The Inbound Jobs story with Five Tips on Getting Buy-in from Thought Leaders.
In April, Ben and I attended LinkLove in Boston. It was a great experience for a number of reasons, and the best part was connecting with other awesome SEO’s. As a designer/developer team, we asked these thought leaders what we could create for them that would make their lives better. Tom Critchlow planted a seed with us that would eventually become the job board now found on Inbound.org.
Tom helped us see that there was an urgent need for inbound marketing agencies to find, recruit, and keep great talent. He connected us with Rand who was very interested in having a job board on inbound.org–his side project with Dharmesh Shah.
We were thrilled at the opportunity of working with Rand and Dharmesh and started planning out the site. Unfortunately at that time, the inbound.org team was too busy to put in the time and energy needed to move the project forward (we think it had something to do with the 18 million).
So we pushed the project aside, realizing that the job board would only be successful with their community. As with most great ideas, the job board wouldn’t leave our minds (Tom must have planted the idea in a dream within a dream), so we scheduled some time to build it despite the fact that Rand and Dharmesh said they couldn’t support it. We figured at the very least Tom could use it for his presentation on hiring and training inbound marketers at Mozcon.
After we built the job board, we contacted Rand again to see if our up front investment of time and energy would be enough to get Inbound.org’s backing. This time we got buy-in, and we partnered with the Inbound.org team to get the site ready for Mozcon. Rand introduced the job board during the Mozcon kickoff and gave us a generous mention. As you can imagine, it was a huge deal for us, mostly because of the connection.
So what can be learned from all of this? I’ll try to explain why this worked from a content strategist’s perspective. As SEOs, we are always talking about creating great content and getting buy-in from thought leaders. In theory this seems doable, but how do we actually go about it?
Here are 5 tips on getting buy-in from thought leaders, based on our experience building the job board:
- Make Real Connections by Showing Up. LinkLove is a niche conference, and on paper it was a stretch for a bootstrapped company, but we went for the networking. We went to meet people in the industry and find ways we could add value. Meeting Tom was pure luck, but we wouldn’t have even had the opportunity without showing up. Figure out where thought leaders hangout online and in real life and connect with them in a thoughtful and intentional way.
- Find How You Can Help. Most people approach thought leaders looking for what they can get out of the relationship, but it’s better to think about how you might be able to help them. Uncover opportunities by asking what would make their lives easier or better. Maybe you aren’t a designer or a developer but there are many other ways to provide value. Think about how you can help them with your knowledge, skills and relationships.
- Invest Up Front. There are different philosophies here, but our mentality is to invest up front. You don’t need to create the entire piece of content, but create something good enough to show your idea and prove that you can deliver. In our experience, the more you can provide up front, the more feedback you will get. There’s no question that this is a risky strategy, and we don’t recommend it for every piece of content, but buy-in is much more likely if you have something solid to start with.
- Think/Go Big. Thought leaders are extremely busy people and they are bombarded with others trying to get their buy-in and support. When you reach out to them, only go after your best ideas since you have a limited amount of time and small window of opportunity.
- Create Content You Believe In. We believed that the inbound job board was necessary for the community. This made it a lot easier for us to invest up front. Push ideas that you believe in, and create content that you can rally behind. Don’t build content for the links, do it for the value the content will provide and the relationships you will form.
Conclusion
These are some of the things we learned about getting buy-in through creating the job board for Rand and Dharmesh. We’d love to hear how you are getting buy-in from thought leaders in the comments below.
Great advice, and coincidentally, also how I got MozCast off the ground (in a sense). I knew the dev team didn't have the time or energy to build it, so if only the idea got buy in, I might see it in late 2016. So, I built the proof of concept myself. Don't ask other people for their blood, sweat, and tears unless you're willing to spill some of your own first.
Dr. Pete – we are thankful that you put the effort in up front for Mozcast. Your project was far more daunting/complex than ours, and you created an awesome product. Kudos, and thank you for making this tool for our community!
Well, I don't know about daunting. My data only changes once/day. You have to deal with all those troublesome end-users submitting data ;)
Jon: On behalf of the community, Rand and I -- thanks very much for taking the initiative to just go ahead and do it. It was a very "inboundy" thing to do.
If the site even helps a few great organizations connect to a few awesome inbound marketers, it will have been well worth the effort. You're changing lives/careers here.
By the way, I get most of the blame for being lukewarm when you first approached us. It's not that I didn't like the idea (I LOVE the idea, and have been pondering something like it for 2+ years). The issue was that I was already feeling guilty for not committing as much time as I would have liked to the site -- and this would have made me feel even guiltier (and most of the weight would have fallen Rand's shoulders -- who's already doing way more than his fair share). Just thought you should know.
Thanks again -- lets grow this into something awesome!
Dharmesh - Thanks for the response! We are thankful for the opportunity to work with you on this project.
We completely understand why you weren't able to commit to the job board at the time. We are excited about helping you and Rand continue to make Inbound.org an awesome resource for inbound marketers.
Thank you for the opportunity!
Great story... and inspirational. I especially like two concepts:
But, especially, I like that your effort and your faith in it finally paid. It always pays that attitude.
Exactly Gianluca we have to think big if we have to be in big industry. It is the fact that the work of inbound marketer seems invisible or also remains invisible until the rankings and some some signals has been achieved. I had faced many SEO Guys who hesitates a lot while explaining user experience to clients as they themselves has no confidence to represent a logic of user metrics which can influence ranking or ROI.
That's why it is really a great suggestions to think Big. As that brain storming evolute the idea how to express and represent the logic which may improve website performance and how we implements inbound marketing in it.
I found this job board randomly the other day and thought it was well done and a great resource. It is really cool to find out the story about how the project came about.
Also a very inspiring story about how putting in some time to get a need identified in the market and hard work to create something can really pay off
Great work guys!
Cool story! This is a great example what can be achieved with being consistent and putting great effort into a project (in time and money!).
Chapeau for your courage. You are certainly a role model for other entrepreneurs.
Interesting story and thank God that it worked out for you! One thing that I want to mention here is that sometimes what you believe is an awesome content seems like a shit to other so before going that wild and invest the upfront... you should conform that your content that you are investing your time is great... it’s also better to take a word from other near you who have the idea of the work or industry...
Completely agree. We built the initial job board with just enough functionality to show Rand and Dharmesh that we could execute. We already knew that they were looking for a solution and we wanted to make it easier for them to say yes.
Very nice inspiring history. Tks :)
Thanks Phillip! Glad the job board is a valuable resource for you. We realize that it doesn't always work out this way, but we are thankful for the opportunity it gave us to work with the Inbound.org team.
Wicked, JFDI :)
I agree with you that "Most people approach thought leaders looking for what they can get out of the relationship" I join seomoz for know about latest seo technique for arrange my blog gameslido accordingly.
Good source of information who are trying to build strong professionals community! I went through inbound.org the other day and to my pleasure found it to be extremley useful in terms of content information and other related topics...
Thanks for a great story - the job board looks strong and useful. Thanks.
A very nice and inspirational story you have shared. Your examples are very nice and explain us how to perform better and better when we get a project and where we should put our efforts and money to get the best results.
Great job!
It was great to hear about this during MozCon and the idea really connects with Wil Reynold's #RCS. Great job producing value for the inbound community.
Thanks George! We loved Will Reynold's talk on #RCS. It helped us see where we want to go as a company.
Lovely story! I have seen a number of large community sites that could create a good revenue stream from a decent(!) white label jobs board. I think this model has a healthy life in front of it. Looking forward to see where the next one pops up :)
S
Stephen,
Totally agree! They can be a really awesome thing for niche communities. We are just glad that we helped make one happen for the inbound community.
A very nice and inspirational story you have shared. Your examples are very nice and explain us how to perform better and better when we get a project and where we should put our efforts and money to get the best results.
Great job!