Chelsea, I'm excited for our conversation today. With me on today's video is Chelsea Castle. She's a fractional content and brand partner for b to b SaaS companies. Chelsea, good to have you on. Thanks, Alex. So good to be here. So your experience starting in journalism, I I think that's always got really fun to to hear different backstories of how do get into marketing. There's a couple different avenues, and and I think you probably have a unique spin then in perspective coming from that that direction. So I'd first love to, like, hear more about your your backstory of of coming from that direction and specific around journalism. What did that teach you about coming to marketing and maybe other marketers don't see from that vantage point? Yeah. I have found that there are a lot of great former journalists in marketing, but you're right. My background is a little atypical. So I studied journalism in college. I, worked in newspapers. I worked in a newsroom, and then I actually worked in a magazine. So I was the editor in chief of two magazines, like my first job out of college. So after that, I worked at a branding marketing agency, and then I got into tech. So it's kind of been a really cool combination, almost like a perfect melding of love for purpose and storytelling and connecting, and then honing in, like, the more technical marketing and branding side of the agency where life all kind of, like, set me off into this great content marketing journey that I've been on for the last eight years and just in SaaS now. I feel like it's been longer than that, but about eight to nine years just in SaaS before that. So within journalism, you learn a lot about why and how you need to hook someone. Right? Which was I didn't realize it at the time. Like, marketing and journalism were almost like foes. Like, I don't wanna be marketing and pushing products on people and selling things. Like, as a journalist, you have a lot of integrity and value in what you do. Not that you don't in marketing, but a journalist, you know, you're the fourth estate. So you're more like you have this big sense of purpose. So you learn a lot about how do you hook somebody with a headline, and your entire career is how do I write a headline and a lead? A lead is like the first sentence. How do you create that very first thing to get somebody to keep reading? So that's one of many lessons. And then you have to get in the reps, right, of doing that. So magazine issue after magazine issue, article after article, just like continuous reps of practicing how to do that. And today's content feed, that is an invaluable skill to be able capture attention in just a short amount of time. I mean, every business needs that, a good few word storyteller in order to pull out the the rest of it. Wow. Somewhere I read that you, like, you saw that you feel readers are selfish, and I was like, what is in it for me? So how does that translate? And how do you view that then? And and then for marketing, like, how do we put that into practice? Yeah. One of the very first things that you learn in journalism is so what? So every reader, when they're coming to you, when they see your article, they're asking, so what? So what? Like, what about me? What about me? Me. Me. Me. Me. It's like marketing or sorry. Like, journalism one zero one. Readers only care about themselves. And, of course, like, we're all like that. That's how we're wired. But especially in marketing, everyone, you know, that we know when we're being marketed to. So we're always kind of thinking through and viewing the world through lens of like, why should I care? What does this have to do with me? Why does this interest me? Me. Me. Me. Me. So that's one big lesson, like, why readers are selfish because we only care about ourselves. And that's not really said in a negative sense. It's really just speaking to you psychologically how we're how we're wired and kind of knowing that that is what we're always need to be focused on. Whereas in marketing, we do tend to be very self serving. That's like the product. Like, hey. You got a potential awesome product. Look at this. And it's like, well, I don't really care unless you tell me why I should should care. Yeah. Exactly. For in your journalism experience, far as interviewing, did you do a lot of interviewing for stories, or did you end up, like, doing your research and then crafting it from them? I'm kind of curious of, like, your experience coming from that that experience. Definitely do both. So you have to do the research, and then you do a lot of interviews. And then your that's essentially your source content, and then sit down and write whatever it is you need to write. Kinda curious for for me for interviewing tactics, like, you found to pull out the good nuggets, the good stories, the good pieces that actually build trust and, like, show people, hey. This is a real person. This is a real topic that you should care about. Any nuggets from your experience? Like, this has, like, really worked well for me in my interviews. A core tenet of journalism and being a good interviewer is being curious. And some of the best marketers I know are very curious. That is complementary to this idea of speaking to your readers, serving your audience, and thinking about them and not yourself. So I think if you're genuinely curious, then, like, following that instinct is another skill that you develop of, like, following instincts of what's the story here? Follow the money. Follow the data. You know, like, being curious and thinking through things like a human. If we think about that when we're talking to customers, when we're trying to figure out what makes a prospect, like, what makes our audience tick so that we can better prospect to them. Like that like, that's kind of a hand wavy. Like, oh, be curious, but it just lends itself to thinking through what would you wanna know about this person. It's it's good conversation skills. Right? It's it's a lot of just, like, being genuinely curious, like the Ted Lasso quote of, like, not being judgmental, being curious. And being in interviews, doing like, leaning into that, leaning into, like, actually listening, actually understanding. What is the story here? Digging deeper, not using AI to write your customer interview questions for you because it doesn't know, like, what a human experience is like. So that would be one. So I guess there's a couple small ones. It helps to have breathing room. So instead of being ready to, like, jump in with your next question because you're like, I only have thirty minutes to talk to this person for whatever the reason might be, give some breathing room. The flip side of that is sometimes people are long winded. I had a customer call literally this one this morning where I got maybe three questions in. And you have to know how properly and politely interject. Sometimes you have to interrupt. Sometimes you have to step in. Sometimes you have to kind of guide them. You are very much the steward of the conversation. When I've seen other, like, product marketers or other folks in conversations with customers, just putting it in, you in, the marketing perspective, they tend to be passive in the conversation and let it happen to them rather than be, like, the guide and the steward of the conversation. I think that's a good way to think about it. Just knowing that, like, you do have a goal in mind ultimately with whatever the conversation is, but you kinda have to guide it and steer it and not be a passive participant. And then the last one I would say is to always ask at the end, is there anything else that I didn't touch on today that you that's on your mind or that we should discuss? Like, always ending in an open ended question. Sometimes I've gotten, like, my best stuff from doing that. Yeah. That that final one more question, just they feel like, alright. Everything's covered, but is there anything else? I love your point about guiding the interview because you have been on several customer story interviews. People are just so verbose. They just keep talking and talk. And you have to, like, jump in and often maybe jumping with some excitement. It's like, oh, that that was a really great point. That actually makes me think about being able to create content and have it tied to a larger story, a larger piece. A big element I've seen you do again and again is content series. So it's not just, hey. Here's a piece of content, but it's part of a larger larger model everywhere, whether it's Chili Piper, Lavender, and Clothes. I'm kinda curious for when you think about building a series, how do you approach it to make sure that that you can keep building on it and it's not just a a one off that, like, this is this is worth the effort to build a a series around it? Yeah. I've always been a big fan of episodic content. I think it's because I like to think about what we do in marketing, not dissimilar from how we consume things in our normal day to day personal lives. Doesn't matter who you're marketing to. They're a human at the end of the day. People binge content. We buy subscription after subscription to streaming shows. When owned media or make every b to b company a media company was first a thing a few years ago, there was a lot of pushback on that. Like, people don't binge content. Well, maybe they don't binge boring b to b content, or maybe they don't binge, you know, article blog post after blog post that was written for SEO. But there's been a lot of success from various brands over time from episode of content. I think that has a lot to do with, like, what can you do in that format that you can't do in any other format? So that's like one small nugget where I think about that with repurposing and remixing content as well as episodic content. So what can I do in a video that I can't do in written form, you know, as an example? Yeah. Can you break that? Like, like, how do you view that? Like, because that's a good question. I like to ask myself some of this. I love video, and sometimes I force things into video when I probably shouldn't or vice versa. People is like, text is fine. We don't need to put this into a video. Is there any things that you look at that put one versus the other? Yeah. I mean, it depends on what you're starting with. Right? So that example was to say, like, maybe you have a podcast series and you have video content. So then maybe that's the the core of your flywheel. And you have clips that get put on on social. You have shorts that could put out on YouTube. You've got the long form on YouTube. You've got the audio on Spotify and other channels. And then what can you do in a written form that you couldn't do in the audio and the video? How could you take the transcript from this conversation and extract