Goldenhour Live: Amanda Goetz

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Welcome back to Golden Hour Live.

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Our next guest is Amanda Getz.

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She's a driven entrepreneur who founded the wellness company

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House of Wise in her garage during the pandemic,

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sold it in 2022, all while homeschooling her three children

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as a single mom.

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From a small Midwest town to New York City,

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she excelled academically as a first-gen college grad

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and shifted from hustle culture to intentional living

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after a challenging divorce.

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She shares her journey through her popular newsletter,

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Life's a Game, inspiring over 150,000 followers

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and gaining media recognition from Forbes to Access Hollywood.

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Welcome, Amanda.

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Thanks for having me.

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This is amazing.

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Yeah, how are you today?

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I'm good.

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Good.

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This is incredible.

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I mean, you can play.

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I mean, yeah, really can't complain.

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So let's just dive in.

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Does building an audience work for B2B companies

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or do you think this is just a B2C and creator trend?

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It absolutely works for B2B companies.

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People buy from people and the emotional connection

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now more than ever is important.

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So creating an emotional connection

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with the people behind the brands.

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I mean, Morning Brew did this when they started

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to really build brands around their initial authors.

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And I think B2B companies can take a page out of that book

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and start to build brands around people

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that can access the buyers in different companies.

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That's an interesting point because I think a lot of brands,

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you know, in B2B influencer marketing or creator marketing,

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we're hearing that you should partner with more creators,

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right?

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But there's this element of it where it's still

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supposed to stay human to human.

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Instead of plugging in an influencer or creator

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instead of an ad.

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Yeah.

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So that's a really great point.

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Well, so whenever I'm working with a brand,

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now that-- so I was a CMO four times,

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and now I'm on this other side.

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And whenever I'm working with a brand,

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I get to kind of wear both hats and help them understand

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that this isn't just about-- if you're working with a creator,

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it's not just about ad placement.

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It's about taking somebody on that journey from pain point

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to solution to testimonial.

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And so I always say, is it an octopus or a swordfish?

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Meaning you don't want to hit them one time.

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You want to hit them seven or eight times

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and take them on that journey.

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And to go back to why it's important to build an audience

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for B2B company, the amount of marketers that follow me

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and that my content resonates, maybe their mom.

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Maybe they are burning out.

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They're following me.

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And when I start talking to them about a pain point

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I have as a marketer, even though my newsletter is not

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about necessarily marketing, they're going to listen.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I have a question.

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So you mentioned audience marketing, building an audience.

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For the companies that have been building an email list

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over the past, let's say, decade or 15 years,

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through e-books, downloads, other things like that,

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how is what you're talking about different than that?

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Well, I think if you've been building an email list

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and you haven't put on the lens of now I'm a media company

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and I can provide so much value, and for me,

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thinking about myself as now a media company

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and building content pillars and bringing somebody along

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on a journey of what's your pain point?

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Here's a solution.

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Every B2B company should be thinking about newsletters

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and turning those emails into a long-term journey

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with a person.

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So where would you start with building a newsletter?

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Because I think a lot of the--

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or one of the main challenges that marketers run into

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is email saturation.

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So how do you stand out?

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You have really great content.

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And the way to have really great content

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is to know exactly what your audience's pain points are

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and build it outside of just your value proposition.

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Understand what their pain points are in their life,

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create an emotional connection, appeal to them as a human,

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not just a buyer.

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And that's going to make you stand out.

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I love it.

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So if B2B companies decide they want

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to start using more creators, where should they start?

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Like with their own founders and CEOs, somebody external?

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I think the easy answer is always, yeah,

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you start to build an audience around the people

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that you have in your company.

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But I also think there's two ways to approach it.

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You can hire creators to be creators in residence.

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And I still think this is still very new.

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But creators are looking for long-term partnerships.

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They don't want to be selling to a ton of people.

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They want those longer-term partnerships.

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So I think creators in residence, still a new thing

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that we haven't seen a lot of.

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But I think it's going to happen more and more.

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And then I think the second thing is,

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you want to find people that hit that perfect Venn diagram

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of speaking to your audience authentically, not just selling.

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And so if they can get--

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I would look at open rates, but I would also

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look at conversion rates.

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How have they been able to move those people down

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a purchase funnel?

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That's what they should be looking at.

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So as a creator yourself, what do you

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look for in the most valuable long-term partnerships?

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What's your criteria?

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I'm looking for someone who understands the concept of the octopus,

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not the swordfish, that they want to not just buy this ad

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space at the top of my newsletter,

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but they want to do three newsletters over the course

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of three months that leads to a webinar where I can teach people

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and get in front of them and show them how I'm using the thing

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to make my life easier or better.

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And then follow up in two months.

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So I always say that it's at least a three-month partnership,

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if not six.

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OK.

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I'll go ahead.

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I love the fact that you're talking about creators

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and influencers in this longer-term mindset,

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because especially in B2B, I think

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that a lot of companies try to tell the creator what to do

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or instruct them on how to sell a product.

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So for companies that actually want to implement this

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and think about how do I work with a creator

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in a longer-term fashion, how do they pitch that?

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How do they manage that creator?

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Because a lot of marketers, it's like, all right,

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do this, this, this, and this.

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How do you let them do their own thing, but also--

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It happens in the kickoff call.

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When you get on the phone with a creator,

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you first get curious about what is their mission,

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what are their products and services

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that they're selling, what is their audience like,

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what are their pain points?

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Really feel like you are coming in to partner with them,

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not just instruct them what to do,

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because at the end of the day, they

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have put a lot of time and energy into building this audience,

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and they're protective.

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I'm protective of my subscribers.

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I have built trust with them.

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So if you're coming in and saying,

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I want you to say it exactly like this,

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that's not going to work, because it's not how I would say it.

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Yeah, and I think there's something interesting here

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where when companies do try to tell the creator exactly what

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to say--

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It doesn't work.

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And the creator has already built that audience,

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and they trust them.

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They know their authentic voice, and then they

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start pitching the company lines.

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I think it works against the company,

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because at least for me, I start seeing creators

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that I've known and loved forever,

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and now they just start pitching.

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And I have disdain for the company,

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for almost ruining the creator that I love.

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We are developing an allergic reaction to ads.

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And if it does not feel authentic and aligned with the person

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and genuinely coming from them, because they're super pumped

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about what that thing has done for them,

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we immediately get an allergic reaction.

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And we can tell, too.

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And that's the most important part of creative freedom.

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When you are going to work with influencers,

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or creators, you're working with them

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because you love what they've built.

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And you see the value in the audience they've built,

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the trust and credibility that they've built

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by pouring into their audience and they're following so much.

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And so when you try and take that control away from them,

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what's the point of working with them?

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Yep, exactly.

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Exactly.

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Any final thoughts for creators that

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are looking to partner with brands long-term or brands that

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are starting to dive into long-term partnerships?

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Create your dream list of content creators

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that you want to work with, and make sure

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that they look at it from a marketing lens.

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Make sure that they have a marketing psychology

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around what they're doing, because many creators that

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are new to the creator economy, they're still

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in this mindset of, oh, I have ad space, just get it in there.

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So find somebody who understands the value of marketing

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psychology and what it means to take somebody

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on this purchase funnel journey,

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and then you'll have a magic relationship.

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Awesome.

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What's next for your newsletter?

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Just continuing to grow it.

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I have a book coming out next year.

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So yeah, lots of exciting things happen.

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That's really exciting.

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Well, we can't wait to follow along.

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Thank you.

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Awesome.

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Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

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See you guys later.