Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Hello everyone.

Welcome to YouTube Success.

We are here doing a YouTube podcast with a LinkedIn expert!

Who knew you could just change your mind and do something

ridiculous on your own podcast.

Here we are, and we were just talking about ridiculousness of podcasts.

So here I am.

Look, you know, the thing is, it's called YouTube success, and we're

talking about growing YouTube channels and all of that kind of stuff.

But what I wanted to do and what, the reason why I have this

podcast in the first place is 'cause I have a great network of

wonderful people around the world.

And of course, when I created my list of people, Judi was one of

those people that I was hoping would say yes to come on the podcast.

And here she is.

So yes, it's not specifically a YouTube thing, but there's so much value here.

We're gonna be talking about personal branding.

We are gonna be talking about the epic speed at which Judi has

grown on LinkedIn back in 2018.

But, you know, loads more stuff has happened since then, and

a few other things as well.

So, if you're in my world, and maybe you've not heard of somehow you've missed

Fox Rocks and you've not heard of Judi yet, then Judi, I'd love you to do your

own intro and tell us a little bit about you and what people need to know really.

Well, all they have to know is #FoxRocks and that I got started really

actively posting videos on LinkedIn in around 2017, 2018, and definitely hit

several million views very quickly.

It is an amazing platform.

I doubled down there.

We'll talk about how LinkedIn's the only platform I used for four years straight.

That's it.

The only social media platform, so that is the power of focus and really getting in

on a platform and doubling down and I have now been listed as a top voice on LinkedIn

by LinkedIn, and they've given me the top voice of social media strategy and sales.

I love sales, so I have been working with clients since 2018 with my LinkedIn

Business Accelerator and bing bing bing.

Boom, I'm done with my intro.

Let's hit the ground running.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: There you It's always, I dunno about you,

but it's always awkward when someone asks you to do your own intro.

'cause people do it and they tell you your intro and you're like,

oh my God, that sounds amazing.

Who wrote that?

It weren't me.

so I like to put people on the spot because actually, you know, it's

funny, you kind of forget what you've done until people ask you about it.

And then you start to think about, oh yeah, I did that thing, I did that

thing, and we'll talk about some of this as we go through these questions,

but the first thing I wanted to talk about most importantly, is how we met.

Well, how, look, let's be honest.

Let's tell the people really how I think we met because it's been quite

a while since that time, but it's really about community because in 20..

September 2018, I decided at that point that I wanted to start a YouTube channel.

I looked at something like September the 17th of 2018, and about a week later, I

booked a ticket to go to VidSummit in LA.

So it was kind of a big deal for me because I decided, and I was absolutely

pouring myself because I was gonna go to the other side of the world where

there's a whole bunch of YouTubers that as far I could tell they were the best

YouTubers in the world, but I thought if I'm gonna go and learn from anybody

I should go to something like that.

Right?

It seemed really reasonable price-wise.

So it goes there and I did what I normally do before events,

and this is a tip for anyone that's going to events.

Like go on Twitter, go on Instagram, go on LinkedIn, all of the socials, and

find the hashtags and find like the event hashtag or search for the event name.

And you'll find a bunch of people.

Say, if you've never, you've never been to an event before and you don't know anyone,

like I didn't know anyone there, just go.

And the best place for me, strangely enough was Twitter.

I found Rob and a bunch of other people.

I wanna add something.

I'm gonna add.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, go for it.

Yeah, go for it.

I'd love to.

Go find all the speakers and your comments because the speakers

are kind of a bit of a hub of they want visibility on the event and

that they're speaking, so you know they're gonna be posting about it.

Find some content to grab onto without knowing who's gonna be there yet,

that's a good place to start too.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

I love that.

Actually, when I was looking back for the stories of how we met, I did

find some of the old 2018 stuff, and I found loads of things that I've not

seen, you know, when you're at the event and the feeds are going really

crazy, like loads pictures of stuff, of me in drinking positions in photos.

So like, you know, yeah, definitely the comments.

That's how I found people.

I would see announcements from VidSummit, they would say so and so speaking and

then a bunch of people that would come and saying, I'm going, can't wait to be there.

And I would connect with 'em and that kind of thing.

So, yeah, brilliant advice.

But for me, the thing is I was really nervous, right?

At 2018, I was 35.

I'd been public speaking around the world, so there was no problem

being on stage, anything like that.

But going to an event and not knowing anybody, especially the

other side of the world, was really, I was really nervous about it.

But what happened is when I met Rob and I met yourself and a few other people there

is I found that everybody was welcoming.

There's nothing better than going to an event where someone says

to you, Hey, come and join me for a coffee, or come to dinner.

And as I said to you before, I think that's where we ended up meeting is we

went for dinner and there was like 30 people and you've just gotta be really

brave about it and just say, you know, What are you doing after the event?

Is anybody going for a drink or anyone going for dinner?

And you'll find yourself invited to these great events.

And personally for me, one of the things I loved is just how

friendly people like you were.

You know, we can build up this picture that, oh, it's Judi, you

know, she says, had all these millions of views on LinkedIn and

feel a little bit standoff-ish.

So, I guess what I'd ask you is how do you feel when someone comes

up to you and they're in that, like, how do you help them out?

What would you do for them?

So we all have our, either if it's coping with feeling awkward

or maybe let's call it the art of just standing around, because standing

around and not necessarily rushing to do something, because guess what?

I don't know where I'm going to dinner sometimes at these events, I don't

know what the next kind of gathering thing will be, not necessarily,

and that's kind of that art of not rushing away from maybe a circle.

If you're standing in a circle and you feel really awkward, nobody's

paying that much attention to you.

It's called the spotlight effect.

While we think the spotlight's on us, but actually people are

engrossed in their conversation.

You may feel really awkward standing there.

But if you keep standing there and you keep kind of popping in or being, you

know, smiling and just nodding along with whatever conversation's happening and

you don't totally get weird, I guess, you'll end up being there long enough

for them to go, Hey, we're headed here.

Like, or you'll be naturally part of the conversation as it keeps rolling.

But yeah, it feels awkward sometimes standing there, especially when you

feel like you don't really know everyone in this circle or what's happening.

So

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: And I love the art of standing

around 'cause I've definitely been that position plenty of times.

You don't look as awkward as you think you look.

I think.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: And I think other people are the same, right?

And there a lot of people are in the same position.

I met a lady called Christina at the time when I got there, I was standing in the

queue and she happened to have a, in the line, sorry, that's the American term.

I like queue.

All good.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Good.

And she, we happened to have a channel.

Her, her name was Make Video Greece and mine was Make Video UK.

It was like really weird that we happened to be standing together and

she traveled all the way from Greece.

She knew nobody as well.

And we ended up hanging out, hanging out together for like the two,

three days, you know, and I would introduce her to people, she would

introduce me to people, those we met.

So just finding buddies, I think as you go into these events is so important.

And actually, finding these little dinners where you're not planning what

you're doing for dinner and you end up somewhere where some of the best

connections and community is created.

So definitely get involved in that stuff.

Oh, I really like holding things so I feel less awkward.

So I have a bag that's a fox, obviously 'cause "Hello, my last

name is Fox" if you can't tell.

And the bag that I hold now just has random fox stickers.

I now have what I call a networking prop.

Anyone can have a networking prop.

You don't have to have like a fun last name called Fox.

You could have don't even know, like a little Rubik's cube.

Like you could have anything and it's something you're holding

onto that's like a little conversation starter or something.

I'm just given some ideas here.

And then the last thing is have a buddy have a friend that even when you're in

these groups and you're doing the art of looking awkward, standing around, you

could, if you can't tip over to that yet, you could buddy up with somebody that

also is like, Hey, I'm also new here.

I don't really know anyone.

And you can look awkward together in a group, which actually makes

neither of you look that awkward.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, totally.

I love that.

And having a prop is a good thing.

That now.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: What I'm about to say is maybe not true,

but I don't think anything's that awkward if you take something, I've

seen people with American footballs that they'll pass to help people chat

around, you know, sort of, standard sort of things or something they'll throw

at someone and see if they catch it.

You see those videos on YouTube and stuff all the time.

Okay.

Wicked.

So that was just a thing I wanted to talk about community and going

to events because I think events are where the magic happens.

So we're gonna move to the actual talking to you about you now.

When I looked, it said, and then it's really funny because

I love this about you as well.

It said that you were a CV writer and career coach.

Is that right?

Before?

I did get started with that.

Yeah.

My first thoughts for LinkedIn all the way back in around 2008,

2009 was it's for your resume.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Back then you could not become a content creator on LinkedIn.

I know that sounds like a funny thing to say, but you couldn't

post the way that you post now.

The only that could were like Richard Branson, or Sarah Blakely could

post or something, but like, they couldn't let the ordinary people post.

I'm being kind of tongue in cheek there.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah.

It only really tipped over when LinkedIn allowed everyone to start posting

and everyone could get a newsletter.

Not everyone could even have a newsletter all the way up

until two or three years ago.

They didn't even let people have a newsletter.

So the idea that LinkedIn was for content strategy and posting is

pretty brand new in the world of social media, which I think is why

LinkedIn gets a bad rep a little bit because it wasn't known for that.

And that's okay.

It's okay to change you are.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, it took a while and that's

why there's still that a weird view that people can't be social on

LinkedIn, which just blows my mind.

What interested me the most is I think the people that are listening to

this podcast, my audience, the target audience, is really like people that

wanna start a YouTube channel or people that want to grow their YouTube channel.

And a lot of those people are people that have jobs at the moment and they

want to move into being a creator of full-time, creator of some sort.

And whether you were doing it full-time or not, at the time as your own business,

it still feels like something that could have been a side hustle that you moved and

you, you went full creator mode in 2018.

