Brianna is the Founder and CEO of Verbatim. She helps companies build successful, scalable marketing programs. With more than a decade of experience in demand generation, content, influencer marketing, and social, she brings a unique perspective to her work.
Briana shares her journey from aspiring screenwriter to marketing expert, emphasizing the power of storytelling in job interviews.
She offers advice for teachers transitioning to new careers, such as using the STAR framework to structure interview responses and learning industry-specific terminology through free resources like HubSpot Academy.
Check out the podcast today to hear tips for storytelling during the job interview and more!
Find Brianna on LinkedIn.
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Mentioned in the episode:
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- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Suto: Hi, and welcome back to our next episode. Today’s guest is Brianna Doe. She’s the founder and CEO of Verbatim. And Brianna helps startups and small and medium businesses build successful, scalable marketing programs. She’s had over a decade of experience in demand gen content, influencer marketing, and social, and she brings a unique perspective to her work.
Today, if you are a job seeker, this episode is for you. We discuss her expertise. We talk about how she uses storytelling through her marketing work, and also how you can use storytelling to get your point across concisely and impactfully during the interview process. So I hope you enjoy this episode.
Welcome back to the teacher career coach podcast. I’m so excited today. We have our guest Brianna Doe with us today. Welcome Bri.
Brianna Doe: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Elizabeth Suto: Well, we’re excited to learn from you. Um, and To kick us off, would you tell us a little bit about your background and kind of how you got into marketing and storytelling in the first place?
Brianna Doe: Yeah. So for context, I’ve worked in marketing for about 12, 13 years at this point. Originally I wanted to be a screenwriter. So if we rewind all the way back to college, I was studying film. So certain that I was going to move to New Zealand, work in the film industry, never come back. Right. And then or so in, so beginning of my sophomore year, I had an opportunity to start learning marketing.
I had some friends who started non profits and I really wanted to help out. So at that point, I started learning everything I could. I studied graphic design, paid advertising, content marketing, you name it. just fell in love with it completely. I kept studying film, got my degree in that, and then when I graduated, I decided to pursue marketing full time instead of my degree. So from there I worked in house at mostly like fast paced, really lean startups for the first 10 or so years, and then I actually left the world of tech Last year in 2023 went out on my own and launched verbatim. So now I own a full service marketing agency. We work with small businesses, startups, enterprises, you name it.
And we are full service.
Elizabeth Suto: Very cool. Well, I’m excited. Our listeners today, I think this will be great because it’s kind of twofold. You have that marketing expertise. So some teachers, you know, are looking to get into the marketing field and then also this great storytelling aspect. And when teachers are going through the job search and the interviews, it’ll be just exciting to learn a bit more about how we can convey.
Storytelling, uh, through that process and then also New Zealand. That’s, I did not know, is that like a big film hub for,
Brianna Doe: Well, I’m a huge Lord of the Rings nerd. So Lord of the Rings really catapulted New Zealand into like the film industry. And people got to see how beautiful the country was for the first time if they hadn’t traveled there. Um, so I did a study abroad trip. I was in college, went to New Zealand and just really loved the way they approach like indie filmmaking. It’s a very weird obsession, but I just love the country.
Elizabeth Suto: that’s awesome. I’ve heard it’s beautiful. Never been, but I’ve heard.
Brianna Doe: It’s stunning. It’s absolutely stunning.
Elizabeth Suto: Oh, I’ll have to add it, add it to the list. Well, we, we’d love to hear a little bit about, um, Of course your company verbatim, but before that, would you mind touching on a little bit about what you did with marketing in those tech roles?
Brianna Doe: Yeah, so as I mentioned, I worked for mainly startups. So Typically, like with early stage startups, the teams are small. When you, you know, join the team, you might have a title, like one specific title, but you typically wear a lot of hats. So I generally came in as like a marketing generalist, and then I managed everything from design and branding.
So like sales collateral, social media design, things like that, social media management as well, content marketing. So all things. SEO, blogs, video content, et cetera, paid advertising and influencer marketing too. I also dabbled in web design for a long time, so that sometimes, you know, helped me in my roles, sometimes not.
