Marketing Is Stupid Simple (Once You Know This)

0:00Roman: So that video alone produced like $10k actually Maya: you're literally mentioning some of the people who [bleep] it's still like capturing people's attention, Roman: Now that type video is really high converting because it builds trust.

0:19Maya: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of BuildingNow. Today's guest is Roman Lakhnyuk. He is the founder of CareerHound, which is a job search platform. He has grown its revenue to over $25k and he is a marketing expert. So I'm really excited to have him on the show to talk about marketing. He's gotten over 100 million views across social media platforms and he is going to be talking about marketing in terms of short form content specifically and how to hire creators, how to think about

0:50what kind of content to make, what works, what doesn't work. So I'm really excited to delve into his you know process of creating content and I think it's going to be really insightful for all of us to learn from him. Maya: Awesome. So thank you so much for being here, Roman. And I'd love to hear a little bit about your story. Roman: Yes, so my name is Roman. I run a platform called CareerHound.io, which is a job search platform and my role within this project, like what I do on a day-to-day

1:19basis, is primarily marketing. I have a background in psychology, that's why I started in university. I ran a sales team while I in college. I also took drama courses, so a lot of what I've done kind of ties together when it comes to marketing. Maya: That's awesome. And I think in your Twitter bio, like I think that's how I connected with you because I think you said you have like over

1:45100 million views on TikTok and Instagram and other platforms. And I think this podcast is geared towards like new founders and builders. So I think any tips regarding like marketing and kind of specifically short form content would be really helpful. And so that's why I wanted to start there and ask you about, like,

2:03how do you come up with, like, you know, your content ideas? And also, how do you spot patterns on, like, what's working and what's not? Would love to kind of delve through your process a Maya: little bit. Roman: Yeah, I'm gonna bring on the process and one thing I'll Roman: mention before I do that, because a lot of it is a mental game.

2:21Basically, a lot of people like quite good at learning. For example, I'm gonna give my steps right now and people gonna watch it and I'm gonna try and apply it. Most people will procrastinate. And the reason why it's because when comes like running your content system, there's a lot of points of friction. For example, when hire a first creator, you're going to have to have a conversation with them and negotiate a rate, and that can feel uncomfortable. Or even having to reach out to some of these people, and then once they start posting and their first five videos don't

2:55get more than 500 views, now that's a point of friction once again. And what happens to a lot of founders, a lot of operators, as they experience these points of friction they break down bit by bit and they give in and they give up so aside from like the strategy I just want to like make it clear how important it is that you decide to persist all the way through because these structures these specific tips are not enough they're already like publicly available but yet people are still not getting the results and it has to do with their psychological runway that, I think is the biggest hack is to work on that but in terms of

3:41how I do it okay, the first step is when you are in a specific niche, let's say it's job search for me, right? What you want to do is you want to absorb a ton of content. So video and text so TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn. So you just, in the first few days, just watch and read a bunch of posts. And then what's gonna happen if you read and watch like hundreds in a matter of a few days, what's gonna happen is you're gonna start to, by default, naturally spot

4:16patterns. And what you do is, like that will naturally reveal ideas. And what you do is you take those ideas, you start to come up with formats. Now, how do you do that? You do an Excel sheet. You have a section that's called a hook, like a column. Then you have like a reference for the creator.

4:38You have the script for what they should say. And then any side notes. So you put it all into an Excel sheet. Make it stupid simple so the creator, all they have to do is they have to click open and then just record it without having to think. Like they shouldn't be allocating any energy into deciphering what you said and what you mean it should be it should be obvious look Maya: Yeah, no, that's that's great to start out with, because I think people underestimate, like, how much of a mental game it is, because people do quit quite often, and sometimes they quit right before,

5:13like, they experience, like, massive success. So I think that's a good starting point, which you started out with and in terms of spotting patterns I know a lot of people they talk about using AI potentially to kind of scrape a bunch of these posts and then kind of try to find patterns do you think it's helpful to do it yourself so you understand it deeply or do you recommend some kind of way to kind of go through the posts using AI or anything Roman: if AI was effective enough for this stuff then people will be able to use it to get their dream like partner as well because getting a life partner in some

5:59ways is not that different than creating content for your brand at the end of the day it's just all about relationship building when you create content uh you're essentially finding a way to connect with people um and like AI can be helpful sure but at the end of the day you have to understand who you're communicating to uh that's look if you try to get AI to write like video like responses to text with your partner uh you're probably gonna like get a divorce like very soon after. It's not gonna work, but why will it not work? and it's because relationships are super nuanced and dynamic and AI cannot capture that yet yeah

6:48Maya: could you like maybe walk me through like one of your videos that was like pretty successful and like I guess there's also this distinction between like views and conversions, right? Like to actually people go to your platform or your app and kind of use it. Um how do you usually like measure that and like kind of think through that? Um and how do you like attribute like certain

7:09creators to like, sorry, there's like two different questions here. Maya: We can start with the first one. Right Roman: no worries don't worry um hmm Roman: so yeah I can show like some examples but I'm going to start off with what doesn't convert okay so there's like these videos are like five seconds long it's text on screen text on video and there's like a mention

7:35of the app but it's like within some type of story. So those videos get a lot of views, but like no conversions. Why? Because this video is doing like nothing at educating the person but why solution why your solution is great. Um it's also, like the whole video is not, like usually these types

7:55of videos are not even focused on your product or the problem. It's like a lazy, lazy um plug. What converts better, from my experience, is stuff that like goes through the pros and pros and cons of your product. Okay, by the way, like people are so boring when it comes to marketing, like they always, what most people do is they will hype their own product, always. I'll never mention anybody else's product, but what if you made a video that's pros and cons of your product, or a breakdown of pros and cons of different ones, and you

8:30also talk about the pros and cons of yours. Now that type video is really high converting because it builds trust. Uh but I can show you, am So I started off as a creator, by the way. Roman: I did videos for myself. I didn't even know UGC existed, Maya: got but I'm gonna give you example. Like this I think it's like yeah this video right here okay we'll Roman: play it out I can also link later yeah Maya: it. Wow, you're sorry you're Maya: literally mentioning some of the people who are your potential competitors and it's still like capturing people's attention, I

9:02guess, because they're going to go look at these websites. Right Roman: but look everybody's so like so boring and greedy and like low frequency because my goal like the reason I do this way it's not even a strategy it's just because I want to offer like real value to people so like I want to give them options

9:23why would I like why would I deprive them of options. It's just like a life principle for me. But you know what that video on Twitter, somebody reposted it, and it made me like like $5k on Twitter Roman: without even TikTok. So that video alone produced like Maya: nice. That's $10k actually Maya: awesome. Yeah, I think I think trust is a big part of it as well, because I think if they don't trust you, like I think that's kind of like, I've seen like you know these like slideshows and now that I'm paying more attention to like all this other like UGC stuff, I can very clearly tell when someone's just trying to like quietly plug in

10:00their product in like one random slide. And it's not really, it's the whole point of the slideshow is to like plug their product. So I think people can are getting better at telling like who's being authentic and who's being like real about like actually adding value versus just like plugging in their product. So I think that's a really good tip you, you mentioned and

10:18Maya: adding value. Yeah Roman: I want to add something interesting to this. Roman: Now that I think about this, I realize the problem is not in lack of knowing marketing, it's in people. Like most people in their day-to-day life bs their way all the time. Like when asked the question, people usually say everything but the

10:36answer. And I realized there's been a correlation between like my personal life and my content game. I've become, over these last two years, it's kind of like a like a back and forth relationship, but become a lot more concise, like to the point. And when something, I just like say how it is in real life, and I realized that my content has been like this too, but it's like, why, why have I been able to find something so effective that's so obvious and others haven't and that's because they are

11:10dodgy in real life. So their content is also dodgy. Marketing is so simple. At the end of day, it's just relationship building. So it's like how could you be a good marketer and how could you connect with your target audience if you can't do that with the closest people in your life well, if makes sense.

11:32Maya: Yeah, I think I think that's really interesting. And I think did your background in psychology like you have a background in psychology, right? So like for someone who doesn't have a psychology degree, for example, like what are some like principles or kind of like like must know things that you know, you can explain and I know some things they're gonna have to learn themselves like by experiencing but what are some things that have, like, worked for you in terms of, like, your psychology background coming into content. Yeah Roman: So psychology is, very

12:07interesting and it gave me a lot of perspective on nuances. But what allows me to win has nothing to do with what I learned in university. What allows me to win is like this ability I have that I think I have, it's called the snowbird effect. And a snowbird effect it's when you, it's like, you know, the birds,

12:26they fly from one continent to another for the winter. And like for example, like Starbucks, um I think they borrowed uh the preservation mess methods from the hospitals, like for how to preserve their coffee beans. So they borrowed the technology or the principles hospitals used to preserve blood cells and they did that with coffee. And so I do that on a daily a day-to-day basis like I'll be having conversation with someone and I like I'll notice something about I just know something like random in that

13:01conversation and that makes me think of content. What I'm trying to say is you have there's there's learning opportunities everywhere and you'll learn more by just talking with people dealing with people more than you could in books but only if you pay enough attention and I just want to say this I just want to make this really clear you don't need to like learn psychology to be better to get good at marketing I believe you just need to be like a better person to get better at marketing like I think it's like literally these two journeys are connected the better you get as a person in your relationships the

13:39better you get at marketing and let me tell you something why so this is like it's very interesting a lot of the stuff I do is a counterintuitive like people don't want to mention that what if I told you I've run ads mentioning my com my competitors Maya: that that no one will think to do that, but I guess it works. Maya: So that's pretty cool. Right Roman: it has worked for me uh it has worked Roman: for me like really well but why does no one try that but think about it this way my if somebody asks you for advice like hey what should I do which service is better if you just pitch your

14:13service to some someone they're gonna be like nah this person is selling to me I don't want to buy from them but what if they tell you, look, um I gotta be upfront with you, I actually sell this, but I'm going to give you a breakdown of like the three best options, I'll tell you about mine as well, but then you can decide,

14:29I'm going to give you the pros and cons. the first option is best for this and this. Mine's actually a little bit better at this part, but it's worse at this part. And then there's this option that's really, really good, it's really expensive. Now that feels completely different, but it's also counterintuitive, Roman: like why would you be pitching your competitors. Maya: yeah But in order to be able to do things like this and think of marketing strategies like this, you have to care about the people that you're selling to because if you care about

14:58the people you're selling to, you'll want them to know more options. But if you care about yourself and you just want to gain more revenue, you're going to be like, okay, like you're going to get over protective Maya: True. And I think um you you touched on a really good point there, because, like, I think I've also, like, from previous conversations I've had is, like, you know, when you're trying to solve a problem that you're really passionate about, you're genuinely going to care about solving that problem for people versus like, and it helps you work on something long term, whereas, like, again, it ties back to,

15:31like, the point you made first about, like, psychologically, you kind of have to be in it for the long term, and it's very hard to be in something mentally when you're not passionate about solving the problem for other people. So I think that's number one. And I think that under underlines, like, kind of the the core of Maya: actually building a business in the first place is solving a Roman: as problem. So, yeah, Roman: I say, like I always say this, the one thing I learned from my psychology degree that 90% of your quality of life comes down to the

15:59quality of your relationships or the dynamic of your relationships. And when you run a company, that is a form of relationship where you are relating to the world. It's where you're contributing but also taking from it. It's like a high level concept, but how are you leading that relationship? What I'm gonna tell

16:25genuinely care about the people that are watching the videos, if you provide them real value, if you don't assume they're stupid and make your content like really stupid, and um like, then, like if you do, if you actually care, then you're gonna get a lot out of it by default, even though you don't understand marketing. Like I think a person who cares a lot will go way further with no marketing knowledge than somebody who read

16:53all the marketing books, but uh is wanting to take, take, take. Roman: Yes Maya: no, that makes sense. And I'm gonna pivot a little Maya: bit because I know we've talked about, like, creating, like, short-form content, but I know you started out on Reddit as well, and that channel didn't really work as well as I guess you had hoped. So, like, um could you talk a little bit about that and how you kind of, like, switched over to, like, creating videos um instead of going, like, the Reddit route, which everyone talks about

17:21using it for, like, you know, driving traffic and stuff. Roman: I did Reddit and I started by commenting on posts that talked about the pain point that my product was solving. And I was just comment saying, hey, like like here's my product, check it out. This is what it does. Roman: I did it for three months. Just Maya: Wow. commenting every week. And it was making like a couple thousand

17:44dollars a month just from that. But then I got banned. Because I never used Reddit before that I overdid it. So I got banned for marketing on it, for spamming. My learning from that experience is that you need to find a marketing channel that doesn't just work but is repeatable and scalable. Um and yeah, like Reddit could work in theory but at end of the day, like Reddit community is really strong at spotting people who are there to abuse the platform. And that's like my biggest takeaway. You want to find something that's

18:21Roman: repeatable and long-term oh Maya: Yeah. Yeah. Maya: That makes sense. And I got banned as well. Like I think I created an account and then I think I dropped one link and then I got banned and it wasn't even like a, like I was promoting anything. was like literally the subject was like drop Maya: your link and then I dropped it and then it was banned so it's Roman: my

18:40Roman: god. Yeah Maya: not it's not uh scalable for sure. Maya: Um but yeah, I think also like tying back to like content, like I remember I saw a post on Twitter, sorry, I should say X, but um where you were like working from an airport and you were like, I think you were going through the process of writing your scripts or like your hooks. So how do you like kind of think about writing them? Like, so do you take like the patterns that you learn from others and then you kind of make it your own or like,

19:06what what what what is your process for writing them actually? Maya: Yeah, Roman: the foundation is understanding like the person Roman: that you when I acquire as a user. You want to really understand their pain points. For example, it's marketing like this wedding tool for for what do you call it for or collecting photos, and like I realized that one of the pain points of having when you do a wedding is that people send you all their photos the next day, like hundreds. You get like hundreds of texts with photos,

19:39and that's super annoying, having to go through all of that. So like I integrate that into my content. So once one part of it is like mimicking what works already on the internet but the other part of it is getting a closer understanding of what it's like to be experiencing the pain point you're solving

19:56like what is it like to receive those texts? Is it actually annoying? Is it actually annoying and then talking to like these potential users and like having them tell you what it's like I think every founder should like hear from the users what it's like and have hearing them describe the problem because what because what I also do one is like I want to just test and realize that learn if it's a real problem but to picking up on the words they use to describe that experience Maya: that's a good one. So um I guess talk everyone says like talk to

20:34your customers or talk to like your ICP. Like how do you kind of put yourself in their shoes? Like do you find them? How do you find like the people to talk to? Like do you like reach out like like on Twitter or like DMs? Or like what do you uh what do you do for that? Roman: once again I can give you and I will give you specific details but I think the more important message I want to share here is the mindset behind all of this. When it comes to getting in of your users, the number one principle, the number one tip I have is

21:09getting out of your shell, being unreasonable. Like one way to measure whether you're moving fast enough, if you're like working if you're actually giving your project a fair amount of effort, if I ask yourself, am I being reasonable or unreasonable in how I'm approaching this? So I'm gonna give an example of an unreasonable act. We were looking at buying this domain name called Aurafarm, and I look it was already owned by this Farm of

21:37Roman: alpacas in the US. So Maya: Wow. I called them, I contacted them on email, but also found them on Facebook, and I also contacted their kids saying like, hey, like your mom, blah, blah, like I did that. And a lot of people would not do that. Why would they not do that? Because that is an obvious thing for me

21:56to do, but why is it not obvious for others to do? Because they are not, they're being reasonable. They're doing what's reasonable. They do what feels reasonable. And if you do what feels reasonable, you're doing it too little. So when it comes to getting out to get in front of your users, I mean, it's stupid simple. I mean, you just you just find like people who posted about your problem on Twitter on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, or some like less known forum, and you just reach out and you just tell them who you are and why you want to contact them. Like it's actually really, really

22:30simple. Everything in marketing, everything in, like what we do is fun is it's extremely simple, but the reason it feels complex is because we're doing too little, being too reasonable. So we're doing just, we're not getting um the outcome for that reason. But Maya: that's that's helpful. I think I think you're right about like people doing too little because I think they give up including myself I've given up when something I do like, you know, 10 outreach messages and I'm like, okay it's not working and then I stop but the real like I think where you see success is if you keep doing it and something will work out eventually

23:10Maya: um I think I think that's a good mindset to have right Roman: then once it Roman: works out, it often works out so big we don't have to work much anymore at all. Like you're not just doing it for the sake of doing it for the sake of being unreasonable you're doing it because if you are unreasonable frequently enough for long enough your life you're gonna get a ridiculously good outcome like

23:36Roman: it's kind of like uh proportional yeah Maya: a balance. Maya: Yeah yeah, got Roman: like like reasonable action gets reasonable outcomes Roman: period um Maya: it um so kind of pivoting, I know we're kind of heading towards um the creator kind of space I wanted to talk about. So I know you hired a bunch of creators and um I wanted to find out like, you know, did you use a platform like side shift or like, did you kind of reach out to them yourself and also like in terms of like payment structure, I remember I saw a tweet from you where you talk about like, you know, you do like a base kind of like pay and

24:10then like based on um kind of how well they do, there's like a bonus or something, but like would love to talk to you a little bit about how you go about finding these creators. Like how do you do outreach and also like the payment structure? Maya: Oh Roman: yeah like you'd be surprised how simple my

24:26Roman: process is I don't use any platforms for recruiting. Roman: I Maya: okay, nice. literally, once again, just look for people who already talk about the thing that I'm, the problem solving. Like there's a bunch of people complaining about job search. I'm like, hey, um I saw that you're like, you know, I I tell them, I saw your video about starting to find a job, I actually want to give you access to my platform and um and then I tell them, I ask them they want to make videos as well. Um so, it's like we

24:58connect over something real, which is them starting to find a job. I give them free access, that's a value add, and then I tell them like, hey, I'm open to like paying you to make videos like you made, like that video you made, I'll pay to do that, and you're gonna have an income already. Like, isn't that such a good fit? Uh Maya: Right. Roman: it's like stupid simple, like you just find people who Roman: already complain about what you um are selling, you give them access to Roman: uh the solution, and then you have them, like Maya: solution and yeah. Yep they're now they're in alignment,

25:38Roman: now they're not just a creator. Maya: it's Maya: almost like natural. Like you're saying, like it has to come Roman: And across like really natural and the people who are experiencing the problem that you're you're trying to solve is like probably the best you know people if they're already creating content to, you know, Roman: look, this this this should be like uh so Maya: reach out to. True obvious, but the reason it's not it's because most people have all

25:58of these like like layers that are wearing. Like for I was telling someone today how when you tell people like what you do for work, they immediately in their mind pull out, like retrieve a template of how they should be treating you based on what you do and based on who you are. So that people just don't treat each other as like people, that treat each other through status and through roles. And that's also the reason why they're missing these obvious opportunities for building these real relationships uh with creators. But, but that's like a that's like a bigger thing to dive into, but

26:38going back to how I do it, that's like one of the methods. Um I mean, if you just like go on Reddit or some of these places look up like UGC, you'll find a bunch of people looking for projects to do. You just go on Reddit look up UGC creators or UGC project. You can do the same on Instagram. You're going to find creators who are running their personal brand as a UGC creator in hopes of attracting brand deals. Like there's like so many so many so many so Roman: many ways to do this and it should be it's all like really Maya: right really obvious but once again there's just these layers of

27:14complexity that I don't know where they come from I kind of it's mostly due to ego. We like invent problems and if we invent friction that's not there yeah Maya: no, that's, that's really good. And I think one takeaway I got from this, and the more I've been hearing this, and the more more founders I've been talking to and stuff, right, I feel like it's very simple. But like, like you said, like, we are the ones over complicating it, and it's just about experimentation, seeing what works and going one step beyond what others would do and finding out

27:47what works and then doubling down on it. And that's something I need to work on myself, but that's really good like and helpful coming from you who's like a successful marketer and like kind of built a successful product that it's pretty simple, actually. It's not that difficult and we're the ones Maya: over complicating it sometimes. So yeah, right Roman: in terms of pay Roman: structure I pay flat and I pay like more than like many other campaigns but that's because I like to bet on my ability to choose the right people and train them properly but I pay them flat like whatever like 20 like 15 20 25 dollars a video uh like somebody's brand new I like they've

28:31Roman: never ever done content, I'll pay them less. Maya: True But somebody's new but brings in a lot of value, I'll pay them more. Like my goal isn't to pay people as little as possible. My goal is to have a working relationship so that they feel good making videos for me. Like that's like my priority. I want people to feel good doing what they're doing for me. And I guess like overarching message from this whole conversation, just notice how, when it comes to

29:02recruiting creators, paying them, it's relationship building. You first approach a stranger, you then build a relationship, like the first phase of it, next phase of it. When you market, you're building relationship with like your potential users. Like it's whole relationship building. It's not psychology, it's not like, I don't know, neuroscience principles. It's literally relationship building.

29:28And relationship building comes down to a few main pillars. And I feel like if people want to get really good at marketing, acquiring users, building creator teams, they just need to get really good at making friends. Roman: In Maya: yeah. And I think I think that's a great like point to kind of Maya: end on because I think over the last like three and a half, four months that I've started building again as well, like I think it's it really comes down to like the people I've met and the friends I've made. And I think at the end of the day, like if you're able to

30:01do that on a larger scale, specifically with the people experiencing your problem and also like creators and stuff, I think that's where you'll probably like be successful like you are because you're actually focused on the relationship and the give and take both and not just like selling to somebody um to just promote your product or Maya: plug it so that's really helpful Roman: other, I might another like to Roman: be to be like, if I really break it down, for me, it's not about, so for a lot of people they're gonna listen to this, they're gonna

30:31like, okay, I gotta get good at building relationships. Okay, let's do okay what how do I do this? Let's look up a book. Okay, let's look up the principles. For me, what if I told you that for me it's backwards? Like for me, CareerHound my content team, the marketing I do, is a mechanism for me to explore the world of relationships.

30:49To explore the world of people and getting to know people. Like for me, it's almost like what I do for work is just the tool I use to get better relationships. I'm not doing it the other way around. Like, I'm getting good relationships to have a business. I'm having a business so that I can have, um so

31:08I can explore relationships even deeper. It's very easy to make friends playing soccer, but it's hard to, Maya: right yep Roman: like, actual, like, strong relationships when money's Roman: involved. And I like that challenge. Um for me, I just want to create life-changing moments for everybody involved, for the users, but also the creators. Like, some of my creators, I send them pay early than everybody else

31:30earlier, because they use that to pay for their mortgage. Like, I take that into account, and that's like one of my favorite things to do. Um Maya: um and I guess like when you work with a creator like you know if you think about it like a long-term relationship like do you usually like you know if their video or their content performs better?

31:50Like, do you generally like, do you narrow it? Do you have like a large list of creators you work with? And then as you know, certain creators perform better, do you like narrow it down or like, what is your system for that? Like, Roman: yeah, I don't judge I try not to judge creators too early. Basically, I okay, there's this principle uh in investing called Roman: value investing, where you try to get a read for a company's Maya: yep intrinsic value, like the baseline value based on like their income, and I don't uh and then, for example, if it's like undervalued, like you buy it because you know it's gonna go up

32:26eventually. So with creators, I look at their fundamentals. I'm like, how good is their speech? How lively are they? Like enthusiasm, like like the backgrounds they choose, are they presentable? Like I look at these fundamentals, I want to look at the fundamentals, I basically decide, okay, I think like this person has to succeed. And then I will wait for them to get the views for like months sometimes, because I know they can succeed given enough time. So like a lot of managers, what they do is they onboard 10 creators and they they see somebody's not getting views for the first two weeks. They cut they cut them, they let them go,

33:11but that's not how I do things. I just think in terms of fundamentals and I just wait for timing to, um for the for them to catch for the time to catch up in a way. Maya: awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is like a great conversation because I think it kind of touched upon stuff that should be obvious, but like it's really not. And people tend to over complicate it. So it's good to hear from someone who's like, you know, really crushing it with marketing as well as their product and hearing these principles and and just some of these things that I

33:44think people don't really talk about, but it's obvious. So I really appreciate you like talking about all these things. Roman: Um yeah, uh thanks as well, like this is fun. Like every time I do these, I self-reflect through talking. So I learned some stuff just uh having to answer your questions. Maya: awesome. Thank you.