How I Became A B2B Influencer While Balancing A Full Time Career

Chris Peters (00:04.566)
Good morning, Eric. Great to be here and to find the link on your pod.

Eric Melchor (00:09.542)
Yeah. Yeah. And a pleasure to have you here. I want to get started with, uh, with your career. know currently you're at wave maker, uh, but you started doing something on the side. Uh, I think your company is called moon at dawn. And I want to know how you got to this point where now you're, you're successful in what you're doing right now for your company, at least I assume so, but then you're also branching out and you're creating your own thing. I think you're launching a new podcast. You've got this newsletter that you've got more than 3000 subscribers now.

Chris Peters (00:22.273)
Mm

Eric Melchor (00:39.78)
Like, how did you get to this point?

Chris Peters (00:42.466)
Yeah, so just giving a bit of a summary and introduction to myself. So I'm a client partner at WaveMaker, as you mentioned, and WaveMaker is predominantly known as a media buying agency for big conglomerates and enterprise business. And my role is to lead the strategic direction of the B2B accounts that I oversee. But over the last 12, 13 years that I've worked at, worked in agencies, I've always had, I guess, that plucky

entrepreneurial spirit that's kind of served me well in my in my career. But prior to my agency life, I've worked in startups, I've had my own startup, I worked for myself for a certain time. So I've always been a bit of a bit of a builder. So that kind of desire to build and have some think of your own as a guest is never left. So throughout my agency and kind of corporate career, I've always explored and dabbled

of things that you can work on in the scene, how you can kind of elevate your thinking, how you can consume different content, know, what kind of side projects can you work on. So that's always been part of my, part of my makeup. And when I joined wave maker, I had a very, made a very cognizant decision of, I'm gonna focus on, on my career and look at how these side

projects can kind of amplify my positioning within the company. So how can I create content? How can I be positioned more as a thought leader? And that's kind of where the newsletter was born from. it started off as, I was actually just talking about this yesterday, actually, it just started off with my team, which was much smaller than, and it was, let's share some content with the team and I'll put my own little spin on it. So it actually started about two and a half years ago.

There's a few people that I followed on LinkedIn and I'll just share one or two little articles with a little snippet for myself. And 15 people turned into 50 across the business. Wavemaker is part of a huge group called WPP. And there's a B2B community that sits within that. I wanted to introduce some more folks across the group to it. I say introduce them, I will just add them.

Chris Peters (03:06.454)
hoped that they didn't shout at me and spam and I started to introduce more senior people to my newsletter and they would forward it onto their teams and by and large it was really well received. Then at that time I would adapt my style, I would finesse what topics I would talk on. I got more confident. I didn't want to be too vanilla, too corporate, too stuffy.

And there's obviously a bit of a balance with that as well with the folks that was on my distribution list. Yeah, just I didn't put too much emphasis on scaling it. It was just a mean to me to communicate and to write content. I've always quite liked doing that. And then I started just introducing clients and then I put it on LinkedIn and it's had some pretty good growth, OK, growth without kind of too much emphasis on it. So it's now about three and a

and three and half thousand people. made the decision about, I guess, three or four months ago to bring it off my corporate email. I think the maintenance to send it from email, my email got blocked at one point because there was such a vast amount of emails coming at one point. And people chop and change careers a lot in media land. So they're having to remove people and add a new one and new people. So it's just a pain in the ass.

So I shifted to another just a typical tool that you can send emails. It just allows me just to track it little bit. for the best part of two years, I didn't really do much optimization other than focus on time, like how I can optimize the efficiencies of content when I write it, how I write it, and just scale back from four hours to now about two, two to three.

But anyway, so I'm now sending it via an email saying that I'm not quite doubling down on it yet. I'm certainly looking at what the next step is, like commercial opportunities with it. So yeah, I'm going to continue to do it because I just didn't like doing it. I have lots of good qualitative feedback from it. But yeah, there's certainly room to push it a lot, lot harder than what I've done so

Eric Melchor (05:30.956)
Okay, let's unpack the process a bit. You mentioned that it used to take maybe four hours plus. Now you've got it down to two or three. How do you go about that in terms of, you know, crafting or finding the content and crafting the content? What are some of the steps that you

Chris Peters (05:48.308)
It's hard. So because I don't want to put content in and recommend content without consuming it. So trying to find the time to consume the amount of content that's needed for the newsletter is really, hard. So I have two kids. I have an intense full -time role. So you have to of carve out specific, I guess, allotments within a busy schedule. What I've kind of narrowed down was instead of sporadically reading like large volumes of content,

daily. I bookmark a lot and just have a time or focus kind of every week. I'll just sit there and just read content. And it just allows me to be far more efficient with just actually putting pen to paper, so to speak, and just actually just jotting down your views and actually just reading content. So I lots of content, I just think it's not worthy of worthy of sharing. So you know, I just drill that down, my wife kind of knows when I'm doing that. So I can just ring fence

time at home, just with my career, my day job, it just allows me to, I'm dropping off the kids and all of these other things that have to maneuver around this. I've kind of just really honed in on when I do that, which is typically on a Thursday evening, post kids club and all the things I'm doing with the kids. And when they're going to bed, I kind of get that done then. And in the morning, just before I drop off school, I'll physically send it and do the final checks and whatnot.

