Making B2B Marketing Human with Sherehan Ross

Sherehan Ross (00:00.142)
So that rant got way more impressions, engagement, comments than I can keep up with. Like when we hit the 300, I just stopped. I just couldn't. Did any relationships come out of that? I don't know. Did I gain followers out of that? I don't think so. Even though it was very viral, it didn't do anything meaningful for my personal brand, but that was on purpose. Versus, when you talk about real stuff.

You might not get the engagement because it's raw, it's authentic. You might not get the virality, but you're going to develop those amazing relationships because it's going to connect with someone who's going to slide into your DMs and say, thank you. That authenticity and that rawness and building my personal brand in public is what landed me all my previous clients and what landed me the role at Modus.

That's so good that you broke it down that way because I think at the executive level or even senior leadership level, people really focus on this 30, 60, 90 and think like future, future, future.

Especially at the executive leadership level with marketing, know, 30, 60, 90, it becomes your long-term strategy. You're learning, then you're planning, and then you're doing. It helps you reframe your mind of, it's okay that I don't know everything on day one, and it's okay that I don't know everything by day nine.

marketing executives keep their chaos behind closed doors. And then there's Sherehan Ross. She's built her brand by building in public, turning daily frustrations into online rants, sharing the messy truth of leadership and motherhood, and somehow making B2B SaaS content that people actually stop scrolling for. Today we're unpacking how building in public builds authority from knowing when to rant

Rhona Pierce (01:46.904)
how to teach without preaching, and why showing your work might be the smartest strategy of all. Sherehan welcome to Workfluencer.

Thank you, Rana. It's so exciting to be here. And this was a lovely intro. I really appreciate that.

Of course. So I'm so excited for this conversation. You've gone from Fortune 100 to fixing broken rev ops at Modus Planning. Now, when did you realize like being corporate polished wasn't serving you anymore?

about a decade ago, I decided to go back to school to get an MBA and I had a couple of wonderful professors who all came from the food and beverage CPG industry and they were all entrepreneurs of some sort and I kind of got bit by that bug thinking I need to do something for myself, I can't stay in a corporate environment where there's just too much bread and too many bureaucracies and policies and while I love process, I am OCD that way.

I still wanted the freedom to build and to learn and to grow. And so I went out on my own and I started freelancing with nothing to show for, having no business doing it. I mean, I tell everybody all the time, you got to do what's right for you. And for me, I took on free work. I mean, literally I worked for free for a year or two while I was building my book of business and turned that into a marketing agency.

Sherehan Ross (03:14.822)
And it's funny that you ask that because, or you say like that whole full circle. Most people go from corporate to freelance to like owning their own thing. And then they stay there. I did that. went from corporate to freelance to fractional to owning my own thing. And then back in house, not corporate, working at a startup. But yeah, I did the full circle.

That's such an interesting story because like you say, a lot of people stay there. What made you go back into the startup world?

I'm really good at helping others build. The thing is like owning our own business. So we started a family business in CPG and the food and beverage hot sauce is to be specific. And there's a whole other story around that in a full circle moment with heatness that came up recently, but it's cutthroat. It's hard. It's hard to get your product on the shelf. So of course you go e-commerce and then there's this whole Amazon beast and Shopify beast.

and we were a small batch company, family owned and operated, and we just couldn't keep up. And that was the only passion that we had, like was creating a product that we loved and consumed and wanted to share it with everybody else, right? And it's just wasn't, we weren't cut out for it. Not that it failed or anything like that, it just didn't make sense, right? And so if I'm not...

creating or building my own thing, then I want to join someone who's creating and building something I believe in. And I love obviously the food and beverage industry and I love CPG, anything from like beauty to personal care to whatever it is. If it's a consumer product being sold somewhere on a shelf, I care about that kind of stuff. I'm a consumer. True and true. I'm a consumer. Like I see an ad, I see a new product and I'm usually like, what? Let's figure it out, right?

Rhona Pierce (05:12.994)
Right Luke.

Should I buy it? And so I wanted to be in that space. But I also am a B2B SaaS marketer, right? Like that's where I spend the last decade of my career really focused on B2B marketing, startups, technology. And I said, jumping from that to CPG was going to be extremely hard. And then comes Modus. And it was just all the stars aligned because Modus Planning is a B2B tech startup.

but we serve CPG brands specifically in the food and beverage space. So I'm like, okay, two of my favorite worlds colliding is like, you can't say no to that.

