Love is Blind, but Growth Strategy is Clear ft. Kwame Appiah

You know, content delivered by creators is 300% more effective than content delivered by brands, right? But it's not going to be that if you are just finding any creator.

Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Reimagine Podcast. We have Kwame Aia with us, who is a name that you may probably be familiar with from season four of Love is Blind. My wife is in the other room. She's incredibly jealous that we're talking, but Kwame is a legend in his own right in the BDR world. He led BDR teams at ZoomInfo, Builder.io, Common Room, and now leads influencer engagement at Later. Before stepping into that role, he spent a year as a full-time content creator, gained experience monetizing his social media, and now he's working to help bridge the gap between content creators and the brands that they hope to partner with. Kwame, thanks for joining the show, man.

Thank you so much for having me, Adam and Dale.

Yeah, yeah. We let him do the introduction because he's like the radio dude. He's got the radio voice.

He does. It's a really good radio voice. The smooth op.

I do the introductions. I get the guests. Dale just shows up and records, man. Right? He's got the easy part of this gig.

It's a gig. It's a gig. You know what they say about radio voices. Okay, cool. So Kwami, tell us a little bit. As you're going through, you've been going through a lot of different transitions, but why did you want to start doing influencer marketing, influencer brand? Tell us a little bit about that whole origin. What made that click and be like, this is the way we have to really get attention in our companies and our processes, et cetera?

Yeah, I mean, I would say it kind of all was serendipitous the way it came together. You know, I've spent the vast majority of my tenure in tech in the business development space, right? So it's just that like in-your-face, I'm going to dial and smile, get you on the phone call your C-level, sometimes even call your mom's phone if I really need to get to you. You know, so my entire career has been super direct, and I will say it's something that it took a while to really settle with me, right? Because I'm not the most overly invasive person. I like to think of myself as like the laid-back guy, and so it took a while to get there. I know like in the beginning of my journey I struggled as an SDR, but once I got to the point of getting to "I'm here to help you," and once I understood that, it made a lot more sense to me.

But yeah, I mean, ultimately as I was going through that journey, I started to try to think about the ways that I could really best approach and understand and engage with customers. And as that journey went on, we saw the transformation of the creator market, you know, and the creator economy, and it just kind of made sense because I became a creator. I was in it. I was doing it. I was talking to organizations and companies and brands, and I was doing some of them, you know, obviously the campaigns and the marketing for them.

So Scott Sutton, who's now the CEO of Later, reached out to me. We used to work together at ZoomInfo. He's a great dude, really human.

Yeah, yeah.

So he said, "Hey, I've got a kind of cool idea about what we're trying to do in this space. I think there's a lot of untapped potential in the connections that brands have with creators, and I want to make sure we help everybody align better in that sense, right? And so what can we do to put someone in that position to align everyone across the space? Someone who understands the business development aspect of it and the grind and the tenacity aspect that goes into it, but also has been on the purely creator side of things. How do we marry those two together?" And so that's what got formulated to create head of influencer engagement and experience at Later.

So I love this for a ton of reasons, and there's so many places I want to go. Like I want to talk BDR, I want to talk creator, but I'm going to stick with creator for a second. There's so many brands out there now that I feel go to LinkedIn, just find someone who has some stats, and they're like, "Oh, we're going to make you an influencer and go post about us." Or vice versa, you have some tool on LinkedIn who thinks they have cred, who posts, you know, "At whatever company, I want to be an influencer for you." I feel like my gut is that is not the way to do it and it's broken. Talk to us: how can brands and how are you guys helping brands properly leverage the correct influencers to grow their brand versus just going and finding someone on LinkedIn who has 50,000 followers?

Yeah, that's a really, really good question. I think what we take pride in at Later is making sure that the creators within our platform have the most open transparency to who they are as creators. You know, so are you able to dive in there and see who these creators are? Who are they targeting? What was their most recent engagement? Their engagement levels overall, what niche they fit into—all these things that come together to create: is this person a good fit for me, right?

