Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett CEO Diaries: The Lessons I Wish I Knew at the Start of My Career… About this episode In this episode of CEO Diaries, LinkedIn's Jessica Jensen shares essential B2B marketing strategies every entrepreneur needs. From leveraging AI to mastering LinkedIn for customer acquisition, Jessica reveals how to scale your business and build a winning marketing plan. Don't miss these insights on transforming your B2B approach.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Steven Bartlett? In today's Moments episode, I'm sharing some of the most important lessons I've learnt about B2B marketing, the lessons I wish I'd learnt earlier in my career. A few weeks ago, I was in New York and sat down with LinkedIn CMSO Jessica Jensen for a LinkedIn Live. We spoke about everything from how to target and reach the right people, to how to avoid wasting your marketing dollars, and our tactics for building real influence. This is the stuff every B2B marketer today needs to know. But instead of learning it the hard way, like I did, you can hear it all right now. Jessica Jensen, it's so wonderful to meet you. And you have one of the most interesting jobs and careers that I think I've ever encountered. Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at LinkedIn. One of the most used terms in my circles at the moment of entrepreneurs has been this term AI.
0:46 Steven Bartlett? And there's a mixed reaction. There's a lot of people that see it as a threat and are kind of leaning out the ostrich with its head in the sand. And then there's a group of people that I have in my close circle that are excited and leaning in. What is your advice for entrepreneurs that are trying to contend with this new thing called AI?
1:01 Speaker 01 Yeah. I think that AI will become the air we breathe and the water we drink, just in the way the internet has. Can anyone imagine business or life today without the internet? I don't think so. And that has upsides and downsides. I think AI is the same. It will be, it will power so many things, personally, professionally. I can't imagine starting a company now without leveraging AI in some way, either to save yourself incredible amounts of time, or to, to create product prototypes.
1:45 Speaker 01 Certainly, if you're trying to raise money, not being versed in AI, I think, would be rather challenging today. I think all investors are viewing it as a must have. It allows you so much more creative power and efficiency. Regardless, you could be producing flip flops or, or selling digital software. So I think anyone who thinks they can avoid it, I would encourage them to jump over the line.
2:14 Steven Bartlett? Anyway.
2:15 Speaker 01 What, what is, what are you, how do you advise founders and startups that you talk to about how to use Gen AI?
2:22 Steven Bartlett? So I always think that the opportunity and threat are in the reaction. So and I've seen this over the my brief career and you know, there's been certain waves that have come into shore, like social media was the first wave, then it was this thing called the blockchain. And now the the third wave that I've observed is artificial intelligence. And in all three of those examples, the opportunity or threat was in your reaction. I E. If you if you lean out, then it is a threat. But if you lean in, it is an opportunity. And so for me, the most important thing, whenever I experience that dissonance that comes with something new that I don't understand, that is technical and it comes with words I don't understand, is to like lean in and mess around. So feel the dissonance lean in. And for me, leaning in and messing around just means like,
3:05 Steven Bartlett? make sure that my LinkedIn algorithm is understands that that's what I want to be served. So I start engaging with AI content.
3:12 Speaker 01 Give it a signal.
3:13 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, it's it's it's giving me more content in that regard. It means speaking to my team about it. And one thing we've done at the moment is we've set this AI agent challenge, which is for the next sixty days, every single team in every single department is implementing AI and AI agents to improve and automate their workflows.
3:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:33 Steven Bartlett? And we're all sharing it in this new channel. And at the end of the sixty days, there's going to be this big presentation where every team presents how they've implemented AI agents into their workflow. And there'll be this big prize that I'm handing out with a judging panel of like AI experts coming into our company. But I did you just click?
3:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:49 Steven Bartlett? That's so cool.
3:52 Steven Bartlett? I didn't I didn't see that. So and I'd say, I think it all comes down to your relationship with change.
4:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:00 Steven Bartlett? And in the world we're heading in, you've just got to have a really healthy, positive, optimistic relationship with change, I think.
4:05 Speaker 01 I think flexibility is the foundation.
4:09 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, amen, amen.
4:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:11 Steven Bartlett? And in a world of AI and large language models, where we can generate content now,
4:17 Steven Bartlett? you know, this it becomes very, very tempting to go for quantity.
4:21 Speaker 01 Yes.
4:21 Steven Bartlett? And like copying and paste cookie cutter, perfect M dash text.
4:27 Speaker 01 Right.
4:28 Steven Bartlett? What would you advise us as marketers in such a world where the cost of creation goes to zero and we can churn out?
4:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I'm so excited about what Gen AI is doing for marketing and will do for marketing. And I also think people can smell a rat.
4:47 Speaker 01 So we're leveraging it. So many marketers are. It does lower costs. You're able to concept faster. You're able to edit and try new things more quickly. But when you are trying to convince human beings to take action, you will need to convey human emotion and human judgment. I firmly believe human marketers will have jobs. And that knowing what is real and what is fake is going to be so important, especially somebody like you, right? People are trying to fake you every day. And so I think as business people and as marketers, we need to view AI as an expediter and a creative fuel
5:30 Speaker 01 and never lose human oversight.
5:33 Steven Bartlett? I have been pondering this idea for the last couple of weeks about how, like, I'm not good at spelling.
5:40 Speaker 01 I'm horrible. I'm a horrible speller.
5:42 Steven Bartlett? But I now see it as an advantage. Because when you
5:46 Speaker 01 That's
5:46 Steven Bartlett? It's so funny because I was outside.