Elizabeth Suto: Awesome. And that is quite like how you mentioned a startup, you’re wearing lots of hats. So, you know, when we think of marketing, sometimes we’re like brand marketing content. And so you kind of oversaw all of it.
Brianna Doe: Yeah, and it’s, that’s one of the things that I really love about startups, but it’s, you know, it can be overwhelming too. So it is important to keep that in mind, like during the interview process, when you’re really interested in a role. Typically, like the larger the company gets, you’ll start to see more segmentation.
There will be a brand team to your point or brand marketing team. There’ll be a content team. There’ll be a growth marketing team. So it really depends on the size of the company and how much they prioritize marketing.
Elizabeth Suto: That’s good to hear. Kind of like knowing where you’re applying, what your target companies are and then how to adapt. Your application and what you’re doing to, to get there.
Brianna Doe: Yeah, you have to read that job description very carefully because it could say, you know, social media manager. And then you see in there, you’re also managing paid and you’re also managing graphic design. So read it carefully, carefully and ask good questions.
Elizabeth Suto: Yes. Yes. Well, tell us a little bit about Verbatim and kind of how you went out onto your own and what problem were you looking to solve when you started this company?
Brianna Doe: Yeah. So when I first started thinking about launching an agency, seriously considering it, it was probably eight years into my career. I enjoyed working in house, but You know backtracking to when I graduated from college. I didn’t do a marketing internship. I hadn’t studied marketing You know like officially so really important to me to learn as much as I could so I dove into a lot of different industries And so when I would work in house at a company and be freelancing consulting on the side, I really loved how busy I was and how many different kinds of projects I got to work on. I loved working in different industries It was like the more industries I could work in, the more creative it allowed me to be, because I could apply what I was learning in different roles. So, fast forwarding again, when I started considering opening an agency, that was one thing that really drew me to the idea.
I didn’t want to be pigeon holed into working for one company, or you know, one brand. I wanted to be able to help different companies in different ways. And that’s You know, I’ve been in tech for a few years now. And so we all have seen the market lately. So I actually landed a new role in early 2023 was very unhappy pretty quickly.
I was wearing a lot of hats again and was a bit burnt out. So I hired a career coach to help me figure out like what my professional blind spots were. How could I be a better leader, a better employee? very easily and very quickly saw that I just wanted to go out on my own. I started planning all of it out and then a couple weeks before I was going to put in my notice, I got laid off.
So it worked out pretty well, thankfully. And the timing was impeccable.
Elizabeth Suto: Wow. It really was.
Brianna Doe: Yeah, it
Elizabeth Suto: that’s so, it’s great to hear too about what kind of that self growth journey and figuring out, you know, which way you wanted to go. And then I know storytelling is a big part of what you do for these companies and brands and building trusts. So in your words, what does storytelling mean to you?
Brianna Doe: Storytelling, in my own words, it is a form of communication or a method of communication. Yeah, communicating information that either informs, engages, or entertains your audience. It can also be a combination of two or all three, but generally speaking, it’s, it’s one of those three.
Elizabeth Suto: Awesome. Well, we’d love to learn a bit more, you know, throughout the job search process. There’s resumes, interviews, projects, and we’ve heard a lot about, you know, how do you have this personal narrative and, incorporate your skills into storytelling, you know, show not tell. So we’d love to just kind of start by learning a bit.
If you have any tips on, you know, potential employers, what are they really looking for when, what are they, how can you translate your skills into a story?
Brianna Doe: Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting. There’s definitely a balance, right? So when you think about a typical story, whether it’s a book or a movie or whatever the case may be, obviously it’s longer. You don’t want to. You don’t want to treat it as if you have all day to talk to the interviewer. you have going for you is that one, you are in this interview.
