The Sendible Insider Podcast

In this episode, join Katelyn and David as we discuss how to get started planning and designing successful graphics for social media. 

You'll learn what to consider before you start designing, how to tie your graphics into your brand, and practical design tips to share your message and make your content stand out. 

Before you start designing, it is important to think about; checking platform content guidelines, designing different media types for different platforms, choosing the correct image sizes, understanding where the images will be seen, and knowing the goal of your content.

Listen for details around these considerations, and more tips on how to design your social media graphics once you have your plan!

In this episode, Gavin and Martine introduce Katelyn, the new Sendible CEO. Hear about Katelyn's background, how her & Gavin are different, what makes Sendible special, and how to approach a huge life transition (stepping up and stepping down).  With advice and reflections from all three and details about the future vision for Sendible, we are excited to kick off the second season of the Sendible Insider podcast!

Kristian Downer is the founder of DowSocial Digital Marketing, based in Peterborough, UK. Gavin serendipitously met Kristian on the way to Social Media Marketing World in 2020 and a year later, invited him onto the show. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why most small businesses fall into the mistake of making it too hard for their clients to buy from them on social media
• Why social media is best told by the people that live and breathe your business
• How Kristian bounced back after losing 95% of his clients
• The importance of building trust when it comes to growing your business
• And much, much more...

Connect with Kristian:

"Does using a 3rd-party posting tool like Sendible hurt my brand’s organic reach and engagement on Facebook?" — In this takeover episode, recorded at the end of 2020, Veronika and Ellie from Sendible's Marketing Team answer the million-dollar question that every social media marketer wants the answer to. 

Following a detailed analysis of almost 60 Facebook Pages (some with more than 6.5 million fans) and over 5000 posts, Veronika and Ellie talk you through their research findings. They also share how you can use these insights to boost the organic reach of your Facebook posts. 

If you're a social media marketer striving for more engagement, you don't want to miss this one! 

Read the full article here:

Gavin was recently a guest on the Empathise IT podcast with Mordecai Holtz. It was a great interview where Gavin shared a few of his strong opinions on topics such as:

• Why the fear of remote working is really just a symptom of having the wrong employees
• Why it's dangerous to stick to best practices
• Why Gavin refers to himself as the anti-CEO
• The future of influencer marketing

Connect with us

• Connect with Gavin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinhammar/
• The Empathise IT podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7tLttj2GxmWHIqz7v98Xj2 

We want to hear from you

2020 was a massively challenging year for all of us and 2021 is likely to be another year filled with uncertainty. 

In this episode, Gavin invited 3 thought leaders to share their biggest personal and business challenges from 2020, their predictions for the year ahead, and their advice for other businesses and marketers as we begin a new year.

Meet our guests:

Syndi Braun is the founder and CEO of The Social Robin and a Sendible Partner. The Social Robin is a full-service marketing company, based in Fort Worth, Texas with a focus on quality growth. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why Syndi decided to start her own agency
• How she convinced her first three employees to work for her (for free)
• Her number one tactic for finding new clients
• The impact COVID has had on her business, her team and her processes
• How her agency bounced back after losing 50% of her clients
• How to sell the value of social media to clients
• The importance of sourcing client testimonials and reviews
• And much, much more...

Connect with Syndi:

In today's episode, Gavin is joined by Katey Gold, Sendible's customer marketing manager.  One of Katey's responsibilities at Sendible is to ensure that our customers are consistently leaving us positive reviews. 

When Gavin launched Sendible back in 2008, he ran the site off a server he purchased for £10 from his old boss. He plugged it into his home router and Sendible was born! 

In this episode, Martine and Gavin reminisce about the early days and the challenges of getting a bootstrapped company off the ground.

Connect with Gavin:

With the world working remotely as a result of COVID, Zoom has been an incredible tool. But 6 hours of Zoom meetings every day for 4 months left Gavin completely burnt out. So, he decided to have a "Zoom fast" and in the process, discovered the power of asynchronous communication.

In this episode, Gavin talks about:

• Why going remote can result in excessive use of real-time communication. 
• How he ran a company town hall meeting completely asynchronously.
• How he politely redirected requests for a real-time conversation to asynchronous channels.

Connect with Gavin:

With so much demand for our attention these days, the best way to get anyone to engage with your content is to build an audience that trusts you. And we know that the best way to gain someone's trust is to connect with them on an emotional level through authentic storytelling.

But a lot of agencies and marketers struggle to surface these stories from the brands they manage. 

That's why we created a deck of storytelling cue cards to help. 

In this episode, Gavin and Martine demonstrate how they used these cue cards to surface stories from a real-life client, Winston Davis.

Grab your deck of Storytelling cue cards for free:

https://www.sendible.com/swag

Connect with Winston Davis

As a result of COVID-19, Gavin recently had to deliver one of the most important presentations to the team - he had to explain his strategy for navigating the crisis. Gavin shares his 4-step process for planning and structuring a memorable presentation that utilises storytelling techniques to elicit emotion and inspire action.

In this episode, Gavin talks about:

• How he used to fill his presentations with too much text, too many charts and too many numbers
• How he went about preparing a presentation to the team to address the COVID-10 crisis
• How he prepares for presentations using a simple notetaking app
• His 4-step process for structuring a memorable presentation

Connect with Gavin:

This week, Gavin discusses how his personal experience with an affiliate software company has reminded him that during these uncertain times, it's now more important than ever to help your customers.  

In this episode, Gavin shares 5 things we're doing at Sendible to help:

1. Live chat for all our customers with real humans, no bots
2. Introducing an entry-level, lower-priced plan
3. Offering free time for those severely impacted by COVID-19
4. Hosting weekly Q & A product training sessions for our customers
5. Running live weekly workshops to connect our customers with industry experts

Connect with Gavin:

In this episode, Gavin talks about how he was recently psycho-analysed on a podcast interview and explores the true emotions he was feeling at the time.  

Connect with Gavin:

In this episode, Gavin discusses how he first froze and panicked before the constant reports of job losses inspired him to take action and come up with the 5 initial steps to help navigate Sendible through the crisis. 

The 5 steps discussed:

1. Communication
2. Offering relief
3. Looking at runway
4. Improve support for customers
5. Building trust

Connect with Gavin:

Over the next few episodes, our CEO, Gavin Hammar, will be sharing our journey at Sendible as we navigate the company through the COVID-19 crisis.   

In this, the first episode of the series, Gavin discusses his personal challenges when it comes to leading a company in a time of uncertainty and what he's doing to overcome them. 

Connect with Gavin:

Miri Rodriguez is an award-winning storyteller and creative journalist at Mircosoft. She is a renowned keynote speaker and international thought leader in brand storytelling, personal branding and youth entrepreneurship.  Her new book, "Brand Storytelling", helps brands trigger human emotions to drive loyalty, consumer behaviour and customer engagement. 

Gavin and Martine recorded this episode with Miri over breakfast at the Hyatt in San Diego.

In this episode, we discuss:

• With ads becoming less effective, is there a place for them in the future? 
• The importance of weaving a story theme across organic and paid content
• How companies can humanise their brands to drive growth
• How to create a memorable brand story
• How Microsoft has used empathy to become #1
• How AI and IoT will be used by brands to connect their customers to their memories and trigger their empathy
• How to extract stories from engineers who don't typically want to share
• How to craft attention-grabbing content through storytelling
• The value of building a team of storytellers within an organisation
• The kinds of influencers that Gen Y typically respect and follow
• The one piece of advice for someone launching a business today wanting to differentiate themselves
• And much, much more...

Miri's new book:

Adam Fairhead is an English entrepreneur, author, philanthropist and advocate of cause-driven business. He founded Fairhead Creative to help "good" companies stand out, sell better, and make more impact with the mission of “helping difference makers make a difference."  His book, "Marketing Isn't About You", helps businesses get out of their own way and lead from the front of their industry with empathy and connection.

