How Many Clients Did That Post Bring You?

Introduction:

This week, David C. Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal compare notes on how they market themselves—and their businesses—online. All three are active on LinkedIn, but their strategies, investments, and even their goals are quite different. Are they seeking likes? Credibility? Clients? All three? “Sales and revenue are ultimately the metric we have to look at,” says David. “Likes and shares don’t pay any bills.” Plus: Kate just spent what she calls “a boatload of cash” to publish a book. David self-publishes on Amazon—for free. And Sarah? She’s not writing a book at all. She hired a VP instead. It’s a lively conversation about what works, what doesn’t, and how small business owners decide where to invest their time and money.

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

David C. Barnett helps people buy and sell businesses.

Kate Morgan is CEO of Boston Human Capital Partners.

Sarah Segal is CEO of Segal Communications.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome David, Kate, and Sarah. It’s great to have you here. I’d like to talk today about what you guys are doing to get the word out about what you do. For a while, what became known as content marketing was kind of all the rage. Eventually, I started reading that it was over, perhaps in part because it seemed like almost everyone was trying to do it. But it certainly hasn’t gone away, and I’d like to take a look at the approaches each of you has chosen. Maybe we could start with you, Sarah. I know you’ve been thinking about how you use LinkedIn of late.

Sarah Segal:
So I’ve always been a big fan of LinkedIn, and I’ve used it pretty solidly throughout my career. And I do post on it pretty frequently, but I had the occasion to attend an eight-week seminar with LinkedIn where they kind of walk through best practices, in terms of business posting. So I’ve been working kind of in a deep dive for the last couple months on how better to advise my clients on leveraging LinkedIn, where the days of the traditional press release are being replaced by LinkedIn posts.

Then I was sent a book by a member of 21 Hats, David Billstrom, called Own Your Brand. And it’s kind of an entree book into LinkedIn, and he talks about how to kind of set your LinkedIn up, how you should leverage it more than just being a resume. And it’s really given me time to kind of do an audit of my own LinkedIn, which I’m still in the process of doing. But I love LinkedIn, not just for the sharing of resources and information, but it’s just a great way to keep connected and see what people are doing.

Loren Feldman:
Is there anything in particular that you picked up from the book or from your conversations with clients, in terms of strategies?

Sarah Segal:
Well, LinkedIn is very specific, in terms of it’s really trying to maintain its focus on business. It doesn’t want to become an Instagram or a TikTok. They really want to focus solely on the news you can use, the business updates, and really working to encourage people to kind of stay in that narrow focus.

That said, there is a lot of push to incorporate more video on LinkedIn and personalize brands with a day in the life on the HR side, or a video from someone on the executive team explaining a decision that they’ve made, or some other way to highlight the brand but in short-form video. So I haven’t done that personally for my own brand, but I’ve done it a little bit on TikTok, and I’m trying to figure out a way to better incorporate that on LinkedIn. Just because I have a broadcast background, I’m like, “I should be doing video.” I’m the first person you’d think they’d be doing that. I just haven’t figured out what my niche is yet.

Loren Feldman:
I talk to a lot of people who get frustrated with LinkedIn. They want to use it because they think their target audience is there, but they feel like they get lost in a lot of mediocre-at-best content on it—you know, people who are just bragging about something, as opposed to sharing really useful information. How do you think about that?

Sarah Segal:
I mean, the braggarts are tiresome. I get that. But if you want the benefit to LinkedIn, especially in terms of new business—and then I’m curious what the other panelists have to say—but I don’t know that I get a lot of business directly from LinkedIn. But it’s more of a resource for me. And LinkedIn has very clearly said that they’re not boosting and prioritizing, with their algorithm, the braggart stuff. They’re prioritizing things that are important: business information, news you can use, as I said.

And so, some of that stuff is, yeah, it’s filler. You’re gonna scroll past it pretty quickly. So when you’re out there posting on LinkedIn, you just want to be thoughtful about what you’re putting out there. And it’s not just about you posting, but it’s also about you interacting. So there’s a value of maintaining relationships. Loren, I get most of my business through networking and meeting people and talking to people, and some of that networking is done on LinkedIn, where you’re commenting on someone’s post, and if you’re commenting consistently, it starts to establish relationships, like any other platform.

Loren Feldman:
And yet, you don’t think you’re getting a lot of business out of it?

Sarah Segal:
I may, but I can’t quantify it, right? I’m not getting people messaging me directly through LinkedIn. I’m sure people find me on LinkedIn, but they don’t necessarily mention me. To be honest, in the last month, I’ve gotten on calls with prospective clients, and two out of three told me that they found me on ChatGPT. So LinkedIn I see as a validator, not a source for me, but I don’t know if that’s different for other people.

Loren Feldman:
David and Kate, you’re both active on LinkedIn. Do either of you think it’s moving the needle, in terms of business?

David Barnett:
Yeah, I do, actually, but I don’t think it’s a very good place for discoverability. And so I think that if someone’s going to think about a marketing plan or strategy, I think you have to figure out: What are you doing to be discovered by people who may suddenly realize they have a need of some kind and go looking for something or someone to answer that need? And for me, in my own marketing strategy, that’s why I’m on YouTube, because it’s the second biggest search engine on Earth.

And I was just looking the other day at my most popular videos viewed over the last 90 days, for example. Only two of them were 2025 productions. All of the rest were older videos. One of them was nine years old. So the videos are specifically answering a certain question that somebody has, and they go type that in, either on Google or YouTube, and then they find that video that I made.

So that gets to your content marketing comment earlier, Loren. But if somebody starts watching my content, and they say, “Hey, I like what this guy is saying. I’d like to keep in touch with this person,” then LinkedIn might be a place where they choose to send me a connection request and start following me. And so I think LinkedIn is important. LinkedIn is also important for someone who wants, as was just said, to validate.

So someone might say, “Who is this person talking on YouTube? I’m going to look them up on LinkedIn and see what other people are saying about them,” and they can get into the whole background that I have on there, my work history, and see what other people have said, as far as recommendations and endorsements and my comments that I put on a conversation happening in some group somewhere. And they can decide if they think that I am someone that they want to be connected to.

So I get a lot of connection requests from people who will open up by simply saying, “Hey, I discovered your stuff on YouTube.” Or, “I read one of your books on Amazon, and I wanted to connect with you because I think that I might want to talk with you about a project I’m going to be doing in the next few months.” And so I think being there is critical, as far as just remaining in contact with people and demonstrating that my background is real, and what I’m talking about is valid or trustworthy.

Loren Feldman:
David, is there a difference between what you post on YouTube and what you post on LinkedIn?

David Barnett:
So my content strategy is integrated. So when I create a new YouTube video, for example, that will end up being embedded in a LinkedIn article. And the LinkedIn articles get distributed by a LinkedIn newsletter, and a lot of people follow that. So there are some people, I think, who probably follow and watch my videos because they follow me on LinkedIn, but they may not be subscribed to me on YouTube, for example. And it’s just a matter of being where people want to follow you. My videos are also—I remove the audio and put it onto a podcast feed too, because some people just would rather listen in their car, for example. And so, it’s about helping the person to follow me wherever they are comfortable or they spend their time.

Kate Morgan:
See, I see LinkedIn as a very different tool from the both of you, I think. I mean, just given the nature of my work, I essentially live in LinkedIn. But you can actually be very aggressive with your outreach there. And I’ll tell this story real quick.

So we work with a serial entrepreneur who’s really highly regarded, and he posted something. He said, “Who’s the top executive search recruiter in the Boston area?” So I grabbed the link and I sent it to 14 CEOs who I had done work with, and I asked them all to reply with my name, and now we’re the dedicated recruiter for that serial entrepreneur. It was really successful from a more dynamic perspective, but on the static side—because, again, this could be really because I am in high tech, in biotech—we’re all on LinkedIn endlessly, and I really feel it helps to validate who I am. And I bring it with absolute authenticity.

What I find is fascinating, though, is when I post content that’s more specific to actually recruiting, I don’t get as much buzz. But when I put the stupid crap up… I posted something about, like, I took a picture—this was a couple of weeks ago at a beach in Maine, and I said something along the lines of, “The most boring job is this lifeguard waiting for people to drown in ankle deep water.” Well, I got 7,000 views on it. And what I also find: It really is sort of helping to make me normal.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, yeah!

Kate Morgan:
And it draws people in, and so I’ll have people reach out and go, “Oh, hey, I’ve been following you. You’re hysterical.” Or, “I love what you said there, and just wanted to connect.”

Loren Feldman:
Do you think the stupid stuff helps with business?

Sarah Segal:
I don’t think it’s stupid, by the way.

Loren Feldman:
Well, I’m using Kate’s term.

Kate Morgan:
Thank you, Sarah, because I think I’m absolutely hysterical. [Laughter]

Sarah Segal:
No, no. I think it’s authentic. You know, so many people put on their business suit and their business hat and they show this professional part of them. But the truth of the matter is, none of us know what we’re doing, right? And all of these jobs are just jobs. You know, we still all live, work, and die.

Loren Feldman:
Wait, that’s not true. What do you mean, “none of us know what we’re doing?”

Sarah Segal:
Nobody knows what they’re doing, Loren. We’re all figuring this stuff out.

Loren Feldman:
We’re all figuring lots of stuff out. But you all know what you’re doing.

Kate Morgan:
Sarah, you call that pivoting, when it doesn’t go right.

Sarah Segal:
Oh, okay, but it’s authentic. I can tell you exactly which one of my posts did the best, and I know exactly why, because it was that behind-the-scenes honesty. I posted a photograph of my high school transcript for my freshman year in high school, and it blew up, because I did terribly my freshman year in high school. So, it was that, “Hey, you know what, we’re all human.” We’re all trying to figure this shit out as we go. And you know, maybe being a lifeguard is not the coolest job in the world, but it is a job. I mean, you get to be outside. You know, there’s a lot of benefits to it, but I don’t know. I like this stuff.

David Barnett:
Hang on, hang on. You said the post was successful. How many new clients did that post bring you?

Sarah Segal:
But I’m not getting clients from LinkedIn.

David Barnett:
Well, and this is the issue that I have with a lot of people. I’ve actually given a talk about this at a conference in the past. It’s that the metrics we see on social media—things like the likes, the shares, the subscribes, the comments—they’re vanity metrics. They don’t actually have a business purpose. It’s a metric that helps the social media platform and its algorithm.

Because basically, these social media platforms are trying to replace television. They want people’s attention. And in the talk that I gave a couple years ago, I said, “Look, if you were trying to sell something back in 1985, and you had an opportunity to stand in front of a room of 30 qualified people, would you go to that event and give that talk?” And of course you would. And so, if you put up any kind of social media content that only gets 35 views, but it gets viewed by 35 people who are ideal prospects who can use your product or service, to me, that’s a very successful piece of content.

But you’re not going to be rewarded by the algorithm or anything like that for putting that out there, and that’s the difference. I get contacted all the time by people who want to offer to edit my videos and make them shinier and happier and more alluring for people to watch. But I don’t want to put out content that’s going to be alluring to 13-year-olds. I put out content that answers an entrepreneur’s question, who may have a need to hire me.

And this is the tightrope I think people have to walk, because I talk to people all the time who will say, “I started to create online content, but nobody ever watched, and I didn’t get any followers, so I quit.” But if somebody’s looking up, for example, “How do I get a window replaced in Bangor Maine?” and you’re a window guy in Bangor, and you have a video that says, “Four different ways to replace a window in Bangor Maine,” and you’re going to be the guy who comes up every time that is searched, you don’t need a lot of views because you’re getting the right views.

Kate Morgan:
Well, I think you’re looking at this like, there’s got to be a direct correlation to the effort put out, because it doesn’t cost anything, really, to put content out, unless you want to pay for boosting. I’m in Boston, and we only trust people that we know. I have to be out there, I have to be talking, because that’s how they’re going to remember me. I think that’s the big critical piece.

