What The Funk?

0:00 And we're back on what the funk, we've got Bella, Kailata, Kailil,

0:06 BKK. BKs, I'm sure some of your friends call you. And now I call you because it's just easier to say than Bella, Kailata, Kailil. And you said it perfectly.

0:17 My name gets butchered so often it's already long enough, but honestly, you did perfect. Is Bella your first name or is it's like, Elizabeth, like, what is Bella short for?

0:29 It's short for Isabella, but my name is already too long as is. So people just call me Bella, Bella Bells. I think you're the first person to call me Izzy in the.

0:40 Well, I'll say, I'll mine. Well, Bella, I'm, I'm really excited to have you on today. You've burst on the scene, at least my scene with going to events, recording yourself. You're not afraid

0:53 of putting content out there. I think you like to have fun and you're part of the team at midnight marketing.

1:00 Beyond that, you're also super passionate about marketing.

1:06 I think you've done a nice job building the brand a little bit around midnight. We'll get into all of that. But you're chiming in from Quebec today, right? You're in Montreal. I am born and

1:17 raised in Montreal. Which randomly, I had somebody yesterday on the podcast who was born in Montreal. And maybe 10 episodes ago had somebody else that grew up in Montreal and lives there now So

1:29 maybe there's a stronger oil and gas tech connection in Montreal than anybody realized, or they just keep hitting my radar, but. I think it's a bit of both, 100. I mean, it's very rare that I'll

1:42 find anybody who is a Canadian that's from Montreal, 'cause the second I introduce myself, they're like, well, where are you from? I say Montreal, they're like, oh, Canada, I know Canada.

1:51 I've been to Calgary. I'm like, if you're an oil and gas and you've been to Canada, it's always Calgary, 100 Yeah, so. You may or may not know this. My listeners are probably sick of hearing

2:02 this 'cause I say it every time a Montreal person is on the pot. I grew up in New Hampshire, which as the crow flies is really not that far from Montreal. So what you're saying is that we're

2:12 actually somewhat decently related or neighbors? Yeah, we're neighbors for sure. We're sure. A lot of French like last names in New Hampshire to lots of like La Plants and things like that, right?

2:24 So. Oh my gosh, yeah We,

2:28 you know, when I was younger, like the drinking age in Montreal was 18. So, and we always used to say, as long as you can see over the bar, they'll serve you in Montreal. So like we would go up

2:39 for like New Year's Y2K. We all went up there because most of us were like 19 and 20 at that point. We used to go to Expo's games, used to hang out on St. Capron Street, go to the Casino, all

2:50 the things that we weren't legally allowed to do in the US until you're 21 So Montreal was like a little bit of a playground for us, really, really loved it. great city, beautiful city, so cold

3:02 in the winter. But yes, I hadn't gone to Calgary until I was like, I don't know, 3031 working in oil and gas, and realized, Oh, okay, like, this is the oil and gas hub, this is very

3:14 different from Montreal. Right. Very different. Montreal is very much, I don't I don't know

3:20 if I could say anti within gas, but they're definitely not going to want you to promote it and talk about it the way that we do in Calgary or the way that you do in Houston. Forget about that. We

3:32 talk about renewables, very anti-willing gas and you're like, that's it. That's all you're allowed to say. So when you're in like, when you're at an oil and gas conference, you say that you're

3:41 working oil and gas when you're talking to people at a bar in Montreal, you tell them you're working marketing. Yeah.

3:48 And they say, Oh, what kind of marketing do you do?

3:51 And I'm like, for the energy industry, and they're like, Oh, that's cool. So they're thinking, you You know, wind, solar, anything but oil and gas. And then I mentioned the big bad scary oil

4:01 and gas and they're like, oh, okay. And then the conversation is caught really, really short. Don't talk to her, should we kick her out of here? Oh my gosh, she's gonna bring up barrels again.

4:13 The devil. So we've already gone a few minutes and I haven't even gotten to ask my favorite question. Who are you, Bella? Who is BKK? Oof, I asked myself that question on a daily basis, to be

4:27 honest You know, so I'm the BD manager, business development manager at Midnight Marketing. So I like to tell people my job is talking and making friends. That's the basis of my job. And you do a

4:40 good job of that, but that's only your work life. Like where did you grow up? What's your background? How did you get to this point where you're now the BD manager at Midnight Marketing? Talk to

4:50 me about your upbringing. Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Montreal,

4:57 where it's super, super French, but I didn't speak any proper French. Like, I understood it, but I wasn't fluent in it perfectly until I was maybe 17 or 18. My mom is English English, so I

5:12 learned how to do her accent more than I learned how to speak French properly. And then when I was around 18, I moved downtown. I became friends with this French girl, and before you know it, my

5:24 accent, on a dime, switched around. But yeah, no, I grew up doing theater. If you knew me before that, you wouldn't believe me. If I told you I was super shy, hide behind my parents' legs,

5:39 not want to talk to anybody shy. Oh yeah, oh yeah, people would sing Happy Birthday and I would get overwhelmed and cry, that was shy I was. And then one day, I think I was maybe 11 years old.