So they have already seen something on your resume, you know, in that first call, whatever that made them want to continue the conversation. And now your job is to tell a story in a really concise, compelling way that communicates the information they need to know to make sure that you are the right fit for the role. So typically, you, uh, Watch a, let’s take a movie, you start with the exposition, or the situation, like you’re laying the, laying the groundwork, you know where the movie takes place, whatever the case may be. starts to happen, you see the results of said action in the climax, and then what comes after that, and then the movie, unless it has a sequel, it is wrapped up very nicely in a bow. So if we apply that to interviewing, there’s a framework that I like to recommend. It’s a STAR framework, it’s Situation, Task, Action, and Result. So if we compare that, the situation is when you say This is the problem that I was given, or this is the situation that I was tasked with fixing or resolving. this the task that I set out to accomplish what I actually did to accomplish it. And then the result. And the nice thing about that is obviously fill that in however you’d like, but you’re able to create a story that your potential manager or potential team can follow really easily instead of getting lost in like too many details or not enough details. I found that to be really, um, helpful. Because to a certain extent, interview is about finding out like if you’re a good fit skillset wise, but also to see how you communicate and if you can communicate clearly and concisely during the interview, that also is a huge green flag.
Elizabeth Suto: That’s great. That analogy was so good. I’m thinking now, you know, if they’re asking, what’s your greatest strength? Is that something you could apply there? Thinking about a time? where you showed your greatest strength and using that method.
Brianna Doe: You could, the way I would typically recommend approaching the questions is if the interviewer starts with something like, tell me a story about X or T, Give me an example of when you accomplished X. That is when the STAR framework will really work. With questions that are more straightforward, for lack of a better term, so like, tell me your greatest strength, what you can do is, I would start with just answering the question.
Be really clear, answer what they’re asking, and then maybe offer a really quick example of how you accomplished that, and then you can incorporate the STAR framework.
Elizabeth Suto: Okay. Makes sense. And then with that, usually in the initial phone screen, there’s some kind of question like, tell us a bit about you, you know, about your background. So in that case, you know, I kind of think about a personal narrative and the elements of a story. What do you recommend there for kind of framing that out?
Brianna Doe: So what I, what I recommend there is still start with the foundation. So that could be why you’re interested in this role. What brought you here today? you move into a little bit of backstory. What has your background look like? How has it prepared you for this role? You move forward into like why you are specifically interested in this role and why you believe you’re the best fit.
And then you can wrap it up with. Either a fact or a story, whatever the case may be. So to actually this, for example, I could start with what I said at the beginning of this recording. So if we rewind back to college, I originally was going to be a screenwriter. I studied film, fell in love with marketing at a really, really early in my college career and then spent the next 12 years after college pursuing full time marketing. So my background spans Content marketing, SEO, paid advertising, growth marketing. And that’s what’s brought me here today. So I’ve been working in this for a really long time, um, between freelance consulting and in house roles. I do believe I’m a great fit for this position because of X, Y, and Z. And what really interests me in this role is A, B, and C. So something like that, hopefully that’s helpful.
Elizabeth Suto: It is. Yeah. And it makes sense too, to think about it when you’re planning to kind of chunk it up. And then as you practice it, it gets more into a flow.
Brianna Doe: It does. And you don’t have to memorize it, but it does help to practice it. Right. And to give people that anchor at the beginning. So they understand what brought you to this point and then start to fill it in with the necessary skills or experiences that you’ve had that make you a great fit.
Elizabeth Suto: That makes sense. And, and something you mentioned earlier was, you know, stories, movies, they’re all a bit longer than what we have time for in the interview. So, I know one thing teachers are just concerned about is, you know, you have this specific amount of time in an interview and you said it perfectly.
You want to be clear and concise. So is there a way to know, um, how to do that? When it’s kind of time to wrap up or stop talking, I, cause I know you also want to engage the other person with, with questions and, and that.
Brianna Doe: That’s a great question. And I know that’s something that a lot of folks struggle with. It’s like, you, you have to strike this balance between, Giving enough information, not too much, and not leaving them with a lot of questions that you could have just answered with a bit more information. The, you know, my first and my short answer is, you have to gauge it.
So, on the video, it’s probably going to be a video call or it’s in person. If they start to get like fidgety, if it’s clear that it’s, you know, They’re just losing interest or they’re distracted and they weren’t at the beginning. That can be a sign. So just pay attention to body language. And then also this is, this will be based on the person a bit more, but if you’re practicing before the interview, try timing yourself. Not the first couple of times when you’re still getting a flow for it, but when you start to have that rhythm time yourself, if it is longer than a minute, minute and a half, maybe two minutes. See if you are only communicating the necessary information. If you’re getting into too much, what I like to call fluff, that’s when you’ll start to lose your audience.
