Danica Hoppe

There’s a new trend: Startups with zero marketing budget, building millions in pipeline. With one thing: EGC: Employee-Generated Content. No ads. No influencers. No polished brand videos. Just people. Posting. Consistently. Sharing what they know. And building trust in the process. Because no one knows your company like your team. They’re not just employees. They’re advocates. They’re the voice of your brand. They’re the reason someone says “yes” before ever speaking to sales. The data backs it: • Employee content gets 561% more reach • 8x more engagement • And drives 7x more inbound than anything posted from your company page But there is a problem: Most founders still hesitate. “What if they say the wrong thing?” “What if it’s off-brand?” “What if they get poached?” But the companies growing fastest? They’re leaning in, not holding back. They trust their people. And it shows. If your team isn’t active on LinkedIn, you’re missing out. Big time. PS: how is your employees’ LinkedIn game? ———— PPS: Curious what this could look like for your team? We run workshops to get employees posting with confidence (and without sounding like robots). DM me WORKSHOP if you want to know more.

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Does outbound work in staffing and recruitment? Most agencies are all word of mouth...which is a great channel. But, it's not the only channel....email + LinkedIn of course. & If your prospects aren't responding to LinkedIn messages. It's because everyone messages the same people. The CEO. The HR Director. The top down approach. Target the influencers at the company. My tech recruiter mapped the network: Who does the CTO follow? Which thought leaders does HR engage with? What content does the hiring manager share? Then positioned himself in those circles. Commenting on the same posts. Attending the same virtual events. Building recognition before reaching out. When he finally messaged? "Have we met before?" Use LinkedIn to turn cold outreach to warm. PS - If you want to book 4-8 meetings with hiring managers who are actively looking for candidates every month, book an appointment through the link at the top of this post!

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From the trenches to the C-suite! 📈 Tune in for Episode 014 of Doing It For Retention 👂🏼📹 Bethany Ayers has lived every start-up scaling challenge. Having helped raise over $200M and built go-to-market engines at Peak.ai, NewVoiceMedia, and Codility, she now leads Metomic as CEO, a cybersecurity company protecting sensitive data in an AI-driven world. As a board member for four AI companies and co-host of The Operations Room podcast, Bethany shares hard-won insights about turning cutting-edge  technology into market-leading businesses - This was such an interesting chat! Shout out to: Operations Room - www.operationsroom.co - Follow if you don't already! FULL podcast links in the description. #customersuccess #career #cro #ceo #cco #podcast

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🚨 Trending job title alert 🚨 Founding Product Marketer is becoming more and more common and competition for these candidates is heating up. If you're hiring your first PMM, here are 3 quick tips to help you search for them, stand out and move fast. 1. Define what matters right now: Don't look for someone who's perfect at everything. Look for someone who's more of a generalist. Good at a bunch of stuff. And spikes in the 1 or 2 areas that are most critical to your current stage and challenges. 2. Try this boolean search string on LinkedIn or Google X Ray. ("product marketing" OR "PMM") AND ("founding" OR "first marketing hire" OR "early stage" OR "Seed Stage" OR "Solo PMM") AND (B2B OR SaaS) 3. Personalize your outreach and focus on what's in it for them Everyone is searching for the same, limited talent. You need them to own 12 different things. So does your competitor. "what's in it for them?" What stood out about them specifically, what stretch projects will they get to own, what is the potential impact of their work. Even in today's job market, it's extremely competitive for someone who can operate in the grey and be your founder product marketer. Get really clear on what you need. Uncover your ideal talent. And find ways to stand out from the noise.

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AI sourcing, and workflow automations are really starting to change the game in recruiting. The work you can get done with the right systems in place is amazing. If you're not partnering with agencies and recruiters that are leveraging this new tech correctly your are losing out by extension.

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Lately, I’ve been hearing a common thread from founders looking to hire creative leaders: they want builders, not just managers. They’re not looking for someone to just oversee the work—they’re looking for someone who can shape it. Someone who leads with vision but stays close enough to the craft to jump in when it counts. The kind of leader who’s just as comfortable in a strategy meeting as they are inside a Figma file or pitching a bold idea. Who knows how to inspire a team, but also isn’t afraid to get hands-on and help bring ideas to life. In fast-moving environments, that kind of leadership stands out. It builds trust, moves the work forward, and keeps teams creatively energized. They’re looking for creative leaders who build, not just direct.

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🔥 Hot take for content whippersnappers! The new jobs report from 12twenty says: 📉 Early-career hiring is down ~13% 📌 Entertainment, media, and comms jobs aren’t gone — they’re just way more selective 🦾 AI skills are popping up across all industries, including content So who’s actually getting hired into junior content roles right now? 👯‍♂️ People who understand audience + platforms + metrics (not just vibes) 👩🏼‍🎨 Creatives who can work with AI 🧐 Folks who are adaptable, curious, and already thinking one step ahead Translation: The “just start as an assistant” era is fading (TBH, that's not a bad thing). It's replaced by “show you can already contribute from the get-go." You got this, whippersnappers! #earlycareer #contentjobs #mediajobs #genzcareers #editorsmakethebesthires

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"We take a custom approach for each client." This is the right idea... but most agencies take their "bespoke" approach way too far. If you're starting from zero with every new client, you're doing your customer, team, and own bottom line a disservice. Case-by-case customization matters for unique needs. But having a standardized core system means you're not reinventing the wheel every single time. We use GoHighLevel because of the snapshot feature. We've built a really solid snapshot over time that we can replicate instantly. Not everything applies to every client. But we can pull in entire workflows when we need them. Let's say we start with a new client and three months later they want to add webinars. We don't build from scratch. We pull in the whole webinar snapshot that's already proven to work. The CRM is set up. The automations are built. The team is already trained on it. That's the difference between scaling and staying stuck. Think of it like the custom composition of pre-made components, rather than the creation of new components every time. Most agencies treat every client like a custom build. They start from zero. New workflows. New automations. New everything. That approach doesn't scale. You're burning time and energy rebuilding things you've already built before. The key is having a core foundation that works, then customizing on top of it based on the client's specific needs. For our sales offer, we have standard systems for: - Webinar backend processes - Challenge funnels - SMS and email sequences - Calendar booking and confirmation flows - Post-call follow-up automation When a client needs something specific, we adjust. But we're not starting from a blank canvas. This is how we can sign a client 7 days before an event and still execute at a high level. The foundation already exists. Build once. Deploy many times. Customize as needed. That's how you scale without burning out your team.

