Marketing Happy Hour - Content That Converts: Building Brand Loyalty & Community | Kyle Hagge of Morning Brew Inc.

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

How do you turn content into a thriving business? And more importantly—how do you do it while keeping your audience engaged, excited, and coming back for more?This week, we’re sitting down with Kyle Hagge, Chief of Staff at Morning Brew Inc., to dive deep into content strategy, email marketing, podcasting, and career growth in the media industry. Morning Brew has built a content empire with 15+ brands—so what’s their secret? Kyle shares the exact strategies that helped them scale, plus his best career advice for standing out in a fast-moving company.Key Takeaways:// The key to scaling a content-driven brand while maintaining trust// How to write emails people actually want to open//  Why podcasting isn’t for every brand—and what to do instead// How to build community through content (plus, the difference between audience and community)// The power of “collecting the dots before connecting the dots” in your career Connect with Kyle: LinkedInLearn more about Morning Brew Inc.: Website____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn:⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

You have to collect the dots before you can connect the dots. So like early in your career, collect as many dots as possible, volunteer, work in different industries, launch a side hustle. As you collect the dots, eventually you do have to commit. I don't think you should commit before you understand yourself and you understand the skills and the things that you like to do. And then when you commit, you're more confident in that decision. And then you can go very, very, very deep. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster,

and your host. Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical, empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. Today, I am chatting with Kyle Hagee, Chief of Staff at Morning Brew, and we're going to talk through just building an effective content ecosystem, how that drives the bottom line, and also just how to build community through your content. Kyle, welcome to the show. Yeah, Cassie, great to Brew for quite some time now. So it's always fun for me to be able to peel the curtain back on some of my favorite brands and just hear not only individual stories,

but just what's been going on at the business, kind of how you got to where you are today, how the brand got to where it is today. And so super excited to dive in. But Kyle, I got to ask you, what's been in your glass lately or what do you have? Yeah, you told me this question was coming. I have a Coke zero in front of me. Um, and outside of that big coffee drinker. And, um, unfortunately I do drink energy drinks. Um, that's, you know, something I'm working on, but anything caffeine based, I'm a fan of. That's okay. I love myself an energy drink too. I drink them probably a little too often. So I'm right there with you trying to wean off a bit, but got to stay caffeinated in

the business world, you know, like energy up. It's the key to content caffeine. It definitely is. That's your first tip of the day there for the episode. Exactly. Free tip already. Yes, exactly. Kyle, can you tell us too about your journey a bit? How did you get to where you are today and how have your experiences in the past really shaped your approach to

content strategy? Yeah. So I've had a career that I think is unique. Although I I'll find that when you talk to people and you ask them to explain their career journey, they're often like, Oh, like, don't take my advice. Cause my career has been all over the place. I actually think these nonlinear careers are much more common than people believe. And it's actually the, I was a, you know, junior accountant and then a senior accountant and then a VP of accounting and then a CFO, that's a little more rare. So I actually do think having a career where you bounce around is just much more common. And there's a lot more opportunities to do that now than maybe there was

a couple of decades ago. So I went to University of Minnesota. I studied philosophy and political science. I then did two years of AmeriCorps. I was actually teaching in a high school after school. So that was a really informative experience for me. I feel like if you can get 40 18 year olds to stay for two hours after school and learn about the ACT, you can pretty much do anything. It was probably like the place I learned my most informative management skills is like doing that and like bringing hot Cheetos and making the actual content very engaging. Otherwise, you're going to lose your audience. After that, I did a variety of different things.

I got my master's in political science. I worked for the housing authority for the city of Milwaukee while I was getting my master's. I freelanced for a civic tech company. I started my own podcast, so self-taught audio engineer and podcast producer. That was all about civic engagement in Milwaukee. And then before joining Morning Brew, I ended up at Marquette University where I got my master's, but in a full-time role. I was working with their innovator in residence. He was a former public company CEO for 16 years, learned a ton about business and innovation with him. And we were doing a podcast all about innovation.

So he would talk to other entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, social innovators, as well as he would give tons of talks. He was writing a book. So got to see also content from that angle, like an individual thought leadership perspective and all the different avenues you can create content for in that lens. And then I joined Morning Brew in February of 2021. And I've been here now for literally four years. I think it was last week. First three years was director of community. We'll start as community manager, worked my way up to director of community for our particular business unit, which was building one to eight week mini MBA courses.

So you could come to Morning Brew and virtually take a course on new manager boot camps, strategic planning, data storytelling. I was running some of those courses in the community that kind of wrapped around all of those courses. And over three years, we served 4000 professionals, which is really exciting. Still really great friends with so many people that went through that program. And then that business unit actually shut down in November of 2023. At that point, I became chief of staff to our COO, who's also now our CRO, and have been in that role for a year. So maybe a little long-winded, but that's been my career journey thus far. That's awesome. year. So maybe a little long winded, but that's been my career journey thus far.

That's awesome. No. And thank you for mentioning like at the top of the episode about this idea of nonlinear careers. I've talked to a lot of younger professionals and even people a few years in and they're like, I've done so many different things. And I, you know, almost beating yourself up for doing different things that don't, uh, they're not in like the same industry or field or whatever. And I'm like, I think that's so valuable personally to be able to tap into different spaces and see how communication is different and varies in different fields. And, um, there's always things that you can pick up from past experiences, no matter what it is that contribute to who you are today.

So I always tell people don't discount what you've done in the past because it's all helpful. Yeah, 100%. And if you've listened to like any other podcast or talks I've ever given, like I talk about this book called Range by David Epstein, which is how generalists will triumph in a specialized world. Highly recommend it. Very influential book to my career. But I will be honest. I think if you've had a very diverse set of experiences, I do think there's value in that. But the perception of that from maybe like a hiring manager is going to, it might lean towards like this person doesn't know what they're doing or they're not set on like, you know, their, what they really want to do with their career. So I think it's great to have a variety of experiences, but if you have a variety of

experiences and you can't storytell and you can't articulate how all of these different experiences can articulate the lessons you found from them, how they relate to the business you are interviewing for or the job that you want, you're not going to get the job. And so you have to do that work in a way that someone who has a very linear career just doesn't have to do that much work on the storytelling aspect because it's very clear. So it is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is I think you end up, if you do get jobs, flexing all of these different skills.

Some of the most effective people I've worked with I would consider generalists who have had very unique backgrounds. The curse is that you have to do apply for a job, making sure you're doing your due diligence of understanding, like, what are they looking for and how can you then craft your experience to that specific role and make sure that it's relevant to that role you're looking for. So, yeah. Yeah. To your point, it takes work, but it's it's possible. So. Yes. And the resume is just a piece of content, which I know we're going to talk about. And, you know, the key one of the keys to great content is knowing your audience. And so exactly what you said, like, if you're sending the same resume to the same, all the jobs you're applying for, like you're not tailoring it to be an exact fit. It's not going to hit with those audiences as well as if you did tailor it. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Well, let's talk about Morning Brew a bit. So the brand has grown into this powerhouse and same via company with 15 plus brands. So I'm curious to hear your just viewpoint on this, but what do you feel is the secret to scaling content driven, a content driven business while also maintaining that audience trust and engagement over time?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I'll answer it in part just by kind of explaining what we do at Morning Brew. And again, like I've been here for four years. The company is 10 years old. There was so many incredibly talented people that quite honestly did a lot of the hard work to scale the flagship daily newsletter that I was not a part of at all. But I'll explain it from my vantage point. I think we, like you said, have about 15 plus brands. Most people know us for that flagship newsletter daily. It goes out to 4 million people. But we also have, I think, some of the best B2B media industry newsletters, that's CFO brew, HR brew, tech brew, IT brew that speak to a specific industry or a specific function. That's a

sizable portion of our business as well. And we have a ton of amazing journalists that are covering those beats every single day. Then I would say we have like multimedia. We have a lot of like consumer facing franchises, Think Money with Katie. We have a lot of like consumer facing franchises. Think money with Katie. We have the morning brew daily show, which is the number one business podcast on Spotify. Routinely. We have bossy.

We have this creator, Phil, who has a channel called Maxonomics and he's like a numbers nerd and go super deep on like how tariffs will affect things. And like, you know, it's a really, really good storytelling.

We have our like super, I would say one of our most famous creators, Dan Toomey, who does good work, who is hilarious. We have Macy who is often on our morning for main channel. So we have like this really diverse ecosystem of different types of content. And I think the key to success there is having a franchise level strategy,

like the way we're going to grow GoodWork and the platforms that GoodWork is really going to perform well on is a lot different than like how we're going to grow and scale CFO Brew. And so like the first step is like, know the game that you're playing. Are you going for scale? Are you going for like quality of audience, core audience rather than just quantity? Are you like a consumer franchise where the clients that you're going to work with are the hokas and, you know, consumer facing brands of the world, or are you B2B media? The clients you're going to work with are going to be the B2B SaaS companies that we hear about on LinkedIn every single day. And that is going to, I think, affect strategy as well. So yeah, knowing the game you're playing, Morning Brew has so many different strategies because we have so many different brands. And we actually did a broader name change where we're now Morning Brew Inc. So a crazy change. We added Inc. to it that sits atop all of those different brands. Morning Brew, the flagship newsletter, being one of the brands. But

