People person from a small town. Working hard to better myself everyday and will take on every project I have time for.

Chris Cunningham

Head of Marketing: I need $400K for a rebrand.
CEO: What's wrong with our brand?
Head of Marketing: The agency said it feels "dated" and "doesn't reflect where we're headed as a company."

CEO: Which agency?

Head of Marketing: The one that charges $400K for rebrands.

CEO: Walk me through what $400K gets us.

Head of Marketing: A new logo, updated color palette, brand guidelines document that's 97 pages long, a new font, and a "brand story" video that we'll post on LinkedIn and get at least 2,000 views.

CEO: And that drives revenue how?

Head of Marketing: It doesn't directly, but the agency said it'll "reposition us in the market" and "signal maturity to enterprise buyers."

CEO: Have any enterprise buyers told you our brand is the problem?

Head of Marketing: No. They've told us our onboarding is confusing, our pricing page makes no sense, and they can't find a case study for their industry. None of which a new logo fixes.

CEO: So why are we talking about a rebrand?

Head of Marketing: Because... honestly? Because our competitor just did one and it looked really clean.

CEO: So we're spending $400K because someone else changed their shade of blue.

Head of Marketing: When you put it like that...

CEO: Here's what I want instead. Take $50K and fix the pricing page. Take $50K and build 5 industry-specific case studies. Take $50K and redesign onboarding. Keep the other $250K.

Head of Marketing: But the brand feels...

CEO: The brand feels fine. Revenue feels slow. Fix what customers are actually complaining about and I promise you nobody will care what shade of blue the logo is.

Head of Marketing: You're right.

CEO: I know.

PS - This is how the conversations should have gone at Jaguar, Cracker Barrel, and the other rebrands last year. Most rebrands solve an internal identity crisis, not a customer problem. If no buyer has ever told you your brand is the reason they didn't buy, the money is better spent almost anywhere else.

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

Chris  Cunningham

We spend $20k/month on content at ClickUp and get 250M+ impressions. Everyone asks me for the secret sauce, so here it is. We stopped hiring "content creators" and started hiring unemployed actors from LA...

Sounds crazy. I know. But read to the end & I promise it'll make sense.

There are literally thousands of insanely talented actors with theatre training, improv experience, and zero work. They're fighting for background roles just to pay the rent.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn/TikTok Influencers want $10k/month to recycle the same hooks everyone else uses.

Here's how I accidently tapped into the actor ecosystem...

I first found Luke when he was doing TikToks for another company. They let him go. I hired him 10 minutes after he texted me.

First month, Luke didn't even know what ClickUp was. We had to teach him what project management software does.

Now he's the face of our brand, creating videos that hit 100+ million views making fun of corporate life.

Luke worked because he could act. That was it.

So I started thinking about where else in LA I could find people like him.

The Groundlings came up in a conversation. That's the top improv group in LA where Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig trained, so I went and cherry-picked actors from their roster.

Best decision I've ever made for ClickUp's content engine.

Here's what this actually costs:
➝ Beginner actor: $60-80k/year
➝ Experienced actor: $100-130k/year
➝ Comedy writers: $100-150/hour for our Monday writer's room
➝ Background talent: $200-300/day when we need them

Compare that to "social media experts" charging $7-10k per video.

But wait, it gets better. The added bonus is that actors are actually professionals...

They show up on time.
They memorize lines.
They take direction without ego.
They're trained to entertain humans, not game algorithms.

Unlike most content creators, all actors want is consistent work and someone who believes in them.

The talent's all in LA and NYC, desperate for work, and they'll transform your content for less than you're paying that agency right now.

Thoughts?

Head of Marketing: I want to eliminate the MQL.
CEO: That's literally how we measure marketing. What are you going to report to the board?
Head of Marketing: Pipeline. Revenue. The things that actually matter.

CEO: MQLs lead to pipeline.

Head of Marketing: Do they? Last quarter we generated 4,200 MQLs. Sales accepted 600. Of those, 43 became opportunities. 9 closed. We threw a party when we hit the MQL goal. Sales missed quota by 35%.

CEO: So the problem is lead quality, not the metric.

Head of Marketing: The metric creates the quality problem. My team is incentivized to get someone to download a PDF. That's it. The moment they download, we've "won." What happens after that is sales' problem.

CEO: So change what counts as an MQL.

Head of Marketing: I've redefined it 4 times in 2 years. Every time, we game it. Marketing always hits the number. Pipeline never moves. Because we're not optimizing for a buying signal.

CEO: What do you want to measure instead?

Head of Marketing: Opportunities sourced by marketing, pipeline dollars, and closed revenue with marketing attribution. Things my team can't game by running another ebook campaign.

CEO: Sales is going to say they don't have enough leads.

Head of Marketing: Sales says that now. They have 4,200 MQLs and they're complaining because 90% of them are garbage. They don't want more leads. They want better ones. They've told me this directly.

CEO: The board is used to seeing MQL numbers.

Head of Marketing: The board is used to seeing a number go up while revenue stays flat. They're going to ask why eventually. I'd rather explain the change now than explain the failure later.

CEO: What happens to the demand gen team?

Head of Marketing: They'll stop optimizing for form fills and start optimizing for qualified meetings. When we give them a different target I'm confident they will hit it. Half of them have told me privately they're relieved.

CEO: If pipeline drops...

Head of Marketing: If pipeline drops I'll bring the MQL back. But when sales starts hitting quota because they're finally getting leads who actually want to talk to them, you'll forget MQLs existed.

CEO: One quarter.

Head of Marketing: When the sales team stops ignoring our leads and starts thanking us for them, you'll give me four.

PS - MQLs measure marketing activity. Pipeline measures marketing effectiveness. One makes your team feel good. The other makes your company money. Choose.

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

If you're not testing AI video right now, you're already behind.

I say that as probably the biggest believer in human-made content you'll find in this space. I bet on it every day. In how I think about marketing, how I build campaigns, how I hire.

But I never stop testing AI. Not because I think it's going to replace what we do. Because I need to know where it's at.

So when Luma reached out to test their agents, I said yes immediately. I had to check it out!

Here's what I kept running into on projects before this: you start with a clear vision, the project moves through people and tools and revisions, and somewhere in all of that the original idea gets quietly diluted. 

Not because anyone dropped the ball. Just because every handoff loses a little something.

By the time you see the final cut, it technically checks every box. But it doesn't feel like the thing you had in your head at the start.

What I noticed with Luma: the context carries. Every step forward, the brief is still there. The thing you're building at the end still looks like the idea you had at the beginning.

I still work with human talent. That's not changing. But I've been using Luma more than I expected for developing ideas early and keeping things consistent across projects that touch a lot of hands.

I've tested a lot of AI video. Luma is the one I kept coming back to.

Dive into AI with Luma today: https://lnkd.in/gmz3dkQe

#LumaPartner

Head of Marketing: I'm shutting down our marketing automation sequences.
CEO: We have 23 active nurture tracks. That's 18 months of work..
Head of Marketing: 18 months of work that generates a 0.3% click rate. Our "engaged" leads are opening emails and immediately archiving them.

CEO: Nurture sequences warm up leads.

Head of Marketing: They used to. When inboxes weren't flooded with 47 other companies doing the exact same thing. Now our carefully crafted "Day 3" email sits between a competitor's "Day 3" email and a cold pitch from someone selling intent data.

CEO: So write better emails.

Head of Marketing: We rewrote them twice. A/B tested subject lines for 6 months. Hired a conversion copywriter. Open rates went up 8%. Pipeline from email went up zero because the problem isn't the writing. It's that nobody asked for 14 emails.

CEO: What's the alternative?

Head of Marketing: One email when they download something. One email when they hit pricing. A human follow-up from sales when intent signals say they're actually shopping. That's it. Three touches with actual relevance instead of 23 touches on a timer.

CEO: The ops team spent months building these workflows.

Head of Marketing: The ops team is spending 20 hours a week maintaining workflows that generate nothing. I talked to them. They'd rather build one system that works than babysit 23 that don't.

CEO: Our competitors have sophisticated automation.

Head of Marketing: Our competitors are sending the same "just checking in" email on Day 7 that we are. The buyer who gets 5 of those a week from different vendors isn't nurtured. They're annoyed.

CEO: Marketing automation is industry standard.

Head of Marketing: So was gating everything and measuring MQLs. Industry standard isn't working standard. The companies growing fastest right now are the ones whose emails you actually recognize because you only get one when it matters.

CEO: What happens to all those leads in the sequences?

Head of Marketing: If they're real buyers, sales reaches out based on intent. If they're not, we stop pretending a 14-email sequence will change that. We can't automate our way to trust.

CEO: If conversion drops...

Head of Marketing: If conversion drops I'll rebuild every sequence personally. But when our emails start getting replies instead of archives because people know when we reach out it actually means something, you'll wonder why we ever tried to automate relationships.

CEO: One quarter.

Head of Marketing: Deal.

PS - Marketing automation promised scale. It delivered spam. The best nurture sequence is a reputation so good that when you do email someone, they actually want to read it.

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

I've never seen a brand struggle to hit 1M+ monthly impressions when they applied ALL of these principles to social media (bookmark this for later):

- Post 5x per week minimum without fail. Most brands quit after week 3. Consistency IS the algorithm hack everyone's looking for.

- Every piece of content must pass the Rule of 3. Does it add value? Educate? Make them laugh? If not, don't post it.

- Short-form content first, repurpose second. Test on TikTok/Reels, then adapt winners for YouTube Shorts and LinkedIn.

- Set an audacious goal publicly and update weekly progress. Build in public, especially when you miss. Vulnerability drives 3x more engagement than winning.

- Create characters people can relate to. Our IT guy with a lisp got 6,000 shares because he was human, not a product demo. B2B buyers share content that makes them feel something.

- Test everything for 60 days before killing it. Most marketers quit at 30 days, right before the algorithm figures out your audience. Get real data, then either 10x it or move on.

- Build machines around winners. Test → find what works → systematize → hand off → find the next thing. Your job is building systems, not being the talent.

- Know your ICP so well you can predict what makes them stop scrolling. Not demographics. Psychographics. What keeps them up at 2 AM? Answer that and you own their feed.

- Make content about work itself, not just your product. Own the humor in meetings, deadlines, office culture. That's the biggest whitespace in B2B nobody dominates.

- Break the pattern of what they expect to see. If your content could work for any brand with a logo swap, start over.

- Cap video budgets at $3K-$15K even with more money. Some of our best content came when we were broke. Constraints force creativity. High production screams "ad."

- Build 12 internal influencers, not just your founder. One person can't carry your entire brand forever.

- Track impressions first, conversions second. You can't convert people who never see you.

- Platform-specific content, not lazy reposts. What works on TikTok dies on LinkedIn. Adapt the idea, don't copy-paste.

- Engage with every comment in the first 60 minutes. The algorithm watches how you react to your audience. Comments are free distribution.

- Test ridiculous ideas that don't make sense. Our most random D-tier concepts have become some of our best A-tier performers. The market tells you what works.

- Never celebrate one viral hit. Going viral once is luck. Monthly is a system. Build the system, not the post.

The brands hitting 1M+ aren't smarter, they just stopped overthinking and started shipping.

What am I missing?

PS - I'm Chris Cunningham and I run social media marketing for ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

Head of Marketing: I'm cutting our Google Ads budget in half.
CEO: Paid search is our highest-converting channel. Why would you touch it?
Head of Marketing: Because 70% of that budget is bidding on our own name..

We're paying Google $18K a month so people who already want us can find us.

CEO: If we don't bid on our brand name, competitors will.

Head of Marketing: They already do. We tested turning off branded search for 2 weeks last quarter. Want to know what happened to demo requests? Nothing. Literally nothing changed. People who typed our name into Google still clicked our organic result. We just stopped paying for the click.

CEO: That's risky. What if we lose share to competitors?

Head of Marketing: We ran the math. In the 2 weeks we paused branded search, competitors picked up just 4% of those clicks, and none of them converted because those people were already looking for us. They clicked back.

CEO: What about non-branded search? That's real demand capture.

Head of Marketing: Non-branded is where it gets worse. Our cost per demo from non-branded search is $2,400. Our cost per demo from organic LinkedIn content is $340. And the LinkedIn demos close at 2x the rate because those people actually engaged with our thinking before they ever hit a landing page.

CEO: Search captures intent.

Head of Marketing: Search captures someone Googling a generic term. LinkedIn builds intent before they ever search. Those are fundamentally different buyers. One is comparison shopping. The other already trusts us.

CEO: The demand gen team lives and dies by paid search metrics.

Head of Marketing: The demand gen team has been optimizing cost-per-click for 3 years while our actual pipeline comes from channels they don't even track. I showed them the data last week. They didn't argue. They asked why nobody told them sooner.

CEO: If demo volume drops..

Head of Marketing: If demo volume drops because we stopped paying Google to serve ads to people who were already clicking our organic link, we have a brand problem, not a media buying problem.

CEO: One quarter.

Head of Marketing: When cost per acquisition drops 40% and demo quality goes up, you'll cut the other half yourself.

CEO: Don't get ahead of yourself.

PS - Paying Google to capture demand you already created is the most expensive habit in B2B marketing. The best brands don't buy clicks. They earn them.

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

$20K → $3.4M in pipeline.
That’s what one SaaS generated last quarter with Creator-Led Growth.

At ClickUp, we run creator partnerships internally.
So I know how powerful this channel can be.
But I also know how hard it is to execute properly.

Most SaaS teams think it’s:
Find creators → sponsor posts → done.
It’s not.

The companies scaling this channel treat it like infrastructure.
The SaaS behind that $3.4M didn’t just activate creators.
They partnered with a specialized CLG team that had already refined the system across 70+ SaaS and 2,000+ sponsored LinkedIn posts.

Because doing this well requires:
– Precision creator selection (not just big names)
– Post-level performance pattern recognition
– Systematic amplification via Thought Leader Ads
– Structured warm outbound targeting engaged ICP accounts
– Tight feedback loops across all three layers

Miss one layer and it becomes brand awareness.
Connect all three and it becomes pipeline.

That’s how they hit:
→ 321,000 impressions
→ 4,000+ clicks
→ 302 qualified leads
→ 1.58% CTR (vs ~0.4% on standard LinkedIn Ads)
→ $40 CPL (vs $100+ on Google)

Can you build this internally?
Yes.
Can most SaaS execute it consistently without prior reps and pattern recognition?
Very hard.

That’s why more and more B2B companies are partnering with specialized CLG operators instead of trying to figure it out from scratch.

If you want to know who’s actually running this for 70+ SaaS companies today,

💬 Comment “CLG”.

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Founding Member ClickUp / Marketing

Soulja Boy taught me my first lesson in viral marketing.

Growing up, I was obsessed with ringtones. I had to have the coolest one.

The second “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” dropped, 678-999-8212, I had it within 24 hours.

That’s when I first discovered Soulja Boy.

He was one of the first artists to jump on ringtones and completely take over.

Then he put his actual phone number in the song.

Millions of people called it.

It was a product demo disguised as a chorus.

Simple. Memorable. Completely ahead of its time.

So when I saw Bland use Soulja Boy to market their voice AI platform, I immediately got it.

Bland automates phone calls with AI that sounds indistinguishable from a real human.

Sales calls. Support. Outbound at scale.

And they got Soulja Boy, the guy who literally turned a phone number into a cultural moment, to front their campaign.

That’s not a celebrity deal.

That’s brand alignment.

When the marketing is that good, you have to give it a try.

That’s my rule.

Signing up to test Bland this week.

I’m Chris Cunningham. I run social at ClickUp. Follow along for B2B marketing takes as I build in public, right here on LinkedIn.

#BlandAIPartner

Bland

Making slides is stressful. Look at me. I lost all my hair trying to make them on my own haha.

In all seriousness, Gamma is a game changer for slides. I don't know why anyone would start from scratch when you have everything they offer:

- AI-generated structure and content, stunning templates
- One-click design themes
- Interactive elements 
- Real-time collaboration
- The ability to publish or present straight from the browser.

Drop in an idea. It builds the whole thing. Structure, design, flow, and done. I actually enjoy presenting again.

Trying to get the hair back with surgery. But at least my slides look amazing 😉

👉 Go try Gamma
#gammapartner

Last month we hit 250M+ impressions across all our social media channels. Now, they want me to hit 300M+, and I know they'll want even more after that. What would YOU do in my position? I'm thinking:

(1) Double down on micro-influencers (the HR skits are working, but we need more angles)

(2) Revamp our YouTube strategy (our short-form is crushing it, but our long-form needs work)

(3) Create more middle-funnel product content (everyone knows ClickUp exists now - we need content that makes you want to USE us)

I've been running social here long enough to know I have blind spots.

What would you do in my position?

Give me something specific like a format, a creator type, a funnel stage, a platform you'd test. Whatever you'd actually run if this was your budget and your problem.

Not looking for "post more reels." I've heard it.

I've been 50/50 on LinkedIn video for the better part of a year. Here's my honest case for and against - and I'd genuinely like someone to settle it for me. The case for:

LinkedIn's algorithm has been pushing video hard. End of 2024 was kind of crazy. I got 2M+ impressions on multiple videos, but then that tanked off completely. I don't think the quality was there anyway.

Then, engagement rates on our tests in 2025 were solid enough. And for B2B, the audience quality here is better than anywhere else we run.

The case against: the production lift is real, the organic reach ceiling feels way lower than short-form on other platforms, and I'm not convinced LinkedIn users are coming here to watch videos - yet.

At ClickUp's content volume, a half-committed bet is basically the same as no bet. If we go in on LinkedIn video, we go in. And I haven't been able to justify that call with the data we have so far.

What would you do?

Especially curious from anyone running video at scale in B2B - what made you commit, what does your format look like, and has it moved anything that actually matters?

Let's see what you got!

PS - I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social at ClickUp.

Follow me for more B2B marketing tips as I build in public here on LinkedIn.

I'm a marketer. Not a developer.

And last week I built my own influencer marketing platform.

I've been vocal about how bad the existing tools are. CreatorIQ, Aspire Software, GRIN (My LEAST favorite). 

None of them are good. I've spent real budget on all of them and been disappointed every time.

So I opened Lovable, talked to it like a friend, and built Track Your Dollars.

I'm a huge fan of Elena Verna so when Lovable gave me credits to test the platform, I jumped at it. What I pulled off in a single night would've taken a developer weeks just a while ago.

If you see a problem in your day-to-day right now, just try it vibe coding.

Talk to it. Tell it what you hate. What you want. Build the thing.

What a time to be alive.

#LovablePartner

A lot of deals are being decided before the second sales call ever happens.

Not because sales reps are doing something wrong.

Because buying behavior has changed.

What actually happens now looks more like this:

Someone takes your first call. They leave the meeting. Then they send your product around internally.

Slack threads. Internal docs. Side conversations with people you've never met.

By the time you show up to the next call, 80% of the decision is already formed.

Which means this matters a lot more than most teams realize.

The companies doing this well are giving buyers something they can explore and share internally.

Interactive demos. Short product walkthroughs. Something they can pass around the buying group.

One thing I thought was interesting, Consensus actually shows you who watched the demo, what parts they focused on, and who it got forwarded to.

Those hidden stakeholders? They're viewing demos 88 hours sooner than your primary contact.

And the numbers are kind of wild.

Bazaarvoice shortened their SMB sales cycle by 33%. Stibo Systems cut buying cycle time by 76%. Oracle scaled presales 20% without adding headcount.

This is where B2B sales is already going. 

The deal is being won or lost between meetings. Most teams just don't know it yet.

#ConsensusPartner

We help b2b SaaS marketers turn their video footage into leads | Founder at A2 Media | Ex-Shopify & Affirm.

Hiiiiiii, I'm Ademola 🙋🏿‍♂️ a professional magician turned video marketer.

I know, weird combo. But here's the thing: after 20+ years of performing magic, I realized something...

The same principles that make an audience lean in during a trick are the same ones that make a buyer trust a brand.

That's why I built A2 Media. We help B2B SaaS brands use video the way it should be used: to build trust, tell great stories, and connect with audiences. 

The added benefit? It fills pipeline and closes deals faster :).

Most B2B brands don't lose to better products. They lose to better storytelling.

How it works: We start with your buyer. What do they believe? What's holding them back? Then we turn that into videos your prospects actually want to watch. 

Content that positions you as the obvious choice.

The results?
→ Your sales team stops explaining the same thing 100x because the content already did it
→ Your pipeline fills with pre-educated prospects who already understand your value
→ Your content drives demos and closes deals. Not just brand awareness

A few things we've helped make happen:
→ Okta: Multiple video series → 20K subs + thousands of DevDay signups
→ Reveal: 4M+ organic impressions in new markets → acquisition shortly after
→ Nearbound: Cut sales time-to-close by 50% with targeted video series
→ Nice Commerce: 482% subscriber growth + multiple 5-figure deals from video
→ A2 Media: Tripled inbound leads with audience-first video edutainment

(Also trusted by teams at Chili Piper, Close, Runway, Warmly, OpenPhone, Treasury4, and Sendoso)

👉🏿 Let your content do the heavy lifting. Work with us: www.a2media.ca

📸 Ademola Adelakun, MBET

LinkedIn Confessions, Part 1.

Featuring Christina Le. Shot and edited by ME 💅🏿✨

Ademola Adelakun

POV: Your video hook sucks.

Featuring: Maggie Arai.

I talk smart, LinkedIn no like.
I talk dumb, LinkedIn big like.
I confuse.

How to get RICH using AI in 2026.

Featuring Maggie Arai.

Disclaimer: This is NOT sponsored by Anthropic. However, if you guys have an affiliate program and you pay retroactively, PLEASE get in touch because we’ve brought you like 10 customers 👀😂

Life is beautiful, isn't it? Turn your sound on 🔊

Ademola Adelakun, MBET

We help you close 35% faster with video. Built for $10M+ SaaS teams with long sales cycles. 600+ videos for brands like Shopify, Okta, and Chili Piper.

Time to make a shit ton of content. 

Featuring: Christina Le, Carmen Vicente, and Christina Pearo.

No alternative text description for this image

PSA: Air Fryers are a SCAM.

Featuring: Maggie Arai (at the end)

We picked a winner for our $15K video giveaway.

BUT if you entered and didn't win, keep reading. You'll wanna hear this.

THERE WERE SO MANY INCREDIBLE PEOPLE THAT ENTERED 🔥

I want everyone to win 😭

But unfortunately, there can only be one winner.

Please join me in congratulating…

✨ Romana Kuts from SaaStorm!!!!!!!!! ✨

Can't wait to meet you, Romana! I'll be in touch soon. 

Now, for everyone else, I'm a big believer in the "everyone gets something" philosophy.

So check your inboxes soon. We've got something coming your way.

I kinda love doing this, so we'll be doing it at least twice a year.

That said, stay tuned for the next one 😉

Christina Le: "You can go crazy with this one"

Me: "You sure? You know I'm unhinged, right?"

Christina: "Mhm. Yep. Totally. Got it. Have fun"

She definitely wasn't listening LOL. 

But that just means it's my moment to shine ✨😌

I present to you, "Ademola learns ya something about Slate, part 2" 

Two things I've learned so far:

1. Christina will let me do literally anything.
2. This is the most fun I've had making content in a long while.

Shoutout to my editors who continue to BRING HEAT WITH THESE EDITS 😌

Wanna try Slate out? 👉🏿 www.slateteams.com

POV: You're a black guy that speaks Japanese.

I once had investors laugh in my face on national television.

And it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

This week, I'm gonna be talking about it on stage in Toronto. 

Quick backstory:

I've started and failed 13 businesses (Ten lost me money, three I walked away from).

I've been rejected more times than I can count.

I've even had people tell me that I wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur.

To which I'd politely reply "hey listen, f*** you" and be on my way.

Despite all of that, today I'm running A2 Media, the company of my dreams, with the best team I could ask for.

People often ask me what possessed me to keep going.

Honestly? I'm stubborn and I don't like being told what I can and can't do.

But the shorter answer is: I wanted to live life on my own terms.

We're always being told that we need to go to school, get a job, find a partner, buy a house, work a job we hate to pay the bills, retire, and then pass away.

Which is kinda boring, no?

I learned early that I need to do things differently to be happy.

So I've committed my entire life to doing things my own way.

Especially in the way that I run my business.

For example, I don't want to scale to the moon. 

I tried that 13 times and I was never happy.

I just want a business that lets me spend more time with the people I love.

Anyways, I'm gonna be talking about my failures on stage this Thursday.

I'll be telling the story of a BIG FAIL that completely changed the way I think about everything.

If you're in Toronto, come hear the full story.

There will be at least 100 of us in the room.

I'm gonna try and learn ya a thing or two. Life lessons n' stuff, ya dig?

(I don't talk like this, idk why this is coming out the way it is)

Get your ticket 👉🏿 https://luma.com/FUNTO9YR

Your bad video titles are costing you leads.

Do better.

P.S. Getting lots of video questions in my inbox lately, so I made this video guide to help you out! Covers everything from getting buy-in for video internally, to closing deals faster with video. No strings attached 👉🏿 https://lnkd.in/ePCHaT_D.

P.P.S. Okay, there's one string attached. If you use it you have to say nice things to me.

If you're awkward on camera, don't be.

Does that help? If not, then watch this video.

Joking aside, please remember that when it comes to video content, you don't have to be perfect. 

The magic is all in the editing bb. 

All you have to remember is: if you mess up, stop talking, take a breath, count to one, and say your line again.

(Unless it's a live webinar. Then you probably look stupid and you should give up).

Otherwise, trust your editor to take care of you.

And most importantly, trust yourself.

Them: “Glad the video got us sales, but did it go vira-“

Me:

Me: "I wonder what comes up when I google myself..."

The results: 

oh okay 😭

Maggie Arai: "What if I started a community for founders?"

Me: "Hmm… are you sure? How would it be different?"

Maggie: "Every founder community ends up being a Slack group nobody checks. I think we need to be face to face more."

Me: "You're not wrong about that… and if there's anyone I trust to figure this out, it's you."

I mean, she's not wrong, is she?

If you're a founder, you know the feeling…

That feeling where you're surrounded by people, but it feels impossible to find YOUR people.

She’s tired of it too. And she’s doing something about it. 

For those of you that don't know, Maggie worked in AI research and policy for a number of years.

She was literally studying how technology is replacing human connection.

And seeing all of that made her realize she needed to get ahead of it.

A few years ago, while she was still in AI research, she built a company called Happier. 

It helped thousands of people in Toronto make real friends, and it got covered on the news TWICE 💅🏿✨

(I’m so proud 🥹)

This time, she's on a similar mission but a different flavour.

(Because we love a good niche down, right?)

So she's building Founders Who Give A F*ck (FWGAF). A community for founders who hate traditional networking and actually want people they can rely on.

Maggie's going to change a lot more lives.

I mean, look at her track record - am I right!? 

(Yes. Yes, I am right.)

If you’re a founder, go follow what Maggie Arai is doing. 

Maybe this is the space you’ve been looking for.

POV: You’re picking up Christina Le from Toronto airport.

graphical user interface, text, application

Pause this video we shot and edited for Slate at 00:12.

Notice anything weird?

Yeah, it is what you think it is 😌

HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT!? 

Our editors used it to build something that would've normally taken days of work.

And it's getting better everyday! 

Tons of brands are replacing their creative teams with AI. 

And it's a dumb move imo.

You're supposed to use AI to fuel the genius of your creators. Not replace them.

Give your best people the best tools, and they’ll produce the best things. 

It’s just math, really 😌

---

📌 P.S. AI generates footage. We generate pipeline.  See how 👉🏿 www.a2media.ca

If you hate video as much as I do, you need to come to this.

This Thursday, we're going to tell you why video is complete sh*t.

My team has made over 500 videos for 25 SaaS brands.

So we would know.

I'll be joined by Louis Butterfield, Oyinkro K, and Connor Lewis.

And we will NOT be holding back.

March 5th at 9:30AM (EST). DO NOT MISS THIS.

Join us here 👉🏿 https://lnkd.in/e35n4v2b

You're welcome 💅🏿✨🙏🏿

P.S. I'm re-reading this and I'm not sure I got the memo correct. Louis can you confirm??

Raise your right hand if you hate sales calls 🙋🏿‍♂️

Me too. But here’s what made me hate them less.

I was always splitting my brain on sales calls.

Am I talking too much? Am I letting them talk enough? Am I asking the right questions?

There was so much noise in my head that wasn't allowing me to be fully present.

And great selling is just having a meaningful conversation, right?

How can you do that if you're trying to juggle a bunch of things at once?

I mean, some people can but definitely not me.

In a lot of ways, selling makes me feel like I'm back in university.

I would always write things down way too slow, miss key points, and struggle to pass the test.

Maybe that's why I've always been so stressed out in sales calls?

Note to self: talk to my therapist about this in our next session ✍🏿

Anyways, I knew there were tools out there that could help - but I was too stubborn to try them out.

AI notetakers were an option, but I'd just tell myself things like:

→ "They're probably not even accurate. No way it catches everything I'm saying." 
→ "I feel weird about being recorded." 
→ "My notes are better, I can just type shorthand and I'll remember it later."

(Fun fact: I never remembered it later)

Meanwhile I'm watching other people use these tools on calls and noticing how much more engaged they are.

I kept saying "I'll try one eventually."

Then I ran into Max Garber from Otter.ai at the Inbound conference.

And he heard me out, listened, and I can't even remember how he did it - but he convinced me to give Otter a chance.

Within a week, everything changed.

After my first call, Otter summarized everything and dropped it in Slack. I looked at it and thought "...I don't have to spend 20 minutes writing the follow-up email now?"

But it wasn't just the summaries.

It caught small things I missed on the call. 

Key details I would've forgotten. 

It organized the next steps so nothing was left to interpretation.

It's not just a note-taker. It's basically become my second brain for every conversation I've had this year.

I stopped being distracted by note-taking and started actually listening.

I quickly learned that selling doesn't need to feel like I'm back in school, trying to avoid failing the next test.

I just needed to listen and ask great questions.

Which you can't do if you're scribbling notes the whole time.

Otter.ai let me be present. And that made all the difference.

P.S. If you're a seller and you’re still taking notes by hand, I can guarantee there are things you’re missing that you would be shocked by. 

Don’t be like me. Why try so hard to stay organized when this can do it for you?

Try it out 👉🏿 https://hubs.ly/Q044Ryc70

Brand partnership • We help you close 35% faster with video. Built for $10M+ SaaS teams with long sales cycles. 600+ videos for brands like Shopify, Okta, and Chili Piper.

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📸 Ademola Adelakun, MBET

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The Battle

Chris Cunningham

📸 Ademola Adelakun, MBET

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Chris Cunningham's LinkedIn Performance

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