And you seem to have a time where you decided that was gonna be the case.

So can you just talk us through how did you decide that you were

really gonna go and you said right at the start about focus?

So how did you decide you were gonna focus on this and make it a big thing?

Well, I would say the best thing to think about for any creator

that you follow for inspiration or advice is I think the best ones

are the ones that maybe have a bit of a rollercoaster or not, just a,

just a straight path and that's it.

'cause that is not the reality for pretty much anyone.

So I did

have my first job out of college and I stayed with that job, climbing the

good old corporate ladder for 10 years.

Very happy.

I was not looking to become anything other than a chemical engineer

meets a sustainability expert.

'cause that's what I was doing in corporate America for Fortune 500 company.

And I got laid off during that, I got let go during that economic

crisis of 2008, the housing crisis.

So that was my first experience with going, oh wait, it

isn't just a straight line.

I have to take charge of my career.

And the very first thing I did was I was like, oh, I'll get my own website.

I'll launch my own business.

I will get my own business setup with all the business, like, you know,

whether that be, I don't know what to call it, like all the different

like, legal elements in place

and make sure that I own for the rest of my life.

Judy Fox and the brand Judy Fox 'cause that is something no one in my mind at

that moment could ever take away from me.

I think it's slightly traumatising when you lose your job for the very first time.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah, totally it.

But you know, the thing is that, that realisation is actually because you at

school and assuming the American education system is the same, you are almost bred

to be a worker bee of some description.

And so you think that a career means, yeah, you might jump a couple of

times, but you just never consider that actually someone could lay you off

and then you've gotta find a new job.

Or maybe even during a crisis like that, there's not as many jobs.

And then you've gotta be resourceful and do something yourself.

And so this idea of like 'security doesn't exist', maybe how school and university

sold it to us as the dream, you know?

So that sounds great.

So you decided to do that stuff then.

And then what

but I did go back to corporate.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Okay.

So yes, I will say it took me all the way until 2018.

So it took me 10 more years.

So between that period of time, I went to corporate, back full-time

in my business, went back to corporate, full-time in my business.

I did that cycle twice because two things.

Number one, I had major life changes that affected my decisions

of what I wanted to do full time.

And I will say the whole time though, it made me realize you

should always hold onto whatever business you have because there is no

guarantee in the corporate world, but again, I came back to the mindset.

There will always be a guarantee that I have Judi Fox, I have me, myself, and I.

So as long as I'm kicking here on this planet, I have myself.

So I am beyond grateful for that because I could hold that.

When you think about the resume world in that concept, I was able to

continuously leverage the fact that I was running my own business no matter

what was a part of that business.

I was able to keep growing and keep my skills up in any kind of perceived gap.

And I never had a gap on my resume ever again because I just had my own business.

So I kind of wanna put that out there 'cause that was, looking back in

hindsight, that is the best decision I ever made because when I had a major

life event, I ended up as a single mom in 2014, I was able to immediately, because

I'd been networking on LinkedIn, growing my LinkedIn, I think at that point I

was maybe up to just 2014, maybe about two or 3000 followers and connections.

It wasn't crazy, but it was, that is a lot of people, when you really

think how that work.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: It's enough

could work,

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, it is.

It is like a side hustle or whatever you need at that point.

I was able to pull the trigger.

I made one.

I was able to make a post in 2014 because when I found myself,

I had been, what's that word?

I had been feeding and supporting my community and whether I knew I was

growing a community or not, I didn't know.

I just knew I was able to make a post on LinkedIn saying I needed an opportunity.

I had a life change and need to go back to corporate.

Because of that, I was no longer gonna be able to run this business.

I had started full time and I kept my business on the side

while I went back to corporate.

But I was able to find a corporate position at that time very quickly

because I made a post on LinkedIn and it just flooded my opportunities.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: So you could almost say that the

foundations and the stars were there ready to be taken because you

cause didn't ask from them until that moment.

I had just been giving, I had been in that world of . . Hey, I have a lot of

things going well for me right now and I was running my business full-time, so

I went full-time somewhere around again.

Again, it went like this.

So it around 2011, 2012, I was full-time in my business and I was

traveling the world and I was living that online creators dream of..

I went to New Zealand, I went to Kingdom of Tonga, I lived in Germany.

I was loving it.

I was location independent in 2012.

It was beautiful.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Good.

So, you made the change then.

You did the corporate thing and I think a lot of people, myself included, can

appreciate what that's like and going through that kind of natural cycle as you

leave education, but then you decided to go full focus, full steam ahead in 2018.

So it was 2018 really that things really changed, right?

Yes, I was doing that kind of like one foot in, one foot out.

I actually part-time in corporate.

I negotiated a new contract and that lasted for a while.

But I also saw the writing on the wall that I was like, have to decide

and I'm gonna take a bet on me.

And I wanted to throw up.

It had that moment of, that uncertainty, kind of like jumping off the cliff,

like kind of like going to an event where you 'don't know anybody' feeling,

it's that, just that overwhelming sense of I have zero concept of what's

gonna really happen next, like zero.

