Stop thinking networking is just for the elites

Your host today is Peep Laja, Founder at CXL

Personal relationships open most of the doors, from business deals to Stanford Graduate program entrances to raising VC money. Relationships get you backlinks, conference speaking slots and word of mouth.

Basically the good old nepotism is well and alive. It seems like a sinister word - but it's not a thing of a distant, dark past. All the best jobs and deals are given to friends. It’s how the world still works for the most part.

If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that the ROI on relationships is infinity.

The focus of the World Economic Forum changes every year. But the forum’s real theme is clear and constant: the power of networking.

Many people protest that they would rather devote their time to real work than to schmoozing. But the fact that more than 2,500 of the world’s busiest people fly to Davos each year is proof that schmoozing gets results. As a veteran of the WEF once put it, “contacts ultimately mean contracts.”

Networking is not just for the elites.

I've benefitted enormously from meeting people at events. I've made dear friends and gotten so many opportunities, including business. The best opportunities are always invite-only, never advertised.

In 1971 Klaus Schwab was a 32-year-old business professor, who might have spent his life publishing obscure academic articles. But instead, Mr Schwab organized a meeting of European executives, which grew into the WEF. It now has an annual budget of $200m, and the bosses of the world’s biggest firms happily pay tens of thousands of dollars each to rub shoulders with him.

They know it's about whom you know. Using your personal network is more effective than anything else. 

It's in your interest to be actively forging new relationships on a consistent basis. Be deliberate about cultivating your relationships.

But - it can be tough and scary to do this.

This is why we're creating a conference that focuses on just that - facilitating connections. CXL Live 2022 is not just keynotes, in fact there are very few of those. It's mostly 2 days of curated connections and discussions. We'll match you up with people you should meet, and make sure you get plenty of time to discuss mutual interest, learn from each other.

Events are not about powerpoints, but people. The idea that you attend in-person events for presentations is obsolete.

I'm bringing together top B2B growth people this October (25-26) for a 2-day event called CXL Live. 2 days full of curated small group discussions, meet people and learning.

You'll laugh. You'll high five.
You'll learn useful skills.
You’ll make incredible connections.

Get your tickets here.

Connect with Peep on LinkedIn.

Your weekly dose of marketing updates

1. Community

Setting up Google Analytics 4 for mobile development can be tricky to understand at first. Specially if you have to distinct iOS and Android data streams.

No clear way to figure out how GA4 data stream works? Just ask our community of experts for help.

Check out the community in action.

2. 7 Account-based marketing examples and lessons

A precise understanding of account-based marketing fuels the success of brands like DocuSign, Dialpad, and LiveRamp. 

These businesses have driven millions in ARR by diverting the focus from spray-and-pray marketing methods to targeting (and landing) bigger, better-fit accounts.

To experience explosive growth, implement an account-based marketing strategy rooted in proven, demonstrable success.

In this article, you’ll learn how to leverage seven success stories to reach and exceed your goals.

Read the entire article here.

3. Our retention and lifetime value course is here

One of the secrets to brands that maintain healthy, sustainable growth often boils down to customer relationships.

It’s easy for brands to get caught in always focusing their primary efforts on new customer acquisition and leaving their current customers as afterthoughts.

Not anymore.

This course will outline everything you need to know about customer lifetime value strengths and shortcomings, as well as how to utilize customer segmenting to create more targeted retention marketing plans.

Check out the course.

4. Our ecommerce SEO course is here

A key element to getting your content to generate revenue is implementing SEO to optimize product and category pages for high-value keywords so you can get more visitors to high-value, high-converting pages.

The problem? It's easy for businesses to overlook implementing an SEO strategy when trying to create content at a faster pace.

This course will provide you with everything you need to know to optimize your site for SEO, build a content and link-building strategy, and generate more organic traffic and (more importantly) revenue.

Check out the course.

5. CXL Talent Program

Whether you are a marketing professional looking to further develop your skills and land a great remote job in the US while doing that, or a company looking to optimize how you search for top talent abroad, CXL has something for you.

Our Talent Program helps you get a marketing role at a US-based company, check out more details here.

If you are a US company interested in growing your team with fully certified and vetted professionals, fill out this form or contact us.

6. How to win with Peep Laja

Gil Allouche is the person you want to hear talking when it comes to investing resources into building brand if you are riding the wave of pre-existing demand for your offer.

He's the founder and CEO of Metadata, a lead generating tool.

He can tell you all about how experimentation, innovation, and transparency are pillars of his business.

Listen to him spill his beans on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or your favorite podcast platform. 

7. The experimentation gap is real

You are part of 100s of experiments online every day, but only a handful of orgs (think FAANG) are good at testing.The rest of the companies live in a grim reality.

• Rarely experiment.
• Lots of manual effort.
• Bottlenecked processes.
• Old-school, less relevant statistical methods.
• A disarray of third-party tools.
• Colliding experiments.
• Buggy experiments.
• Data interoperability.
• experimentation learning that doesn’t scale.
• experimentation processes that aren't mature.

Read more about this experimentation gap and what to do about it here in this LinkedIn thread from Speero.

First time here? You can get these weekly by subscribing here.

Peep Laja
Founder at CXL

Let's connect on LinkedIn.

Our address: 901 S Mo Pac Expy, Suite 150, Barton Oaks Plaza One, Austin TX 78746

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