5:47 Speaker 01 I'm gonna lean into it myself.
5:50 Steven Bartlett? But I literally, I said to my team earlier on the way here, I was like, there was this title for this piece of content we're producing. And I said, can you just like uncapitalize it and like just make it a little bit messier? So people know that we wrote it.
6:01 Speaker 01 Interesting.
6:02 Steven Bartlett? Because everything is so perfect. And whenever I see something that's perfectly formatted and has all perfect grammar now, part of my brain discounts it.
6:10 Speaker 01 Totally.
6:10 Steven Bartlett? What do good content creators do? Whether they're B2B content creators or B2C content creators or just individuals? What are some of the things that you notice that they do well? In terms of just like base level principles?
6:23 Speaker 01 I think that great creators are like great communicators at any time in history. They know what they want to say. They have something to say. It's interesting. It's different. It has an angle. They know who they're trying to talk to and who they're trying to engage. They convey, they convey information and human connection. They are real. They uh, they show themselves and their ideas openly. Um, and then I think in this day and age, they are using multiple form factors, right? They're using text, they're using photos, they're using video. Uh, and video, I think, becoming more and more prominent.
7:06 Speaker 01 Um, so many of the principles uh, of, of being a great communicator and a great marketer and a great creator are the same.
7:16 Speaker 01 What's your answer to that question?
7:20 Steven Bartlett? I, I really liked your, your, where you started at the top of that with this idea of having something to say. Because I think sometimes people overlook this. And you know, it's very easy to speak before you've, you've got something to talk about.
7:32 Speaker 01 Don't get me started on this topic.
7:34 Steven Bartlett? And I think the best creators that I, that I've met have, have gained clarity on what their message is. And it's a unique message. It's a cliche proof message. One of the phrases we use a lot in our team is if the world has heard it before, then we don't need to add it again. And as a nice principle for like knowing what to post and what, what the world needs. If the world has heard you, someone say it before, ten times, a hundred times, we don't need to add to it. So we add if we have something unique to add to the conversation. Um, and then I think the other part, um, I agree with everything you said, is just analytics and data. Which helps us to create a nice feedback loop because.
8:06 Speaker 01 How do you know that it's working?
8:07 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, exactly. Um, a- as a creator, sometimes it can feel like you're at the roulette table with the lights off when you're making content. Because this did well and then for some reason this did well and this one got loads of comments, that one had loads of views, that one crashed and burned. But with uh, a perspective, a positive relationship with analytics, it turns the lights on. And you can start to, you know, post, um, look, learn. Iterate, improve and post again. And that's what's made me a better creator is just
8:37 Speaker 01 That's a great
8:38 Steven Bartlett? Having a nice feedback loop on what I'm doing and why it's working. So I look at everything from the retention of the videos we post to the engagement metrics. And what people are saying in the comments is a qualitative measure. So having a positive relationship with that, I think is imperative.
8:51 Speaker 01 Can I ask you a few questions?
8:53 Steven Bartlett? Sure.
8:54 Speaker 01 You are a leading entrepreneur, thought leader, media personality on LinkedIn. What do you find has been the most powerful tools or formats for you on the platform?
9:07 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, I just think there really isn't another shop in town. If you're trying to do B two B marketing or you're trying to build your personal presence. And I'm actually surprised, and this is a strange thing to say, but I'm surprised that LinkedIn has remained so effective and dominant at that in particular. And I also see LinkedIn as both being the healthiest platform in terms of communication and comms and discourse. But I also see it as being the most effective as it relates to being, building a business in all regards, from a comms perspective, from a hiring perspective, from an internal and external personal branding perspective for your company as an executive.
9:47 Steven Bartlett? And I have for many, many years told people that I thought the opportunity of LinkedIn would at some point pass, it passed. Because that's typically what I've seen from other platforms. They kind of lost their way, they've got into too many things, but it just hasn't been the case with LinkedIn. And that's been the most surprising thing of all for me. And I think for really any founder out there, I think it is your most important platform. Because the most important thing in business is obviously acquiring customers, it's hiring great people, it is, you know, marketing the company itself. And I tell all of the founders in my portfolio that until you've cracked LinkedIn and you've got this system up and running, the flywheel, the video sort of content flywheel, the recruiting side, you've filled out your profile, really don't think beyond that.
10:30 Steven Bartlett? So when my founders come to me and they say, I want to start a podcast, I shut down the podcast and I say, you're not using LinkedIn properly yet. So like it's, I have always just, I draw this picture out, which I've drawn so many times, and it's a pyramid. And at the bottom of the pyramid is LinkedIn, if you're a founder. So like, make sure your LinkedIn strategy is on point. Only until you've completed that, that part of the pyramid, you move up to level two, which could be newsletters, which are a big part of LinkedIn now as well. You've got to figure out what's going to yield the most. And then relative to the yields, which platform is going to require the least investment.
11:02 Speaker 01 Right, yeah.
11:03 Steven Bartlett? So it's not, you don't need to have 20, 30 people, a pretty big production team to get started on LinkedIn. And the return of investment is so high relative to the investment, that it is the best place to start. And then you move on.
11:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, building from there.
11:16 Steven Bartlett? Yeah. I hope this conversation has given you some clarity, because honestly, these are the lessons I wish someone had shared with me when I was first getting started in B2B marketing. If you're ready to dive deeper and take the things you've learnt today and put them into practice, our sponsor LinkedIn is offering a hundred dollar ad credit. Just head to LinkedIn.com/diary to get started. That's LinkedIn.com/diary.
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