And I think to me, that also was exciting.

That also made me feel really alive and excited.

So I was leaning into it.

I definitely read books like when to jump and you know, all these

kind of like, how do you know?

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

But I think the number one thing that is key is that I had already started

learning how to kind of jump in 2008.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd set some of the seed, you'd laid some of the seeds by the sounds of it,

you were building the personal brand.

Yeah.

And I suppose from my perspective in the UK, I did some of

the same in the IT world.

I used to fix computers as a side hustle.

The only issue I got to is one company I worked for said it

was a conflict of interest.

So I think the caveat to all of this is, if you are building a personal

brand at the same time as having a corporate role, just make sure

there's no conflict of interest,

'cause trust me, that was not a nice experience I went through.

But if you can do that, and if you can build your personal brand at the

same time, I think that's the seeds, that's the foundations that you laid.

And then maybe the jump is less of a jump then if, you know, you've been through

that in and out process, you know.

And I had already started making content.

And here's the real kicker that I would take away too, the key in that

experience of having one foot in the corporate world, one foot out and doing

part-time for a period of time and having the side hustle, it was taking

the pressure off the content strategy.

So a lot of people will start their content strategy and underneath, there

is a feeling of this has to work, this has to get views, this has to convert.

And I didn't have that.

I And that is the beauty of having income that was coming in at a very solid

level that I had negotiated, at least at the part-time level, that I could

create content from a space of freedom and that it was not easy to do both.

I will admit, it took a lot of effort to run two things concurrently.

But the ability to content create was literally one of the my best moments of

just having such good energy, not caring.

I went to VidSummit I think in that moment in 2018 was a little bit

of that moment where I was like, I don't need anything from Vid Summit.

I just need to have a great time, create good content, but I don't

need income to come from this.

It's being covered because I have this part-time and steady

income that I can count on.

It wasn't my full income, so I knew I needed to start building it up and

build up my business, but it took so much of the pressure off, which

did allow me to convert business.

And it's like that thing that everyone, the more you want it, you think,

why am I not converting business?

And sometimes you have to like stop acting like you need it to happen 'cause we can

read the, we can see the desperation,

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah.

I totally understand that.

And I've been in that position and, and I've spoke to one of the previous

episodes is Jesse, the first interview actually that's been published, and

Jesse, I remember his journey was like when they got to 10,000 subscribers or

something like that, I remember there was a point where he put a post in the

group we were both in and he said, I think YouTube's just about to pay me the

same amount of money as my corporate job.

You know, I can leave now, what should I do?

And everyone was like, jump, gotta get outta there.

You know?

But that is, the lesson

there really is just the fact that by maintaining what they already

had, or in your case, cutting your hours back just to give you a bit

more freedom and space to create.

But without that, desperation is huge and it kind of goes against a

little bit about what a lot of mentors and business people say and they're

like, oh, you need to focus and you need to go all in on this thing.

And it's like, yeah, you can say that, but you don't have my bills

and my family to look after.

You can't just say, and I really hate that people just say that and they say

it out loud and think it's okay, but you don't understand the people's position.

So it needs to be like really caveated with, if you are in a

position to fully focus on the thing.

But until you are at that point, do what Judy did or do what

Jesse did and just do both.

And that might mean that sometimes, like now for me, it's a podcast

at 7 00:22:37

00 PM, it might be you're creating on a Saturday morning when

at 7 00:22:41

you've got a bit more free time.

at 7 00:22:42

Do what you can until you get to that point where this is, it's something

at 7 00:22:45

that's clearly bringing in the money

at 7 00:22:47

'cause you'll be thankful for it when you're not desperate

at 7 00:22:49

for the cash for sure.

Yeah, I nostalgically look back on some of that content and the freedom

and the not having to even worry where the hell that content was gonna go.

Like I think that is kind of why I look at different channels and it

almost makes people's head scratch because they go, 'but I see success'.

But the success you see potentially now there, you have to scroll back

to see where were they having an amazing time and they possibly weren't doing

all the 'this needs to, this needs an opt-in, this needs a downloadable,

you need to be collecting emails'.

Oh my gosh.

The focus on acting like early days of whatever it is you're creating, you

need to constantly collect everyone's emails and you need to have that funnel

set up and it needs to be perfect.

That is crap sometimes.

That can

hurt you.

That can hurt your growth and slow down your trajectory because you're

not focusing on the actual thing is people want to get to know you.

People want the thing you're trying to show them or entertain them

with and now you're just trying to put all these elements into place

and it's looking really janky, I don't know how else to say it.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, and I feel it more now coming

from a place of not desperation.

I feel it more when I meet someone that is desperate and they

immediately want to talk about work.

And for me, when I make choices, my choices are emotional and they're

about people I connect with.

If there's 10 people that do the same service of you as you, which

woman am I go, gonna go for the one that puts a billboard out

there and says, this is what I do.

