Category: InterviewCategory: Interview

Here’s a bit from my interview with Rusty Pilgrim:

Q. I have to be honest —my opinion of marketing is pretty close to that old Bill Hicks joke where he says, “Are there any marketing people here? You? Great. Kill yourself. Seriously —kill yourself.” That’s more or less how I’ve always felt.

But your approach is completely different. In fact, it’s so different that I wouldn’t even call it marketing. Was there a specific moment or event that led you to take this path?

A. Lots of Seth Godin books, starting with Purple Cow. Make something remarkable, and people will make remarks. It five people like it, maybe they tell five more. If they don’t, start again. Either re-work everything, or play to the crowd, or double down and find the right five people who might enjoy what you’re doing.

Not everyone is going to love what we do, and that’s okay. Even the most famous people on the internet are complete unknowns to most of the world. So to me it’s all about making a thing that you can make, making friends, having fun, building community. If that leads to paying some bills, great. If not, at least you’ve enriched the lives of those around you.

How do you get more subscribers? Pitch yourself. Get awareness off your plate and go do fun stuff with other people.

Jason Mantzoukas loved the UK show Taskmaster so much he pitched himself to be on the show.

Everyone should just know how hilarious Jason Mantzoukas is, right? Instead of sitting around and hoping to picked to be on the show, he reached out. He put the ball in motion.

Jason could have posted every day on social media hoping that the executive producers would see how serious he was. Or, he could tell his manager. Send some emails. Get things into motion. We can do the same.

Camilla Wickman has a new album ‘Red Rock, Seal Skin‘ coming out August 22, 2025.

In this interview you’ll hear how Camilla started making frequent social media posts to promote their upcoming album, which felt out of alignment.

“There’s been a long period over the winter and early spring where I was just like, what now? You know, what does it look like to kind of try and play the long game, or just be authentic? And I think there was a minute there where I was like, maybe I just quit music.”

Thankfully there was enough goodness around to keep moving forward.

Kristen started her Awesome Ladies Project years ago by inviting a few people off of Instagram to be creative together on a Zoom call.

“I wanted to build like a an alt feed where people could feel comfortable sharing the art that they’re making. And that’s been the underlying bridge of everything that I’ve done is I want to have this place on the internet where people feel safe telling the stories that I’m asking them to tell because I ask people to do kind of vulnerable things sometimes and I want to make sure that they have a space where they feel like I’m not, you know, throwing them out to the wolves.” Kristen Tweedale

The internet is a big, wide open world. Building your own community is the opposite of that, where your work and the things you share exist in a smaller space, with the right group of people who can enjoy it in peace.

Had an amazing chat with artist David Speed on his Creative Rebels podcast:

“Navigating (social media) is hard, so I was so happy to chat with Seth Werkheiser who offers a bunch of alternative ways to connect with your audience. Ways that don’t involve spending six hours producing a video that won’t be shown to the people who have chosen to follow you!”

We end our chat talking about this post ‘Outdated expectations kill creative dreams,” which is about my dad, and I was surprised to find myself getting emotional talking about it, but that’s where the conversation went!

Give a listen to the full 57 minute interview on Substack or Apple Podcasts.