In this episode, Gavin talks to Adam about:

• Social entrepreneurship and the opportunities it brings.
• Why people are becoming less tolerant of businesses without a cause.
• How to get people to pay attention without resorting to sneaky tricks.
• What the future looks like for businesses that don't make a change today.
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

As Sendible's first Sales hire, Johnny Costello has been instrumental in executing each of the various sales processes we've adopted over the past 8 years.  Although we've tried several iterations, we've never had any success with any strategies that have involved outbound sales.

That's because these days when future customers go out looking for a solution to their problem, they start by turning to the people they trust or review sites.  It goes like this:  ”Can someone recommend...”  or ”I’m looking for an alternative to...”  And when consumers have all the power as they do today, people can no longer be sold to, they buy.  

In this episode, Gavin talks to Johnny about:

• Whether cold-calling is officially dead
• The various versions of the Sendible sales process
• The need for consultative selling
• How we've generated 50% more revenue with a 50% smaller sales team
• The importance of turning your happiest customers into advocates
• The crucial role that Customer Success plays in helping to grow recurring revenue
• And much, much more...

Connect with us:

"Social Media Marketing World (SMMW) has been a game-changer for me, you have to go!" - this was the sentiment echoed by our customers and partners, time and time again. So, it really didn't take much more convincing for us to decide to attend our first conference in March 2019.  And it turns out, they weren't wrong:  The conference was a game-changer for Sendible too and we're going back again in 2020!  

In this episode, Gavin and Martine sit down with experienced attendees Desiree Martinez and Rob Balasabas to reflect on the conference and to discuss their top tips for making the most of SMMW.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who should attend Social Media Marketing World
• How to prepare for a conference like SMMW
• What has worked well or not so well in the times we've been to SMMW
• How to make the most of the conference once it's over
• The incredible impact SMMW has had on our success so far
• Advice for first-time attendees (hint:  Never eat alone!)

Connect with us:

It's become clear that a more diverse workforce can lead to better products that can address a wider range of customers.  In this episode, Gavin is joined by Heidi Pereira, Sendible's first female developer. Originally from Venezuela, Heidi joined Sendible in 2019 and has quickly become an integral part of our Development Team.

In this episode, Gavin talks to Heidi about:

• What it's like to be a female in a male-dominated industry
• What made Heidi decide to go into software development
• The role that globalisation has played in bringing more diversity to tech 
• The unique qualities that only female developers can bring to engineering teams
• And much, much more...

Connect with us:

Heather Gilletti joined Sendible at the start of 2019 as our first US-based, customer-facing employee. A few months later, she was promoted to Customer Success Manager. At the time, one of our goals was to get closer to our customers, so Heather was tasked with not only leading but also growing Sendible's first fully distributed department.  

In this episode, Gavin talks to Heather about:

• How she went about successfully recruiting and leading a fully distributed team across timezones
• Overcoming communication challenges, implementing new processes and managing change as a distributed team
• The lack of content for managers tasked with building a remote team and the importance of building a support network
• Her role in Sendible's social committee and how we involve remote workers in HQ-based social events
• And much, much more...

If you enjoyed this episode, you may like these:

Since 2002, hundreds of leaders have trusted Chris Hutchinson and Trebuchet Group to help them achieve great accomplishments through creating great teams.

Chris brings together real-world experience and understanding to support leaders who feel the weight of their company on their shoulders, and are frustrated by teams not achieving their potential.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What most first-time CEO's getting wrong
• Whether great leaders are born or made
• Tips for effective communication at work
• How to give others the autonomy and confidence to take on big problems
• Whether all CEOs need a coach and how to find one
• The essential tools CEOs can use to assess their company's health?
• The most common positive and negative habits displayed by CEOs
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

There is a lot of talk about managing a remote team, but what happens when the manager is remote and the majority of the team are based in the HQ? 

When our super-talented Customer Support Manager, Shanaaz, told us she was moving from London, where our HQ is based, down to Cape Town, we knew we had to do whatever it took to keep her. So, we saw it as a massive opportunity to alter the way we work, open offices in South Africa and see if remote management around the world was possible.

In this episode, we talk to Shanaaz about:

• Overcoming the challenges of becoming a remote manager in a different timezone
• Interviewing candidates from South Africa while not having a physical office
• Overcoming regular power cuts, yet still being available for her HQ-based team
• Lessons for other managers tasked with setting up a remote office in a different timezone
• And much, much more...

Connect with us:

Ben Ford is a programmer and development team coach. He applies operational principles from the Royal Marines and 10 years in tech leadership to help businesses scale without getting stuck. Ben takes a systems approach, with more breadth than dogmatic agile consulting, and deep technical experience that's sometimes missing in business coaching.

In this episode, Ben shares:

• What tech startups can learn from military operations
• How the OODA loop process applies to both military and business strategy
• How to continuously monitor and improve your operations
• What high performance looks like in an organisational context
• The importance of cross-functional teams and avoiding silos
• How to balance operational efficiency with innovation and experimentation
• The impact that bullying has had on his life
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

"We have to think about growth on the agency side as our ability to build trust. Growth comes from being focused on the customer first and having customer feedback inform how we do work. Feedback informs the system." 

Talar Malakian is a Business Unit Director at Hubspot diamond tier global partner, Salted Stone, with experience conceptualizing and producing fully integrated omnichannel marketing and advertising campaigns for clients. Clients that she's worked with have included Xbox, Microsoft HoloLens, Microsoft Office, and venture-backed B2B and B2C companies in high-growth periods.

In this episode, Talar shares:

• Her #1 tip for growing a client roster and marketing your agency
• Why she believes trust is key to retaining clients and growing an agency
• Her recipe for a winning pitch
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

Shamiel Jansen is a business development, marketing, sales and management-oriented entrepreneur with over a decade of experience from working within the tech, retail and financial services industries. 

Originally from South Africa and now living in Denmark, Shamiel is a passionate networker who enjoys all things startups, tech and innovation.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why networking is so important for growing your business
• How to successfully network yourself and your business (even as an introvert)
• How to make the most of LinkedIn for networking
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

• Ubuntu Biz website: https://www.ubuntubiz.dk/
• Fast-Track Your Networking & Personal Brand workshop: https://www.linkedin.com/events/fast-trackyournetworking-personalbrand/

Connect with Shamiel:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamieljansen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShamielJansenOfficial/

We want to hear from you

Most tech startups want to grow as quickly as possible. They raise capital and instead of working to make their customers successful, they work to make their investors successful. At Sendible, we've taken no outside funding and have grown at our own pace. By doing that, we've been able to keep that startup culture alive. 

But, Gavin wanted to find out what it's like working for a larger, VC-funded company. 

So, he chatted to Sendible's Anneliese Sabitzer, whose previous role was with a much larger, VC-backed tech company, to find out how it's different. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• The cultural differences between a self-funded vs venture capital-backed tech company
• The pros and cons of working in both types of company and the impact on career growth
• Gavin's experience having worked in a 2,500 person company in South Africa
• How to have shorter meetings with the "Seek feedback, not consensus" principle
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

One of the core operating principles for success at Sendible is to "Be the CEO of your domain". However, until recently, Sendible had adopted a Product Management process that was reliant on stakeholders passing down the solution to the Development Team. This didn't leave much room for developers to come up with their own solutions. 

In fact, it was a complete contradiction of the kind of company we wanted to be! 

Something needed to change...

In this episode, Gavin discusses:

• What it means to be the CEO of your domain and practice extreme ownership
• Why we wanted cross-functional teams to come up with solutions themselves
• Basecamp's Shape Up Process and how we've adopted it at Sendible
• How we went from Estimates to Appetites and from Projects to Problems To Solve   

Links and resources:

The biggest mistake people make on social media is that they position themselves as the perfect hero. But, the truth is that people could care less about your perfect life, your perfect family, your perfect meal or how perfect your product or service is. 

They care about how you can make them better versions of themselves. So, if you want to get their attention, you need a new approach.  

In this episode, Gavin discusses:

• Why it's getting harder and harder to get people's attention
• Why your flaws, vulnerabilities and weaknesses are actually your biggest strengths on social media
• The winning storytelling formula Gavin uses on LinkedIn
• And much, much more...

Connect with Gavin:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinhammar/ 
• Twitter https://twitter.com/gavinhammar
• Discover Sendible: https://sendible.com/why

We want to hear from you

Most companies require that their people commute to a physical office where they get to interact in-person every day.  But, if you listened to our first episode, you'll know that Sendible has recently adopted remote working in a big way.  Remote working has a lot of positives for both employees and employers, but it can also be challenging for those who are new to it, especially when your co-workers and customers are in different timezones.

In this episode, Gavin talks to Sendible's Customer Success Specialist, Anneliese Sabitzer, about some of the challenges she faces as a remote worker and the tactics she uses to maintain work/life balance and mental wellness.  

In this episode, we have a candid discussion about:

• How to maintain mental wellness as a remote worker
• Tips to overcome the feeling of isolation
• How to know when to "leave work" when you work from home
• The importance of establishing a routine that gets you out of routine
• The distractions that come with having to be more responsive on Slack
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

Nicky Kriel is an internationally recognised and leading Social Media marketing influencer. She trains, consults and speaks at prestigious events around the world including Social Media Marketing World in California, where Gavin and Nicky first met. 

Like Gavin, Nicky is originally from South Africa but spends most of her time in the UK. She is currently a digital nomad and travels the world. 

Nicky is passionate about inspiring and empowering businesses to use Social Media to grow. She believes that Social Media is not about tools and technology, but about people and relationships.  Her latest book is: “Converting Conversations to Customers: The Essential Guide to Social Media Sales Success”.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Nicky got her first speaking gig at Social Media Marketing World
• How the 30-Day Blog Challenge transformed Nicky's career
• How to write a LinkedIn profile that gets people's attention
• What most businesses struggle with when it comes to social media
• How social media agencies can help their clients surface content for social media using 9 grids
• Nicky's #1 tip for getting better at public speaking
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

This week, Gavin speaks to Sendible user, Dr Adam Gower.  Adam has his own successful podcast, The Real Estate Crowdfunding Show, where digital marketing experts share tips and tactics to help real estate developers raise capital online.

Seth Silvers has been passionate about storytelling and marketing since he started his first organization at 16. For the last 4 years, Seth and his team at Story On have been focused on helping small businesses grow in a more authentic way by marketing with stories.  

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why over-hyped Super Bowl commercials motivated Seth to start an agency
• How to use storytelling to scale trust
• How to articulate the value of storytelling to clients
• The 10 Day Live Storytelling Challenge
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

Rachel Orr originally joined Sendible as a Business Analyst, but shortly after starting, we realised that we needed to build a department to look after our most valuable customers. So I asked her to create a department and that's when Customer Success was born. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why your customers are your best sales people
• The definition of Customer Success and how to measure it
• Why you need to take better care of your largest customers
• How to determine if you need Customer Success in your organisation
• How to align Sales with Customer Success using clawbacks 
• How to use Customer Success and NPS to attract more customers
• The ideal personality traits to look out for when recruiting a Customer Success Manager
• And much, much more...

Links and resources:

Park first met Gavin at Social Media Marketing World earlier in the year and we're super excited to have him on this show to talk about storytelling! That's because at Sendible, we're on a mission to help agencies share their clients' stories on social media.  

Park has been in advertising for 30 years, has run his own agency for 20 years, and has been steeped in story marketing for the past 10+ years.  He is the founder of the Business of Story, a proven platform based on his 10-step Story Cycle system to help leaders of purpose-driven brands clarify their story to amplify their impact and simplify their life.   

In this episode, we talk about:  

• How Park first discovered the power of story  
• The "And, But, Therefore" and "Setup, Problem, Resolution" techniques  
• How to show the value of business storytelling  
• How to use social media to tell stories  
• How agencies can surface stories from their clients with OOOH
• And much, much more...  

Links and resources:  

Instead of everyone sitting at the same desk every day with teams sat in departments and their own silos, we wanted to let them choose a different desk each time they were in the HQ.  

 In this episode, we talk about:  

• How we ran out of desk space and needed to either move into a larger space or find another solution.
• Why we would've stopped hiring if we hadn't adopted remote working and hot desking.
• How we converted our office into the perfect hot desk space, designed for collaboration.
• How our culture has literally transformed overnight as a result.

Links and resources: