228. “Founder-Led Marketing” with Matt Watson

Dawn talks with Matt Watson, CEO of Full Scale, about founder-led marketing and how to build trust in a low-trust environment where reviews and feedback can be manipulated. Watson explains that buyers look for trust signals beyond company reputation, making founders’ personal brands and thought leadership increasingly important, especially for smaller companies competing with big-name vendors. He advises founders to consistently share opinions, industry insights, customer stories, and a mix of business and entertaining content on one or two key platforms (he focuses on LinkedIn, a newsletter, and a podcast), and notes that commenting thoughtfully on major industry leaders’ posts can grow an audience faster than publishing. He also discusses using AI to synthesize a founder’s existing body of work to create unique, authoritative content for social and websites, including E-E-A-T signals for search.

In this Episode....

Who is Matt Watson and whom does he serve? (01:03)

Why Trust Drives Buying (01:48)

Building Trust Online (03:48)

Personal Brand Pivot (06:09)

Repeatable Content System (07:57)

Opinions And Your Tribe (10:06)

Personality And Platforms (13:18)

Best Known Not Best (14:22)

Authenticity Without Oversharing (15:25)

Audience And Content Mix (21:00)

Pick One Or Two Platforms (23:56)

Grow By Commenting (28:22)

Awareness Versus Nurture (31:42)

Trust Signals For Search (36:45)

Using AI To Reuse Archives (39:25)

Where To Find Matt (41:13)

Matt Watson's Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/

Website: https://fullscale.io/about-us/

Transcript

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Dawn Kennedy: 0:03

Welcome to Business Mastery with Dawn Kennedy your quick under forty five minute dose of expert insights and strategies to make a positive impact on your business and life. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. Today we are going to be talking about founder led marketing. But more important than that, we're going to be talking about how to get people to trust you. So I have Matt on here, and we're going to dive in and we're gonna discuss all the things in this low trust environment that we're all working and operating in today. So thanks so much for joining me.

Matt Watson: 0:39

Thanks for having me. Can I trust you to interview me today?

Dawn Kennedy: 0:42

I hope so. I hope you can. I think you can. So can you tell everyone who you are and who you serve?

Matt Watson: 0:48

So my name is Matt Watson and I've been an entrepreneur for over twenty years. Started multiple businesses, all of them kind of technology related businesses. So today I'm the CEO of a company called Full Scale, and we do software development for other companies AMC theatres and others. I have hundreds of employees in the Philippines that work for me.

Dawn Kennedy: 1:10

Awesome. All right. So when we first my notes from our pre-interview, our extensive primarily because the thing that stuck out is LinkedIn influencers, everybody telling you how to do business these days are missing the key component that the founders and the owners and the people have to be trusted. It's no longer enough for just a company to have a good reputation. So I'd like to start there with you. What do you mean by founder led marketing and founder led trust?

Matt Watson: 1:44

Well, I think most things in life, we all want to do something with somebody we trust and we're looking for referrals, right? Even if you needed a plumber or somebody in your yard or anything, right? You ask your friends like, hey, who do you Who do you trust to do this thing? And especially when you're selling an enterprise product, any kind of software and stuff, people are looking for signals to trust. How do I trust that this product's going to work? And sometimes it's not even about the money you spend. It's all the time you waste trying to jack around with this stuff and get it to work, right. So trust is really pivotal and there's nothing new about that, right? I think that's just human instinct. We all want somebody to tell us what is the choice. Go here, do this. And we feel like it's a safe it's a safe option. And that's all based on trust.

Dawn Kennedy: 2:28

Okay. So you work with enterprise sized businesses and for enterprise sized businesses particularly, they always want that certainty. I don't know that we can always get that certainty with our choices and decisions as a smaller company, because there's fewer people kind of weighing in. So what are your thoughts on how you build that certainty and that trust? If you're somebody who maybe has, I don't know, sixty employees and is doing a good eight figures, but they don't have enterprise sized teams to help them where the trust comes from. Yeah, I.

Matt Watson: 3:05

Think when you're the buyer, right, sometimes you're like, look, I want to buy from IBM or Cisco or whatever, because I trust the brand name behind it versus I'm just looking for a smaller company that maybe will give me a better deal to that I can trust to get this work done. And so yeah, when you're a smaller company and you're shopping vendors, some of it comes down to your budget, right? Like, I know I'm not going to IBM or Cisco because I'm not going to spend that kind of money. So I'm looking for a smaller mid market product, but it still comes down to trust, right? So how do I trust those those vendors? So I ask my friends, does anybody know these people? You're in a business with them. But a great way to do that is looking online, right? Looking looking them up. And when you come to founder led marketing, that's the power of social via videos on something like TikTok or even Instagram, LinkedIn, X. All these different platforms, depending on your type of industry is like, hey, I follow this person. I don't know them very well, but man, they seem really smart. They're always talking about what's going on. They make a lot of great points. Like if I ever needed this kind of product, they're naturally who I'm going to think of because I just think highly of them. Even I don't know them very well.