Loren Feldman:
It does cost something, though, I mean, at least in terms of time. Have you thought, Kate, about how much time you devote to not just hanging out on LinkedIn but actually creating content for it?

Kate Morgan:
Well, I’m a prolific content creator. I think stuff, I write stuff, and then I post stuff. And I’m using it sort of multi-channel. We have our newsletter that we’re putting out, so I’ll kind of replicate it there. On a DISC profile, I’m dominant and high “I.” I’m out there, I’m chatting, I’m gregarious that way. So I’m going to put stuff out. And yeah, maybe there’s a little bit of a dopamine surge when I see that I got 7,000 instances.

So, I like it. It doesn’t bother me. And I really like to follow who’s actually engaging, because here’s the thing: I don’t want to deal with HR people. I want to deal with entrepreneurs. And so everything I talk about is going to be more about entrepreneurship than anything else. And I think entrepreneurs—because that’s the client I’m servicing—they’re looking for the beacon in the storm. And so when I’m posting relatable things, it helps them feel more connected to me, even before having that conversation.

Loren Feldman:
David, are there metrics that you do follow that you think do show the true value of the content you’re creating?

David Barnett:
Yeah, so on our engagement agreements, there’s a space people have to fill in that says, “Where did you hear about us and our services?” And so when people sign up to hire us, they have to fill that in. And so a lot of people will fill it in, like “YouTube.” Or they’ll fill in, “I read one of your books.” Or they’ll say, “Someone shared something of yours on LinkedIn.” So to me, that’s the ultimate validation, because it’s like, where did the effort get invested to deliver this person to come and do business with us?

And it’s really difficult because you look at the subscriber count, for example, on a YouTube channel, and you’re like, “Oh, I want it to go up. I want it to go up.” And my kids look at my channel and go, “Dad, you don’t even have a million followers,” and so it’s not very impressive for them. But when I see the number of engagements increase every year, and the number of those engagements that say YouTube on them, that’s what validates that the strategy and the effort that I’m employing there is working for us.

Kate Morgan:
How many clients do you work with at a time, though?

David Barnett:
We open usually two, three, four files a week.

Kate Morgan:
Okay.

David Barnett:
Yeah, and then there’s other products we sell online. So there’s a coaching program where we have a cohort of people in that program, and we also have people who are just buying things, like books, and we have some online courses, too. So all of those things are making sales. And I guess the sales and revenue are ultimately the metric that we have to look at, because likes and shares don’t pay any bills.

Loren Feldman:
David, do you know how much time you devote to content creation?

David Barnett:
Yeah, I do. I spend Monday mornings doing it, and so I create basically content from 9 a.m. to 11:30 every Monday morning. And then I also do some email writing on Friday mornings. So it’s probably—what does that work out to be?—maybe 10 to 15 percent of my week.

Loren Feldman:
Kate, you also recently made a decision to publish a book. Tell us about that. Why did you decide to write a book, and how did you do it?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, well, I’ve never had sales. I’ve never actually had a marketing budget. So our cost of customer acquisition is essentially zero, because it’s all been referral-based. Thank you, LinkedIn! But I knew the air was starting to leak out of the balloon of high tech and even biotech. And that started in October of 2022, and I knew I needed to do something to help reinvigorate my own brand.

Everybody in my family is published. The joke was, I was going to have a pop-up book or a coloring book to compete with my family members. And it was my business coach that was like, “You really need to have a book.” And the way I looked at having a book is, publishers now are sort of secondary. It’s really all about the marketing engine behind it. And I looked at the cost of working with Forbes versus if I’m going to do something that’s going to really escalate and elevate my brand. Do I hire a CMO? Do I suddenly start pouring in all of this money?

And here’s the big thing that I’m very aware of, because I started my career in the mid-’90s: I know what bad markets look like, and I really didn’t want to start bringing people in. I needed to look at it with a totally different lens, and that’s why I said, “Okay, this is going to be on me, about my work.” And I really want to make it super relevant to entrepreneurs and small business owners. So, I worked with Forbes.