something in a written form or in carousels or graphics? So say from this conversation, you just have carousel graphics of the quotes, and then you're trying to start a conversation in the text, in the in the caption of the post, for example. Maybe there's, like, some data that we talk about, and that gets pulled out into a carousel or an infographic. Maybe you extract just top five lessons from this conversation in kind of a longer form for in in a written blog post. You know? I think there's a few different ways that you can think about it. I don't always start with the format in mind. I usually start with the goal. So kinda going back to your, like, episodic question, I just don't always start with, like, the the topic for the format first. I usually start with the goal. What are we trying to achieve when you're consistently prioritizing the audience and thinking about serving them and chasing their attention and their loyalty and their trust and not chasing the algorithm, that, like, value benchmark keeps you grounded, I think. So I'm not always optimizing for a single piece of content. I'm thinking about how does this one thing or how does this series fit into the bigger picture of everything we're doing in marketing. I think that's one thing I've noticed in both in house and now working with clients where we're so used to checkbox marketing. Right? Or like, let's just fill the content calendar, put out let's make sure we have a social post every day. Let's make sure we have x number of blog posts. Let's make sure we're optimizing for these keywords. And, like, all of that needs to go out the window. Every little every little and every big thing we do in marketing, each thing, each asset, each thing that a person does in a marketing team is like a puzzle piece. And you don't know what the puzzle's gonna look like when it's done, but how does each puzzle piece fit together? And you're always thinking about what is the bigger picture that we're telling, and then how does each piece fit together? And we can we can kinda break that down, but that's how I think about it at a high level. It it's so easy to just say, well, we need something, and we gotta fill the channel for the and and I I feel like a a lot of marketers, particularly smaller companies, are inundated with, I just need to get stuff done because all my leadership, etcetera, like, they they this is my mandate. I have to do it. I don't have the time to be as strategic as I want to. So if you had, like, a maybe a a simple way of of approaching it of of or just ask yourself one or two questions. Like, it doesn't have to they don't have to spend, like, a whole week in a in a room to really be that strategic. But if they could give them one question or two questions to ask themselves of, how am I really connecting the dots here and not just putting something out? Is there anything comes to your mind so that even the the marketer that's having to do lots of things, they can still make sure that what they're putting out is tying to the bigger picture? Well, that really comes down to having, like, a solid brand and content strategy and, like, knowing what your red thread is. Red thread, through line, whatever you wanna call it. Like, the red thread that connects everything, your story, your narrative, your strategic narrative, all of those are synonyms. Right? So, like, I think the answer, like, that question is, what is our story? What is our content point of view? What is the red thread that connects everything? Like, what are we going to market with, and what is the one thing that we're saying? And it's not explicit in everything. It's implicit in majority of things. It's what is the through line? And that's one of the reasons why episodic content, one of many reasons why that type of series based content is so effective because it's easier to create that through line. And sometimes it's multiple themes, you know, but, like, it's easier to create that through line. And from a cognitive science perspective, when you're creating episodic content, it's easier to recall. So that type of content is producing stickier material, stickier things in your audience's mind for it's easier for them to remember. If you can you give me some examples of, like, some of the series that you've run of and how that tie to that through line that you had in your mind at whether it's your in house or or clients? Yeah. So I would say probably Will versus Jen, which I'm pausing because we did it at both Lavender and Close. So different through lines, but it's actually kind of really fascinating when you think about it through that perspective. You know, both were about coaching essentially and teaching and knowing that us as a brand, we wanted to represent, at least at close, we wanted to represent being the hero and the guide from a brand archetype perspective. So we are producing a show that was about two thought leaders and people with large followings, but they were also sellers. They were also like a double ICP because they were solopreneurs. Solopreneurs were a close ICP for anyone listening close as a small business CRM and for sale as a sales CRM. So these participants had a following, but they were also experts and they were solopreneurs and they used to be sellers, and they would compete against each other in various sales related competitions. We did it at Lavender, which is also a