In this case, the interviewer.
Elizabeth Suto: Okay. That’s a great idea. And, and speaking of timing yourself, I was also going to ask, do you have any specific exercises that you like to do? When kind of planning for this storytelling and, and it doesn’t have to necessarily be, you know, in an interview setting, but any sort of writing exercises or, you know, speaking out loud exercises.
Brianna Doe: Yeah. So with interviews specifically, I do recommend working with like a coach or a mentor and just running through questions. Because they can be an objective third party and be like, Hey, that was actually very long. That was six minutes. And I clocked out or I checked out at minute two, you know, so work with somebody, even a friend who can just listen to you. Outside of that with storytelling in general, I, one thing I’m consistently working on and trying to refine are my hooks. So whether I’m writing a LinkedIn post or a blog for a client or whatever the case may be, um, making sure. The hook is accurate, right? But really compels the reader, really draws them in.
So typically when I’m writing, I’ll, before I even start writing, I say, okay, what’s my objective here? What is the main takeaway or two takeaways that I want this reader to gather from this? My first draft is a complete mess. I just brain dump all of it. Don’t worry about formatting or anything like that. And then I go in for round two and start building like a bit of an outline. I know a lot of people start with the outline. For me, it’s just never worked. I think that’s from my procrastination days in college. But yeah, I go in for round two, create an outline out of what I’ve created, or out of what I’ve written, and then start going in, out the details, and then I end with the hook.
Elizabeth Suto: Okay.
Brianna Doe: And it’s worked for me pretty well.
Elizabeth Suto: Awesome. Well, I’m excited. You know, a lot of teachers, especially if they teach elementary school writing or high school English, it’ll, it’ll be just fun to hear, you know, they have different frameworks that they teach and, and how they can incorporate that. And what we’re learning from you today and kind of like hone this in to really be able to.
Tell a story, clearly. And, as for the resume, do you, are there any situations there where you think writing something a certain way may be more impactful?
Brianna Doe: Yeah, definitely. So the first thing that comes to mind are the bullet points that you include with each job. Um, one thing I see a lot on resumes, two things I see actually, it’s either not enough detail. So it says, for example, managed a team of five, which is great information, but let’s say that’s just not enough information.
Or on opposite side of the spectrum, it’s more of a story within the bullet point. And so, The hiring manager or the recruiter has trouble pulling out the impact that you made or the value of that bullet point. So what I recommend is you set the scene, with something like, with the managed a team of five example, let a team of five in X, so brand, social content, whatever. And then you finish with the impact of the result driving. 50, 000 in revenue through paid advertising monthly, or something like that. So if you just keep it short, end with the impact, and don’t worry so much about the fluff. In this situation, you don’t need to spend as much time, like, setting that foundation. If you imagine your resume in the hands of a recruiter or hiring manager, they have maybe 5, 10 seconds as they’re skimming it to look at each bullet point, or Whatever even a few minutes. So what do you want to communicate immediately? What impact do you want to showcase? And then cut out everything else.
Elizabeth Suto: That makes sense. And in that aspect, that is something super concise. Like you said, they don’t have a lot of time to look at it. So go right into the impact right away and get rid of everything else.
Brianna Doe: Exactly. The goal for the resume is to get you the interview. It’s not to get you the job. That’s the objective of the interview. So put just the information they need to make a decision to call you. And then on the interview, you were able to then get to know them, like show your personality, things like that.
Elizabeth Suto: And I noticed, um, on your LinkedIn as well, you had back in the day, you had a jobs board and then you had a blog, the Sunday scaries, if I’m saying that all correctly and tell us a little, I’m just curious, what was kind of your inspiration? Because I think that was, was so helpful for so many people.
So where did it, it kind of come in where you were connecting with these job seekers and supporting them?
Brianna Doe: Oh, gosh. Yeah. So back in 2022, I believe, um, or late 2021, all of these layoffs started happening, especially in the world of tech. And so one thing I saw of posts about and a lot of challenges around we’re finding. that not everybody was applying for. If you went to like the LinkedIn job board or Indeed, everybody was seeing all of the same roles. So you would go to apply and it would say 500 other applicants or a thousand other applicants. And there are so many roles out there with smaller companies, ones that weren’t as well known. Startups that were offering great comp, great benefits, was a great team, and they just didn’t the same level of brand awareness. And so my goal was never to Like replace any of the big job boards, but just to offer a resource for job seekers that, know, maybe wanted to find other potential roles. So back when these layoffs started happening, it started with a post. I just said, I found a few roles that within companies that people might’ve missed.
I said, Hey, here are, I think it was like 10 or 15 jobs that you might not have seen. And then people started commenting with other roles, like other opportunities that they’d seen as well. It was a lot of information in one post. And so, I decided to make an Airtable spreadsheet and host all of them in there.
People could submit jobs there, and it was nice. I will say the issue was it did not automatically update and I did not have the time to go through each company page and see when the role had been filled. that was a bit of a pain point. I transitioned to a company called Palette where the jobs expired after 30 days.
I didn’t have to. basically vet or verify the job submissions. It was just me, you know, adding them in myself. And then early this year, I moved it to like its own platform. It’s called F the Sunday Scaries. There’s never a blog, just the job board. And it is coming back. It’s just on a temporary hiatus because I’m working a lot. So I had to deprioritize it for the summer.
Elizabeth Suto: Oh, well, thank you. Um, I’m and what a way to pay it forward. So thank you for paying it forward to all these job seekers. And I
Brianna Doe: Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Elizabeth Suto: Oh, no, you go ahead. Go ahead.
Brianna Doe: it’s a lot of fun. And selfishly, entry relaxes me. So it’s a very nice way to spend like a Thursday evening after work. So I can’t wait to get back to it.
Elizabeth Suto: Oh, that’s awesome. I love that that data entry relaxes you. That’s funny. I can just imagine you with some tea or whatever your favorite snack or beverages.
Brianna Doe: actually. Yes. Yeah,
Elizabeth Suto: my gosh. That’s so funny. I had, okay, my next train of thought. Oh, it was like you mentioned. Um, I know a lot of teachers in the community are going to LinkedIn and that is kind of a mental struggle because they’ll see, it shows you right away.
It’ll say 700 people have applied for this position. And, um, so I think it’s great. You know, there’s other places out there to look and, and there is, there are those big job boards, but, uh, do you have any other resources that you kind of recommend for where people look or,
Brianna Doe: there’s so one thing to note too with When you see large numbers like that, once landed a job, my job in 2023, actually, before I went out on my own, landed it through LinkedIn, easy apply, and there were over 500 applicants. I’m not saying just do easy apply. I am saying it is there for a reason. So I would not spend all of my time there, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure your resume is optimized and then And then also keep going and find other avenues. That being said. A great job board that I see making the rounds is called still hiring dot today. It’s completely free. I love it. It’s great. super path, I believe has content roles well and exit five, which was founded by Dave Gerhart. It’s a, like a community for B2B marketers, but there is a job board attached to it. Free. I think it’s completely open to use. And those, I found that to be incredibly helpful.
Elizabeth Suto: for sharing those. We’ll have to put those in the show notes. I appreciate the resources. And then wouldn’t you be able to share an example of something you’re working on now with storytelling with the client and you don’t have to go into any, any specific names or anything, but what’s kind of an example of a marketing strategy that one of your companies is looking to use that you’re kind of incorporating storytelling into.
Oh,
Brianna Doe: who she’s the founder of. Basically, she runs really curated wellness retreats for very specific audiences. One audience is corporations. So if they have a corporate like executive team or even like an entire department, they want to. Like really important to their mental health, they can send them. Other audience are like high performing, high achieving black women. And the third audience are healthcare professionals, primarily women’s health. And so the price point is higher. They are luxury wellness retreats. And so that brings up a unique problem, right? You, you do not have a problem convincing people to go on a retreat, but once you hit a certain price point, the messaging really has to shift and your targeting has to shift as well.