Loren Feldman:
Kate, let me stop you there for a second. I think we should specify: There’s kind of a traditional publishing process. In the past, if you wanted a book published, you got an agent and you did a proposal, and then the agent shot the proposal around to traditional publishing houses. In recent years, a number of companies have sprung up that will help in this process, but it’s a different economic model. Instead of the author getting paid by the publishing house with an advance, you pay these companies to help you publish the book, and it can be everything from they’ll write it for you or with you and then market it, or you can pick the services that you want. And it’s that latter version that you chose with a company that—it’s not actually the company that publishes Forbes magazine. It’s a company that partners with Forbes and has a Forbes imprint. I believe their name is Advantage Media.

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, but I like to dumb everything down and just lump it into Forbes, because that’s—

Loren Feldman:
Well, that’s what you paid for, right? You wanted that association.

Kate Morgan:
Exactly, exactly.

Sarah Segal:
I don’t know what the investment was, but—

Loren Feldman:
I think she might tell us.

Kate Morgan:
It was a boatload of cash. It was $200,000, but you have to understand. I am the world’s laziest entrepreneur. I will pay people to do the stuff that I’m not good at.

Sarah Segal:
It was $200,000?

Kate Morgan:
Yeah.

Loren Feldman:
What did you get for that, Kate? Did they write the book for you?

Kate Morgan:
No, I did not. I really wanted to write it, so they didn’t ghost write it. But they have a website. And here’s the big thing: Listen, it’s available on pre-order. It’s coming out July 29. Here are the stats already, and I can guarantee I would never have gotten this: It’s a number one bestseller in eight categories, and it’s showing up as Best New Release for 12 other categories. I couldn’t have done that.

Loren Feldman:
You should tell us what the book is about.

Kate Morgan:
Oh, yeah!

Sarah Segal:
I’m sorry, my jaw is still on the floor right now, in terms of the investment.

Loren Feldman:
We’ll come back to that in a second, Sarah, but Kate, tell us what the book is. [Laughter]

Kate Morgan:
So the title is Custom Fit, and it’s a straight-talking guide for hiring top talent for entrepreneurs and small business owners. So part from all of the number ones, it’s a little bit akin to—and this is how I described it to my mother—this is great, except it’s like buying wine for the label. It could come out and it could suck, or it could be really well received. But I’m hoping for the latter.

Loren Feldman:
Well, my understanding is that most people who choose that option—and I’m not sure if this is the case with you, but for most people—it’s not so much about how many people actually read the book. It’s about being able to hold up the book and say, “Yeah, I’m the expert in this particular category. I wrote the book.”

Kate Morgan:
Yeah.

Sarah Segal:
So, the investment, can you break down what the deliverables were on that? Like, what did you get? I mean, they didn’t write it, right?

Kate Morgan:
No. A business coach, and she and I became incredible fans. I could not have written it without the support from the team. They were really just superlative for supporting everything. And they were good that when I first said I wanted to write the book on my own, they wanted a bunch of writing samples, because I think they were going to try and talk me into having a ghost writer. And they’re like, “No, yeah, you could do this.” And so they did everything else. This also includes a website, it’s the PR, it’s any possible thing that would be involved with launching your author brand.

Sarah Segal:
Are they taking you on a book tour?

Kate Morgan:
No. Again, it’s all relative. I know what CMOs cost and all the levers that would have been required, and I’m comfortable with it.

Sarah Segal:
No, I think, I mean, I just, I—

Loren Feldman:
It’s a lot of money.

Sarah Segal:
It’s just a lot of money. But there must have been an opportunity that they gave to you. Like you must see the other side of it, right? You must see, “Okay, I get this out. I get this launched. It’s going to give me this,” and so that’s what I’m just trying to wrap my head around, what the return is. They’ve already done a good job in getting you on the top 10 lists and all of that.

David Barnett:
Like, how many clients do you need to get from this book in order for this to have been a worthwhile investment?

Kate Morgan:
You can’t look at anything in those kinds of—you know, that’s like a small business owner sort of mind. You have to look at it from a visionary perspective, if you have the capital to do that. Fortunately, I’ve been very successful with my business, and I’m just looking at this as an extension, because here’s the real thing. The real nut of it is to put this kind of time and energy into what I do for this long, I wanted to give back to the community.

So I look at Geoff Smart, who came out with the book Who. The problem with the book Who is I saw how it actually didn’t directly relate to true founders. And I was always trying to extract the good pieces of that book and tell a technical founder, those things you have to not consider. So this was my answer to it of, “Hey, I want to take this to the broader audience, and I’m good with that.” I don’t anticipate getting any sort of money from this book, but I can definitely assure that people who are reading it will get some nugget of information that they’ll take back and find it super valuable. That’s what’s important to me.

Sarah Segal:
Yeah, and it’s a grand step. And like we all, as business owners, make grand steps. Like, I have a new hire starting next week, and she is a senior level person, and that’s a big investment. And so it’s kind of the same thing.

Kate Morgan:
So you invested in that person.

Sarah Segal:
I invested in the person, and I’m hoping for a return on that. Yeah, I’m optimistic, and so you’re in the same situation. You just can’t fire yours. [Laughter]

Kate Morgan:
No, the investment was 100 percent in myself and—

Loren Feldman:
Kate, can I jump in there for a second? There’s another way of thinking about this, which is: I believe, when you made this decision, you had a choice. There were a couple of options that this company would have offered you. You could have done it for a lot less money, under the Advantage imprint. It probably would have been basically the same team helping you, doing everything the same way. But you decided to pay. I mean, I think you could have paid like $10,000 or something for that. You decided to spend the money to get the Forbes imprint.

Sarah Segal:
Oh, you got the licensing, okay.

Kate Morgan:
Yeah.

Sarah Segal:
And that goes back to the validation: LinkedIn being a validation, Forbes being a validation.

Kate Morgan:
Yeah, that’s why they already have me in I think 18 airports teed up for September. It’s going to sit in all these different airports.

Sarah Segal:
That’s awesome. When I buy business books, the airport is one of the places that I buy them. They always have a good selection.

Kate Morgan:
See, there you go. So when you see my book, you can be like, “Damn, I know Kate Morgan!”

Sarah Segal:
I will, I will. I’ll take a selfie and post it on LinkedIn and say, “I know someone.”

Loren Feldman:
David, you’ve published. What did you choose? What was your path?

David Barnett:
So I’ve published many books over the years. I just finished off my 10th. The promotion starts this summer. And we look at book publishing as a top of marketing funnel activity, because we know that there is a certain segment of the population out there who, when they want to understand something, will go looking for a book on it. And so it’s all about being on Amazon and being discoverable with certain keywords in the title, so that somebody who is looking for a certain piece of information doesn’t even need to necessarily know who I am. They’ll see that the book addresses their topic.

So a book that’s been out for 10 years, which I just released a second, updated edition for, is called Franchise Warnings. It’s one of only a couple of books out there on Amazon that talks about the downsides, potentially, of the franchise business model. And for 10 years, I’ve sold copies of that book every week, just because of the title and because of the content and because the people who read it leave good reviews. There’s a lot of positive reviews saying how much the book helps people.

And we know that some of those readers come into our marketing funnel. They start watching me on YouTube, and they end up hiring us. So we really do look at it from that small business perspective: What is the effort that goes into writing the book, and will it deliver customers to our business? And so, we just do it ourselves. Amazon has something called Kindle Direct Publishing, which allows you to make a Kindle book or a paperback. And they have hard covers now too, and then the audio books as well, we’ve also done.

Loren Feldman:
And what does it cost to do that with Amazon?

David Barnett:
Well, it’s just my time to write the book.

Loren Feldman:
They publish it for free?

David Barnett:
Yeah, because there’s no inventory, right? I’s print on demand. So when I upload the book contents, for example, for Franchise Warnings, it exists in cyberspace. And when somebody orders it, there’s a machine that makes one copy, and then they mail it out. And so, there’s no investment—not like the old days, maybe, where someone had a garage filled with copies of their book that they had printed. So it’s really changed the way things work.

