January 25, 2022 • 38 mins
Lara Vandenberg, CEO & Founder of Publicist.co (and sister product Operator) comes by Adlandia to talk about how she’s building the infrastructure for marketing and communications experts to go independent. She talks about how the need for marketing comms talent is only growing, how she’s digitizing the typically analog networking process through a premium level marketplace, connecting clients and experts, and how building this end-to-end solution is so critical to getting more expert talent into flexible working. Corporate is getting flexible, Adlandia! Listen to this one to understand how you can source premium talent or even put yourself on the Publicist platform.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
going to have to start making better content. I think
we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
I think it's that we're purpose driven platform like we're
trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
really is what's up? Up? More currency? And I'm Alexa Kristen.
(00:26):
Welcome back Atlantia. Happy twenty two. Here we go. I
believe this year is the year of the individual, where
people use their talent in non traditional ways. And we've
been talking about multifaceted identities, and now we're in the
place where people can start to flex those skill sets, identities,
(00:49):
passion points, and interests in places that are maybe not
the traditional forty hour work week, full time job. I
do X, I am X, meaning I am a marketer.
Therefore I join an agency or I'm on the client side.
Now we have the opportunity to say I can actually
(01:10):
flex those skill sets into places that I've never maybe
gone before, into areas where my skills or my perspective,
my point of view is really needed and I've never
actually applied it in those areas before. It got us
thinking about some of the past conversations that we've had,
(01:32):
one of which was Cyndy Gallup, who talks about personal
agency and what personal agency means, individual agency, and that
everyone has agency. It's how you start to use it
and actually apply it into your future, into your trajectory,
into your daily life and decide what you're worth, where
(01:55):
you want to go, and really start to think in
nonlinear ways about how you apply your skill sets outside
of maybe the traditional forty hour work week. Now, this
has been a conversation that not only we've been having
for years. There was an episode I recall us talking
about portfolio careers and this was a couple of years back,
(02:16):
and really thinking about how your core competency or your
core skill sets can be transferable into different industries to
allow you to start to branch and build um something
that's as horizontal as it is vertical. So this has
been a conversation that has been happening over time. But
I think what we're seeing is now executives, founders vcs
(02:38):
start to action on it, creating opportunities in traditional structures
to allow for experimentation and exploration, but even a step
further building entire new business models that support not only
you know, the discovery and accessibility for employers and contractors
to connect, but also and we're gonna get into it
(02:59):
in this episode. And I know, Alexa, you have experience
and a point of view on this, supporting on the
back end for things like taxes and how to set
up you know, the infrastructure of your organization that you
may not have experience. And what's been on the forefront
of the conversation around flexible work and using your skill
sets in different ways has really been in the Web
(03:21):
three space. It's really been in the creator economy space.
What we haven't talked about as much is how more
traditional tracks functional skill sets, marketers, communicators, How are they
actually starting to leverage their agency, How are they starting
to actually look at branching out and using their network
(03:44):
as a verification system and starting to look for different work,
applying their skill sets into a different way and looking
at potentially areas that they haven't gone into that are
very different from the forty hour work week and the
full time gig. And so to your point, there really
hasn't been an infrastructure that's been built to do that,
(04:07):
and so the guests we have on today. Laura Vandenberg
is the founder of Publicist dot co and what Publicist
does is end to end. Has created a solution for
the demand side, so the client that's hiring, and the
supply side, the talent that's looking, and it handles everything
(04:29):
from the back end so that it's not just on
demand talent and a talent search agency. It's not that
at all. It's actually using back end technology sas tools
to help folks operationalize their skill sets, their expertise almost
immediately into the workforce, from fractional to full time to advisory, etcetera.
(04:55):
Why is this so important right now? Well, I think
what I found interesting in the conversation and get into
it in just a minute, is that fractionalized bit, that
advisory bit, the opportunity to have something on demand. Laura
talks about the on boarding process and the traditional model.
There's the application, rounds of interviews, reference checks, you know,
(05:19):
additional back and forth around negotiation, et cetera. By the
time you go from initial discussion two on boarding into
an organization, it can take quite a long time. When
in fact, there are some clients, brands, agencies who are
looking for support, maybe for just a matter of hours
(05:42):
to consult on something. So that was equally interesting to me,
not only the support of the contractors, but also on
the employers side, the ability to expedite the process and
have options that can be something that's a matter of
hours or something that's a matter of months. And with
Lara Vandenberg, we'll be right back and we are back
(06:17):
on the mic with longtime friend Lara Vandenberg is in
the studio hanging with us today to talk all things
Publicist dot Co. Lara, I feel like we've been waiting
so long to say this. Welcome to Atlantia. Thanks both.
I'm so excited. I know this is years in the making.
So the first time I heard about Publicist, you and
(06:39):
I were in an airport on an eight hour delay
trying to get out of I think we were in
Park City, if I recall Sundance Sundance and you said, so,
I'm thinking about starting this thing. And because the delay
went on and on and on, I think we did
like three iterations of the pitch deck together while we
were sitting there. But I would love to hear a
(07:02):
bit about the reason you founded this. Yeah, I'm happy too.
And can I just say how thrilled I am that
we don't have to do those eight hour layovers and
airports and the conference travel has really um settled. It'll
bounce back, then I'll come back. It'll come back. But yes, agreed,
(07:23):
but hopefully not to the extent that we were doing
it on planes three times a week. But you wouldn't
have run into Laura exactly exactly. But so, I think
it was twenty beginning of so I was the s
VP of Marketing at Notch, and I mean even prior
to that, I had a pretty i guess, nonlinear career
(07:44):
in comms and marketing started in Australia on the agency side,
and then came over to New York with a big
enterprise with Westfield, and then Beauty start up and then
you know, B two, B stas so all over the place.
And I guess the consistent thing that my pain point was,
like number one was access to talent is really really hard.
(08:07):
And I think that our industry as we know is
so foundational to word of mouth. Um. And I guess
the one thing that I really saw is hyper specialization
in the industry is completely outpacing word of mouth. I
think marketing comms creative. It's growing both horizontally and vertically
from the skill sets that exist today that didn't exist
(08:29):
even ten years ago when you know, I started my career.
So problem number one was access to talent and access
to the right talent. I think for so long we've
relied on, as I mentioned, word of mouth and linked in,
and even the way we engaged with agencies is changing drastically.
Problem number two was once you've actually found someone, whether
(08:50):
it's a freelancer or a full time employee or an agency,
it takes so long from first conversation to on board
these people. Um what that law usually looks like, and
it touches OPS and HR and a hiring manager and
finance is you know, we put that U r L
into a Google spreadsheet and then pass it off to
(09:10):
an applicant tracking system. It's then, you know, we interview them,
we send them contracts, we on board them, and that
can take six to eight weeks and sometimes you just
want to hire someone for a day. And so that
essentially was my big pain point was access to talent
and then managing talent. So what we ended up launching
with Publicist was a platform that allowed agencies and brands
(09:34):
to source higher pay and manage. We launched with freelancers
and contractors, and we can get into how that's changed.