And so if you're a brand and you are looking for someone to push out the message that you want to deliver, to talk to your community—and the reason, the obvious reason why creator engagement and the creator economy is so important—is because you know content delivered by creators is 300% more effective than content delivered by brands, right? But it's not going to be that if you are just finding any creator, right? So who's going to be the creator that really optimizes the message that I'm trying to deliver here to my community and to theirs as well?

And so I think you start first with understanding the niche, right? It's not just some cookie-cutter regular influencer. You want to understand that this person speaks to the messaging and speaks to the community that you have. And then from there, you want to understand their overall audience. And I think when people look at audience, typically it's been, and I think Adam might have mentioned it earlier as well, it used to be, "Let's go find someone with a bunch of followers." You could have a hundred thousand followers and you could have one percent engagement, right? It means that you're not really attached to your community. You know, so they don't necessarily—the message that you deliver might not resonate with them.

And so a big part about what Later has done, and I think also taking on this acquisition—because, I mean, just to tell the quick backstory: Maverick was the influencer marketing platform, and Later was a Canadian company, which was the social media and content scheduling tool, right? Maverick acquired Later and then rebranded as Later—kind of like when Discovery acquired ZoomInfo but rebranded ZoomInfo because Later had better brand recognition in a different, you know, larger customer base.

And so with those things in mind, what we then got was the influencer marketing campaign data that we've always wanted combined with the social media scheduling and analytics of understanding: what's the best way to optimize when you are delivering your message, how you're delivering it, and how you follow up, right? So you marry those two things, and you have this incredible creator tool that allows organizations and brands to really understand from the beginning: who are we delivering it to? Who can we get to deliver that message? When should we deliver that message? And then how should we follow through that entire customer journey?

So the creator economy becomes really cool, man. It's full funnel. It's full cycle now. It's really awesome.

I'm going to cut Dale off because it's his turn, but it sounds awfully like BDR.

It sounds awe... when how? You mean you can't just say, "Hey, Kwame, I want you to do a post and tag me in," and expect it to work?

Go figure.

Go figure.

Sorry, Dale.

Yeah, no. And I love what you were just talking about: full spectrum. Like you're all the way into customer success now. Like, you know, the creator economy isn't just for top of funnel. Creator economy goes all the way back through. Then you're really trying to figure out at the end: did we hit the ICP? Are they using the features? Are they getting the value? If they are, we feed that back into marketing. And if they're not, we're like, "Let's not find more of these people because that's not really going to help." So it's really interesting.

My question for you is: so you've done a lot of great like personal brand stuff, but there's people out there that haven't really started. Like they're like, "Okay, we're just getting going." So with all the knowledge you have, if you went to zero followers today—you didn't have the creator—like, how would you tell them to get started? That's a really good question. No more TV, you got nothing. Like down to, like, you just graduated college. You're like, "Okay, now what do I do?"

Yeah, you know, I think I'm really fortunate obviously I got put in a position where I have this following. And I say this all the time, right? Like I wish I was a better influencer, you know? I wish I was a better creator, you know? I...

There's aspects of creation and content creation and influencing that I feel like I need to really, really work on because it really takes a lot of deep connection with your community. We just spoke to Jason Teric on Scott and I's Beyond Influence podcast just a few weeks ago, and what he said, it aligned so well with the difficulties of starting as a creator from ground zero. You have to have an overwhelming level of consistency. Overwhelming consistency. Yes, every single day. You have to be at it every single day.

The thing about the algorithm and the way that things work, it comes and goes and fluctuates. But when you put content out, someone is seeing it. No matter what content you put—if it's one person, great. If it's a million people, great. But you have to keep putting out that content. And when you think about virality, we wish that there was a one-size-fits-all way to guarantee that everything's going to go viral. There's obviously things that you can add to something, and there's methods and formulas that you can put in place to make sure that you increase your likelihood of success. But you have to keep going.

You could have something that's formulaically spot-on, and it could be five percent engagement. And then you could do the exact same thing and drop it tomorrow, and then all of a sudden it's a hundred million times engagement. That's why the consistency aspect is really important. You have to take the things that are working and implement them over and over and over without shying away or feeling like a failure when you have the occasional moment where it doesn't work.

So what I hear you saying is, even if it's failing or even if you consider it failing, these vanity metrics are just that—vanity metrics. Do it for yourself. Don't do it for what you believe the return is going to be. Just like any give-and-get type of thing. You give, hopefully just to give. Karma is a real thing. Keep putting the content out. I love that.

Yeah, it is really important. And I do think—sorry to cut you off, Adam—but I think to finish it off, I do think testing all the different avenues, all the different social channels. Because something that will work on TikTok might not work on Instagram, right? Or on YouTube, and so on and so forth. That overwhelming consistency has to be spread across all the channels that you want to try to see success in, to figure out what is going to work and how you can continue to repeat that process.

I know people. I think one of the craziest things that I've ever seen—one of the craziest come-ups in social—I don't know his exact handle, but it's a guy who does the exact same dance in just different places. The exact same dance. This guy, I think now has three million followers. He started from nothing, but he did the exact same dance every single day for like a year plus. Dale dances. Look up Adam J on TikTok. You see him doing the Dirty Bird. That's crazy, though. And it's funny because the things that you think will resonate sometimes don't. And I'll tell you, some of my best posts are the ones that I put together and I'm like, no one's going to give a shit about this, but I have to post today because I have to be consistent. And it changes. It's interesting to me, Kwame. You guys have the deep analytics. You have the strategy. How does—I'm curious if you're talking to an early-stage founder of XYZ company—where do they get started? How do they start leveraging this? Because I find that most founders we talk to are doing one of two things. They're either going about it totally wrong, the way I mentioned earlier—"I'm going to go find some sales influencer and get them to post about me"—or they wait way too long to take advantage of the creator economy and using influencers. Where do they start?

You know, I think when it comes to early stage, especially with the lack of funding, I think the initial way to approach it is through seeding, right? Through gifting. When it comes to that side of the creator economy, it's about finding people who are curious and interested in what you have and just want to be part of it and try it. I can guarantee you there are so many creators out there who will just take the product as the payment.

Right, like it's really funny. As we talk about this, I have this Hydro Jug that I'm drinking from. I did not get paid to say that. But they sent me this Hydro Jug, just to send me this Hydro Jug. And I drink from it all the time. Anytime. It's in so many of my stories now.

And so when it comes to really starting from the grassroots, starting from the bottom, you want to find people who are interested in the product. If they're interested in the product and they just want to use it, what you're doing there is you are building a connection of people, a community of people, a community of influencers who want to influence and spread—sorry, I need to drink some more of this water. But you're building trust. You're building trust, and the currency that you are sharing is the product in itself. So it almost becomes reinforced that the use of this is what we're getting out of it. So people start to use it, they start to spread the news, they start to talk about it.

So I would say the best way to be effective early on in influencer marketing is just to build a foundation of trust with some creators who are interested in your product or your solution or what you have, and then take it from there. And it's also a plus—I think it's been a really big plus that organizations are noticing nowadays as well—if you can find people who have an incredibly qualified background for the job but also like to create content, you've hit a unicorn, right?

I see companies like Zoom Info have a bunch of salespeople who make "A Day in the Life of a Zoom Info Employee" content. They're basically just creating free content for Zoom Info. And I'm sure Zoom Info is not paying them any extra for that, I'm just going to be honest, right? But they enable them. So I think the other side of that is a lot of companies will cut the employees off because they're like, "That's not our language." But you need guard rails. Let your reps completely make their own personal brands because it's only going to help you as an organization in the long run.

People don't buy from companies. People buy from people. That's why companies who invest in meaningful connections win.

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Yeah, I agree with that 100 percent. The enabling and the encouraging. Because there's even a small story. For—I think her name is Mary. She was on TikTok. She was a Chick-fil-A employee. She used to make Chick-fil-A TikToks and just talk about how much she enjoyed the food or whatever. And Chick-fil-A actually reached out to her and said, "Hey, stop doing that, right?" That is crazy. Beyond crazy to me. And so they reached out to her, she stopped making Chick-fil-A TikToks. And you know what happened? We actually connected with her.

Yeah, we actually connected with her at Later, right? We connected with her at Later, and we got her on with El Pollo Loco. She also did a good West Coast brand campaign. Chick-fil-A, yes, right? And she also did a Shake Shack campaign as well. So all these other brands are like, "If you eat our food and people will listen to you talk about it, please, we will pay you to do more," you know? And so I do think that's important.

I'm glad you bring that up. Dale is like, yes. These creators who have been enabled and can really help your organization from the ground up—if they are proud about the product and they're sharing it, like you have to allow those. You have to enable it. You have to encourage it. Not shut it down. Enable it.

I was at Oracle, and like it was seven, eight, nine years ago, and social selling was kind of this thing happening. But they didn't have any infrastructure inside to help people learn it, understand it, execute on it. Now we have this whole creator community.

# Transcript

I was at, I have season tickets for the Bucks and Mr Beast came out, right? So they gave Mr Beast a contract for a day. He came out with his film crew. They did all this content and behind the scenes, what I heard was the Bucks are the only team that would give him a day contract. And I'm like, why would more NFL teams not do that to get the exposure? The dude has like 400 million followers. It was insane.

Yeah, I think that people are starting to realize that the connections are deeper with creators than they are with, I would say, standard celebrities.

Sure, absolutely. More relatable, more relatable, more relatable. I just had, I just watched this entire kind of saga go through of the UNICEF Soccer Aid. UNICEF has a really cool soccer game. It's called Soccer Aid and I've always wanted to play in it. It's like my dream to play in this game because it's always played at one of the big English football stadiums. You know, they would be mad if they heard me say call it soccer. But you used to play semipro, right?

I played pro.

Pro, okay. Very cool. Come on.

Your radio certificate is taken away. Forgive me that I don't stalk you. Yeah, I know. It's, I'm actually grateful that you don't, so thank you. But it's this big game and they usually get a bunch of retired professionals to play, people who have had these incredible careers and they bring them on. And then they also get a bunch of influencers to play as well. And I saw this journey of them announcing certain players, certain creators, and so on and so forth. And during the game there was a creator called Miniminter, or something like that, who's really big on YouTube and he does a lot of soccer influencing in general. And what I saw throughout the comments was actually kind of crazy to me. People were really upset that he was announced and he only played about 20 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. People were really, really, really upset about that because typically you would think some of the legendary soccer players were in this game, people that you would do anything to see play again or watch. But the audience that was involved and interested in Soccer Aid was mainly there for this influencer, like a 27-year-old influencer who had built a soccer community because they were like, this is the guy we want to see play. We've been watching his journey.

Yeah, right. And so that just speaks so much to how much more relatable and relevant the creator, the creator economy is, because people are seeing the journey of people they are building trust with their community and they want to see them succeed.

Yeah, it's there's so many people out there who I think don't realize that versus big celebrity. These creators, these influencers, they're more relatable. They're closer to their audience. They can sell tickets, sell product, do whatever it is that you're talking about, much more than if you were to go get whoever the big-name celebrity is today. You know, yeah, they're great for a Colgate commercial but are they really going to help drive tickets? Probably not.

I love that. So how is the transition from BDR land to what you're doing now? Because like, you and I talked a little before we started recording. Being a BDR I think is the hardest job in tech. I can't imagine it. I hate when Dale tells me I have to go cold call and get us clients. You did it and you led BDR teams for a long time. What's that transition been like?

