Return on Reputation

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Return on Reputation is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 70 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Return on Reputation, a business show with 70 episodes published.

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  Episode #60

  Brands Don't Build Authority. People Do. | Matt Crane, MGMT Boston | EP.28

  Oct 1, 202648 min

  When Matt Crane moved back to Boston after a decade in the San Francisco startup scene, he kept asking everyone one question: "What are the five best startups in Boston?" Nobody could name five. So he started a newsletter as a side project. Almost four years later, MGMT Boston is one of the fastest-growing local media companies for venture-backed startups, with a newsletter, a newsfeed, a podcast, a short-form video series and a lot of in-person events. It still has one full-time employee. Him. I brought Matt on, live at Startup Boston Week, because he's the face of a company he insists is a business, not a personal brand. He never wanted to be on video. He did it anyway, in person, and that's when everything started moving faster. By the end of this conversation, we landed on something more useful than "build your personal brand": people trust people, and the fastest way to earn that trust is to put someone else in the spotlight. We also got into how he runs a media company with one full-time person and about half a dozen contractors. His plan is to "agentify" everything operational and put every human hour into the one thing AI can't fake: showing up in person. He's picky about who he partners with, too. He'd rather wait for the best startups to come to him than fill a slot with the wrong company, because the companies he highlights are the brand. And he's honest about what it cost to get here, including two slow Augusts when he wasn't sure MGMT would ever become a real company. What you'll learn Why Matt chose to compete hyperlocal, digital and in person all at once, after learning in ad tech how brutal the "darkest oceans" of competition can be The moment he realized a media company without video doesn't work, and why he calls it an expansion instead of a pivot Why he thinks you have to put your own face on it first if your reputation is on the line, instead of hiring reporters to do it for you What Bill Gates, Microsoft and Lenny's Newsletter taught him about why people outpace brands on the internet Why he calls personal branding "the worst branding ever," and what the best creators do instead How a one-person media company uses AI to publish a funding story in about 45 seconds, and where he refuses to let AI do the work His advice for anyone uncomfortable on camera, including the harsh YouTube Shorts comment he couldn't argue with (it hurt, and he deleted it) The "sign it in blood" commitment he thinks every creator needs, and why debating whether to post on Tuesday or Wednesday means you've already lost The hardest part of growing past the early stage: saying no to good opportunities so you can chase the great ones The two Augusts when he wasn't sure MGMT had enough momentum to become a real company, and why he has no plan B TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Matt Crane's Founder Story 01:31 From Finance to Startups and Back to Boston 04:39 How MGMT Boston Started 08:47 Hyperlocal Media and IRL Events 10:19 From Newsletter to Video Content 12:37 Why Founders Should Be the Face of the Brand 19:07 Covering Venture-Backed Startups 21:57 What Makes a Great Founder 24:46 Scaling Content Without Losing Quality 26:09 Saying No to Good Opportunities 28:40 AI-First Company: AI vs Human Content 32:21 Getting Comfortable on Camera and Staying Authentic 37:03 Startup Partnerships and Ecosystem 39:31 Expanding to Life Sciences 40:17 Business vs Personal Brand 41:36 Rapid Fire: Boston Startup Scene and No Plan B 45:47 Where to Find MGMT Boston Guest: Matt Crane, Founder of MGMT Boston https://mgmtboston.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewhcrane/ Host: Justin Obey, founder of Obey Creative. Obey Creative helps B2B founders who are invisible in their market solve a zero inbound pipeline by delivering a podcast-driven content engine from one conversation per week. First episode live within 30 days. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinobey/ https://obeycreative.com/ Show: Return on Reputation. Reputation drives everything. Without trust, building a strong business is close to impossible. The companies that lean hardest into the personal brands of their founders and their people will outperform the ones that don't.

