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- Hello. Hello.
Hey there, hey there.
Welcome in to another edition of Between the Lines.
I'm Josh Ellis, editor-in-chief of SUCCESS magazine,
where we're going in the pages
of that magazine specifically,
this time the September/October issue,
and joined again by old friend,
Jamie Friedlander Serrano,
who has an awesome feature in this issue on Eric Siu,
marketing expert.
"Eric Siu's Main Quest" is the headline.
Jamie, I enjoyed this one.
He's a really sharp guy.
- He is.
He definitely is.
He's a very unique person. It was fun talking to him.
- Fun headline, "Eric Siu's Main Quest"
because he is someone
who says that he treats video games,
or excuse me, he treats life and business like a video game.
Explain that concept for us,
would you?
- Yeah, he was for background,
a big gamer before he got into marketing.
He played in competitions and he was really into video games
and he kind of sees his life and business as a video game,
which is often called life gamification and kind of it
removes that emotional attachment.
So he kind of sees everything he does
as a step up or a level up in a video game.
So it's almost like he can separate from it,
which helps him kind of simplify and make progress
towards things.
- Now, one of the reasons that I liked you
as the writer for this story is because several years ago
now, you wrote a story for us
based on playing, for a couple of weeks,
The Sims 4.
Which if anybody's unfamiliar with The Sims,
it's basically like a video game version of a doll house,
where you have your little person
who you take through their life
and their career and their family and their hobbies.
You can create habits for them that make them better
or make them worse.
And that was a story that you wrote
of sort of trying out what it would be like
if you had sort of a
35,000 foot view on your own life
and could make yourself do these positive habits,
without all the pain that they caused.
And it was just like your video game character
going through it.
Some of that stuff ringing in your memory
as you talked to him?
- For sure. Yeah.
I think one of the things he said
was because he kind of sees his life as a video game,
he doesn't have high highs or low lows
because it kind of allows you to take risks
without attaching too much emotion to it.
And I definitely think that's true
because I remember in the game I would kind of try things
out that I would do in my real life,
but I'm very risk averse.
So it was a lot easier to do it in the video game
because there's actually no stakes.
So yeah, it was kind of interesting seeing the parallel.
- It's almost like the foundational philosophy
here is stoicism, no high highs, no low lows.
Just do what you think is the best option,
but a very modern take on it.
So, an interesting story.
He is a content marketer.
This kind of crept up on me.
I'm not a marketing person by trade,
but this crept up on me over the last few years
that content creation and marketing
these days are like one in the same
and he definitely exemplifies that.
- Yeah, for sure.
I actually do a lot of content marketing writing in
addition to journalism.
So it was kind of interesting to hear a lot of the things he
was saying because he started his company through blogging,
which he couldn't really do now because it's so saturated,
but 10 years ago he was kind of the first one to write
these long form 2000, 3000 word blog posts.
And it provided value to people.
And that's kind of like how he grew his business
because there was a reason for them to stay on his website.
- You know, from your perspective
being on both sides of content, marketing and journalism,
what is the difference?
Is there a thin line or is it a big divide?
- I think it's a thin line in some ways.
Most of the content marketing I do is for hospitals.
And so, for example, I'll write for their magazine,
like a patient testimonials,
someone who had like the cutting edge surgery.
and I still find it to be journalism
because I'm telling their story,
I'm talking to their doctors and them.
But what it is is it's promoting a service at the hospital,
but it allows people to kind of get that human connection
instead of just reading a pamphlet
that says like we do this: shoulder surgery.
So it's still promoting a company or a service,
but I think there still is a value to people who read it.
- Now, what do you say to the person who,
getting started in their business,
maybe they're an independent salesperson
or a real estate person and they're not sure
about themselves as a content creator and
not sure whether they have anything to say
because these days that is more democratized
and expected, really, of everybody?
So, how do you break down that fear for people?
- I think I would say that if they could find their niche,
that would help because people might not think they have
anything to say, and I often thought that
when I started freelancing too,
but I think if you're doing something that's very niche
or very specific, there is somebody who wants to hear it.
Even though I used to write for a magazine that did
pool maintenance, which is like the most random thing,
but they had thousands and thousands of readers because
there were people who did that for a living.
So I think as long as you hone in
on what it is that you think makes you stand out,
there will be people who want to hear.
- I did not know that about your resume.
Knowing that, will you never have a pool?
- [Jamie] Yeah, no.
Hope not.
- Everybody says everybody wants a pool until they have one.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- All right, last piece.
And I thought this was such a point I'm glad you included it
is the need to cultivate patience
in content marketing and life and our careers in general.
Why was that so important for Eric that he highlighted it
for you?
- So the way he kind of grew his business
was through his blogging and his podcast,
which was SEO or search engine optimization.
So, the more people Googled the things he was writing about,
the more his traffic would grow.
And so that's not the kind of thing that happens overnight.
You don't just get like a million hits
and then you have readers that stay forever.
It takes months of creating content and finding customers
and clients and an audience.
So I think that was kind of why it's important.
And I could relate to it too since I am a freelancer.
I couldn't jump in
thinking I'm going to just have this business
where I make all this money and write
for all these outlets.
It's just, you have to kind of take incremental progress.
And I was also thinking, because my husband's a doctor,
and he's at the end of residency
and we've talked about this because he's in his 11th year.
And it's hard to keep going every year
because it's like you keep going and keep going.
So, you just got to think about that longterm
and where you'll be eventually.
- Yep.
So definitely some great points there and some great points
in the story, overall.
Eric is a fascinating guy and you know
nobody tells the story quite like you, Jamie.
So we appreciate your work always.
Thanks for joining me on Between the Lines today.
- Thanks for having me.
- Everybody else, thank you for joining us once again.
We'll do it again next week.
So long everybody.
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