5:53 I did this internal theater piece in class, And I had to rap about. Pi, P-I-E, not P-I, like the food. Yeah. And one kid said that I reminded him of Weird Al Yankovich. Why we're listening to

6:07 that 11 years old? I don't know, but that boosted my ego so high, I was like, I have to do something with this. And so I've just put myself in the most awkward of situations possible in theater,

6:20 just so I could, you know, keep getting that ego boost to the point where I put on a dog costume I was total in the Wizard of Oz. Terrible. I do have a picture of that, I'll send it to you later.

6:34 It's very blurry and I'm so glad it's the only picture that will ever surface on the internet. But yeah, I just went from there. I went to college and I did cinema and communications, literally

6:46 movies and talking. And I found myself, I found myself just wanting to constantly create content, put myself out there and get into acting but I never did anything with it. after college. I got

6:59 into retail as a operations manager, either on the floor talking with people, whatever that was, but I never really got to put myself into actual acting. And then I had an opportunity to work in

7:14 Ontario with Small City in Ontario, which for people that don't know where that is, is the province next to Quebec. I did a little stint there for my career. I was administrative officer, so

7:25 basically recruiting. I did recruiting. I entered in sales. It was really fun for a while. And then I started getting into the outdoor sales, so door-to-door with that same company. Wow. So

7:39 literally getting doors, physical doors slammed in my face. That is a tough job. I lasted for one day at a door-to-door sales job, like kind of knew I wanted to get into sales. coming out of

7:53 college, I'm like, yeah, maybe I'll be a lawyer. And it seems like too much work, expensive law school. All right, let me get a sales job. And got suckered into this thing that was

8:01 door-to-door sales. And it was like, wow, I mean, and I get it too. I don't like when people knock on my door and they're trying to sell me something. But if you can do door-to-door sales, you

8:12 can do anything. Honestly, door-to-door was the biggest eye opener. I mean, what did you sell?

8:19 Well, it was one day So I feel like it was, oh God,

8:26 I've tried to block this out because like dogs barking at me and chasing me off their yard and things like that. But it was some sort of like financial, it was something financial related, but we

8:37 might have been selling like magazines or something. I don't know. Again, I don't even want to think about it. I feel the same way when I think about my very short stint in door-to-door sales We

8:50 did telecommunication, so. TV, internet, home phone. The one thing that requires you to physically step inside their house, I've had people either yell at me, stick their dogs on me, which, I

9:03 mean, thank God, I love dogs, but that was terrible. Genuine PTSD from that. And then I've had people that have invited me into their house for coffee, they're like, yeah, let's talk about how

9:15 bad my internet connection is. What can you do for me? But I used that for, I think it was a year that I was doing the door-to-door, getting the actual door slammed in my face. And then I was

9:28 like, you know what? I want to move back to Montreal. We ran out of turf to cover in Ontario anyway, so moved back. And I'm like, I want to push myself a bit more. I didn't go to university. I

9:38 only have cinema and communications. What can I do with that? And I checked, indeed, and there was this posting for office coordinator at this cute little marketing company, maybe not little,

9:49 but it was this cute marketing Why not? Let's test it out. I like their website. Give it a shot. Um, and so I go in, I do my round of, uh, of interviews and they hired me on as office

10:00 coordinator, uh, not even BD. So I started doing like coffee runs, recruitment, coordinating the office. Um, and then I ended up here. Wow. So indeedcom and actually worked out for you.

10:15 That's fun. Indeed, indeed, indeed worked out for me So you didn't have any oil and gas background, right? You had a little bit of a sales background. You've got this kind of cinematic thing.

10:27 You wanted to move back to Montreal and then boom, you end up as the office coordinator for midnight marketing. And they realized really quickly, okay, there's a lot more that you can do. We're

10:37 going to move you into a BD job. How long did it take before they realized? Maybe you should be doing more than just office managing. I started February 2023 and I started BD June 2023.

10:50 So they liked you and they're like, there's just more you could do. Yeah, I mean, I was really grateful that I had a lot of time to spend with my boss at the time. He was in, he doesn't live in

11:00 Montreal. So just the fact that he was in town meant, okay, I gotta squeeze as much information out of you to understand what you want from me. And then he's like, listen, I've got a lot going

11:10 on in my brain. I wanna build out a sales department. I think he'd be right for the job. And so we just, we kicked it off really quickly, basically taking all the information that he had,

11:22 everything that he's learned, and also mixing it with all of my learning process of the industry, 'cause like you just said, again, I have no oil and gas background. I live in Montreal. People

11:33 don't wanna talk about oil and gas here. But trying to fuse the two together in those first few months was so interesting. Absolutely the most interesting experience I've had. Interesting, but I'm

11:45 also guessing overwhelming Like, if I think back to 2008.

11:49 which was my first year in oil and gas. I was just inundated with acronyms and just getting lost on these calls so quickly, like, okay, somebody just referred to like an API and an API could mean

12:03 something in like programming and development. It could also mean something different in oil and gas. Like I have to decipher on the fly what people are talking about. Did you do like an intro to

12:12 oil and gas course or did you just sort of immerse yourself and start learning the industry based on being on calls and in conversations, going to conferences? I just full on immerse myself. I

12:24 already am not the biggest fan of swimming in the deep end but I just shoved myself in there right away.

12:31 I tried to learn as much as I could as well. YouTube videos had a lot of people reaching out to me too that were connections of my boss. I were like, hey, if you wanna learn more, here's a

12:41 YouTube video that I did, here's an article that someone wrote, whatever that was. And it wasn't until recently that I actually started doing courses. I'm actually doing one right now, which is

12:51 basically just the history and structure of oil and gas. And so what that looked like, who was the first person to find a well, the fact that it was an accident, what that looks like, learning

13:03 about the standard oil and how that erupted all the way until I think I've just completed another course on drill bits I've done one prior to that, but I've just finished another one. So I've just

13:18 been immersing myself in that and the conferences are so, so, so helpful. I love those. I genuinely love conferences. Well, it can be overwhelming sometimes, like there are so many conferences

13:33 you can go to. Actually, I was talking about Tim Loser, Rest in Peace, my former podcast partner. When he and I were working together, I said, Oh, Tim, I just found out about this conference

13:42 It's in Houston that Deloitte's putting on, maybe you should go. Jeremy, I could go to a different oil and gas conference in Houston every single day of the year. Right? So it's important that we

13:51 figure out like which are the ones to go to, I'm like, right? Yeah. Okay. So you have to kind of decide like what are the ones that make sense. And I've seen you at NAIP, I think you do some of

13:59 the social octane things. You go to the digital wildcatters, energy tech nights. So like you're, you're in it, right? And now you're like really kind of putting yourself out there into this

14:08 space. What do you do? Like what does a BD salesperson do for a marketing group? And let me say this caveat with our own funk futures really have kind of three distinct arms to the company. One of

14:20 them is like contract fractional sales for emerging energy tech companies. And that is the majority of our business. We also do recruiting, placement, you know, full time contract gigs. And then

14:32 the third, which I don't really focus on is marketing. I just sort of have it there because sales and marketing are so closely intertwined. So my marketing opportunities generally come from like,

14:41 Hey, I'm thinking about like starting this brand or like. Maybe I need to write some case studies or something. So we sort of fall into doing a little bit of marketing. But with you, your focus

14:51 being on selling marketing engagements, projects. Like, what does that look like? Do you approach oil and gas companies? Do you approach tech companies? Like, what do you go about doing? And

15:02 is it content marketing? Is it website creation, recreation, like SEO? Because marketing's like a pretty wide swath. So just curious, like, what does that look like for you? How do you go

15:13 about doing sales for a marketing company? Absolutely. So one of the biggest things is definitely the fact that when it comes to marketing specifically, not everyone likes to be sold on it and not

15:21 everyone

15:24 wants to be approached and said and be told, like, I can be doing so much more for you guys. You need to be a bit more modern. People are like, oh, it's fine. I'll figure it out. Usually they

15:33 hire an intern straight out of college. They'll figure everything out. But then that person ends up wearing 12 different hats end up being the graphic designer, the coordinator, the copywriter.

15:44 And before you know it, they got so overwhelmed and you're like, I don't know what to do with myself anymore. So the way that we go about it is like, so we do three things. We do websites, we do

15:54 branding and we do marketing. And the big part of marketing is like you were saying, so like the content creation, writing the articles, the strategy behind your marketing, your entire brand

16:06 essentially, and acting as either the entire team or we're just a supplement to the team that you have to remove all those hats that are overwhelming you. You know what I mean? So to tie back to

16:18 being at conferences, when people approach us, it is so much easier to have that conversation because they want to inquire, they want to know more. And so that's basically what I say. It's like,

16:31 listen, oil and gas is either super old school or you're trying to make it new school, very modern, but that one person is wearing too many hats and you need just someone to like. get some of that

16:44 work off your plate to be able to maximize on it. So I'd say that's definitely the easiest way to go about it. And then obviously when people start seeing you a bit more, they're like, oh, you're

16:54 marketing, what do you market for? So, obviously we say energy, we say energy is the forefront, but we're agnostic. We could be doing tech, we could be doing real estate, we could be doing

17:07 consulting. At the end of the day, it's like we wanna see good marketing, regardless of how it's achieved. And what would you say is like the superpower? I was on a call with someone named Chase

17:21 Knoll, who's awesome, he was on this podcast, and I connected him with my marketing friend, Nicole Nixon, who's an incredible content marketer, brand creation person. She and I worked together

17:32 at WEnergy, and I pushed her for a while, like you gotta go out and do this by yourself, like you just working for one company is not the best use of your skills, and she's crushed it Like I love

17:41 what she focuses on and chase. got on a call with her and he asked her like, what is your superpower? And she said for her, it's like grassroots brand creation, like logos and what should the

17:52 website look like and pitch decks and things like that. What would you say is midnight's superpower? Well, I'd say definitely the customer service behind it and the transparency from the get go,