So yeah, lots of finessing, know, once upon a time I'd write and write and write and it was a four or five hour slog and it just wasn't realistic to keep doing it like that. So yeah, and you're writing style as well, right? You get more comfortable with writing, you get more comfortable with and learning what works and what doesn't and that, you know, that was a big part of it as well. Just, you know, just putting in the reps and just writing a bit quicker.

Eric Melchor (07:46.148)
Yeah. Yeah. And did it achieve your goal of becoming seen as a thought leader within the

Chris Peters (07:54.146)
So I'm just getting rid of a notification. Yes, I think it has. think there's lots of people that kind of reference the newsletter when I first speak into them, if they've come across it before. It just happened just last week with someone quite senior actually within the organization. I just reference, you're the Chris who puts this newsletter together. Yeah, that's, you know, it's always a nice start of the day with a coffee.

with a coffee before I kind of get into email. So, you there's quantitative feedback that I can use in terms of subscribers going up. But it's the qualitative feedback from people that you aspire to be or have quite a established and impressive career. So these types of things. And it's helped unlock interesting conversations so people on LinkedIn have reached out. So it's that kind of

Eric Melchor (08:49.232)
Yeah. Now why branch out and create a podcast? mean, you're busy juggling work, kids, the newsletter, which obviously takes a few hours every week. And, and now you just launched a podcast. So why do

Chris Peters (09:00.96)
Yeah, so I think with that builder mentality, it's always new things I'm exploring, new ideas I think would be interesting. And at the moment, and I've done it before when I thought there's an interesting play with folks who are working who would be interested in providing that mentorship or consulting for small startups. And I went down the inroads there with creating a community around people who are like -minded.

in that category. I created a content, I created a podcast there. And it's the same now. I'm very, very bullish on B2B creators, B2B influencers. I think it's an emerging trend in B2B marketing. And I've seen, you know, we're doing it with our clients here. I know there's a lot of appetite with B2B marketers, the people I speak to, I've seen when my feed is being filled up with more more influencer content. This might be because I'm gravitating towards it and this is what LinkedIn

deciding to show me, but they're just a lot more appetite to test it and to learn how it can work for individual business. it's on the back of all of these conversations that we're having with a Dow market. These traditional playbooks are not working as much or as effectively as they once were. The KSB, the competitive advantage for brands. So anyway, I've kind of built this personal perspective that I think there's an opportunity

for B2B businesses to do better marketing with the use of creators and influencers. And I think it's going to become more prominent over the next few years. So with this view, it's just trying to work out what's the opportunity within it. So whilst I continue to develop this muscle myself, do some work with existing clients and speak with other marketers, I just want to develop my own knowledge. So part of that is let's create content, let's create a

Let's create a content hub for other people who want to go and learn it and then try and be positioned as the person who is that B2B creator kind of expert. So now I've jumped on some, we've jumped on the podcast with some fantastic guests, learned tons along the way. So yeah, just at the start, we set live free. We've got two more that are gonna go live in the next few weeks. And I think there's two or three conversations that I have.

Chris Peters (11:25.666)
in the pipeline. So certainly looking to get to 10 to 15 and see where it takes

Eric Melchor (11:30.822)
Okay. Speaking of guests, what was Christian Sesto like as a podcast guest, as an

Chris Peters (11:40.61)
Christian.

Eric Melchor (11:42.822)
Christian Sesto from Custom Influence.

Chris Peters (11:48.482)
Kristen, sorry. Kristen, I went on her podcast. So Kristen was great. had a very specific agenda that we want to talk about. And we talked about a topic around LinkedIn. They've got a recent report that they've shared recently. So she's great. I've been speaking to her and Guy for some time now.

It was great to kind of just jump on and just have a bit more of a fleshed out conversation. But they're doing some interesting stuff over there, custom influence.

Eric Melchor (12:24.954)
Yeah. Hey, so you've, you've written about B2B influencers. think, you know, lot of creators in this space. If you had to pick two creators to execute a campaign, maybe on behalf of a client or maybe for your own brand or something, which two creators in this space would you want to collaborate

Chris Peters (12:49.91)
there's, there's a few, I think from a B2B perspective, a couple of folks I gravitate towards are, it's a bit of a boring answer, but like Chris Walker, I just like how he is able to articulate a unique perspective and doing so with such intelligence, with such an original point of view. And he's been able to like galvanize a whole

category with a new way of thinking. It's not necessarily being a new way to go to market, but I think he just reframed it and has completely just changed how B2B marketers think about their marketing activity. So I think partnering with him would be really, really interesting. And I also like, and I've got to know him actually recently, last few months, Don Lombardier, who was formerly at B2B Institute.

