Hi friends - I’m back! This piece was inspired by a conversation I had this week with Richard Washington for his podcast - What Makes You Tick.

If you don’t know Richard, he’s the founder & CEO of Tick Talent, a GTM recruitment partner, and a fantastic thought leader and value-add content creator in the growth space.

I joined him to talk about marketing for startups, and he shared a version of the following quote with me:

And it perfectly aligns with my startup marketing philosophy.

So, how do you capture mindshare as a startup? I know - limited time, limited budget. You’re not Apple. It’s still possible.

Let’s dig in.

Mindshare earns you market share

How do you capture mindshare as a startup? How do you get people’s attention, get them to like you, and ultimately trust you? And then finally, not forget about you?

Short answer: Add value by sharing your expertise. Be authentically you. And be obnoxiously visible (credit: Nomiki Petrolla).

No one can buy from you if they don’t know who you are. We’re all busy - so even if they ‘find’ you, we also can’t let them forget about you.

Because not everyone is ready to buy right now.

You might not even be ready to sell whatever you’re building yet (or at least not at scale).

Trust and timing are everything in sales.

So if you’re always building an audience, always deepening your connection and trust with that audience, and never letting people forget you exist, the right people will remember and will get in touch at the right time.

It’s an evergreen process that fuels your pipeline.

But y’all know I’m all about the step by step and ‘how to’ so we’re going to unpack this further.

Action steps to take

‼️ Become a thought leader. 

Share your expertise, insights, journey, and learnings* with your target audience via -

• social media,

• podcast guest appearances, and

• email marketing

Sure, there are other things you could ‘do’ to help people find you or not forget you including conferences, strategic partnerships, traditional PR, etc. But all of those take a lot more time and a lot more money. Two luxuries you often don’t have as a startup.

The three things I listed are the fastest (and cheapest) paths to awareness and lead conversion you’ve got.

We’ll break down each one.

Social media

Since the majority of my audience is B2B focused, we’re talking about LinkedIn primarily, and maybe Twitter/X.

Top LinkedIn statistics you should know

As of February 2025:

• LinkedIn has 1.2 billion members and 1.77 billion monthly visits

• 56.9% of users were male and 43.1% were female

• A quarter of users interact with brand content daily

• More than half of LinkedIn’s members’ households earn over $100,000

Source with even more detail: Sprout Social

What I love about social media

1. It’s free

2. It’s one of the fastest feedback loops for testing ideas and messaging

3. It’s snackable (short form) - perfect for the adult attention span of 8 seconds

4. It’s hard to do it ‘wrong’ - as long as you’re being authentic and in service of your audience

How do you start?

1. Get over your fears and commit to it 🤝 

2. Build a process so you can stick to it ⚙️ 

Check out these resources -

Podcast guest appearances

Sure, you could absolutely start your own podcast too, but that requires a lot more time and money.

What’s free (usually), though? Being a guest on someone else’s show.

This has worked SO well for me and for my clients. It’s one of my favorite go-to-market multi-vitamins.

I’ve written about why to do this and how before here. But since I released that piece I stumbled upon a piece of software that accelerates and streamlines the logistics 200%…

It’s called PodPitch.

How PodPitch works

1. You create an account (month to month - no long term commitment). Bonus - you can get $100 off your first month using this link.

2. You setup your profile - tell it all about you, your company, and the topics (keywords) you want to target for shows

3. You setup a campaign to source relevant shows AND pitch you to the hosts - fully automated

4. Hosts who are interested write you back…you schedule the recording, and boom 🌟 

Some pro tips

• This works best if you have someone from your team pitch you (vs you pitching yourself), and since it’s automated, it’s a light lift for anyone.

• After your episode goes live - squeeze every last marketing drop out of that puppy.

  • Put it on your website

  • Share it on social media

  • Create viral clips from the show (in minutes) and share those via social, email marketing, etc.

  • Use the transcript of your discussion as the basis for a blog or blog(s)

  • Share the recording with active clients, prospects, and in your cold outbound (where appropriate)

Email marketing

And finally, email marketing. 💌 

Note: Sales emails and marketing emails are not the same thing - see here.

Email, really?

Yes, really. It’s still one of the highest ROI marketing activities out there.

And it’s a channel you OWN.

We don’t own LinkedIn. They can (and do) change the algo and it may (and does) impact our reach.

We don’t own the podcast production. The host does.

But we do own our email list.

Also - I believe in portfolio diversification. Finance background coming out…

Maybe I had a killer post on LinkedIn one day, but 30 people I wish saw it - didn’t. They were busy, they were offline, whatever.

If I am also sharing my ideas via email - I know I am getting in their inbox. Of course I still need to earn the open and they still need to read it…

But the point is sharing your messages in more than one channel helps increase your odds of reaching more people and the right people.

So as quickly as you can, start getting your followers from social, podcasts etc on your email list.

🎁 More resources on effective email marketing here and here.

ps - this newsletter is a very effective email marketing channel for me 🙂 

Ok, that’s it for this week. If you do those three things consistently, and in service of your audience, you will become obnoxiously visible and earn more mindshare…and ultimately more market share.

Get after it. 🏃‍♂️ 

Want to learn more about how I help startups increase their revenue by 150-590%? 👀 

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With love and gratitude,