Dawn Kennedy: 4:18

So how do we build that online? Because that's really the kind of the premise this is we are in a very low trust environment in the market. A lot of people are seeing that you can buy Yelp reviews or Yelp bomb somebody, or you can use AI to, to make like feedback reviews and things that may not be honest. So yeah, the swing to being able to see the founder because maybe they don't have the brand name recognition of an IBM. So yeah, how are we doing this these days, what used to seem like it was working with influencers and affiliate marketing and things like that seem to have of slowed down a little bit. And people are looking for the actual people making the products, making the services, doing the things evidence that they're trustworthy.

Matt Watson: 5:08

Yeah, I think you see a big part of that with an example of LinkedIn pages or X accounts and stuff that are primarily the company, right? But like the brand name people don't care as much about anymore, but they want to follow Sam Altman or Elon Musk or whoever, like the executive teams or thought leaders at those companies. And I talked to startup founders all the time, a lot of startup founders are like me. They're builders. They're technology people. They're not necessarily salespeople. Right? Right. And the thing I always tell them, I'm like, the easiest way to do this is just thinking, thinking about whatever cool thing it is you're building. Just go on social media and tell everybody about the cool thing that you're building. Just get excited about it. Just get excited. Whatever the thing is, just get excited, get excited about it, and just go ahead and tell people. Tell other people about the cool thing that you built. And other people will get excited because you're excited, and you'll find people that are interested in whatever it is that you're doing and just putting yourself out there, but just be excited about whatever you're doing and just go show it to people.

Dawn Kennedy: 6:08

So what about those of us who have been in business more than five years? We're past the startup phase, and maybe we been all that excited on social media because people we wanted to build the brand, right? For the longest time it was build brand recognition. How do we now, at this juncture of being a business for a while, maybe building the brand, maybe not putting ourselves out there as founders early, how do we make that pivot now? Or is it even important once you've been doing this a while?

Matt Watson: 6:37

Well, I think it's always important to build a personal brand, right? And I think that that's what you're alluding to building that personal brand. And It's never too late to do it right. And the thing about the personal brand that you build is there's long term value in it. And so no matter what it is you do today, let's you want to find a new job or you want to start a new company. Like, man, I wish I knew more people that could use my product. I wish five years ago I would have invested more time in this, right? Like that's what you're always going to say and what you're always going to think. But if you invest the time in it now, little by little by little, as time goes on, you'll build that personal So the next time that you need to find a new job, you go on LinkedIn and post about it. Next thing you know, you get a lot of people are going to respond like, oh yeah, I know this person. I followed them forever. I would love to work with them. Right. And, but the only way you do that is by just going through the motions and doing the work, investing the Right. The same thing. If you launch a new product, you do this, you do that, you start a new job, all these different things, people will pick up and notice it. And it's just about building that kind of social equity and in value over a long period of time. But yeah, it's easy to say like, man, I wish years ago I would invest it all the time. And that's kind of the point. Like if you're going to do this, you just have start now. I post on LinkedIn every single day, and I've been doing it for a long time now, and I have almost eighty thousand followers on LinkedIn. And but it's not a huge commitment time wise for me. And I think the other thing that that people overcomplicate all this. You can also just repeat the same stuff a lot. I mean, they say less than five percent of people that follow you are ever going to see what you post. And so you can keep repeating the same stuff every ninety days or whatever. Pick, pick the winners. What works really well for getting leads or creating conversation or whatever you're trying to do, just keep repeating the same themes and the same patterns. So it's really, it's really about finding that ninety days where the content or so that you're pretty happy with, and then just sort of repeating it forever, making adjustments as you go, but it's not that hard to build up fifty ninety, fifty to ninety. Smart things that you would say and then keep repeating them forever.

Dawn Kennedy: 8:50

That's an interesting take because yeah, the algorithms do change. You don't necessarily hit the same people each time with each piece. So I have a note in here though about building that thought. Leadership is really a cornerstone of this. So if we're repeating these things over and over again, is it that we're deepening that thought leadership or people just maybe, maybe they've heard it more than once, or maybe they haven't. But when the personal branding and your thought leadership, I want to kind of wrap this up and make it so that people don't feel like they have to do two different things if they want to build their personal brand, can they do it by demonstrating how they lead their companies and being the thought leader, and how they do something different, new, or have a new perspective on something? Or is this something where people have to like I have to be different than my own company brand, I want to be a thought leader in something else, or I be seen maybe as something else.

Matt Watson: 9:50

But I think it depends a little bit on the person and the company they work at and the role they have and all those things, right? But if it's a founder, I mean, a lot of times personal brand is sort of really entangled with the company right? So I mean, ultimately you want to be a thought leader in your space. And a lot of times it is, you do want to have a different viewpoint or some contrarian views sometimes, but it starts by just having an opinion. And a lot of people are just scared to have an opinion. But I think that's the first priority is getting over that. It's like, look, I have opinions and I'm going to put them out there. And the reality is not everybody is going to agree with you and people are worried about. But that's okay. And the point is, the people that do agree with are going to be your allies. So you can say something super generic that It, nobody's really going to agree with. Or you can say something that maybe pisses off half the people in the room, but then the other half of the people in the room love you because you said it right. So sometimes it's about finding your tribe and the people that agree with your viewpoints, because not everybody's going to agree with your viewpoints, which is why you're scared of saying something.

Dawn Kennedy: 10:55

Yeah, I was going to ask about that. So with founder led marketing and again, going back to enterprise size, right? So you had Howard Schultz at Starbucks who wanted to create the third space. Then they brought in another CEO who took all those out and did drive thrus. Both of them probably have valid models, valid things, but I don't think people think as much about the second founder or I'm sorry, the second CEO as they do like Howard Schultz, because he put himself out there for so many years saying things that sometimes might have been controversial, like the anti-union stance, things like that. Do you think that was something that maybe was a little too divisive, or do you think that all opinions are pretty welcome.

Matt Watson: 11:38

I think you just have to be you. I think you just have to be you and put it out there. And you know, not everybody is going to agree with you. Right. And so you just find your followers that do agree with you. It's not possible to make everybody happy. Right. And one of my favorite things I wrote on one day was from some lady that was like head of global HR of some company or whatever. And she's like, my goal is to be able to do something that eighty five percent of our employees agree with. She's like, I'm never going to get the other fifteen percent to agree. And it's so true. Like, it doesn't matter what you do. They're never going to agree. Like even at full scale, we did something where we gave away a free vacation and you just had to, you just had to basically enter your name to win. And then one of our employee feedback things, somebody actually complained about the fact that we were giving away a free vacation. And it's just like, what is wrong with these people? You're just not gonna make everybody happy and just have to get over it.

Dawn Kennedy: 12:31

Yeah. So being in your point of view and evolving also as a leader over years. Have you found that at some point, what you put out publicly, maybe a few years ago, might have evolved and not mean the same to you the same way? Or are you putting things out differently?

Speaker 3: 12:50

I mean, you're always trying.

Matt Watson: 12:51

To be sensitive of different things. Like, I'm not going to go on LinkedIn and go on some tirade about politics or something, right? But there's certain hot buttons you're gonna avoid, right? But yeah, but I think it's just being you and who your personality is. And if anything else, like you want to have a personality, you don't want to be super generic AI voice, right? You, you want to be yourself. Somebody wants to be able to read that. Like, yeah, that sounds like something I would

Dawn Kennedy: 13:17

So what about those who it sounds like you lot. So are you on video as much? Do you think that it matters how you say it or how you get it out? There is one way better than another? Is that also personality Driven.

Matt Watson: 13:32

I think some of it's personality driven. Some people are good on camera, some people good at camera, on camera. Some people are good at written, some people aren't. I think it's also depends on your audience and the type of thing that you do, the type of business that you're in and stuff like that. Right? So for what I do, our customers are largely business decision leaders, right? So LinkedIn is naturally a good place to reach them. So it really just depends on the kind of business.

Dawn Kennedy: 13:56

So are you doing LinkedIn and these things just to reach your ideal customer? Or are you also building your personal brand because it's just going to follow you no matter what you do?

Matt Watson: 14:07

It's both. I mean, the reason I really started doing it though, was of course, for business. It's like, how do we get our name out there and find leads and stuff like that? So it's always been business first. And I think another way to describe this that I actually, I think I heard this on TikTok one day, it's probably one of my favorite quotes is as a business, as a business owner, your goal is never to be the best at what you do. It's to be the best known for what you do because nobody knows who the best is, right? But they know the best known, right? I don't know who the best plumber is in town, but know the one who runs all the ads, and I see their trucks driving down the street. Right. And your business is the same way. Like you can't focus all of your attention on the best. You've got to focus on being best known for what you do. You got to have a good product and service, but you got to focus on the marketing side of it. I think you'll have to know you exist, right?

Speaker 4: 14:57

Yeah. I think I've heard somewhere.

Dawn Kennedy: 14:58

That some people who may not be as good as you are, just better at being loud about what they do.

Matt Watson: 15:03

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 15:04

And they're going to get the business. Yeah. So yeah, being best known for what you do be then I guess the benchmark. So how does that play in, I guess again to that personal branding or the founder led marketing. And I really want to kind of lean into this because I do know that there are a lot of founders, myself included, that would prefer not to get on video and preach the benefits of whatever, or continually show up just for the fact that I need to be seen. And then at the same time, there seems like there's this push also for show your family, show your dog, show you a real person, show all of these other things about your personal life. And I think that message of a personal brand you also need to have your hamster on screen, or you need to show up every day in your social circle and scream from the rooftops what it is that you do. I don't know. That helps people figure out where the line is, because in a low trust environment, we want people who authentic. But do we need to see the hamster? And we want to know what you do, but do you to be every, every video or every article on what you do?

Matt Watson: 16:26

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:26

And I've seen.

Matt Watson: 16:27

People on use TikTok, right. And the part of their goal is actually to get you to go to their Instagram and their Instagram maybe has other content in it that's more personable or a little different strategy. So it's like, is TikTok more top of the funnel? But then for middle and bottom of the funnel, I'm actually trying to get you to Instagram or some other right? And so you can have different kinds of content in these different places. I don't know, I think it really depends on the people and their strategy. I don't post stuff about my family and stuff like that. I don't post a lot of personal stuff. I mean, I do post more personal stuff on Facebook, but I don't post as much like work or commercial stuff on Facebook actually. And my Facebook is public. So if somebody wants to go look it up on Facebook, they can find me. But I don't really post any of that with a business mind to it. It's just personal stuff. But yeah, if somebody really wanted to reach me, they could go down that rabbit hole, I guess so.

Dawn Kennedy: 17:24

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? That these days? Again, checking to see if you're a real person rather than something generated. You can keep them separate, yet still be researchable or be found as an authentic, trustworthy person. Just with a little research.

Matt Watson: 17:44

I think it's fine. Yeah, I think it's fine. And I think at the end of the day, I don't know how many people are really going to go on social media and research people in the research step, right? Versus part of it is just awareness. Like, the only reason I know your business is because I've stumbled across your social media that's how I know you exist, right? That's one use case of just building awareness and then building some trust and nurturing. So then when I do have a need, I think of you or your top of mind because I always see your content. Like there's some home builder in Dallas for whatever reason, I always see his content on TikTok. And if I was ever in Dallas and I was going to build a house, he'd be the first person I'd probably call. I live in Dallas, but like, that's your goal, right?

Dawn Kennedy: 18:30

That's, that's an interesting take on it. So the goal then is to be, like you said, best known for what you do, even if you don't need it. If someone were ever to say, do you know anyone Dallas, you would have someone top of mind. At least give them someone to go talk to.

Matt Watson: 18:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing that you have to about for if you want to describe them as influencers is say it's about some business thing or health or beauty or whatever the type of topic is and different kinds of influencers. I think some of us will just gravitate towards certain people because we like the lens that they provide. Like I follow people that cover the war in Iran or Ukraine or whatever things. It's like, I could go do all the research and look up the news, but I follow this person because they do a really good job of analyzing all of that and summarizing it and me the bite sized information that I want to But people do that for everything, right? Be it different kinds of content industry, whatever your your industry is. And to some degree, think about that that way, like people will follow you because you're the filter of other industry things and they like your viewpoint and your angle of whatever it is that you cover in your industry or your thing. So does that make sense?

Dawn Kennedy: 19:50

No, absolutely. And in fact, I actually think that kind of turns things on its head. I wonder if anybody and if you're listening let me know in the comments. Did you ever start your marketing strategy for your personal self by stopping and saying, who do I like to get content from? Or how do I want to get my content? I think most of the time, we're always so about how are we going to be perceived that I don't know, we flip it around and go, how do I want to receive the information or who do I like to connect with? Because that may be actually a really great insight into the content, because I think a lot of people freeze on personal content more than they would business content, right? So if you're going to build something that you are known for and you don't want it to freeze and question what you're putting out there, what if we started from the perspective of who are the people that I naturally want to consume from and relate to? How do they come across, maybe in a way that I feel that it's relevant and it's a perspective that I like?

Matt Watson: 20:55

Well, you definitely want to start with If you're doing this for business to generate leads, you definitely want to stop and think about who are the audience I'm trying to reach, right? Like what are their pain points, problems, etc. that I can create content around that they will find interesting. So you definitely have to focus on, on that. I mean, you can start with like, hey, I'm just creating stuff. I'm throwing stuff out there. I'll figure out how I improve this strategy as I go. And then eventually, I think after doing three, two or three years, maybe at some point in time, you just stop caring and you just keep posting stuff out there and the strategy gets a little lost. I don't know, but you go and do it the right way. Yeah, you should really hone in. Like who? Who are the people I'm trying to reach? What are their key pain points, problems, things I can cover, etc., etc.. But the challenge of that too is like when I publish content on a weekly basis, it's trying to figure out how much of that content is kind of top of the funnel, how much of it is like real product related for my company, that's more bottom of the funnel, what that content is nurturing. What if it's supposed to be entertaining? What if it's supposed to be funny? Whatever it is, just random crap that I thought while I was sitting on the toilet that people might find Like what? It's all of those things, right? And I think if you do it right, it's a mixture of all those things.

Dawn Kennedy: 22:12

Okay, so when you post things to LinkedIn. Do you share the funny things you come up with in the shower, or do you reserve those for Facebook?

Matt Watson: 22:22

No, it's a mixture of all of it. And I think that's the key to some of it, is having a little more fun with it. It's not you don't want it to be this super stuffy business stuff all the time. You do want to show a personality and you do want to entertain. People are on LinkedIn to learn and find jobs. But for a lot of social media, people are there to be entertained. People aren't on TikTok to learn some business lessons or whatever. They're usually there to be entertained. And so the more entertaining you can make your content, the better. I think that's almost always the case.

Dawn Kennedy: 22:58

So platform wise, do you have any recommendations for the types of content that show or build trust? Like you said, TikTok is more entertaining. So probably more the lighter side, real person type of content. And LinkedIn is the business content. But what about all the other ones? Because there's a lot of people who will post to Facebook and Instagram, or they'll use some of the other platforms. Substack is getting really big for articles writing, and I believe you can start doing live videos on now, which I think for the longest time was just a video platform. So what are your thoughts on sort of the type of content and the platforms that people are using? And could you ever make a mistake where you put something up there? That's a personal thing and it affects your business negatively.

Matt Watson: 23:51

So all the platforms you just mentioned get long form videos or shorts or TikTok X, all these different platforms. I think all of them can be successful. The challenge is probably thinking that you can do all of them. You can really only do one or two of them. If you really focus really hard on one or two of them, I don't even think it matters which ones you do. You can probably be successful. I focus on LinkedIn. I also write a newsletter. I also host a podcast. So those are the things I focus on. I do post on X and I post it on blue sky and threads, but whenever I post on X, I get absolutely nothing out of it. It feels like I'm in a black hole somewhere and it's completely pointless. And it's probably because I don't spend enough on X. Like I don't spend a lot of time on there every day commenting on other people's stuff and engaging with the community and stuff like that. And I think in all of these, you basically have to do that to be successful in any of these platforms, whatever platform you want to be on. You got to spend a little bit of time every day engaging with other people's content and stuff. And that's really key to growth when you're starting out anyways. Like you'll get more followers on LinkedIn by commenting on other people's LinkedIn posts. Then you will publishing your own. Like that's a whole nother set of strategies we can talk about. But I think to answer your question, I think you can be successful in any of these platforms. It depends on which one maybe your personality gravitates towards or your industry gravitates towards, and kind of going all in on one of them. I think the mistake is trying to think that you can do all of them. I think it's a terrible idea.

Dawn Kennedy: 25:33

Right? So in, uh, again, you're interacting with other people and you may be right. If you're not on a platform for a bit, the algorithm probably isn't going to promote your stuff if we're because they're also there to sell ads and make money. It's a model. So when you go in and comment on people's posts and do these things inside the platform itself, are you doing that again, showing that personality, or does it how long you've known this other creator? Do you feel like because it's I'll be honest, it feels like trying to grow a personal brand. Be yourself. Be that person when you've already got an existing business that maybe the people who followed that business didn't really see that other side of you. But now it's so important because of the trust. How can you get through this idea that there are two separate things, or they're one thing, and you should be yourself in response to these other comments, you should be responding with personality. You should be showing who you are as the human being, making the comment versus the company you represent.

