Nobody Gives a Sh*t About Your Startup (Until This Happens) | David Walsh on B2B Influence
David Walsh, CEO of Limelight, breaks down why most startups fail at their go-to-market strategy: they build things nobody cares about instead of asking questions and uncovering real pain points. He highlights that early-stage founders must lean on charisma, influence, and a sheer volume of conversations to find true product-market fit before giving up. As the conversation shifts to B2B influencer marketing, Walsh reveals a staggering gap: while 27% of consumer ad spend goes to user-generated content, B2B currently sits at less than 1%. He predicts a massive reallocation of B2B budgets toward creator-led marketing over the next five years, emphasizing that people buy from people, not faceless corporate brands. To win in this emerging space, Walsh stresses the importance of authenticity and consistency over vanity metrics. He advises brands to let creators maintain creative freedom, prioritize engagement rates over raw follower counts, and view influencer partnerships as long-term investments rather than one-off transactional posts.
Discussed in this episode
- Why nobody cares about your new startup idea and how to push through the initial wall of rejection.
- The danger of changing your product roadmap based on feedback from a single loud prospect or angry customer.
- How to launch authentic B2B influencer campaigns by ensuring creators actually use and understand your product.
- Why follower count on LinkedIn means absolutely nothing compared to post engagement and content quality.
- The stark contrast between B2C's 27% and B2B's less than 1% ad spend allocated to user-generated content.
- Why companies should encourage and incentivize their employees to build personal brands without making it a mandatory KPI.
- The strategic value of hiring a B-tier salesperson with a massive, engaged audience over a B+ rep with zero reach.
- How startups can leverage channel partnerships with marketing agencies and VCs to accelerate their growth.
Episode highlights
- — Introduction to David Walsh
- — Getting people to give a sh*t
- — The danger of loud customers
- — Uncovering the real pain points
- — Launching Limelight and creator networks
- — Executing B2B influencer campaigns
- — Why follower count means zero
- — B2C vs B2B creator ad spend
- — Enabling true employee advocacy
- — Hiring reps with personal brands
- — Leveraging VCs for channel partnerships
- — David's hardest leadership lesson
Key takeaways
- Nobody cares about your startup until you solve a significant, immediate pain point.
- LinkedIn follower count is a vanity metric; prioritize engagement and content quality.
- Do not dictate scripts to B2B creators; give them total creative freedom.
- B2B influencer ad spend will skyrocket as buyers demand personality-led marketing.
- Consistency is the most critical element of any successful go-to-market strategy.
Transcript
Welcome back to another episode of Bridge the Gap powered by Revenue Reimagine. With us today is David Walsh, who is a three-time B2B SAS founder who has built and sold a watch brand, an e-commerce company, raised $33 million for an HR B2B SAS product before finally launching Limelight, which is a B2B influencer marketplace, which is a space that is super hot right now. David, welcome to the show. I'm I'm so fucking ready.
I got so much to talk about. Let's go, man. I love it. Let's go, I love it.
I love it. Um, we were chatting a little bit before, but you've gone through like several. You've gone through so many like iterations and different companies. What is one of the biggest challenges that you've seen from like a go-to-market strategy when, you know, when you're starting up a business?
What's that, what's that one place you're like, I wish this was easier and it's just not. Oh my God. Uh, Dale, like, getting people to give a shit. You go ahead and build a thing.
Internal people or external people? I I wanna, I don't like to interrupt, but external. Okay, tell us more. No, like, listen, you got this vision, right?
You're an entrepreneur, you're building something from scratch typically, right? So you've this idea that you want to bring to market and then you wanna go and explain it to people, right? And the truth is, nobody gives a shit. Nobody cares.
They're like, yeah, that's kinda cool. Like, if they're your friend, they'll tell you it's great, right? But if they're not your friend, over time, you have enough of those conversations, you realize actually you've built the wrong thing or people don't care enough about this to really go and build it. So, the the the challenge that I see a lot of people have is getting people to care and giving up before actually meeting that like, you know, momentum, getting that momentum.
There's always an inflection point where most companies and most entrepreneurs just give up because they've tried it so long and they're just getting pounded with nose every single day. And then finally, something clicks. So, Dale, to answer your question, getting people to give a shit about what you're doing. I'm, I'm so happy you said that.
