Today, Wistia reminds us of the most important aspect to brand affinity: connection. Pipedrive x Zoho Desk launch an integration, plus Drift’s David Cancel and HubSpot’s Katie Burke get real on workplace culture.

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The key to creating brand affinity: connection

Abigail Keeso Hopkins, Co-Founder of That Clean Life personalized nutrition software, started a tweet storm after she caught up with the replay of Wistia’s Change the Channel, re-bringing to light this idea of brand affinity.

A few weeks back we covered the Change the Channel event, a live broadcast by the Wistia team—during which their co-founders shared what they’ve learned about building brands, their marketing predictions, and what Wistia’s dropping in the space.

And what they’re really honing in on—connection. Namely, the undying value of brand affinity—and creating content to connect. 

Great brands like Mailchimp, Netflix, and Peloton are now being built on brand affinity. They spend time with their audience through original content to connect.

Arguably the best highlight to the Twitter thread: "Building brand affinity is essentially building relationships and this takes time. This approach is not a growth hack."

And we can attest. Of course it’s not a “hack.” It’s a ton of work. And attaining that affinity is the exact reason we launched an entire network of shows—the Recur Network—specifically for our industry, with a focus on finding the truth in this space. 

Now, this can be done for any respective industry. But what’s the hesitation for other makers? Jay Acunzo of Marketing Showrunners points out two of the biggest offenders: boring content and budget.

But if you’re setting out to find the truth, creating sophisticated content that your audience wants—to inform, educate, entertain—you can make this happen. If you’re concrete in your advice and actionable in your asks, your audience will want to come back. 

As for budget, well we can relate: we're a small team. Yet we work tirelessly to get this content out, every day. If you hire a group that’s dedicated enough and with the right skillset, you don’t need an army to get this done. 

Too often, content creation falls by the wayside, yet its importance (especially with the growing value for brand affinity) spans miles. And you know we’re all about that life—creating content that our audience asks for.

Check out Abigail’s tweet storm, and the Wistia Change the Channel event replay and chime in to the brand affinity conversation. What do you do to amp up affinity? If you don't, what is it you're afraid of? Maybe we can help. Send me a note at abby@recurnow.com if you're interested in continuing the discussion. I've had some of the best conversations when I hear from others in the space working devotedly to get to this place. 

Pipedrive x Zoho Desk: thoughts?

If you ever feel distance between your sales and support teams, listen up. 

Pipedrive and Zoho Desk launch an integration to better bridge the gap between sales and support. 

Apparently, Zoho Desk—what we know as the context-aware customer service software—and Pipedrive—the CRM designed by salespeople—are partnering to give better context to support tickets and help your support team get to them, well, faster. 

With the integration, we’re seeing some cool items.

• Bring information like name, email, and phone number directly from Pipedrive into Zoho Desk.
• View the number of deals, deal sizes, and other notes left by sales reps within Zoho Desk.
• Get a record of past activity a contact has engaged in.
• Create and manage contacts from your Zoho Desk account. Newer contacts will be synced with your Pipedrive account automatically.

So why is all this useful? This is an integration that’ll affect users across the board, in an aim at creating happier customers. With more context comes better support, so this one seems like a no brainer.

Deep dive

The One Thing: don't hire strictly for culture fit

Our man David Cancel over at Drift has a newsletter he calls the One Thing, which he sends to his internal team every Sunday—but now, he’s letting us all in on the insight from the mind of a five-time founder, two-time CEO. 

This week, he talks about the idea of “hiring for cultural fit.”

The problem with hiring for cultural fit, DC says, is that people tend to just hire people who look and sound just like them. And he reminds us that culture isn’t static. 

And says the key to hiring the right people is recognizing the behaviors you celebrate, and those you just tolerate.

“I believe the ‘tolerate’ part is most important,” he writes, “especially early on in a company. Because even if someone is an A+ player, if they don’t have the qualities you celebrate, then it’s not worth hiring them. They won’t work in the culture, and they won’t add value.”

It’s dire to be made up of people who look, sound, and think differently.

“But," he reminds us, "we also want people who embody the things we celebrate–like bias for action, an obsession with our customers and the desire to be a curious learning machine. So the next time you’re interviewing a candidate, ask yourself: ‘Does this person represent what we celebrate?’”

Take it from Katie Burke, Chief People Officer over at HubSpot, who agrees: embracing the skeptics is often what helps your operation get the leg up that other totally like-minded groups don’t have the chance to do so.  

"I actually very much welcome our culture skeptics and, in fact, some of the best people we've hired in our organization—particularly senior hires—are skeptics by nature... Sometimes those people are asking hard questions to help your organization get better."

More from Katie Burke on this episode of Protect the Hustle. Sign up for DC's One Thing here.

Overrated vs. Underrated: customer reviews

Overrated/Underrated is a game in which players deem debate-worthy items as they see fit. From freemium and free trials to the cannabis company boom, no topic is off the table. In today's segment, our ProfitWell team debates the value of customer reviews. What do you think—overrated or underrated? Let me know: abby@recurnow.com. 

That is a wrap for your October 15 subscription news. Send your teammates to profitwell.com/recur/recurnow to sign up for episodes on the daily.

If you have news to share, hit me up at abby@recurnow.com and let's collaborate. We want to feature you—our neighbors in the space.