Or the person that I've had dinner with, or that we've had a chat about

our dog or pets or whatever, you know.

They're the human connections that really make you go, well, you know what?

I know that guy bit more expensive than the one over here.

But actually we went for dinner.

Really?

Like what they said or the pace, how, the way they introduced me to people,

how they made me feel, you know.

That makes a difference.

So, yeah.

I totally understand that.

Right.

So let's talk about moving away from that,

'cause I do agree on those fronts, but I want to talk a little bit

more about being strategic then.

That we can disagree on.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: I'm sure we'll find something in there.

Yeah.

So I think you did that and it was fun and you was enjoying it.

Is it still fun?

Just as a side note, is it still fun?

You still enjoying it as much?

Yes, some.

Again, everything has a different part that you

enjoy though too.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Good.

For professional contractual reasons.

Yes, it is.

Yes.

Still love it.

I would say it evolves to different things and it evolves all

your life impacts that happen to you.

Like I just had a house fire, which is super random to share.

It changes what you put out into the world or how you show up, but to me,

it becomes where did you put your boundaries and how did you set things up?

And I think for me, that's important to keep asking yourself every single year

that you do this so you don't burn out.

You don't feel like you've extended your boundaries to a place where it isn't

fun anymore, and you're being forced.

That's going back to being an employee of your own making.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

I don't wanna be an employee of my business.

I wanna own it.

I want to own my life experience.

So yeah, I have to constantly ask and answer myself.

What do I what?

What is the result?

What's happening next?

So, I'll just share, I don't believe being a consistent content creator.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Okay.

Ooh.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Good.

Well, so this is really funny 'cause on the way here, I was on the train back, Mr.

Beast said something recently, or so unto the TubeBuddy's channel.

It was a quote and he was saying about, don't worry about being

consistent, just create great content.

What in whatever schedule.

And I was like, great.

I can talk about that because it's something I disagree with.

But with context.

So tell me.

Yeah.

I'll give you my context.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah go for it.

Yeah.

Because consistency is definitely..

We'll do rock, paper, scissors who goes first.

I'm kidding.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: You go for it.

You go for it.

I would say there, it's not a matter of if something's gonna happen

in your life, it's a matter of when.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

So if you've trained your brain think that success is linked to

consistent content creation, and then you have to create this consistent stream of

content, whatever it is you've decided.

A YouTube video channel, there you go.

And it has to always consistently come out at Tuesday, 8:00 AM.

That is setting yourself up potentially for future failure, that

you've linked that so closely that it will not give you freedom for

any life changes that will happen.

And it is not a matter of if they're gonna happen, a matter of when they're happen.

I've been through enough things.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

I had no idea lightning was gonna strike house.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Wow.

I'm really glad that I don't believe in, I didn't set my

mind up to link my success in my business to constant content creation.

And here's what I believe is the thing you should be constant about,

is be constantly networking with the people you have relationships with.

So, I may not be consistent in other things and I may not, I

haven't posted a podcast and there's a lot of reasons for that.

But it comes down to I can consistently network with someone amazing like

you and be on your podcast and that can replace what may have been

something that I can't do right now.

And be instead, here's instead, be craveable Netflix show.

A craveable Netflix show is something that I don't care if it needs to take

a break and a breather, it'll come back and I'm there for season 5, season 10.

I never want it to go off the air, and I'd rather be a craveable Netflix

show that never goes off the air.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

So in that context, totally understand and totally agree with you.

Who knew after just saying something we'd disagree with, we'd find immediately.

That's called manifestation, I think.

So I totally agree with that.

From my perspective, when I heard what Mr.

Beast was saying, it was like, well, actually, now, you talked about it now

being like year five of where he's at.

When you look at it that way and having a team of producers who come up with

like content ideas and then they decide and they've got a month, you know, month

long schedules of when things gonna go.

Plus having the demand of being the craveable Netflix person.

You do have demand.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: That you have more freedom to not be consistent

because actually what they're waiting for is the next big video of yours.

You know, the squid thing is, is Mr.

Beast's big thing at the time, right?

And he is always looking to improve that.

So, but for my people that are just getting started, what we

do is we build a bank of content before we start publishing.

So I say to them, build like four to eight or maybe even 12 videos ahead of time.

So when life does get in the way, then you've got something to put in there and

you continue your consistent schedule.

So it's more about batch filming and, and that kind of thing.

Same as what I'm doing with the podcast.

We, we are creating like eight, maybe 12 episodes before we launch the thing.

So it's just context and it's about like your part of the journey.

Like if you are in year five and you have that freedom, you have the

financial income and all that kind of stuff that's going on, fine.

You can be less consistent because you have got that demand, you know,

the Fox Rocks hashtag that you've got.

If you go and I mean, you're there endlessly on that hashtag because

I feel like we're

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: We are saying the same thing.

We are, yeah.

I agree that you just shouldn't marry those two.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yes.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

I don't want you, I don't, this mantra that is so loud out there that

the only success because you're con..

They link the word success with I was a consistent content

creator and I'm like, oh God.

Stop marrying those two.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: And actually when people get..

for future failure.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

And when people get disappointed by the views or whatever they get in,

they're like, well, I've consistent, so why, why is that not happening?

And it's like, well, but you forgot about all the other elements that come in.

It's not, there's a compounding effect that happens with consistency.

There's promotion, there's algorithms, there's SEO, there's

all the other things that happen.

And consistency, like you say, consistency and success.

Those two things are not the only things.

So you've gotta, you've gotta think about the bigger picture.

So I think we are agreeing.

And I agree.

If you're early in your career, I think here's what gets me.

Some of these big creators are on these amazing panels and they're sharing

some great advice from stage, but consistent sounds so loud from the stage.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

and it's so loud.

It fills the auditorium of the echo of what works.

I'm like, I wanna like say there's other things to be consistent at, like,

maybe you're a consistent call mentor and a consistent community member, a

consistent collaborator, a consistent behind the scenes DM supporter.

I don't know what you're consistent at, but there's other things.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Well, tell me this then.

So in 2018, we were talking at some metrics.

You've got these on your website, so we'll just take, take 'em straight off there.

5 million views in two years, million views in six weeks.

2000 to 35,000 followers from your LinkedIn Pro.

This is all 2018, right?

So, what my question to you is, were you consistent during that

time and what did you strategically do at that time on LinkedIn?

Do you think that made the difference?

And maybe this links well to your accelerator as well, but is

there anything you can share with us that you think immediately

I was,

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: you?

I was not.

I never focused on a strategy of consistently posting.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Okay.

I was just having the time of my life, so I just never had to sit down

and make myself think that way, which is a privilege, I guess, and it's a space

that I could be in, 'cause I was working that part-time situation and I was just

having a really freaking good time.

So I just wanted to post.

I was so excited.

I couldn't wait to get back to the computer to like put it all

together, put the video together, like it was just such a fun outlet.

I will say the number one thing that I was mentally saying I wanted to

be consistent at was commenting.

Really, really growing the energy of how I showed up and

just publicly went out there.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: So we're talking about engagement really, right?

Yeah, engaging on LinkedIn is a lot different than..

So imagine, to be honest, LinkedIn and TikTok remind me of each other when it

comes to commenting, and I'll explain.

I will watch a TikTok video I'll go to the comments, and then the

comments even crack me up even more.

And we can also see how much the comments are getting upvoted.

There's like comments.

I've had comments get almost a hundred thousand likes on a comment on TikTok.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

'cause it's hilarious.

The comments can be thoughtful.

They continue the conversation, they are context for that video.

Sometimes like, love the comments.

I even have channels I follow on TikTok that are literally

like, let's go to the comments.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's a strategy it it's a well-known strategy as well, right?

It's leveraging other people's audience.

You want to find your audience, you know who your audience are.

Go and find the big creators, go to the comments.

All those people commenting are commenting because they like the creators.

So if that's your audience as well, they're gonna probably

like your content as well.

So it's a great strategy.

I learned that strategy for LinkedIn, not on my content,

on other people's content.

If I was an early content writer, if I wrote a "Let's put Gary

Vaynerchuk in the hot seat".

If I wrote a comment within the first 10 minutes of Gary putting up a post

on LinkedIn, his audience saw my post and he has 4 million or some, I don't

even know back then how many he has now.

It doesn't matter.

But I got the attention of the audience following Gary because my comment

became top comment, that makes sense.

There's no official top comment, but when I'm getting hundreds of likes on

a comment on LinkedIn, that grew me on LinkedIn, that allowed me to not

just have to create content, but also just pop and take advantage of being

right there, right in the moment.

And I literally would hover on some big accounts just for the moment when

I thought they post and I would track.

When I thought Gary's team was gonna post and march down the time of day and put

it in my calendar, that is a strategy.

And did it work?

Yes.

I got attention, I got invited into VaynerMedia.

I got to have Claude Silver on my podcast because the team recognised me.

It's a valuable comment.

You can't comment some crap.

Like, you can't be like, good post Gary.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Well, thing is, Gary talks

about it himself, right?

He says, you know, I respond to all my comments.

I dunno if that is still the case now, but when I think about like, these

people are telling you the answers, you know, people really think, oh, well,

you know, maybe that won't work for me.

Whatever.

It's like.

Look, just, do what you're being told.

So far you've told us you're having fun on LinkedIn, which everybody says

you can't have fun on LinkedIn 'cause

it's a boring platform, right?

It's just for, you know, corporate people.

No, it's just totally rubbish.

If you change who you're following, find the right people to follow

that are just like you, people that you love being around you.

Find that it's a really fun platform.

Hang out.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Exactly.

And then, commenting on those people and that engagement.

But, you know, the problem with commenting, Judi, of course,

is that it takes effort.

And is effort what people want to put in, when they want to

post a video and it go viral.

And it's just not the only answer.

There's gotta be more to it.

I would say the skill that I built up a really good

quality comment and it's a skill.

I wasn't born with it.

I mean, hello.

I wasn't born like knowing how to comment on social media.

But yeah, it's such an amazing hack and when I say hack, it's like

I noticed when Threads launched.

I said, why don't I try out my early commenting on large

creator concept on Threads?

And it worked because there's an art to it, and really powerful to just start it

so you can actually start to get better.

It's like anything, you don't come out of the gate writing the most

amazing comment that gets you a thousand likes comments and whatever,

but I've done that on TikTok.

I've done it on every channel because it works.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: I can hear when you said that,

like you don't come out the gate.

Right.

I can hear all the people that, that are saying in their head, I'm not funny.

I have nothing funny to say.

I don't know what to say.

You can add you can data.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Absolutely.

Like you can do anything, right.

It is just, the reason why I talk to people about creating.

It is, and the thing I get people to do is create a video,

any video, whatever it is, right?

It's because the process of creating something opens your brain up.

So it's only then do you discover that some people do find you funny.

And actually, there is a lot you have to know about that expertise

that you've got in your brain, it falls out of you, you know?

But it is just an unused muscle, right?

Like commenting, it's a skill that you've just gotta learn over time.

I'm trying to think of the dates, but I think it was around 20..

2017 that I realized, whoa, if I start commenting, if I comment on Gary, if I

comment, it was 2017 that I started that and I really honed in on Gary 'cause

I just liked it and his posts lended themselves to kind of easy comments that

I could kick out really, really fast.

And by the time it was around 2019 is when I got to go into Vayner and do that

and record that podcast, record content.

So it took two years.

But that again, that's the power of being consistent on that.

He wasn't paying attention to my posts.

He was coming to me.

No, his team was.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: his team

his team was.

Yeah.

'cause I got to meet his team.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

And of course, and then of presumably now, you don't have to comment as much.

You get comments organically.

You've got a team that will help you with some of that stuff as well.

So it's not like you have to do it forever, but you do

have to do it for a while.

And in your case, you know, well, you got to that point in two years, but

actually 2018, if you started in 2017, 2018 was when it really took off.

So you you had a learning phase almost like the algorithms have a learning phase.

And then once you'd learn the phase, during that period, you

saw the compounding impact.

And I wonder if actually it wasn't like a big post that actually got you the views.

It was just the algorithm seeing, hey, this is a big engager.

We should give her more focus, give her more reach, you know?

LinkedIn.

Okay, how do I say this?

I like to think of some things in life, like I'm just playing a board game and

I'm just moving my little character.

So if I think of my points that I'm gonna get each time I get to roll and I get

to do my thing, so I'm like landing on the square of commenting and I'm like,

I got a hundred comments, I get 10, $10 or 10 points back, or whatever it is.

I get my little tickets.

From the machine of ski ball or whatever.

I don't know.

I'm mixing my game analogies, but I love gamification in my mind of what I'm doing.

So yes, I will say though that LinkedIn rewards my account that's specific to

LinkedIn, they will reward my account based on how much I'm commenting, period.

So for all of you, if you really did wanna get active on LinkedIn, it's not

just a funding I'm saying, commenting in general on LinkedIn gets your

content more points to be visible.

I think of it as like a point system because it's easy for me to go.

I got lots of points on my game board today.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

And, and it is absolutely every platform - YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.

You talked about TikTok being the same.

You know, like you'll notice the viral videos are the ones with

the most comments, the most likes.

It is just true, and it doesn't matter.

Austin Armstrong and another one of the guests, he talks about it doesn't matter

whether it's good or bad engagement.

Like if someone hates the post or is pointing out a spelling mistake

that you've got, like, it's still engagement, so it is just gonna..

Same thing on LinkedIn.

I love that says that but when you do something on LinkedIn, you

need to make it a clear statement so people can agree and disagree.

If you have a wishy-washy post with 10 million caveats and trying to cover

everyone's perspective, nobody is like, okay, that covered everything

I could have said in the comments.

You kind of have to make it a bit of a strong statement.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

and it's like you said about, it's great to have a disagreement, right?

Because it is just like, how boring would be if, yeah.

How boring would it be if we didn't find different ways of view?

Like neither of us can be right?

And neither of us can be wrong.

Like it's just our opinions, but

If we rewind and we go back to that moment, I literally said consistent

content is not like I said something strong 'cause I wanted to get a reaction.

'cause I know that's how we operate.

It's not that I am slow obnoxiously married to that, that I couldn't I agree.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a way to receive the response to it as well.

And I think that's the point where people go wrong is 'cause they try to

prove people wrong in their response.

And in fact, actually just being okay with somebody saying, oh, I don't

agree with that and this is why.

And you can just say, okay, cool.

Well thanks so

much for commenting, or whatever, you know.

So I did make a quote wall when I started content online.

I made a wall of quotes to keep and I didn't know I was doing.

Now I can look in hindsight and go, that wall quote kept me sane

and one of the quotes on that wall is you do not have to attend every

argument that you're invited to.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

I love that quote 'cause every day I look and I'm like, if you're

a content creator, you're gonna be technically invited to a lot of arguments.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah.

Yeah.

You are opening..

You're invited to arguments.

don't have to join them all.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Totally, totally, totally agree.

And I think it's a good point to make completely.

Look, we could talk forever.

Judi,

Yes, we.

Don't

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: wanna take all of your time.

Thank you so much.

Oh, the one thing I wanted you to tell me is about, just the last thing just

to finish on the consistency thing, is we talked just off air about the fact

that I messaged you two years after I originally messaged you about the podcast

and you said, and I felt really bad 'cause I sent the message and I said,

will you still be a guest on my podcast?

You said yes.

And I said, it's been a year since I messaged you.

And then I looked, and it had been two years, so I was like, so sorry, it's

been two years and then I just laughed.

And you said something about what permission it had given you for your

own podcast, so I just want you to talk about that a little bit because

often when we do stuff and we, like I'm really a big believer in just trying

stuff out and sometimes it's crap and it doesn't work and you can just

move on like nobody's coming to go.

The consistency piece are not gonna come in and say, oh my God, you didn't do

the thing you said you were gonna do.

Like, just give it a go.

But in this case, I didn't give it a go at all.

So talk about that for us for a second.

Yeah.

No, I, I, you, you've made my inspiration quote wall that I literally have, which is

this idea that there's this overwhelming feeling that connects us to moments in

our life that we didn't follow through, we didn't respond, we didn't, we messed up.

Like there's this feeling that I messed up, like I didn't do the thing

I said I was gonna, I don't know.

Whatever it is, we've all experienced it.

And if you're online, you're being asked to connect and talk and network probably

to an unsustainable amount of people.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Yeah, totally.

It's a mind blowing amount of people sometimes that

you can get into conversation with.

No matter what your audience is, there's so much activity online that

there's no way you can follow up and be perfect everywhere online,

but I still feel like we want to.

And so this feeling is released when I recognised my own response to getting that

message from you, which was just pure joy.

Like joy.

And I was like, wait, I don't care that it was two years.

There's no like angst, there's no, I'm actually just happy that

I'm on his radar that he asked me again when it was time and that you

were very just practical about it.

Like it's just a fact, like whatever.

It is not something to be shamed about, living in shame and carrying

that shame and which then doesn't allow you to move forward to create

the next thing you might actually create, which is now this recording.

So it releases me when I looked at that, I was like, wow.

I should just follow up with somebody that I, maybe I left them hanging

because I've left plenty of, I just have.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: There's many people that want you to follow up.

They're not sitting there waiting for you to potentially, but like, just the

fact that you are going to follow up, it's a good way to kind of close the

shame, if there is shame in yourself.

You know, like, and when I looked at it, I was like, you know, my list had

changed over the two years, of course, but when I went to all the people I'd

asked, 'cause I'd asked about 20 people.

I was like, a lot has changed for those people.

Maybe they won't wanna do it anymore.

Maybe they're too big or whatever.

But I just thought, I'll just go for it.

The worst thing that someone says is no, and then you've not lost anything.

'cause they, it was a no before you know, an unknown answer is a no before anyway,

so yeah, I just thought that was important to talk about, especially because we all

have the best intentions when it comes to consistency and creating content.

Like if you fall off the wagon, just get back on even if it's two years later.

Wicked.

Last thing I'll ask you just before we go, of course, how can people reach you?

Tell us a little bit about any products or anything that you wanna

talk about that you've got to offer.

Yay.

You can go to J-U-D-I, that is the judifox.com or just

go to LinkedIn, Judi Fox.

I'm always grateful for a follow on #FoxRocks on LinkedIn.

I think it's fun have a hashtag on that platform, and you will be in an elite

a group of people because there's about 1000, I'm trying to think how many

followers on that hashtag, but you'll be part of the early 1000 true fan vibe.

I will say will mail out Fox like little, oh my gosh, I mail these out

to people based on literally being fans of following my hashtag Fox Rocks.

When it comes to my business, I will say, I am headed in the direction

of putting out some videos that people can level up on LinkedIn.

The number one thing I'm focused on that I'm getting a lot of people

connected to is earning them a top voice badge now on LinkedIn that has

been opened up beyond just the top few.

It's being rolled out and now I'm a Top Voice, so I am gonna release that

'cause I was working with Doc Rock with Ecamm and he got a top voice

as a content creator with my advice.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: Excellent.

Amazing.

We'll stick the links.

If you send me the links to those things, I'll stick them in the

show notes afterwards as well.

Thanks so much for your time.

It's absolute pleasure, after all this time to see you again

and for you to be on the podcast.

I loved it.

Matthew Hughes - King Of Video: So I really appreciate it.

Thank having me.

Bye.