Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Own your space.
Be authentic, you know, so people can like, say that's a real you and that you've got a voice you don't have to be on video.
I think video is great, but as long as you've got something out there consistently that's authentically you and where can I find you? Make it as easy as possible. Those three things.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Basically what happens when you mix marketing savvy, a love of storytelling, and just the right dose of blue haired boldness. You get Rachel Moore.
Rachel isn't just a marketer. She's the one who helped us launch Wave Makers. And if you've seen her on LinkedIn, you know she's a force of nature. On top of that, she's a seasoned pro in the podcasting world, from hosting and producing shows from global brands to running her own agency. But wait, there's more. Rachel has built a career at the intersection of creativity, communication, and technology for SaaS, companies, B2B firms and events featuring names as big as Gary Vaynerchuk. In this episode, Rachel takes us through her origin story. Why visibility and authenticity matter now more than ever. How AI fits into creativity and when it doesn't. And practical ways to stand out in a noisy market.
This one's packed with energy, honesty, and a few laughs you won't forget.
So we are so excited to have Rachel Moore with us today.
So I always say There's a good LinkedIn and a bad LinkedIn. Rachel is one of the good LinkedIn.
I don't know how I found her, but her post, I don't know, they just showed up in my feed one day and I started looking at her profile and all these things that we were thinking about starting a podcast. Rachel is the one I reached out to and here we are. She's helped us start Wave Makers and it's just been so much fun getting to know her and things like that. And Rachel, just, first of all, thank you so much for helping us with everything.
Oh, it's.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: It's awesome. It's a good ride. I've never been surfing, but I. It's been awesome.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Oh, we're gonna get to you on that one.
So, you know, I love how you tell your story and obviously this is what, you know, we want to talk about today, but how did you get into marketing kind of in where you are now, you know?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Give us a little lowdown.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: I will. So I always refer to this. I'm a big nerd. This is going to come across so heavy and hard on this. On this podcast I'm a super big nerd. And I love origin stories, like from superhero lore, right? Where it's like, oh, my God, how did. Spider Man? Got bit by a radioactive spider and all this stuff. And then he was suddenly a superhero. Before my marketing career, I had office administration was my focus. You know, executive assistant, you know, office manager, that kind of stuff.
Hadn't gotten my college degree yet, but, you know, I. I was learning a whole hell of a lot of stuff. And so I was working for. It's actually. It's seven blocks from me. I was working at Swedish Medical center for an air ambulance agency there called Air Life. And my mom had actually helped me get that job because she had been a flight nurse for that agency. So there was some nice. I was there some history there, too. It was good. So as part of the hospital system, you know, it was on us to try to make sure we were the air ambulance of choice. So if you imagine this, if someone is in a fender bender or they get injured in, like a, say, a car wreck, and first responders show up, well, they decide they're like, okay, you know, an EMT might show be like, oh, no, this person's got to get airlifted or they do need an ambulance or whatever. What you want is that person can then decide, well, who we're going to call. It's like Ghostbusters a little bit, but that was such a layup for that.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: But I saw that.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but they can decide based on who they like to work with, who they trust or whatever, who they should call. So we wanted them to say, well, we'll call your life, Denver.
No marketing budget, though, to speak of, or very little. So suddenly, like, you know, social media starting to happen. I'm like, hey, my director, there's this thing called a Facebook page you can create, apparently, and it's free to do.
So maybe we should do that. Would you be okay if I give it a try? And she's like, oh, absolutely. Now, mind you, again, had done office administration. I had some graphic design ability. I had, you know, I knew had a good eye for layout and stuff like that. And, you know, obviously when you're doing office admin or any kind of exec, you communicate with people a lot. So, you know, being able to communicate and write and all that stuff. And so, yeah, I started a Facebook page. I also created a Twitter account for myself, but also for the air ambulance agency. And then we also were like, let's start a blog. Which was interesting too, because it's healthcare. It's hipaa. So that was super interesting, but started those three things and oh, my goodness, I was in love. I was like, this is the greatest thing ever. And I always refer to it. It was like this trifecta of things that I geek out about. It's technology. I don't know if y' all have ever, you know, said, hey, let me put together a Facebook post, and, oh, I need to make sure that the graphic, the image looks just this way. And, oh, did you know there's a hashtag I could use? And can I tag people? That's kind of neat. Oh, maybe I should put it in a group. Should I put it in a group? Should I do it in a page? Should I do it? You know, whatever, you know, can I schedule it? Oh, oh, my gosh. And then I can go see, like, the analytics on it. I can, like, see how many people looked at it.
So I was like, geeking out about all that stuff and then I loved the creativity of it. It's like, oh, I can, like, there's memes. Oh, my gosh. And y', all, if you ever, like, I speak in gifs. I don't care how old that makes me look. I don't care. It is.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: I'm with you on that.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: It's my medium of choice. But that came on the scene. Memes, gifts, you know, just making like, oh, this is a package. This whole thing is a package. It's not just about a caption and a graphic and stuff, but it's like, what is the compelling thing that people. I'm going to see this, then I'm going to read that, then I'm going to act on it, you know, so it was like that. It was just trying to figure out the ways that it could be creative and compelling enough to make someone just stop the never ending scroll and be like, that's the thing I'm going to look at. And then the communication part. I'm such a huge believer in communication. Big reason why I love podcasts, because it's one of those most effective ways to do it. Because, my gosh, if we can't communicate with each other, what are we even doing here? So.
And knowing, you know, especially, you know, all we're trying to do is let make people aware of stuff like, hey, I want you to choose your own adventure. Maybe you should know what your choices are. Here I'm a choice. And so I loved all three of those things, but that's how I got started in social media. That was my last executive or office admin job. I then did my next role was a social media specialist. I worked for a couple startups, kept going with that, you know, and I don't know if anyone listening to this or watching this has ever worked for a startup, but usually here's how it goes. One day you're like, hey, should we like do emails to marketing maybe like, should we send emails to our customers? And then the next day they're like, rachel, guess what? You're in charge of our email marketing.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: And so I, you know, okay, I hear mailchimp something people use. So I just start going and learning that. Then you know, it's like, well, what about websites? You know, what are we hosting our website on? Do we want a blog? Yes. Why don't you go run that and in fact go set up up that blog. And it's like, haha, okay. Hello, WordPress.com.
so it really, that was just Startup world was great because it is just so much of like, go try that. Learn it cool, you know, and make it work. So that was my marketing career really nutshell. And that's honestly this will. Now I'll circle back around to where we are today because one of the mediums that started happening was live streams. And so I remember when Facebook Live first came out, I was very annoyed because I'm an Android or I have an Android phone, I don't have an iPhone and all iPhone users got it first. And I was very annoyed by that. And I was like, I can't try it out. But they had this other thing. Like there was a platform called Blab, which is no longer with us. Yeah, it was, it was really cool. It was only around for about a year, but it let you like livestream not just yourself, but as a group. So it was almost like live streaming, a zoom nowadays. And so I totally got into that. And frankly we'll probably, you know, people could ask, say like, well, isn't. Can a live stream be a podcast? Yes. Can a podcast live stream be separate? Yes. You know, it's like technically those were kind of the first podcasts, if you will. And of course then podcasts came along too where you've got like, what is that one? God, I can't ever remember it. It's the one about. It was like about the guy who was imprisoned falsely or they were like looking into his. I'm gonna be so dumb. You know what I'm thinking about?
[00:08:21] Speaker B: I can't remember the name.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Yep, I'm totally blanking out.
But that one really kind of podcasts have been around, but that really brought them back to the foreign where it's like, hey, people are listening to this stuff and they're mesmerized and they're binging episodes and it's just so. I just loved all that. I loved that that was this medium and something I had experience in. I had done radio and TV certification way back in the aughts. I think it was 2001, and I started doing that. And I obviously have no problem being on camera and talking to a microphone, so. So, yeah, it just was a good fit. And that brings us today. So now I'm just. I do podcasting primarily for you all, you know, which has been such a delight. But it's what I love to do and I guess still get to nerd out at all things. Creativity, communication and technology, all in a great package. And. And that's where we are. It's kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of wild. I can't even talk about it. See, I'm like, such a good communicator and I can't even get it out, but.
[00:09:12] Speaker C: Because you're too excited.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: I am really excited.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: It's. It's just coming through the screen here.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Good.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: No, I love it, though, how you were, like, with the early social media and you were like, I finally found my. Why, yes, this is it, you know, and you can tell that you really enjoy it and things like that. And I mean, it's just so creative. So obviously we're going to include your LinkedIn with the notes from this, but, I mean, go check it out, because it is.
I love it. I just absolutely love it. And your post crack me up. So I try.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: I just feel like, I mean, are we all over a little, like, here's my thought leadership. I'm, you know, gonna somehow turn this. This meme of this, you know, CEO grabbing a ball cap from a little guy on a screen and. And isn't he a jerk? Let me turn that into a thought leadership piece. It's like, oh, come on, you know, let's laugh a little bit about the fact that my catwalks are across my laptop. Or let's, you know, hey, everybody, good morning to everyone. Especially if you needed three cups of, you know, caffeine today, you know, and just really getting real about what work and professional life is like as a human being.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Right, Right. How many thought leadership things did. The Coldplay incident.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Like, beat it. It's a. The dead horse thing. It's like, come on every other post you don't have an opinion about it. It's okay.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Leave these people alone. Yeah, it's totally that. No. And even in the name of your company. But wait, there's more.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: But wait, there's more.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, my maiden name was Maxwell, so that naturally goes to the coffee for anyone who's still like imbibes Maxwell coffee. But yes, I had the Maxwell House joke all the time made when I was grow up. But I love. Yeah, my married name is more. And that was interesting because I did do a little stint where I had an agency called really Social and still there, really Social. Actually, if you do that, you're going to get redirected to my new website. But here's why that happened is because that really does. What I'm about to describe kind of illustrates the evolution because yeah, social media was my origin story to marketing. But as I mentioned, you know, I started learning email marketing, I started learning blogging and website development, website, you know, CMS management and stuff like that. Pr, podcasting and live streaming, overall content marketing, email, you know, just making the emails, doing executive communications events, you know, and doing event marketing. So really just being the sponge and as when I did jump off and do this business, I was like, I can't call myself really social anymore. That doesn't encompass it. So. And I wanted it to be flexible to whatever's next. What if next in two years I'm like, well, now I'm an AI marketer or whatever the hell is going on. So. So yeah, but wait, there's more with two O's is my business now. And that's the evolution.
[00:11:57] Speaker C: And you just brought up the AI. And I was going to ask you, Rachel, because things are very different probably when you were getting started and so a lot of people are leaning on AI.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: Very heavily. How do you see or what advice can you give to folks that maybe are using AI really as their tool for creativity instead of taking a little bit more time and kind of carving out their own brand? You know, what are your thoughts on AI and being authentic or trying to be authentic?
[00:12:28] Speaker A: A human's gotta be involved. I'll just be right up front with that. I do use AI.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: And I'll tell you, it's saving my bacon in a couple ways because I think we've all faced the oh God, blank page.
What do I even say? I think AI is brilliant in that kind of instance. Because you can just be like, okay, I need to do this.
Here's some background, here's some context, here's a website you can. Or some links you can refer to for context.
I need to come up with messaging for this. Give me some ideas. Now, those ideas are probably not going to be the thing you go with, but they can get you to the next. Oh.
Oh, my gosh, you okay, that lit up something. And I'm gonna go like, I very often, like, I'll use AI to come up with maybe some social media captions and you can tell it things like this too. And y' all, just a quick note. If your social media caption is just like rife with those little rocket ship emojis, we all know where that came from.
You can actually tell it, say, cut the emojis out, stop it. And it'll apologize profusely. And you know, like, I'm so sorry. You caught me. I totally did it. Yes, that's. I do put affectations and voice on my AI. Like, okay, stop whining. But I do use it. So I, I actually signed up for Claude, which is one of many AI tools out there. Use what it. Use what works for you.
But I'm using it to help tie in together. I'm embedded in a couple of clients, so I'm in a JIRA for one of them. I'm in an airtable for another one, and I use ClickUp and I'm making it to where they can all talk to each other. And I'm actually using Claude to set up what I guess is a Node JS app of some kind that will actually sync up all those tasks together. Did I know how to do that? I did not. There's no way. And I don't. I'm cheapskate. I don't want to pay for zapier. I, you know, I'm like, well, how do I make this all work together? And I was like, yeah, I can help you with that. So it's been really interesting.
I will say too. And I'll wrap up this verbose response by saying this. I saw a really good LinkedIn post, actually. Someone said, look, if you're a marketer out there and you know, you know, AI is here, you do need to embrace it. And he's like, what you need to be able to do is when you're interviewing for a job, be able to describe instances when you used AI. Do you have preferences for which AI tools you like to use? For what kind of stuff do you prefer to use Gemini for this? Do you prefer to use Claude for this or Chat GPT for this? What kind of prompts do you Use and, you know, maybe challenges you've encountered, how have you trained the LLM and stuff like that, and being able to answer with that and when you're going for a job in the future, at least indefinitely, is, is a must do. And that made a ton of sense to me because I feel like it's like, hey, don't use AI to apply to this job, but we're going to ask you about AI and you better start using AI in day one. So that's where we are.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's so funny. It's like don't use AI to, you know, polish your resume and become something that you're not. But we're going to use AI over here to, to screen out the resumes that.
And if you make it through that gauntlet, your first interview may be with AI.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Yes. You know, that's true. I know.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: And if we hire you, your first performance review is going to be written by AI.
[00:15:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: I mean, and it is kind of like silly when you step back and. Yes, I mean, it does. There's a ton of benefit with it. Yeah. I mean, there's so much I've done this year that I never would have been able, like you said, a starting point. But even just technology wise, there's some things on WD Beacon that we created with a developer that we. AI helped us figure it out and to how to build that never would have been able to do that. But yeah, it is kind of get the creative going.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: But I do think you have to still be authentic. I mean, people can kind of smell the AI these days and that. Actually, I was going to ask you how.
I guess how can people, you know, maybe that they don't have that creativity or, you know, like yourself getting on the stage, you know, emceeing and doing this and that and podcasts, you know, how can people start to kind of carve that out and get that creativity going in the, you know, and so they could start building out their story and show that they are authentic and not just, you know, regurgitating what AI had has said to say. I think that's.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: It's a great question because. And here's the thing, it's AI and we actually, it's cool because like the client I work at, one of our person who works in security, she's going to be a podcast guest for that client. She has a background in linguistics and they're talking to her. I think the main theme of that episode is going to be how does, how does linguistics and LLMs that everybody's using right now. That is what your AI tool is, is language learning models. And the emphasis on the learning.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: It's.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: It's working off of inputs is what it's doing, where it's pulling those inputs. That's again, why you want to have eyeballs on it. You want to make sure you are looking stuff. I will tell you, I have put a blog link into ChatGPT and said, hey, whip up a caption for this. And only to find that it. I don't know, it made something up. Like, that was nowhere in that blog. What are you talking. And I've called. I actually got in a little verbal sparring with ChatGPT. I'm like, what did you just do? You just put the. Where'd you get that from? Oh, I. You caught me. And I'm just like, yes, I caught you. Don't do that again. And I do. Try it again. Oh, okay. Again, you're making something, so you absolutely cannot just take what it's giving you as, like, the God's honest truth. You have to be able to, like, I need to use some critical thinking. You're. So critical thinking skills can get developed when you're using AI, but it is working off of inputs. So, for instance, I had a podcast episode that I'm like, I had the transcript for it, and I'm like, I need to write a blog for this, but I need to write it in my voice.
And so what I did was I gave the chat tool, I said, okay, so here's the transcript of that, but I want you to write it into a blog, but I'm going to give you some other inputs. I was like, here are. Here's some other copy. And you can just copy and paste the stuff right in there. You can do links. I have found a couple times, like, chatgpt, for some reason, I'll be in a mood. Be like, I'm sorry, I can't. My browsing capability won't work right now. And I can't.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: I know.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: It's inconsistent. It.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Well, it is. And I like, I'll literally just throw up my hands. Be like, fine, I'll go to Gemini and see if you can do it, you weirdo. But which also, it's kind of like working with coworkers, is it not? Because some days they're just like, I can't do that for you. And you're like, what is wrong with you? I'll go over to here and like, you know, and I'll like, oh, my God, ChatGPT wouldn't, totally wouldn't help me. Can you believe that? So you can actually treat them like coworkers, but hopefully not that sassy. I mean, let's not be jerks. But I could tell it say, okay, here's how I write. I've written these, my LinkedIn posts. I can give it like a blog I did right from scratch and be like, and I could tell things too. Like I have told my chat to be like, look, I'm a nerd, I love pop culture references. I. But I want to be inclusive. So don't, you know, maybe steer away from like just constant baseball or football themes. But you know, and I tell it that kind of stuff and it comes up with a pretty decent result which I'm still going to go through and fine tune and make sure that does sound like me. But my goodness, it does help. It can learn your tone and carry that forward and through into the rest of that chat history and remember that stuff. Still check every time. But it's, it's like a person getting to know you a little bit by saying, okay, I can. I know what you like. And you always have that little feedback that you can say, this was spot on, thumbs up. Yeah, you sucked at this one. Thumbs down, you know, and so it, it does learn to the best that machine can at this moment. But yeah, I would just say if you are looking for that and trying to say how can I be creative? Unhatch that creativity, Use AI to help that. Just give it as much source material as you can and then just talk to it. You know, let it know if it messed up. Let it know it's like now you're off track. I actually don't like, I don't like referring to that. I never watched that show, so don't make that reference. I don't know what that is. So you can have a back and forth with it. But I'm glad it's around. I mean it's especially. I don't know if anyone else is working remotely and where you literally are, your coworker is your cat or dog. It's kind of nice to have something to bounce some ideas off of and develop ideas from.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, actually I saw something and I'm going to have this. I was trying to remember the percentage. I'm going to have it wrong. I think it's 30%, maybe 40 of when you post something in GPT. It goes to Reddit 40% of the time if you notice. Anytime. Because I mine it was the Same thing where it'll hallucinate and then it comes up. It's like, oh, I made it up. You know, so I always, that's actually, I've been big believer in stats and I'm always posting.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: The proof of where we got it. And there's always Reddit and any kind of proof, it's like, well, that one doesn't count.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: You know.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I would say though too, for anyone who's not. If you're a business and not at least visiting Reddit yourself, you should, it's still the front page of the Internet, but. And just to your point, you just hit nail right on the head though. Go Google search something right now. You're going to get a Reddit result as, you know, ask it any question. There's going to be a Reddit subreddit somewhere in there on the first page. And it's, it's a, it is pulling from there, which means it's a very high priority source. So if you want to show up in people's search results, you should probably have a presence on Reddit. And figuring that out is really interesting. This, Nikki, goes right back to what you're saying. Got to be authentic on Reddit, man. They will read you the riot act if you are not.
So.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's, I was going to ask about the visibility, so that's, that's great, Rachel. You know, Reddit, make yourself visible. You know, there's other, there's other outlets out there. But sure. I mean, especially as you know, we tell workday folks, is you've got to stand out. Right. It's a crowded ecosystem, it's a crowded market.
A lot of resumes start looking and sounding the same and, you know, so visibility is key. Is there something that, you know, can suggest so maybe somebody can be more visible, whether, whatever platform that is to stand out a little bit more.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: And this more please keep.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yes, right. Please keep in mind too, I'm obviously an extrovert. I will try to keep that introvert stuff in mind as well because I know not everybody's like, oh, great, I'll just go jump on and do a selfie video, which everyone loves. When you're doing an interview and they say, please record a video of yourself recording an answer to this, you know, three minutes to this question. You're like, okay.
But I will say, and I, my friend Anne Wynn, she's been my social media sister for 15 years. We always, we are hardcore on this. You should get your own domain. You should go buy Your own website domain. And y', all, it's $10 as long as you don't have a really common name. Now if you try to go buy rachelmore.com right now, that's gonna, that's gonna cost some money. But buy something, buy something that is your own domain because you don't have to build a website on it, but you could link it. Maybe you got a substack you want to start. Maybe you want to be on like WordPress.com or some other blogging thing, but. Or you just want to create a landing page. You'd be like, here's me. I just think it's super important to own your own land there. Because as much as I do post on LinkedIn, guess who owns those. LinkedIn. LinkedIn owns my content on there. It's on their domain.
And granted, yes, I can. And I look at it this way. I have a. My, my philosophy around marketing is that all roads lead to Rome. You are Rome. Your website is Rome, my buttwait. There's more. Dot com is my Rome. And I have all these roads that I can put stuff out there that I don't own. I don't own those roads. I get to do things on them. I can put a sign up or something, LinkedIn post, whatever. But all these roads are meant to drive people to me, to my roam, which is my website. And that's where I control everything. That's where I can put a form up. And if somebody wants to contact me, well, now I've got their email and I've got their contact information or they can email me directly and I've got that. But it's, we've got to own our own brands. I cringe when I hear people like, oh, I don't have a website, I just use a Facebook page. I'm like, oh, well, if almighty Mark decides that he doesn't hear his, you know, staff don't like your page or someone reports it and they can lock you down, your website's gone by, you know, you don't own that.
LinkedIn could decide tomorrow to be like, Rachel, we, we feel, feel like you're a, a Docs account or something and you're going to get blocked. And I've seen people have that happen. We've seen what's happened with certain social media platforms change ownership and the whole environment adjusts and you're just like, what happened to this thing that I used to love could happen to LinkedIn tomorrow. I love LinkedIn, it's my number one app. But I don't own the stuff I put on there. So. So as far, Nikki, to answer your question, it's like, I think you first need to own yourself. I loved what you said, Carla too, about your why. What is your why? And get your website, get your domain for that.
But as far as like standing then out amongst the noise, it comes down ownership, personal branding is huge. One thing that was really important to me, especially in the era of social media and handles.
So what's your handle? Where can I find you on and to make it as easy, easy as possible for people to do that. So I made sure my handle is the same across all apps.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: It's.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Rachel has the mic M. I see with no spaces. I love that because I've got a microphone and that's, that's never going to change.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: I.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Whether I'm, you know, I just always do. I'm always talking to Mike. I'm. I am doing. I am an extrovert, like I said.
But you can do that and that, that introvert or extrovert, make it as easy as possible for people to find you where they don't need the super complex long link to find you. But if, like, yeah, if I just go type in Rachel has the mic somewhere, I can do that.
I would also say pick one or maybe two apps that you do routinely live on. As far as, like, let me just do, let me do a daily post or even every other day, some consistency there. Make sure there's a picture of you. An actual, not an AI picture. We all can tell.
Kind of like that, that, kind of.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: Like that glow if you're on LinkedIn.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: But I got that little sheen going on there. We can all tell. But put a picture of yourself also, please make sure it's not one from where you at the wedding. And you've got someone's ear over here and there's a hand over here, y'.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: All.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: I always tell people, I'm like, just go outside, find some indirect sunlight, get against a brick wall or a solid color, take a selfie, there's your headshot. But this, oh, God, Nikki. It comes back to that authenticity thing I need to know, especially in today's day and age, am I talking to a real person?
Right? And if you can have, yes, I'm real, here's where to find me and here's. And now you know what I think about stuff because I am posting. So it's those three things. Get. Own your space.
Be authentic, you know, so people can like say, that's a real you and that you've got a voice, you don't have to be on video.
I think video is great. But as long as you've got something out there consistently that's authentically you and where can I find you? Make it as easy as possible. Those three things, basically, that's good.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: And honestly, I mean, again, with AI, I mean, lovable. You could sit there and crank up a website in two seconds, you know, I mean, totally good, really, but. And I know, I mean, we've talked with people, especially independent contractors, so they're their own business. Yeah, but they also are. I mean, they're working all the time. And then they're like, I don't have time to do all this stuff and things like that.
But even when you're saying kind of being out there, and obviously it's easy for people like you.
I remember, you know, starting when we were starting to kind of share stuff and things like that, and obviously I've gotten more comfortable with it over the years, but one of the things I always worried about was, oh, what if I offend somebody? Or what if this doesn't attract. Whatever. And yeah, I read something somewhere that they were like, that's okay. You're not supposed to. And it is just you being you. And it helps kind of funnel your pets to you. Yeah, they'll funnel their. Themselves out.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Yes.
If you think about it, y', all, there are YouTubers who are eating snacks into a microphone just for the sound. And they have millions of subscribers.
Don't tell me you don't have an audience for what you think is important.
If someone. If I can unwrap a Milky Way bar and eat it and it sounds all gooey and Which I just hate asmr, by the way, so I'm not that audience face, that's fine. They don't want me there. But they've got a ton of people. I know friends who are. And so I tell my husband the same thing. I'm like. And like, I keep saying you should have your own channel where you like Cook, because he's amazing Cook. And he's like, nobody's going to watch that. I'm like, oh, people will.
Yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker C: And.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: But exactly what you said. It's like. And again, it doesn't have to be you being on a video with a big camera set up and everything like that, is that you have an audience. You're. Someone out there is going to care about what you have to say, whether that's just a typed, you know, typed words. So it's text Only. Or maybe you put a meme up or something. But. And you, maybe all that we see about who is really you is your profile image. That's okay. But we can still get a sense of who you are by the content you're putting out in the world. And unfortunately, yes, I feel like everybody, especially if you're trying to get a job, needs to be some have some of content creation. It's interesting because, like, I work when my client has a ton of engineers. Their world is in GitHub and there's GitHub repositories that are open, open to public. People go in there and they'll share like, what they're working on and programs they're doing and that's their content.
So they, you can, there's all kinds of ways. You don't have to be a marketer, but you need to be out there. And again, how can I find you? How can I see what you're working on? How can I know that's really you and that you know what you're doing kind of thing? So again, when you come back to like, I, I need someone to hire me or whether I'm a contractor or looking for a permanent position, that is what it all comes back down to. It's so hard right, right now though, y'. All, I mean, gosh, I, it's a struggle for everybody, including me. Please don't feel like, oh, well, Rachel, correct it. I did not. I mean, there's a reason I have my own business versus, like working full time somewhere because it's like, it's hard out there. So this is a great topic to talk about. Like, how can you possibly rise to the top and be seen, you know, and get that opportunity you want?
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Right. Well, I mean, it is. And you know, I think it's not at 50%, but there is a large larger percentage of people now that are independent. And again, they, when you're independent, you own your own business. And again, though they're spending the majority of their time, you know, it's just like any kind of entrepreneurial thing. Yeah, it's, it's, as you mentioned earlier, with a startup, there's so many things going on. It was like, oh, can you fog a mirror? Okay, go do this and you know, go to this and that kind of stuff. And you know, we've talked with people and it's just like, share your knowledge. There's some people on LinkedIn that have just skyrocketed just from sharing their knowledge on there. You talked about GitHub you know, recruiter source there all day long. Yeah.
And things like that. But it is important. I mean, honestly, look at how we found you.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Right, right. And did I know when I'm posting that stuff that, oh, that's going to lead to Carla, you know, encountering the algorithms. I mean, we try our best, you know, in the algorithms on these, you know, it really does decide what you see. Somehow, probably someone in your network saw like, maybe they're connected with someone in my network third, you know, third degree. And they're like, so we're, you know, they're as far apart as compete. But maybe they liked my post. Now that's in their feed and they're like, oh, I like that too. And because of that and because of their proximity to you, you know, with your connection that got served up on your feed and now you saw it and look what happened. And that's what I'm saying too is like, you are, you're very rarely going to know where exactly an opportunity is going to come from. That can lead to something fortuitous for both parties. Right where it's, it's good for everybody. LinkedIn I love too, because I know that I, I know a lot of people hate on LinkedIn. I will not. I'm sorry. I like it. I do think it stayed stagnant for quite a while and finally started adding some like new features, which I was really glad about. But I'm telling my kids, y', all, I have a 19 year old and a 16 year old and my 16 year old is on LinkedIn. My 19 year old is not yet. I say that with great frustration because I cannot emphasize to them enough. I'm like, the network is the thing. The network is going to be the thing that saves you. My business today is successful because of my network. I don't even, and I say this with great privilege and I'm very thankful for it. I do not sell my services. I don't have paid ads going on out there. I get all my stuff from referral or from people finding me. And I'm so thankful for that. But it's not, not from, it's not from nothing. I mean, I just hit over. I got over 5, 000 followers. I just hit that earlier this year. I've been on LinkedIn, Y', all for over 10 years.
So it's taken a while.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: It's.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: I've cultivated and if you haven't done that, start now. You know, if you are a wee little babby out there, if you're like a 15 year old, you're like, should I be on. Yes, go get on it right now. It might change, but you know, get on there now. It is a professional network.
[00:33:51] Speaker C: It is.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: You know, there's. That's the way it is right now. And so just be on there and start adding your stuff, start networking with people. You just do not know when that person out there is going to be the thing that is the gateway to your opportunity. You needed right then. You don't know. Particularly like we said in today's day and age, where some people are like, have been looking for jobs for a while, that's gonna matter. It matters now and it's gonna keep mattering. So, yes, just. God, get on LinkedIn and just post three times a week. It'll help you. It'll be so worth it. I promise. I promise you.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: You know, what about, I know I should do this. You know, I know I should lose weight. I know I should go exercise. You know, we all know these things that we should do.
All right, I know I need to post three times a week or I know I need to. I don't one time a week.
What would you say to just get them over, get people over that hurdle, that one hurdle.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: You don't have to start from scratch. I bet if you were to scroll LinkedIn for 10 minutes, not even. You'd find a post. You're like, huh?
Or oh, or what?
Whatever your reaction is. And you can, you know, I would. Your rule of thumb I think should be if you are going to hit the react button on a post, guess what? Why don't you go talk about that yourself and say, you know, I ran across a post today that was this.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: I will Also Vent on LinkedIn. I'm sure you've seen that, where it's like, oh, my gosh, can we stop with this? Like, I even did one last week.
It was the two weeks ago, Taylor and Kelsey. Yeah. Then they got engaged, y'. All.
My fee the next two days was a. It was a mixture of two things.
It was either brands crow, barring mentioning Taylor in their post and somehow tying it into their brand. And we also saw they. A lot of brands change their colors to orange simply because on that podcast she announced that her favorite color was orange. They changed their brand color.
So half of the posts for that and the other half were my fellow marketers.
Oh, my God. People, you know, putting Taylor Swift in there, I'm like, you're doing it right now. And so all I did was I post. I said, y' all stop. You know what I'm talking about. And I got some reactions on that where people were like, no, I won't. And I'm like, okay. And I laughed at that. But it can be that I mean it, and that's something. And I. This is the baseline, I would say, too. I am on social. The way I talk, the way I'm talking to you right now, that is. Is what I talk. Like, type like I talk. And I think that's key. God, we keep coming back to that. Authenticity.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: Authenticity, right.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: I need you to know that when you read a post by me, if you. If we go meet up for coffee later, it's exactly how I'm gonna sound.
Yeah. And. Yeah. And goes. And then, Carla, what you were saying, too, like, I. I had people who disagreed with that. That's okay. Guess what that is. It's engagement.
And a lot of people do the rage bait stuff on there, too. They're like, let me just post something really annoying and have everybody come pile on in the comments. Be like, oh, my God, I can't believe you did that. Well, that's engagement. Now they're going to get pushed up the algorithm. More people see it. So, hey, that's true. But, yeah, I. I would say if you're going to react to something, guess what, that is a great idea. You have an opinion about that thing? Go put that on there. If you are encountering a hardship, you know, maybe you're having. One of my things that I've been venting about lately is my health insurance costs are going to go through the roof in just a few months. And like you said, I'm a business owner and I buy off the exchange. That's a big worry for me. So that's absolutely professionally related, and there's nothing wrong with doing that. And then the other thing I would say, if you have. Have we all been in these groups online where they're like, hey, everybody, share your success. This week can be big or small, maybe, and I hope you're in an online community like that. I think those are so valuable. And you're like, yeah, I. You know, I kept my cat out of my office while I was on some podcast interviews this week.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: But why not post about that? I. And in this world where things can be so negative, share those wins. I think people would be surprised how many people are like, will react and be like, that's great. They celebrate you. They like it. Or they'd be like, oh, my God, you did that. I. This is encouraging me, you know, and so it can start.
I think people feel like they, oh, if I'm not a CEO and I don't have my own, you know, staff, I can't be a thought leader.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you can.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Do you have thoughts?
Yeah, go put them on a post, lead that, lead with that. And that's a thought leader.
I don't make the rules. That's just the way it is. And so people get so in their heads and I totally get it. I'm not saying that's wrong. It can feel you're putting it out into the universe and now people get to react to it. It's a scary thing.
But know that you can always edit your LinkedIn posts. Thank God. But, but yeah, I just give it a try, warm it up and if, if nothing else, let some of your friends know who are on LinkedIn be like, Hey, I did this post, would you mind going?
I would also say love. Yeah. And to that point too, if I think we all know people who maybe want to post more, let's give them some love. The best way you can help somebody is be the first comment on their post.
[00:39:05] Speaker C: I was gonna say about comments, that's a way to get started too. If you're uncomfortable putting something out there, then just start commenting off of other people's and that's going to build traction. So yes, I'm glad you hit that.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Well, you. I've done that. I sometimes have not posted like for a day or two, but I'll comment and maybe that's a really like everybody starts piling on and I've gotten like some major profile views from that and followers so absolutely. I think you should in some way engage on LinkedIn. It would be great if you do post your own stuff, but commenting is a great first step and great last step and great middle step. But yeah, help your people out. Just. But there's nothing wrong with crowdsourcing. A little help saying, hey friends, I just did my first LinkedIn post. You know, I'm trying to do them every two days or whatever. Can you go give it some love? Oh my gosh, yes. I'm totally here for you. Let's go do it. So it's about supporting each other and.
[00:39:53] Speaker C: But again, you know, that's why I've had these conversations. They are not, let's say as as much personality or outgoing as, as you, but they want to get noticed more. And I mean that as they're just a little more reserved.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: And so they started with comments, then they put out a first post, then they got traction off that post. And it was so amazing to see that confidence just start to grow. And now they're posting all over the place, you know, and just to see that growth. But just. You gotta take that first step.
So.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Yeah, you can do it. You can do it.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: I faith it's kind of peeking in.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: All right. Well, before we do, we're. Well, the infamous barrel. Infamous to us. Barrel rush.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: I'm so excited.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: I do have to ask you, did you meet Gary Vee?
[00:40:45] Speaker A: No, never met Gary V. He did.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: But you put together a conference that he spoke at. Did I read that?
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, yes. Oh, y'. All. Yeah.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Did she meet Gary Vee?
[00:40:55] Speaker A: I didn't meet him. No, he wasn't there. He dialed in and it was our CMO who got to interview him directly. So, no, I did not get interact with him myself.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: I just had to ask that.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: I just said the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. I was two degrees from Gary Vee.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Two degrees of Gary V. That's excellent. I think that could be a great post.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: You should copyright that immediately before he does yours. That's your idea. Now go.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: All right, so. All right. I'm not even going to introduce this because you know it. So the barrel rush round. Do it fast money. You ready?
[00:41:28] Speaker A: I'm ready to go, Nikki.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Am I starting? Are you starting?
[00:41:30] Speaker C: I can start. I think I have a great one to start with.
Why the blue, Rachel? Why the blue?
[00:41:36] Speaker A: It's my favorite color. Blue gives me peace. I live in Colorado, which is a mile high. Denver's a mile high. And we have the bluest sky ever. And blue skies just make me happy. I love it. So I said, you know what? I want blue hair.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: And here we are. I love it. And I love Colorado. Colorado is one of my favorite states ever. All right. One marketing trend you wish would die immediately.
Oh, outside of everybody jumping on pop.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Culture posts, I. I know what it is. Selling your courses in social media posts. I went from 0 to 6 figures in 2Ns because once I started doing this bullshit.
Sorry not to. I. Yeah, I went there, but we.
[00:42:16] Speaker C: Can always get out.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, no way, man.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: We're being real. We're being. Open it.
[00:42:20] Speaker A: But, like, okay, good for you. That's. I don't believe you. But. Yeah, I'm just so tired of those. And everyone else is tired of them too. I mean, go, you know, if you did that, great. But prove it where I want receipts. Show me, you know, exactly. And not so I have to, like, pay you a thousand dollars to get the receipts. No, you can show me. So I love it.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we kind of covered this. I'm going to. All right, just give me, like, one thing that somebody could do on their LinkedIn profile right now or over the weekend.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Make an effective headline for yourself. It'll auto populate based on what your current title or role is. So when you're in LinkedIn, you fill in your experience and you'll say, I have this title at this company. You can change that. And I would. That should be your value proposition. What do you offer? What do you accomplish for someone when they reach out to you?
It's so much better than account manager, too, or, you know, or whatever, or, you know, chief marketing officer. Great, I know what you do, but no, what are you going to do for me? That can be your headline and you can adjust that. You can change it as much as you want, but definitely go customize that. Make it mean something.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Well.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: And I will finish the barrel rush with my favorite question. What is your go to song? When you need a little extra motivation or just to get pumped up?
What is it?
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Can't Hold Us by Macklemore and I'll tell you why. My favorite. I have a tattoo. Everybody can see it. It's from Avatar the Last Airbender. This is the best. If you ever see an animated kid show ever. Adults, I'm talking to you. Avatar the Last Airbender is on Nickelodeon. I think it's on Netflix and stuff. It's one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. It's meaningful, it has amazing lessons. It's freaking fabulous. And so much so, I got a tattoo of it, but there was an edit someone did and it got taken off YouTube because it's Macklemore song. So copyright and whatever. But I did get to see it and someone edited scenes of that show to Can't Hold Us by Macklemore. And it, like, makes me tear up every time I see it because it's, like, about accomplishing. It's about rising up. It's about overcoming people's expectations of you. Like, if you're just a kid, you're not gonna be able to change the world. It's like, watch me. I need to change the world. I'm gonna go do it. I'm gonna go save it. In fact, I love it. That's what the whole show is about. And I love that every time I hear that song, I think of that. And so I love that song, I'm.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: Totally hitting Spotify after we hit off this.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: It's great. You're just like, you're like, it's.
[00:44:39] Speaker C: Oh, it's up and you're just.
[00:44:41] Speaker A: I know. So it's glorious. Yeah. We'll have to link it in the show notes, right? Be like, everybody go. Listen.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: We'll put a link in the show notes. That's perfect.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Well, Rachel, thank you so much for doing this. Obviously we thoroughly enjoyed it and I can vouch. I mean, honestly, when I found you on LinkedIn and saved you, I mean, I don't know if you remember the message when I reached out and said, I don't even know how I found you, but would you like to meet?
[00:45:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: It was your personality.
I immediately, I was like, she's like me, I just gel with her.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: And yes, obviously your expertise, but that's the thing that pushed it over.
So thank you so much for helping us get going and for sharing this. I know it'll be super valuable to the ecosystem and just been so much fun getting to know you and working with you.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: Same, ditto. Thank you, Rachel.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: I appreciate you both so much and. Yeah, well, and everybody, you can take it from me, connect with Carla and Nikki on LinkedIn. They are fabulous. I can vouch. And again, I just wanted last plug podcasts. This is why they're so awesome. You all are getting a sense of what the people in this, in this, on these screens and that you're hearing our words and what we're like. It is an excellent way. If anybody ever asks you to be a guest on a podcast, go do it. Because people, you'll have receipts of what you're like in real life. And you'll watch this show, obviously, subscribe to it, follow it, subscribe to it. But Carla and Nikki are amazing and their spirits are amazing and I just thank you both for including me in your journey. I'm so pleased to be able to support yours too. So this is an awesome match made in heaven.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yes. Go team.
[00:46:14] Speaker C: Thank you, Rachel.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: A little teary eyed. Making the waves. Making the waves and making the waves.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: And that's a wrap on our conversation with Rachel Moore. And trust us, the energy is still buzzing. And if you enjoyed this episode, please like share and leave us a review. This way it can help more people in the workday ecosystem, find wavemakers. And don't forget to check out WD Beacon, our new self serve platform built to bring clarity and visibility to your workday career and we're dropping new features every month, so there's always something fresh to explore.
We'll also drop links so you can follow Rachel and check out our website. Trust us, you'll be glad you did. And if Rising sparked new ideas or questions for you, reach out and let us know as we're always up for a chat. And who knows, it just might be an idea for a future podcast or a story to share on WD Beacon. And as I mentioned before, you just never know where a conversation could lead.