So we’re actually working through this now. We’ve been working on the messaging and positioning for a few weeks. It’s a mix of like strategy calls, then also me doing, you know, work off the calls as well. And what we’re really trying to refine is she communicates the value of these retreats and the story she tells about, one, why she started curating and hosting these, and two, What the transformation looks like for people that attend them. in theory, like a luxury wellness retreat is an easy sell, right? But each audience that we’re talking through and targeting has very specific challenges and very specific hesitations. And so creating the right kind of content having the right information on the website, way to drive conversions, it’s all very intricate and a lot of fun.
Elizabeth Suto: that’s so interesting. Thank you for sharing that.
Brianna Doe: Yeah, it’s been great. It’s, it’s a fun challenge for sure.
Elizabeth Suto: And is there anything you would tell, um, some of these teachers who are at the very beginning of their career transition journey, and maybe they might be looking to get into marketing. Are there any things you recommend they do, kind of, I know, you know, if they’re working full time, they don’t have a lot of free time, but in the evenings or the weekends to try to be a little bit ahead of the curve?
Brianna Doe: Yeah. So one thing I always recommend is learn the lingo. So you can do this through like HubSpot certifications. They’re completely free. The HubSpot Academy offers courses in just about anything you can think of with marketing. They’re fun, they’re, you learn a lot, and you can complete them on your own time, they’re not timed or anything like that. So, and it’ll also help you learn the lingo. You’ll walk into an interview, or you’ll update your resume accordingly so that it’s clear that you at least have like a basic understanding of the job that you want, how to communicate in that role, things like that. To learn the lingo first and foremost. Second actually ties into the first. So get some certifications. You do not have to get all of them. There are so many, but just pick out a few ones. Like what aspects of marketing do you really want to pursue? What do you want to dive into? And then what can you learn on the side? Like while you’re applying for jobs that will only help you third. Join communities Marketing is like there are. s a huge field, but it’s also a very small world. And so if you can find communities where you can connect with other marketers, you can have informational interviews, you can go to networking events, just the more you can connect and network and meet people, you’re going to start creating like a really solid network of your own.
And the same way people buy from people, they also want to hire people that they like truthfully. So just put yourself out there within reason.
Elizabeth Suto: Those are great tips. And I think the first one is so important. Learn the vernacular, learn the lingo, um, and then upscale and build relationships.
Brianna Doe: Exactly. And the thing with like learning the lingo is you don’t have to be an expert, right? But it will help you stand out. It’s, it’s fine if you have gaps and like areas where you want to improve when you come into the role. But most companies, they also want somebody who showcases their willingness and their drive to learn.
And so if you’re already doing that and already applying yourself, it’s also a green flag.
Elizabeth Suto: That is such a good point because then, like, you’re showing it, you know, you’re not, it’s, they see that and you’ve shown something without having to tell it, um, yeah.
Brianna Doe: Exactly.
Elizabeth Suto: Well, we’ve learned so much from you today and have appreciated your time and we kind of love to wrap these up by hearing from you what you learned about yourself during this process.
You know, going from your early days thinking you were going to be in film, and now you’re Working in tech and now owning your own business. What are some of your key takeaways?
Brianna Doe: Yeah. One of my key takeaways is it might sound like common sense, but I do have my own voice. I spent so long ghostwriting for CEOs when I was in house and, you know, creating social content in the voice of the brand I was working for that you start to kind of. A, get burnt out on social, or B, start to feel like maybe you’ve lost your own tone of voice and your own style. But, I haven’t, thankfully. And so it’s been really nice, like, diving back into writing a lot. Um, I’ve been guest writing for some publications. I write on LinkedIn, obviously. And so, it’s been nice, like, balancing that with work. I think it has helped me become a stronger marketer, too. Like, developing my own voice again. so, yeah. I’ve also learned that storytelling, Storytelling looks different for everybody and for every situation. So, like we were talking about earlier, The story you tell on your resume needs to be a lot shorter and more concise than the story you tell during the interview. And so, whatever I, or you, or anybody listening to this is learning about telling a story, Like, still make sure that you’re applying it and tailoring it for the situation.
Elizabeth Suto: That makes sense. And I love the part about you finding your voice again after, you know, ghost writing and that’s just, Oh, I just love it. So thank you so much for sharing. And it was a pleasure to meet you and I’m excited for all of our guests and teachers to listen. So thank you so much, Bree.
Brianna Doe: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was great. I hope this was really helpful.