As far as having best-seller status, Amazon’s best-seller lists run on a 24-hour cycle, I believe. And in some specific categories, there’s very little traffic. I have a book called 21 Stupid Things People Do When Trying to Buy a Business. And for the longest time, this book was in the top 10 books for mergers and acquisitions for Audible, and that’s simply because very few mergers and acquisitions books are ever turned into Audible books. And so it didn’t take very many sales to keep myself up in that spot.

When I hear that this new book is already sort of in the top lists of many different categories, it makes me wonder if part of the fee being paid is to have sort of an army of people going and placing that pre-order purchase to kind of stoke those results within the Amazon system. Because if you can get yourself to the top of the bestsellers lists in Amazon, then the Amazon algorithm will kick in and start showing the book to other people. And so, there’s a lot of people in the publishing world who have different strategies. They talk about kind of gaming the algorithm, gaming the system of Amazon to try to get things into the top echelon of recognition.

Kate Morgan:
Well, and that’s in part the NetGalley, and there’s like a community of 650,000 reviewers. They’re the ones that are helping to generate reviews and buzz and all of that. And so that’s a lot of the traction I’m getting. Now, again, I don’t have to do anything. And Forbes is going to run a NetGalley Spotlight. Actually, they’re running it this week.

Loren Feldman:
Do any of you think about the balance between being informative and being promotional? I guess what I’m really asking is: Do you ever worry about giving away too much?

Kate Morgan:
Not for me.

Sarah Segal:
So my feeling about that is that you can give away absolutely everything. Most people won’t do it, though. So, what I do for a living is not brain surgery. I didn’t go to medical school. But it’s a lot of work. And so a lot of PR agencies won’t give their clients the media lists, like with all their contact information of members of the media or influencers, and that’s because they’re afraid. What’s going to prevent the client from just taking those lists and doing it themselves?

I’ve been in business for nearly eight years, and I have never had a client take those lists and go do it themselves. Because they don’t have the time. They don’t have the bandwidth. They’re hiring you because you can do it better than they can, you have resources set up, you have systems set up. So I think you can give away everything, but the clients that are going to hire you are the ones that see the value in having you do it and not them do it.

Kate Morgan:
In my space, when we start talking about talent acquisition and HR, particularly now, we’re seeing so many companies and founders that are looking at it as discretionary spend, and they want to dial down. And my book is really more about: It’s kind of a cost. Do it right, you have a unicorn. Do it wrong, you’re going to have so many headaches. And let me tell you, from my own experience, if you take this book and you feel comfortable and confident moving forward, God bless you. If you run into a challenge, keep us posted. We’re here. We got you.

David Barnett:
I’m definitely in the abundance mindset camp as well, and I want to work with people who have an abundance mindset. And so I don’t mind sharing all kinds of information. And the people who step forward and want to work with me are going to be the people who value the fact that, on top of the knowledge maybe that they’ve learned from consuming my content, that the experience and everything else that is part of me and my team is going to add even more value to the project that we work on with clients.

Loren Feldman:
What do you wish you’d known when you first started sharing content?

Sarah Segal:
I mean, I think it’s focus. I think what David was saying is that the more niche you can be, the more valuable that’s going to be. Anybody can talk generally about HR or acquisition or PR, but if you have a specific area of knowledge, I think that that’s going to be the most valuable for any potential audience.

Kate Morgan:
See, and I still have a very different approach when I think about our news content, for instance. We put out content that is talking more about people and just general, personal stuff. And then, we’ll kind of go back and forth with various things. Like, we just launched one today. One of my team members, she’s a beautiful writer. She was writing about: Life isn’t about perfectionism. And I just find it’s just interesting that we get so many different folks who will respond back.

And again, we kind of go back and forth where the previous one was: Why recruiters stop calling and what it really means. So then it keeps people dialed in for when they need us from a business perspective, and then when they want it for something more personal. And I’m always just really touched when we have people responding to our newsletter just saying, “Wow, this hit right at the right time.” And it isn’t so dialed in, so specific. Because I can tell you, when we do any sort of competitive analysis, that’s what they’re all sticking to, and we’re outperforming them every time.

