Silicon Valley: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Emmy-Nominated Show with Reveal CMO Isaac Morehouse

B2B marketers take themselves so seriously. A little self-deprecating humor wouldn’t go amiss. 

It makes your brand more relatable, your content more shareable, and builds trust by acknowledging your brand’s imperfections.  

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with Reveal CMO Isaac Morehouse. Together, we’re taking marketing lessons from the Emmy-nominated show, Silicon Valley, including using self-deprecating humor, showing the hero’s journey, and trusting your audience’s intelligence.

About our guest, Isaac Morehouse

Isaac Morehouse is the CMO of Reveal and nearbound.com, working to bring the era of Nearbound to B2B Go-To-Market. He believes that trust is the new data and the future of business isn’t about more crappy sales calls, ads, and spammy SEO-optimized content, but genuine connection to those buyers have faith in.

He founded and now serves as an advisor to Praxis, and Career Hackers, and opting out of the education and career status quo to be your own credential remains near and dear to his heart.

Isaac is dedicated to the relentless pursuit of freedom. He loves writing, building companies, his wife and four kids, a good cigar, and getting angry about sports.

He’s given hundreds of talks and interviews, written over 2,500 articles, authored or edited eleven books, and helped thousands of people launch their careers and dozens of businesses tell their stories. He is a firm believer in learning out loud and daily commitment to creation.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Silicon Valley:

• Make fun of yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously - create self-deprecating content to make your audience laugh. Isaac says, “Content marketers, this is such a missed opportunity if you're not doing this. Make fun of yourself, make fun of your market, make fun of your marketing. Don't be precious. Accept and amplify the criticisms. The inevitable objections, if you can surface those ahead of time, get those up front in marketing. Poke fun at the things that you know people are going to poke fun at behind your back anyway.”
• Show the hero’s journey. Don’t just try to sell your product. Instead tell a story your product plays a part in, and include a beginning, middle and end. Isaac says, “It's so easy as content marketers to forget that very basic thing. Like, every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Every story should have a protagonist and should follow the journey. Make sure you're not losing that and just doing like, ‘Here's our product,’ right? Tell the story. That's what people can relate to. That's where they feel seen. If you're telling a story of a person facing adversity and achieving an outcome, I think [Silicon Valley] does that really well.”
• Don’t underestimate your audience’s intelligence. Don’t shy away from discussing technical or complicated topics, but do it in a way that’s understandable for anyone. Isaac says, “[Silicon Valley] does a phenomenal job of not running away from some of the complicated, complex concepts or insider jargon. I mean, they have discussions about, you know, letters of intent and legal contracts and stock preference stacks and waterfalls with exits. That's very insider lingo. They don't shy away from it. Because that's what makes it real and believable. But they do it in such a way that makes it understandable. Like if it's confusing, it's your fault as the content creator. You have to find a way. And this show does such a brilliant job of explaining these concepts in such a way that even outsiders can get the gist of it.”

Quotes

*”I think it all starts with the core of knowing your market, living in market. [Mike Judge] nails the little slice of the world that he’s trying to satirize so, so well. And I think with satire especially, you can only do it well when you are the subject you're satirizing. Like, someone from the outside trying to make fun of a group that they're not part of, it's going to come off as offensive. They're going to get some things wrong. But when you're able to make fun of the little cluster of the world that you live in yourself, you're going to get it so much more right. And it's going to be so much funnier. And at the same time, the redeeming qualities are captured.”

*”For me, living in market is so crucial and the best way to live in market Is with a forcing function of daily creation. Because I know that's the only way I'm going to be close enough to the market and what's happening. If I have to come up with content every single day to put in this newsletter, I've got to figure out, ‘Where are the watering holes. What are people talking about? What are the conversations?’ And then I'm going to have to do near bound marketing, which means bringing other voices in, reaching the market through the voices they already trust.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Reveal CMO Isaac Morehouse

[4:54] Behind the Scenes of Silicon Valley: Creation and Comedy

[20:58] Content Marketing Insights: Humor, Realness, and the Hero's Journey

[31:05] The Power of Storytelling in Marketing

[32:14] Embracing the Hero's Journey in Business

[32:54] Lessons from Silicon Valley: Making Complex Concepts Accessible

[37:33] The Importance of Trust and Expertise in Content Creation

[48:21] Building Nearbound: A New Approach to Partnerships

[51:56] Executing a Community and Content Vision

[56:21] Final Thoughts on Trust and Influence in Marketing

Links

Connect with Isaac on LinkedIn

Learn more about Reveal

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.