I literally just got off the phone with a rep. So, we're working with a company and they, you know, they, they've done really good. They're ramping, they they're getting people, and I had a conversation with the rep and he's like, how come like we're not closing deals? How come like I'm so, I'm struggling with closing the deals?
And so, like, we start going through the process and it's like, it's probably because you're probably in the wrong buying persona ICP. Your value proposition like they get it, but they don't get enough of it. Like, it's not like, okay, for $100,000, I can make $101,000. Like, that's not enough to make people change.
Like, you gotta have a a big enough value gap there. And, and I said to him like, you need more marketing and awareness because you guys are educating too many people. And it's that give a shit factor of like, people should be like, I need, you know, limelight. I need, like, they they it just comes off the top of your head versus like having to educate them for such a long period of time, which I think is what you're you're saying you gotta educate.
Yeah. You also just gotta have a lot of conversations. Like, you can't just listen to your handful of people and then make decisions. Like, data is what you need to rely on.
So, going out and having conversations is so many so many founders fuck this up. I'm sorry, but it's like they they hear one thing, one negative piece of feedback, or conversely, one like you need to do this, and it's from someone loud and it's like, holy shit, Dale said we need to do this, so we're gonna go build this. Is this loud or is this important? And I think this is whether you are baby company or even really big companies.
It's like, oh, we we gotta get the CRO on the phone because a customer complained and didn't like this, like it's one customer who complained. Like, is this one customer or is this a subset of a hundred people that are complaining? Like, you don't have to get the CRO on the phone because you had one big customer that got a little bit angry. Um, but when it comes to giving a shit, how do you change that?
Because like, market awareness is important, right? You know, TAM, SAM, SOM, all of these wonderful acronyms everyone want to talk about. But at the end of the day, I'm a believer, and please prove me wrong. People give a shit when you're solving pain.
If you're not solving pain, they don't give a shit. So, if people are giving a shit, aren't you just not solving the pain? Man, like, there's so much I could talk about. I'll start with saying like, you have to be able to influence people.
You know? Like, as an early stage founder, you you have to have charisma. You have to be coming to the call with energy. You have to be able to influence them and persuade them.
And whether or not you're solving an immediate problem for them or whether or not they buy into your vision is also important. So, a lot of people get very like, you know, upset when the immediate reaction isn't, I need this right away. Well, then start telling a bigger story. Start uncovering.
Start asking more questions to figure out what is it that you actually need to solve that if I go and build it, you'll actually use. So, asking questions, listening more than talking is is really important as well. I I've had experience with Limelight. Um, I think you guys are doing something super cool where you're bringing companies together with influencers to create, at least from what I've seen, um, meaningful campaigns versus the typical bullshit of, oh, let's just go find someone who has 10,000 followers or 100,000 followers and get them to post.
But there has to be a moment, especially in this space, because I feel like it's really crowded, right? Like, there's a good amount of people who are doing or trying to do what y'all do. Um, some with software, some with like Google sheets and themselves. Like, oh, I I do influencer marketing and I connect you to the best brands.
Um, take me back to a moment where you felt everything was out of control. So, we're building Limelight and there's this moment where it's like, oh shit, we we're not gonna we ain't gonna make it. Our our go to market is fucked. What, you mean today, like?
You're just talking about like, Oh, I could talk like to Dale. Um, no, most recent time I felt like that was November. I was gonna give up because um, we had you know, we with startup companies, you're constantly iterating, right? And just to be clear, like, I had this big idea and thesis that the future of marketing is personality led.
People want to follow people. And there's all of these creators like yourself, Adam and and Dale, that have created content, created trusted audiences, but not done brand partnerships in B2B. And it's relatively new, it's nascent, and companies are spending a shitload of money on all of these paid ads and getting worse results. Well, why not partner with a group of creators in an authentic way that can drive better return on ad spend?
So, you know, bringing it to market took a lot of time and uh a lot of energy and effort. And I didn't know if this was gonna work, you know, back in Q4 of last year, even as soon as like three or four months ago. We had run a load of campaigns with companies that were sort of investing in this, but then, you know, weren't really committed for the long term and just had some bad experiences. And then I was like, okay, I actually don't know if companies are gonna come back and spend more money on this channel unless we can demonstrate that it's adding value and driving revenue.