Loren Feldman:
I think we’ve hit on a pretty clear difference of opinion, in terms of what your goals should be in sharing content. And I think it’s intriguing to me to hear both versions articulated—the version that says: You really have to think about who’s reading this, who’s seeing it, and whether it’s going to move the needle for your business. Versus creating an authentic picture of who you are and connecting with people and, yes, seeing value in the metrics that the social media platforms want you to care about.

Kate Morgan:
Well, you know, Loren, if I was paying somebody to market my brand, yeah, I’d be all over the data. And that’s why working with Forbes and the Authority and all that is good for me.

Loren Feldman:
But you are paying someone. You’re paying yourself.

Kate Morgan:
Well, yeah. But then I also do stand-up comedy. So, you know, I don’t get paid for that.

Loren Feldman:
Well, that probably doesn’t drive business either, I’m guessing—although it’s a great skill. David, you wanted to say something?

David Barnett:
Yeah, I think the one thing—you had asked what you wish you had known earlier—I think that I wish I had known 10 years ago that there’s almost as much value in using your online marketing to drive away the wrong prospects as there is in attracting the right ones. When I create content, I’ve got a certain avatar, a certain ideal customer in mind, and I’m talking to that person. And a lot of what we see online about developing social media is advice for entertainers that want as big an audience as possible.

And I think what entrepreneurs need to keep in mind when they’re running a business is that we are using these social media platforms, we’re bending them to our purpose, which is to market and find customers. And the social media platforms, though, their purpose is very different. It’s about amassing as many eyeballs as possible. Do they really care about whether the creators achieve their own ends? Like, I don’t know. The platforms want attention. And that’s what they resell to advertisers and all the ways that they make money.

Loren Feldman:
But I’m curious, David. It seems to me the need to drive away the wrong audience would be more of a concern, say, for Sarah, who wants a particular type of client. Whereas for you, you have such a clear niche. You help people buy and sell businesses. Who is it that you’re trying to drive away who would respond to content about that topic?

David Barnett:
It’s people who have fumbled themselves into the space through being attracted by some kind of get-rich-quick content. There’s creators out there who are creating content about how you can buy a business using none of your own money: “Blah, blah, blah, just buy my course.” And some of those people fall into my audience, and then they’ll start making demands of me and my time and my employees with projects that are just untenable, unreasonable, etc., and I would rather not have to deal with them, honestly.

Loren Feldman:
Understood. Sarah, do you think about that at all in your content? You’re looking for a particular type of business. Do you do things to make sure you get that right type of business?

Sarah Segal:
No, not purposely. But I’ll talk to anybody. That’s probably just me as an individual. I’ll talk to anybody.

Loren Feldman:
There you go. There’s the difference.

Sarah Segal:
And if I can’t provide the service that they need, I love being that connector where I can refer them to another sole practitioner or a different kind of agency. But I see the value in, for me, talking to anybody at any any level or any space in their business. And I do certainly get things that are not our bread and butter and not really the capabilities that my team is built for. But I love making those connections and referring people, because you never know. They may end up working for a company that does need the services I provide. And so I’ve made that connection, and they appreciate the referral, and maybe they’ll remember me.

Loren Feldman:
So Sarah, having had this conversation, would you spend $200,000 to publish a book?

Sarah Segal:
Well, I mean, I have an equivalent: hiring a VP. A book is not my goal. I don’t think that I have the discipline to write a book. You have to be a more of a linear thinker in order to do that, and that’s not how my brain works.

Loren Feldman:
Well, these companies will help you with that, if you want it and need it.

Sarah Segal:
I know, I’m also intrigued about the whole business coach thing, because it’s very trendy to have a business coach, and it’s not something I’m necessarily personally interested in. I’m just interested in what they do for people. But yeah, I’m making investments elsewhere. I don’t think you want to read a book I write, because it’d be all over the place. [Laughter]

Kate Morgan:
Well, that is the benefit of the business coach. They kind of wrangle you in.

Loren Feldman:
Well, that’s a very good topic for a podcast [episode] another day. My thanks to David Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal.