The marketing movement by Refine Labs. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Refri-Briana Podcast with B2B marketers who are looking to build their careers through a strong personal brand. I'm Nick Bennett, and today I'm super pumped because our guest is MJ Peter's VP of growth at Refine Labs and a must follow on social. She's also probably like one of the nicest people that I've ever talked to before.
So MJ, thanks for joining us. Hey Nick, thank you for having me. Awesome. So I wanted to kind of go down the path and we were just talking about this before we hit record, but Chris was episode two when I started this podcast.
And so I feel like a lot's changed since then. So I kind of wanted to go down the path that Refine Labs is everywhere. I see employees kind of posting their perspectives. You have more and more team members joining the team every single day.
And it's so interesting because everywhere I turn, it's Refine Labs that's in a good way. Like I love that people just kind of like sharing work-related stuff. It's sharing experiences. It's sharing what is important to them.
And so I'm curious on kind of to get started, like what's been your experience working in other organizations before you went to Refine Labs and then like what's changed basically since joining Refine Labs from like being active on social? Yeah, so I never worked in an organization where anyone actively discouraged being active on social, but I was absolutely the only person in the organization who was active on social in any of the previous organizations that I joined. Actually shout out to Ali who did work at Hama and started posting and started her own podcast for Biomedical Engineering graduates. So like she got into it, but really was just the two of us there.
It wasn't really a role model for it. I was just like doing it on my own, but people were generally supportive. Like some people made sarcastic jokes about it, but like totally in a fun, nice, positive way, right? Like they were obviously joking.
And then others were like, I follow your posts religiously. Like I so appreciate that you're sharing your expertise, but it was a lot of lurkers, right? Like some people engaged in public, but like a lot of people from my old company were like, would privately or in person tell me that they liked my posts, but never engaged on LinkedIn at Refine Labs. It's first of all, a part of my job.
So I was just doing it for myself at FireTrace, but I have an individual success plan that's currently how we're doing performance management and Refine Labs everyone has an individual success plan. Mine is reviewed by the wonderful Megan Bowen. And there's a line item in there that's like, we walk our talk, great content marketing. You're not required at Refine Labs to post on LinkedIn or build a personal brand, but for those people that do that and want to do it anyway, it becomes a component of your individual success plan.
And therefore you get recognized and rewarded for it in the worksite. Oh, wow. I kind of want to go down that path because that's the first time that I've ever had like heard any company like endorse something like that. So like making a part of your success plan, is there like certain metrics or KPIs that you have to look at when you are like posting on social, like do you have to hit a certain number of views or engagement or things like that?
No. So our individual success plans right now are pretty qualitative. So it's basically like you have a line item that says, building your personal brand and sharing our company expertise on LinkedIn. It might not even specify LinkedIn, it might just say building expertise.
And then there's three scores that you can get for that basic intermediate and advanced. And if you're posting pretty regularly and you're gaining traction, you would consistently end up in the intermediate or advanced category. And if you're not, right, then you might consistently be in the basic category. But at that point, we just say, hey, listen, you're not someone who wants to build a personal brand.
So we won't make this part of your success plan. Because again, it's not something we require. It's just an opportunity to recognize those employees that do want to make that part of their contribution here. That's, it's super interesting.
And so I guess, you know, another question that I had was when you're looking for employees that I know you guys are hiring a ton of role. You're looking for people that already have a strong personal brand or does it not really matter? It depends on the role. So I wouldn't necessarily say that having a strong personal brand is a prerequisite for any role.
But there are some roles that maybe don't fit into the traditional boxes, right? Like my role being a great example, I lead the brand marketing team, I am scaling out sales and I am getting our first product off the ground. So I'm effectively right now the VP of product sales and marketing, which is like, you would never post that role on LinkedIn. It's a weird combination of things.
And we'll change a lot as, for example, the sales department gets bigger. We're gonna have a dedicated leader of sales. So I'm just like, in this jacket, all trades roll that is constantly evolving. When you hire for a role like that, we tend to think of it like, hey, this has to be a network hire because we need to bring in someone who's aligned with our philosophy, who can do a little bit of everything, and who's coming here because they wanna be with these people and willing to just like jump in and do what needs to be done in this small company mentality.
So when we're looking for network hires, inevitably, we're gonna gravitate towards those people that are in our network because of their personal brand. And I am one of a couple of people who got reached out to about a role that was never posted because of our LinkedIn presence and relationships within the company. I love that. I mean, that just goes to show how powerful building an audience for yourself regardless.
I mean, the number of followers, I guess, is arbitrary. But like, if you're someone that's authentic and is just putting yourself up, because like, I love your post, like you're never pitching anything, like you bring really insightful topics that like, partly I find interesting, especially people that comment on it, it's like things that like, I was like, wow, like I didn't even know this was a path that I could go down or like, this is something that I should be thinking about in my own marketing. So like, I think it's really, really interesting that has kind of like helped you get to where you are today. And like, I guess another question that I had for you is, why do you feel posting on social and kind of like building your brain works for a fine labs?
So first of all, our audience is definitely there. And the organic reach on LinkedIn specifically is great. So we can reach them. I would say honestly, text, which is one of the primary ways that you can create content on LinkedIn, it's probably the most popular way, obviously video is becoming more popular.
Text is friendly, right? Like, it's a low barrier to entry, which I think has been the reason that a lot of people within the company have gotten involved on LinkedIn, because if you can write, and most people can, right not everybody's the best copywriter, but it's not like you have to have video editing skills to post on this platform. And most of the people in our company have interesting things to say. And then I would say the other reason that we make it work is because whereas in other companies, if you are the only person posting on LinkedIn, you have to overcome the fear of standing out in refined labs.
Like you're definitely gonna fit in, right? If you're posting, because everybody else is posting. So again, there's no pressure to post within refined labs, but you certainly you would feel a sense of belonging for posting rather than this fear of standing out and doing something different from what the rest of the culture in your company is. Yeah, I love that for sure.
And so I wanted to kind of, when I had Chris on the show, so obviously Chris relies heavily on video. Like most of his posts every single day are from video. And we were talking about that. He was saying he was getting so much of his text post plagiarized that he was like, if I create video content, no one can plagiarize that.
And so I'm interested in your thoughts on video versus kind of just text post, because personally, I am probably like 95% text post and then like 5% video, but I understand, I can see both sides of it. So I'm curious on like what your thoughts? Yeah, that's really interesting. Chris has never told me that his text post were getting plagiarized before.
I would be totally clattered if somebody would plagiarized my text post. So video, I've never actually posted a video of my self talking on LinkedIn, but I have posted, I used to post like audio brands, which technically utilizes the video format from the podcast that I run. And I noticed that you don't get as good of organic reach. Now I like to speculate that a view, which is how you measure organic reach with a video, is that I think it has to be like three seconds or something versus like a view in a text post could just literally be someone scrolling past or you didn't read it.
So maybe it's a function of how things are measured. But I don't do video mostly because I just like to write. And I like how writing forces me to do a couple of things. First, it forces me to be concise.
And second, it forces me to write a hook. And then third, I always like to use a punchline. And I don't think that, or whenever I can, right? And I don't think that it actually helps the post, the way a hook does, right?
So a hook gets more people to read the whole thing. So you're actually organic reach improves based on that. I just like a punchline because I like to leave somebody with like a punchy thing. But think about it, it's kind of become part of my brand voice, my personal brand voice.
And I don't think I would be able to use any of that structure, right? So it can be concise having a hook and having a punchline in the video format because it's much more off the cuff. So writing really works for me. Obviously video works great for Chris because he's an incredible speaker, right?
And so video provides an engaging format. And he can leverage his really unique ability to speak and talk out in concepts and answer questions and all that. Yeah, no, that's a great breakdown. I appreciate you sharing that.
So we talked about why it works within refined labs. But what can other organizations do to support people, like you, who have a voice? Because I get this question a lot where either the only one that's been a post on social, they're afraid of taking that step because they don't want to be looked at as like, oh, you know, what you do spend all your day on LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever, what can organizations do to support people that want to build their brands? Yeah, I would say just what you just said there is probably the biggest subconscious objection, right?
It was for me to a fire trace, right? Like I tended to post at 6 p.m. Because I didn't want to be perceived as a using company time to write posts, right? And so I didn't, right?
And if you believe that somebody building their personal brand is actively going to help your company, then give them explicit permission to use company time to do that. So obviously it's in my individual success plan and a Everfine lab. So it's explicitly part of my job that way. But you don't even have to do that, right?
It could be as simple as having a conversation with your direct report if you're a manager and say, hey, listen, if you're concerned about this, I want to be totally clear that you're allowed to think about posting and engage with other people's posts on LinkedIn and write posts on company time because we consider it to be a valuable thing that you could do as part of your job. So don't feel bad about that. It just gives employees permission to make time for it. And I think it's really important because when people post, everyone can see it, they can see what time it happened at, when someone engages, commenting, liking, et cetera, see what time it happened.
So if you're worried, if your employees are worried that the company's going to nickel and dime you on company time for engaging on LinkedIn, then just as a manager, give them explicit permission to use company time to do that. Yep, couldn't agree more with you there. So I think working in the fire suppression kind of like before, I think it's an interesting background. So I'm curious, what made you go from working for a company really focused on fire suppression to an agency model because I feel like it's interesting because we're fine labs, mostly hires people who are marketers at other B.W brands.
They don't focus on people that come from agency backgrounds. Like what made you switch to work for an agency? Yeah, so I met Chris in 2016. We both worked at the same water quality sensor manufacturer.
And so that's how I know him. It's part of the reason I got active on LinkedIn in the first place is because way back in August 2019 or whenever he started, I saw him doing it, I saw how much traction he got. And I was like, I want to try this too. So really Chris recruited me to join Refine Labs.
But honestly, I knew Chris, I knew that he is a visionary, like so smart, always seems to know what the next big thing is going to be, which is like a wild skillset. And then based on LinkedIn, I saw that he was able to bring in Megan who is perfect compliment to him. So she is like natural born people leader. Maybe she's not a natural born people leader and she did not want this.
But whatever way she acquired all these skills, she is like the model people leader. She motivates, she inspires, she builds systems and processes and basically creates the conditions for people to do the best work of their lives. That's how she describes it. So if that sounds like a great way to describe it, it's like, I do not take credit for it.
And I was like, wow, this is a powerful combination of the visionary and the motivator. And why would you not be motivated to join a company that had those two people leading it? So the biggest thing for me was people was not a question mark. And it's the most important thing.
And it's often a question mark, because you can only get to know people in an interview process that might last a couple weeks. So the fact that people was not a question mark was the number one reason I came. And other than that, I mean, you can see from the outside that this is a rocket ship, right? It's growing super fast and being in a fast growing company and particularly a fast growing company that the brand people love, right?
So we're completely bootstrapped. Like all of our growth comes from not from throwing money at it, but from just this brand accumulating momentum. It's just an opportunity that is so rich with growth opportunities. So it's a great environment to be in.
Yeah, no, I mean, I've had this conversation before and I mean, I'm a big fan of everyone that works over there. And I've always found it interesting. And I was just like, maybe down the road, like if I was ever to go down that path, like Chris would be like the one person that I would be like 100% all in on. And so who knows, we'll see with the future holds.
But I wanna kind of talk about, so you mentioned your podcast. And so it's a super niche podcast with Matt called the Industrial Marketing Show. So I'm interested because, you know, feel like people with podcasts kind of can appreciate this, but what do you help or what do you think it helps you learn and gain like new perspectives from having a podcast? Like what do you feel like has been helpful in that regard?
Yeah, so the original reason we started it is just to like get experience with the medium. Like now the learning curve would be non-existent for me if I started a podcasting house in a company, right? Like there are just things you have to figure out how to do I get my podcast on Spotify, right? Like you figure out how to do that in like 30 minutes, I would not have to figure out how to do that.
I know how to do that. It's a great way to practice articulating your thoughts verbally, which is obviously a hugely important skill if you're doing a lot of public speaking, but it's a hugely important skill if you're in a lot of important strategy meetings inside of your company, right? Like being able to articulate your thoughts clearly is great and you get a lot of reps doing that. But the most interesting thing of all has been the ability to just chat with really smart people, right?
So I have an excuse to like grab 30 minutes of somebody's time or 45 minutes of somebody's time. And then we've had some really interesting guests. I'll be totally honest, like it's been also, and I didn't expect this, a great recruiting tool for me. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I will announce the third hire that I've made who has previously been on my podcast, and that would be three out of the last four for me, people I've hired have been guests on show.
That's awesome. That's incredible. I totally agree with, I don't care if anyone listens to the show. I'm fortunate that people do, but like ultimately, the guests that I've had, people like you, Chris, Justin, Welsh, like I honestly just want to learn from these people.
Like I feel like that's the biggest advantage. And so going back to the podcast, I know that you recently posted on LinkedIn that not everything should be tied to revenue from a marketing perspective. Do you think that podcast fall into that? Yeah, that post was kind of inspired by just seeing a lot of people, including like I fall into this travel lot.
And like Matt and I have talked on our podcast about like this is how you tie your marketing to revenue, right? Like everyone's beating that tire marketing to revenue drum, but you can always over correct, right? And so if you tie everything to revenue, especially in the short term, then you miss out on the opportunity to invest in longer term channels. And a podcast is probably not gonna produce revenue in the first 90 days, right?
Especially if you think about the length of a lot of sales cycles, right? Your sales cycle length is even 45 days, which is a fairly short sales cycle length. Then that means you have to generate an opportunity with what like four episodes, it's probably not gonna happen, like it might, but probably not. And so I really like the approach that Kyle Lacy has been sharing recently, where he basically says, say listen, you gotta hit the number, right?