as I've alluded to, we have a ton more. For sure. And then obviously, like the way that each of these channels, you're building community, you're building an audience around them, I'm sure is differing, right? The strategy is going to be different there. But what do you feel just overall thinking about, like, if a brand was listening to this, and they're like, I want to build community around my brand, which I know community is a buzzword, but it's just building relationships with our audience and just providing value over time. What do you feel are some underrated ways that brands can use content to build community versus just sending out messages and hearing nothing back, for example? Yeah, it's a great question. And, you know, I was really involved in the community space for

three years at Morning Brew. If I was advising a brand, a media brands, I would actually say like community as you put is like a buzzword and you actually have to define what that means. So for me, I would say an audience is one to many where you as the brand are sending something out and it goes to many people, but those people aren't talking amongst themselves, right? Like Morning Brew goes to 4 million people. It's not like there's a group chat with 4 million people and we're like, yo, this, did you see the Morning Brew newsletter? Like that's not happening. So that's an audience. It's one to many. I think audience is actually the key. Build an audience first, I would say. I think it's a lot easier to build an audience. Community, as I would define

it, is many to many, where it's the people that have a shared passion or really interested in your brand for whatever reason. You're bringing them together, and they're not just interacting with your brand, but they're interacting with the other people that love your brand. That's a lot harder to do. I actually think it requires much more investment and it is, you know, a trickier business model. I would say like, there's a reason why we shut down Morning Brew Learning. Like it is a lot harder to build a sustainable community than it is to build an audience. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I would start with an audience because your audience is going to be made up of,

you know, a ton of people who may or may not want to interact with other people. I think your community becomes like a portion of that audience of like the real diehard people that want to connect more, want to learn from other people and creating programs where they can do that, I think can be part of your business model. So first define audience, define community. And I would start building an audience first. I do think people use those words interchangeably, which causes a lot of confusion. The second thing I would say is you are building a brand and the brand should have like a, you know, an ethos and a feeling and like a vibe people have when they interact with it, but it shouldn't be the

same on every single platform. So for example, I'll take Morning Brew, the daily newsletter as an example. So many people since the beginning of time were like, hey, just make an audio version of this newsletter. Just like have someone read it and put it on Spotify. Like that's really what we want. And you know, that's one way we could have done it. People also all see a ton of brands who have a newsletter. Their Twitter feed is just like linking to articles that were in their newsletter or like our newsletter drops, go read it here. Those I think are like just taking one property and kind of using the same strategy on different platforms. I think that's ultimately less effective than what Morning Brew actually does, which is Morning Brew, that consumer franchise has a feel. It's smart, it's witty, it's irreverent,

it's fun. That expression of those values is different based on the platform. So our podcast is not someone reading the newsletter. It's that same tone, but it's back and forth. It's smart, it's witty, it's irreverent, it's fun. It's the same feeling, but it's expressed in a way that does very well in podcasts, does very well on YouTube. Our Twitter, it's what Twitter is. It's memes.

It's still about business news. It's just using what works on that platform to grow your audience on those channels. The same thing with our TikTok strategy, our Instagram strategy, our LinkedIn strategy. So it's not enough just to like have one thing and copy and paste it. You really should be thinking about how does my brand show up in a way that's authentic to my brand on these different platforms in a way that that platform loves. So that's how I would, you know, high level advise someone who wants to create content and wants to put it on all these different

platforms and wants to build community. First, define audience, first community. Second, really think through how your brand should show up on all the platforms you want to be, and it shouldn't just be copy and paste. Yeah. And I love this kind of definition of community versus audience. You're so right. Like a lot of times we marketers have those interchangeably and it's just, it's really not the same thing. So I'm curious to, to your point about focus on building audience first, kind of get that going and then focus on community. Let's say a brand has a strong audience. They've kind of built over time. They're there. How do you recommend kind of then starting to create this

space where community can start to form out of that audience, if that makes sense? 100%. Really good question. So I would say like anything, a lot of people that work in community, and I think this is changing, they're not necessarily fine-tuned to think about community in terms of delivering value to the business, which is like making money. In some way, shape, or form, you need to be able to articulate how some sort of the community you're building is helping the bottom line. And I think a lot of people view community as like, oh, of course, it's just nice to bring people together. And that's true.