Matt Watson: 26:43

Well, I think in any of the comments that you do online, I think the key is to be fair and balanced, right? And so even if people are going to disagree with you, they'll respect your opinion because of the way that you presented it, right? Like you could take something really crazy like abortion or whatever it is, is a terrible example here. But if you say, I believe it should be this way because of this, and you have a really well thought out pattern of why you're saying that people can look at like, well, I don't necessarily agree with you, but I respect the I respect your opinion and the way that you've presented your argument. Right. And that's okay. I think that's your goal. Like, hey, not everybody's going to agree with but I believe this for this like really well thought out reason. I think people are going to agree with you as long as you don't go in there like, this is stupid. I'm done. Right? Then be like, this person's just an idiot. If as long as you present your arguments in a well thought out way, even if people don't agree with you, I think they'll respect your opinion. And I think that's the point.

Dawn Kennedy: 27:43

I think listening to this and talking with you, that might be a good baby step sort of way. If somebody is a little hesitant to put their personal life or their personal. I'm just thinking, I know several people that would rather be have their tongue nailed to a table than video.

Matt Watson: 27:59

Yeah, I understand.

Dawn Kennedy: 28:00

They don't they don't mind if the company shows things they don't mind. They'll say, this is the person who's the founder, the leader. Or they might have a uniform shirt on and they're shaking hands, but they're not actually what I would consider generating that thought leadership content that we're about here. It sounds like if they go in and they could actually start interacting with other profiles and other businesses or other creators, they may be able to start sort of inching themselves in to feeling more comfortable about expressing things.

Matt Watson: 28:35

Or, I mean, that is the best way to do it. Like if you were starting a brand new account on LinkedIn or X or something today, yeah, you should publish content. But the way that you're going to grow your account is by going and commenting on other people's stuff. And really the key strategy there is figuring out whatever industry you're in, who does everybody in that industry follow, who are like the major thought leaders this industry and then your job is every time they post to go comment on it.

Dawn Kennedy: 29:05

Interesting.

Matt Watson: 29:06

How do you provide the most thoughtful comment on those people's articles and posts as fast as possible, that when the other thousand people that are going to come read it are going to see your comment, and you have some well thought out argument right now, everybody's going to agree with you, like I said earlier, but you have some well thought out, like why I agree, why don't disagree. And even if you don't agree with me or not, like you can respect my opinion because I've said it in a well, the right way.

Dawn Kennedy: 29:35

Right? And again, this is this would be the person, not the company going in and establishing again, authentically human. This is my opinion. This is why I think that grows accounts faster than making more content.

Matt Watson: 29:50

Absolutely does. And, and it's the reason I don't grow on X and stuff like that is I don't do that. I don't spend the time to go really use X or post on people's stuff. And so I'm in like a black hole.

Dawn Kennedy: 30:02

And do you think this is kind of across platforms anymore? I know that there's there's always studies the algorithm changing or whatever, but it sounds like the engagements under your control, it's your control. Whether or not you go and make comments, do you think that strategy or even that interaction is a pretty good bet? It's going to work to grow your account, even if the algorithm is acting up.

Matt Watson: 30:24

I mean, from my experience on threads, I've had pretty good luck still with posting stuff and still getting engagement, even though I don't necessarily engage a lot myself with other people on X, I don't get any engagement at all, probably because I don't engage with other people.

Dawn Kennedy: 30:39

Right?

Matt Watson: 30:40

So I think I think on LinkedIn, if you publish good stuff, you'll still get some engagement. But I mean, absolutely, if you're starting a new account, you need to go engage with other people. That's the key job. It's like, how do I go comment on ten people's posts every day or whatever is? And that might sound tedious to do, but that's job. And yeah, there's AI tools to help you do that stuff these days. But the last thing you want to do is just write spam on all these people's stuff. And that was my point earlier about what you want to do is write some really thoughtful answer. And sometimes they're just really funny, answers that work really well. I've had some on LinkedIn that have gotten tens thousands of impressions and stuff, because they were just right snarky comment on somebody's post that was funny whatever. Yes. Sometimes you just never know what what's going to take off.

Dawn Kennedy: 31:30

But and that grew your following, right?

Matt Watson: 31:33

It does. Does that mean is it does that mean I sold more stuff? I don't know. I mean that's the problem with all of this is it's kind of top of the funnel versus bottom of the funnel. You always want to be doing stuff that creates awareness. So you get more followers like, okay, I got more followers, but then I have other content that's designed to nurture those people. And you got to be doing both at the same time. You've got to expand your audience and nurture your audience. You've got to do both at the same time.