sales tool, and then I brought it back at Close. There's multiple ways you can kinda think about what you're we're trying to achieve there. We wanted to position ourselves as a bold, different brand. So that kind of was achieved through the concept of the show. And then the through line was really saying like, hey. We are this hero in this this guide for our audience and helping you be better at sales and that no company should ever fail because they can't figure out how to do sales. And that was the through line. We were saying, we are here to help you get better at sales with the product, but also with our education. And you can consume the education and get value from it. And that's that's how we are trying to build trust and also the product. And the product was never it was not mentioned in the show, but it was a it was almost like a character in the show so that it was present when appropriate and when it made sense, but it wasn't that pushing the product was never part of it. Talking about who what closes and what it does is unexplicit. And I think that's one thing I'm seeing in the market, especially right now, is marketing teams are adopting AI is the content is getting more and more self serving, and it's getting more and more like, us, us, us. Look what we do. This is what we do. This is what we do over and over and over again. Like, nobody cares. Like, you need to be thinking about them, and that show is achieving that through education, but also humor. There there's so many different pieces that all lead up to why then the content series works and works so well, but I love your that one piece of the product being the the co star. It's it's not the main piece, but it it's there, and it's part of that, that element. I I've been tracking and watching how, the big AI companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, have been doing their product updates and product launches. And it's always interesting. They always lead with the people, the human led. It's like they have the internal experts on camera and sometimes, like, really nerdy people sitting down and sharing why they're so excited. But then they show the product and why it works, but it's always, like, secondary. It's the person first showing how it works. And then the latest OpenAI model five point six, they had, like, three beta customers, And they walked through how this farmer and this small business owner, and it was like, oh, fascinating of of how do you lead with the human. So this this kinda comes jumping around a little bit of of topics of of AI because you talked about that of of being an issue of when you when you start to both weave in AI into your workflows of creating content, and also you're trying to promote that's a whole separate piece of if your product or you're trying to promote is, hey. We're we have AI in it. How do you build a series around that? But kinda curious, where do you see AI can be leveraged to help build content series and keep it efficient, keep it cost effective, but also still be human and connect with people at a human authentic way? Yeah. This is a fun question because I am not going to be very, like, pro AI in my answer. Yeah. If I didn't think your content So, like, I knew you're gonna ask this. Couldn't be surprised. But yeah. Yeah. I really think that we need to keep AI with all the a automation crap. Right? Like, let it automate. Let it connect tools. Let it do things that we couldn't do before. Let it help me extract data from products to create content from. That's one thing that I've been doing and and did it at my final days at close. Let me vibe code something, you know, things like that. I've experimented with it for all of the things. And even when people say, oh, I use that as my thought partner or my ideas barring partner. That's just not for me because then I start to get fuzzy and hazy, and then you can't come up with ideas on your own. I would even use it where I would write something and say, like, hey. How would you make this better? But then what I was realizing, those are my editor skills that I spend a lot of time learning and honing and practicing over fifteen plus years. And then I'm asking AI to do it for me, and then I'm looking at content. And then I'm having a harder time discerning why does this work? Why does it not work? Because I was asking the AI to do that. So for me, I've created guidelines of how I use it, how I won't use it. And I think it's just best served when we're not replacing creation and helping it optimize or, you know, create workflows and automation. I think, at least for me, like, I think that's the best case the the best way to move forward with it. And there are studies now that are showing what it's doing to our brain. Even if we're just using it as a cocreator in something, there are like, the studies that are coming out now are pretty telling in terms of what it's actually doing neurologically and what's not happening in our neural pathways when we're using it that we're not gonna know until like, not everybody is is aware of that when maybe they won't be until it's too late. I'm always an optimist at heart. Is that if we have lost some of this capacity, humans are quite elastic had elasticity. So that if you've lost some of that function, you just have to start working on it again. It's like working out your muscles. You can get that back. So You