But like when times get tough, your boss is going to come to you and be like, okay, but is this helping the business? So first question, you have a great audience. Let's build community. How are you going to define the value of the community to the business? The second thing is, like anybody who signs up for anything, you need to help them solve a problem, your audience. Like, what are you helping them do in their career, in their personal life that they will pay you for or they will be super into for. So like, you know, if I'm like running a sock company, I don't know if there's like a reason to get a bunch of people in a room that all love socks

together. Like that just might not be a good like community strategy. It might be like a marketing strategy. I think those are different. If I'm like, let's take like CFO brew, for example, we have a really strong audience. They're all finance professionals. They love our content. They read our newsletter all the time. They come to our events. There's probably a product out there. And I mean, there are a ton of companies do this, where community actually could be a really strategic value prop to the business and to your audience, which is, okay, what do CFOs really need? They need a peer group of other CFOs. So when they're having to make a really hard decision, they have a trusted group of other people who have seen this challenge before or going through it to bounce ideas off, to have that sense of community, to like, you know,

okay, I have a group behind me. I can get through this. Okay, well, Morning Brew has a relationship with all these individual CFOs that read our newsletter. Could we create a product that, you know, you fill out an application, we match you with eight other CFOs in a similar industry, similar set of experiences. We provide some of the frameworks and the structure for how you meet and how, what you discuss. And we kind of provide the glue that keeps you all together. I think a lot of people would pay for that. And you see these paid communities, very niche, based on role or based on industry, succeed. We could do that. And that's providing value to our audience. It's giving them that community that they crave. And it's providing value to the business because people will pay for that set of experiences. So I don't know if that fully answered your question,

but like that's how I would start thinking about like how do I deploy a community strategy for my brand? Is like one, like is this actually worth pursuing? Does this add value to the business? And maybe it's not paid, but you have stats to back up that audience that participates in community events, they are, you retain them as customers longer. They become more engaged with your products. They click on more of your ads.

They support the business in another way outside of direct spends. And then also, I just think about what is the value this community product brings to your audience? What problem are you actually solving for them? Well, and I think to your point earlier, this idea of focusing on building audience first before community is also helpful because it allows you enough time to dive into those analytics, dive into what does my audience actually want and need and different niches and subsets of your audience too. So you're able to create these kind of curated areas for people to connect even further. So I think that's a really good step too, of not getting too far ahead of yourself and just creating something you think would be beneficial,

like literally using the audience data to then inform that decision. 100%. It's a great point. Yeah. So I want to talk email here for a minute. So what do you feel? This is kind of the golden question for email copywriters and strategists, but what's the key to making email content stand out in a crowded inbox, you think? It's a great question. I, you know, for the record, I don't write morning brew. I'm not a marketer, so I'll give my opinion and people can take it with a grain of salt. Um, our, our founder, Alex Lieberman, one of our founders, he has this great title that I really,

or great phrase that I really like, which is clickbait that delivers. Um, and so what that means is like having something that's very catchy as a headline, as a clickable thing, but ultimately, you know, you could put like, oh my God, read this or you die and people are going to click on it. But then if it actually doesn't deliver, if it's just like, oh, you're, you're fucking with me, you're destroying audience trust. So it's about, I think, finding something that's clickable, but actually delivers is true at the end of the day. So where my mind goes is to think about your whole funnel, like for email marketing. Okay.

The first thing is we have to send this email and it has to land in the inbox. What do we have to look at? It's like deliverability. Do we have any deliverability issues? Again, I'm not an expert, but like that's step one. It's got to land in the inbox. Step two, look at your inbox. I have my personal email and it's 200 emails at the end of the day. And it's like 800 newsletters because I want to stay abreast of what other people are doing.

What makes me click? Like, is there an emoji you can put in? Semaphore does this. They put a little yellow emoji in their titles. Like Morning Brew will have a little coffee mug. It kind of does stand out, gets your attention. The second thing I'm looking at is headlines. Like, something has to make me go like, oh, I normally wouldn't read that, but oh God,

this is real. I got to figure out about this. So like, what can you do when you have that one second of attention to get someone to click your email? Okay. Then they click your email, they're in. Now it's all about like good content. And I would say like getting very specific about the problem you're trying to solve for your audience in that email, in that newsletter, whatever you're sending to their inbox. So like have a clear value prop, which is our audience is finance professionals. The problem we're solving for finance professionals is this is a really fast changing industry. There's not a lot of very concrete resources or guides on how to become a CFO or thrive in the CFO environment, as well as it is a industry where news, new tariffs, new finance policy affects actually how you can do your job. So we're keeping people abreast of the news that's very pertinent to them.

And the other problem, finance is so boring. You read a finance newsletter and you're like, I don't even care if this is helpful. Like I'm falling asleep. So we want to do it in a way that's smart, witty, irreverent, and fun. So people actually enjoy reading your content. Like that's your value prop. Now you just have to ruthlessly execute that every single day inside of that newsletter to make sure you're delivering

on that value. Like who is your audience? If you don't know that you're screwed. What problem are you trying to solve for them? If you don't know that you're screwed, what's your differentiator in the market? If you don't know that you're screwed. Once you kind of go step-by-step, that's how I would like build it out. And then once, I mean, the value of like email marketing or like owned audiences, you'll often hear people say is like email is a very solid place to have an audience because you quote unquote own that audience. Like, you know, Twitter becomes X and then X gets shut down or something like you've lost all your followers or they change the algorithm around and like now you are video, but they're doing text and you lose your reach. Inbox is inbox. It's harder to grow.

It's harder to scale. You can't have an email that goes viral in an inbox and start showing up in other people's inboxes. But it's a really, really solid audience. the last bit I would suggest people think about is how do we use that email as an anchor to build audiences in other places in our ecosystem? So like the reason we have CFO brew and tech brew and it brew and good work is in no small part, because we had an owned audience of 4 million people that came to trust us to deliver on, you know, our promise to them. So when we come up with something new, they're going to give it a shot and we can plug it in that newsletter

and it's not going to appeal to everyone, but they're going to give us a chance. And you build up that trust and you deploy it thoughtfully, you can start building all these other brands around your main brands. Yeah, great tips there. So I want to chat podcasting too. You mentioned you had a podcast back in the day and, and just hosting, hosting a show now too, right? Yeah. So, um,

what, what do you feel like? I, I think podcasting, and I'm curious if you feel this way, but podcasting is still a space that a lot of brands just don't know a ton about or they're not they're not eager to jump in on it because they don't know how it fits in a the bigger strategy or whatever so how do you feel brands should be thinking about podcasting and then what do you think is kind of the best way to approach it as a part of your overall content strategy okay that's a really good question um again like i i have a lot of experience in podcasting i created my own i can do like audio engineering i like promoted and published we had a patreon way back in the day then i was a producer for a podcast on marquette and now i host a show

at morning brew called per my last email it's a weekly show on kind of the hot takes and tactics for work life i fill in occasionally on the morning Brew Daily Show. So like I'm, I've been in podcasting for a while, podcast marketing, or like, should your brand have a podcast? I think, again, this is, this is Kyle Hagee speaking, not like Morning Brew, the voice of Morning Brew. If you mean like media company as a brand, like I would definitely be thinking about investing in podcasting and I'll give you tips and tricks down that path. If I'm like a, you know, does like Bombas need their own podcast? I don't know why I keep talking about socks, but does Bombas need their own podcast? Like, or do you just need to partner with like

other brands, like other podcasts that are like already have scale, already have an audience that, that, that my gut says, like that is probably a better strategy. Again, I'm not like a, you know, a great content marketer by any stretch of the imagination. That's not my role, but I'll talk about like media companies and like, should you be getting into podcasts or just people that are thinking about starting their podcast, a podcast for themselves. If you're starting a podcast for yourself,

I think you have to be very blunt and honest with yourself that you will not become Alex Cooper. You're not going to become Joe Rogan. The average podcast is like 10 episodes and then people stop doing it. And like, once you send it out to your original 100 friends, they're going to tell you it's great. They're not going to listen. And like, no one else will listen. Like I genuinely, if you're starting your own podcast

without the backing of a media company, like no one is going to listen. And you have to like start there because I think there's tons of value in doing it. It's just, if you're, if you are going in thinking, oh, I'm just going to scale this to like a hundred million people and launch a beverage line at target. Like you're not going to do that. What you're going to get, I think if you are, you know, solopreneur and you start a podcast, you're going to have some

really great conversations with some really smart people. and you're going to learn a lot. You're going to build a network inside of your industry of people that now, you know, got to know you really like you, you can call them for a favor, you can call them to ask a question about your industry, you are you are building, you know, an audience or a community of people that come on your show, that are now kind of trusted advisors, you have a great relationship with them. I think third, like there's just always value in building in public, putting yourself out there. I know, like, no, I said, no one's going to listen to it, but you never know what is going to happen by just creating. So I'm by no means, like, I think everyone should make a podcast. I hate when people say there's too many podcasts. If your friend was writing a book, you wouldn't be like,

bro, I went to a Barnes and Noble the other day. There's so many books like stop doing that. You'd be like, that's amazing. The fact that anyone wants to sit down, take time, have a thoughtful conversation, edit it, promote it, publish it, that fucking rocks and do that. Just know the value you're going to get most likely from that experience. For example, I started this podcast in Milwaukee, Bridge to City. It was all about civic engagement in Milwaukee. That's another tip is like, if you want to build not a big audience but an engaged audience you should go niche civic engagement in Milwaukee like no one's listening to that unless you live in Milwaukee so I did that it led to me getting a job at Marquette

for another podcasting gig so this is general life The more you do, the more you put out there, the more opportunities, the more serendipity you're creating for something really magical to happen in your life. Okay. Now moving on to the brand side. If I'm a media company and I want to start a podcast, how do I think about it? The first is going back to my advice. You're not making a podcast. You are making a franchise. You are, you have a brand. The brand is going to express itself in the podcast form, but I would never say like, oh, this is a podcast. Like per my last email is a franchise at Morning Brew. We do, we have podcasts. It's also a video show, but we do short form video. We do custom content. We do posts on social. Think about it as a franchise. The second thing, I think video podcast is really, really, it's developed now, but it's still underrated. Particularly YouTube, I think is a massively

underrated platform. If I had to bet on one platform for the next 10, 20 years, it would be YouTube because podcast is super hard for discoverability. If you're only on Spotify, if you're only on Apple, you have to pray to the Apple editorial gods that they put you on new and noteworthy or no one is gonna find your podcast. YouTube is a search engine. So people will find your stuff if it's good and you play by the rules of the algorithm

and there is virality and there is discoverability on that platform. So put your podcast, if you can, on YouTube. It's only increasing your chances of more people finding it. And, you know, then they can subscribe on Spotify and Apple and what else. The third thing I would say is I do think like the era of the podcast as interview is like it's not over. It's just like everyone, it's the easiest thing to do. And what I find is unless you are the Joe Rogan, the Alex Cooper, the Dax Shepard of the world,

like you're going to get big guests, but if a big guest agrees to go on your podcast, they've also agreed to go on like 50 other podcasts. So then you have to ask yourself, am I so good at interviewing that someone is going to choose to listen to a new author that dropped a book on my show after they've listened to them on five other podcasts? The answer is probably no. So it's really hard to differentiate yourself if your value prop is we have a big guest because big guests go on other shows. That's why they're big. So you have to create a value prop that is less reliant on your guest or not have guests at all and is more reliant on the format of the show, the personalities of

the host, the chemistry of the co-hosts, because that is, you can't replicate on another podcast. Two, you're not on this hamster wheel of finding the next big guest and finding the next big guest, finding the next big guest. And so if I had to bet, I would bet on YouTube. And if I had to bet, I would bet on like co-hosted shows that don't rely on guests every single episode.

And that is what Promo Last Email is doing, not to make it an obvious plug, but we do have guests on. We just had Hannah Williams from Salary Transparent Street, who's amazing. We've had our head of HR on, but they come into our universe. And so it's like, instead of us interviewing them, it's like, we just invited a dope friend over. We were going to have the show anyway about salary negotiations, but Hannah is awesome. Like, come on in, come into the living room. And we're not just peppering her with questions.

We're just having a conversation back and forth. We're going to share our own takes. That I think is the secret sauce. Yeah. Oh, great tips. Oh my gosh. So to kind of with this, like, you know, thinking about podcasting as a part of your content ecosystem, there's one question with podcasting that brands always ask is like, like, you know, thinking about podcasting as a part of your content ecosystem,

there's one question with podcasting that brands always ask is like, okay, someone listens to my show. They're engaged. Now, how do I get them to do something else? Or how do I get them kind of in my other, uh, content platforms and ecosystem and even converting or whatever the goal is there with an episode. So is there any strategy around that? You know, thinking about per my last email, for example, like how are you getting people to kind of take action over time? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So my first thought is one of the ways that we've been successful

in having someone listen to a show and then like find another show in our universe or like find another property is actually like having like combining those shows so like we did an episode with the morning brew daily show during like around christmas time where we talked about upcoming workplace trends in 2025. Like they kind of touched that stuff, but not really, but that's per my last emails, like bread and butter. So we did this joint show, whereas Neil, Toby, me and Kayla, Kayla's my co-host on per my last email. And we talked about these workplace trends and like the return to office mandates. And like, it was a blend of the two shows personalities. We saw a massive uptick in people who then went to per my last email after and gave us

a shot, which is a really great way. That's all you can really ask is like viewing those other shows as top of the funnel for you. So I think like when you can show and not just tell is always super effective. And then the other thing is like, you know, I'm thinking of like a, a client at morning brew wanting to sponsor the podcast, which like, I think is a really, really great idea because one, we have a super loyal, super affinity, high affinity audience, but two, like if the client lets us, we write the ads and the integrations in our own voice. Like becoming an expert at your

audience and how you talk to your audience and what they like and what they respond to, then you can better advise other guests or clients or sponsors or advertisers on how to communicate their value prop to your audience in a way that's going to resonate with your audience. So I think it all comes back to really deeply understanding your audience, why they're coming to your show, what they respond well to, and then making sure that every other character, whether that's a client or a guest that comes into your universe, you're enabling them to speak the language

that's going to resonate ultimately with your audience. Yeah. And I love the example too of just you guys kind of collaborating across shows. Something that I've found is that a lot of podcast listeners, like it's hard to make someone who's not a podcast listener, a podcast listener. And so using the podcast platform and getting creative with going on other shows or using that medium to promote your own show, because it's really hard if someone is not into that kind of content, like it's hard to convert them to that. So that's another reality as a podcast host and just brand that you have to think about is like, you have to

kind of start inside of the ecosystem and build from there. Cause it's really hard to get people outside of that in. So that is an incredible point. And a hundred percent true. Like, like to like is really easier. So if you're a newsletter, like the best way to get newsletter subscribers is to sponsor another newsletter because people understand the medium. If you're a podcast host, like the best way to grow your show is get on other podcasts because you don't have to convince them that podcasts are cool. You just have to convince them you're cool. Yeah. If you show up in a newsletter, you got to convince them that podcasts are cool and that you're cool. And like, that's, that's a lot harder to do. So I think that's a

very, very smart piece of advice. Yeah, no, for sure. So Kyle, I got to ask you to just about career a little bit, you know, you've, you mentioned at the top of the episode, you've been promoted a couple of times within morning brew congrats on all that success, but I'm just curious, like what's, what's your advice for just owning your career, promoting within a fast paced organization and just really standing out literally as a professional, just yourself? Yeah, super, super simple topic. I can answer it. No, I'm kidding. I'll get, I'll give my general advice.

And this is something I'm super passionate about. And we talk about career a lot in per my last email it's it's a big topic so like getting more granular I could give more granular advice but I will share like what I tell everyone to do first and foremost which is I am a really big believer in the language of fit and I think that we oftentimes view ourselves or others as like, oh, they're like an A player, they're really good. Or like, oh, they're like a C player, they're like bad at their job. Or, you know, it's like very binary. And I think that might be true in a certain context. But I do think everyone has the unique ability to be super impactful and super proud of their career and the work that they're doing it's it's less about like necessarily the skills and it's more about finding the right

fit like you know there's the famous Einstein quote or maybe it's you know attributed to him it's like if a fish try to ride a bike like the fish would think they're stupid but like that's just not the right fit you put LeBron James in pool, like he's not going to be Michael Phelps. It doesn't mean LeBron sucks. It just means like, get that guy on a basketball court. So you should find the context, the environment where your natural abilities are rewarded and viewed as a superpower, because then you're swimming with the stream. If you go to an environment where your natural inclinations and your skills are liabilities, of course, you're going to suck. It doesn't mean you suck. It just means the fit is terrible.

So how I would think about finding the right fit is to first identify what are your natural abilities? What are your spikiest traits that are these traits that you deviate from the average by the highest amount? There's the biggest delta between the average and your trait. I'll give you mine. Enthusiasm. I'm getting fired up just talking to you. Like, I'm a very enthusiastic, energized person. You give me an idea.

Like, it's all I'm thinking about that day. That is like a trade of mine that's far from the average. What's, what does that mean? If I'm in an environment, if I find an environment where like enthusiasm, energy, optimism are rewarded, I'm going to crush it. That's public speaking. That's presenting. That might be rallying your direct reports around a really exciting mission. Second, I'm super sensitive. When people are like, I don't care what people think, I totally care what people think about me.

I want people to like me. Personally, I just think that's normal, but like, I really do care. Maybe I care too much. Again, this isn't about saying it's right or wrong. It's just about identifying things you're very spiky on. Where that thrives, community management. You are bringing a ton of people together. If you're not like really att on where that thrives community management you are bringing a ton of people together if you're not like really attuned to like how they're feeling if they're

having a good time and that if they're not having a good time that has to bother you because you need an energy to put into action to fix that and create the the community you want if you don't care you're going to be a terrible community manager. So like, you know, that would be terrible. If I'm like, I don't know, a lawyer and I have to be more sober or like detached in some way, like maybe that's a liability. And so I shouldn't do that. And the last one I'd say is curiosity. Like I am reading a book now on Greenland. I'm reading a book on the, how intelligence has developed since like the beginning of time and how that mirrors to AI. Like, I'm just like super interested in a ton of different things. If I had a role that was like, you had to go very deep and narrow, I would be terrible at it. I would be so distracted. I'd be,

so I have a chief of staff role where you're working across many different functions. It's highly generalized. You have to be very good at connecting dots. So I found a really good fit for those skills. So my advice to you, listener, is identify your spiky traits, figure out the environments, the context where those spiky traits are superpowers, and that's how you should be viewing your career. How do I find myself in those environments and in those contexts so I can thrive? If you're thriving, the rest will take care of itself. Yeah. Fantastic advice. It's a lesson in self-awareness, but also going back to the beginning of the episode, just talking about like diversifying your experience as much as

possible and paying attention to like what, what tactics and functions give you the ick, like literally like pay attention, pay attention to the stuff that you're like, I don't want to do this. Or you push it off, you push it off, probably a testament that you should not be doing that long-term. And so paying attention to your likes, your dislikes, what kind of environment to your point do you thrive in? And that allows you to kind of continue to shape your career in like which direction

you should be going. So it's hard to figure out, but it's great. It's a really good point, Cassie. And just to add one thing to that, because I think you've hit on a really interesting concept, which is like, okay, Kyle, that's great. But like, how do I figure out what those traits are? So I think I, there's like a turn of phrase I really like, you have to collect the dots before you can connect the dots. And so if I'm early in my career, I'm less focused actually on like growing down a particular path. I am exploring as many different paths as possible. You want to actually like ramp up your serendipity. You want to ramp up your optionality.

You want to do a ton of different things because what that is allowing you to do is to figure out what are my unique skills? What do I like to do? What I don't like to do. If you just choose the first path and you go super deep, you might get halfway down that path and go, oh, fuck, I hate this shit. And now I have no idea where the other paths are. I actually don't know what I'm good at because I've only done this and you're screwed. So like early in your career, collect as many dots as possible, volunteer, work in different industries, launch a side hustle, write a newsletter, read a bunch of books. As you

collect the dots, eventually you do, I think, have to commit. It's like to use a dating metaphor, like you date a lot of people and in part, you're figuring out what you like in other people. And in part, you're figuring out who you are as a person. You're, you're bouncing you off a bunch of other people and getting feedback about how you show up in the world and what you like and what you don't like. And it's self exploratory. And then eventually you have enough information where you are like, okay, I know who I am and I know what I like. And then eventually you find someone, you know, hopefully that fits those kinds of constraints and you go deep with them. You commit. This is not about saying you never commit to anything and you're always bouncing around. It's just that you, I don't think you should commit before you understand yourself

and you understand the skills and the things that you like to do. And then when you commit, you're more confident in that decision. You probably found a better fit. So it's going to be easier and more rewarding to do that. And then you can go very, very, very deep. So I just love the point you brought up. And I think it's a really great concept. Amazing. I love that.

Collect the dots before you can connect the dots. That's an amazing, quick, snappy quote there to remember. Kyle, this has been amazing. So many awesome, actionable tips and advice and just straightforward insights. So appreciate your time and everything. I got to know, where can we follow along with you personally? How do we connect with Morning Brew? How do we find your podcast?

Obviously, searching the name. We'll have the links below, but tell us all the online details there. Yeah. So if you go to morningbrewinc.com, you'll see all of our different franchises. If you're looking for the flagship newsletter, that's just morningbrew.com. Again, read by 4 million people. I think it's best in class, daily news, you know, what happened yesterday in a smart way to your reverend and fun way.

And then we have a variety of other franchises. The podcast I co-host. So if you're interested in growing your career, thinking about like all of the kind of topics that are in the zeitgeist, remote work, should I talk about my salary with coworkers? Like what's going on with these like DEI rollbacks? And like, should I be worried?

Like kind of workplace employee career growth stuff. That's the show for you per my last email. We're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple. You all know how to find that. And then if you want to connect with me personally, Kyle at morningbrew.com is my email. I'm also on LinkedIn, Kyle Hagee, H-A-G-E-E. And so would love to hear what you thought about the show.

Amazing. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me today and just passing along these insights. Can't wait to follow along with you and see what you're up to in the future. Thanks for having me, Cassie. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again, and I'll see you next Thursday.