Your Personal CFO

Michael Greenberg discusses his entrepreneurial journey, the support his company gives to podcasters, and what his daily routines for optimal performance are with Greg Levine on the Your Personal CFO Podcast.

Greg Levein  0:26  

Welcome back, everyone, another podcast. Thank you all for joining us today. Our guest this week is Michael Greenberg. Michael is the CEO of Call For Content and the author of Authority Marketing playbook, where he outlines his strategies for reducing the b2b sales cycle by building out a library of content that answers their strongest concerns and pains. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Greenberg  1:20  

Greg. It’s great to be here. I think you did a better job selling that book than I have.

Greg Levein  1:25  

All right, Michael. Well, as I read, you had a stable job. And then one day you decided to not have that job anymore on your own volition. So you decided to go out on your own. Why make things hard? Why do this, man? Explain.

Michael Greenberg  1:37  

So, not quite stable. My backgrounds in venture-backed startups and I did leave the company while they were still going strong, still successful. But I ended up leaving because I didn’t want to move back to San Francisco. Head back to the West Coast. And so, I started first consulting for myself by working with software startups and agencies, primarily marketing agencies. And then continued consulting and about two years ago launched Call For Content. Which is a podcasting agency?

Greg Levein  2:18  

Alright, well, obviously, you came to the right spot. And as I’ve read in your bio and everything, you’re out there, you’re hustling, you’re given speeches all over the place and getting out there pushing yourself. Was that hard to do? I mean, when you go when you have a job, it’s easy to sit back and do what you got to do. And then when all of a sudden, you got to get out there and promote yourself a little harder. So how did that go for you?

Michael Greenberg  2:38  

Well, it’s gone pretty well. But that’s also because it’s my business to do so. And I ended up making Call For Content because of the pains that I sell myself as a consultant. And so when I started out consulting, I did have trouble. And what ended up working for me was networking with key influencers. Primarily investors in startups, and then using those strategic partnerships to prove my authority to their portfolio. And I realized that you know, yes, I can drive to every investor in the Southeast, and I can go talk with them. And that works. But it doesn’t scale. It doesn’t let me build a real brand for myself. And it doesn’t let me get beyond that network that I’m directly reaching out to and touching. So I looked at content to figure that out. And I started looking at what are the questions that people are asking, what are the questions that I see come up in my meetings? What are the things that I wish people already knew that they didn’t? And I used all that stuff to start making content. And a lot of that content was used in small presentations that I would still give to those groups. Potential clients. And then, some of the content got turned into stuff online that I put out. And I found that time and time again, rather than trying to answer every single question somebody has on the phone. It was a lot easier and much more effective for me to say, you know, I’ve been asked that before. And I actually wrote an entire book on how to do it. Because if you can take the time, and you have the knowledge to create that book. Customers, especially if you’re selling in the business of services, they want to know you can do the work in that you’re better at it, and understand it better than they do. That’s the key. And so, by creating this content. I was able to show and improve my authority faster without having to have so many calls without having to have six touchpoints before we make the sale. We can have one touchpoint. I can recommend any ebook and maybe a full-length book and a couple blog posts and a podcast that I’ve put out. I can see, thanks to the great marketing automation and analytics that we have today, I can see when my potential customer checks out those materials. And then when we circle back, they’re informed. They know I’m an expert. They understand the angle that I’m coming from exactly why they should choose me over another. What the differences are between the way I operate and my competitors. And they’re able to make that call a lot easier because I’ve given them the content to educate them on the sale and help move them through that process.

Greg Levein  5:53  

So you have found that they actually go to that content. Absorb it, and then finally, when they are ready. Th