The Ross Simmonds Show

Latest Episodes:

7 Tips for Creating a Great Life Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I’m going to share seven simple yet important tips that will help you on your pursuit of creating something great.

It’s a combination of a handful of different ideas I’ve spoken on in the past all brought together in one episode for you to enjoy.

I’m sure that some of these ideas will be messages you’ve heard before and some might be a bit new.

Either way, I hope that this Journal Entry helps you in your pursuit to create a life that you consider great.

Dr. Susan Rogers, A Conversation with a Record Producer & Neuroscientist Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

Join me today as I speak with Dr. Susan Rogers, professor, neuroscientist, and sound engineer.

Susan Rogers, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and author of This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You. Prior to her science career Susan was a record producer and engineer, known chiefly for her work with Prince and Barenaked Ladies and she currently teaches for Berklee College of Music.

Susan was Prince’s staff engineer during Prince’s commercial peak and worked on albums like Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Sign o’ the Times and the Black Album.

But that’s not all Susan is known for. She’s the author of This Is What It Sounds Like. (https://www.thisiswhatitsoundslike.com/) A book that breaks down why you fall in love with music.

She gives real world examples, so you can help identify your “listener type“ and help you appreciate even some “really bad“ music that you probably dismissed as being trash.

You might not realize it but it has more to do with psychology and neuroscience than you think.

This interview is important because in my opinion some of the greatest creators of all time are musicians.

The greatest musicians have created songs, melodies and albums that have been listened to for decades.

And some of them are what Susan describes as Hyper Creatives. A concept that I’m excited to share with you even more in this episode.

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

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Content Chaos: How to Build Your Brand Through Experimentation Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, I share my Keynote presentation that I gave about the power of experimentation to the audience at MozCon, one of the leading SEO conferences in the world.

I’m sure you know, consciously or subconsciously, just how powerful experimentation is.

Experiments have helped us create, cure diseases, invent things like velcro, Pumpkin Spice lattes and more.

So, how can you strategically experiment with your content?

And one myth I want to debunk right now: Experimentation is not just for big brands.

Experiments work for small and medium sized brands as well.

So, whether it’s Reddit, Quora, Slideshare, Quora, or Instagram, I share some of the results of my content experiments in hopes that you too will dive into your own content experiments.

Build. Ship. Learn. Decide.

This framework has fundamentally allowed me to quickly ship ideas, kill ideas, and, most importantly, understand what ideas work well for my business.

Approach Content Like an Investor Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

In this episode of my journal entries, I share a keynote that I presented at SimilarWeb on one of my favorite topics: Why marketers should think like investors in order to drive content results.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about because I live and breathe this.

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I bought my very first stock in 2008.

I bought the GM stock at a time when I thought, I would definitely get a return on my investment.

I told myself, “it’s GM. Even in the midst of a global recession, GM won’t go bankrupt. That will never happen. It can’t. This brand has been around my entire life.”

Well, GM went bankrupt and I lost everything.

But in this moment I learned something that is very applicable to marketing and investing alike.

And that is that you cannot and should not jump into any market without doing your homework, studying the industry, studying your audience, understanding the game.

You can’t just jump in thinking that you know everything about the market without studying the market.

So, what does studying look like, and how did I recoup from my GM stock investment? Listen to today's episode to learn more.

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

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How Toast's $12M+ SEO Moat Helped Them Grow During a Pandemic May 25, 2023

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On this episode of the Create Like the Greats, we discuss how Toast's $12M+ SEO Moat helped them grow during a pandemic.

We explore their strategies and tactics that enabled them to capture market share in an economic downturn, plus what other companies can learn from their success story.

With these insights into SEO optimization for e-commerce businesses, you'll be able to better understand how search engine rankings work and apply similar principles when developing your own online marketing strategy.

Read more about Toast on our Blog >>> https://foundationinc.co/lab/toast-seo-moat/

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If you are running a SaaS or B2B company and need help executing some of these strategies, head over to foundationinc.co/services to find out more about how you can establish your brand as a trusted expert in your industry.

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

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How SaaS Brands Can Win in Commoditized Markets May 18, 2023

Show notes

In this episode of my journal entries, I share one of my most popular presentations. A presentation that I gave to many businesses around the globe and at conferences from coast to coast. In this particular episode, I’m going to be sharing the audio from a webinar I did with the team at Metadata.io about how SaaS brands can win in commoditized markets.

You know. Here’s the biggest problem I see right now in our industry:

Brands have forgotten that Content Marketing is a two word concept.

As such… They’ve shifted their focus to creating content and that’s it.

Content.

And absolutely no marketing.

It’s a shame.

More organizations across SaaS need to be thinking like a media company.

But I won’t stop there…because, I’m sure you’ve heard that.

I go on to say that SaaS brands need to embrace the idea of marketing at its core. Which means companies in the SaaS space need to think holistically about their marketing efforts.

Not just creating blog posts and hitting publish for years on end.

Blog posts should be the tip of the iceberg for your content marketing engine.

A great content engine recognizes opportunities for research, development, press releases, and a great content engine will ultimately lead you to the conversations that you want to have with industry and global leaders.

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Why I Launched A Course On LinkedIn Learning May 12, 2023

Show notes

It was 8:20PM.

I was just walking out of my kids room after reading them a story called Hair Love for the second time.

I walked down stairs, made a cup of tea and opened my phone. It was an email. An email from someone who worked at LinkedIn.

It turned out that someone at LinkedIn had caught some of my content online and was interested in learning more about whether or not I’d be interested in recording a course for their learning platform – LinkedIn Learning.

A platform where millions of people around the world go to learn about topics like Salesforce, Public Speaking, Accounting, HR and so much more.

In this episode, I share why I ultimately said yes as well as 3 principles that have fundamentally changed the way that I approach my content creation.

Create content that shapes culture.
Content compounds over time.
Distribution rules everything around me.

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course here > https://www.linkedin.com/learning/content-marketing-distribution-strategy/content-distribution-strategies-for-marketers?autoplay=true&u=76863578

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

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Circle of Control vs. Circle of Concern May 04, 2023

Show notes

You've heard the boast.

"I'm too busy to watch TV."

"I'm too busy to stay up to date on the NFL."

"I don't have time to watch Netflix."

It's really a humble brag. And it's often misguided because the energy spent not "wasting" time usually just shifts to something that is ultimately just as wasteful...like engaging in activities, debates, and relationships that are out of our control.

If we want to be successful, this concept of the Circle of Control vs. the Circle of Concern is something we should focus on.

There are two things that we have in life that we can spend. Money and time.

And it's important that we don't waste our time.

The framework of the Circle of Control vs. the Circle of concern has fundamentally changed the way that I think about life.

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

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The Man Building a Multi-Million Dollar Media Empire on Social Media, Chase Dimond Apr 21, 2023

Show notes

On today's episode, I sat with self-proclaimed email marketing nerd, Chase Dimond and we discussed...first and foremost, being a #girldad and what that means as a business owner.

Beyond that, we talked about some of Chase's big goals. Like getting to 1,000,000+ followers on LinkedIn. He shared his strategy which is a combination of 1. Good Content 2. High Volume (of content) and 3. Distribution and Engagement.

I was also so intrigued with Chase's story and humble beginnings which tell the story of him being diagnosed with Crohn's disease and his desire to bring awareness to Crohn's was a launchpad for his personal and career growth.

Chase is currently a Partner at Structured — a top ecommerce marketing agency, where he runs the email team. Since June of 2018, they've helped clients send over a billion emails resulting in over $100 million in email attributable revenue. A few of their clients include Poo~Pourri, Eight Sleep, Mixtiles, and Health-Ade.

But beyond that he runs several incredible social media channels like Daily Copywriting >>> https://twitter.com/dailycopywriter?s=20

Follow Chase on Twitter >>> https://twitter.com/ecomchasedimond?lang=en

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Linchpin by Seth Godin

How to Build a Smart Distribution Engine (with Dave Gerhardt, the Pipeline podcast) Apr 13, 2023

Show notes

Join me, Ross Simmonds, as I speak as a guest on the Pipeline podcast with host, Dave Gerhardt.

"You have to invest in what works and ask yourself 'how does this link back to our overarching goal?'...and what you'll notice is that one aspect of your niche serves your audience better than the others."

On this episode, I share how to build your content distribution engine in a way that helps your content marketing strategy thrive for the long term. Avoid the tendency to underestimate the opportunities that exist after you hit publish on your content.

Tweets can become blog posts. Blog posts can become podcasts. Podcasts can become videos. Videos can become webinars.

Over the last few years, I've distributed blog posts, videos, podcasts, slides, infographics & more for my own brand & for clients to reach millions of people.

The content I've touched has made the front page of Reddit 7x, combine for more than 1M visitors via social & referral traffic, more than 1.2M views on Slideshare, over 500,000 impressions on Twitter & 40,000 views a month on LinkedIn.

> This doesn't include any of the results that came from paid

> This doesn't consider the ROI from using remarketing

> This didn't come from begging for shares

> This didn't come from a lucky break

It came from having a deep understanding of how to spread stories across multiple channels without coming off as a spammer or someone STARVING for more diverse traffic. This isn't some special skill or talent...

It's something I've trained people how to do at my agency. And it's something that they've gone ahead and trained our clients how to do internally. We actually made a playbook on Distribution. It can be found here: https://training.foundationinc.co/dream

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Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletter

Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.

Follow Ross on