Erin Balsa

Content Marketing Consultant and Writer 

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions.

Erin enjoys B2B content marketing, keeping the Halloween spirit alive year-round, and talking about herself in the third person. 

No but really ... 

I've been working in content since 2011 when I landed my first job as an editor. Since then, I've worn a bunch of hats like:

- Content marketing agency leader
- Inc. 5000 B2B SaaS marketing director
- Freelance content strategist, writer, and editor

Over the years, I've written for a bunch of brands you probably know including:

- HubSpot
- Drift
- G2
- Intuit
- And a Fortune 100 that shall not be named

These days, I help marketing teams at B2B SaaS companies (Series A-C) survey a representative sample of their ICP and write a 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 original research report that positions their brand as a credible authority — to secure press mentions and close enterprise deals.

If you're ready to publish research that builds trust instead of skepticism, let's chat. And if you just want to connect with a fellow marketing nerd who decorates for Halloween in July, I'm here for that too.

Hausofbold.com

Content Marketing Consultant

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions. 

Unlike some strategists and agencies, I don't hand you a content strategy and say, "Best of luck!" I ensure your success by helping across four buckets:

▶ People 
▶ Process 
▶ Strategy
▶ Execution 

Learn more and read client testimonials at: hausofbold.com

It's been 3 years since I joined Navattic as a marketing advisor.

In celebration,  I'm pressing buttons on my keyboard! 

(Look at me go.) 

I remember reaching out to Devin Reed and asking him how he got into advising. A simple question — but putting my intention out into the world changed things for me. 

Next day, Natalie Marcotullio reached out ... and the rest is history!

I'm grateful to have found such a wonderful long-term partner. Amazing people, amazing product, and super customer-obsessed. What's not to love?

👉  If your B2B needs regular guidance from a content/brand leader with deep experience in content strategy, original research, and thought leadership, drop me a note.

B2B Content Marketing Leader & Advisor | Creating Data-Backed Narratives That Make Selling Easier

I opened my LinkedIn notifications to see that someone left me a mean comment. 

My blood instantly started to boil. 

"Your research report reads like a sales brochure — you just don't know it yet."

𝘞𝘰𝘸. 𝘙𝘶𝘥𝘦! 𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘦?!

Oh. 

It was me.
I posted that.
A few days ago. 

This is what happens when you take the advice to "lead with a spicy hook." It comes back to haunt you every time you open your notifications. 😂

It’s 9:07am and we have already:

- eaten breakfast, twice
- built a haunted house out of Picasso tiles 
- made cookies with Play-Doh 
- put ghost stickers on a sheet of paper 
- colored (but not on the wall this time)
- played in 3 feet of snow 

Ah, what other joys will the day bring? 

I know one thing it won’t bring: the ability to work in silence. 

Those days are long gone. 🙃

No alternative text description for this image

If your buyers are skeptical — and they are — would your research pass the sniff test or raise red flags? 🚩 

Most B2B research falls into one of four categories based on:

Rigor of methodology (competence)
Transparency of reporting (integrity)

Here’s a quick gut-check:

Is your methodology rigorous or sloppy?

Q: Was your sample size large enough to support the claims you made?
Q: Was your sample actually representative of your target market?
Q: Was the person who designed the survey and handled the data properly trained?
Q: Did you do data quality checks to weed out bots and people speeding through for rewards?
Q: Did your screener questions weed out respondents who lacked relevant, recent experience?
Q: Were your survey questions clearly worded, non-leading, and free from bias?
Q: Did you run cross-tabulations to analyze relationships within the data?
Q: Did you clearly disclose your confidence levels, margin of error, and study limitations?

Score it like this:
1 point for every “yes”
Higher score = higher rigor

Is your reporting transparent or selective?

Q: Did you set out to test a hypothesis rather than go digging for interesting stats after the fact?
Q: Did you report on the findings that challenged your assumptions — and not just the ones that supported them?
Q: Did you publish your survey questions verbatim instead of paraphrasing them?
Q: Did you distinguish between correlation and causation?
Q: Did you invite external experts to interpret your findings?
Q: Did you acknowledge limitations and uncertainties in your data?
Q: Did you keep your analysis neutral without turning it into a sales brochure?
Q: Did you show the full distribution of responses instead of only highlighting favorable results?

Score it like this:
1 point for every “yes”
Higher score = higher transparency 

Tally up your answers and see where you're at: 

High rigor + high transparency = Believable Research 
High rigor + low transparency = “Trust us” research
Low rigor + high transparency = Amateur research
Low rigor + low transparency = Hogwash research

Was this helpful?

I share writing & editing lessons so entrepreneurs & founders can attract + convert high-value clients | Edited 3M+ words | Former Head of Content | Running on seltzer 🤩

You’re doing $30K, $50K, maybe $80K months. You should feel amazing. But instead you’re custom-scoping every deal, rebuilding proposals from scratch, and one client churn away from a panic spiral.

You’re successful. You’re also exhausted. (Two things can be true at once.)

I co-founded Duo with Nick Bennett after rebuilding my own business five times. Cohorts, courses, group coaching. I tried all of it before landing on a model that doesn’t drain my energy.

At Duo, we help solopreneurs (specifically B2B service providers) fix their offer, fix their positioning, and build systems so they can stop being the bottleneck in their own business.

Our clients have gone from $40K to $80K MRR in 60 days. 

From $300K ARR to $2M ARR in 13 months. 

From relying on referrals to every inbound prospect saying “found you through your content.” 

From dreading sales calls to prospects showing up ready to buy.

From white knuckling it to the end of each week to running a business that gives them energy. 

It’s not magic, but there is a formula: we helped them standardize their offer, delegate the stuff draining them, and actually articulate why they’re different.

I also write a lot on here about content strategy, our MP3 framework, my business journey, and the occasional rant about my toddler twins slapping me on airplanes.

If you’re doing $30K+ months and having a “wtf do I want this business to actually BE?” moment, DM me.

Website: duoconsulting.co
Podcast/mini books: howsolosscale.com


Erica Schneider

The hardest part of a platform like LinkedIn is shallow thinkers “win” the day. People with little experience share tips and tactics that feel easy to understand and even easier to implement. People hit like because it makes their dopamine go whoosh. 

“I can do this!” 

Yeah, you can. And it’ll make you feel good in a world of make believe thumbs but prove useless in a world of real money. (Money is also a construct but I digress.)

This game of shallow thinkers makes deep thinkers feel… shit, to be honest.

Your deep experience and proven ideas get shoved to the sideline. You lose the popularity contest. Nobody loves you. You feel resentful, frustrated, unseen and unheard.

You think, why the f*ck would I waste my time in a garbage in garbage out place like this?

And you don’t have to. You really don’t. There are other ways and places to market.

But I’ve found pockets of excellence here, and that makes it worthwhile to me. You can find them too if you hit unfollow and not interested on the shallow game. If you hit connect and dm with the deeper minds. If you market the problem, process, and proof and radically accept lower engagement in exchange for elevated conversations.

There is a way. I am proof. Our clients are proof. Our friends are proof.

But the choice must be yours to make. Either commit to it with conviction or don’t bother.

Complaining endlessly, however, is a waste of your time and mine. That’s what makes people hit unfollow and not interested.

My take on the state of things.

Growth consulting for scaling solopreneurs & micro agencies | Co-Founder @ Duo Consulting | Running on seltzer 🤩

70% of Brian’s leads now come from LinkedIn. A year ago, that number was zero.

And this morning, Nick and I got to train the 3 contractors Brian has hired since his business exploded to build their own LinkedIn presence.

What a full circle moment! 

The backstory:

A year ago, Brian was stuck. He was doing $25K months off referrals alone with zero inbound. He was scared referrals could dry up at any moment, and he wasn’t getting enough leads to aggressively scale.

So over the past year, we helped him get known for a specific problem he solves. 

Rebuilt his content around marketing the problem, process, and proof. 

Started real conversations with the right people. 

And within months, ~70% of his prospects were coming from LinkedIn. 

This influx of leads helped him scale from $25K to $150K a month. 

To execute on delivery, we coached him through hiring 3 senior contractors, standardizing his engagement model, and freeing up his time so he can focus on strategy, biz dev, and marketing.

And now here we are: training his team to do the exact thing we helped him do a year ago. 

So the business keeps compounding without Brian being the single point of awareness.

Watching his contractors get fired up about building their own presence, knowing we’ve been part of this thing from the jump, I don’t know. It just hit different.

I love that I get to wake up and do this every day. 

DM me if you’re Brian a year ago and ready to scale revenue + reclaim your time.

The traditional agency model is a trap for most scaling solos. 

High overhead. 
Constant hiring. 
Managing people all day. 
Moving further and further from the craft that made you great.

Plus, the idea of building an agency makes most B2B consultants we know nauseous. 

They didn't build expertise for 13 years to spend their days chasing invoices and managing people who don't care as much as they do. 

Ok, so then how DO you scale to $1M-3M without going the traditional agency route?

At $30-$50k months, you're fast approaching capacity. You've likely hit a revenue ceiling. You're probably burning out.

You can't scale without operationalizing, but operationalizing means delegating, which veers into agency territory.

So here's our POV:

You're not building an "agency." You're not removing yourself from running client accounts or doing the work.

Instead, you're building a microagency with a pod structure.

A tiny, senior delivery team organized around you, not below you. 

You stay close to the work. 
You stay close to the clients. 
You don't become a manager in the traditional sense. 

You become the person who designs how the work gets done while a small squad of senior people helps you do more of it.

It's not an agency. It's not a solo practice. It's something in between. Which is why we've been calling it a microagency.

One founder running the show, a small pod delivering the work, and a business that can hit $2-3M without sacrificing quality and 60%+ of your margin.

One of our clients recently scaled past $150k months with three senior contractors and he's on the path to $3M. He's at 70% margin.

Another is restructuring his team into a pod right now, and already seeing his capacity open up and his energy come back.

So yeah, this is what we're seeing working for B2B solos who refuse to go the agency route but know they can't keep white-knuckling it alone.

We're going to be talking about this a lot more. 

If this sounds interesting to you and you're a B2B consultant doing $35k+ months, DM me. Let's talk about a better way to scale.

taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Erica Schneider

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Erica Schneider

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Erin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance