Podcast

HubSpot: Building a Podcast Network

In this episode, we talk with Alanah Joseph, Head of Creator Partnerships at HubSpot, about the ins and outs of building a podcast network through unique partnerships.

Featuring

Episode Summary

In this episode, we talk with Alanah Joseph, Head of Creator Partnerships at HubSpot, about the ins and outs of building a podcast network through unique partnerships.

You’ll learn why HubSpot started the network, the innovative ways Alanah and her team form mutually beneficial relationships with the hosts, and how they’re taking it all to the next level with their new HubSpot Creator Network.

Guest-at-a-Glance

Name: Alanah Joseph

What she does: Head of Creator Partnerships at HubSpot

Connect with her: LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Website

Key Takeaways

Successful podcasts have talented hosts who want to inspire and educate their audience. 

When looking for podcasts to add to their network, HubSpot focuses on finding talented hosts who are dedicated to bringing educational content to their audience. Instead of looking at downloads, they analyze reviews and comments on social media to see how engaged the audience is and to gauge whether or not they appreciate the content the host works hard to create.

Sponsored ads should be customized to fit the audience of each show.

As an advertiser, HubSpot collaborates with the podcast hosts in its network to ensure their ads fit the personality and audience of each show. They work hand-in-hand with their podcasters to figure out who their audience is, what they care about, where in the world they are, etc., and then create ads that will be valuable to the listeners.

The success of a podcast network depends on whether the hosts see value in it or not.

Of course, you can measure the success of a podcast network based on acquisition and lead generation. However, it’s equally, if not more, important to understand how the hosts feel about working within the network and the value they see from it. Do they feel supported? Is it a collaborative partnership? HubSpot, for example, has a match program where they help match a podcaster’s ad budget so they can run larger campaigns on Facebook or Spotify.

When it comes to podcast analytics, qualitative feedback is king.

While downloads are an important number to keep track of, it’s also important to monitor the qualitative data from your show. What sort of feedback are the listeners sharing with you? Are they leaving positive or negative reviews? Are they sharing your episodes on social media? Because the tech behind podcast analytics isn’t quite where it should be, you need to be able to go off of instinct based on what you hear from your audience.

HubSpot Creators is a program focused on helping smaller, more diverse voices grow.

HubSpot’s newest initiative, HubSpot Creators, is a program for emerging business-related shows and creators. They want to make an effort to bring forward smaller, more diverse voices that are offering valuable content and support them as they reach success.

Mentions

Transcript

Alanah Joseph: Considering the inbound marketing is at the core of HubSpot's beliefs. Of course, when we hear podcasts and hear these incredible podcasters really inspire and educate their audience and motivate them to start a business, scale their business, think about different parts of their businesses in different ways.

And just really trying to be helpful. We said, we want to be a part of this.

Jeremiah: Hey there, welcome to Brands that Podcast. Each week we talk with the people running podcast strategies at successful brands. So you can learn how to grow your company through podcasting.

Today's guest is Alanah Joseph, Head of Creator Partnerships at HubSpot. Now we already did one episode with Jonathan Barshop of HubSpot around how they think about growing listenership of podcasts. But in this episode, we're going to talk all about HubSpot's new podcast network that was founded in 2021 and the work that Alanah and her team have done to grow it.

I wanted to talk to her because of how unique the network is. While we have seen some brands innovate and create branded shows directed to their target ICP, HubSpot is building their podcast network by forming generous unique partnerships with podcast creators who have been doing it for a while and already bring a big audience.

In the episodes you're going to hear how innovative this network actually is. Alanah and her team are doing really mindblowing, innovative things that are gonna help them form mutually beneficial partnership with these hosts. You'll also learn why HubSpot started the network in the first place, some of the mixed reactions to them doing that, and their deep belief and investment in podcasts.

We also talk about how Alanah measures the success of the network and what metrics can and can't be tracked, and how they're taking it all to the next level, by creating the HubSpot creator network, which is sort of a creative startup incubator for new and promising voices who don't yet have the reach of a big show.