Dawn Kennedy: 32:01

Right? And again, starting from the place of authentically yourself, having some personality and being willing to not going to say vulnerable. I don't think that's the right word, but be willing to open up enough that people can trust you beyond, again, any brand recognition that maybe your business is built years.

Matt Watson: 32:24

He's got an opinion. He's got an opinion and why, and it's like I'm doing home remodeling stuff and the tile person's like, I cardboard over go, go board. And this is why. Yeah. And I'll die on this hill. Here we go. Here's my reason. I did just have an opinion.

Dawn Kennedy: 32:41

Why are we so afraid to have opinion, at least publicly? I mean, everybody has opinions. Why? Why do you see? And you've been doing this a long time, and worked with lots of different enterprise companies well. And the fact that you have an opinion working with these large companies, because I know that there are people who'd be like, oh, I could never tell people what I really think. I wouldn't ever get an interview with that or I wouldn't get a meeting with that person. What are your thoughts on this? Be honest. Like really? I think we.

Matt Watson: 33:13

I think a lot of, I think a lot of humans don't want don't like to be judged and criticized. I think that's just human nature. Right? And so they're worried about what other people gonna think of them when they put themselves out there. And I think it's just human nature, part of what makes me different, and I didn't realize this until I was about forty years old, is I have ADHD. And one of the common traits of people that have ADHD, they don't have the same sense of consequences as normal people do. Normal people are worried about the risk and failure and all these things. Most people with ADHD don't. They're doing things because it's interesting and it's unique or whatever. The consequence is part of it is secondary in the thought process. And it's part of the reason that a lot of entrepreneurs have ADHD is because they're not worried about the risk or the failure. Like that's not what they're thinking of. But if you ask my wife, she'd be thinking about all the risk or the failure before she took the first step, she'd talk herself out of everything before she even started. Her brain is wired totally different than mine, right? And that's part what part of what makes us all unique. But my wife would be the one that'd be worried about people judging her and the criticism and, like, she'd be worried about all that, or I'm just like, whatever, and let it go.

Dawn Kennedy: 34:33

Yeah. So they yeah, I know you're right in way that people with ADHD are wired differently, risk assessment, those things. So it's an interesting thing to contemplate as well that some of the people who are a little hesitant to build that personal brand, even though they know that the trust piece is so important in the marketplace, may be wired for that need to to protect themselves versus the need to stand out there and give their opinions. And that could actually be a consequence these days in business if you don't take.

Matt Watson: 35:15

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 35:16

Well, and I.

Matt Watson: 35:17

Think when you go to post stuff on social media, there's multiple ways to do it, right. Sometimes it's not about sharing your personal opinion as much as it is telling somebody else's story. Here's our customer. Here's what we did for them. This is the benefit they got. This is the value, right? Like potentially it's sharing those kinds of stories and it's, you're not even putting your own opinion out right? It's just storytelling of your customers success and or industry trends or whatever. You're just reposting the facts. OpenAI did this crazy thing this week and I'm telling you about it, right? Versus having some crazy opinion of your own. So, I mean, there's a lot of different strategies of the kind of content that you create.

Dawn Kennedy: 36:00

Yeah. Very true, very true. If you were to open a general book on marketing these days or on the same thing that they would say know, like, and trust or awareness and then nurture and then convert. And it seems like that is the path that we always all take, whether we're consuming or selling. And for whatever reason, we do kind of get that all wrapped up in our heads about what we should be doing, where, for whom, how. And I do think that we do get lost in that and we do commingle ourselves or hide. Well.

Matt Watson: 36:42

And here's another component to this we haven't talked about. I think it's really critical is Now Google and AI and all this stuff is changing dramatically for search. So if I'm going to go search about your business or research about your business or your industry, who shows up in the results and really their AI results. Now instead of search more and more, and that's based on trust as well. And actually, over the last two weeks, I completely rewrote our entire website to be focused on this, to have what they call the E a T signals, which is experience, whatever authority, trust, whatever it stands for. But it's the signals that Google's been forever are important, but it's all about creating your unique viewpoint, story, and authority in your content on your website. Because otherwise AI can create generic content about literally anything now, and you can slap it on your website. So really creating content for websites now even has to really be unique to your viewpoint and your story to make it sound like it's unique. Tell us insights about this industry or this problem that nobody else knows or understands, so that you're building that kind of trust to the search engines. And AI is also super critical. And I built a whole elaborate system with cloud Co-work to do that. Over the last couple of weeks, I downloaded my that I wrote every podcast I've ever recorded, every podcast I've ever been a guest on, every newsletter I've ever done, all of our customer case studies, all the history of company, like all this information. And now I can use it to create content for our website that can intertwine all of these authority and signals. And it's all the same thing. Like not only we have to show trust to our customers, but we have to show trust to the search engines now.