Um, and so we just had this inflection point in December, I would say, so three or four months ago, where everything just started to become easier. And more and more companies are thinking about doing this. They're seeing their competitors do it, and they're starting to think, should we be doing this too? So, it's a fun space to be in.
I agree with you, it's really new. I I don't agree with you in that it's competitive. I actually think, you know, we're tracking about 17 agencies that have just popped up doing this over the last 12 months, which is great because it it it grows the industry and grows the the segment. With more and more people entering, it just means that there's more and more more people wanting this.
Um, but I also How many of those 17 are good? Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna say you could probably count them on one hand.
Yeah, they're three or zero. No, I I actually know a few of the the CEOs and uh I have a lot of respect for them. Um, not every agency is is is a good agency. I'll also say like, some of them have pivoted into this with no idea about B2B influencer marketing, and they're just seeing it and they're like, okay, we should try this.
But they don't have any domain expertise. Um, you know, so that's how it works. So, it's so, one of the things that's interesting is this space, as you're saying, is nascent, it's kinda new, it's kinda like this uh place where if you're going into B2B and people are like, we gotta do outbound, we gotta do, you know, the traditional ways you're doing sales, this becomes like a non-traditional way for most people to do sales if they haven't if they've like lived under a rock for the last couple years. Um, so they get into this mode of a different channel, which in our world, in some of these go-to-market strategy gaps, is like you're back at a stabilization mode.
Like, you don't know how to build the foundation. So, how would people go about thinking about B2B influencer marketing the right way so that they could test and taste it? So, then they can go build a foundational element on it. Yeah, really great question, Dale.
Um, the first thing I would say is like, educating companies and brands, the the moment I get on a call, I'm explaining to them that this is experimentation. You wanna run as many experiments as you can and you need to make this authentic. We want the creators to be using your product, be aware of your product, and be able to tell stories of solving experience. So, say that one more time.
They have to they have to use the product, they have to like your product, and they have to be able to tell a story about your product. Okay. That's the that's the holy grail. I didn't say it exists all the time.
Um, you know, but that's the ultimate goal, right? We we want them to be able to tell an authentic story about solving a specific problem using your product. Um, and it has to be creative, right? It can't be corporate jargon.
Like, I work with some of the biggest companies in the world, like Alibaba, you know, uh Hubspot, Zero, um, you know, some publicly traded billion-dollar businesses. And they're coming at this being like, okay, so we have this corporate mandate. This is what we want the creators to say. And it's like, no, no, no, no.
You cannot tell the creators and influencers how to do their job. Their one job is to copyright and create stories and you need to let them have the creative freedom. So, to answer your question directly, number one, it's make it authentic, get them to use the product, make sure that it feels trusted. Number two, you know, make sure that you're not telling them what to do and what to say.
And number three, come at it with an experimentation, creative mindset. Like, try do this uh at scale and run as many experiments as you can and be okay with failing here and there with the goal of like learning. Um, because it is a new space and, you know, we're starting to see a lot of value come from this when you do it the right way. Maybe last thing I'd just say is like, consistency.
Don't just come at this and say, I want to do one post with this one person, and that's it, we're done. It's like, no, no, no. You wanna form a relationship with a trusted thought leader, who's a subject matter expert, who has a trusted audience, who's gonna be the face of your brand long term. That's the way you need to think about this.
Well, and if I if I just jump on top of this a little bit is the um, it's not just about following in social media and or social stuff. We get we get pulled into conversations probably on a daily, weekly basis on tech, work work in tech, the things that people are doing. Like, we just spoke to a a company yesterday as a team on revenue operations, strategy, you know, numbers from top down, portfolio companies. And, like, if we're gonna start using it and and putting it into practice within our world, and we usually will test it with some of our clients, like, hey, you know, if you wanna work with us, you gotta test it out, we gotta make sure it's working, we gotta test it with our clients.
It's not only the the B2B influence that you have from a social media perspective, but then, you know, we're working with companies on tech stack analysis, audits, reviews, what's working, what's not working, and that is a full-time job. Like, for like, it's changing so quickly. So, I would caution customer uh I would caution companies as they're doing this, don't just look at social media following, but look at influence outside of the social media realm. So, Dale, like, follower account on LinkedIn matters this much.
And if you're not watching this, you should know that Say say that again. For those who aren't watching, following follower account on LinkedIn matters what percent? Zero percent. Nobody should care about the size of your following.
Meaning, I've seen people with 200,000 followers get 5,000 impressions a post. And I've seen people with 10,000 followers get 10,000 impressions a post. Engagement is the thing that matters, which comes from quality of content. Kind of like with outbound, response rates are the only thing that matters, not opens.
Exactly. Results versus uh you know, fabricated metrics. Yeah, I I I think that's in everything. Um, when you look at building a company, and listen, I don't want to shit anyone when they're down shit on anyone when they're down, but like, this is being filmed around the time of the article about A16Z and 11X.
Um, and, you know, when we talk about results versus fabricated metrics, and I do think this is a broader trend, um, in B2B SAS where people exaggerate their metrics a wee tiny bit. Um, I think this is a appears to be a very egregious case of doing such. Um, but you're only hurting yourself at the end of the day, whether it's funding that you get that you're gonna lose because you're gonna get sued, whether it's bullshitting about your response rates, or whether it's, I have to get this person because they have 20,000 followers, um, or 200,000 followers, uh it's it's not gonna help. Short-term mindset is not a good thing in business, period.
You know? And I feel sorry for the guys that 11X, just so you're aware, like, I had two calls with investors today, and I have been building software companies for 10 years. This is my third company, and I realized that startups are sprints. Back-to-back sprints.
You have to move as fast as you possibly can in short sprints. And in the run-up to an investment round, that is the most intense period in time. You know, we're gonna be going out to raise money next month, and I only care about revenue right now. You know, and I'm making some, you know, cutting some corners, thinking about how do I make sure that we get enough traction.
Because the truth is, my job as CEO is to make sure we don't run out of money. And you obviously direct the company and do everything else, but it's mostly to say we don't run out of money. Well, guess what? If you flatline revenue growth, you're gonna run out of money.
You know, because you're not gonna be especially if you're burning cash and raising money and, you know, building software, which requires engineers and a lot of money. So, I feel sorry like, in the sense of like, it's important to have a longer-term mindset, not a short-term mindset, and everything you do within business. But ultimately, you need to be able to move quickly and generate enough revenue and enough traction and momentum to attract venture capital investors who are looking for that 100X outcome. Um, and that's part of it's storytelling, part of it's growth.
Um, you know, there's a lot of learnings in this, but going back to like, one thing you said, Dale, you know, I think of influencers not just about the reach that they have, it's about the content that they can create. Like, user-generated content is incredibly powerful. You know, so I looked at we were just doing our investment deck literally yesterday, so I went deep into the market and try to pull out industry trends, right? And I looked at B2C influencer, B2C influencer marketing, and I said, okay, of the total spend in consumer paid ads, how much of a percentage of that is going to influencers and user-generated content?
And right now, it's 27%. Meaning 20% 27 cents on every single dollar spent in consumer paid ads is going to influencers and user-generated content. Well, guess what? We're in we're in B2B.
It is less than 1% right now. But the budgets that people spend is maybe 5X consumer products. So, my big bet around Limelight in the direction that we're going is that the portion of paid ad spend that goes to user-generated content and creators is going to dramatically increase over time. It's gonna go from 0.
5% to 20% in the next five years. Because it works. People want to follow people. The consumer mindset has changed.
You do not want to follow a corporate brand, you wanna follow a person. And part of that is like, how do we find more people being able to tell authentic stories and create content. And then people will reallocate ad spend to those channels. We see it today.
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com. It's what you just said is so true, and I feel like we have this conversation with every founder. Listen, do you need your corporate LinkedIn page? Yes, you do.
You need proof that you exist and you're real. But no one, and tell me I'm wrong, but like, no one is coming to take it no one is coming to take a demo or buy your product because they saw the great post from your corporate LinkedIn page. Um, they're coming because the the founder or the great sales rep who has mastered social selling, or the revenue leader, or the or the customer, or any combination thereof, um, is my opinion. I think that corporate page where we have a CEO now who's like, well, I won't post, but we can post from from the corporate site.
