Josh went to dinner with a CMO friend. A couple of drinks in, she showed him her entire 27-step influencer marketing strategy. Josh's takeaway? One step: tell Jess. She can just handle the other 26…

So, she built Vector's first influencer pilot with seven creators, $12,000, and zero vanity metrics. The result? $1.1 million in pipeline, 82% ICP demos, and posts so good you couldn't tell they were sponsored.

Hear how Jess started small, gave creators actual freedom, and proved influencer marketing works without a massive budget.

Get to the good stuff:

[00:20] The CEO move. The hack. The 27-step process for influencers. Josh has 1 step, Jess gets 26. Yayyyy.

[03:10] Jess talks context. They didn't have the same budget or team size. There may have been some rounding up involved. Carry the one, people.

[04:00] Start small, start with a pilot. Customers, leaders and an average following? 13,000. Trust beats vanity metrics every time.

[06:37] Follow your influencers for a while. Understand their content, their tone, and their storytelling style before you reach out.

[07:44] Let influencers have full access to your tool. Onboard them properly. They need to know your product, believe in it, and actually use it.

[09:20] They may say no to your rate. That's fine. Build long-term partnerships, not one-off transactional posts.

[10:20] Deep camera focus—affirmations from our mouths to your ears. ASMR vibes.

[13:38] What does the brief look like? Tight, short, flexible. Focus on messaging points they can borrow or riff on. (Just, you know, avoid posting on Fridays.)

[15:37] How Jess aligned posts with product launches, survey results, and Ad Reveal. All within the same week because organizational bliss.

[19:04] Let influencers do what they do best. They know their audience. Let them loose. They want it to work for you.

[19:44] If you don't know it's an influencer post until you see the hashtag, it's a great influencer post. Matching ads and banners? That's just an ad.

[21:25] Jess consciously skipped the tracking rabbit hole for the pilot. Sometimes "how did you hear about us?" is all you need.

[22:53] The marketer's duty—thank you, dear marketers, for filling out attribution forms with wild detail. I got you, boo.

[26:01] The results? $12,000 turned into $1.1 million in pipeline. 45 leads in 3 months directly from LinkedIn. 82% ICP. Josh almost fell out of his seat (again).

[27:30] Marketing doesn't fix product-market fit. If your product sucks, all that pipeline will disappear just as fast as it came in.

[28:45] What's next? Jess is changing up the mix, but she can’t scale this alone.

[33:30] Jess's key takeaways: Start small. Give them the story, then step back and let them “Cook.”

This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast is a Vector production.

Filmed and produced by Sweet Fish.

Editing by Handy Man Edit.

Music by Peter McIsaac Music.

Jess had it all figured out. A five-star restaurant. 17 prospects and customers. Four months of planning. $15k on the line. The perfect setup to fill next quarter's pipeline…right?

Just one tiny problem: there’d been a mix-up. The dinner wasn't tomorrow night. It was tonight. In three hours. Cue panic. Cue scrambling. Cue Jess and Josh praying people would actually show up.

Hear how a last-minute disaster turned into one of the best events Vector's ever done and why letting customers do the talking is more powerful than any pitch.

Get to the good stuff:

[00:51] Why sponsor events as an early-stage company? Leave the booths for the big guys—how showing up small meant Vector was seen by the right people.

[02:50] The events around the events are really where it's happening. Plus, Natalie Taylor’s dinner playbook: invite your customers. She’s a genius.

[11:22] Sarah pulls off some FBI-style magic and reverse-engineers an anonymized attendee list into data we need. Sneaky sneaky.

[13:37] Jess's invite strategy. Josh is skeptical. Jess is right. He should know this by now.

[16:32] Dan Murphy delivers the news: contract mix-up. The boat cruise is Thursday. Your dinner is tonight. In three hours. Jess has a minor menty-B moment.

[17:48] Exit Five springs into action. New restaurant secured. Transportation sorted. Jess and Josh sprint back to the hotel to prep.

[22:27] Will anyone actually show up? Just two people on the bus. Are we having a $15k dinner with four people? That’s a lot of wine…

[23:45] Dear marketer, here’s your affirmations break.

[24:54] Jess and Josh channel their inner theater kids to break the ice and acknowledge the awkward: yes, we need customers.

[26:26] The dinner becomes deeply personal. No Vector talk. Just real conversations about family, life, oh and that crazy documentary about the stalker mom.

[27:07] Jess gets rejected attempting dinner strategy phase 2. Mission accomplished—they're having too much fun.

[27:46] The follow-up is effortless. LinkedIn DMs turn into demo requests. Almost 100% conversion from one dinner. Jess and Josh want the "boat mix-up package" next year.

[30:12] How to match your team to your audience. Bring the people who spur the right conversations (sorry sales, not you).

[31:56] Jess has the event bug. Already signed for Pavilion, going back to Drive. It's giving budget sweats for Josh again.

[33:11] How we sold less but ironically sold more. How authenticity is shifting brand action.

[33:32] Josh still dreams of his, er, Vector's name in lights.

This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast is a Vector production.

Filmed and produced by Sweet Fish.

Editing by Handy Man Edit.

Music by Peter McIsaac Music.

Josh calls an emergency meeting and Jess packs a bag (...just an overnight one). The team lands in Boston to face a hard truth: Vector was spread too thin, chasing too many use cases, and diluting outcomes.

What followed was a full-company repositioning to focus on what our customers were actually winning with, and put a hard stop to everything they weren’t. No pressure.

This is the story of the pivot — the messy middle, the easy buttons (literally), and the moment it all clicked.

Get to the good stuff:
[00:00] After a premonition that Vector wasn’t a true product-market fit, Josh calls an emergency meeting in Boston. Jess pretends to be chill while mildly panicking inside.
[02:55] The not-so-subtle warning signs. Jess had spotted chaos in Customer Solutions, Josh felt it in Product and Engineering. Both know it’s time to refocus.
[06:10] The Boston meeting kicks off. Between easy buttons and N’Sync (we’re professionals, after all), Josh learns a leadership lesson.
[10:54] The company-wide niche down begins. Enter Alex — part PMM, part chaos coordinator, full legend.
[12:25] Vector invites a power user (shoutout to Isaac Ware) to the workshop.
[15:56] Jess and Alex cut use cases, spin insight into content, and rewire pricing around value. Everything starts pointing to the new story.
[24:54] Web development agency, Fletch, takes the team through a brutal clarity bootcamp. Jess and Josh fight for their lives in Figma (who hasn’t?). Mid-Vegas meltdown, Josh bows out of the process.
[33:37] Two caffeine-fueled weeks later, Jess finds the line that defines Vector. Josh swallows his pride and agrees — it’s perfect.
[36:55] Now, every team is sprinting toward launch. Josh finally admits this wasn’t a tweak — it was a full pivot.
[38:06] Jess and Josh drop some love for all of you overworked marketers.
[39:07] Jess lays out three clear metrics to prove whether the new direction works.
[42:58] Key takeaways from the trenches.

This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast is a Vector production.

Filmed and produced by Sweet Fish.

Editing by Handy Man Edit.

Music by Peter McIsaac Music.