You know, I'll just say I'm very fortunate and very happy in the role that I'm in now because I know what it's like on the grind. I think it is really important for everyone in the beginning of their sales journey to start as a BDR. I honestly think everyone at an organization, even if you are a front-end developer, could not agree more. We talk about this all the time.

Yeah, I feel like everyone should know what it takes to really grow an organization and help it build from the bottom up. And I don't think that SDRs are getting the credit they deserve. That's one thing that might just be a continuous message that should always be spread. We just don't think BDRs get enough credit. And so I was really fortunate I landed at an SDR, which at Zoom Info, which I think is probably the most well-oiled machine when it comes to the sales process from the SDR up. I think that was really, really good for my career and also hurt my career in some ways because when I was at Zoom Info, I started out as an inbound rep. I did really, really well in that because it was just kind of the familiarity of it. People are calling, they're raising their hands, you want to talk to them. And then you transition to the outbound side, which I struggled for about a month and a half. And then I realized what my successes would be and what my strengths were. And like I said, I leaned into the being a nice guy thing. And so when you kind of lead with the apology of like, "Hey, I'm really sorry for calling at this time. How's your day going? How's the weather?" and so on, it almost built this really awesome relationship before you even lean into like, "Can I borrow 30 seconds to tell you this?"

And so that was really important for me building my foundation. And then at Zoom Info, I got really lucky to be blessed to move over to the West Coast and take over the West Coast inbound team. And that journey was really cool because I started leading about 20 SDRs, and that's always been my goal. I've always wanted to be in leadership. My end goal is to be an SE Suite somewhere if it works out. You know, so it helped start building the foundation. Subtle, subtle plug, y'all. You know, in case you're listening, Scott. But I'm going to text Scott after this call and be like, "Need an SE Suite role."

Yeah, right. But ultimately, building that foundation of understanding what it took to sell from the ground up and then starting to lead other people who were going through it, seeing their struggles, working with them, and then moving on. And I think one thing that I want to make clear is like moving on from Zoom Info, it was helpful for my career because in the beginning, it taught me all these fundamentals and how to make sure that you had structure with your SDR teams. And as an SDR, how it might have hurt me was that since Zoom Info is such a well-oiled machine, when I got to my first organization after that, which was Builder, there were some areas where I was just like, "Oh my gosh, we don't have this yet. We don't have this yet." You know what I'm saying? Because Zoom Info has everything you need, everything. And so I think that hurt me in that first step. And so I struggled a little bit there. But I think during that time was also when I actually left and filmed for Love is Blind. And so I remember having that struggle of a conversation back and forth with my VP like, "Hey, this would be really hard if you left. The timing is a little tough." And my COO, whose wife was a massive fan, was like, "You should go, you should go." And it worked out for you and it worked out, you know what I'm saying? So I think like, you know, long story short, whatever that journey is, it worked out in the best way. But when I came back from filming, I was obviously removed and I felt kind of disconnected from Builder, and it just didn't pan out the way that we wanted it to. And so I ended up leaving there and then transitioning to Common Room, which I think I've been lucky in my career because I always step into a role that has a really emerging market, you know, like it's usually a top-five emerging market. When I stepped into Zoom Info, like the whole contact data and sales process, I would say the automated sales process was really being built out. When I went to Builder, that was more on the developer end and I didn't understand Builder as much as I wanted to because Builder was a very developer-heavy tool. But Builder was meant to revolutionize the way that front-end developers work and it would reduce their processes by like hours. And so I was really lucky to step into that space. And then when I went to Common Room, Common Room is a community tool to really help you engage with and connect with your community, especially as organizations. And from having these mass levels of what I would say dark communication where a lot of people are talking about you but you don't know about it. And so going to Common Room was really great because it helped me understand the need for community. So you go from contacting people directly to understanding how to communicate with them when they reach out or need to, or maybe they're just talking to each other and you in some way intercede but obviously in a non-invasive, helpful way. And then transitioning over to Later, it's been amazing, right, taking those tools or those...

# Strengths and bringing them over with, later it's been great for me to really just lean in to the communication and relationship building aspect of what I've learned. I think as we go on and as I'm starting to really blossom within the role that I'm in, I've started out as someone who is just meant to understand how to connect brand and influencer, you know, and creator with the community. As well as we move on, as we go further into this role, I know it's going to be a lot more in-depth in the sense of, we found great, we found this map, right? This roadmap of how to make it all line up. The next step is how do we accelerate that? And I think that's where the business development background really comes in handy.

Yeah, I mean, I'm now working my marketing muscles, which marketing is very different from sales, and I'm learning that. I'm learning that the hard way for sure. But it's been great because I spent most of my journey in sales having to do the one-on-one work, and now it's just like leading and developing projects where I have to assign many different roles and figure out how it goes from there. It feels like kind of understanding marketing and project management as well. So yeah, bringing those two together has been really, really great for me. I'm learning a lot. There's a lot to learn. I feel like I'm a step back in certain things, but I also feel a lot of encouragement from it as well from my team. So I think that's what's been great for me.

I love it, man. Seeing that you can make that transition, you know, we talk to a lot of BDRs that are working with our startups as well, and it's like, "Oh, what am I going to do next and where am I going to go?" And one of the things Dale and I always say is listen, I agree with you, Kwame. Everyone should start as a BDR because it gives you that different perspective, but take it and go wherever you want to go. You can go to sales, you can go to marketing, you could go to content creation. Like, use this as a foundation because if you could be successful here, man, you could be successful anywhere because this is the hardest, hardest part.

All right, we are coming up on time. We would love to dive in, do a little bit of rapid fire before we wrap up here. Here's the rules: no more than ten words per answer. Okay? Pretty simple. All right. Early bird or night owl?

Early bird.

Awesome. Who, besides you, are your favorite creators?

My wife.

Oh, answer besides you and your wife. No family members.

Um, Jordan the Stallion. He's a food guy. He just does these selfie reviews of food. It's great. I love it.

What's the one thing you do to unwind after a long day?

Soccer.

Nice, nice. Does Chelsea play with you?

No. All right, I wish. I wish. Yeah, yeah, I get that.

Um, what's the first app you check when you wake up in the morning?

Instagram.

Nice. So is that your favorite creator platform as well?

Yeah, I'd say so. It's where most of my audience is. It's where people interact with me. Yeah, for sure.

I have to ask because, like, with who you are, it just wouldn't be the same if you didn't ask. Is love really blind? We know the answer to that question.

Yes, I'm kidding.

What's your favorite guilty pleasure snack?

Reese's.

Nice, nice. And if you make it with s'mores Reese's, s'mores, unbelievable.

Yeah, my wife was like, she made s'mores. She's like, "Let's get the Reese's peanut butter cup, put that in the middle." Good one.

Last one. Let's end strong. Dream vacation destination. He travels everywhere. I know, but he's gotta have a dream.

Yeah, Japan.

Is it booked? Is it on the radar?

Um, so it was. We were gonna go to Japan with our other friends who, if you've seen season four, Brett and Tiffany, they just went. And it's always been my dream destination. Me and Brett are both big anime nerds, so we thought it'd be something awesome to jump into. So we didn't get to do it because it was either that or buy a house, and we bought a house.

Yeah, I think you probably made the better choice.

Um, Japan will always be there. Japan will be there.

Kwame, thank you so much for taking the time for joining us. Where can people find you? Where can people learn more about later?

For sure. Later.com, which is always a great way to start. If you want to dive into Scott and I's new podcast, Beyond Influence, you can actually type in later.com/podcast or go to wherever you listen to your podcast and type in Beyond Influence. Apart from that, if you go online to Instagram, you can find me at Kwame—K-W-A-M-E.

I love it, and we will backlink to your podcast as well. Thank you for joining the show, man. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.