But essentially a platform where people can go and find
pre vetted, premium talent um and then on the flip side,
a community where the talent can essentially run their back
office from tax stuff too, invoices and contracts. Because I
(09:59):
think what this in the industry. You know a lot
of staffing agencies and a lot of these contractors. They've
never needed to be a solo preneurs or business of one.
And these people are phenomenal at doing the work, but
have never necessarily needed to be their own lawyer, and
be their own accountant, and be their own salesperson. And
(10:21):
the thing is, it's like anyone who has gone out
on their own to freelance or consult. This is takes
eighty percent of your time to set up. And by
the way, find the right lawyer. It's not just get
a lawyer, it's find the right lawyer who understands the business.
Find the right like, how do you start to think
about procurement, which is actually a huge gateway to your business,
(10:42):
like all of those things totally and even like even
marketing yourself is a really hard thing to do. And like, yes,
we're all marketers, but we and we've all written briefs
a hundred times in our life, but when have you
ever actually written a brief for yourself? And like, what
is my mission? Who is my target audience? It's a
really hard thing to do. You talk about pre vetting,
(11:04):
uh and pulling in premium talent onto the platform for marketers, brands, etcetera.
To connect What does that pre vetting process look like?
How do you identify premium talent? Was it a call
for was an immediate rush of somewhere in the middle.
We'd love to kind of get into your process a bit.
With communications, marketing, and creative, there is an abundance of
(11:26):
talent out there, but often when it comes to brand,
people willing to pay a premium for anything to do
with that, we're facing, you know, regard of of brand. Now,
we vet all of our talent in two different ways.
So there's an application process where we ask for things
like portfolio and references and brands, publishers, agencies worked with
(11:47):
skill sets industry, so we really try and get this
granular um experience and skill sets as possible. We then
put them through an interview process and so we want
to understand what a people's experience it's and so it's
very very created, and I think to create this really
premium community, we want to start with, you know, the
(12:09):
top of the top. We've got a really robust wait
list that you know, we check in on quarterly and
and then let people into the platform and let them
reapply and all of that. What is premium defined premium talent?
It's a really hard one. Now we have a couple
of one oh one, so we really look at past works.
(12:30):
That is the absolute indicator of uh, the output and
the actual whether it's creative or press or relationships. Um,
so it is. It is super subjective, and we've got
a communications council that goes in and and bets everyone.
But it's hard, and it's so interesting. And when I
talk about this hyper specialization of both industry and skill set,
(12:51):
like I cannot tell you the influx and by no
surprise of fintech and crypto, both clients and talent on
the platform. But then even defining like what is a
ship coin and like can people's experience. I say that, Yeah, Um,
we've said worse even defining the specialization within the coins,
(13:12):
whether it's Bitcoin or a ship cooin, whether it's go
to market or p R. And I think it's that
hyper specialization is just something that we're really focused on.
And what's interesting, we're seeing the term generalists now be
a specialization. Yeah, let's talk about that pendulum swing because
as I think about approaching twenty two, as we all know, um,
(13:36):
the Great Resignation underway and likely no signs of slowing down,
as more and more people are moving into freelance capacities,
changing industries, completely new and interesting paths that people are pursuing.
Have you seen that felt that, what does it look like?
And are there things that have surprised you, particularly over
(13:57):
the last two years that you can point to and say,
I didn't expect the industry to move this way, or
there's an overabundance of people moving that way. I think
what we're seeing is the Great reshuffle, not the Great resignation.
And I think that COVID obviously accelerated the move to
contract and the move to people taking a step back
(14:20):
and figuring out what they care about and not wanting
to work for average companies anymore. And one of the
things that I've seen and I think is here to
stay is this is a supply market. Clients are pitching
talent for the first time, rather than talent pitching clients,
which is something really really interesting. I also think that
I mean, we launched our business. May of do not
(14:41):
advise anyone to launch a company two months into one
of the greatest pandemics we'll ever see, but it was
just so fascinating that we gave home to first time
freelancers who will never go back to full time jobs,
and so this was a landing pad for them in
a way. But I think it will remain as a
supply market. We're working with a client right now, Free Pandemic.
(15:05):
They were receiving between five hundred a thousand job applicants
per job post today, so less than eighteen months later,
they're lucky if they get to wow too applicants. And
so I think that talent has just taken a step
back and figured out what they're worth is and what
(15:25):
they value, and I think it's an amazing thing for
all industries on that point. Are you helping your clients
think about and figure out like why what is happening
to their pipeline and why is their pipeline drying up.
One of the things that they're open to for the
first time ever is these these companies that have never
(15:46):
hired contractors and now hiring contractors for set roles. And
so one of the things we do is and back
to Laura, you're saying, we provide access to talent. Initially
we launched a freelance and that was absolutely the imminent
need that we saw, but you know, per the market
and we're so young that we can iterate as well
as a result of seeing what our clients need. We're
(16:07):
doing tempted perm, we're doing full time, we're doing one
our advisory um and so I think that's probably an
education that we say to clients if you're not feeling
this full time started as a three month tempted perm
and then see once the client has evaluated the talent
and the talent has evaluated the client, if that marriage
is you know worthwhile. So yeah, I think date before
(16:30):
marriage is a is a huge trem we're seeing. The
other thing is we're probably contract on the platform right now,
and historically a lot of the people that are these
contractors and these solo preneurs have had careers first and
have figured out that they now actually want to work
for themselves. And so that's also probably a reflection of
the inbound that's actually that's coming to the platform first
(16:53):
time solo preneurs who are stepping out of corporate structures,
corporate environments where you know, some of the specifics you're
alluding to earlier taxes, Alex, you're talking about lawyers, like
you know, the let's just say solo preneurs starter pack.
What's in the starter pack? What do people have to
know as they get on the platform in terms of
like I need these things to just get up and running. So, Laura,
(17:17):
that's a great point around you know, how do you
operate your business through whether it's through a platform or
off a platform. And it's one of the big pain
points that we had solving for what are the workflow
tools that someone actually needs, what's actually helpful and UM
on the platform right now we have the ability to
(17:37):
send invoices, the ability to customize contracts UM. A huge
thing that we haven't spoken about is payment terms when
at zero, yeah, I mean the amount of agencies that
a net thirty or forty five or even and it's tough. Yeah,
you can't do that. You cannot do that with like talent.
(17:58):
That is insulting talent. They have their own shops that
maybe they have small teams. No way, no way, And
so that that was something that was really important to me.
And so the projects, you know, again, the talent can customize.
Is it a monthly retainer, is it per project, is
it an annual retainer? UM, it's completely customizable. On the
(18:19):
talent side. Now, we launched with project based engagements, and
so that was up front, before work was done, in
upon completion, and that's still to date. Is one of
the most common preferences UM for both talent and clients.