Exactly. It's like a sign. If you've made it this far into the episode and you're not subscribed yet, now's a good time. So your bio that you shared with me says making marketing more human. What made marketing inhuman for you in the first place?

We got to a really bad reputation as marketers focusing on attribution and MQLs and SQLs and all these terminologies that you're probably like, thank God I'm in the HR space. None of this makes sense. We just, if we couldn't figure it out, we threw more process frameworks, playbooks and acronyms at it. And it became sort of a, you know, just a poop show. And it became very transactional.

Sherehan Ross (06:41.742)
And the best marketers that I study, get the privilege of calling friends and peers and colleagues on LinkedIn, all agree that we got to go back to basics, the fundamentals of marketing, which is that human to human interaction, because marketing is part psychology, right? So my job is to make you feel something, right? And make you act on that feeling.

And to do that, you need to be aware of that, whatever that something is. If you don't have awareness of it, then boom, out of the window, like you don't care, right? And if I don't like, you know, get to the emotional part of things, you're not gonna take any action. And that's marketing. The best marketing in the world is word of mouth. We still to this day, to this very day, if your best friend, your whoever trusted,

person in your life said, my gosh, just got these new headphones and they're the best thing to ever happen to me, you're probably gonna go check them out. And whatever it is with food, with product, with whatever, with services, like, hey, I'm looking for a tutor, boom, I'm looking for the best beach to go to. Like we just moved to a new state and a new city and it's a coastal city, right? We're in Florida and there's about a million different beaches and there's just

four of us, we can't go check them all out. And so we asked and we trusted people's, not opinion, not advice, but their take like, hey, how old are your kids? And I tell them and they're like, okay, well, if you go here, this is what can happen. If you go here, and they were very helpful. And guess what? We went with that recommendation and it's so far been blissful. I didn't research best beaches in Florida. I asked another human.

And that's really why influencer marketing and employee generated content and all of that is making a comeback or well, influencer is newer, I guess, but it's really why it works because you're trusting someone else, someone that's built trust with you somehow, whether through their content, when you see their products, it's like, my gosh, I need to stop myself from going on TikTok because I end up buying all the lipstick.

Rhona Pierce (09:04.648)
all the makeup, all the whatever things that I don't even need or use because someone I trust says it was cool and I'm like, my gosh, let's try this out.

I had to delete TikTok. TikTok's shop is going to make me go broke. mean, dibs keeps going viral with their releases and I'm like, stop. I don't want to know that you have a new mascara that's double ended. Go away.

Yeah, I know. So you've got two kids, a VP role, your personal brand. What's the unglamorous truth about juggling it all?

my gosh, it is messy. It is chaotic. It is uncertain. I, okay, so I just posted a few minutes ago something a little raw, but I kind of took a funny twist on it, but self-diagnosed OCD slash ADHD. So like things have to be planned and perfect, but like three minutes later I give up and like I move on to the next thing, right? And life is like that. I believe.

It's messy because it's a pendulum swing. People always talk about balance. Balance is for things that are still. And life is not a stand still. Like you can't keep it balanced because that means you have to stand still. It's a pendulum swing. And you know what? The move took it out of me. So the swing went this way and I had to focus all my energy on making sure that we're settled. My kids are good to go, blah, blah, blah. And you know what took a hit? LinkedIn posting. I just paused for a couple of weeks.

Sherehan Ross (10:37.23)
You know, when I first started as a VP of marketing at Modus, that was another pendulum swing where my entire focus was on hitting the ground running, learning the business, proving myself, getting my KPIs in place, meeting the team, meeting the customer, going to all these events, doing all my like 30, 60, 90 in the first nine days, right? And so guess what? I didn't spend a lot of time this summer with my family. And that's okay because

It's a pendulum swing and it's, you know, I have deposited enough into the different relationships that if I step away for a week or two to focus on something else, it's like not the end of the world. But people don't talk about that. They don't talk about how messy it is. They don't talk about like your inbox will never go down to zero. It's when they'll, I fall panic mode when I see inbox not at zero, but I can't keep up. I'm one person. You know, it's your child's...

you know, socks are gonna be mismatched sometimes. You're gonna forget the water bottle when you drop them off at school. They might have a meltdown and you know, that time is two hours later and you know, you don't get to, you know, do whatever it is to decompress at the end of the night. It is very messy and no one talks about the behind the scenes as much as we should.

