#08: B2B Content Masterclass: Quality vs. quantity in content, and the vanity metric trap with Melissa Garcia

**Gus:** All right, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Founder Facing. We have a very special slate of episodes lined up for you guys because we are going deep on content marketing. We know that we got a lot of good feedback from our other episodes where we went deep on content, LinkedIn, all these different ways to grow your brand and market organically. So today we have a very special guest. We have Melissa Garcia from DoControl. Melissa, thanks for being on the show.

**Melissa Garcia:** Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to talk today.

**Gus:** Yeah, for sure. And Melissa and I, we were chatting a little bit about her experience. You were in the agency world for a little bit and then you moved into tech and you've been at DoControl. So just give us a little bit about your experience, your journey and how you ended up as the content marketing manager at DoControl.

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah. So my name is Melissa. I am now at DoControl and I've been here for about eight months, I want to say. Before DoControl, I was in the agency world. And right before DoControl, I was kind of tinkering around with working at an agency, but also doing some in-house marketing. And I really saw there kind of what the differences were. So my background is in marketing and digital media. I have a business degree where I was in the business school in college, studied marketing as my focus. And I also minored in digital media. So I had a really good grasp of, I want to be in more of a business setting, doing more of the op stuff, but also creative marketing was kind of my love and my joy and made work fun. So I knew I wanted to be in a field where I could do both those things. So I started out in an agency. I entered there in college, absolutely loved it. Joined after my internship, really getting all aspects of agency life and digital marketing, content, social, client management, relationships, literally everything. And then from there, after I left that agency, I pivoted into tech where I was doing still pretty much everything I had learned in my previous agency, along with doing more in-house marketing stuff. And then I feel like I really honed in on my career and what I wanted to do. And I found DoControl and I absolutely love it. And now I do all of our content, all of our social, our SEO, email, podcasts, everything that is content that we do, I touch. And really just seeing how content impacts our marketing, but also how it touches everything from brand awareness to partnerships, to even our events. And there's a lot to it. And so really, really love where I'm at right now. And I love the creativity, but also the strategy behind it. And I feel like I'm at a very good place with all of my loves are in one shop. So it's great.

**Gus:** That's amazing. That's amazing. And yeah, like you said, we were discussing earlier, head of content, content directors, content marketing managers, they really do have to do it all, which you had amazing experience at your agency, taught you everything you needed to know from stuff that you don't expect from a content person, right? Should they be an SEO expert? These are just the assumptions when people and companies are hiring for that role. And so I think that you have a lot of great experience, like experiences that I don't even have as somebody who's never worked in the agency world formally. And so when it comes to content at DoControl, like, what is your approach? And like, what are the most important like KPIs that you are trying to like hit when it comes to that content? Because obviously, you said, it encompasses so many different things. It's not just maybe necessarily about how many organic leads do we generate, right? It's about awareness. It's about so many more things. But like, how do you aim for a target? And how do you determine whether or not these different marketing and content pieces that you're putting out there are having that impact that you can report back to the higher ups?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah, so that's a great question. I think there's a few different ways to look at all of that. And I'll start with the hardest. And that's measuring brands, which is almost impossible to do. Because, you know, you need it. Obviously, you need brand awareness, especially in a market where at least where we are in security and tech and SaaS and all of those different industries. There's a lot of different players in the market. There's a lot of different people selling a similar solution, they have different approaches, but they're all more or less solving for the same thing. So brand awareness is huge, because someone knowing your brand versus a competitor is more times than not going to be why they went with you, or why they even bothered to do the research or, you know, bought into your mission or your buyer's journey. So brand awareness is huge. It's hard to track because you can't really measure Oh, what does someone think of me like that's tangible metric. So I think that is a great place to start. And then you can start looking at other ones. And you know, those could look like impressions or followers. I mean, obviously, those are Oh, people know about our brand, they're interacting. Those are easy. I think the pitfall that I see, and one of the most important things to look at is what we call vanity metrics, which are things that look good, but aren't actually driving any value. And so it's a trap because you could look at followers as, oh my god, we're doing great people are interacting with the content, they know who we are. But followers can just as easily be a vanity metric where it looks really good, but it's not really driving any value. And so I think the easy way to say, Oh, we're doing great. Let's bring this to the higher ups is obviously conversion rate, how many people are looking at the content, and then from there taking an action, going to our website and clicking on something that we can easily track as like, whether they're doing a demo, they're booking a risk assessment, or they're trying to talk to sales. Those are things that we track, for the most part, very, very religiously, because we can justify that and we can see it. But you're also not seeing stuff in the back end that brought someone to that point. So I mean, we also look at organic search, like, you know, how many searches are we getting? Direct traffic. So who's searching DoControl who knows about us already that is going to Google and searching us. Recently, we've been really looking at AI search. And so who's in ChatGPT, who's in perplexity, who's in Claude, and who is searching for a solution or a pain point that we solve for, and who's clicking on us from there. And so in seeing that in Google Analytics, we can also tailor content we're making to show up there. So that's something that I've been doing a lot of in the past couple months that honestly, before in my career, I never really had to worry about because it wasn't really mainstream, or it wasn't something that was even on the radar for content marketers. But now you have to be doing it. If you're not it, you're behind. So I think absolutely, that's a long way of saying, brand is king, but you can't always measure it. So stick with things that you can justify and measure and accurately attribute to something you're doing. Whether it's conversions, organic search, you know, website traffic, and try to stay as far away from the vanity metrics as you can, because although they look good, they're not always showing you the real value and who's bought into your product and who's looking for what you solve for.

**Gus:** For sure. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with a lot of what you said. I mean, you gave a ton of different points that I'm excited to jump into. But in terms of the vanity metrics, I feel like brands are getting better at that nowadays in terms of not just falling for it. Back when I started my agency, there were so many brands out there that were like, how do we go viral? And I'm like, why? Why do you care if you go viral? You're going to be in front of a bunch of people who aren't your buyer, spending a bunch of money on this ad or this TikTok campaign or whatever it might be. And it's like, those can negatively impact your brand awareness as well, too. It's like if you're doing some dance trend or something and you're a security company, people are like, they're securing my data. They're just dancing around in their office all day, right?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah.

**Gus:** And so I think that brands are getting better about that. But there's still just that innate, I think it's an innate human desire just to be like, I want the most people ever to see what we're doing. When in reality, micro-influencer campaigns, being extremely targeted almost always impacts those KPIs and those metrics that are important like conversions and growth and those types of things. I feel like being extra specific about who you're targeting, tailoring your content. Yeah. I don't know. Do you think that brands are getting more aware that going viral isn't the only thing that matters nowadays?

**Melissa Garcia:** I do. And I think a lot of that is, it's very different between B2B and B2C. And so when I started my career, I was working a lot with more B2C brands who were selling like, they're a product to someone and it wasn't so much of like a high ticket B2B software offer, right? So those are different things. I find that people in B2B care less about the virality of it because they know we are going after a very specific job title with a very specific budget, with a very specific niche and a very specific need. We don't care about going viral. All we care about is reaching that person on the right place, on the right time, on the right channel. And I think I'm happy to see that obviously because it makes my job not easier, but I know-

**Gus:** Less frustrating.

**Melissa Garcia:** I know exactly who I'm going over, who I'm trying to reach, what they care about, where they're going to be. I know exactly what I should do to reach them in a way that makes sense to them. And I mean, obviously too, we still want to do the viral stuff. And I think there's a way to being viral and funny and making waves in an industry and getting a viral video and doing fun stuff while also still remaining in your box of, here's what we should be doing and here's what makes sense for us. And I think a lot of that too is the channels you're on. Someone who, like us, we're not going to be on TikTok doing viral trends. That makes no sense for us.

**Gus:** Totally.

**Melissa Garcia:** There's certain brands that can get away with it. And it also is just demographics, back to that point. Obviously, if you're selling to someone who Gen Z audiences, a lot of what I did at my first agency, which was so fun and I loved it, it was connecting with Gen Z audiences and selling them things, which TikTok, huge. On TikTok all day, looking at what people are searching for, how do we reach them? And that's totally different from what I do now, where I'm on LinkedIn or I'm analyzing all these other things where it's just such a different market and it's such a different demographic. And it's taught me a lot about putting myself in the shoes of someone who has a problem and you start with the pain point, which is what I think is huge in B2B that a lot of people maybe don't think about, but that's where you start. And a lot of those pain points are very niche topics that you can't really go viral for because they're not going to be a problem to everybody, but they're going to be a problem to the people who you're trying to reach the most.

**Gus:** That's excellent. Yeah. I love that. And I think that that's the best takeaway is just put yourself in... I mean, this is what I used to do for YouTube as well, just for creating content that would have good searchability on YouTube. It's like, okay, I know this thing. I know this is valuable information. What do I think that the person who has this problem is going to search for and how do I rank for that? And it's just being very direct. And then that helps the entire content pipeline as well. You can start a video by saying, I know exactly who you are. And you can talk to that audience, that very niche demographic directly. And I think doing that in the very start of any type of content being like, hey, you B2B buyer that I'm targeting, hey, founders, hey, this person. I know you're probably wondering about this. Let me break it down for you. That is just like I'm seen as a viewer. And you're like, okay, this person knows exactly what's up. So I love that advice. So put yourself in your customer shoes, figure out what... And I think customer journey really is important as well. Just from your perspective, what is a typical customer journey look like at DoControl? Do you have that mapped out? Do you have the different touch points where you're like, we really want to make sure that they're seeing this then? Or they go, they do the research. How does the journey look on your side?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah. So great question. I think there's an answer where we have obviously mapped out. And then now there's new trends that at least I'm seeing where the customer journey everywhere is super fragmented, I think. And so what we typically do, and like any other company who has a sales cycle and has a marketing cycle and a marketing cycle is you start with the awareness stage and the top of funnel, which is people don't really know who we are yet. They know they have a problem. They want to solve it. They're looking for solutions and they're looking for a medicine for their pain point. That's what they're looking for. They don't know who we are yet. And so we do a lot of content. That's obviously for that top of funnel. We do the blogs, we do the social, we do all those things. And then as we move down the funnel and we get into, okay, they know who we are. They know we're a player. They know that they do have a problem and we might be the one for them to solve it. Then we get more specific into our UVP. So what are we doing that competitors aren't that you need and is better? And so there's a lot of content centered around that. And then we move all the way down the funnel where they're looking to convert. And that's when we bring out the big guns and do all we can to get them way, way down. That's how it looks like normally. I do think that now in 2025, the buyer's journey is more fragmented, like I said, and it's harder to track. And it looks less of like, oh, this customer found us through organic search and they booked a demo and then we get them on a call and then they move down the pipeline. And then great, they're a customer. It's looking less like that. It's looking like, okay, they're having a problem. Maybe they look us up and find us on a blog. They read the blog, they don't do anything. Then they come back two months later because they saw a viral video we did on LinkedIn. They look at it, we see them, they go away again. And maybe then they find us on YouTube for a podcast or something and then they decide that they need to consider us as a solution. They see us again on some random Instagram or some random LinkedIn or whatever. And then they're like, oh, DoControl. I want them. So that's how it looks like now in 2025. And why is that? So many reasons. There's a lot of competitors. There's a lot of different ways. AI is changing everything. The way that we work and the way that we market is so different. And then there's also things that are never going to be in your control. Like there are budgets that people need to account for in their own teams. And it's never going to be in our control, whether or not we can get that person. If it's not mapped out, it's not mapped out. Or maybe they have a contract with another vendor and that's expiring. And then maybe they have time for us down the line, but maybe not right now. So there's always the controllable and the uncontrollable. And I think when everything is perfect and goes our way, we have the buyer's journey down and we can almost always see success in that. And I think the bigger thing and the bigger discussion is, how do you take the uncontrollable elements and factor that in when you're planning for your buyer's journey? Because that makes you not only better for your own projections, and it also lets you expectation set a little bit so that you know, here's the workaround and here's how I'm going to find success, even though I have these things that are out of my control.

**Gus:** I couldn't agree more with the fragmentation. I had some stats for it, but the amount of times that you have to continue to have those touch points, which actually brings us to the next topic that I want to talk about, which is quantity versus quality. I think it's always a big question. I work with startups that have marketing budgets that they didn't previously have, and they're like, all right, what do we do? Do we just flood the airwaves? What is the balance that you like to strike with content quality versus content quantity?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah. So again, great question. I think there's one thing that I think about first off is resources and company size. Because I think for big legacy companies, they have a million people that need to approve every single thing before it goes out to the public. And whatever the channel might be, they're probably going to have to get some sort of approval, whether it's from the board or stakeholders or legal or whoever. So for those people, it's probably going to look like less content only because there's a lot of bottlenecks to get something from conception to distribution. I think if we're talking like leaner startups, newer companies, founders, which is kind of in the space that I found myself in, I think that there's never a right answer to how much content you're producing, but the quality can't suffer just because you want to be posting more. And I think with AI, that's a big discussion because it's like, oh, now I have generative AI that can pump out five LinkedIn posts a week so I can be posting every single day. And it's like, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I think for founders and entrepreneurs that want to be visible on LinkedIn, some of them fall into the trap of thinking like, oh my God, I am so busy and I don't have the time to write all my LinkedIn posts, but thank God I have ChatGPT that can do it for me. And that's not always the right answer. And so I think in terms of not sacrificing your quality, I think you can use AI and other ways to free up some of your work. And then you should take the human element and put it into the content as much as you can, because you can so clearly tell when something is made by AI. And now that's a reason why people won't want to do business or won't want to engage with you because people are sick of AI and they're sick of the AI takeover. And it's literally hasn't even started yet, but people are already sick of it. So I think I would aim if I was telling someone what to do, maybe three posts a week, high quality. But I mean, at DoControl, I do a LinkedIn post every single day. And I do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, because I have the time, I have the bandwidth, and that's just a priority for us and our team because we see that as a channel that means a lot to us. And I'm doing it all myself on the LinkedIn and I love to do it. I can do it quickly and well, and we have high quality. And just because we're posting every day doesn't mean that the quality suffers. And I also think too, a lot of it is the algorithms. And that seems like a cop-out answer, but LinkedIn and other channels will favor you if you're active every day, because they see that you're bought in. They see that you're keeping people on their platform and they want people on their platform. They want people to be scrolling. So if you post and you're getting engagement, they will push you up further because they want people to see it. So I think for leaner and scrappier startups, if you can invest and do a post every day, that's amazing. But if you can't, don't just go to a generative AI LLM and hey, make me five LinkedIn posts for the week, because that's going to hurt you more than you think it's going to help you.

**Gus:** Yeah. That's the best advice ever. I think you are spot on with the, just aversion to AI stuff. And we've been around it for long enough where anybody can tell, oh yeah, ChatGPT just pumped this out or Claude did or whatever. We're not at that point yet. And in the creative content realm, you know that Microsoft also has AI running to identify AI posts and they're probably not going to push that up in the LinkedIn algorithm as well. You're not going to beat LinkedIn at their own game. But to the point of consistency, think about the incentives for these platforms and that will help you drive, if you're trying to play the algorithm game, which to an extent we all need to be. It doesn't matter if you're making the best content ever. If it's in a format that doesn't get seen by anybody, then it's kind of a losing argument. But LinkedIn literally tells you what they want you to do if you want more visibility. It's got that little circle that's like, hey, you did three actions this week, good job or whatever. And so they're telling you this is what you need to do to succeed. YouTube is the same way. Hey, before you can get monetized on YouTube, you need to hit a certain amount of watch time. That's because that's what they care about. They want people on the YouTube platform for as long as possible. So if you have videos that have insane retention and they're 30 minutes long, that shit is going to be flying up in the algorithms. That's going to be recommended, suggested, all of that sort of stuff. So you have to keep those things in mind and you have to keep in mind whatever platform you are working on or targeting for your ICP. You really have to think about what are the incentives of that platform and how can I play to those incentives to give YouTube or Microsoft or whatever it might be what they want so they push my stuff to more people.

**Melissa Garcia:** Exactly. And yeah, in terms of quality too, I think when you're smaller, especially for video content, it gets challenging because you can make whatever video content you can, but quality is most visibly bad in a video format. Text is easy because you can just type it up, right? Video is where a lot of founders get really nervous and they're like, oh, do I have to make a Super Bowl ad quality thing to post on LinkedIn? And so for video, how do you find that balance? How do you see video play into that recipe of, let's say LinkedIn, for example, post per week. Do you see any significant differences between when you post video versus text and what do you think of quality when it comes to video, right?

**Gus:** Yeah. I think, I mean, like you said, video is going to be a longer cycle of creation, obviously. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Number one, it's harder. It's more effort and quality matters versus we just, you know, I know our brand messaging and our tone and our, like what we want to say. I know it like the back of my hand. I could type it up in 20 seconds. Video is harder. And I think for us, when we think about video versus text, when we post any sort of video, there's always a deeper meaning behind it and a deeper purpose. And we're probably going to repurpose it and keep it around way longer. And I think the main videos that we do on LinkedIn now is like, you know, our interviews with other security leaders that we do for brand awareness. We do it just to bring value and, you know, that we can push to our LinkedIn. We can push to our email. We can push to our newsletter. We can do a webinar like that is so multifaceted and we don't care spending more time on it because we know we're going to get a lot out of it. And then I also think like other videos we do where, you know, we're demoing our product that is super, super valuable because you're teaching someone how to do something. So for those sorts of videos, we do take longer on them from, you know, ideation to creation to distribution and we'll push it out and we'll promote it for a long, long time. And I think thankfully we have the resources to do that. And I think a lot of smaller companies maybe don't yet. And I mean, we're still growing, but we've made that a point because we have seen it do wonders for us and it's part of our brand at this point. But I think for smaller teams that maybe don't have the resources or the capacity to do video, I mean, the statistics are there. I think there's a way to outsource. There's a way to use freelancers. There's ways to do it, not in-house if you don't have the resources, but I absolutely think it is something that companies and entrepreneurs and founders need to be doing if they're not already. And you don't need to have all the budget in the world. You just need to have the willingness to selectively choose like, okay, we want to go into video at least, you know, maybe 20% today, maybe 70% next quarter. Like it's definitely something you need and it does take more effort, but it gets you bigger returns, especially when we talk about algorithms and just trends in general because video is everywhere. And I mean, I think with YouTube Shorts and even LinkedIn Shorts and TikTok and Reels and all these things, like they have just exploded post COVID. And if you see how they influence the buyer's journey and they influence conversions, it's like crazy when compared to just a regular static post of a text, like written message. So I think it should be everywhere. And I mean, we aim to do video at least a couple of times in all of our socials. And I think there is a need for it and it's not going away. It's only going to get bigger.

**Melissa Garcia:** Couldn't agree more. And it is, you know, it's a hurdle to jump over because, you know, companies are a little like, ah, you know, are we ready for this? Can we get away with just doing text? But I think it has a lot to do with the human element, right? Like we were talking about how you can tell a post is an AI post like really easily. There's something about hearing somebody's voice, you know, building some amount of trust and becoming like more familiar with whoever is the face of the company. And this is why I kind of like, you know, having a single person be like, I'm the face of this brand, right? Like you could be the content person or it could just be like a really charismatic employee who's just like, I love being on camera. Like, this is what I like to do. Having that person be like the liaison through that customer journey, I think is incredibly valuable. But it also brings us to one of the main topics that I wanted to chat with you about today, because you're talking about content repurposing and like using videos kind of like the top line and then being able to like push that out to so many different platforms.