Okay, Alanah, thank you so much for your time today and for being on Brands that Podcast, I cannot wait to talk to you about what you all are doing with the creator network at HubSpot. 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Jeremiah: So I guess I want to start by talking about the podcast network that you're building, but maybe before, can you give like a short overview of like what your role is there and how you're tied in specifically to the podcast network for anyone who's not familiar.

Alanah Joseph: Sure. So I manage licensed deals with creators for HubSpot, and that includes the HubSpot podcast network. So, um, we started the network last year and I've kind of been a one man show one woman show for awhile last year, um, in getting it up and running with a lot, a lot of support from my incredible team at HubSpot.

And so, yeah, the podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals, looking for education and inspiration on how to grow a business. I have said that 1 million times now. 

Jeremiah: I was going to say, you can tell that you've delivered that line many times. 

Alanah Joseph: Yes I have. Um, so yeah, we have about 17 shows now, but we are growing and we have grown a lot since last year.

It's been an incredible success and I'm just so grateful that I get to be a part of this initiative that HubSpot is, has asked me to be a part. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. It's so exciting. You mentioned, so you mentioned, I think in the presentation I've watched from you, January 2021 HubSpot decided they wanted to scale audio offerings, you know, to the audience at large. May 2021, they launched the podcast network.

I think you mentioned with five or so shows. Today you're at 17. And you mentioned, which I thought was funny, like it's so intuitive, but like you said, responses range from people being like, a few people were like, this is awesome and super innovative. Most people were like, why would HubSpot a CRM like launch a podcast network?

I want to start here. Cause I loved your answer. You said it was a natural extension of HubSpot's core beliefs, which is earn trust by giving value. Consumer content and then the consumer content needs have changed. And so HubSpot needs to evolve to serve these needs. And this basically, this was a way where you could kind of kill all those birds with one stone.

Like you'd be able to leverage the success of other shows without having to try and like take a risk and create one that may or may not be successful and adjust to consumer needs and be able to deliver value. How do you feel like HubSpot is maybe different than other brands? Like what were you perceiving there in investing in audio and especially this idea of like giving value to your audience above all. We like to say internally, like teach don't sell sounds like a similar, like mantra that you all believe.

So where do you think, like, you all are kind of like looking at it the right way and where maybe people are not that we're like, I don't get this. I don't understand why you all would invest in. Well, 

Alanah Joseph: I would say when I learned of this initiative, I said I was somewhere in the middle. I was very honest about that.

I had to think about it. Why would a CRM platform invest so heavily in audio? And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Which is, you know, HubSpot really coined the term inbound marketing and a really long time ago. Well, not really long time ago, but it's fairly long time ago. It feels like a really long time ago was helping companies really with content marketing.

And really telling their customers, helping their customers be a value and by being a value to your consumer or to your customer, that's how you make sales by. And I think that that's kind of a beautiful way to look at sales, right? It has like a very human layer to it. And this natural desire to be helpful, I think is incredible.

And so considering that inbound marketing is at the core of HubSpot's beliefs. Of course, when we hear podcasts and hear these incredible podcasters really inspire and educate their audience and motivate them to start a business, scale their business, think about different parts of their businesses in different ways.

And just really trying to be helpful. We said, we want to be a part of this. We want to bring you into our community. And we want to share what you're doing with our audiences at HubSpot. So how can we collaborate and it creates something really remarkable for business professionals? And the HubSpot podcast network was born.

Jeremiah: I love that. I want to hear more in a moment about what that collaboration looked like. Cause I was thinking about it in terms of like the relationship made sense from like one side, but yeah, you all have like a massive audience that you're able to sort of like, if there's a good alignment, you're also driving their personal brands or like podcast brands and things like that.

So my question is, I guess starting at the beginning, when it comes to finding these shows, I know you mentioned that what you basically did was try and match with shows that you felt like they matched your core values and were aligned. So there's like 2 million podcasts. Where did you start and how did you find, what questions did you ask them?

Was this like a conversation over and like multiple, was it multiple conversations? How did you find out whether a show that seemed maybe good on the outside actually aligned with HubSpot's values, kind of behind the scenes and on the inside. 

Alanah Joseph: I think it comes down to like our mission statement as a network, which is to educate and inspire people on how to grow a business.

And I think, yes, there are so many podcasts, a lot of podcasts out there, but when you look at the business category specifically, I think that there are some exceptional people that just stick out. One of them being one of our first members, which was, Will Barron from the Salesmen podcast. 

I don't know about you, when I listened to sales content, it's not always the most riveting, but he manages, he manages to make it fun, make it sound exciting. He interviews people that you may not have really considered as a salesperson and makes you question and think about sales a little different. And I really enjoy working with him.

He's been kind of one of our OGs he's been around for awhile and was one of our first view. And I think that he is at that show is an example of a show that really does align to HubSpot, but also it's just, it's entertaining it's you want to listen to it. 

So I think that it comes down to incredible talent. People that are very talented on the microphone. And then it also, there's a layer of like content, the type of content that they make, and then how their audience responds to them. You know, I think at the end of the day, we want to inspire and educate people, but it's only really through qualitative data that we can see how inspired or educated people are. 

We can through downloads, of course, we can see how many people are listening to your show, but with reviews, with, um, social media, we can kind of tap into why people find the show to be valuable. And I think all of our shows in the network are valuable. Their audiences are engaged and appreciate the content that they create and work so hard to create.

So I would say that's mostly, it it's for me, maybe I'm a little bit of a mushy person, but it there's a very genuine, it's all very genuine in terms of these hosts wanting to help people. And I am very grateful that I get to support them in that endeavor. It 

Jeremiah: sounds like it's a combination of like kind of gut feel and like what you pick up on as a listener and like what you're reading, what people, what listeners are feeling.

You're it sounds like you're kind of looking for like an enthusiasm behind the show and then just, you are probably intuitively evaluating as well, which I love the combo of all of it. Another thing I was curious about with this is which this I thought was like super clever. You mentioned that you basically.

Rather than necessarily approaching it. How do I say this? Like, rather than approaching it, like, okay. Just promote HubSpot. HubSpot has like a lot of products and a lot of tools. And so you had basically, like, it sounded like you had break out the products and then try and match a product to a show. So when, like they talk about HubSpot or they mentioned it or whatever, they're really mentioning it around a specific product.

Is that the case or only for certain shows or how do you all think about like aligning. The message of what they're talking about specifically with podcasts on each show. 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah. So I think before we even get to that, we had a desire at the very beginning that we were going to create a great ad experience and we wanted to.

Collaboration that we're doing with the podcast. We wanted it to be mutually beneficial. We wanted it to be, you know, a two way street. And so what we do is we really work with our podcasters on our ads. So in the beginning we ask, who is your audience? What do they care about? Where are they in the world, some of those kinds of questions and try to get to know their audience, but they know their audience best.

And so what we try to do is create a custom ad for each show so that we're taking into account their content, their audience, and. We provide them with a script, but we definitely give them permission to infuse their own personality and style into that ad. So we're not an advertiser. That's just like, here's a script.

Read this word for word. Great go. That's it. We, we really try our best to make the ad fit the host and the show. And so some of that comes down to product as well. We have a few marketing shows. We have MarTech podcast marketing made simple ABM conversations with those, of course, we want to lean into the features on HubSpot.

That would be of most value to their eyes. So it's more so a conversation with the host to try to understand not only their content, but also their audience, and then collaborating with them and finding features or products from HubSpot that would actually be a value and would help the listener get to their goal.

And so I think that if we go back to like the first question, that's really also why it made sense to me. Right. All of our. They are offering strategies. You know, they're giving you, telling you, Hey, here's a great way to do. Your marketing or here's a great tactic for sales. We are offering you the tool.

So it's kind of, it goes hand in hand, we're saying here is the best strategy to get to your goal. And. If you need a tool, HubSpot is a great tool to use this, to actually execute upon that strategy. So yes, it goes to the product and the ad and the audience and the host. They're all a part of, um, a conversation that we have, but our goal is always to be helpful and a value to the podcast.

Listen, Do you 

Jeremiah: all test the message over time? Like, does the message, does the ad read sort of change over time or do you kind of keep it set for like an entire season or X amount of episodes or something like that? 

Alanah Joseph: So we do change our ads because as a listener, right? Like who wants to listen to the same ad over and over again.

So we do change them out and I think. When a host first comes into the network. I think that our first month, our first ad scripts, I think they're great, but I think that they get better as the host gets more comfortable with our scripts and we get more comfortable with the host and better understand the hosts, their voice and their audience and their content.

The more that we all get aligned, the better that the ad becomes. So I think it's a real natural progression in that, you know, I know earlier we were talking about content creation and there's always a learning curve and this is no different, right. We, I think that they over probably like by month three, Just amazing.

They're amazing. They start off great, but we get two amazing. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. I love that. I was talking with Tim Soulo, who's the CMO at Ahrefs like the popular, like SEO tool. And they're doing a lot of like creator backing this year. And they had spent like $200,000 in podcast ads or podcast sponsorships, and he mentioned.

Kind of like anecdotally that like they found, they always got like, what they felt was a way more natural, positive ad read. If the person had used the product, because they would be more inclined to like riff on it and add their own, like why they loved it or something like that. So they would often like where it made.

Kind of give them access, even offer like a one-on-one like extensive, like demo to help them get up and running really fast with it. Have you all done anything like that? Do any of the hosts like use the product? Like, do you feel that like you've seen the same kind of. 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah. So a lot of the times, coincidentally, when we bring in shows into the network, they're either already using HubSpot or they were a fan of HubSpot, or maybe they used to talk at inbound.

So there's a lot of familiarity with the brand. Typically when we bring a show into the network. Um, and so they kind of have their own experiences and their own opinions. And that definitely helps. I don't think we've brought any show that is like,

So that is that's great for us. And I think that that actually really helps our ads as well. So I'd agree that the more experience that a host can have with the product is, is definitely beneficial. 

Jeremiah: I guess as far as like the I'm curious, I want to ask it like two ways. One is, I'm curious if you have come across any like anecdotal stuff where customers are like, oh my gosh, I love that you're sponsoring my favorite show.

Like if you've heard any sort of like qualitative feedback like that, but the second is one of, I think the biggest questions I'm sure listeners will have is like, how are you all sort of defining success with this? Like, are you just like. Is it start at the top of funnel, sort of like downloads way. Like, Hey, we know we know the downloads number and we know that HubSpot's getting its message out there.

That's good enough for us. Or are there things that you're doing that are trying to sort of like track all the way through to customer signing up for the product that like, Hey, the podcast was really influential in their. 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah, I think it's both of those things. So we are top of the funnel. This is also brand awareness, of course, just based off of the millions of people that we reach every month.

But also we would love for people to actually use HubSpot. And I think we're making a solid argument in our advertisement as to why you would use HubSpot, how you can use it going back to tying that into the strategies that the host is offering. So I think there's a really solid argument there that we're providing listeners to actually use a product in sign-ups.

Both of those things, for sure. In terms of how we're viewing success. I think I've used success in a few ways, right? Of course there's acquisition and lead generation, which we just talked about, but also success for me is how the shows feel, how the hosts feel about the network. What is the value that they're seeing from the network?

So the qualitative data that I commonly get is also from the. Which is very important to me because we set out to be a little different. We are not just an advertiser where a, you know, this is a collaboration and we meet with our hosts monthly. We support their initiatives. We, for example, we have a program called the match program, which is.

Uh, host can come to us and say, Hey, I want to run ads on Facebook, or I want to run ads on Spotify, but I only have this much budget and we'll actually match their budget so that they can have a larger campaign. Oh, wow. That's just one example. We also, when you sign up for the network, you also get a 30 seconds.

Ad spots. So all of our shows have a 30-second pre-roll and a 60-second mid roll that 30-second pre-roll is actually an ad for another show in the network. So we have a very extensive cross promotion effort and program there. So for me, it's really about supporting the host and helping them develop and grow. Become the best show that they possibly can.

That makes us more than just an advertiser we're invested in supporting them. We're invested in their growth and development. And so the qualitative data that I get from them monthly is what makes me smile when I sign on to work. And of course the data that are the qualitative or feedback that we get from listeners is also very important.

And I think that people are big fans of the shows that we have. And there's a lot of crossover actually between HubSpot fans and our podcast listeners. An example being Being Boss, which is a, an amazing show um, all about entrepreneurship hosted by Emily Thompson. Well, she's so invested in her audience, right?

That she actually knows a lot of her audience members by name. Wow. And she had an event. And at this event, a lot of people were talking about how they were using HubSpot, how much they love HubSpot. These are her listeners. And so we let her listener do the ad the next month. It's awesome. So cool. It was just, it was supernatural.

It was like, I love HubSpot. I also love being boss. I would love to do the ad and tell other listeners why I love HubSpot. So I think that that's a testament to one,, our collaboration efforts with hosts and our flexibility and our desire to create a custom ad experience. But I also think it shows how many listeners are actually also HubSpot fans.

Um, and so there's a lot of energy there and I love that this is 

Jeremiah: incredible. This is like firing. I like want to dive so deep into like riffing on all this stuff, but I'm trying to get better about watching the clock. So I'm going to move on, but I love the way, um, I feel like what you're doing there with that pollination and cross-promotion, the way that you match, like, you know, help the show grow and support itself. And like, it just seems like what you're doing as an end result is creating. 

You're helping already great shows become even greater and have even more like tightly knit, like communities of listeners and fans and audience bases and everyone's winning.

Like, it sounds like the audiences winning. The host is winning. Like they like working with you cause they get to keep growing. And it's just amazing. It's a good lesson for anyone listening. Who's thinking about doing the same, that this isn't just. I think some companies would maybe approach this like a quick hack to audience numbers.

And it's like, you all are clearly so much more invested in this, like your bending over backwards to try and give more than you get even. And I just love that approach and I'm so. To see where you continue to take this. Yeah. 

Alanah Joseph: I'm really excited. All of these programs come from conversations that I have with hosts.

So they tell me, this is what I need. I go and try to figure out the operations for how I can make this happen in how I can build it to scale. That's really fun for me. I really enjoy that. So I've enjoyed creating the cross promotion, the match program, and we have a thousand other programs I've created based off of conversations.

The one we're having. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that you use chartable and pod sites to measure traffic and attribution, but a little bit. So it's still imperfect. What do you think? Like, I'm curious what your message would be to companies that are trying to measure it. Like they would Google ad words or something.

Like they want to know everything from beginning to end. If they're going to invest in podcasting, whether it's just starting on their own or like starting their own branded show for their company or doing something like this, what do they need to kind of be comfortable to like, let go of that. They're just not going to, like, it seems like you all, HubSpot's a very data-driven company.

You definitely are going to try and track the things that you can track. But it also seems like HubSpot just has this, like belief that they're bullish on audio and they know they kind of like, no, this is working like, you know, this is working even if not all the numbers prove it. What do you think that balance is?

Or advice you'd give to brands where like with podcasting specifically, it's one of the biggest criticisms we hear is that it's, uh, hard to attribute channel. And so where do you think brands just sort of need to like trust the process and have like a gut intuition and what should they look for as far as metrics?

Like what's the interplay there. 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah. So as you mentioned, we do the best that we can. I think the industry in of itself, well, there's a reason why people say that it's not the best channel in terms of attribution. Um, but we, we try and Podsights and Chartable certainly let us get closer to our goals. So for Podsights, we can tell how many people that listened to a show came to hubspot.com, but we're not able to roll that out throughout the network because it doesn't integrate with all hosting platforms and this or that.

With Chartable we track the cross-promotion. So how many people that listen to, if I'm promoting your show on another show, how many people listened to that show and then came and listened to your show?

Okay. And so that gives us a clue. All of these things give us a clue, but we don't have the full story. The best metric that we can track is downloads. And you know, I think that we are seeing so many wins from this initiative. And of course, yes, HubSpot is a data driven company and we are pulling as much data as we possibly can.

But the industry in and of itself, I think with the popularity of podcasting right now, we're seeing, and we're going to continue to see a lot of tech innovation in terms of this. So I think that we are like tomorrow, we could have an answer to this question. And so I'm feel very optimistic about where the industry as a whole is going.

And I think that we will be able to answer these questions soon. In the meantime, the qualitative data that we get is a major win for us and gives us a clue as to how successful this truly is. And also what I love about podcasting personally, right? This is kind of outside of what I personally love about podcasting is I love storytelling.

Storytelling has been the main driver of my career, and so having this long form content that people really can listen to that it's not intrusive of their life. So I listened to podcasts while I wash the dishes, while I go on a walk while, you know, in the car. Stuck in traffic. And so because of that, I feel like it's a really great way to reach people and offer something very valuable, um, in a way that some of the other things like maybe social media can't really do for us.

So I think it's a great avenue and I'm glad that HubSpot has continued to invest in audio. And I understand why. And I think it was very smart, but the people that I work with are just very, very, very smart. Very 

Jeremiah: smart. Yeah. I mean, you can tell the team is definitely like they know what they're doing and the execution of everything is amazing.

And I agree. Like, I dunno, this is just a bit of like rebellion, I guess, against everything boiling down to like always numbers are at tracking for marketers, but like, I kind of hope there's always a part of it that can't be because then it like will force people to actually like have this like intuitive belief.

Like you said, like it's just this reverse engineering to me. That's so obvious of like, Like, I'm not putting any other channel down. I think all channels are important for different use cases and things like that, but like exactly what you said, podcasts listeners are like a different breed. Like the people that are willing to like let you in their head space for 40 minutes every week, like faithfully, there may be less of them, but that's a different type of person than someone who's just willing to like consume a little ten second message or like, you know, scroll past something.

And like you quick it to make an impression on their brain. There are different. Podcast system is just different. And I think that it's the advantage of it as clear. And so, yeah, I think there's part of me that hopes that some of it always stays like a little dark. So the only like the brands that really believe in it will continue to use it, but yeah, for sure.

So I want to talk about before we wrap up, I want to make sure I allot time. Can you talk about you all are rolling out the HubSpot creator net. I think you said it launches March 3rd. Tell me about March 10th. Okay. What is this program? 

Alanah Joseph: So the creator program. Super excited. I really excited about it. When we started the podcast network, of course, we were looking to collaborate with really successful established shows, but there are also incredible shows that are just starting out or, you know, I haven't quite made it to success yet.

And so we wanted to create a program for emerging podcasts. And so my colleague, Steph Smith really designed this incredible program for emerging shows for emerging creators. Because of all of the work that we did last year, we showed the kind of value that we can offer to creators that were just not an advertiser that we're invested in supporting them, invest in their growth and development.

And so using that, we kind of. I decided to leverage all of the skills that we had created as a network to offer them to people that we really believed in shows that we really believed in that weren't big yet. And so I'm really excited about that. Also, one of the reasons I'm really excited about that is because.

If you look at the business top charts on like apple, it's not the most diverse place. And so we also made an effort to bring in voices that we're really excited about, and those voices come from diverse backgrounds and we're really excited to help them grow and to hopefully make a larger change. In the industry and show offers some new voices that are truly powerful, that are offering valuable content and support them as they reach success, which we know that they will anyways, but we're hoping that we can just help them expedite that process.

Jeremiah: Is this something that any podcasts can apply for or do they have to, like, I'm guessing, like it still has to be around semi, like the categories that you all talk about, like sales, marketing and things like that. But if anyone wanted to like submit a show, are they able to like go to HubSpot and kind of do.

Alanah Joseph: Yeah, so you can go to hubspot.com/creators. We accept applications on a rolling basis. So we taken a new cohort every quarter. And so you can go in, look at the shows that we are bringing on now, but also you can apply. And of course we, like you said, we're looking for shows within the business category and that could be marketing sales, operations, customer success, entrepreneurship.

We welcome all. Please apply. If you're listening to this and you have a show that you're just starting out and you're super talented and you want to be a value to your audience, we would love to support you. We would love to help you grow. That's awesome. 

Jeremiah: All right, I'm going to check this out. To see this program rollout you yourself are also a creator.

You've recently started a YouTube channel, ambitious black woman. Can you talk about that a little bit? And like, kind of like what drove, we were talking about this before we hit record, but I've checked it out. I think you're going to do amazing. You're going to be super successful. You're a natural, can you talk a little bit about what led you to start that and what you're hoping to do?

And are you going to be part of the HubSpot creator now? Yeah. 

Alanah Joseph: So I don't think that I'll be a part of the HubSpot creator network. There's a reason being is that this is really about. Emotional fulfillment for me, this is about being a value to my community. And so, although I am a marketer and this is hard to say the metrics don't mean as much to me, what really means the most is the qualitative data.

Is people saying that this was helpful to me? The reason that I started ambitious black woman is because I have been working in corporate America. For, you know, all of my career and in my teams, I have always been the only black person on my team. And I have never had a black manager or a black person that was even my bosses boss.

And so it says. It's a very specific experience when I go to brunch with my girlfriends and we're all the only one on our team, we all have very similar stories and we all support each other. And so as I was kind of going through a challenging moment personally, I felt like I'm so grateful that I have this support system of my friends and of my mentors, but there really is no support system for black women in the corporate space, in the workforce.

Um, and. There should be because there's all these stats about, of course, black women are paid less than anyone else. And how can we even attempt to solve those problems if we don't have a community rallied behind finding a solution. And so I wanted to one offer my experience and my journey to success.

So giving you a sneak peek into what, how I am trying to achieve success and happiness in my life and what that looks like for me as a black woman. Yeah. And then also to provide support to women that are also in similar spaces, maybe those that are just graduating from college and heading into their careers and just giving them some tips and tricks and life hacks.

My goal is that even if you're the only black woman on the zoom call in the conference room that even though you're the only one there, you're not the only one. And that the things that you're experiencing, other people are experiencing as well. It can feel very lonely, but like everyone who identifies as a black woman tends to go through some of the same things in the office place.

So how can we create some continents and community around that? So people don't feel. Yeah, this 

Jeremiah: is amazing. I'm really excited to see this channel grow. I know it's going to be successful. You have to like, I'm going to follow along. I want to see, like, I I'm hopeful. Like, are you going to plan on like sharing it on like LinkedIn and stuff as well?

Like other platforms putting it out there? 

Alanah Joseph: Absolutely. I think honestly, my working with creators, they have inspired me so much and because I work with really talented, creative, Every day, my standard is really high. And I talk about this a little bit on my channel. And so I've only posted as of this interview three videos, and I have just been trying to figure out how do I even work final cut pro how do I get my lighting?

Right. How do I get my sound? Right? And so I'm giving myself a little time to. Actually build out my like video portfolio and actually get to a place where I just feel like, okay, this is. I have improved and I feel really good about this. I feel good about it now. I'm really proud of it now. So you will see it on every channel soon, but I was just giving myself a few, you know, swings at bat before I went to LinkedIn.

Um, I do share on my Instagram. 

Jeremiah: Oh, cool. Okay. So where can people find this? Who are curious YouTube and Instagram? What are your like candles there? 

Alanah Joseph: Yeah, sure. So my Instagram handle is Alanah Jo, a L a N a H J O. And then, and YouTube, you can just type in ambitious black woman and my channel will pop.

Jeremiah: Awesome. Well, Alanah, thank you so much for chatting with me today. Thank you for sharing more about the podcast network. All are building I'm super inspired by it. I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is I'm really glad we could record this because I hope it also serves, like I could see this becoming like a tactic and merely that like just staying a tactic that other companies try to model.

And I'm glad you all are. Front runners in what you're doing, because you're setting the example of bending over backwards to give value to creators and making it much more than just like, Hey, let's just round up a bunch of like successful shows and like, you know, kind of spew our message out there.

There's a lot of intention and thought that's going into it. And I hope other people copy that blueprint of generosity. So thanks so much. You're doing incredible work. I'm excited to follow for March 10th for the creators network. And, um, yeah, just thank you so much for your time. 

Alanah Joseph: Of course, it was such a pleasure.

It has been an honor to support creators and their growth. And yeah. Thank you for having me on the show. And I hope that if you're listening to this, that you will check out the HubSpot podcast network at hubspot.com/podcast network. 

Jeremiah: Awesome. Thank you.

Thanks so much for checking. Episode. If there's a company you'd like us to interview or a question you want us to answer on the show, just let us know. You can ask us at brandsthatpodcast.com or DM or tag Lemonpie on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram. And if you want to reach your audience on podcasts, that they're already listening to be sure to check out Lemonpie.fm.

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