Dawn Kennedy: 38:35

Right, right. That's a brilliant strategy, though, is to take all of your sort of body of work.

Matt Watson: 38:41

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 38:42

And put that together. And it may. And again, if you're listening in, if you haven't done anything like this, that may help you define your brand within the company as well and your personality, because I'm sure there were pieces of the work that you put up there yourself on podcasts and things where it had to be you and your personality. And yeah, you come across. Yeah. AI aside, they probably know warm and friendly from cold and distant. If. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that strategy for not just websites, but what about the social media content or starting a new account? Do you think it would be valuable to do?

Matt Watson: 39:20

Yeah, I, so I originally started doing this actually for LinkedIn a few months ago. I pulled in all my old LinkedIn posts to analyze which ones worked well and didn't work well and all that of stuff, and to use my old content to help write the new and stuff. Right? And I pulled in lessons from my book. So I was like, okay, if I go to work, I'm like, I need to write something. Help! Give me a social media strategy plan and help me help me do all that stuff. So I think all that is super powerful. And I first did this about a year ago for marketing, for a website. Back then I, I downloaded like or companies in Philippines. It was all about our company in the Philippines and what we do and the benefits and all this kind of stuff like product marketing. And then I asked it to write all this additional product marketing, and it could write way better than a human ever could, because no human is ever going to remember all of these facts and all these stories and all these things that AI can do. But yeah, you can load up all that information into if you're using ChatGPT like a custom project, or if you're doing this in Claude, it has different projects and client work and whatever. Yeah, just load up all of that stuff and then and use that to help give you ideas for content and social media plan and unique viewpoints, unique angles, all this kind of stuff. It's a huge help.

Dawn Kennedy: 40:39

I would say also, and again, to people listening who have been in business for years, and they wouldn't the stories from three years ago, right? No it wouldn't. So I love this idea also, because it gives you chance to also kind of pull from the archives, maybe those positions that you held that haven't had to come up in a while.

Matt Watson: 41:00

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 41:00

They'd be important to express today.

Matt Watson: 41:03

I think. Absolutely.

Dawn Kennedy: 41:04

Another excellent way to, to leverage, again, this founder led marketing. So where can everyone find you? Tell us about the book. Where can we link you on social media? I know LinkedIn. Where else?

Matt Watson: 41:17

Yeah, definitely. Matt Watson on LinkedIn. There are a lot of Matt Watson's on YouTube. I'm not really on there. There's a YouTuber and stuff. I'm not that Matt Watson. But yeah, LinkedIn is good. I also do posts on X from time to time. I do have a Substack. It's called product driven. So I do have a newsletter. My book is called Product Driven. It's about engineering leadership. You can get a free copy of our book of my book at a full scale dot io, which is my company's website. You can get a free copy of the book there. Yeah, we do software development for other people, including AMC theaters, as one of our big clients. And yeah, you can learn more about us at full dot io.

Dawn Kennedy: 41:52

Perfect. All right. We're going to put that all down inside the show notes. So if you find this on the week, the podcast launches, if you find it two years later, you can still find the book and find product driven. And thank you so much for having this conversation. I think it's very important, believe it or not, to have these conversations with people who are not necessarily marketing backgrounds, but are actual founders, people who have done this and are continuing to thrive in these changing environments. Because you've been doing this for how long

Matt Watson: 42:24

Well, I've been writing SEO content or on socials for over twenty years. Right?

Dawn Kennedy: 42:31

Yeah. So you've gotten to see all the changes and things that have happened.

Matt Watson: 42:34

Been through all of it.

Dawn Kennedy: 42:35

Been through one hundred percent of it.

Matt Watson: 42:36

Yeah.

Dawn Kennedy: 42:37

Well, I really appreciate your time and wisdom. And thank you also for the idea to use AI and leverage it to dig through what your companies maybe even do in the last few years, that you can pull out the things that will build trust faster.

Matt Watson: 42:52

Absolutely.

Dawn Kennedy: 42:53

Thanks for having me so much. Yeah. Thank you. All right. We'll talk to you all next time on the next episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. Take care. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. If you want to learn more about me, you can go Don k Kennedy dot com and you can now check us out on YouTube well as, of course, any of your favorite platforms that podcasts. Take care.