can't. Yeah. It is a nice like, we we just have to realize, I guess. No. I I need to keep working that creative muscle. As marketers, we can't offload all of it. Otherwise, we lose the part that that will benefit us the most and and our businesses and our jobs. I'm kinda curious, like, okay, where you've mentioned a few of them, but if you had to, like, alright, these are, like, two or three things I absolutely I always do, and then two or three things that I I really love to just offload to AI. And you mentioned a few, but I'm kinda curious if you can give me a little little list of your favorites. Let's see. My guidelines are that I don't use it to do anything that I say I do, that people pay me to do, or that I wanna get better at. So if I say I'm a writer, how dare I use AI to write for me? And also that, like, I think my struggle with AI is I think there's a lot of value and identity tied to it where we all have different values and belief systems. So if somebody gives me something that they created with AI, I would almost expect, a disclaimer. Like, how how did you use AI? I started actually doing that just on my own because that's what felt right for me personally. I don't expect other people to do that. Again, we are all all different human beings. But for me, I started using disclaimer of like, I used AI to synthesize notes that I used to write this, but I wrote it. Things like that. Or like I have, you know, for client work, for example, I started identifying or using it for audits. So that's one way that I've done it. So I've kinda created a framework for like a marketing content audit and say in terms of saying, okay. Look for this type of content that is BOFU, and here's what that looks like. Here's look at this type of content that's MOFU and TOFU, and here's what that looks like. Look for these. Like, I've written out essentially, like, a prompt for the LLM for marketing and a content framework. And then the output of that is pretty clean, and I'll edit it. And then I'll say, AI did this. You know? AI created this audit based on my framework. Yeah. So that's been very helpful. I also use it to, like, refer notes. So I've connected my Claude code with granola, and I'm feeding it all of my notes. And I have a Claude project trained on each client so that each project within Claude is almost like a client brain. And then I've got, like, personal skills that feed into that. So it's discerning everything through, like, my lens of, who am I? What do I do? How do I think? Voice tone values, things like that. Not to write for me, but just to know, like, context on on me. Yeah. And then all of those client brains essentially help me, like, kind of, like, remember things. I'll be like, well, what did this person say about this? You know? And then give me the exact quote. Like, that's that's been the most useful thing, honestly, of, like, helping me go through notes because like a journalist, like, you have all of the source content is what we call it that you create from. And now all of my source content is onboarding about each client and battle cards and customer calls and interviews with stakeholders and my my strategic brainstorms and workshops. And I can have all of that in my brain and in the LLM's brain, and then I can, like, almost use it as, a reference buddy. Love that. Yeah. A a journalistic research assistant in in some ways, just being able to be there. I I've thought about how there's conversation around different AI models have bigger context context windows. So and like Claude, we've been using that more often because it seems to have a larger context window or it had. But I feel like as humans, we also have only so much we can hold in our brain at one point in time. So it's helpful to be able to use these tools to pull things, and then we can use our creativity than what we're been given to be able to to create great content. I'm kinda curious for you of of can is there a a tell where if a marketer's putting something out and you're like, oh, yeah. They're over relying on AI there. Aside from the dashes, is there anything else that you know and notice? It's it's interesting you ask. I started writing about this the other day where I felt I didn't like what was happening in my consumption of LinkedIn where I it felt like I was having this, like, cognitive AI bias where if anything fell into an AI written pattern, I would be like, oh, that's AI or that feels AI. Like, there's a lot of patterns. Right? I don't need a list of authors. A lot patterns that we know it follows. And people are, like, obsessed with these tells. And I'm having just, like, a hard time with that whole conversation, to be totally frank with you. Like, I'm having a hard time when I'm looking at something, and I'm like, I think they wrote AI. And then, like, I don't like that. I feel like I'm accusing them when I don't know. Where I wrote something the other day, and it was kind of a like, it it's not this, it's that. And it was like a a different version of that, but still that same pattern. And they're like, well, crap. Like, I literally just thought of that in my head. You know what I mean? And I'm like But now I feel like I can't use it, and I hate that. Like, certain certain things I don't care. Like, I'm gonna use an em dash. I bet I love em dashes. I love my ellipses, my parentheses. You're not touching my punctuation. Alright, robots. But