I think the stuff that him and his now co -founder, Peter Weinberg, done with their new later research synthetic company, I think is just really, really interesting. I'm really impressed by the work that the B2B Institute are doing at the moment. And think John and Peter were a big part of that. So looking at those two and how you can work with them in terms of the narrative

you can create around B2B marketing. So there's kind of two that I think about, there's two other chapters as well. just, I have a little bit more of an old school mentality and I really respond well to like Mark Ritson and Rory Sutherland. I think two kind of senior marketers have been around a bit longer, but can just communicate their points of view is just so much. Prisma think is very, very unique.

So I think those two as well who are not standalone B2B marketers, certainly, and hopefully they don't mind me saying this, but veterans of marketing who have, yeah, I think their just communication style is very, very unique.

Eric Melchor (15:01.52)
Where do you consume their content? Just through LinkedIn or other platforms?

Chris Peters (15:05.698)
Yeah, predominantly LinkedIn. you know, lots of people will link off to various other platforms. But by and large, my content consumption is LinkedIn and podcasts. So I have 10 podcasts, I'll kind of gravitate towards and to kind of duck in and out based on kind of the mood. mean, you're you're on there as well. But yeah, there's just lots of different podcasts that I'll just jump through. So it's that and LinkedIn.

Oh, and newsletters, and newsletters, sorry. Newsletters I do like as well. I'm subscribed to about 10 to 15 newsletters as

Eric Melchor (15:34.778)
Earlier, before we

Eric Melchor (15:44.006)
Something interesting that, a sponsor told me recently, and, she said that in the summer, people do not read or open their newsletters as much. They're on vacation, but they still consume podcasts because it's just become a habit that they do. And it was really intriguing to me because I happened to be, I happened to have just gotten back from Greece and I was thinking about what she said. And I think there's some truth to that

Chris Peters (15:56.854)
Mm.

Eric Melchor (16:13.476)
When I was in Greece, I wasn't really checking email and I certainly wasn't spending time, you know, reading newsletters that I was subscribed to. However, I did binge a lot of podcasts while I was hanging out on the beach or driving in the car. What are your thoughts on that Chris?

Chris Peters (16:31.816)
I'm not sure I'm necessarily subscribed to that view. And that's because I guess the habit might be, yes, you want to wind down and take your work hat off during a vacation. And that might be actually by the... And the assumption, I guess, is you're by the pool, you're having a walk, you're at the beach, and you might stick on a podcast. And the podcast might be a work based...

podcast, but I think with the same point of view of you're not consuming newsletters would be that actually probably don't want to necessarily consume, you know, a podcast based on kind of your work outfit. So I think the behavior might be that yes, you're probably more prone to listen to a podcast than read a email newsletter on holiday.

But I think the mentality is the same. I think you're winding down, so you're probably going to be a little bit more down tools. But I think if you're looking at consumption versus the two, yes, newsletters are probably likely to go down more. And there might be more people to stick around on podcasts. But yeah, we see this with ads and search intent. And you see fluctuations in search intent go down throughout the summer. So a lot of our clients tend to adopt a summer.

on a strategy, you know, like, I feel like certainly my personal behavior and know, folks, I know that people are holidaying throughout the year and people don't just stop buying things in the summer, it slows down, things take a bit longer, that happens. But yeah, I still think presence is needed and yeah, people don't completely switch

Eric Melchor (18:25.168)
Now, before we hit record for this conversation, we were talking about our kids and how they are exposed to a different world, much different than when you and I were growing up. And because you write about B2B influencer marketing, you yourself are a subject matter expert. You've got your newsletter and podcasts. What kind of report do you have with your kids? when you're talking about, influencers and maybe you don't even talk to talk about them at all, but I'm sure that if they have a phone.