You might you're better off not posting in my to be to be honest. Yeah. Well, Adam, let me add another layer to that. I actually think that all companies should not just expect, but they should enable and provide resources for their employees to create content.
Meaning, it shouldn't be a KPI that they're held against and they're punished if they don't wanna create content. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, they should invest in the brands and the personalities and the audiences of their team members because ultimately it grows their own company and their own audience. Um, and I think that mindset has dramatically shifted.
You know, two, three years ago. pioneered this, right? Exactly. But has anyone done it great since?
Is there anyone you know that's doing a really good job at that? Employee advocacy, um, without telling them, I'm gonna piggyback. Without telling them, hey, here's the repost button and you could post this, post this, post this, post this. Because that's not what we're talking about.
Let's be very clear. Yeah, 100%. Well, let me get let me tell you, I think the future job opportunity that people listening to this should think about is, I think there's going to be a massive opportunity to come in as a uh content writer for your team members to tell stories um through their own personal channels. And I'm seeing this today, meaning, while it's like a training and uh content writer, copywriter that actually talks about creating stories in a in a in a uh personal realm.
So, I actually think that that is a big opportunity for a lot of companies, um, to have a team member who helps the other team members create content and get out of their comfort zone. Cause, let's just be honest, like, we probably create much more content than most people listening to this right now. And the reason that you and I do, Dale just asked me to write his posts. Yeah.
That's because he asked AI to write his posts. So, we'll just we'll go down the Never! We're all getting help from somewhere, you know? But that's the goal, right?
That's the thing. It's like, okay, what do we hear most about not creating content? Number one, I don't have the time. Number two, you know, I don't know what to write about and I'm worried that people care what care what they what I'm worried about people what people think of me.
Uh and number three is, I'm not gonna be consistent. So, I think that's that's gonna change, and it's gonna change pretty quickly with tools, resources, but most importantly, like, alignment and incentives from your employer. And and I'll leave you with this. What would I rather do?
And I'm currently hiring for sales people right now. So, if you're a salesperson watching this, DM me on LinkedIn. Only if you have a good experience. Dale.
But my my point of this is is, what would I rather hire? Would I rather hire somebody with 500 followers on LinkedIn who's an average, you know, B+, you know, salesperson, or hire somebody with 30,000 followers on LinkedIn who creates content every day that might be a B- sales person today? Well, guess what? I'm gonna hire the person with the audience, 100%.
Hmm. So, it's interesting, what you just said contradicted to what you said earlier. Um, because you said follower count doesn't really matter. But I can tell you as someone that hires a lot of people, the first I don't care about any resumes, by the way.
Like, don't send me a resume. I go to LinkedIn. I do check follower count a little bit, but then I go right to the post. And I'm like, okay, what are you posting?
Who are you engaging with? What's that engagement look like? Does it align with the ICP you're selling to today? Because it's gonna shift and change, right?
Like, not everyone can just have a personality out on LinkedIn or any other social media content that's not aligned to what they're what they're selling. Um, so I I find it I find that super interesting, because I I don't I don't care two licks about anything that you're doing on your resume. You can make all sorts of stories. Um, but I do really care that you are truly, genuinely engaging, and it's not just like, hey, thumbs up, or like, 100%, or like, you know, some hashtag, like I posted on Adam's content today.
Um, but I get tired of posting, I commenting on him. So, he posts like eight times a day. So, it's like, really I post once a day. My my favorite is when I post and someone immediately is like, posts in the comments, I can help you with your lead generation services.
Autoblack. Goodbye. You know, David, what what what are the other interesting things that you were saying though? Because I I think this is a hidden part of B2B influencers that will will go faster, further eventually.
Yes, you have to be a good content writer. Like, a lot of people the very first blog I ever wrote was for Hubspot, and it was based on uh a um college uh journalist. They they had journalism majors that would interview people, and then they would write the content for them in their voice. And then I look at it and I was like, perfect, spot on, they they would just post it.
Um, but but if we go like the next level deeper, so content writing, I think that's the easy one to figure out. But back to what a lot of the things that we do, like, we actually end up with budgets in our customers. Like, forget about like, like, having influence on content. Like, we know how much money people are willing to spend on X number of tech for X thing.
And so, like, if if companies figure out how to partner with people that have that end up, I don't know if I'd call it budget authority, but with huge influence in making decisions, because the content writers may not be making have influence make decisions, but I can tell you in all the customers we we work with, we have influence on the buying decision. Like, and it can happen in three weeks. So, what may have taken you four months to try to sell, we can do in three weeks. And so, how like, that next level would be very interesting to figure out how if B2B companies can figure out how to get to that level.
I can give you an example. We have channel partnerships have become a huge opportunity for us, meaning agencies or marketing agencies, paid ad agencies, content creator agencies, um, have started to refer customers to us because their job is to come in and think of like, how do we get a better return on investment? How do we grow your company? You know, what are the different things that we're not doing right now?
And for most of the companies out there, they're not doing influencer marketing yet. And so, it's a new thing. So, actually channel partnerships have become huge for us. You know, we're marketing agencies are introducing customers because they're the same ICP and the same buyer.
Another channel partner that's growing tremendously organically is VCs. I have insight partners, Bessemer partners, M13, you know, Andrea and Horowitz, giving capital to companies to grow ultimately, and then seeing us and saying, well, why don't you have people talking about you? You know, why don't you create this kind of flywheel of content and create this reach and awareness? So, channel partners have come to us because most companies come to help a business and consultants come to help a business to help them either grow or be more efficient.
Save them time, money, or, you know, be more efficient. So, I think our service offering helps companies grow, and that helps us a, you know, align incentives with others, you know, that can be partners with us. So, opportunities for sure. Yeah.
So, where where's where's the future of influencer marketing going and where does it stop? So, in the next, let's say, 6 to 12 months, because I think predicting any further than that is really, really hard, and that might even be hard. Where where is B2B influencer marketing going? And then ultimately, where does it just plateau that it just stops?
I like to get inspiration from industries that existed already. So, I look at consumer influencer marketing and I say, okay, what are the trends that happened there? And saturation was a big one. You know, it went from my Instagram feed being my best friends posting a picture of themselves in New York City, Times Square, to being like this influencer trying to sell me a supplement for food.
And now it's just saturated with that, right? So, I think your newsfeed is gonna see more and more brand partnerships, creator content. What we're trying to do is make it more transparent because what exists today is people are posting content and actually not even telling you that it's paid content, right? So, I think part of it is more content, fingers crossed, better quality, not just cookie cutter templates.
You know, actually educational content. I went to the LinkedIn team headquarters in San Francisco Wednesday last week, where I met with the leadership team. We talked about influencer marketing, what we've built. I showed them behind the scenes and everything that we're doing.
And I basically said, guys, like, this is going to happen. Meaning, this is happening right now, and it's gonna happen more. And you better be involved because if you're not, it's gonna get out of control. It's gonna be wild.
I met with the VP of product for the whole of the consumer product, and her number one problem was, I don't want my newsfeed to be saturated with, you know, salesy pitches from influencers and content. And I said, okay, then get involved now because it's gonna happen if you're not involved and you don't set it up the right way. So, to answer your question, I think it's gonna be more saturation, hopefully higher quality content because LinkedIn really care about educational content. They do not want sales pitchy stuff.
Um, and so, I think it's gonna be more frequent, more often, potentially higher quality. But that's my fingers crossed, and I'm I'm not betting on that. We don't know. We'll see.
We'll see. I'm not convinced. Why are you laughing, Dale? I just think LinkedIn is a cesspool of things, but um, I and I've seen a lot of, I've known a lot of people inside of LinkedIn.
I've known people, like, I remember back in the day when Coco was there, like, trying to like make these modifications, and it's just like deaf ears. So, well, LinkedIn is Microsoft. Um, you know, at the end of the day. I think we have to recognize that.
Well, let me be clear, like, LinkedIn care most the things that care most because it's owned by Microsoft is Monthly active users, daily active users, constant engagement, constant people seeing value from the product and coming back more frequently and more often. 1% of people post content on LinkedIn. Me, I'm on LinkedIn 20 times a day, way often more often than I should be. Majority of people in the United States and globally are don't even look at LinkedIn within a month.
So, their goal is to try to get that broader group of people to come and adopt and be using the product and seeing value from it. Part of that is jobs, which is where they started out with, right? Publishing job and seeing job opportunities. Part of it is educational, where they start linking thought leadership content and like actually learning something from the platform.