Very, very true. Behind every polished post, every polished personal brand you're seeing out there, there's the messiness of life because they're human. Everyone is human and everyone has some messiness. As we were preparing for this, you said something, you mentioned something that really caught my attention. So you say that rants get engagement, but authenticity gets followers. Walk me through a rant.

that actually built relationships for you.

Sherehan Ross (12:32.376)
goodness.

So that's the tricky part. You know, I rant about a few different things. I rant about the broken marketing process and how people are making marketing less human than it needs to be. I rant about working motherhood. rant recently, so I had a post go viral a few weeks ago and I ranted about a founder who posted something that just boiled my blood. And this is very relatable to you because it's in the HR space, right? He was talking about a hundred days later and he still couldn't find.

his head of marketing. And I can't remember how many thousand applicants and all this stuff. And it just drove me insane because there's plenty of great talent. So like, it just boggles me that people are saying, I'm hiring but I can't find the right person. And then there's this other group that is all looking for a job and they fit the bill. So where's the disconnect, right? So that rant got...

Way more impressions engagement comments than I can keep up with like I usually reply to every single comment when we hit the 300 I just stopped I just couldn't Did any relationships come out of that? I don't know. Did I gain followers out of that? I don't think so even though it was very viral. It didn't do anything Meaningful for my personal brand but that was on purpose I was I was

putting something out there to because the job market is horrible. I know I've been in it. And I wanted people to know that, you know, now as a leader, as somebody who's gonna be hiring, like I get it, I'm not gonna be that person, right? Versus when you talk about real stuff, you might not get the engagement because it's raw, it's authentic. You might not get the virality.

Sherehan Ross (14:24.514)
but you're going to develop those amazing relationships because it's going to connect with someone who's going to slide into your DMs and say, thank you, I felt seen or hey, I saw this post of yours. I'm not comfortable commenting in public, but can we take this offline? mean, that authenticity and that rawness and building my personal brand in public is what landed me on my previous clients and what landed me the role at Modus, right? It's that relationship and that network. It's interesting.

I think on a daily basis, I just post how I feel, right? And as a marketer, don't do that. Obviously, you should have a content strategy. Random acts of content is not a strategy. But for my personal brand, because I have nobody to answer to for my LinkedIn, it's a little bit different, right? And so I don't do...

I'm not doing marketing any favors by randomly posting. know that and I need to work on that But you know again, it's the pendulum swing in the beginning. Yes, I would sit down I would dedicate a day and a block of time where I'm just writing my little heart out and then I organize all of these and start editing and then I'll put it in my content calendar saying like on Monday, it's gonna be this on Tuesday is gonna be this and I'd have my message tracks and

and experiments with different things and tests and figure out what time I'm gonna post. I did that for like two or three years, which is how I got here. But then I got, I moved, I got the job at Modus and all this happened and I was like, I get it when people say they don't have time. And so I try to show up every day or as much as possible, but I don't always have it planned out like I should. So do as I say, not as I do.

But as you were explaining the story and sharing the story of your viral post, not getting you a lot of followers and stuff like that, my immediate mind as a content strategist was, well, that was amazing. And that shows how strong your profile is. that's really like anytime I've had something go viral.

Rhona Pierce (16:33.922)
And people are like, my gosh, you're going to get so many new followers. I'm like, no, I'm not because people are going to go to my profile and they're going to see what I usually talk about. And they're going to realize that I'm not for them. And that is amazing. And that's by design. And that's what I want. The viral post helps the algorithm.

love you and all of that stuff. there is a spot for them, but your profile and all the rest of your content has to be so strong that you're not attracting a bunch of people who don't care about your content. So that's real. That says a lot about how strong your profile is and how intentional you've built things. Cause yeah, you'll have a rant from time to time. I had one a couple of weeks ago that I'll call it semi-viral and it was just like,

after a while, after comment 100, you're really great at 300. After 100, I'm like, okay, I'm done. is not it type of thing. So you also do some how to post in your building in public. And I like this because a lot of people on the building in public,

do the whole just showing the behind the scenes and know like substance and like people have to infer what the lesson is, but yours, you do a good mix of both, right? So like talk to me about your most successful if you remember how to post, like what was the problem? How did you structure it? And why do you think it landed?

Actually, that was very recent. How to be the VP of marketing at a high growth tech startup. We all know you start a new job and you usually have your action plan. You're 30, 60, 90. And that's great. And I said, let's flip that and figure out how to make it three, six, nine. Three days, six days, nine days. What are you delivering by day nine?

Sherehan Ross (18:32.596)
And I walked them through my process of how and why I said that. And it was actually inspired by Kyle Coleman. He's a LinkedIn influencer. He talks marketing and it was inspired by his post because he recently left as a CMO and now is like a VP somewhere else. And he talked about like how, you you get in and you prove yourself and what that looks like.

especially at the executive leadership level with marketing. 30, 60, 90, it becomes your long-term strategy and you got to focus on the short term and the quick wins. And my how-to is really what that focus was. What am I trying to deliver? What am I trying to build? And what am I shipping quickly? And I simplified it by saying, look at it as three steps. You're learning, then you're planning, and then you're doing. Learn, plan, do, right? The learning phase,

for most of us should never end. So it's not like you learned and then you moved on. No, you're learning continuously, but each stage of the learning, then you're planning, analyzing, figuring out what to do with that learning, and then you're executing on it. You're doing the work, you know? So your learn could be, how are we going to market right now? My plan is, how should I update this go-to market to make sure that we are talking to the right audience via the right channel, saying the right things?

And what does that mix look like and so build that plane and then the do is actually going out and testing putting out the content sending the email running the campaign paying for the ads etc etc and That's the do and then that cycle continues then you're back to learning. Okay, I kind of figured out this go-to market What's next? I need to figure out who my audience is

Okay, this is my current audience. Is it my ideal audience? And if not, who is my ideal audience? What does that segmentation look like? And then there's the planning phase of building all of that. And then again, you go to market and you test it out and you put out the messages to your desired audience and see if it sticks and you go back. So I talked about that. I talked about the learning never ending, you know, in that you take it in phases, but when you break it into these smaller chunks, it helps you process things.

Sherehan Ross (20:46.542)
You know, and it helps you reframe your mind of it's okay that I don't know everything on day one and it's okay that I don't know everything by day nine, right? But I've shipped something and I'm gonna continue and by day 90, I still wouldn't know everything, but I'll know a lot more and so on and so

That's so good that you broke it down that way because I think at the executive level or even the senior manage or senior leadership level, people really focus on this 30, 60, 90 and think like future, future, future, but to really get to meeting those goals.

It's the little things that you do along the way. So I imagine that's really something that resonated with people because no one really talks about that. Everyone talks about the huge goal and they achieved it, but no one takes you along the way on the like, okay, day three, is what it really looks like. So you also post about motherhood and you do within B2B South, right?

industry that you are in. Has it cost you clients or brought you better ones?

So the motherhood tax is real. The parents' hood tax is real, but especially the motherhood. And I don't know that it's cost me clients, but I could tell you this. Both pregnancies I was laid off. One was during maternity leave and one was two months before delivering my second baby. So, you know, is the tax real? Absolutely.

Sherehan Ross (22:27.458)
And I talk about motherhood because before becoming a mother, I didn't understand mothers. didn't understand time. I didn't understand why you ran out of time. I didn't understand why you couldn't dedicate your life to your like one thing at work, right? And then I became a mother and I realized I understand now. And I wanted to make sure that they felt heard, seen, and also like it's a community thing, right?

I want to find my lookalikes. There's a Sanny Samantha. She goes by Sanny Onari, I think, on LinkedIn. And she started posting during the pandemic about working motherhood and how they manage it. She, her husband, and they have two little girls. And her oldest is, sorry, her youngest was born in the pandemic, same time as my oldest, right? So I had my first baby.

when the world shut down, had my second baby before the world reopened. And so I think it's important to show that it's okay to not be able to be perfect and balance it all. It's okay that sometimes you're gonna pay more attention to work than family and sometimes you're gonna take the time off and spend time with the family and work can take a beat, because again, balancing it is a myth.

unless you stand still or sit still or whatever it is, I don't think there's a balance. think it's, you sway, you swing with the pendulum and you, whatever needs your attention right now is what gets your attention right now. And that has served me well. But did it cost me clients? I don't know. I don't know that it cost me clients. I know it had cost me jobs. But the clients I've worked with, I was very selective.

I speak from a place of privilege, obviously, to be able to be selective, to be able to say like, no, can turn this down or I don't have to chase this, is a privilege. And it's because of family and loved ones and the support of my husband and all that other stuff. But it is scary losing a job when you're relying on that income after you bring life.

Rhona Pierce (24:46.474)
to world. and in our and in the country that we live in where it's sometimes you're not sometimes where your job is tied to your health insurance and stuff like that. I mean, I'm not a mother, but I've seen it many, many times in the work that I do. And with friends, it is real. And I'm glad you mentioned it, because there's so many times. Unfortunately, what I do, I've had to be leading layoffs many times.

And usually people are like, well, so and so, so and so, so and so, because they were probably going to leave anyway. And I'm always having to be there like, what? No, like, what are you talking about? This is when they need us to be supportive of them the most. I've had to do it, if someone who was either pregnant or about to have a baby or just came back from pregnancy gets laid off, it's not because of that reason. It's because

of whatever else we were considering and all of these other reasons. But 100 % as someone who is in those meetings, I tell you that it's real. It's not like what people are saying. No, people just imagine, well, they should, they're gonna be better off with their kids at home. And it's like, I'll never forget the first time I heard, I was the wildest, like my face was like, what are you talking about?

You're dealing with so much, like women go through so much physiologically when you get pregnant, I mean, just monthly we go through so much hormonally and physiologically. And then there's pregnancy and there's postpartum and whether you're nursing or not like breastfeeding or not. And then there's menopause and there's just so much, right? And the elite privileged executive women that make it look like

They have it all together and everything is so polished and perfect and they're in their C suite at the Fortune 100 and you're like, yeah, that's, I don't care how much money you make. It's still messy, it's still raw. You're not, you know, I appreciate the people like Jessica Wender. I'm sure you know her because she's in your space. We met her, I think at, oh my gosh. What was the event that you and I met at the very first time?

Rhona Pierce (27:04.296)
transform or was it unleash?

Unleash. It was Unleash. So I met Jessica at Unleash and I was in awe of her because even though she exudes perfection and she looks perfect, she's a mother of two sets of twins. The latest set are still babies. And guess what? She talks about the raw, the real, the behind the scenes.

the bazillion bottles that she had, the pumping, the non-sleeping. So even though she looks perfect, she talks about, no, I put in effort and it's not easy and it's not perfect. And that to me goes, I respect her so much for that. Same thing with Samantha Onari from Nike. She talks about the realness. Again, you look at her and she looks perfect.

but she talks about it not being perfect. So we need more of that because I didn't have that. When I started having my children, the women that were around me seemed like they had it all together and everything was perfect and everything was like so, like, well, I'm just doing this because my husband is the true breadwinner. So it's okay if I don't have a job.

You know, it was so different that my experience was completely different. And I said, well, where are the people that are like me and who's and who's their voice? You know, when I started posting about motherhood, I cannot tell you how many DMS I got from women who went through something similar and all they wanted was to say thank you for for for making me feel seen and heard. And they will never post that publicly on LinkedIn because fear of again, motherhood tax.

Sherehan Ross (28:56.814)
And I get it. And I just want to be their sounding board. I opened up my calendar. I offered, this is years ago, I offered like, you know, 15, 20, 30 minute one on months to any working mother who just wanted, who wanted to vent, who wanted to talk, who wanted to scream, cry, laugh, share stories, talk about diapers, talk about the toilet paper shortage of 2020, talk about whatever, right?

but that's how you build community because you're pulling, you know. And the thing is, a lot of these women are now executives. Some of them are like thought leaders. Some of them are latent influencers. And I have their numbers and I can reach out and ask for something and they help me because I was there for them as well. And it's amazing.

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Rhona Pierce (30:36.568)
So I'm going to do something a little different today. I usually do this at the end of the episode, but I feel like mixing things up. So there is my favorite segment of the show. It's called Plead the Fifth. And I'm going to ask you three questions. You can answer them all or you can choose to not answer, but only one. There's only one you can choose to not answer. You're not, you don't know what's coming next. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

So which marketing guru makes you want to throw your laptop out the window?

No!

Sherehan Ross (31:18.638)
I don't know what's coming next.

I plead the sixth.

All right, I think this is the first one. Who knows what's coming next? What's the LinkedIn trend that needs to die immediately?

the fluff ones or whatever you want to call it, the people with the gazillion followers that tell you it is easy to buy their course and the format, the template, the whatever, like there's the hook and here's the body and do it this way and do it that way. Now everybody sounds the same and that needs to stop that choppy flow. said it best in one of his raps and he was like that choppy flow with like, know, trap rap or whatever.

That's happening now on LinkedIn content like nobody's telling a story. Everybody's like boom boom boom and I mean I I do it too. I get it because attention spans it's People want to consume they're consuming so much content so like to make them stop Yes, you need a hook and yes, you need to tell a story and yes You need to keep it short and simple, etc, etc But like this whole like there's there's a temp

Sherehan Ross (32:32.768)
Okay, everybody's using that template and that template needs to stop and the big names that are doing that like they know who they are and their followers know who they are. But anyways, that needs to stop.

And you can see the post and be like, they're following so-and-so's template. They bought so-and-so's course. Anyhow, the next one is the spiciest take you've written but haven't posted yet. Spill it.

haven't posted yet. goodness. I actually posted it and I consider taking it down, but I didn't. Would that count? I said, my gosh, I'm to get so much heat for this. Revenue is not a marketing KPI. And that could get me fired. That could get me in trouble.

Yeah, what was it?

Sherehan Ross (33:26.422)
They came out of the woodworks with pitchforks and I said, I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Again, marketing is not the revenue driver. It's one of them. It's a lever to drive revenue. But everybody in the company's KPI is obviously tied to revenue, everybody. But to say that I own the revenue in the pipeline is short sighted because you're not looking at marketing as an investment, right?

that returns, that compounds over time, and it takes time. So the campaign I ran today is not giving me revenue tomorrow. It's probably giving me revenue in a year and a half because the sales cycle is so much longer. Marketing's job is to generate demand, to drive demand. And the only way we can do that is with awareness. And awareness is very top of funnel, and you can't tie revenue to the top of funnel.

And then there's this whole attribution piece and it just gets really messy. And I try to simplify and I said, look, marketing is hard. It's one of the hardest jobs outside of STEM. I'm not talking about STEM, but it's really, really hard because it's a lot of feelings and emotions. And I think this will work because I feel like it, you know, it's not always so much data. And even when the data exists, the attribution doesn't always exist and nobody buys in a straight line and the funnel is,

is whack and like, so all of these are very, very spicy rants that like other executives have called me out on it. People called me many names that I don't want to, you know, like I said, I almost took that post down, but revenue is not a marketing KPI. It's an objective. It's a North star. It's something that we all drive to words, but my KPI should be

really focused on the demand, the awareness, the lead gen, what's happening in the pipeline, what's coming in, what's moving down the pipeline, things like that, right? And so it's just, I'm digging my hole, aren't I?

Rhona Pierce (35:37.656)
I 100 % agree with you and I'm thinking about it because I've said something similar because as a content creator or influencer, I like the word workfluencer better. When you talk to brands and I always ask them before starting a campaign, like, what's your goal just so that we're on the same page? Like, what does success look like? And when they start talking to me about revenue, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't even work at your company to begin with.

And second, this is not what influencer marketing, it's tying it to revenue. It's just a mistake. It's not where we need to be. And to me, that's like a let's stop. This is a red flag. We're not even starting this campaign until we're all on the same page about what success means. So I a hundred percent get it and agree.

But to clarify, yes, revenue is important. Yes, revenue is a goal. It's a goal of mine and the company. But it's not a KPI that I'm measuring my team on. Exactly. Because marketing is not transactional. And when I just focus on the numbers, you cut, not cut corners, but you skip all the things that matter. Did you even go through a branding exercise to know who you are, who your audience is, and what you should be saying?

That's not going to give me revenue right now because it takes time, but it has to happen. Are you building awareness campaigns at the top of the funnel across the channels that matter? That's not going to give you revenue right now, but it's getting your name out there because it wants you to stay top of mind. So you got to think strategically about all the different things that you do as a marketer that eventually lead to revenue, but it's not the immediate like I did this and sales went up. I did this and sales went up.

Right? It's not a direct correlation. It's an indirect correlation.

Rhona Pierce (37:32.174)
100%. All right, you survived, the fifth. now let's get back to to our conversation, right? So someone sitting on their first like real authentic post and they're scared. What do you tell them?

I to, not, I mean, nobody's gonna remember. Unless you post the same thing over and over and over, nobody's gonna give a shit like next week. I mean, look at the things that trend, like astronomer. Nobody's giving a shit about that today, right? And that's all you saw in your feed for a week straight, which was beyond me. If they just acted like normal people and not made a scene in front of that.

Like I don't think anybody would know anything differently. But anyways, besides the point, go ahead and post it. Look, LinkedIn opens doors. There's a lot of good on LinkedIn. Yes, I've heard all the bad and I've experienced some of the bad and it's still happening and I get that. But the good outweighs the bad. And is posting hard? Absolutely. It takes time. It takes commitment. You got to be consistent to see results. But we're not all doing it to become influencers. Like I'm not an influencer and I'm not a content creator.

I'm just me and I share some stuff online. I don't think I'll ever be an influencer or considered a content creator because to me for a content creator, like you got to do video, you got to do all this other stuff. I write, I'm a writer, I'm a marketer who does a few other things, right? And so just post, like what are you afraid of? Like you're not going to lose your job. You're not, you know, I mean, again, don't be like a kid.

Most of the time you're not going to.

Sherehan Ross (39:15.948)
Yeah, well, it depends what you're posting. Like, I mean, if you're going to post something hateful and misogynistic and like racist and just horrible, I mean, yeah, that's going to cost you a lot of things.

different than saying it to your co worker. So if you're not going to say it to your co worker, you probably don't need to be posting it online. Let's put it that way.

Or if you would be so ashamed that your mom, your brother, your sister, your kid, your grandparents, somebody saw it, if that would cause shame, don't post it. You know, I have a lot of family members that follow me on LinkedIn. And so like, you know, that's always your, if I posted this, would they be upset? Like when I talk personal stuff. So yeah, just go for it. You might be surprised on how it's received and

You know what, I became a much better writer and creative person because of my LinkedIn journey.

Have you ever had any family member or anyone that knows you well, like take you aside and call you out and be like, why did you post that?

Sherehan Ross (40:25.558)
My husband. He told me not to post that revenue post. He was like, girl, you're going to get into trouble. And I did. But, know.

Like the husbands, always, I think they just want to protect us because mine would be like, are you, I'll be like, look at what I'm going to post. What do you think? And he'll be like, and like, I think he does that. And I'm like, yes, I'm posting.

I'm gonna do it anyways.

All right. What's your hell yes versus hell no filter for what becomes content?

Hell yes is I believe it, I live it, and I'm honest about it. I'm not sugar coating it. I'm not making it seem like something it's not. It's the raw, it's the real. Hell no is desperation is...

Sherehan Ross (41:29.144)
How do I say this? So, cause I've been in so many people's shoes, right? I've seen it all. I've been in a good place. I've been in a bad place and then everything in between. you know, when you're in the really bad place, creative outlet is important and posting about it can help. And it brings you community and brings you people that can support you, but don't, but hell no to like, there was a person and I had to like sort of just stop following them. It was just too negative, right? Like I understand you're going through a hard,

people want to know about your hard after you're successful, not while you're in the hard. And that's just human nature. It's unfortunate, but it is true. And so if you're in the thick of it and you're posting negatively about it, it's just hurting your personal brand and it's hurting you versus sharing, in different manner. like, don't be desperate.

Don't be needy. Be open-minded. Be grateful. Be helpful. Certain things should not go on LinkedIn. Just period. So I think there's that. the hell yes is be authentic and be real. Hell no. Be careful how you share some of that authenticity and realness.

Yep. And there's always different platforms because you can share, like I always try to share again from a place of like teaching or like a lesson. So it usually can't be while I'm in the thick of whatever is happening. Like you said, because sometimes you're just surviving. You're not learning anything right now. You're just trying to get to the, the finish line of whatever you're going through. And that's not sometimes not the best time to post, but

If you absolutely have to, there are other platforms that are way more conducive to that and way more like, what's the word that I'm trying to say that are going to treat you nicer about it? There's, miss Twitter so much that whatever's happening there. No, that's not my thing anymore. But then there's threads, which is like the best thing. So it's like, there's other things. There's like your Instagram stories. They'll go away after 24 hours and, stuff like that.

Rhona Pierce (43:48.85)
for those moments when you're in the thick of it and you still want to share, like be very careful because what you put on the internet is on the internet forever. Even if it's just 24 hours, there's ways of getting it. So.

Yeah, somebody's screenshotting it and saving it. But like also LinkedIn is different as a platform. LinkedIn is different. People are who they are on LinkedIn versus like on Instagram. Like the handles, like I don't even remember who my friends are on Instagram because like Krista is not Krista on Instagram. It's like catmom17, blah, blah. And I'm like, who is this? And you can't do that on LinkedIn, right? I mean, I'm sure you can, but you don't.

And so LinkedIn is different. And yes, I know people are like, LinkedIn is not Facebook. LinkedIn should be whatever you want it to be. I get that. But LinkedIn is a place for professionals to come together and network, do business, make money, build a community, exchange services, exchange best practices. I mean, that's what it was built for. Find a job, find a freelancer, find whatever you need, right?

I'm not saying it's transactional because like I said, I build a community and I love them. like my friend just launched a book, Leslie Vannette's, and she was like, I launched a book and I said, well, duh, like I already bought it. Like I have it, you know, I'm not a salesperson and I'm reading that book. You know, when Amita Malik launched her first book, I bought it. You know, Erin Gallagher is launching her book. I bought it. Like some of these books,

I I I try to read them all, but some of them have nothing to do with my career or anything like that, but it's a support thing. These women were there for me and I am there for them. I don't care what they sell. If they're selling like, I don't know, bees that sting you to make you feel better, I'll probably buy it. Even though I am definitely terrified of bees and no thanks, but I'll buy it and give it away.

Rhona Pierce (45:48.854)
I mean, at the end of the day, LinkedIn is different and I'm always, and I think you as well, team authenticity, but authenticity doesn't mean being a hot mess online. It does not mean that there's a difference and you don't want to be a hot mess online anywhere. Like this is why you have family or friends or like go to the store to the person who's not going to see you again and be a hot mess there.

get people talking to me random stuff at the store sometimes and you know what? You listen to them because who knows what they're doing. Don't post that online.

Exactly. Well, you know, I always give the same advice to pretty much everybody. There's three things you need in your life, regardless of who you are, where you are in your career, mother, not mother, man, woman, child. Doesn't matter. You need a therapist at some point in your life. Go be hot mess with that therapist. You need a coach at some point in your life to coach you for whatever it is you're doing. Athletes have coaches. Why are professionals any different? I need a coach. You need a coach. We all need a coach. You know,

Coaches have coaches, therapists have therapists. You need that. And I forget what the third one was, but I gotta come back to that one. But there was a third one that I said you always have to have in your corner. a mentor, duh, sorry. A mentor, so, you know, and coaches are mentors are not the same thing, right? Like, you could be my coach, but you cannot be my mentor because we don't work.

the same field like you you're not what I want to be I'm not what you want to be like you know what I mean like yeah you can't mentor me in a marketing state so your mentor has to be somebody whose job you eventually want right that's a mentor a coach is somebody who can coach you on things whether it's how to speak whether it's how to write how to present yourself how to play football how to do whatever your coach can coach you on things whether or not they do it

Sherehan Ross (47:43.392)
in their own career, right? Like you're coaching me on how to present myself on a podcast. Has nothing to do with marketing, but you can't mentor me. you know, so that's what I'm talking about. So these are the three people that you need in your life at some point in your life. Doesn't have to be always, doesn't have to be at the same time. Get one of those better yet, get all three of those. So anyways.

So I have loved this conversation. How can listeners connect with you?

LinkedIn. am very, very active on LinkedIn and I'm very easy to find. Sherehan Ross. I'm the only Sherehan Ross. So if you Google me, it is me and you might see some stuff. I'm just kidding. But you'll see everything. You'll see my education. You'll see my MBA days. You'll see like my trip to Egypt. That's all on there. I'm very online. You know, but Sherehan Ross on LinkedIn. I'm not sharing my email address. If you read my post from about an hour ago, you'll know why.

I'm excited to go read it. Well, thanks again for being on the show.

Thank you so much, Rhona It's been a pleasure and this has been so much fun. I appreciate you.

Rhona Pierce (48:49.742)
Thanks so much for listening. If you're enjoying the Workfluencer pod, share it with someone who's changing how we talk about work or who should be. And hey, if this episode gave you ideas or inspiration, leave us a five-star review. Reviews help other listeners find us. And honestly, it makes my day. Workfluencer is produced by Perceptible Studios. Learn more about how we can help you use video to attract, engage, and retain qualified talent at perceptiblestudios.com.

Thanks for listening and I'll chat with you next week.