Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
Speaker 1: really is what's up? Up? More currency? And I'm Alexa Kristen.
Speaker 1: Welcome back Atlantia. Happy twenty two. Here we go. I
Speaker 1: believe this year is the year of the individual, where
Speaker 1: people use their talent in non traditional ways. And we've
Speaker 1: been talking about multifaceted identities, and now we're in the
Speaker 1: place where people can start to flex those skill sets, identities,
Speaker 1: passion points, and interests in places that are maybe not
Speaker 1: the traditional forty hour work week, full time job. I
Speaker 1: do X, I am X, meaning I am a marketer.
Speaker 1: Therefore I join an agency or I'm on the client side.
Speaker 1: Now we have the opportunity to say I can actually
Speaker 1: flex those skill sets into places that I've never maybe
Speaker 1: gone before, into areas where my skills or my perspective,
Speaker 1: my point of view is really needed and I've never
Speaker 1: actually applied it in those areas before. It got us
Speaker 1: thinking about some of the past conversations that we've had,
Speaker 1: one of which was Cyndy Gallup, who talks about personal
Speaker 1: agency and what personal agency means, individual agency, and that
Speaker 1: everyone has agency. It's how you start to use it
Speaker 1: and actually apply it into your future, into your trajectory,
Speaker 1: into your daily life and decide what you're worth, where
Speaker 1: you want to go, and really start to think in
Speaker 1: nonlinear ways about how you apply your skill sets outside
Speaker 1: of maybe the traditional forty hour work week. Now, this
Speaker 1: has been a conversation that not only we've been having
Speaker 1: for years. There was an episode I recall us talking
Speaker 1: about portfolio careers and this was a couple of years back,
Speaker 1: and really thinking about how your core competency or your
Speaker 1: core skill sets can be transferable into different industries to
Speaker 1: allow you to start to branch and build um something
Speaker 1: that's as horizontal as it is vertical. So this has
Speaker 1: been a conversation that has been happening over time. But
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing is now executives, founders vcs
Speaker 1: start to action on it, creating opportunities in traditional structures
Speaker 1: to allow for experimentation and exploration, but even a step
Speaker 1: further building entire new business models that support not only
Speaker 1: you know, the discovery and accessibility for employers and contractors
Speaker 1: to connect, but also and we're gonna get into it
Speaker 1: in this episode. And I know, Alexa, you have experience
Speaker 1: and a point of view on this, supporting on the
Speaker 1: back end for things like taxes and how to set
Speaker 1: up you know, the infrastructure of your organization that you
Speaker 1: may not have experience. And what's been on the forefront
Speaker 1: of the conversation around flexible work and using your skill
Speaker 1: sets in different ways has really been in the Web
Speaker 1: three space. It's really been in the creator economy space.
Speaker 1: What we haven't talked about as much is how more
Speaker 1: traditional tracks functional skill sets, marketers, communicators, How are they
Speaker 1: actually starting to leverage their agency, How are they starting
Speaker 1: to actually look at branching out and using their network
Speaker 1: as a verification system and starting to look for different work,
Speaker 1: applying their skill sets into a different way and looking
Speaker 1: at potentially areas that they haven't gone into that are
Speaker 1: very different from the forty hour work week and the
Speaker 1: full time gig. And so to your point, there really
Speaker 1: hasn't been an infrastructure that's been built to do that,
Speaker 1: and so the guests we have on today. Laura Vandenberg
Speaker 1: is the founder of Publicist dot co and what Publicist
Speaker 1: does is end to end. Has created a solution for
Speaker 1: the demand side, so the client that's hiring, and the
Speaker 1: supply side, the talent that's looking, and it handles everything
Speaker 1: from the back end so that it's not just on
Speaker 1: demand talent and a talent search agency. It's not that
Speaker 1: at all. It's actually using back end technology sas tools
Speaker 1: to help folks operationalize their skill sets, their expertise almost
Speaker 1: immediately into the workforce, from fractional to full time to advisory, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Why is this so important right now? Well, I think
Speaker 1: what I found interesting in the conversation and get into
Speaker 1: it in just a minute, is that fractionalized bit, that
Speaker 1: advisory bit, the opportunity to have something on demand. Laura
Speaker 1: talks about the on boarding process and the traditional model.