Like you're never gonna be allowed to do anything. If you don't hit the numbers, so take 80% of your budget and be the marketing leader that hit the number within 80% of their budget. So the other 20%, you can make big bets, right? And ultimately, like ultimately, you hope those big bets will help you hit the number in future quarters, but at 100% of your budget, 100% of the time goes to hitting the number this quarter.
It's just gonna get harder and harder to hit that number over time because the number inevitably is gonna go up. Yep, absolutely great. That was a great breakdown. I feel like that could be really interesting LinkedIn posts.
So I guess I'm interested in like your workflow. And so like, because there's two different types of people. There's people like myself, I don't keep notes. I literally think about what I'm gonna write about on like, like every morning.
And so like, I don't have any content ideas. It's whatever I think about when I'm in the shower and try to remember by the time I get to my phone. However, like there's people in the complete office that take Justin Welsh for example. He will like pre-write his content for like a month at a time.
And so I'm interested where you fall, like where are your ideas stored? What does your typical workflow look like when deciding to post content? Yeah, so my best ideas often do not hit me when I sit down to write a post. And my best ideas often hit me when I am outside moving my body.
So either I'm walking the dog or especially when I go out for like a trail run here in the Boise foothills. Like it just clears my head and allows me to reflect and gives me space to think slowly. So I am the type of person who when I sit down on my desk, I just rank on work. And so when I'm sitting at my desk, that would be the appropriate time to like have meetings, do follow up actions, like do analysis in a spreadsheet.
But when I do my big strategic insights and thinking I need to get away from the desk because it's just an environment where my brain works in a specific way that is not conducive to creative ideation. So because of that, because I'm often like in the middle of a run in the Boise foothills when my best ideas happen, I will keep some pretty messy notes in the notes app on the iPhone. And usually I mentioned my structure. I liked how to have a good hook and I like to have a good punchline, right?
So usually my messy notes will have some kind of early stab at a good hook, some kind of early stab at a good punchline or maybe one or the other, right? And I'll write the other one when I flesh out the post and then just like a couple of notes about the other points I wanna make. And then when I sit down to write a post, I will reference those notes. All right, which one of these do I wanna flesh into a full blown post today.
And sometimes I end up discarding those ideas later, but a lot of them become my best posts. No, it's nice. I'm always like super interested because like, I feel like there's such a wide variety there. So it's always interesting here, like people's thoughts on that.
So I know we're coming up on time. So I wanted to just kind of, you know, I had two questions. I feel like one of them you kind of answered already, but I'll kind of still go down it. And it's what's your favorite resource?
And you just mentioned running things like that. Like it could be online, could be offline that you rely on to kind of like keep your brain fresh. Like is there things that you just consume or do to that like that are outside of work related activities? Well, I don't think that this is replicable for most people, but the reason that I'm able to keep my content fresh right now is because I'm in a very unique position of selling refined labs.
And therefore, I get the opportunity to talk to somewhere between 10 and 15 SAS marketing teams every single week. So I get exposed to like what questions are they asking? Like last week I wrote a post about, hey, good creative doesn't necessarily equal motion graphics, right? It equals storytelling.
It's because a lot of people are asking like, hey, do you do a lot of motion graphics? Is that why you create a script? And I was like, oh, I need to address this, right? So that's one way that I get a big influx of ideas.
But I mean, yeah, other than that, like what you said, right? I like to get out, I like to exercise. And I really do strongly believe that you need to get away from your day to day work in order to have your most creative ideas. Absolutely agree with you.
And so do you have any final parting words for anyone that wants to start creating their own personal brand as a B2B marketer? Yeah. I think it's important to remember that everyone started from somewhere. So like, it's been crazy to me recently having people be like, oh my god, you're like a LinkedIn influencer, right?
And or like people that I grew up with in childhood, like running into my mom at the coffee shop would be like, oh my god, I'm just LinkedIn presence. Like, and so it's easy to look at somebody who has a LinkedIn presence and be like, oh man, like, well, obviously you can do it, but I could never. It's like, well, one day I sat down in my first LinkedIn post. One day Chris Walker sat down and wrote his first LinkedIn post and that was one day two years ago.
But if you start now, you'll be there in no time. The first step is always the hardest one to take. Yep, absolutely agree with you there. Lastly, I'm Jay Wish.
People go to learn more about you, refine life, anything that you want to plug here, feel free. I'll make sure to add it to the show notes as well. Yeah, no, MJ Peters on LinkedIn. DMs are open for you to connect.
I'm on Twitter also. I post less there, but my posts are a lot snarkier. So that's how you roll. I'll see you are there.
I also do my podcast, the Industrial Marketing Show. So if you happen to be a marketer in the manufacturing space, we'd love to have you over there as well. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with me.
I definitely greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate the opportunity. Awesome.