18:10 even before you reach out to any of us, before you even do any research, you're on the website and you see how transparent we are with some of the people that we work with, the prices, what's

18:20 expected of us and what we can provide for you guys. So, and I know that a big issue in the community, well, just in the industry in general, or just in marketing, to be honest, is the

18:31 communication and the lack thereof. It's either very one-sided or there's just none of it at all. And so being able to be transparent with them from the get-go just kind of shows, this is what you

18:42 can expect from us going forward. We set you up from day one with our kickoff calls and we're like, listen, this is what we're gonna cover, Mondays and Fridays, you get your recap calls, or your

18:52 recap emails, what we're gonna cover, your analytics, we cover so much in there as well. And so it's really just that communication. We like to say that we're a customer service agency that just

19:04 so happens to be good at marketing, to title it. Yeah, a lot of super creative people. And the team's like, what, 30 or more folks right now? Or 45 now. 45. So like, is it a mix of graphic

19:19 designers and, you know, technical resources as well as just like the traditional creative types that come up with all of the content? Like what's the mix out of marketing firm? Oh gosh, we

19:34 definitely, We have a whole mix of everything, copywriters, graphic designers. developers, UI UX team, we have a plethora of really talented marketing coordinators and project managers, which,

19:47 to be honest, makes my job easier because if it wasn't for, and the video team and the animators, if it wasn't for all of them, I would have nothing to sell because people want to, people want to

19:57 see what you're capable of doing. And so the work that they have, sometimes I'll pull out our quality control channel I'll go back a few months and I'll say like, this is some of the video work

20:08 that we've done. This is some of the graphics. And it's just so much easier to promote and it wouldn't be easy if they weren't there to do it. But we even, we've gone as far as to get, to get

20:18 some of that knows the industry very, very well to help us out with content and pinpointing holidays within the industry that we otherwise wouldn't have known about. Yeah I feel like that's a big

20:31 advantage that you guys have, and just in general, when companies come to me and ask like, what's a good marketing agency. us to work with. I'm like, you really want to avoid a generic marketing

20:41 agency. You want to work with somebody who knows the industry because describing what your value prop is. For most of these companies, it's so niche, which makes it really complicated if you don't

20:53 understand oil and gas, right? So to be able to bring in subject matter experts is a big deal. And that's a huge advantage that you guys have because there's not a lot of what I would consider like

21:03 oil and gas focused marketing firms, at least for my radar. So you've got this like nice niche where, well, who do you go to, right? Well, go to midnight marketing, right? They know what

21:14 they're doing in this space. I mean, we've been really grateful as well. So we've been around for four years now. And we've been going, I mean, this entire stint of conferences has only just

21:26 happened now between me and my boss. Before that, it was all referrals. And so if we have people that are still with us, oftentimes I'll have someone reach out to me say, Hey, I love the work

21:38 that you did on X, Y, Z client. I want the same.

21:42 Okay, so get a little excited there. I'm like, oh,

21:47 that's so easy, right?

21:50 Wonderful. So how about you personally? Like what do you like doing outside of work? I know that obviously the things that I see is me following you on LinkedIn, me seeing you at events. Like

22:01 obviously you're investing time just to fly to some of these places in Texas And, you know, Western Canada and all that. But you don't work all the time. You live in a place where there are

22:12 seasonal sports. Like right now is an amazing time to be in Montreal. It's like, what does Bella like to do outside of just work? Oh, so this might make me sound a little older than I actually am,

22:25 but I love the two Cs, cooking and crocheting. I think those are the most,

22:32 I think they're the most creative. things that I can possibly do for myself that allows me to create, but also decompress at the same time. Yeah. So no, I haven't made any, any mug koozies. I'm

22:44 not there yet. I haven't, I haven't crocheted them yet. I will, I will work on those, um, but just, just to go back to your point, like investing all the time to fly back and forth, it gives

22:55 me so much time on the plane to crochet. So I'm in the middle of making a bag. I think I made, I think I made a hat It's, I love it. I love that. I mean, there's something meditative about both

23:08 of those things. For me, right, and people that listen to this podcast kind of know this, I made a pretty substantial life change about two years ago and decided to get sober. So

23:22 you know, that can be hard in this industry. It's so social and there's so many events, conferences, networking things, like you mentioned. And it was easy for me to just be like, all right,

23:31 well, I'll go to this thing And then you have a couple drinks. You have a couple more drinks. You go out to dinner, you have wine. And then you're kind of a zombie the next day. I'm like, no,

23:40 I'm in my 40s. Like I want to have a major life change. But then I'm like, okay, I'm sober. Now I have more time. I need some hobbies. And for me, smoking meats has actually become something

23:53 that I really like to do. Because I think there is like a meditative component to the cooking piece. So it sounds like for you, your means of decompression is crochet and cooking. Which is nice.

24:06 Like you can really kind of absorb yourself and all of that. And I would guess, I just went to France recently, it was amazing, went to Paris. Like the food over there is tremendous. And a lot

24:15 of that influence, of course, is in Montreal as well. You have like certain types of dishes or things that you like to cook when you're making food. Oh, I don't know if this is technically

24:26 considered like physical cooking heat, all that kind of stuff. But I'm a sucker for making pokey bowls.

24:35 Oh, so delicious. Get me a nice piece of tuna from the grocery store, slap her on with a little bit of sesame seeds and just chopper up, put her in a bowl and just displaying it. I might just

24:49 have a whole conversation with you on cooking, to be honest. Now I'm getting hungry. I know. Me too. I might just have to order myself a cookie bowl after this because I don't have anything in my

24:58 fridge right now to be able to do it. I'm moving. I need to get out But, or I'm moving, I will have access to more cookie bowls, all as well in the world. Everything is fine. So you're moving.

25:10 You're not moving to Houston or Denver or something. You're going to stay in Montreal. So that has been a big question. Every time I go out to Houston, the first thing people say is, Hi, how are

25:20 you when are you moving?

25:22 That's definitely something that I've toyed with a lot. So it might be a 2025 plan, temporary, permanent, who knows But for right now, I'm moving closer into. downtown area. So a lot closer to

25:36 the office. And it's just, it's so beautiful. Honestly, if you haven't, for those of you who haven't been to Montreal, you're missing out 100. Oh, totally. I mean, and I think summer and

25:49 fall, especially, right, you know, you're talking footage and you've got rivers that kind of snake through the city and lots of great restaurants and art and beautiful cathedrals. Yeah, I have

26:04 fond memories of Montreal, but I haven't been in so long. So I do want to see how it's changed because I think my last trip there was like 2002, something like that. Quite frankly, I think you

26:14 need

26:16 four days maximum five. You stay straight in the downtown area. We have a very, very nice mountain. You stay in that area and you could walk everywhere. So you are getting your 10, 000 steps.

26:31 Do not even worry about that. definitely four or five days, absolute max, stay in the downtown area, go down to the old port, walk back to the mountain, just lie down there. That's all you need.

26:44 And the food, obviously, like you said, the food is nuts here. Yeah, well, to me, that's the Parisian influence, right? Like France, it was actually really startling to me, 'cause I was in

26:54 London for like five days on business, and then went to Paris for a couple days. I'm like, wow, they've really got the food dialed in in France. What happened in England? Why are they just like

27:04 gnawing on fish and chips? Like, what is going on over here? It's the mushy peas. It's the mushy peas. The mushy peas. Yeah, but no, I do remember that. Having some bloody Caesars and eating

27:16 lots of amazing food in Montreal, for sure, was a thing for me. I wanna talk a little bit more about marketing and the content that you put out. So is that like part of your job description you

27:31 should be putting out this level of of content, is it something that you love to do? Is it part of you showing how you build your brand and then encouraging some of your clients to build their brand

27:42 in the same way? Talk about like some of what you like to do because I've noticed you have sort of your own flair. You like to interview people at events, right? You like to wear funny sunglasses

27:52 and just sort of like be yourself. So talk about like some of the marketing content creation that you do. Do you like doing it? Does it make you uncomfortable doing it? I'm like, what is it all

28:02 leaving to? Honestly, I love the whole content creation part. I definitely think getting into this position as well, I was, I'm BD, so I have to go out there. I have to sell what we do and

28:14 everything, but a big part of it is also creating the trust behind it, 'cause no one's gonna wanna buy from you if you're just like stoic. You talk about what you do and then that's about it. So

28:26 one of the goals getting into LinkedIn, especially was building that bridge, How else can I do that then getting my face out there? Already, as you can tell, I love to yap. Literally, I'm

28:38 pretty sure I have certified yapper in my LinkedIn bio now because people just know me for talking so much. I have no problem with it. I could do it all day. It's perfectly fine. So I figured why

28:49 not put that together with my love for content creation and just showcasing the behind the scenes of work are people, what we do on a daily basis, posting the day in the lives, that kind of thing

29:00 And I think that's also super interesting.

29:03 And so just - no, it's not a part of my job description at all, but we were like, listen, if I'm going to get my face out there somehow and really bring the word of midnight to LinkedIn, what

29:15 better way than to just post? And posting things that people are going to like, the interview videos, I wasn't expecting that to do as well as it did. And it's one of my top three videos over the

29:27 last year on LinkedIn So people were commenting, they're reposting,

29:32 Next time you're out there, I want you to ask this. I want to know these kind of questions. But they're also industry focused. And that's what people like to see. They like to see for once a

29:42 positive light shown on this industry, which we don't otherwise would get very often. Well, so, you know, I have theories behind that and I want to share it with you. So the term marketing in

29:54 oil and gas refers to the sale of your commodity, right? So an oil and gas company produces oil, it produces natural gas. You know, now we're seeing other different flavors, maybe produce

30:07 hydrogen or something. But marketing, the term for an oil and gas company means basically listing your product and finding a buyer for it. 100 of the time, there is a buyer for the product that

30:20 you create. That makes it different than every other type of marketing, right? So even just like the terminology in oil and gas is different than what you think of traditionally. content or

30:32 product marketing. So it's never had to be a major emphasis for companies to think about. That's on the operator side. So then you think about the companies selling to them. They think, I think,

30:42 marketing more of pitching directly to a company, which is, I think, more of as sales, right? Or getting a booth at a trade show, which is like a very traditional means of getting your name out.

30:54 I think the shift that we've started to see with oil and gas embracing social and the internet is truly, you can create a perception that is not so hidden and dark. And I think that's what you guys

31:10 do a nice job of, ironically, not dark, midnight. But you're doing a good job of that. And I really encourage more and more companies to put a face behind it. That was the whole impetus for

31:21 starting this podcast is bring the personalities of the oil and gas industry, the energy tech industry to the forefront. because oftentimes it's a vilified industry. And now you wanna put, look,

31:34 these are people that have kids and lives and families and aren't here like pro pollutant, you know? Like everybody is, you know, these are normal people, these are good hardworking people and we

31:47 need to get that word out there, which is something that I think we've done a pretty good job of and you guys have done a good job of and is super meaningful. But I do think there's still work to be

31:57 done to shift the concept of what is marketing in oil and gas. Do you guys work with other industries as well? We've done other industries before, absolutely. I just feel like 80, I'd say a good

32:08 85 of our client base is energy. Yeah, well, I mean, if it's working, right? And it's not coming to you, just do it. Absolutely, I mean, that's the whole reason why we started. We saw that

32:20 there was a gap in the market for, you know, personalizing the industry, making it a little less villain, I don't even know. How did you say that earlier? Villified. Villified, I like that.

32:33 I'm gonna use that a lot more. Word of the week, vilified. I was gonna say vilified. So anyways, just turning, me too. I think we can coin that for this episode. Yeah, just basically putting

32:45 a more humanized face to it has definitely been the goal. And that's why I see a rise of dual account marketing really going far with the industry that we're in So for example, like me and Midnight.

33:01 So obviously I post my own stuff, I post about marketing, I post about business development, but I also tie it back into the company that I work with to be able to do that human perspective while

33:12 the actual company account gives it the more professional look, the numbers, the analytics behind everything. And someone that does it as well, really, really well is midday squares So they post

33:26 a lot. on their own LinkedIn. And I follow the three founders, but there's one person who does it. I think it's, gosh, I'm gonna forget his name now. Anyways, there is one of the co-founders

33:39 of Midday Squares who's posting on his own personal LinkedIn, has 40, 000 followers, his

33:47 engagement is really, really good. And it just goes to show that having both is if you know how to do it right, then you can go a long way with it I think that, so you really just hit on something

33:60 that I struggled with for a long time, which is, and maybe more so when I was working as a W-2, as opposed to running a company, I felt like, where is the balance between promoting myself and my

34:13 own brand versus promoting my company? 'Cause if you're always going out and you're basically a walking billboard for your company, you're not gonna get as many likes, you're not gonna get as many

34:24 eyeballs, and you're doing yourself a disservice because you've now created. your own individual persona as part of a company brand. We're all people, right? We're all individuals. So I think I

34:34 struggle with that for a long time to be like, well, how much of my posting should be like personal, like in about me versus how much should be about the company that I work for? I'm curious kind

34:46 of what thoughts you have on that because yeah, you're building a brand where people now know who you are, but they're also tying you into midnight. Odds are you're not gonna be at midnight

34:55 marketing forever, right? So you want people to still follow Bella and appreciate Bella for who you are as a content creator, as a sales leader. Like what advice would you have for somebody that's

35:05 in that position of like, I wanna put myself out there more, but I also wanna be showing the company that I work for. How do you suggest somebody balance is that? How have you done it? I mean, I

35:16 don't think there really is a perfect recipe for over promoting your company, but also being true to who you are I think. I think that the key to it is learning how to do both at the same time. So

35:32 you can be talking about

35:35 marketing and sales and how that correlates back to the industry and then use that call to action at the end being like, hey, if you guys need any help, how so happens that we happen to do this as

35:46 well. Same thing with the industry videos, like again, a lot of that is like, that's my own personal thing That's what I do, but I also, there's a part that I haven't released yet, but it's us

35:59 talking about marketing, and what I do specifically versus the marketing that an individual will do for their own company, what they think marketing is. So honestly, my best advice is just to AV

36:10 test it. Post, just post to post, not post to post, but post meaningful content that you think the people that are following you would like, and then check your analytics every week Check them

36:23 out. I think if you go to where your impressions are, your engagement, you just see past 365 days and see what's performing the best. And to be honest with you, for me, it's always been that

36:34 content that is in between where I have a little bit of midnight. They know that I work there, but they know that I can separate myself as my own personal brand outside of it. Yeah, yeah. So it's

36:47 really finding that balance. Like what is the combination of both? I've also noticed I'm linked into, and maybe it's just that there's more people creating content now, but like my posts used to

36:58 do bigger numbers. I'm not sure why that's the case, but like even if I think back to like five, six years ago, I would get like crazy amount of impressions and likes and the type of posts haven't

37:11 changed that much and I've tried to tweak the algorithm and figure out like what cracks the code, but it just feels like it's less and less. So I don't know. I don't know if that's like a change I

37:21 need to make I'm not doing it for. likes, but I do want people to see what I'm doing, right? Because that's, of course, a driver for potential leads and revenue into the company. But I am

37:35 wondering if it's just there's more content now, so people are scrolling through, and there's more and more. And that wasn't the case, even just whatever, five, six years ago, or if it's not

37:46 compelling enough, and I need to start shifting things. I did a day in the life video that actually got a lot of likes, and I was super passionate about building that That was fun. That was not

37:54 for me as much as anything. Thank you. Pay somebody to follow you around in video for the day and let them edit it and chop it up afterward. Yes, please. Who doesn't want to do that, right? No,

38:06 honestly, I don't think that it's how compelling the content has been. The content is always going to be compelling. It's just that the algorithm has become such a science now. I was reading

38:19 something the other day where they're like engagement of video - posts with engagement, like a higher engagement, get viewed so much more than higher impressions, which makes not a lot of sense,

38:33 but it also does. Like apparently, if you get a high amount of engagement in the first 60 to 90 minutes, your post is automatically gonna get shown so much more throughout the feed. And then

38:46 that's how your impressions are gonna rise. Whereas with impressions, is it about tagging certain people? Is it about tagging companies, hashtags or the hashtags vague? How many hashtags are too

38:58 many hashtags? Yeah. So it becomes, it's like a science. So every time you click post, it's like, okay, now what? Some people say, when you post, you're supposed to start commenting and

39:11 engaging on your feed for the first like five to 10 minutes to start getting that out there. But then some people post and then they ghost. And there's nothing happening. Yeah, and then they get

39:22 good engagement anyway, so. Yeah. It's a struggle. Yeah, I've talked to a lot of people about this and I think LinkedIn wants to keep you on their site. So if you post things like website links

39:36 that take you somewhere else, they're gonna suppress that post a little bit, right? 'Cause they wanna keep you on their site that don't want you going somewhere else. So what I've done to mitigate

39:46 that a little bit is like for this podcast, I'll take a screenshot, I'll post a little bit of like what we talked about and then I'll put the link to the digital oddcatters, like what the funk page

39:56 in the comments, right? Because I've tried it the other way where I put it in the post and it doesn't seem to get a lot of action. It gets a lot more if you put it in the comments and then if you

40:07 engage with it or midnight engages with it or what the funk page engages with it, then it starts to like pump it up a little bit. So I don't know, it's cheeky And I can see where people get

40:19 discouraged a little bit too. Um, which I've, I've said this to so many people who are earlier in their content creation brand building journey, which is, okay, so say you put out a post and it

40:31 only gets two likes, it only gets like 200 impressions, you know what, like that's still a net positive. Yes. It's, it's two people that liked it. It's a couple hundred people that saw the post.

40:42 Don't be discouraged. Right. You don't know what's going to land with someone. And if one of those two people that liked it ends up becoming a customer, it was successful Just with 5, 000 likes

40:52 and get no business out of it. Right. So don't be discouraged. Like be consistent. And I think that LinkedIn as well also rewards consistency in posting. So I try to be like, at least once a

41:03 week, try to put something out there and be steady, which is easier to do with the podcast. But candidly, like, I don't always have something fun or creative to post top of mind every week.

41:13 Right. So I don't want to force it. I want to try to maintain a brand of like authenticity And if it's like I'm just like a walking billboard for my company It's not gonna win as well. Yeah, no,

41:24 exactly. I definitely feel like the more and more you post, it has to sound like you. Like if you're doing a podcast, or if you're getting on a client call, or if you're making a video, the most

41:34 important thing is that you sound consistent throughout everything, 'cause if you start using your sales voice compared to who you are, when you actually get to meet these people in real life,

41:44 they're like, What, who are you? So, no, the whole consistency is massive Yeah, a couple more questions I have for you. I wanna put you on the hot seat here. So, one is,

41:60 if you were to give some advice to your younger self, like call it young 20-ish-year-old, 22-year-old Bella, like what would you tell yourself? What advice would you give yourself with the benefit

42:12 of hindsight?

42:17 Oh, that's good. I said it was a hot seat. That is, I'm boiling here. Oh, I said hit me with it, but I didn't mean that hard.

42:28 What you want to accomplish is only off limits if you stay stagnant.

42:35 Whoa.

42:37 That's my, that's my, my, my hot seat answer for little Bella. I didn't think that, to be honest with you, a few years ago, I didn't think that I could be where I am now Because where I am now

42:48 is based off of, yes, being in the right place at the right time with the right people, but putting myself out there, that's all been me. I didn't study marketing. I didn't study sales. I

42:60 didn't study oil and gas. And yet here I am with an opportunity to network with people that I didn't even think would look at me at all And we are so you everything is possible for you unless. you

43:16 are stagnant. So just go, even if you don't believe in yourself, still push forward because you will eventually learn that you are capable of it. I love that. I mean, it's have a bias for action

43:28 and see it through. And I do think that is, that's big for somebody younger because it can be very intimidating when you get out in the business world, right? I question myself so much. I

43:41 remember reading a book calledCorder Life Crisis and I'm like, this is where I'm sitting I felt like I sat in this place from like 22 to like 28 where I'm like, I don't like, I have work ethic but

43:52 I don't really know anything and I have these big dreams, but I don't have anything, right? Like, what is my place in the world, right? And I think that if I were to look at myself, it would

44:04 just be like, just keep going and be afraid to fail. Like, people are gonna forget any mistakes that you made. Mistakes are expected, especially when you're younger. keep pushing through, don't

44:17 let setbacks prevent a comeback because we're all gonna have them. I remember the first time I got laid off from a job. I was like, and the company wasn't doing well, but I blame myself. What

44:31 could I have done differently? It's sort of like, oh God, what a loser, right? I lost my job. What am I gonna do? And within a month, I found a job that paid me15, 000 a year more in salary,

44:43 right? So like, I shouldn't have been wallowing away and being so bummed out that I didn't succeed. It's like, well, maybe that just wasn't a great company. And look how things turned out. It

44:53 was actually a net positive. So yes, having a bias for action, I agree, it's totally, totally valuable. I wanna talk about you personally as well. So for your career, like, where do you see

45:05 yourself in three to five years? Do you see yourself taking the path of leaning more into sales and business development? you see yourself ultimately taking on a role as like a chief marketing

45:14 officer. a company? Is it growing midnight as much as you possibly can? Like there's no wrong answer, but if you were to say, all right, five years down the road, are you still in Montreal?

45:26 Are you leaning into sales? Are you leaning into marketing? Are you making movies? What are you doing?

45:33 Okay, I need a fan because these are getting real hot questions. Okay

45:38 So location, to be honest view, so all of our clients, everyone that we talk to, they're not in Montreal. I think I have run into perhaps a handful of people that are, but other than that,

45:53 everybody is out in Houston. So five years down the road, I definitely like to be spending more time there than just three days a week, because I feel like there are so many opportunities But I

46:05 would definitely like to say that my role will still continue to be talking client-facing, whether that's maybe not CMO, I don't think I see myself as a CMO, but I definitely see myself leading a

46:20 team of people to be able to go out there selling, but it's not selling in the traditional sense where it's like, this is what I do, this is what I'm gonna do to make sure that you can take my

46:32 services, when do we start? Like, I wanna find a different approach to selling that is not in your face, you have

46:42 to answer me. So, I'd like to expand my horizons, who knows? I also think, just to plan a seed with you, I don't say this to everyone, I think that you should consider starting a podcast. I

46:51 think you guys did recently launch a podcast. Yeah, we recently launched, not your story. I've been on there, two of our project managers have been on there, my boss has been on there, and Lord

47:05 knows that it's hard to get him on the podcast. So, just having us all there is really interesting. And I see Rory, so Rory's the host, The way that he works and the way that he gets everything

47:17 out there I Might plant it in his head that if you want a second co-host that I would uh that I would be there Who knows Rory if you're listening. Let's have a meeting after this. Well, you're

47:29 better be listening I mean you're just such like an authentic organic Content creator and marketer that I think it would make sense for you and your brand to lean more into that Um, and I think that

47:43 you're just like genuine, you know, genuinely a curious person from what I've seen that It's the right fit for you when the digital lock hatter's guys. We're talking to me. She's 2018 to back

47:52 going

47:54 2019 2020 either like You should start a podcast and like about what? You know, like it doesn't matter like you'll figure it out, you know, like you you like asking people You genuinely like

48:06 listening to people and their answers And you're a sales guy, like you can ham an egg, like just think about it. And I'm so glad that I did. And I think COVID had a lot to do with it because it's

48:17 like, oh my God, like how do I get my name out there? How do I help my company that I'm working for at the time they're brand out there if I can't visit people in person? So the podcast was like a

48:29 very natural way to do that. And people were like starved for content at that point in time. There's no sports, right? There weren't movies coming out. Like what do we do, right? And people

48:39 started listening and watching podcasts more So just something to think about as you continue to grow and increase your brand. Final question, where can people find you and find your company? Oof,

48:51 in Montreal, if you're there.

48:55 If you wanna come visit me in Montreal, I will be your tour guide. I'm putting it out there right now. After office hours, please. No, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on the

49:07 midnightmarketingcom website My, my LinkedIn is literally my name. Bella Colada Khalil. I'm the one with the green cowboy hat. And if you can't find me there, you can also find me with Shmeezy

49:19 Alien.

49:22 Yeah,

49:24 which I've seen. Well, Bella, thank you so much for coming on what the funk. I appreciate you bringing your authentic self today. It's gonna be fun, of course, it's gonna be fun watching you

49:34 evolve in your career because you haven't been in this space that long, but you've burst on the scene. People are now getting to know who you are So your potential is limitless. I'm excited to see

49:45 it grow. Thank you. I appreciatedFunkin' Around andFinding Out with you today.

49:51 Thanks.