Speaker 1: There's the application, rounds of interviews, reference checks, you know,
Speaker 1: additional back and forth around negotiation, et cetera. By the
Speaker 1: time you go from initial discussion two on boarding into
Speaker 1: an organization, it can take quite a long time. When
Speaker 1: in fact, there are some clients, brands, agencies who are
Speaker 1: looking for support, maybe for just a matter of hours
Speaker 1: to consult on something. So that was equally interesting to me,
Speaker 1: not only the support of the contractors, but also on
Speaker 1: the employers side, the ability to expedite the process and
Speaker 1: have options that can be something that's a matter of
Speaker 1: hours or something that's a matter of months. And with
Speaker 1: Lara Vandenberg, we'll be right back and we are back
Speaker 1: on the mic with longtime friend Lara Vandenberg is in
Speaker 1: the studio hanging with us today to talk all things
Speaker 1: Publicist dot Co. Lara, I feel like we've been waiting
Speaker 1: so long to say this. Welcome to Atlantia. Thanks both.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. I know this is years in the making.
Speaker 1: So the first time I heard about Publicist, you and
Speaker 1: I were in an airport on an eight hour delay
Speaker 1: trying to get out of I think we were in
Speaker 1: Park City, if I recall Sundance Sundance and you said, so,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about starting this thing. And because the delay
Speaker 1: went on and on and on, I think we did
Speaker 1: like three iterations of the pitch deck together while we
Speaker 1: were sitting there. But I would love to hear a
Speaker 1: bit about the reason you founded this. Yeah, I'm happy too.
Speaker 1: And can I just say how thrilled I am that
Speaker 1: we don't have to do those eight hour layovers and
Speaker 1: airports and the conference travel has really um settled. It'll
Speaker 1: bounce back, then I'll come back. It'll come back. But yes, agreed,
Speaker 1: but hopefully not to the extent that we were doing
Speaker 1: it on planes three times a week. But you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have run into Laura exactly exactly. But so, I think
Speaker 1: it was twenty beginning of so I was the s
Speaker 1: VP of Marketing at Notch, and I mean even prior
Speaker 1: to that, I had a pretty i guess, nonlinear career
Speaker 1: in comms and marketing started in Australia on the agency side,
Speaker 1: and then came over to New York with a big
Speaker 1: enterprise with Westfield, and then Beauty start up and then
Speaker 1: you know, B two, B stas so all over the place.
Speaker 1: And I guess the consistent thing that my pain point was,
Speaker 1: like number one was access to talent is really really hard.
Speaker 1: And I think that our industry as we know is
Speaker 1: so foundational to word of mouth. Um. And I guess
Speaker 1: the one thing that I really saw is hyper specialization
Speaker 1: in the industry is completely outpacing word of mouth. I
Speaker 1: think marketing comms creative. It's growing both horizontally and vertically
Speaker 1: from the skill sets that exist today that didn't exist
Speaker 1: even ten years ago when you know, I started my career.
Speaker 1: So problem number one was access to talent and access
Speaker 1: to the right talent. I think for so long we've
Speaker 1: relied on, as I mentioned, word of mouth and linked in,
Speaker 1: and even the way we engaged with agencies is changing drastically.
Speaker 1: Problem number two was once you've actually found someone, whether
Speaker 1: it's a freelancer or a full time employee or an agency,
Speaker 1: it takes so long from first conversation to on board
Speaker 1: these people. Um what that law usually looks like, and
Speaker 1: it touches OPS and HR and a hiring manager and
Speaker 1: finance is you know, we put that U r L
Speaker 1: into a Google spreadsheet and then pass it off to
Speaker 1: an applicant tracking system. It's then, you know, we interview them,
Speaker 1: we send them contracts, we on board them, and that
Speaker 1: can take six to eight weeks and sometimes you just
Speaker 1: want to hire someone for a day. And so that
Speaker 1: essentially was my big pain point was access to talent
Speaker 1: and then managing talent. So what we ended up launching
Speaker 1: with Publicist was a platform that allowed agencies and brands
Speaker 1: to source higher pay and manage. We launched with freelancers
Speaker 1: and contractors, and we can get into how that's changed.
Speaker 1: But essentially a platform where people can go and find
Speaker 1: pre vetted, premium talent um and then on the flip side,
Speaker 1: a community where the talent can essentially run their back
Speaker 1: office from tax stuff too, invoices and contracts. Because I
Speaker 1: think what this in the industry. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of staffing agencies and a lot of these contractors. They've
Speaker 1: never needed to be a solo preneurs or business of one.
Speaker 1: And these people are phenomenal at doing the work, but
Speaker 1: have never necessarily needed to be their own lawyer, and
Speaker 1: be their own accountant, and be their own salesperson. And
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's like anyone who has gone out
Speaker 1: on their own to freelance or consult. This is takes
Speaker 1: eighty percent of your time to set up. And by
Speaker 1: the way, find the right lawyer. It's not just get
Speaker 1: a lawyer, it's find the right lawyer who understands the business.
Speaker 1: Find the right like, how do you start to think
Speaker 1: about procurement, which is actually a huge gateway to your business,
Speaker 1: like all of those things totally and even like even
Speaker 1: marketing yourself is a really hard thing to do. And like, yes,
Speaker 1: we're all marketers, but we and we've all written briefs
Speaker 1: a hundred times in our life, but when have you
Speaker 1: ever actually written a brief for yourself? And like, what
Speaker 1: is my mission? Who is my target audience? It's a
Speaker 1: really hard thing to do. You talk about pre vetting,
Speaker 1: uh and pulling in premium talent onto the platform for marketers, brands, etcetera.
Speaker 1: To connect What does that pre vetting process look like?
Speaker 1: How do you identify premium talent? Was it a call
Speaker 1: for was an immediate rush of somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: We'd love to kind of get into your process a bit.
Speaker 1: With communications, marketing, and creative, there is an abundance of
Speaker 1: talent out there, but often when it comes to brand,
Speaker 1: people willing to pay a premium for anything to do
Speaker 1: with that, we're facing, you know, regard of of brand. Now,
Speaker 1: we vet all of our talent in two different ways.
Speaker 1: So there's an application process where we ask for things
Speaker 1: like portfolio and references and brands, publishers, agencies worked with
Speaker 1: skill sets industry, so we really try and get this
Speaker 1: granular um experience and skill sets as possible. We then
Speaker 1: put them through an interview process and so we want
Speaker 1: to understand what a people's experience it's and so it's
Speaker 1: very very created, and I think to create this really
Speaker 1: premium community, we want to start with, you know, the
Speaker 1: top of the top. We've got a really robust wait
Speaker 1: list that you know, we check in on quarterly and
Speaker 1: and then let people into the platform and let them
Speaker 1: reapply and all of that. What is premium defined premium talent?
Speaker 1: It's a really hard one. Now we have a couple
Speaker 1: of one oh one, so we really look at past works.
Speaker 1: That is the absolute indicator of uh, the output and
Speaker 1: the actual whether it's creative or press or relationships. Um,
Speaker 1: so it is. It is super subjective, and we've got
Speaker 1: a communications council that goes in and and bets everyone.
Speaker 1: But it's hard, and it's so interesting. And when I
Speaker 1: talk about this hyper specialization of both industry and skill set,
Speaker 1: like I cannot tell you the influx and by no
Speaker 1: surprise of fintech and crypto, both clients and talent on
Speaker 1: the platform. But then even defining like what is a
Speaker 1: ship coin and like can people's experience. I say that, Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: we've said worse even defining the specialization within the coins,
Speaker 1: whether it's Bitcoin or a ship cooin, whether it's go
Speaker 1: to market or p R. And I think it's that
Speaker 1: hyper specialization is just something that we're really focused on.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting, we're seeing the term generalists now be
Speaker 1: a specialization. Yeah, let's talk about that pendulum swing because
Speaker 1: as I think about approaching twenty two, as we all know, um,
Speaker 1: the Great Resignation underway and likely no signs of slowing down,
Speaker 1: as more and more people are moving into freelance capacities,
Speaker 1: changing industries, completely new and interesting paths that people are pursuing.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that felt that, what does it look like?
Speaker 1: And are there things that have surprised you, particularly over
Speaker 1: the last two years that you can point to and say,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect the industry to move this way, or
Speaker 1: there's an overabundance of people moving that way. I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is the Great reshuffle, not the Great resignation.
Speaker 1: And I think that COVID obviously accelerated the move to
Speaker 1: contract and the move to people taking a step back
Speaker 1: and figuring out what they care about and not wanting
Speaker 1: to work for average companies anymore. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I've seen and I think is here to
Speaker 1: stay is this is a supply market. Clients are pitching
Speaker 1: talent for the first time, rather than talent pitching clients,
Speaker 1: which is something really really interesting. I also think that
Speaker 1: I mean, we launched our business. May of do not
Speaker 1: advise anyone to launch a company two months into one
Speaker 1: of the greatest pandemics we'll ever see, but it was
Speaker 1: just so fascinating that we gave home to first time
Speaker 1: freelancers who will never go back to full time jobs,
Speaker 1: and so this was a landing pad for them in
Speaker 1: a way. But I think it will remain as a
Speaker 1: supply market. We're working with a client right now, Free Pandemic.
Speaker 1: They were receiving between five hundred a thousand job applicants
Speaker 1: per job post today, so less than eighteen months later,
Speaker 1: they're lucky if they get to wow too applicants. And
Speaker 1: so I think that talent has just taken a step
Speaker 1: back and figured out what they're worth is and what
Speaker 1: they value, and I think it's an amazing thing for
Speaker 1: all industries on that point. Are you helping your clients
Speaker 1: think about and figure out like why what is happening
Speaker 1: to their pipeline and why is their pipeline drying up.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they're open to for the
Speaker 1: first time ever is these these companies that have never
Speaker 1: hired contractors and now hiring contractors for set roles. And
Speaker 1: so one of the things we do is and back
Speaker 1: to Laura, you're saying, we provide access to talent. Initially
Speaker 1: we launched a freelance and that was absolutely the imminent
Speaker 1: need that we saw, but you know, per the market
Speaker 1: and we're so young that we can iterate as well
Speaker 1: as a result of seeing what our clients need. We're
Speaker 1: doing tempted perm, we're doing full time, we're doing one
Speaker 1: our advisory um and so I think that's probably an
Speaker 1: education that we say to clients if you're not feeling
Speaker 1: this full time started as a three month tempted perm
Speaker 1: and then see once the client has evaluated the talent
Speaker 1: and the talent has evaluated the client, if that marriage
Speaker 1: is you know worthwhile. So yeah, I think date before
Speaker 1: marriage is a is a huge trem we're seeing. The
Speaker 1: other thing is we're probably contract on the platform right now,
Speaker 1: and historically a lot of the people that are these
Speaker 1: contractors and these solo preneurs have had careers first and
Speaker 1: have figured out that they now actually want to work
Speaker 1: for themselves. And so that's also probably a reflection of
Speaker 1: the inbound that's actually that's coming to the platform first
Speaker 1: time solo preneurs who are stepping out of corporate structures,
Speaker 1: corporate environments where you know, some of the specifics you're
Speaker 1: alluding to earlier taxes, Alex, you're talking about lawyers, like
Speaker 1: you know, the let's just say solo preneurs starter pack.
Speaker 1: What's in the starter pack? What do people have to
Speaker 1: know as they get on the platform in terms of
Speaker 1: like I need these things to just get up and running. So, Laura,
Speaker 1: that's a great point around you know, how do you
Speaker 1: operate your business through whether it's through a platform or
Speaker 1: off a platform. And it's one of the big pain
Speaker 1: points that we had solving for what are the workflow
Speaker 1: tools that someone actually needs, what's actually helpful and UM
Speaker 1: on the platform right now we have the ability to
Speaker 1: send invoices, the ability to customize contracts UM. A huge
Speaker 1: thing that we haven't spoken about is payment terms when
Speaker 1: at zero, yeah, I mean the amount of agencies that
Speaker 1: a net thirty or forty five or even and it's tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. You cannot do that with like talent.
Speaker 1: That is insulting talent. They have their own shops that
Speaker 1: maybe they have small teams. No way, no way, And
Speaker 1: so that that was something that was really important to me.
Speaker 1: And so the projects, you know, again, the talent can customize.
Speaker 1: Is it a monthly retainer, is it per project, is
Speaker 1: it an annual retainer? UM, it's completely customizable. On the
Speaker 1: talent side. Now, we launched with project based engagements, and
Speaker 1: so that was up front, before work was done, in
Speaker 1: upon completion, and that's still to date. Is one of
Speaker 1: the most common preferences UM for both talent and clients.
Speaker 1: And so I think building out workflow tools and then
Speaker 1: there are certain workflow tools that we've decided not to
Speaker 1: build for because we don't want to take away from
Speaker 1: the work. So for example, we've got to chat function
Speaker 1: on platform. UM, we didn't want to build a Slack
Speaker 1: integration or like, we don't necessarily want to take people
Speaker 1: away from Zoom or Slack or Gmail or how they're
Speaker 1: getting work done. We just want to help them on
Speaker 1: the administrative side, which exactly again it takes like eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the time. When I first started consulting, I
Speaker 1: stayed up almost every night untill two a m. Nine
Speaker 1: to two a m. Was actually my billing, figuring out
Speaker 1: my invoicing system. What was I going to use? Was
Speaker 1: I going to use the free service? Was I going
Speaker 1: to use a paid service? Figuring it out? I mean
Speaker 1: it was like it was like, I mean truly starting
Speaker 1: over right, Yeah, which seems like an opportunity, by the way,
Speaker 1: from a tech product standpoint, to develop this solo preneurs
Speaker 1: starter pack like that. Everything you're just saying the amount
Speaker 1: of time time is money. Yeah, it's a ton of money.
Speaker 1: And I think talent like you. As a consultant, there
Speaker 1: are two things to figure out. One is getting new
Speaker 1: business and then secondarily is bringing people on. And so
Speaker 1: that's something that on platform we do as well. And
Speaker 1: one of my favorite examples is we've got this phenomenal
Speaker 1: fintech uh PR guy on the platform and his business
Speaker 1: is completely changed. He's just high at his sixth person
Speaker 1: on the platform because he's getting so much work from
Speaker 1: the platform. So creating this three sixty ability to hire
Speaker 1: and get hired, what's your payment? So we take a
Speaker 1: percentageum it starts and essentially the which kind of is
Speaker 1: built in both ways, that from workflow tools on the
Speaker 1: supply side and then also the demand side. Um. But
Speaker 1: the more from a client perspective, the more people you hire,
Speaker 1: the cheaper it gets. And then a big focus of
Speaker 1: ours is on the enterprise side and that kind of
Speaker 1: commission goes out the door and it's more of a
Speaker 1: sas license structure. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, the amount of money that people are spending
Speaker 1: on recruitment firms and staffing agencies, it becomes really really expensive,
Speaker 1: um for access to this great talent. Just trying to
Speaker 1: make it as accessible as possible. Right knowing that you
Speaker 1: have so much transaction happening on the platform between supply
Speaker 1: and demand inside, are there on the back end data
Speaker 1: points that you're seeing that can really hone in on
Speaker 1: the generalist moving to hyper specialists. So the two biggest
Speaker 1: categories right now that require hyper specialization is fintech and healthcare.
Speaker 1: And it's probably in the last month jobs that we've
Speaker 1: seen which is really really fascinating. We are probably in
Speaker 1: the last two or three weeks have seen I want
Speaker 1: to say sixties of new net new clients in crypto
Speaker 1: n f T spaces and what's really interesting as well.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I know offline we've all spoken a
Speaker 1: lot about education, and I think that so many people
Speaker 1: come to us because they're like, great, we can get
Speaker 1: awesome marketing or awesome PR but a lot of these
Speaker 1: newer companies need education that no, you actually need branding
Speaker 1: and you need a comms message messaging strategy a four yep,
Speaker 1: you need to go and engage in PAER And that
Speaker 1: I think is where it's tough with younger companies as well,
Speaker 1: because we want to help them help themselves, but you
Speaker 1: can't come to us and say, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to spend X on performance if you don't have great
Speaker 1: creative and so I think that's that's challenging with with
Speaker 1: earlier companies that have great budgets, and are you helping
Speaker 1: companies like that evaluate what they need and then matching
Speaker 1: them in some cases versus someone going on the platform
Speaker 1: and saying I really like Laura, I really like Electa,
Speaker 1: I really like their experience, and I think they're a
Speaker 1: fit for what I'm looking for. So we've got a
Speaker 1: great talent team that can help hold hands, but we
Speaker 1: also try to solve it through content and education and
Speaker 1: tools on the platform. I mean, we are a product,
Speaker 1: and so things that we've created, like a budget calculator
Speaker 1: and understanding how much you should be paying for talent
Speaker 1: and what is normal and that kind of like that
Speaker 1: alleviates that conversation that we need to have, and what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is create products and tools for
Speaker 1: a lot of these younger companies to educate them because
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to educate on a on a case
Speaker 1: by case scenario. But yeah, we want to help where
Speaker 1: we're super passionate about people getting the best outcome possible,
Speaker 1: So where we can we do. I have seen in
Speaker 1: the last six months this massive need for brand, brand
Speaker 1: strategy and big calms brains um on the web three side,
Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of founders and CEOs
Speaker 1: are starting to really understand that they have the need,
Speaker 1: but maybe don't really understand who fits the bill right.
Speaker 1: My least favorite thing that I see is when prospective
Speaker 1: clients come to us and they say, we were just
Speaker 1: with a branding agency for a month, Well we just
Speaker 1: had a publicist for a month, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: these things take time, and so I think that education
Speaker 1: is is is hard if someone isn't used to this
Speaker 1: industry and a lot of founders and you know, these
Speaker 1: spaces are technical leads exactly, which again is challenging unless
Speaker 1: they've got like marketing needs to sit at the table.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's just a it's just an
Speaker 1: educational piece that people need to understand. I think that
Speaker 1: there's so much talent kind of buried in agencies. Has
Speaker 1: that come up on the agency side, like what are
Speaker 1: conversations with agency leaders? Agencies are some of our biggest clients.
Speaker 1: I think that agencies, more than almost brands right now,
Speaker 1: have been in what we refer to as a bit
Speaker 1: of a talent drought. Um. One of the things that
Speaker 1: we saw during the pandemic obviously was agencies completely downsized teams.
Speaker 1: And yes, to an extent, that's bounced back, UM, but
Speaker 1: I think what we will continue to see is agencies
Speaker 1: will keep leaner teams and upskill when they need to.
Speaker 1: And so you know, agencies use our platform in a
Speaker 1: way that if they know that they're about to win
Speaker 1: automotive business, you can go on and save fifty creative
Speaker 1: directors in automotive or whatever the example is. So I
Speaker 1: think that one of the reasons that agencies like the
Speaker 1: platform is this unified transparency into understanding everyone that they
Speaker 1: potentially could bring on or create a team. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that's interesting with agencies as well,
Speaker 1: and this is a segue into our second product Operator,
Speaker 1: but there is this need for not necessarily like three
Speaker 1: or six or twelve month fractional work, but an hour
Speaker 1: or a day of advisory for particular industries and so
Speaker 1: um we saw a lot of agencies come to the
Speaker 1: platform and saying, you know, we're pitching on a beverage client,
Speaker 1: we need to speak to a beverage expert. Um and
Speaker 1: that kind of is why we launched our Expert Network
Speaker 1: Operator to give access to these thought leaders that can
Speaker 1: really help and advise. We launched it with leading cmos
Speaker 1: and agency leads and heads of d I and content leaders.
Speaker 1: But the demand that we're seeing extends well beyond marketing,
Speaker 1: and it's how people think about marketing. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's psychologists, it's domain experts in the most interesting fields.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting and here come up often
Speaker 1: the t shape skill set. Knowing a little bit about everything,
Speaker 1: but really going deep on a specific subject matter. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious to know both of you. Do you consider
Speaker 1: yourself specialist or generalists? I think when I was in
Speaker 1: a job when I was at Natural Archetypes before that
Speaker 1: or Westfield, I was a specialist. And then being a
Speaker 1: founder of an eighteen month old company where I am
Speaker 1: HR and legal and sales and marketing, I'm a generalist, Alexa,
Speaker 1: what are you? I mean, I'm t shaped going deep
Speaker 1: in many areas, um, which is actually built up my
Speaker 1: What I would say is a very strong generalist skill
Speaker 1: set around classic marketing, right, marketing that creates value, that
Speaker 1: creates products. Right. Well, what about you, Laura, Yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: a t I find though the vertical portion of the
Speaker 1: tea having to become more splintered. Um. The media landscape
Speaker 1: is just evolving so rapidly. You can no longer just
Speaker 1: be the best negotiator, buyer, etcetera, and so forth. You
Speaker 1: really have to, I believe, understand new business models. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated with the thought of thinking about my first media
Speaker 1: by through crypto, like what is that going to look like?
Speaker 1: What does the infrastructure have to entail? Like all of
Speaker 1: these things, So I think the t is getting splintered.
Speaker 1: But I find um, in order to stay hyper competitive
Speaker 1: in the marketing arena, you're horizontal is being pushed to
Speaker 1: limits that I never thought possible. So hyper specialist, generalist, generalist,
Speaker 1: hyper specialists. Depending on the day, I suppose capital capital
Speaker 1: t all. The talus is an underlined yes. So speaking
Speaker 1: of capital T let's talk about capital P How do
Speaker 1: people join and get involved with publicist and how are
Speaker 1: you also thinking about operator and vetting folks for operator.
Speaker 1: Let's start with operator, because that is that's a really
Speaker 1: highly curated group of people. It's word of mouth. We
Speaker 1: still interview everyone. It started. We launched with two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of you know, the leading marketers in the US,
Speaker 1: and you know there's will be on the platform soon enough.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. And we we did actually just
Speaker 1: launch the ability to donate to charity, which is something
Speaker 1: we're really excited about. And I know that that's something
Speaker 1: that you both wanted to be involved on. So that's awesome. Um,
Speaker 1: but so many also passed at Landia guests from like
Speaker 1: Cindy Gallup to Nancy Hill, to Andrew Essex to Kim Marie.
Speaker 1: It's just we're just going through the aad Landia episodes.
Speaker 1: That should be an automatic menas is a pipe. Have
Speaker 1: you been on Atlantia? I love that. We'll give everyone
Speaker 1: a special code. Essentially, we tried to again go vertically,
Speaker 1: so understand do we have enough people in healthcare? Do
Speaker 1: we have enough people in consumer? Do we have enough
Speaker 1: people in fintech? Whatever it was? And so that was
Speaker 1: very much the rationale to begin with. And the way
Speaker 1: Operator works is it's you're able to go on and
Speaker 1: understand that the Atlantia team are available on Friday for
Speaker 1: at four pm and their rate is X hundred dollars
Speaker 1: an hour and they're either giving this to charity or
Speaker 1: they're not. We ask people, you know, what is this
Speaker 1: meeting about? What are you looking to get out of it?
Speaker 1: And so it's really trying to again create access to
Speaker 1: thought leaders that have been pretty inaccessible to date. And
Speaker 1: so we will continue to keep Operator as a really
Speaker 1: high level group of these thought leaders and will expand
Speaker 1: over time. But again, if an agency says to us
Speaker 1: we need five psychologists on X, will go and find
Speaker 1: them and then on board them to the platform. With
Speaker 1: publicist publicists is much more of a network it's much
Speaker 1: more mass Um. It's you go onto the platform, you apply,
Speaker 1: it's super super simple, and then from there, um we
Speaker 1: let people to the platform. So, Laura, what does the
Speaker 1: next year look like for you? How are you growing?
Speaker 1: Where are you going? So the big focus of two
Speaker 1: is this enterprise solution. So what we've really figured it
Speaker 1: in the last eighteen months is, you know, bigger, the
Speaker 1: bigger the company, bigger the problem, um, and so really
Speaker 1: excited to expand our enterprise offering. UM. We're hiring some
Speaker 1: really really smart generalist specialist unicorns everything on pretty much
Speaker 1: every function of the business, which is exciting, and then
Speaker 1: um expanding into some very exciting markets as well, like
Speaker 1: geographical geographical markets. Okay, cool, very cool. Yeah, Well, we're
Speaker 1: excited to see all things publicists, operator and beyond in
Speaker 1: twenty two. But you know, before we go, we have
Speaker 1: to play our game bye bye bye. In twenty two,
Speaker 1: what is Laura saying goodbye to b y E? What
Speaker 1: would you love to buy? Buy and what would you
Speaker 1: like to do yourself that you're not already doing? Although
Speaker 1: we know your plate is very full, b y, let's
Speaker 1: start with b y I, I'd love to do a
Speaker 1: consumer product one day. I just think it's like the
Speaker 1: ability to create something that's physical is just awesome. But
Speaker 1: that's years away because we need to figure out this
Speaker 1: this marketplace first. Um, in terms of what would I buy? Wait,
Speaker 1: go back to that for just one second, though, what's
Speaker 1: the product? Do you know what I like? Twice a
Speaker 1: day I'll come up with something. Yesterday it was like
Speaker 1: tumor tea and then you go on Amazon and there's
Speaker 1: eight million tumeric tape by but something like just a
Speaker 1: consumer it would be amazing. All right, we'll think about
Speaker 1: this with you. Yeah, I'm in all right, yeah, Tumeric
Speaker 1: ta today. It's not vegemite has nothing to do with vegemine.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry x oh you Aussies. Um, I can't handle it,
Speaker 1: I know. But do you want to know an amazing
Speaker 1: thing about vegemite that bonn And actually told me years ago?
Speaker 1: And bow is who I think you're talking? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Guess how many jars of vegemite they sell every year?
Speaker 1: Like millions, millions it I think for the last like
Speaker 1: a few decades. It's exactly correlated with the population of Australia.
Speaker 1: So I think it's like there's there's this graph and
Speaker 1: five years there were twenty million people in Today they're
Speaker 1: twenty five million people. It is the exact amount of
Speaker 1: humans there are in the country at the one time,
Speaker 1: which I just think it's so interesting. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: are you think goodbye to or what are you buying?
Speaker 1: I mean, in terms of saying goodbye to, there are
Speaker 1: so many things on social media that I'd love to
Speaker 1: say goodbye to, from the vanity metrics to filters. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm to talk to you about filters for beauty filters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it would be I just
Speaker 1: think on adolescents and you know, younger generations. It's just
Speaker 1: I'd love to see them go really dangerous. I totally
Speaker 1: agree with that. This is what you would look like
Speaker 1: if your face was perfect filter. Have you seen this?
Speaker 1: I haven't, but that scares me. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
Speaker 1: Everyone's doing it is great. I did it to my dog.
Speaker 1: Look the same. But um, but I mean, like the
Speaker 1: Instagram filters, I put them on and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: do not look like that. I It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: really scary, and I think in it's like generationally people
Speaker 1: that are growing up with that, right now, it's it
Speaker 1: terrifies me. Okay, And what would you buy? Be you
Speaker 1: why I wish I bought crypto five years ago and bitcoin,
Speaker 1: but you and us both sugar, I'd probably buy an
Speaker 1: education company. Um. I think that there's it's such an
Speaker 1: interesting space. We've got a bunch of clients in education
Speaker 1: right now. But I think it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: the necessity of university degrees in ten and twenty years time.
Speaker 1: And I think that in our industry specifically, there's a
Speaker 1: slower education curve to kind of get up to speed
Speaker 1: in terms of, like you know, writing briefs and to
Speaker 1: become that practitioner. So yeah, something to do with education.
Speaker 1: I think. I love that. I'm passionate about that spief too, Laura.
Speaker 1: If people want to follow you, get in touch with you,
Speaker 1: how do they do it? Yeah, my socials at Laura
Speaker 1: Vandenberg and then my email is lv at publicist dot com.
Speaker 1: And there will be no filters on zero filters, so
Speaker 1: zero filters in two Yeah, Laura, thanks for coming by Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Agree to see you. Thanks so much. Fun. I think
Speaker 1: Laura has really hit on a need in the market
Speaker 1: that has been totally overlooked and underserved. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, here's what's really exciting to me about
Speaker 1: Laura's model. It actually allows more people to start exploring
Speaker 1: fractional advisory types of work, and it takes away that
Speaker 1: massive overhead of time and cost around business development as well.
Speaker 1: That takes time, that takes money, that takes energy. So
Speaker 1: taking that out of the equation gives folks the ability
Speaker 1: to get their talent, get their expertise in use in
Speaker 1: the market almost immediately. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: Laura didn't say in this episode that I think is
Speaker 1: really critical is that the time to actual job signing
Speaker 1: and starting to work, she's cut down significantly. So if
Speaker 1: you compare that to even working with a recruiter, are
Speaker 1: working with like a job's placement company, all of those things,
Speaker 1: she's cut that time down so significantly that you can
Speaker 1: get on the platform and pretty much start working almost immediately.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: trending of the side hustle and the gig economy over
Speaker 1: the last few years. But what this is implying or
Speaker 1: suggesting is that it will just be the hustle, it
Speaker 1: will just be the economy. There will be more openness
Speaker 1: in what may be formerly known as corporate structures too,
Speaker 1: fractionalized ways of working, and an entire marketplace out there
Speaker 1: that continues to push on how that is shaped, how
Speaker 1: that is governed. If we look at the valuations for
Speaker 1: companies in this space, if we look at the number
Speaker 1: of startups entering it, as we look at more tech
Speaker 1: enabling it, executives in the advertising marketing media space are
Speaker 1: likely going to have to consider how they address and evolved.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really interesting when you start to
Speaker 1: think about the role of the CEO organizational structure. I
Speaker 1: mean the ORG chart. What does an org chart look like? Two?
Speaker 1: We are going to see so much of new learning models,
Speaker 1: new education companies at tech et cetera, and platforms and
Speaker 1: tools around how to start to apply that talent across
Speaker 1: lots of different industries. And so this kind of like
Speaker 1: T shaped person that we talk about will become more
Speaker 1: and more realized. And there may be specialist parts of
Speaker 1: it and generalist expertise across many many areas. And that
Speaker 1: to me isn't one of the most exciting things that
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see this year. Two. Here
Speaker 1: we go, Laura hit it with a list of all
Speaker 1: of our friends and family at I Heart who have
Speaker 1: been so good to us and helped us get back
Speaker 1: on air. Big thank you to Bob Coronell, Carter, Andy, Eric, Gail,
Speaker 1: Val Michael Genn. We appreciate you. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.