**Gus:** But your podcast, that was something I came across and it made me really excited to have this conversation is, you know, business podcasts, we're back in that like niche territory, right? You're not going to be the biggest, you know, Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, whatever it might be by starting a business podcast, but like walk me through, what do you think, you know, what is your approach to the podcast? Like, is it purely a content play? Like, is it so that you can get that top level stuff and then repurpose it? Like what was your approach there? How did you get started?

**Melissa Garcia:** We initially started it because there wasn't really anyone doing it in our industry, and at least in our niche little area of security. And we saw a lack of fun and, you know, interesting content that no one was really doing before. And I think for lots of tech companies and SaaS companies, AI companies, security, just the space that we're in, in general, the industry is a lot of jargon. It's a lot of technical verbiage. And I mean, of course, like that's what we do. That's the product. It's the nature of the business, but that's not always going to resonate with someone who just wants to be entertained. So we kind of saw that as an opportunity. And we tinkered a lot with it before we knew what it would be. We started out doing like Q&A sessions with security leaders. Then we were doing only CISOs. Then we were like, well, there's a lot of people that maybe aren't in this job title that have a lot to say. And so we were doing just like recorded sessions, Q&As, podcasts. Now we're kind of tinkering with doing it as a webinar and driving live registrants because we're like, wouldn't it be fun if people could ask their own questions? And it's just something that we were like, we can do really well at this. And if we can't do it well, then we'll stop. And that's the beauty of a startup is you can make that decision of like, oh, we're going to cut this. But we haven't seen that. In fact, we've seen the opposite. Everyone is bought in. Everyone really likes it. And I think it's because of three things. Number one, that human element that you were talking about. Everything is AI generated or people want to sell you something or things just feel inauthentic. And that's across everybody in the world, not just us doing marketing and promoting and whatever. That's how people feel day to day. And if you bring some authenticity to that and genuine connection and genuine interest in entertainment, then you're already winning. So that was the first thing. The second thing was we found, yeah, this is great for brand awareness because they might not know who DoControl is before they see this, but then they'll see me. I'm on all of our content pages. They'll see our guests, security professionals, and then they'll see our logo and they'll be like, oh, that's cool. They did that video. Then thirdly, we can repurpose that. So we can put that in our emails. We can put that in our LinkedIn. We can take what these thought leaders say and spin it up and put it in somewhere else on a different channel. And number four, we can throw money at it and do something paid on LinkedIn and then get virality through that. So that's already four benefits we have from this medium that we just started. And I mean, depending on who's making it and who's producing it and whatever, it's not a very terrible taxing process. And I mean, if you have someone who loves what they do, it's fun for them. So I think the fifth part of it, and maybe the last thing that I have seen is just that's the way that industry and content is going. And you see this all the time with innovation. I don't know, TikTok became a thing and it was huge. People were doing short form video. Then that kind of became a commodity and people were like, all right, what's the next thing? Then podcasts, people started working from home. People had side hustles. People were all bought into the podcast world. And then now you have thought leaders who are doing podcasts and it's the biggest thing. So a lot of it is like, will this work for our organization and will this bring us tangible benefits? But a lot of that too is like, well, we should probably be experimenting with something new because if we're not, our competitor is going to be doing it and then we fall behind. And then we look like a late stage entry into this fun thing that people are doing, but our competitors started doing it two years ago and they already have the market share when it comes to, I don't know, podcasts in finance or podcasts in content marketing or whatever it is. For sure. So lots of benefits and lots of reasons to do it. I think the key is finding what way works best for you, but it's definitely something that people should tap into, I think.

**Gus:** Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think that's a smart approach, being able to get those industry leaders on, build your brand credibility by talking to big names and being able to share valuable information, I think is what it's all about. But that's something that I always run into. And this is what transitioned my podcast agency, content marketing agency into what we're doing now. It's really hard and it's crazy. There's a statistic that 80% of podcasts, and this number has got to be higher for businesses, but they never make it past their 10th episode. And I think that that speaks to the challenge of podcasts as a platform, just in terms of expectations around what this can bring to a business. And I think that over the course of my podcast experience, I worked with one of the bigger podcasters here in Austin, and I was like, podcasters are sick. The challenge that I ran into is just being able to justify that ROI initially. And so have you ever considered, because this is kind of like what I do now, I've seen crazy results, but have you ever considered, rather than just all content with industry leaders who are in your space, have you ever considered using it in some sort of sales aspect? Like being able to get with potential customers, use it as a part of your customer journey, or is that something that you feel is a little bit disingenuous or anything like that? Has that ever crossed your mind?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah. I think if it works, it has to be a very strategic way. Because the one thing that we wanted to do with our podcast was like, this is just authentic conversations. We're not trying to sell DoControl to our guests. We're rather just trying to build that rapport with them, and then we post it. And then they repost it, and then they like it, then their audience will be like, oh, so-and-so thought leader was on the DoControl podcast, video, whatever, webinar series, then they look at us. So it's more of like a soft brand awareness play. I do think that what we're experimenting with now with doing a webinar, if people sign up for the webinar, then we have them in our database. And how did we get that lead? They came to our podcast or they came to our webinar. And so we're still tinkering with what the best format is, because obviously, we want our viewers to be engaged with our brand and our product. And even if they're not ready to buy with us now or ever, they still know us. So if there was ever an opportunity, or if there was ever a plug, or if one of their friends was like, hey, I need a SaaS data security solution for my business, they instantly brand recall DoControl. So I think in terms of using it in the sales process, there's nuanced ways to go about it. And I think one way that we're interested in seeing is like, well, maybe we could do a live show and get registrants, and then maybe those people can convert down the line. But you have to be nuanced, because the one thing that I'm afraid of is like, always, always, always looking disingenuous and being like, oh, we are just trying to sell you something. Whereas the average person in business now is like, oh, I can tell from 20 miles away, if this person is just trying to sell me a product, and I want nothing to do with it. Because I'm the same way. Because if I see something, I'm like, oh, that looks cool. I'm like, wait a minute. They're just marketing and trying to sell me something. Then I'm like, I might not want to do anything with that. So I think it's a very sneaky game of tiptoeing around the actual intent of like, hey, buy my product. And I think it's still being mapped out where there's, there's going to be a lot of different ways to kind of get around that with podcast specifically.

**Gus:** Yeah, no, I love that approach. And yeah, in terms of like, you know, audience and getting the audience bought in, like, like you said, it's all part of that funnel. It's all part of building that brand awareness, you know, having that content backlog and being able to say, hey, this is something we've been doing for a very long time. Like, this is something that we're committing to because we find it valuable. And sometimes that that is sometimes how some of my previous clients have like been able to justify the, you know, the investment of a podcast, right? Is this is going to be, you know, evergreen, it shows us in the space, and it shows that we're serious about giving value to the audience, right? And I think that that's a really big piece of it as well. And then I think also just like what you were saying about, you know, having guests and if they, you know, repost some clips and being able to, you know, provide value to your guests as well, like, them being excited about your show, like, that's kind of an angle where maybe that's even turns into a referral source as well, right? Like a guest was on your podcast and said, Wow, DoControl is awesome. I love those guys. They're, you know, really doing some interesting space and stuff in this space. You know, I have a lot of people and we in my world, I call this like a super connector, right? It's like somebody who's just very in with, you know, potential ICP or just like hangs out where my customers live. Those types of relationships, I think, just add additional value on top of the podcast, because, you know, the content stuff all the way down, I think there's a ton of value there. My angle on it is just kind of like, how do we increase the value like on the very top end a little bit, not to the point where it gets disingenuous or anything like that, but it's just more so how can we squeeze every last drop of value out of this podcast, just to make sure that we're in a position where we're not only just building that awareness, but we're also building these like important relationships. Because like one of the most important things I learned with working for Lex, like it was the podcast is huge. Obviously, he makes a lot of money, obviously. But at the same time, he's like, I don't care about the views and the money or anything like that. Like the relationships that I've built out of this podcast are the things that matter most to me. And like, I'm able to talk to the craziest, like most influential people now. But even before I was having like Elon Musk and the president on and like all that stuff, he was still talking to like really, really amazing and interesting people. And he's like, the relationships are all that matter at the end of the day. And I've definitely noticed that in my podcasting experience too. It's like, you have an hour long conversation with somebody, you're kind of homies after that, you know?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah. No, and I think that's something that we really wanted to focus on when we started was because you, at the end of the day, are doing business with people. And just because we're in tech and we're in security and everything is AI and buzzwords and whatever. And yes, we do have a very technical product, but like sales is human and people do business with people they like, trust and want to be around. And even if, like I said, like one of these guests that we have, they're not a current customer, they will know us forever. And then if they have a need, or if someone they know has a need, then they come to us because they already know us. And I mean, that's brand awareness at its finest, but it's that one-to-one connection that you get. And I think too, like a lot of times, like in the beginning, I was like cold outreaching to people, like, hey, be on our podcast, like want to have a conversation. And I was like, oh, like no one's going to really want to come on or whatever. But it was the opposite. Like people want to share, people want to give their expertise, especially the people we were going after, like very renowned and esteemed security leaders who just at this point in their career, they want to share their takes and they want to be helpful to people and they want to give that value. And so again, it just goes back to like, people are human at the end of the day. People will more often than not want to help someone always. And like a lot of the times we think, oh, like they're not going to want to help me. They're not going to want to come on. They're not going to want to do that. But we have found it's the opposite. Like people want to do good for and with other people, which is just, makes it so much more fulfilling. And like you said about the relationships, it's like, that's the best part. And the most rewarding part for me, like it's fun. And I mean, I love my job, but I love to have these conversations where I'm learning from some of the best people in the space. And when I started it, I was like, shocked at how much value. And I mean, like you said, you can take so much, not even from the content side, because you can repurpose it all you want, but there's a lot of good nuggets that you have with these conversations and you're like, oh my God, I never thought of it that way. And I'm constantly learning. So I think it's just, it's the best.

**Gus:** Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I get a ton of value. Like every time I have somebody on this show, I'm just like sick that like, I, I know so much more about like all this stuff and you know, all the things that we talked about today. Like I've learned a lot. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming on. We're getting to the, to the end of things here. But I really appreciate you coming and talking all things content. It's amazing to have like another expert opinion on this podcast. I think the audience is really going to get a lot of value out of this. Closing thoughts, like what would you say the number one piece of advice you would have for that founder, that new marketing manager, when they approach their content, what would that advice be?

**Melissa Garcia:** I would say, don't try to do it all, focus on what actually matters and go all in on that and be authentic. And I think for that it's like really defining what are our goals and channels and what we're actually going to be doing. Don't try to be everywhere all at once because the value is going to deplete. Go all in on what actually matters to you. Focus on your ICP. Don't try to reach every single person in the world because you're going to waste time and money and resources. And just do one thing really well going on your customer really, really well. And I think for founders, be authentic and don't just post for the sake of posting, only post if it actually aligns with who you are, what you believe, your mission, your message, your product, your company, whatever you're trying to sell. Stay true to that because everything now with AI, it can be, there's so much noise. So only focus on what you think is going to matter to you and it'll pay dividends in the end and don't try to be everywhere.

**Gus:** Awesome. Amazing. Well, Melissa, thank you so much. This is an amazing conversation. Maybe we'll get back together again in a few months just to see how the landscapes change. Things are changing all the time. But is there anything that you want to plug? We'll obviously put your LinkedIn, everybody go give her a follow on LinkedIn or any other platforms that you care about. But also we'll put like DoControl in there as well. But anywhere that they can find you or anything that you want to say?

**Melissa Garcia:** Yeah, LinkedIn would be great. And I mean, thank you so much again. I had so much fun. I think it's always fun, like you said, to talk with another content native and someone who's innovating in the space where it's still early adoption with podcasts and how the landscape is playing out. But yeah, I had so much fun. And thank you guys so much. I'm excited.

**Gus:** Yeah, me too. Well, that's it for us. Thank you guys for listening, and we'll see you next time. Peace.