Or if they have any sort of, usage with the phone, then they've seen YouTube videos and then they've seen maybe tick tock videos or things like that. And obviously a lot of those videos are done from influencers. So what have you told them about this profession and this type of, these types of

Chris Peters (19:06.817)
Mm

Chris Peters (19:13.352)
nothing is the honest answer because their influences are girls running around chasing dolls or pretending to be Barbie. So there's no crossover from their perspective on what kind of daddy does. But we do try and talk to them about influences and their gender, especially when they're trying to effectively

sell their merch or whatever they're trying to do and link off to certain things. So what is interesting though, I see how effective it is because quite often they're coming to me with some sort of teddy or t -shirt or something that they are wearing. So you have to be cognizant of it. You have to try and help them make the right decisions and try and educate them.

know, certainly with the oldest one who's a bit older now, who's 10, we can start to approach the subject, but the little one's still just too little. So she just doesn't really understand. you know, we have purchased all sorts of lip balms and all sorts of different things that these influencers have sold. So, yeah, it's interesting to see how effective it is, matter how old you

Eric Melchor (20:37.208)
Okay. Okay. Tell me about your weaknesses, Chris. mean, what are some of the things that you suck

Chris Peters (20:42.816)
Hmm. So I think one thing I'm definitely getting better at and it's just my management style. And I guess, hopefully the theme you've got throughout this chat is that I've been a bit of a doer, always been trying to push the boundaries and push myself and always kind of striving for like...

But like, guess putting a client with my day job at the heart of it and kind of always pushing like how we work with them, how we think, being provocative and challenging our clients and trying to do lost for better phrase, we use a corny one, like just excellent work, like client excellence, but just acknowledging actually, you know, not everyone has that mentality. Not everyone, you know, wants to do that. You know, people just want to come in and do their job.

I think I've always been great at managing expectations with my team. just trying to get a better balance of, OK, we want to deliver for this client, and what's expected for me, what's expected for my team. But also just those that you report into as well. Not everyone likes that person just always asking questions and pushing the agenda.

Yeah, it's worked well by and large, but also there's just been times when I've not done it well, just managing upwards and also for those that report in to me as

Eric Melchor (22:21.446)
Yeah, I sucked as a first time manager. actually had this whiteboard and it had three columns, do, doing, done. And every, every morning I had my team come up. was like at 8 30 AM and we had these little post -it notes and we would talk about every project and where it was in the column. And I thought it was great. It's like, Hey, it's showing to management, you know, that my team we're busy. getting stuff done. We're moving things forward where I know what everybody's working on.

Chris Peters (22:23.777)
Mm.

Chris Peters (22:28.642)
Mmm.

Eric Melchor (22:49.722)
But most of the team members hated it. And so it was a big lesson for me to learn that your specific work style just is not the same for everybody. So I've been there before Chris.

Chris Peters (22:59.138)
It's managing people is so, so hard. When you're coming through and you're junior, that's all you want to do, right? want to, or I certainly did want to climb the ladder, managing people, but it's really, really.

Eric Melchor (23:14.982)
Yeah, no, it definitely is. Okay. And, um, I've got some rapid fire questions for you. I just want you to tell me the first thing that pops into your head. Okay. The most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days.

Chris Peters (23:34.816)
I went to presentation training yesterday. That was quite interesting.

Eric Melchor (23:41.126)
Okay, okay. All right. The Academy Award for Blink goes to Chris.

Chris Peters (23:50.374)
Academy Award. dear. Maybe overbearing, overbearing line manager, I don't know. Yeah.

Eric Melchor (24:01.382)
Overbearing line manager. Okay Okay Blank is a crazy thing You did either to make money or save

Chris Peters (24:15.062)
Yeah, maybe not crazy. When, so this is a bit of a long, couple of years ago, so when we first brought a house, my wife had a tendency to always get water by her bed, but not drink it. And I started to half fill up the water at night time for her. Just fill up the bloody water. It's

R for P. So yeah, that was the weird crazy thing that I did a few years ago.

Eric Melchor (24:52.558)
Okay, all right. The last one for you blank is in unusual food you consume.

Chris Peters (25:06.85)
I don't do it, well I don't do it now, but when I was younger, my go -to post -drinking meal was just a big block of cheese. So when I'd come home from a night out, just go and get that big, nice block of mature cheddar, that was my go -to after -party meal.

Eric Melchor (25:29.434)
Yeah, no, I love that. I buy one every week from the store and usually every day I go and I cut me a piece of block of cheese.

Chris Peters (25:31.266)
Yeah.

Yeah, I do love that. I still like the cheese, but my palate has evolved from just plain old cheddar. But yeah, that's my go

Eric Melchor (25:44.954)
Yeah, yeah, I haven't matured, I'm still stuck on cheddar.

Chris Peters (25:48.832)
Yeah, I do love that cheese.

Eric Melchor (25:52.4)
Yeah. All right, Chris, thanks for coming on innovators can laugh. Where can people learn more about

Chris Peters (25:58.006)
Yeah, you can go to LinkedIn, find me at Chris Peters and you'll get all of my information there.

Eric Melchor (26:04.026)
All right. Fantastic. For those lives listening, do you like the show? Subscribe to it, hit that like button, tell others about it and I'll be next week. I'll be back next week with another innovator from the UK. All right.

Chris Peters (26:16.204)
Thanks Eric.

Eric Melchor (26:20.312)
Okay.