Influencer Marketing & Growth @ lempire (Taplio + lemlist) | Exploring how B2B influencers help SaaS companies drive growth

Alex Llull

Fractional CMO for agencies & consultants | Creator with 1.1 million followers | Make The Internet Nice Again™️

My job is simple: help you grow your business by any means necessary.

I've spent the last 20 years at agencies & in-house, so I know both sides of the table. I created education products that drove $20 million+ in revenue at CreativeLive and URM Academy, did design & marketing for Abercrombie & Fitch, product strategy for Swiffer & Febreze, digital media for Red Bull, Element, and Nike ACG and projects for bands including A Day To Remember, Periphery and Of Mice & Men.

As a content creator, I've also generated over 130 million views and 750k subscribers on YouTube, 80k followers on Instagram & 20k LinkedIn followers (big numbers = I'm good at my job, right??)

Let’s do something cool together! Send me an email or DM any time.

Finn McKenty

It's honestly kind of shocking to me how many people seem like they can't do anything without using AI as a crutch.

Their default action is to ask AI about everything, and they just accept the output without question: "Well I asked ChatGPT and..."

The worst example is when someone sends you a doc that's clearly straight out of ChatGPT with no edits.

I'm not offended by superficial stuff like em dashes. The problem is that they've totally outsourced their thinking and probably barely even read what they sent you, so I have zero confidence in their actual understanding of the underlying ideas.

Don't get me wrong, I love AI and I use it all day every day. But it's not an excuse to turn your brain off.

YOU need to do the thinking, and "but ChatGPT said..." is not a valid reason for anything.

(and for the record I'm an AI hipster and I mostly use Gemini, not ChatGPT 😇)
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

Fractional CMO for agencies | Creator with 1.1 million followers | Make The Internet Nice Again™️

"So true. You know what I always say, the last nail is always the rustiest one!"

I've been aggressively unfollowing people who post ragebait, complain too much, or are otherwise negative.

No hard feelings! I just look at it this way:

1. What you let into your brain is a choice, just like what you put into your body. 

Binge on a bunch of ragebait and negativity and you'll feel crappy just like if you went on a McDonalds/whiskey binge.

2. Choose people who make your life better and happier

Every minute you spend on someone complaining about their experience with Comcast or whatever is a minute that you're not spending on learning something that could potentially change your life 

Eg, the absolute banger post about outreach that Christian Di Bratto put out yesterday, which will 100000000% get you as many new clients as you want (I have no affiliation with him btw, it's legitimately that good).

Curate your feed → Curate your brain 🫡 
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

I know a lot of ASK-HOLES: People who constantly ask for advice, then get defensive, argue, and never follow it..

Some of them are people I’ve known for years. They keep asking me for help with the same questions, I keep telling them the same thing, and their answer is always the same:

"But [influencer] said that doesn't work..."
"That sounds hard. Can't I just use AI?"
etc etc

There's always a reason why it won't work for them, why their situation is different, etc etc 😩

The most successful people I know are the exact opposite of this. When they get advice from someone smart, they act on it FAST (and don't get butthurt/defensive).

They're the ones who text you 20 minutes later, "OK I did what you said and it worked. Thank you! What should I do next?"

It's amazing what happens when you ask smart people for their advice and then ACTUALLY DO IT.

Literally the easiest and cheapest "growth hack" ever, but some people just can't get out of their own way 🤷‍♂️ 
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

But in all seriousness, I actually do think less of people who are rude to AI!

There's one client I regret taking on last year (100% my fault, not theirs).

I'll be deliberately vague but to make a long story short, I said yes even though I didn't know very much about their business.

I quickly realized I couldn't do my best work for them. Everything was harder than it should have been, I had to ask a lot of basic questions, etc... it felt like I was running at 60%.

Since then, I decided that I'll ONLY work with someone if I have "subject matter expertise." Feels gross typing that but you get the idea.

I'm not a diva or anything, I just haaaaaaaate the idea of wasting anyone's time or money, and doing anything less than my best possible work.

My operating motion is Get Shit Done™: 

Know what needs to be done, how to do it, and take care of it with as little of the founder's time and attention as possible.

My favorite reaction is, "Oh shit thank you for doing that, it's perfect. I've been wanting to do that forever but we could never find time."

When I have a lot of subject matter expertise, that's not hard.

Eg, if it's a design agency, I've seen just about every part of that business a million times over the last 2 decades, so I need zero handholding.

Yes, I know there's people who do great work for clients where they have limited experience, and I love to see that!

But I'm not one of them, so I'm sticking to my strengths.

PS - See how I used a picture of myself on stage so you'll think I'm a Subject Matter Expert™?
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

PSA: You DON'T need to spend hours posting 5x a week on LinkedIn.

It's easy to get that idea, because a lot of the most visible people here use content as their primary marketing tactic and it works great for them.

But it's not the ONLY option, especially for people who don't really enjoy creating content.

Notice that most of those big creators sell courses, a low-ticket product or other offer that relies on having a big audience. They need lots of eyeballs and new people coming into their funnel all the time.

But do YOU need that?

If you're an agency or in B2B, probably not. You might only need a handful of deals to have a great month/year.

So if you don't want to/can't post a ton, try this:

→ Post 1-2x a week, and don't overthink them

→ Add 5-7 new people a day

→ Spend 10-20 minutes a day commenting

→ Send 1-3 DMs a day

Here's the catch: you have to stay CONSISTENT! But if you are, this will definitely move the needle for most people, and you don't have to hop on the content treadmill 🏃‍♂️

🚨 NOW HERE'S THE CTA 🚨

If you want more detail (like exactly who to add, and how to find them) I break it all down in tomorrow's newsletter:

Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/g3uHsd-H 
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

How to create a consistent character from a sketch, in this case your very own Power Rangers monster!

I'm using Nano Banana Pro for the images and Weavy for the workflow:

🟣 1. Sketch out your character. 

It can be rough, it just needs to get your intent across.

🟣 2. Create the character one piece at a time. 

"Turn this sketch into a monster head in the style of the reference image" (I gave it screencaps from Power Rangers).

🟣 3. Combine them into the full character.

Since you have it all in parts, you can mix and match if you want (eg, make new legs or a new hat). Super fun!

🟣 4. Put the character into new scenes, poses, styles, etc. 

Nano Banana is amazing at reading the intent of your drawing, and keeping the character consistent from scene to scene. 

It's not 100% so expect to do some re-rolling, but it's pretty damn good at a LOT easier than anything we had even a year ago!
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

Almost every agency I've seen struggles with this exact pattern:

1. They’re getting by on word-of-mouth, but just barely. They realize they need a reliable pipeline.

2. So they hire a dedicated marketer to help them fill the top of the funnel

3. But the marketer never really delivers, because they don’t quite get it. They don’t know how the buyers think, how the sales cycle works, what messages land, etc. It’s not their fault, they just don’t have the knowledge.

4. So the founder gives up and decides to do it themselves

5. Which works, until things get busy again and they’re spread WAY too thin

6. Marketing grinds to a halt, the pipeline dries up, and they’re right back where they started 🤦

So how do we stop the cycle and let these founders breathe a little/see their families more than 45 minutes a week?

1. To start with, carve out some of your time for marketing and protect it with NO EXCEPTIONS. Without that, you’ll be stuck in this cycle forever because you'll prioritize project work over marketing.

2. As soon as you can afford it, hire someone whose entire focus is marketing. 

3. Your marketing hire(s) need to come to the table with some pretty strong industry knowledge on day one. It's just too hard to teach the nuances to someone who's starting from zero.

It won't happen overnight, but give it a few months and you'll start to see a noticeable difference!
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
 20+ years designing & marketing products
☎️ DM me to say hi

I've built some very elaborate SEO workflows, but this one is insanely simple.

This client has a ton of authority around creative tools but their content hadn't been updated in a very long time and needed a refresh.

We're only about 2 months in, but traffic has already doubled:

→ 1. Pick the topic, eg "Nano Banana Pro film grain."

🚨 HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART 🚨

→ 2. I actually go through the process of figuring the topic out myself

For example, I'll actually build out a workflow for adding film grain that's better than anything else I'm aware of.

→ 3. Drop screenshots of my process & some notes into a Gemini project with instructions on style, structure, etc. What comes out of Gemini is already 90% there, because it's just reformatting my notes.

→ 4. I touch up the details, add the images (same ones I gave to Gemini) and it's done. I've been publishing ~10 a week.

📚 Here's the takeaway:

The Gemini workflow is really simple (a Gem with formatting instructions). Anyone could set it up in 10 minutes.

This is working because it's REALLY GOOD, ORIGINAL CONTENT, not regurgitated slop that anyone could prompt.

Complex, elaborate workflows won't help you if the underlying product, content or idea is weak.

Don't even think about fancy automations etc until you've PROVEN that people care about the thing you're selling.
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👋 Hi, I’m Finn
📈 Fractional CMO for agencies
👨‍💻 20+ years designing & marketing products
📬 DM me to say hi

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Alex Llull

Finn McKenty

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taplio

The Battle

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Finn McKenty

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Finn McKenty's LinkedIn Performance

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