it is hard. It's like the tells you like, if it's a marketing person that I know, like, you you start to, like, tell a difference between how they used to talk and how they're talking now or how they talk when they talk to you versus how they write. I actually had a marketing leader who was using AI to write their Slack messages. And it was very obvious. Just in the phrasing, the way that it was different from how they speak to you on a call, there would be slips every once in a while that made it painfully obvious. But it's just it's how it feels, I think, a good way to actually answer your question more pointedly. When I read something that a person wrote and then I read something that an LLM clearly wrote or that, you know, you got back so you know for sure it is. It lacks feeling. Like, there's something about the emptiness that it emotes. It just it just kinda feels like word salad where your brain's kinda like, what did I even just read? Like, technically, that's a sentence put together grammatically correctly. But what did I even just like, what does that mean? I it really does lack feeling, and I'm sure there's gonna be more studies on this. But I think because it's lacking the thinking that goes into writing, writing is thinking, it just lacks feeling and meaning, and it's just kind of like word poop. Stop putting word crap out there. Got it. Okay. And and did the the the it'd be pretty bad if, like, what you write is is you still putting out word crap, but AI didn't write it. Well, that means you have to work on your own skill set or or find somebody that that Practice. Can do it. It's practice. We we work on it. Okay. So based on on on the areas that you do work on it and use AI and you don't, do you use it for repurposing at all, or is that an area like I don't? And, like, where's that line for you? It's a good question because that is a big conversation for especially people like me, like content marketers, where say I created something, can I use it to slice it and dice it in different ways? I'm actually working with one of my clients, go to market engineer, on building something that can do that without losing, like, the integrity of the content. So I'd say I'm working on finding a way to do that in a way that feel ethically right for me. And that I'm sure looks very different for different people. I know lots of people who are will take something and slice and dice it in AI and then edit it, and, like, they're fine with it. That's cool. I'm trying to find a way to do that and do it well, but still with a human bookend. So, like, human creates something, can AI slice it and dice it based on certain parameters with a certain goal in mind and a certain audience in mind, and then we'll refine it at the end. The tricky thing is I think not everybody is a great writer. Even fewer people are good editors. Editing is a very hard skill. And when you're editing AI content, it's almost harder because of, like, that that AI poob effect I mentioned where it's Bolding crap. It doesn't really turn into You're like polishing a ****. Basically. Oh, yeah. So many gross references. Sorry. But, I mean, it makes sense. Right? Like, that's that's what it feels like. So edit anyway, editing is hard, and editing AI content is hard. So, anyway, I am trying to find a way to do that well, like, to use an LLM to help speed up that process? Because I totally get the need to, like, how can we create more from something? And can we find a way to use AI to do that in a way that I'm me with, like, my certain level of standards and qualifications and integrity with using AI? Like, can I find a way to do that well? So I'm working on it. Well, I can't wait to follow-up with you later to hear hear that perspective because it's it's theoretically a very great use case efficiency wise. But it's as long as long as you're not, you know, polishing crap. Alright. This is not really relevant, but there's a YouTube random search drains. There's a Japanese art of taking dirt and polishing it until it becomes like a marble. And just like dirt, and you they just keep polishing, polishing, and polishing until it becomes like almost metallic glass. I'm like, wow. Of course, like, thirty seven hours for someone to do that. So I mean, if you want to polish crap that long, I bet you could turn it in. But, yeah, it's its own I'm gonna have to look that up. That's cool. Sorry. Coming back to just like content in general, I it's fun to create it. It's it's great to create something that that people watch, but then it also needs to serve a purpose. And, you know, the traditional b to b mindset is, well, we'll just gate it, and people will have to enter their email. You've not focused as much on that that mindset often, but I am kinda curious of, like, how do you what's your call to action? Like, what when you have a great content series that you're you're producing, what are the best call to actions that you've seen work well? Depends on the series. Right? You want your call to action to relate to whatever the content is and the goal and the audience that you're you're speaking to. It's helpful if your CTA is asking them to opt in to your ecosystem in another form. So what is your own channel? Namely, usually a newsletter. There's others. But we think about the rented channels as anything that's social media, anything you don't own, and that's kind of where your audience plays and talks and hangs out. And it's almost like you wanna, like, go to the courtyard and ask people to come over to your house for a party. Right? So, like, you have to have a house to have the party. You have to have something that you own, your house, you know, your website, your newsletter, your podcast, something for them to opt into. The newsletter really is the best one because you're at least extracting you're at least getting their email and finding a way, like, to ask for it ethically and promising value. You know? The thing with gated content my qualms with gated content is really more so like the gated ebooks and things like that. You know, webinars, I think, are a different type of gated content that is a fair play. Like, give us your email and you'll opt into the newsletter and the webinar. The give and the get are clear. The ebooks and the white books and the gated written content is where the what you get is not usually what you expect and it's not usually worth anything. And if it is worth anything, why not give it away for free to build that trust? And if they want to opt into your ecosystem, if they want to stay friends with you after the party, they are choosing to do that on their own accord. So that's how I think about marketing. It's like you're kind of going out and you're trying to attract the right audience by giving value and building trust, and then you have them opt into staying into your ecosystem until they are ready to buy or share you word-of-mouth because they love your newsletter and had built trust with you. Alright. Building that relationship. Yeah. It's like, alright. What's the next logical step? But the the law of content series you've created, it itself is not gated. It's out there to get attention to get them to the next point. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. And sometimes what we've done at close at least, we had people opt in to receive the future episodes in their inbox. So that was the connection point where, hey. If you're watching Will versus Jen or we had a couple other a couple other series, if you're watching this and you like this first episode, you know, on the landing page that we would send people to, and this was also linked on the YouTube description so that it's cyclical, you can opt in to receive each episode in your inbox, and you would get it before it goes live so that we're trying to connect, you know, a CTA, right, with the actual show and delivering value. Sometimes in the emails, we would give, like, a little more, like, behind the scenes, this happened, or you wanna kind of that's why episodic content is so fun is you can kinda build on the world. You can create inside jokes, and you can tell more about, like, the human experience of this thing that you created. It's building brand associations. Like, we had inside jokes at Chili Piper. We had inside jokes with Will versus Jen. And the audience feels like they're part of something rather than something that's, like, being forced upon them. And then the and then at the end of that, the ep the end of the season, once those episodes are over, then they have the choice to opt in to, hey. Like, do you also like, hey. Season's over. Do you wanna stay engaged with our actual marketing newsletter or whatever you else you have going on? Maybe you wanna check out this other content. So you're continuing to keep them in your ecosystem. And then that nurture also lives on. Because even after you're done with that series, if you are done with it or maybe you move on or you pause, hiatus, whatever, that URL still exists out there and people can still find it and opt in to stay engaged with you. I love it. So, yeah, continue evergreen of of content, and a good market loves evergreen. But popped in my head is how you describe that of the additional nuggets that people get if they sign up, and behind the scenes, maybe think of Patreon. It's almost like a b to b version of a YouTuber who has a, hey. Subscribe to Patreon. You get additional access to behind the scenes, deleted scenes, etcetera. I don't know if that that's leveraged as much maybe in the b to b side of of more of the the humans behind it, and people are interested in humans. And They are. Running. Yeah. It's definitely under leveraged. That's why episodic content is that's, again, one of many reasons why it's so powerful is you're creating a memorable experience. You're bringing them into your world. You can create the inside jokes, the brain associations. It's also repeatable for you, easy to reference. Like, you we would get the audience engaged in, like, voting or coming up with a competition. Like, you can get them involved. It's just just so underplayed in the yeah. Like, the behind the scenes, like, the humans aspect. It's a cliche at this point that people buy from humans. But still, with despite that being such a cliche at this point, we're underutilizing the people with brands. Like, I actually was on a customer call this morning where he was just raving about my client, not just because the product is so phenomenal, but the people. He just kept going back to the people and back to the people. So, like, so how do we display those people externally too? And everybody should just be thinking about that. That is huge. And and there's a whole argument of, you know, with AI of, like, what is software now? Because people can just build their own. And it's the people behind the companies running the software that you're like, I'm gonna trust them because they know what they're doing. I could build it on my own, but I like these people, and they have they have support. They there's a ecosystem behind it. I feel like there's a lot that you can leverage that or you push more in today's world. Absolutely. I'm kind of also curious for you as you built up your own brand on on LinkedIn while also running marketing. Just wanna ask a question around that. Any nuggets that you've learned? Like, if another marketer is trying to build up their own brand while also working at a at a company, what's some things that they should keep in mind or do well or you found to work well? Yeah. I love this question because I am at a point in my career where I feel like I've been investing in it for so long, investing in just my brand, whether intentionally or not intentionally over the years. And I've only just now kind of made a extraction from that, right, of like, hey. I'm building my business now, and then I'm just pausing just because I'm very grateful that I'm reaping dividends from building that trust over time. And I would say it's a game, but not a game. Like, sometimes it feels silly with the algorithm, and then you get frustrated or confused. And you're like, actually, it's just a game. You know? But I say it's not a game in the sense that, like, it's an incredible community of people. If you can find your corner of LinkedIn, I have lifelong friends that I've made from LinkedIn. The tips I would give is just be you. Be authentic. Don't worry about what other people were saying in terms of the bros who were saying, comment, you know, this and you'll get my hacks to making a million dollars in a year. Like, don't listen to those people. Like, just be you. Just show up authentically. Be vulnerable. Be yourself and talk to people, and don't use AI. Like, if you do those things, you will get somewhere. Don't use AI to write your content. Don't use AI for your comments because now sixty percent of LinkedIn is, so you're just gonna stand out more. So, yeah, just be you, be authentic, show up, be consistent. That doesn't have to be every day. But if you're consistent, just like the gym, like, even if you go to the gym two or three times a week consistently, that's still gonna be significantly better than not showing up at all or showing up every couple months or every couple weeks. So, yeah, that's my advice. Love it. I love it. So if can you finish this this sentence? You know, eight in eighteen months, b to b content teams that aren't blank will be blank. I love this question. In eighteen months, speed to be content teams that aren't focusing on building trust first will be struggling. That's good. Alright. Okay. Alright. Take a second. Unpack that. What does that mean to you when you say the trust, they won't be coming first? It can mean a lot of things in a tactical sense using AI to write your content verbatim. You're gonna degrade trust because people know. And they're gonna feel it. They're gonna know it. And if you can't take the time to write it, then why should they consume it? You know, lots of people have said various versions of that. How can I trust you if you're just giving me something that an LLM generated? How do I know who you are? How do I know what you stand for? So that's like one thing of just being careful with how you're using AI. And tactically, this kinda goes back to the theme, I think, of our conversation today is like, think about them. Like, serve your audience. And that is gonna be different for every brand. But if you're not serving your audience first and foremost and providing value to them and thinking about, okay, what is the problem we solve? And how are we empathizing with our audience better than anyone else? Like, that's the job. Like, that's the game. Like, empathize with them better than anyone else, and that's the category winner. Like, people have been saying this for decades. Like, the doing it is the hard part, but you dig in, you learn your audience, like, you learn what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night, what do they think, say, feel, and do about all aspects of their job and the intersection of that and where you help and your product helps. Like, that's what you lean into. That's your where you find your story, and you just serve your people in a way that you remember that there are humans on the other end just like you. And if you focus on that, like, in every everything that you create, you won't be struggling. And other people will be like, the bridge to the bottom is happening with AI, which in some ways is gonna make it easier for the human first teams to stand out. I love that. What's next for Chelsea? If you're gonna share, like, your your road map for your business and where you're headed, anything you can share, and also where can people learn more about you? Yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn, just Chelsea Castle. And what's next for me? I mean, I'm just building this this business, man. I've got three clients. I'm at capacity. I'm very grateful. It's really cool. My scope is more narrow, and I can just kinda dig in. And they're all different and amazing, and I'm just gonna keep focusing on on that and doing good work and helping other people serve their audiences.