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  Episode #59

  Build Your Network Before You Need It | John Hill (LinkedIn, Techstars, Whop) | EP.27

  Sep 24, 202640 min

  John Hill hasn't applied for a job in 25 years. His reputation keeps opening the door. Recorded live on stage at Startup Boston Week, John (VP of Story at Whop) walks through a career built on relationships. A sports journalist handed a website in 1997. The Michigan State alumni director helping people find work in the 2009 recession. The face of LinkedIn's higher education push. A decade building the Techstars global network. And now Whop, where anyone can start a business with AI. The most useful part for founders is his system. He takes 20 actions on his network every weekday, about 15 to 20 minutes a day, and it adds up to roughly 5,000 moments of help a year. He also explains why mapping the 100 people who can change your company's path matters more than your go-to-market plan. In this episode: Why founders now have to build two brands, their own and the company's How to build your network before you need it Why entrepreneurship is a skill you can learn "Investors need you. You don't need investors." His dad's story, from Savin Hill to Wharton, and a business card from a stranger at Penn Station Why trust and community become the real assets in the AI era Why he bought Cazenovia College Chapters: 00:00 Live at Startup Boston Week 00:26 From sports journalist to accidental founder 01:51 "Bless your heart": building alone in 1997 03:15 Jump off the cliff, build the plane 05:02 Techstars and the give-first network 06:32 Getting a job vs. being the job 09:31 Recruited by LinkedIn 11:32 "I haven't applied for a job in 25 years" 12:49 Build your brand and your company's brand 13:15 Map the top 100 people for your startup 14:00 20 network actions a day 15:22 64,000 investable startups vs. 8 billion people 16:28 Why he joined Whop 17:55 LinkedIn found you a job. Whop is the job. 19:03 Broken for corporate 19:53 Entrepreneurship is a skill 22:42 His dad's story: Savin Hill to Wharton 25:57 The stranger with golf clubs at Penn Station 29:21 Always the dumbest person in the room 30:10 Reputation, network and trust in the AI era 31:34 Rapid fire 32:35 Investors need you 33:10 Best founder stories: SendGrid and a 19-year-old on Whop 34:43 What reputation means to John 36:18 He bought a college 37:41 Keep dreaming big Connect with John Hill LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/msuaajohn/ Whop: https://whop.com Return on Reputation is hosted by Justin Obey, founder of Obey Creative. Conversations with founders about the reputation that builds companies. Obey Creative: https://obeycreative.com #ReturnOnReputation #StartupBostonWeek #PersonalBrand

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  Episode #58

  Personal Branding Now Beats the Company LinkedIn Page | Marie Burke Brown | EP.26

  Sep 3, 202647 min

  Marie Burke Brown spent the first stretch of her career inside enterprise giants like NetApp and VMware, building programs for products she didn't build and didn't choose. Then she did something most marketers don't: she jumped on purpose into a company with 22 people, then one with 30, because she wanted to be in the room before there was a room. Six months into her current role as VP of Marketing at Kibo, with nobody having sat in that seat before her, she did a full brand refresh before she had a single dashboard to prove it worked. I brought Marie on because I wanted to argue out the brand-vs-growth debate that never dies in B2B marketing. She's spent her whole career inside that tension, obsessing over positioning and narrative one minute, then getting asked by a board member to prove pipeline impact the next. Where we landed by the end of this conversation is more useful than either side of the argument: brand isn't the opposite of growth, it's the thing that makes growth cheaper, and there's a very specific, almost accidental reason her last product launch (backpacks, of all things) outperformed everything else at the booth. What you'll learn Why she ran a full brand refresh in her first few months at Kibo, before building a single reporting dashboard, and the one comment from a stranger at a trade show booth that told her it worked The "find and replace the company name" test she uses to catch AI-written messaging that could belong to any competitor Why she refuses to let AI create her positioning, only refine it, and what gets lost the moment you do it the other way around The three levels of technical depth she prepares for every persona, and why finance, not engineering, decides whether a message survives the board room Her actual content process: keyword clustering by product pillar (Snowflake, Databricks, FinOps) instead of just publishing whatever's trending Why she thinks the LinkedIn algorithm has quietly made an individual's personal brand worth more than the company page, and the one rule she uses to get an entire engineering team posting without sounding scripted The swag decision she almost didn't make that ended up on more than half the floor at a major industry conference Why "never burn a bridge" isn't a cliché to her, it's literally how she got both of her last two jobs, without ever applying to either TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Meet Marie Burke Brown 00:48 Series A Marketing Reality 04:50 Solo Marketing Team 07:24 Career Path To FinOps 09:34 Working With The Board 12:34 Brand Vs Pipeline 15:15 Kibo's Brand Refresh 17:29 Kibo's Agentic AI 18:57 Marketing Tech To Buyers 22:19 Messaging By Audience 24:27 SEO Content Pillars 26:07 AI And Messaging Risks 28:01 Building Company Evangelists 28:56 Networking Built Her Career 32:40 Executives As Public Faces 34:21 Authentic LinkedIn Branding 42:46 Rapid Fire Questions 45:24 Where To Follow Marie Guest: Marie Brown, VP of Marketing at Keebo. https://keebo.ai/ Find her on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marieburke/ Host: Justin Obey, founder of Obey Creative. Obey Creative builds personal brands and communities for founder-led companies through brand strategy, video-first social media, content creation, and podcasting. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinobey/ Show: Return on Reputation. Reputation drives everything. Without trust, building a strong business is close to impossible. The companies that lean hardest into the personal brands of their founders and their people will outperform the ones that don't.

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  Episode #57

  Invisible CEOs Lose Millions in Deals and Talent | Katie Radel | EP.25

  Aug 20, 202649 min

  Katie Radel grew up above a funeral home. Third generation family business. I love stories like that because it explains a lot about why she never questioned whether entrepreneurship was even on the table for her. She spent the next several years in the corporate world (banking, healthcare, finance) before she got close to 40, had just had her son, and realized the version of herself showing up to that job every day wasn't the healthiest one. Six months before the pandemic hit, she quit and started Ripple Consulting Group. I brought Katie on because I wanted to argue this out loud, the whole earned, owned, and paid media thing. She lives in earned media (PR, pitching journalists, getting executives quoted). I live in owned media (building the content and community side). Neither of us thinks the other one wins by itself. Where we landed by the end of this conversation is way more interesting than the debate, honestly. There's an actual number on what it costs a company when its executives stay invisible, and AI just made earned media matter more, not less. What you'll learn Why 84% of AI citations trace back to earned media, and why that means PR isn't optional anymore if you care how AI talks about you The stat Katie leads with in every pitch meeting: visible executives carry an 80% higher average share price than the ones who stay invisible How to tell if a founder saying "I don't have time for this" actually means that, or means they don't want to be the one taking the risk The one question I stole from Katie that gets someone to their actual zone of genius, because asking "what's your expertise" gets you nothing useful The most overrated PR tactic there is: sending a press release out on the wire with zero strategy behind it The one line to fix on your LinkedIn headline today (hint: it's not your job title) Why even the executives with the most credentials still deal with imposter syndrome, and how Katie gets them talking before she ever shows them a talking point Why video is winning right now. In a feed full of AI slop, showing up live and unscripted is the one thing that's hard to fake Why reframing "personal brand" as "service media" turns the fear of self promotion into the reason you actually post TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Meet Katie Radel 00:48 Her Midlife Career Pivot 03:43 First Business and Hospital PR 05:41 Why She Leaped Again at 40 06:46 Funeral Home Entrepreneur Roots 08:34 Earned vs Owned vs Paid Media 10:36 When to Start Your PR Push 12:49 Finding Your Point of View 14:59 Prepping Executives for Press 15:53 Fear and Imposter Syndrome 17:58 Why Earned Media Builds Trust 20:20 AI Is Fueling PR's Rise 21:09 PR Strategy Before Tactics 23:26 Why Executive Brands Win 25:22 Building Camera Confidence 25:57 The Earned Owned Paid Mix 27:01 Finding Your Zone of Genius 29:23 Video in the Trust Economy 31:49 Coaching Camera Shy Executives 34:35 The Cost of Invisibility 38:28 The Real Time Commitment 40:45 Visibility Without the Humblebrag 43:26 Rapid Fire Questions Guest: Katie Radel, founder of Ripple Consulting Group, executive visibility and PR strategist. Find her on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieradel/ Host: Justin Obey, founder of Obey Creative. Obey Creative builds personal brands and communities for founder-led companies through brand strategy, video-first social media, content creation, and podcasting. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinobey/ Show: Return on Reputation. Reputation drives everything. Without trust, building a strong business is close to impossible. The companies that lean hardest into the personal brands of their founders and their people will outperform the ones that don't.

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  Episode #56

  Why an Audience Is the Best Asset a Founder Can Own | Vincent Pierri | EP.24

  Aug 13, 20261h 9m

  Vincent Pierri spent years writing a new forty-five-minute talk every week for a room of three hundred people. No teleprompter. No rehearsal. Cross four or five hundred people, he says, and loyalty stops being the reason anyone shows up. They come back only if the message actually gives them something. That weekly pressure to never repeat himself built the exact skill he sells today. After leaving the pulpit, Vincent started out coaching SaaS executives on their conference talks, and by accident discovered that his rough, unpolished infographics were going viral while his videos went nowhere. Today he has around 34,500 LinkedIn followers and helps founders and executives turn their expertise into content people actually save. In this episode, Vincent and Justin Obey argue video versus infographics, agree that neither one wins on its own, and land on the thing underneath both formats: without a content strategy, the format doesn't matter. What you'll learn Why 99% of CEO keynotes are boring, and the ten-bullet fix that would make you sound like the best communicator in the room How to find your true top of funnel by testing which format your audience actually rewards, instead of copying whoever is loudest What AI can and can't create for you, and why AI is best at making content about AI itself The 3% save-rate rule, and what LinkedIn is really telling you in the first hour after you post Why you should stop chasing impressions and start raising your rates instead How one infographic about airline loyalty programs became a consultant's biggest source of pipeline for an entire year The mind-map method for finding topics nobody else is covering, demonstrated live on the show Why the fear of giving away your "secret sauce" is actually the strongest signal your content will work Vincent's pick for the most overrated piece of personal-brand advice, and what to do instead Chapters 00:00 The AI website that looked exactly like a stranger's 01:36 Preaching to three hundred people every Sunday 02:27 Why the big church pastor job is the hardest communication job there is 04:15 The framework that meant he never had to memorize 08:50 What almost every CEO gets wrong on stage 10:36 Why a speaking coach became the infographics guy 14:03 The $500 offer that sold a hundred seats 15:02 What actually drove the demand 17:46 Are designers finished? No, the opposite 18:53 What AI cannot tell you about your own content 21:47 The argument: video or infographics 22:43 Find your top of funnel first 28:33 Saturation decides your format 29:10 The airline loyalty infographic that built a pipeline 31:22 GIFs, stills, and the end of the animation wave 38:36 The 3% save rate rule 40:11 The one thing that never goes out of style 43:26 Stop blaming the algorithm 44:41 Live mind map: how to find what to post 52:51 Go deeper until nobody else is there 55:09 What if I give away the farm 58:33 Why he posted every salary he has ever made 01:02:16 Rapid fire 01:06:29 What reputation means to Vince Pierri Guest: Vince Pierri, LinkedIn content strategist and custom infographic designer, former pastor. Find him on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-angelo-coach/ Host: Justin Obey, founder of Obey Creative. Obey Creative builds personal brands and communities for founder-led companies through brand strategy, video-first social media, content creation, and podcasting. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinobey/ Show: Return on Reputation. Reputation drives everything. Without trust, building a strong business is close to impossible. The companies that lean hardest into the personal brands of their founders and their people will outperform the ones that don't. Mentioned in this episode: LinkedIn, Lovable, Canva, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft, Alex Hormozi, Kevin O'Leary, Grant Cardone.

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