posts will probably get, you know, a couple of hundred views for an account that has zero followers. And so I think that's sort of momentum and traction that you need to get started.
So what tips do you have, I guess, for like new players getting on TikTok? I think you brought up a really good point there, which was LinkedIn is, it's got this extremely corporate, I say it's got like this dull dryness to it where everyone's kind of like trying to put up this professional, you know, image of themselves where on, where on TikTok, like you said, it's, it's very authentic. It can be entertaining, not everybody's entertaining. There's a lot of people that are doing straight education.
But like, I think that's the beauty of sharing that content to LinkedIn is because, you know, and this is what I am interested for your take. Like this is what I test my TikTok content doing so well in LinkedIn. It's like people, people get fatigued by like, text post, text post, text post, when they see that TikTok watermark, like they either, they think one of two things. One, this is going to be super entertaining.
Like I'm going to stop and watch. Or two, it's going to be super authentic because they just whipped out their phone. But either way, they're stopping. So like at that point, like you've got them hooked.
Now you just have to get them to watch it. But I think that's a really good point to make that like TikTok and LinkedIn don't have to be like two separate strategies. Like I think you can, that's part of the beauty of TikTok is like they make it so easy to share the content. Yeah.
Yeah. It's awesome. And I think what are your thoughts around something that I get a lot is my audience isn't on TikTok. How do you sort of like handle that objection or how do you get someone to think that their audience may be on other platforms outside of LinkedIn?
Because that's something that I'm always struggling with myself is how do I sort of communicate that in a way that doesn't sound like too pushy or dooshy, I guess. I think I think Chris Walker kind of sums this up the best where he says like, you have to look for the qualitative signals and not the quantitative ones. I mean, the quantitative ones will come later if you if you're set up to measure them properly. But like if I'm putting out educational B to be marketing or sales content and I'm getting people commenting and I'm getting people sharing my posts, if I'm repurposing them to LinkedIn and I see people tagging me and posting it, I don't even know who they are.
Like these are the qualitative signals that tell you that your content is working. And then more recently, like because we have at Refine Labs, we have self reported attribution. So like I can see if if somebody comes in and they say, where did you hear about us and TikTok comes up? Like we know that the channel drove drove that awareness.
And there's there's been a couple of people that I've I've talked to that that we've helped kind of get started on TikTok. And they've started sharing their self reported attribution saying TikTok over the past, you know, couple days and weeks, which is really exciting because they only have five or six posts out there. It's like, it's it's it's incredible to see the traction. And I think people will will start coming over within the next six months.
I'm curious if this is if this is your case as well. But like in the past two months, I have noticed that my LinkedIn fee looks completely different. Like it is filling it is starting to fill up with with vertical video, whereas three, four months ago, like I'd be lucky to see one a day. I'm curious like, like, how do you see because you've you've been on TikTok longer than me.
So like, how do you see? Have you seen a large influx of people coming over to TikTok from LinkedIn? Honestly, I'm noticing. I mean, chili hyper has been on there for a while, but a demand base just recently hopped on TikTok.
And I think they actually created a like an avatar or a character. His name's Dee Dee the ninja. You might have seen him on LinkedIn. So I think it's starting to sort of shift over.
And I think companies are starting to realize that there's opportunity there. And it'll be interesting to see if like more of these companies start to develop like little characters that we could follow along the way or they could intermix with the content that have been dancing, kind of like the Duolingo TikTok use case. But I'm slowly starting to see companies shift over. I'm starting to see more and more people again.
Like you mentioned, like repurpose those TikToks on LinkedIn. I want I'm curious to get your thoughts too. Like LinkedIn tends to really promote text based content and not too much video content, at least for my end. Do you think that's something that LinkedIn is thinking about on how I could really make video a lot stronger on their platforms as opposed to like Instagram reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts.
I mean, it's video focus. Whereas LinkedIn, it seems like texts based posts tended to perform a little bit better, at least for me, from what I'm noticing right now. For me, I find that text posts perform better in the sense of views. Like if you're counting views, but like for me, at least when the metric that I'm looking for, well, there's a couple like the main metrics that I look at that tell me like if a piece of content did well is one is how many people actually commented on it, because I'm trying to create a conversation in the comments section.
Number two is are people tagging co-workers? I think that's a metric that most people overlook because at least in my experience, and this could be different for other people. But in my experience, when I did text post, it was almost never. When I put out videos, it's there's usually several in every post.
So like if it's good enough that they can they want someone else in their network to see it, that tells me it's good. And then the third one is more of like a medium to longer term metric, which is like how many, like I said before, how many times are people starting to tag me as like an expert in some area? So like if someone posts about TikTok, I don't know the person, I'm not in their network, but someone in my network sees it. And it's like, oh, you need to look at Todd or something.
You need to look at his content. That to me is like the ultimate because that's telling me that like a brand on building is reaching outside of my network. Those are good metrics, man. I'm a weird thinking like it needs to be so direct, right?
It needs to be a direct view, a direct light. But I mean, you're looking at it from a much, much broader, larger perspective, which I think, I mean, marketing and sales, different, different strategies. But I didn't even think about it before like that. So that's awesome.
I got one more question for you, but before we wrap up and that is if I'm coming into an SDR role, I'm green. I don't know anything about the industry. How do I start creating content that is going to build my brand in that industry? Like, I think I think part of people's worry is that especially on LinkedIn, not so much on TikTok, but like on LinkedIn, where a lot of this networking is happening right now, like people are afraid they're going to look like an idiot.
And they've got the imposter syndrome. They don't know what to say. Like, as an SDR, you started creating content very early in your career. Like, how do you put out content that's going to help your brand instead of hurt it?
Now, is this with your company in mind or is this strictly for like a personal brand perspective? Honestly, I think it could be either one. So like, if your goal is to, maybe that's just it, maybe it's, you don't worry about the company narrative and you talk about what you're passionate about and people just learn to know you and they want to talk about you. I don't know.
But like, if I hire you for my EdTech company as an SDR and you tell me that you want to start making TikTok content, like during work hours, like that's part of your role. Like, like, what would you, how would you start doing that? Yeah. Honestly, I think if I was starting off, I would say, you know, the role, the sales portion kind of helps fuel the creative portion for the marketing side.
So I think, you know, if you were an SDR, I think it's important for you to like, get grounded as far as like, okay, like, what is my company do? Like, what's the narrative? What's the solution? What are the problems?
Maybe even doing like a little bit of cold call and really get a sense of what it's like on the sales end. And I think after a while, you, you start to pick up on like the key hot, like the hot talking points or the hot points where like your solution serves as like, you know, like a good solution, right? And so I think once you have a good understanding of your company and the problems that you saw, then you can kind of put on your marketing hat and be like, okay, how do I talk about this problem in a fun way that my, the person on the other end is going to be receptive. And so I think the sales side is going to fuel like the market research aspect of it.
And then the other half of the house is really just like, okay, how do you make that a story? How can you be a little bit creative with it? As an example, I used to work at service titan. So they sell software to plumbers and contractors and HVAC people, which isn't the most glamorous field.
But once we got a sense of like, okay, this solution helps with follow up on unsold estimates. How can I tell a story in a fun way about unsold estimates that a plumber could like laugh about? So again, it's me understanding like, what is the solution? What problem is my company solving?
Check. Cool. How do I make that into a fun story that a plumber is going to laugh about? Or they're going to be like, I get it, right?
Or making a video with like a bunch of like papers behind me and being like, ah, when I don't, when you don't have service titan or something like that. So I think it's twofold. It's really understanding what are you solving as a company and then just having fun with how you tell a story and make it super interesting. So like same thing with your content, right?
Like your marketing based content, like if a marketer was this, right? Like you understand the context of information, but your delivery is everything. How you deliver it, how you make people laugh. What's the story?
Like that's everything, but that wouldn't be nothing without like you understanding like the problem or the audience that you're trying to like get in front of or the audience that's going to resonate with this most. So that would be my best advice at any. Yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's a solid piece of advice, which is understand the end user and what the problems they're having to basically poke fun at that.
Yeah. I think is is extremely undervalued, but it's such a powerful tool in building brand. So 100% Mateo, is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you want to kind of close out with? Yeah, I think, you know, another thing that I'm noticing on the marketing front is, you know, TikTok is sort of dominating this short form space.
And I think a lot of other media platforms are taking note. And so I think we're going to get to a point where short form is the future if it hasn't already gotten there yet. And so I think it's important for companies to realize that, you know, if you make a TikTok, you could repurpose this short form video on YouTube shorts and Instagram real. So just thinking a little bit broader in the sense that like you have assets already created for mobile.
Why not publish them on Instagram? Why not publish them on YouTube shorts, especially if you have an Instagram page, especially if you have a YouTube page, I think that will only just act as top of funnel assets for your brand. And again, you already have that asset produced. So I'm all about just making making my videos as far as they can repurposing them as much as I can, because it's already made.
We've already invested in that asset. You might as well just get it out there. And it really isn't too much lift to again, take the same asset and put it on a couple of other platforms and just see if you could start building some reach or which video performs best on which channel. So I think that could just provide just some further insights from marketers down the line too.
So I think that's that's a really solid piece of advice. What I tell people, because like people are very familiar with like the like the Gary Vee kind of construct, just like take a long form piece of content and chop it up and distribute everywhere. But I think the beauty of TikTok is they make it so easy to share one. And two, they've had such success that everybody's copying them that that short form TikTok almost acts as like that that old school long form piece content where you can where you can repurpose it everywhere.
So I think that's a solid piece of advice for sure. Matteo, if people want to follow you, where can where can they hit you up? Yes. So I'm on all major social media platforms, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok.
I guess Snapchat, you could consider that too. But yeah, feel free to check me out on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok. And if you are just looking for help with constant creation or I just want to chat more about videos, feel free to message me. I'm always open to connecting with other creative individuals.
So Matteo, thanks a ton for coming on. It was a lot of fun talking to talk. Thank you, man. The pleasure is all mine.
I appreciate everything you do. And one of the most creative guys that I know on LinkedIn and TikTok. So keep up the great work, man.