And part of it is networking. Like, people come here to actually just verify that somebody's a real person. Um, so they're thinking about it from those three lenses, like, how do we drive monthly recurring, monthly active users and daily active users and penetrate more of the market that don't use LinkedIn? And I would argue that part of that is education and like actually coming and learning something.
Um, and I think creators, not just influencers, like, I actually think of them as creators, can help create great content that engages people, that actually people learn from. Not all influencers and creators are created equal though. Ain't that the truth. So, does LinkedIn continue to grow and continue to expand or are we going to see LinkedIn alienate their user base by changing the feeds to what the feeds are becoming where you go on and it is like Instagram and it's like every third feed is an ad and like I can't even find what I want anymore.
I'm done. Hence why so many want to own their own audience. I don't know. You know, hopefully, hopefully, I want to see value and continue to come back to LinkedIn.
But um, they move slowly. Uh and so, I'm at the front door knocking down the hatch trying to be involved, trying to help where I can. But the product is broken today. And, you know, improvements that they try to make sometimes break it even more.
So, you know, they have to take an experimental mindset. Honestly, here's the truth. They have to reward the people that use the product. Yep.
You know, that's that's it. And what's happening right now is they're not rewarding the people that are using the product. Sometimes people use the product frequently and they get less return on investment, less results, and that's just not the way it should be. And I think they're aware of that.
I've spoken with the leadership team. I think they're trying to make improvements, but it's just gonna take time. Cool, man. So much to think about, so much that you shared, so much Don't hurt yourself.
I I'm I'm trying, man. I'm trying. And I only had half a coffee today. It's hard.
Um, David, let let's let's do some rapid fire. Um, before we wrap it up here. What uh what's the hardest leadership lesson that you learned? The thing that strikes the thing that I would focus on, the thing that I remember the most, the most difficult thing is letting go of 40% of my staff.
Because I grew too quickly, hired too many people, didn't have product market fit, spent too much money, was gonna run out of money and burn all the capital I raised. And so, I had to fire 40% of my staff. Sat down with 25 people back to back, 15-minute meetings, and let them all go. That was the most challenging thing, and I'll never make that mistake again.
Hmm. Which is which hits the next question I was gonna ask. So, I was gonna ask what's the mistake you you still regret, which sounds like that one. Um, but I'm gonna ask you a different one.
What what if you lost everything tomorrow? What what would be the first move you'd make? Like, let's say your LinkedIn followers go down to zero. Now what do you do?
Oh. Oh my God. My follower count that I've just that I've just like spent years trying to build? Um, you know, I try to stay in the real world with things that actually matter, right?
The online digital world that I live in is just to help me make money and help me grow my business. Doesn't define me. So, I think it's more important to think about like, have fun outside of work. Um, my purpose in my life is built around my job and what I do on a day-to-day basis.
I find a lot of satisfaction from that. I enjoy it. I like solving problems. But you need to have a life outside of work.
And so, you know, if everything went to shit today, I'd probably be in the exact same space. You know, maybe a little bit less happy and a little little bit more upset, but probably feeling a little level of freedom as well. Hmm. All right, you're a revenue leader who's listening right now.
You're you're drowning. You don't know where to start when it comes to B2B influencer marketing. You don't know where to start when it comes to any type of influencer marketing. What's your single one piece of advice, the most powerful piece of advice you can give them right now?
If I'm a revenue leader and I wanna focus on influencer marketing, I think focusing on consistency is the number one priority. Don't take a short-term mindset and say, I'm gonna dip my toe into this. I'm gonna try it once, or I'm gonna tell my team to post content for the next three weeks and then forget about it. You have to create consistency.
You know, show up every day, show up consistently, and then good things will happen. Don't have a short-term mindset like everything else in this world. I love it. Absolutely gold.
I I think that that is the perfect way to look at things. Anything, nine times out of 10, with a short-term mindset, um, you are not gonna succeed. Do not be penny wise and pound foolish. David Walsh, Limelight, thank you so much for joining the show.
We appreciate it. Have an awesome rest of the day, man. Dale and Adam, thanks for having me. Excited to do it again soon.
Thanks, David.