And so I think building out workflow tools and then
there are certain workflow tools that we've decided not to
(18:40):
build for because we don't want to take away from
the work. So for example, we've got to chat function
on platform. UM, we didn't want to build a Slack
integration or like, we don't necessarily want to take people
away from Zoom or Slack or Gmail or how they're
getting work done. We just want to help them on
(19:01):
the administrative side, which exactly again it takes like eighty
percent of the time. When I first started consulting, I
stayed up almost every night untill two a m. Nine
to two a m. Was actually my billing, figuring out
my invoicing system. What was I going to use? Was
I going to use the free service? Was I going
to use a paid service? Figuring it out? I mean
it was like it was like, I mean truly starting
(19:23):
over right, Yeah, which seems like an opportunity, by the way,
from a tech product standpoint, to develop this solo preneurs
starter pack like that. Everything you're just saying the amount
of time time is money. Yeah, it's a ton of money.
And I think talent like you. As a consultant, there
are two things to figure out. One is getting new
business and then secondarily is bringing people on. And so
(19:46):
that's something that on platform we do as well. And
one of my favorite examples is we've got this phenomenal
fintech uh PR guy on the platform and his business
is completely changed. He's just high at his sixth person
on the platform because he's getting so much work from
the platform. So creating this three sixty ability to hire
(20:08):
and get hired, what's your payment? So we take a
percentageum it starts and essentially the which kind of is
built in both ways, that from workflow tools on the
supply side and then also the demand side. Um. But
the more from a client perspective, the more people you hire,
the cheaper it gets. And then a big focus of
(20:30):
ours is on the enterprise side and that kind of
commission goes out the door and it's more of a
sas license structure. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
I mean, the amount of money that people are spending
on recruitment firms and staffing agencies, it becomes really really expensive,
um for access to this great talent. Just trying to
(20:52):
make it as accessible as possible. Right knowing that you
have so much transaction happening on the platform between supply
and demand inside, are there on the back end data
points that you're seeing that can really hone in on
the generalist moving to hyper specialists. So the two biggest
categories right now that require hyper specialization is fintech and healthcare.
(21:18):
And it's probably in the last month jobs that we've
seen which is really really fascinating. We are probably in
the last two or three weeks have seen I want
to say sixties of new net new clients in crypto
n f T spaces and what's really interesting as well.
(21:38):
And I mean, I know offline we've all spoken a
lot about education, and I think that so many people
come to us because they're like, great, we can get
awesome marketing or awesome PR but a lot of these
newer companies need education that no, you actually need branding
and you need a comms message messaging strategy a four yep,
(22:01):
you need to go and engage in PAER And that
I think is where it's tough with younger companies as well,
because we want to help them help themselves, but you
can't come to us and say, you know, we want
to spend X on performance if you don't have great
creative and so I think that's that's challenging with with
earlier companies that have great budgets, and are you helping
(22:22):
companies like that evaluate what they need and then matching
them in some cases versus someone going on the platform
and saying I really like Laura, I really like Electa,
I really like their experience, and I think they're a
fit for what I'm looking for. So we've got a
great talent team that can help hold hands, but we
(22:43):
also try to solve it through content and education and
tools on the platform. I mean, we are a product,
and so things that we've created, like a budget calculator
and understanding how much you should be paying for talent
and what is normal and that kind of like that
alleviates that conversation that we need to have, and what
we're trying to do is create products and tools for
a lot of these younger companies to educate them because
(23:05):
it's it's hard to educate on a on a case
by case scenario. But yeah, we want to help where
we're super passionate about people getting the best outcome possible,
So where we can we do. I have seen in
the last six months this massive need for brand, brand
strategy and big calms brains um on the web three side,
(23:26):
and I think that a lot of founders and CEOs
are starting to really understand that they have the need,
but maybe don't really understand who fits the bill right.
My least favorite thing that I see is when prospective
clients come to us and they say, we were just
with a branding agency for a month, Well we just
(23:47):
had a publicist for a month, and it's like, well,
these things take time, and so I think that education
is is is hard if someone isn't used to this
industry and a lot of founders and you know, these
spaces are technical leads exactly, which again is challenging unless
they've got like marketing needs to sit at the table.
(24:08):
And I think that that's just a it's just an
educational piece that people need to understand. I think that
there's so much talent kind of buried in agencies. Has
that come up on the agency side, like what are
conversations with agency leaders? Agencies are some of our biggest clients.
I think that agencies, more than almost brands right now,
have been in what we refer to as a bit
(24:31):
of a talent drought. Um. One of the things that
we saw during the pandemic obviously was agencies completely downsized teams.
And yes, to an extent, that's bounced back, UM, but
I think what we will continue to see is agencies
will keep leaner teams and upskill when they need to.
(24:51):
And so you know, agencies use our platform in a
way that if they know that they're about to win
automotive business, you can go on and save fifty creative
directors in automotive or whatever the example is. So I
think that one of the reasons that agencies like the
platform is this unified transparency into understanding everyone that they
(25:13):
potentially could bring on or create a team. I think
one of the things that's interesting with agencies as well,
and this is a segue into our second product Operator,
but there is this need for not necessarily like three
or six or twelve month fractional work, but an hour
or a day of advisory for particular industries and so
(25:36):
um we saw a lot of agencies come to the
platform and saying, you know, we're pitching on a beverage client,
we need to speak to a beverage expert. Um and
that kind of is why we launched our Expert Network
Operator to give access to these thought leaders that can
really help and advise. We launched it with leading cmos
(25:58):
and agency leads and heads of d I and content leaders.
But the demand that we're seeing extends well beyond marketing,
and it's how people think about marketing. So it's you know,
it's psychologists, it's domain experts in the most interesting fields.
You know, it's really interesting and here come up often
the t shape skill set. Knowing a little bit about everything,
(26:23):
but really going deep on a specific subject matter. I'm
just curious to know both of you. Do you consider
yourself specialist or generalists? I think when I was in
a job when I was at Natural Archetypes before that
or Westfield, I was a specialist. And then being a
founder of an eighteen month old company where I am
(26:44):
HR and legal and sales and marketing, I'm a generalist, Alexa,
what are you? I mean, I'm t shaped going deep
in many areas, um, which is actually built up my
What I would say is a very strong generalist skill
set around classic marketing, right, marketing that creates value, that
creates products. Right. Well, what about you, Laura, Yeah, definitely
(27:08):
a t I find though the vertical portion of the
tea having to become more splintered. Um. The media landscape
is just evolving so rapidly. You can no longer just
be the best negotiator, buyer, etcetera, and so forth. You
really have to, I believe, understand new business models. I'm
fascinated with the thought of thinking about my first media
(27:30):
by through crypto, like what is that going to look like?
What does the infrastructure have to entail? Like all of
these things, So I think the t is getting splintered.
But I find um, in order to stay hyper competitive
in the marketing arena, you're horizontal is being pushed to
limits that I never thought possible. So hyper specialist, generalist, generalist,
(27:53):
hyper specialists. Depending on the day, I suppose capital capital
t all. The talus is an underlined yes. So speaking
of capital T let's talk about capital P How do
people join and get involved with publicist and how are
you also thinking about operator and vetting folks for operator.
(28:15):
Let's start with operator, because that is that's a really
highly curated group of people. It's word of mouth. We
still interview everyone. It started. We launched with two hundred
and fifty of you know, the leading marketers in the US,
and you know there's will be on the platform soon enough.
I know, I know. And we we did actually just
(28:37):
launch the ability to donate to charity, which is something
we're really excited about. And I know that that's something
that you both wanted to be involved on. So that's awesome. Um,
but so many also passed at Landia guests from like
Cindy Gallup to Nancy Hill, to Andrew Essex to Kim Marie.
It's just we're just going through the aad Landia episodes.
(28:58):
That should be an automatic menas is a pipe. Have
you been on Atlantia? I love that. We'll give everyone
a special code. Essentially, we tried to again go vertically,
so understand do we have enough people in healthcare? Do
we have enough people in consumer? Do we have enough
people in fintech? Whatever it was? And so that was
(29:19):
very much the rationale to begin with. And the way
Operator works is it's you're able to go on and
understand that the Atlantia team are available on Friday for
at four pm and their rate is X hundred dollars
an hour and they're either giving this to charity or
they're not. We ask people, you know, what is this
meeting about? What are you looking to get out of it?
(29:40):
And so it's really trying to again create access to
thought leaders that have been pretty inaccessible to date. And
so we will continue to keep Operator as a really
high level group of these thought leaders and will expand
over time. But again, if an agency says to us
we need five psychologists on X, will go and find
(30:03):
them and then on board them to the platform. With
publicist publicists is much more of a network it's much
more mass Um. It's you go onto the platform, you apply,
it's super super simple, and then from there, um we
let people to the platform. So, Laura, what does the
next year look like for you? How are you growing?
(30:24):
Where are you going? So the big focus of two
is this enterprise solution. So what we've really figured it
in the last eighteen months is, you know, bigger, the
bigger the company, bigger the problem, um, and so really
excited to expand our enterprise offering. UM. We're hiring some
really really smart generalist specialist unicorns everything on pretty much
(30:48):
every function of the business, which is exciting, and then
um expanding into some very exciting markets as well, like
geographical geographical markets. Okay, cool, very cool. Yeah, Well, we're
excited to see all things publicists, operator and beyond in
twenty two. But you know, before we go, we have
to play our game bye bye bye. In twenty two,
(31:11):
what is Laura saying goodbye to b y E? What
would you love to buy? Buy and what would you
like to do yourself that you're not already doing? Although
we know your plate is very full, b y, let's
start with b y I, I'd love to do a
consumer product one day. I just think it's like the
ability to create something that's physical is just awesome. But
(31:33):
that's years away because we need to figure out this
this marketplace first. Um, in terms of what would I buy? Wait,
go back to that for just one second, though, what's
the product? Do you know what I like? Twice a
day I'll come up with something. Yesterday it was like
tumor tea and then you go on Amazon and there's
(31:55):
eight million tumeric tape by but something like just a
consumer it would be amazing. All right, we'll think about
this with you. Yeah, I'm in all right, yeah, Tumeric
ta today. It's not vegemite has nothing to do with vegemine.
I'm sorry x oh you Aussies. Um, I can't handle it,
I know. But do you want to know an amazing
(32:15):
thing about vegemite that bonn And actually told me years ago?
And bow is who I think you're talking? Yeah, exactly.
Guess how many jars of vegemite they sell every year?
Like millions, millions it I think for the last like
a few decades. It's exactly correlated with the population of Australia.
(32:38):
So I think it's like there's there's this graph and
five years there were twenty million people in Today they're
twenty five million people. It is the exact amount of
humans there are in the country at the one time,
which I just think it's so interesting. Okay, So what
are you think goodbye to or what are you buying?
I mean, in terms of saying goodbye to, there are
so many things on social media that I'd love to
(32:59):
say goodbye to, from the vanity metrics to filters. I mean,
I'm to talk to you about filters for beauty filters. Yeah,
I think so. I think it would be I just
think on adolescents and you know, younger generations. It's just
I'd love to see them go really dangerous. I totally
(33:21):
agree with that. This is what you would look like
if your face was perfect filter. Have you seen this?
I haven't, but that scares me. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
Everyone's doing it is great. I did it to my dog.
Look the same. But um, but I mean, like the
Instagram filters, I put them on and I'm like, I
do not look like that. I It's just it's it's
really scary, and I think in it's like generationally people
(33:44):
that are growing up with that, right now, it's it
terrifies me. Okay, And what would you buy? Be you
why I wish I bought crypto five years ago and bitcoin,
but you and us both sugar, I'd probably buy an
education company. Um. I think that there's it's such an
(34:04):
interesting space. We've got a bunch of clients in education
right now. But I think it'll be interesting to see
the necessity of university degrees in ten and twenty years time.
And I think that in our industry specifically, there's a
slower education curve to kind of get up to speed
(34:25):
in terms of, like you know, writing briefs and to
become that practitioner. So yeah, something to do with education.
I think. I love that. I'm passionate about that spief too, Laura.
If people want to follow you, get in touch with you,
how do they do it? Yeah, my socials at Laura
Vandenberg and then my email is lv at publicist dot com.
(34:48):
And there will be no filters on zero filters, so
zero filters in two Yeah, Laura, thanks for coming by Atlanta.
Agree to see you. Thanks so much. Fun. I think
Laura has really hit on a need in the market
(35:09):
that has been totally overlooked and underserved. At the end
of the day, here's what's really exciting to me about
Laura's model. It actually allows more people to start exploring
fractional advisory types of work, and it takes away that
massive overhead of time and cost around business development as well.
(35:34):
That takes time, that takes money, that takes energy. So
taking that out of the equation gives folks the ability
to get their talent, get their expertise in use in
the market almost immediately. So one of the things that
Laura didn't say in this episode that I think is
really critical is that the time to actual job signing
(35:55):
and starting to work, she's cut down significantly. So if
you compare that to even working with a recruiter, are
working with like a job's placement company, all of those things,
she's cut that time down so significantly that you can
get on the platform and pretty much start working almost immediately.
You know, Like, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the
(36:17):
trending of the side hustle and the gig economy over
the last few years. But what this is implying or
suggesting is that it will just be the hustle, it
will just be the economy. There will be more openness
in what may be formerly known as corporate structures too,
fractionalized ways of working, and an entire marketplace out there
(36:40):
that continues to push on how that is shaped, how
that is governed. If we look at the valuations for
companies in this space, if we look at the number
of startups entering it, as we look at more tech
enabling it, executives in the advertising marketing media space are
(37:01):
likely going to have to consider how they address and evolved.
And I think it's really interesting when you start to
think about the role of the CEO organizational structure. I
mean the ORG chart. What does an org chart look like? Two?
We are going to see so much of new learning models,
(37:23):
new education companies at tech et cetera, and platforms and
tools around how to start to apply that talent across
lots of different industries. And so this kind of like
T shaped person that we talk about will become more
and more realized. And there may be specialist parts of
(37:46):
it and generalist expertise across many many areas. And that
to me isn't one of the most exciting things that
I think we're going to see this year. Two. Here
we go, Laura hit it with a list of all
of our friends and family at I Heart who have
been so good to us and helped us get back
on air. Big thank you to Bob Coronell, Carter, Andy, Eric, Gail,
(38:10):
Val Michael Genn. We appreciate you. Thank you so much
for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
going to have to start making better content. I think
we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
I think it's that we're purpose driven platform like we're
trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
really is what's up? Up? More currency? And I'm Alexa Kristen.
(00:26):
Welcome back Atlantia. Happy twenty two. Here we go. I
believe this year is the year of the individual, where
people use their talent in non traditional ways. And we've
been talking about multifaceted identities, and now we're in the
place where people can start to flex those skill sets, identities,
(00:49):
passion points, and interests in places that are maybe not
the traditional forty hour work week, full time job. I
do X, I am X, meaning I am a marketer.
Therefore I join an agency or I'm on the client side.
Now we have the opportunity to say I can actually
(01:10):
flex those skill sets into places that I've never maybe
gone before, into areas where my skills or my perspective,
my point of view is really needed and I've never
actually applied it in those areas before. It got us
thinking about some of the past conversations that we've had,
(01:32):
one of which was Cyndy Gallup, who talks about personal
agency and what personal agency means, individual agency, and that
everyone has agency. It's how you start to use it
and actually apply it into your future, into your trajectory,
into your daily life and decide what you're worth, where
(01:55):
you want to go, and really start to think in
nonlinear ways about how you apply your skill sets outside
of maybe the traditional forty hour work week. Now, this
has been a conversation that not only we've been having
for years. There was an episode I recall us talking
about portfolio careers and this was a couple of years back,
(02:16):
and really thinking about how your core competency or your
core skill sets can be transferable into different industries to
allow you to start to branch and build um something
that's as horizontal as it is vertical. So this has
been a conversation that has been happening over time. But
I think what we're seeing is now executives, founders vcs
(02:38):
start to action on it, creating opportunities in traditional structures
to allow for experimentation and exploration, but even a step
further building entire new business models that support not only
you know, the discovery and accessibility for employers and contractors
to connect, but also and we're gonna get into it
(02:59):
in this episode. And I know, Alexa, you have experience
and a point of view on this, supporting on the
back end for things like taxes and how to set
up you know, the infrastructure of your organization that you
may not have experience. And what's been on the forefront
of the conversation around flexible work and using your skill
sets in different ways has really been in the Web
(03:21):
three space. It's really been in the creator economy space.
What we haven't talked about as much is how more
traditional tracks functional skill sets, marketers, communicators, How are they
actually starting to leverage their agency, How are they starting
to actually look at branching out and using their network
(03:44):
as a verification system and starting to look for different work,
applying their skill sets into a different way and looking
at potentially areas that they haven't gone into that are
very different from the forty hour work week and the
full time gig. And so to your point, there really
hasn't been an infrastructure that's been built to do that,
(04:07):
and so the guests we have on today. Laura Vandenberg
is the founder of Publicist dot co and what Publicist
does is end to end. Has created a solution for
the demand side, so the client that's hiring, and the
supply side, the talent that's looking, and it handles everything
(04:29):
from the back end so that it's not just on
demand talent and a talent search agency. It's not that
at all. It's actually using back end technology sas tools
to help folks operationalize their skill sets, their expertise almost
immediately into the workforce, from fractional to full time to advisory, etcetera.
(04:55):
Why is this so important right now? Well, I think
what I found interesting in the conversation and get into
it in just a minute, is that fractionalized bit, that
advisory bit, the opportunity to have something on demand. Laura
talks about the on boarding process and the traditional model.
There's the application, rounds of interviews, reference checks, you know,
(05:19):
additional back and forth around negotiation, et cetera. By the
time you go from initial discussion two on boarding into
an organization, it can take quite a long time. When
in fact, there are some clients, brands, agencies who are
looking for support, maybe for just a matter of hours
(05:42):
to consult on something. So that was equally interesting to me,
not only the support of the contractors, but also on
the employers side, the ability to expedite the process and
have options that can be something that's a matter of
hours or something that's a matter of months. And with
Lara Vandenberg, we'll be right back and we are back
(06:17):
on the mic with longtime friend Lara Vandenberg is in
the studio hanging with us today to talk all things
Publicist dot Co. Lara, I feel like we've been waiting
so long to say this. Welcome to Atlantia. Thanks both.
I'm so excited. I know this is years in the making.
So the first time I heard about Publicist, you and
(06:39):
I were in an airport on an eight hour delay
trying to get out of I think we were in
Park City, if I recall Sundance Sundance and you said, so,
I'm thinking about starting this thing. And because the delay
went on and on and on, I think we did
like three iterations of the pitch deck together while we
were sitting there. But I would love to hear a
(07:02):
bit about the reason you founded this. Yeah, I'm happy too.
And can I just say how thrilled I am that
we don't have to do those eight hour layovers and
airports and the conference travel has really um settled. It'll
bounce back, then I'll come back. It'll come back. But yes, agreed,
(07:23):
but hopefully not to the extent that we were doing
it on planes three times a week. But you wouldn't
have run into Laura exactly exactly. But so, I think
it was twenty beginning of so I was the s
VP of Marketing at Notch, and I mean even prior
to that, I had a pretty i guess, nonlinear career
(07:44):
in comms and marketing started in Australia on the agency side,
and then came over to New York with a big
enterprise with Westfield, and then Beauty start up and then
you know, B two, B stas so all over the place.
And I guess the consistent thing that my pain point was,
like number one was access to talent is really really hard.
(08:07):
And I think that our industry as we know is
so foundational to word of mouth. Um. And I guess
the one thing that I really saw is hyper specialization
in the industry is completely outpacing word of mouth. I
think marketing comms creative. It's growing both horizontally and vertically
from the skill sets that exist today that didn't exist
(08:29):
even ten years ago when you know, I started my career.
So problem number one was access to talent and access
to the right talent. I think for so long we've
relied on, as I mentioned, word of mouth and linked in,
and even the way we engaged with agencies is changing drastically.
Problem number two was once you've actually found someone, whether
(08:50):
it's a freelancer or a full time employee or an agency,
it takes so long from first conversation to on board
these people. Um what that law usually looks like, and
it touches OPS and HR and a hiring manager and
finance is you know, we put that U r L
into a Google spreadsheet and then pass it off to
(09:10):
an applicant tracking system. It's then, you know, we interview them,
we send them contracts, we on board them, and that
can take six to eight weeks and sometimes you just
want to hire someone for a day. And so that
essentially was my big pain point was access to talent
and then managing talent. So what we ended up launching
with Publicist was a platform that allowed agencies and brands
(09:34):
to source higher pay and manage. We launched with freelancers
and contractors, and we can get into how that's changed.
But essentially a platform where people can go and find
pre vetted, premium talent um and then on the flip side,
a community where the talent can essentially run their back
office from tax stuff too, invoices and contracts. Because I
(09:59):
think what this in the industry. You know a lot
of staffing agencies and a lot of these contractors. They've
never needed to be a solo preneurs or business of one.
And these people are phenomenal at doing the work, but
have never necessarily needed to be their own lawyer, and
be their own accountant, and be their own salesperson. And
(10:21):
the thing is, it's like anyone who has gone out
on their own to freelance or consult. This is takes
eighty percent of your time to set up. And by
the way, find the right lawyer. It's not just get
a lawyer, it's find the right lawyer who understands the business.
Find the right like, how do you start to think
about procurement, which is actually a huge gateway to your business,
(10:42):
like all of those things totally and even like even
marketing yourself is a really hard thing to do. And like, yes,
we're all marketers, but we and we've all written briefs
a hundred times in our life, but when have you
ever actually written a brief for yourself? And like, what
is my mission? Who is my target audience? It's a
really hard thing to do. You talk about pre vetting,
(11:04):
uh and pulling in premium talent onto the platform for marketers, brands, etcetera.
To connect What does that pre vetting process look like?
How do you identify premium talent? Was it a call
for was an immediate rush of somewhere in the middle.
We'd love to kind of get into your process a bit.
With communications, marketing, and creative, there is an abundance of
(11:26):
talent out there, but often when it comes to brand,
people willing to pay a premium for anything to do
with that, we're facing, you know, regard of of brand. Now,
we vet all of our talent in two different ways.
So there's an application process where we ask for things
like portfolio and references and brands, publishers, agencies worked with
(11:47):
skill sets industry, so we really try and get this
granular um experience and skill sets as possible. We then
put them through an interview process and so we want
to understand what a people's experience it's and so it's
very very created, and I think to create this really
premium community, we want to start with, you know, the
(12:09):
top of the top. We've got a really robust wait
list that you know, we check in on quarterly and
and then let people into the platform and let them
reapply and all of that. What is premium defined premium talent?
It's a really hard one. Now we have a couple
of one oh one, so we really look at past works.
(12:30):
That is the absolute indicator of uh, the output and
the actual whether it's creative or press or relationships. Um,
so it is. It is super subjective, and we've got
a communications council that goes in and and bets everyone.
But it's hard, and it's so interesting. And when I
talk about this hyper specialization of both industry and skill set,
(12:51):
like I cannot tell you the influx and by no
surprise of fintech and crypto, both clients and talent on
the platform. But then even defining like what is a
ship coin and like can people's experience. I say that, Yeah, Um,
we've said worse even defining the specialization within the coins,
(13:12):
whether it's Bitcoin or a ship cooin, whether it's go
to market or p R. And I think it's that
hyper specialization is just something that we're really focused on.
And what's interesting, we're seeing the term generalists now be
a specialization. Yeah, let's talk about that pendulum swing because
as I think about approaching twenty two, as we all know, um,
(13:36):
the Great Resignation underway and likely no signs of slowing down,
as more and more people are moving into freelance capacities,
changing industries, completely new and interesting paths that people are pursuing.
Have you seen that felt that, what does it look like?
And are there things that have surprised you, particularly over
(13:57):
the last two years that you can point to and say,
I didn't expect the industry to move this way, or
there's an overabundance of people moving that way. I think
what we're seeing is the Great reshuffle, not the Great resignation.
And I think that COVID obviously accelerated the move to
contract and the move to people taking a step back
(14:20):
and figuring out what they care about and not wanting
to work for average companies anymore. And one of the
things that I've seen and I think is here to
stay is this is a supply market. Clients are pitching
talent for the first time, rather than talent pitching clients,
which is something really really interesting. I also think that
I mean, we launched our business. May of do not
(14:41):
advise anyone to launch a company two months into one
of the greatest pandemics we'll ever see, but it was
just so fascinating that we gave home to first time
freelancers who will never go back to full time jobs,
and so this was a landing pad for them in
a way. But I think it will remain as a
supply market. We're working with a client right now, Free Pandemic.
(15:05):
They were receiving between five hundred a thousand job applicants
per job post today, so less than eighteen months later,
they're lucky if they get to wow too applicants. And
so I think that talent has just taken a step
back and figured out what they're worth is and what
(15:25):
they value, and I think it's an amazing thing for
all industries on that point. Are you helping your clients
think about and figure out like why what is happening
to their pipeline and why is their pipeline drying up.
One of the things that they're open to for the
first time ever is these these companies that have never
(15:46):
hired contractors and now hiring contractors for set roles. And
so one of the things we do is and back
to Laura, you're saying, we provide access to talent. Initially
we launched a freelance and that was absolutely the imminent
need that we saw, but you know, per the market
and we're so young that we can iterate as well
as a result of seeing what our clients need. We're
(16:07):
doing tempted perm, we're doing full time, we're doing one
our advisory um and so I think that's probably an
education that we say to clients if you're not feeling
this full time started as a three month tempted perm
and then see once the client has evaluated the talent
and the talent has evaluated the client, if that marriage
is you know worthwhile. So yeah, I think date before
(16:30):
marriage is a is a huge trem we're seeing. The
other thing is we're probably contract on the platform right now,
and historically a lot of the people that are these
contractors and these solo preneurs have had careers first and
have figured out that they now actually want to work
for themselves. And so that's also probably a reflection of
the inbound that's actually that's coming to the platform first
(16:53):
time solo preneurs who are stepping out of corporate structures,
corporate environments where you know, some of the specifics you're
alluding to earlier taxes, Alex, you're talking about lawyers, like
you know, the let's just say solo preneurs starter pack.
What's in the starter pack? What do people have to
know as they get on the platform in terms of
like I need these things to just get up and running. So, Laura,
(17:17):
that's a great point around you know, how do you
operate your business through whether it's through a platform or
off a platform. And it's one of the big pain
points that we had solving for what are the workflow
tools that someone actually needs, what's actually helpful and UM
on the platform right now we have the ability to
(17:37):
send invoices, the ability to customize contracts UM. A huge
thing that we haven't spoken about is payment terms when
at zero, yeah, I mean the amount of agencies that
a net thirty or forty five or even and it's tough. Yeah,
you can't do that. You cannot do that with like talent.
(17:58):
That is insulting talent. They have their own shops that
maybe they have small teams. No way, no way, And
so that that was something that was really important to me.
And so the projects, you know, again, the talent can customize.
Is it a monthly retainer, is it per project, is
it an annual retainer? UM, it's completely customizable. On the
(18:19):
talent side. Now, we launched with project based engagements, and
so that was up front, before work was done, in
upon completion, and that's still to date. Is one of
the most common preferences UM for both talent and clients.
And so I think building out workflow tools and then
there are certain workflow tools that we've decided not to
(18:40):
build for because we don't want to take away from
the work. So for example, we've got to chat function
on platform. UM, we didn't want to build a Slack
integration or like, we don't necessarily want to take people
away from Zoom or Slack or Gmail or how they're
getting work done. We just want to help them on
(19:01):
the administrative side, which exactly again it takes like eighty
percent of the time. When I first started consulting, I
stayed up almost every night untill two a m. Nine
to two a m. Was actually my billing, figuring out
my invoicing system. What was I going to use? Was
I going to use the free service? Was I going
to use a paid service? Figuring it out? I mean
it was like it was like, I mean truly starting
(19:23):
over right, Yeah, which seems like an opportunity, by the way,
from a tech product standpoint, to develop this solo preneurs
starter pack like that. Everything you're just saying the amount
of time time is money. Yeah, it's a ton of money.
And I think talent like you. As a consultant, there
are two things to figure out. One is getting new
business and then secondarily is bringing people on. And so
(19:46):
that's something that on platform we do as well. And
one of my favorite examples is we've got this phenomenal
fintech uh PR guy on the platform and his business
is completely changed. He's just high at his sixth person
on the platform because he's getting so much work from
the platform. So creating this three sixty ability to hire
(20:08):
and get hired, what's your payment? So we take a
percentageum it starts and essentially the which kind of is
built in both ways, that from workflow tools on the
supply side and then also the demand side. Um. But
the more from a client perspective, the more people you hire,
the cheaper it gets. And then a big focus of
(20:30):
ours is on the enterprise side and that kind of
commission goes out the door and it's more of a
sas license structure. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
I mean, the amount of money that people are spending
on recruitment firms and staffing agencies, it becomes really really expensive,
um for access to this great talent. Just trying to
(20:52):
make it as accessible as possible. Right knowing that you
have so much transaction happening on the platform between supply
and demand inside, are there on the back end data
points that you're seeing that can really hone in on
the generalist moving to hyper specialists. So the two biggest
categories right now that require hyper specialization is fintech and healthcare.
(21:18):
And it's probably in the last month jobs that we've
seen which is really really fascinating. We are probably in
the last two or three weeks have seen I want
to say sixties of new net new clients in crypto
n f T spaces and what's really interesting as well.
(21:38):
And I mean, I know offline we've all spoken a
lot about education, and I think that so many people
come to us because they're like, great, we can get
awesome marketing or awesome PR but a lot of these
newer companies need education that no, you actually need branding
and you need a comms message messaging strategy a four yep,
(22:01):
you need to go and engage in PAER And that
I think is where it's tough with younger companies as well,
because we want to help them help themselves, but you
can't come to us and say, you know, we want
to spend X on performance if you don't have great
creative and so I think that's that's challenging with with
earlier companies that have great budgets, and are you helping
(22:22):
companies like that evaluate what they need and then matching
them in some cases versus someone going on the platform
and saying I really like Laura, I really like Electa,
I really like their experience, and I think they're a
fit for what I'm looking for. So we've got a
great talent team that can help hold hands, but we
(22:43):
also try to solve it through content and education and
tools on the platform. I mean, we are a product,
and so things that we've created, like a budget calculator
and understanding how much you should be paying for talent
and what is normal and that kind of like that
alleviates that conversation that we need to have, and what
we're trying to do is create products and tools for
a lot of these younger companies to educate them because
(23:05):
it's it's hard to educate on a on a case
by case scenario. But yeah, we want to help where
we're super passionate about people getting the best outcome possible,
So where we can we do. I have seen in
the last six months this massive need for brand, brand
strategy and big calms brains um on the web three side,
(23:26):
and I think that a lot of founders and CEOs
are starting to really understand that they have the need,
but maybe don't really understand who fits the bill right.
My least favorite thing that I see is when prospective
clients come to us and they say, we were just
with a branding agency for a month, Well we just
(23:47):
had a publicist for a month, and it's like, well,
these things take time, and so I think that education
is is is hard if someone isn't used to this
industry and a lot of founders and you know, these
spaces are technical leads exactly, which again is challenging unless
they've got like marketing needs to sit at the table.
(24:08):
And I think that that's just a it's just an
educational piece that people need to understand. I think that
there's so much talent kind of buried in agencies. Has
that come up on the agency side, like what are
conversations with agency leaders? Agencies are some of our biggest clients.
I think that agencies, more than almost brands right now,
have been in what we refer to as a bit
(24:31):
of a talent drought. Um. One of the things that
we saw during the pandemic obviously was agencies completely downsized teams.
And yes, to an extent, that's bounced back, UM, but
I think what we will continue to see is agencies
will keep leaner teams and upskill when they need to.
(24:51):
And so you know, agencies use our platform in a
way that if they know that they're about to win
automotive business, you can go on and save fifty creative
directors in automotive or whatever the example is. So I
think that one of the reasons that agencies like the
platform is this unified transparency into understanding everyone that they
(25:13):
potentially could bring on or create a team. I think
one of the things that's interesting with agencies as well,
and this is a segue into our second product Operator,
but there is this need for not necessarily like three
or six or twelve month fractional work, but an hour
or a day of advisory for particular industries and so
(25:36):
um we saw a lot of agencies come to the
platform and saying, you know, we're pitching on a beverage client,
we need to speak to a beverage expert. Um and
that kind of is why we launched our Expert Network
Operator to give access to these thought leaders that can
really help and advise. We launched it with leading cmos
(25:58):
and agency leads and heads of d I and content leaders.
But the demand that we're seeing extends well beyond marketing,
and it's how people think about marketing. So it's you know,
it's psychologists, it's domain experts in the most interesting fields.
You know, it's really interesting and here come up often
the t shape skill set. Knowing a little bit about everything,
(26:23):
but really going deep on a specific subject matter. I'm
just curious to know both of you. Do you consider
yourself specialist or generalists? I think when I was in
a job when I was at Natural Archetypes before that
or Westfield, I was a specialist. And then being a
founder of an eighteen month old company where I am
(26:44):
HR and legal and sales and marketing, I'm a generalist, Alexa,
what are you? I mean, I'm t shaped going deep
in many areas, um, which is actually built up my
What I would say is a very strong generalist skill
set around classic marketing, right, marketing that creates value, that
creates products. Right. Well, what about you, Laura, Yeah, definitely
(27:08):
a t I find though the vertical portion of the
tea having to become more splintered. Um. The media landscape
is just evolving so rapidly. You can no longer just
be the best negotiator, buyer, etcetera, and so forth. You
really have to, I believe, understand new business models. I'm
fascinated with the thought of thinking about my first media
(27:30):
by through crypto, like what is that going to look like?
What does the infrastructure have to entail? Like all of
these things, So I think the t is getting splintered.
But I find um, in order to stay hyper competitive
in the marketing arena, you're horizontal is being pushed to
limits that I never thought possible. So hyper specialist, generalist, generalist,
(27:53):
hyper specialists. Depending on the day, I suppose capital capital
t all. The talus is an underlined yes. So speaking
of capital T let's talk about capital P How do
people join and get involved with publicist and how are
you also thinking about operator and vetting folks for operator.
(28:15):
Let's start with operator, because that is that's a really
highly curated group of people. It's word of mouth. We
still interview everyone. It started. We launched with two hundred
and fifty of you know, the leading marketers in the US,
and you know there's will be on the platform soon enough.
I know, I know. And we we did actually just
(28:37):
launch the ability to donate to charity, which is something
we're really excited about. And I know that that's something
that you both wanted to be involved on. So that's awesome. Um,
but so many also passed at Landia guests from like
Cindy Gallup to Nancy Hill, to Andrew Essex to Kim Marie.
It's just we're just going through the aad Landia episodes.
(28:58):
That should be an automatic menas is a pipe. Have
you been on Atlantia? I love that. We'll give everyone
a special code. Essentially, we tried to again go vertically,
so understand do we have enough people in healthcare? Do
we have enough people in consumer? Do we have enough
people in fintech? Whatever it was? And so that was
(29:19):
very much the rationale to begin with. And the way
Operator works is it's you're able to go on and
understand that the Atlantia team are available on Friday for
at four pm and their rate is X hundred dollars
an hour and they're either giving this to charity or
they're not. We ask people, you know, what is this
meeting about? What are you looking to get out of it?
(29:40):
And so it's really trying to again create access to
thought leaders that have been pretty inaccessible to date. And
so we will continue to keep Operator as a really
high level group of these thought leaders and will expand
over time. But again, if an agency says to us
we need five psychologists on X, will go and find
(30:03):
them and then on board them to the platform. With
publicist publicists is much more of a network it's much
more mass Um. It's you go onto the platform, you apply,
it's super super simple, and then from there, um we
let people to the platform. So, Laura, what does the
next year look like for you? How are you growing?
(30:24):
Where are you going? So the big focus of two
is this enterprise solution. So what we've really figured it
in the last eighteen months is, you know, bigger, the
bigger the company, bigger the problem, um, and so really
excited to expand our enterprise offering. UM. We're hiring some
really really smart generalist specialist unicorns everything on pretty much
(30:48):
every function of the business, which is exciting, and then
um expanding into some very exciting markets as well, like
geographical geographical markets. Okay, cool, very cool. Yeah, Well, we're
excited to see all things publicists, operator and beyond in
twenty two. But you know, before we go, we have
to play our game bye bye bye. In twenty two,
(31:11):
what is Laura saying goodbye to b y E? What
would you love to buy? Buy and what would you
like to do yourself that you're not already doing? Although
we know your plate is very full, b y, let's
start with b y I, I'd love to do a
consumer product one day. I just think it's like the
ability to create something that's physical is just awesome. But
(31:33):
that's years away because we need to figure out this
this marketplace first. Um, in terms of what would I buy? Wait,
go back to that for just one second, though, what's
the product? Do you know what I like? Twice a
day I'll come up with something. Yesterday it was like
tumor tea and then you go on Amazon and there's
(31:55):
eight million tumeric tape by but something like just a
consumer it would be amazing. All right, we'll think about
this with you. Yeah, I'm in all right, yeah, Tumeric
ta today. It's not vegemite has nothing to do with vegemine.
I'm sorry x oh you Aussies. Um, I can't handle it,
I know. But do you want to know an amazing
(32:15):
thing about vegemite that bonn And actually told me years ago?
And bow is who I think you're talking? Yeah, exactly.
Guess how many jars of vegemite they sell every year?
Like millions, millions it I think for the last like
a few decades. It's exactly correlated with the population of Australia.
(32:38):
So I think it's like there's there's this graph and
five years there were twenty million people in Today they're
twenty five million people. It is the exact amount of
humans there are in the country at the one time,
which I just think it's so interesting. Okay, So what
are you think goodbye to or what are you buying?
I mean, in terms of saying goodbye to, there are
so many things on social media that I'd love to
(32:59):
say goodbye to, from the vanity metrics to filters. I mean,
I'm to talk to you about filters for beauty filters. Yeah,
I think so. I think it would be I just
think on adolescents and you know, younger generations. It's just
I'd love to see them go really dangerous. I totally
(33:21):
agree with that. This is what you would look like
if your face was perfect filter. Have you seen this?
I haven't, but that scares me. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
Everyone's doing it is great. I did it to my dog.
Look the same. But um, but I mean, like the
Instagram filters, I put them on and I'm like, I
do not look like that. I It's just it's it's
really scary, and I think in it's like generationally people
(33:44):
that are growing up with that, right now, it's it
terrifies me. Okay, And what would you buy? Be you
why I wish I bought crypto five years ago and bitcoin,
but you and us both sugar, I'd probably buy an
education company. Um. I think that there's it's such an
(34:04):
interesting space. We've got a bunch of clients in education
right now. But I think it'll be interesting to see
the necessity of university degrees in ten and twenty years time.
And I think that in our industry specifically, there's a
slower education curve to kind of get up to speed
(34:25):
in terms of, like you know, writing briefs and to
become that practitioner. So yeah, something to do with education.
I think. I love that. I'm passionate about that spief too, Laura.
If people want to follow you, get in touch with you,
how do they do it? Yeah, my socials at Laura
Vandenberg and then my email is lv at publicist dot com.
(34:48):
And there will be no filters on zero filters, so
zero filters in two Yeah, Laura, thanks for coming by Atlanta.
Agree to see you. Thanks so much. Fun. I think
Laura has really hit on a need in the market
(35:09):
that has been totally overlooked and underserved. At the end
of the day, here's what's really exciting to me about
Laura's model. It actually allows more people to start exploring
fractional advisory types of work, and it takes away that
massive overhead of time and cost around business development as well.
(35:34):
That takes time, that takes money, that takes energy. So
taking that out of the equation gives folks the ability
to get their talent, get their expertise in use in
the market almost immediately. So one of the things that
Laura didn't say in this episode that I think is
really critical is that the time to actual job signing
(35:55):
and starting to work, she's cut down significantly. So if
you compare that to even working with a recruiter, are
working with like a job's placement company, all of those things,
she's cut that time down so significantly that you can
get on the platform and pretty much start working almost immediately.
You know, Like, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the
(36:17):
trending of the side hustle and the gig economy over
the last few years. But what this is implying or
suggesting is that it will just be the hustle, it
will just be the economy. There will be more openness
in what may be formerly known as corporate structures too,
fractionalized ways of working, and an entire marketplace out there
(36:40):
that continues to push on how that is shaped, how
that is governed. If we look at the valuations for
companies in this space, if we look at the number
of startups entering it, as we look at more tech
enabling it, executives in the advertising marketing media space are
(37:01):
likely going to have to consider how they address and evolved.
And I think it's really interesting when you start to
think about the role of the CEO organizational structure. I
mean the ORG chart. What does an org chart look like? Two?
We are going to see so much of new learning models,
(37:23):
new education companies at tech et cetera, and platforms and
tools around how to start to apply that talent across
lots of different industries. And so this kind of like
T shaped person that we talk about will become more
and more realized. And there may be specialist parts of
(37:46):
it and generalist expertise across many many areas. And that
to me isn't one of the most exciting things that
I think we're going to see this year. Two. Here
we go, Laura hit it with a list of all
of our friends and family at I Heart who have
been so good to us and helped us get back
on air. Big thank you to Bob Coronell, Carter, Andy, Eric, Gail,
(38:10):
Val Michael Genn. We appreciate you. Thank you so much
for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.