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I used it this playbook to grow GrowthAssistant to $21M ARR in 3 years. Ultimate cheatsheet to grow your agency (warning: long post) Step 1. Define your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) This is boring, but crucial. ICP clients churn less and convert more. (For us, ICP is big companies in DTC, e-com, or Agencies). Quick breakdown on how to do it: -> Select core characteristics (headcount, funding, etc) -> Break down categories into multiple segments (eg. headcount: 0-50 employees, 50-100, etc.) -> Analyze your core KPIs across these segments You'll find a winning category of clients. It'll be some combination of characteristics. Below are our main findings FYI. Now I'll tell you how to land them. 2. Make a Hit-List Built out a "universe sheet": Think about the top 10 people in your network that would help you get the most intros. Build out their LinkedIn universe on a GSheet for people they know who you'd want to meet. Reverse this universe doc to add targets to your original hit list. Again, the goal is to get to 100 targets your network can help you reach out to. Moving on 3. Identify relevant connections For all targets, identify the right people (POCs) at each co. that you need a meeting/intro with. For every POC, find who in your network is connected to them. Not just any connection. Find who can help make intros Some ideas: a. Your close connections who can help make dozens of intros. b. Your happiest customers that know your target companies. c. VCs, investors, founder groups, and so on. Slowly build a database. It's a gold mine for great clients. 4. Built templates for emails/messages requesting intros Attach these to the spreadsheet. The idea is to delegate as much of this as possible. Split your connections (the people you're reaching out to) into tiers depending on how "close" the connection is. I'd suggest 3 tiers. Write out one message for each tier yourself. Then write out replies/responses for each possible reply from them: positive, negative, concerned, requesting info, no reply, etc. Dump it into a template doc. Make it easy for a VA to handle w/o intervention. Each email should be something like: a. Intro b. What EXACTLY do you need them to do (eg, forward a brochure/setup the first meeting/just spread the word etc). c. Your value prop in one sentence. d. Well-organized list of everyone in their network you want to talk to. 5. Start reaching out Send out emails first for, say, ~20% of your total list. Follow your template. See how it works. Iterate on it: make the changes you think you need. Do it again for another 20% of the list. Iterate again. Now the process should be good: ramp up the vol. It's tedious work. But the ROI is insane. And you don't have to do it yourself. My company GrowthAssistant embeds elite global talent with B2b teams like Hubspot, Canary, Shopify etc to run plays like these and generate business. Start growing: https://lnkd.in/gNMWtCDc

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A COO once told me: “We’ve worked with 5 agencies Only one asked what our ops team was struggling with. That one got a 3-year retainer.” That "agency" was me. And the truth is, it wasn’t about pricing. Or speed. Or flashy decks. It was about curiosity. I asked: What’s slowing your team down? Where are you bleeding time? What’s the hire supposed to fix, not just do? That one conversation reframed the entire search. Because when you understand the problem, You stop hiring for job descriptions. And start hiring for transformation. That’s how you build trust. That’s how you earn long-term partnerships. That’s how you make hiring feel like progress—not pressure.

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As a PR/Comms Recruiter, AI can’t replace what I do — and I’ve spent thousands hoping it could. Lately I keep hearing about AI agents, automation, and tools like Clay that promise to “replace sourcing” and handle top-of-funnel work for you. And sure, if you’re hiring 50 SDRs or engineers, you can use LinkedIn search URLs, run public data enrichment, and mass-message the results. But that’s not my world. I recruit for PR and Communications — a deeply nuanced, relationship-driven industry where titles can be misleading, bios are vague, and the only way to know if someone is the right fit is to actually read between the lines. No bot knows if someone led a design-forward sustainability launch — or just thinks they’re in sustainability PR because they sold solar panels in their first job after college. This work isn’t about keywords. It’s about context. Judgment. Subtlety. That’s the value. And no, tools like Clay don’t actually “scrape” LinkedIn — they just pull in surface-level info using search URLs and some clever workarounds. That might work for high-volume hiring. But in PR and communications? You need real context. I’ve spent thousands on AI courses, attended conferences, and put in the hours trying to “replace myself.” I wanted it to work. I really tried. But over and over again, I find the same thing: the tech can’t do what I do. It usually just adds extra steps, costs more money, and slows me down. Until LinkedIn allows bots that truly understand nuance — and AI learns how to identify the right profiles based on nuance, not just titles and buzzwords — these tools are useless in my case. No tech stack, no workflow automation, and no AI agent can replace what a sharp recruiter sees in a few seconds of reading between the lines. The stuff AI does help me with? Scheduling, note-taking, explaining things I don’t know, helping craft marketing content and emails, and a little bit of automated LinkedIn network expansion… but that’s it. It’s never given me a shortlist of perfect candidates (every new tech demo I tried failed miserably at this). It’s never screened them. It’s never filled my schedule with potential clients looking to make hires. It’s never negotiated an offer. And it’s never closed a deal. I do all of that myself. I really wish I had a bot to help — but we’re not there yet.

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