Jess Ruhfus of Collabosaurus talks taking your business global, building a brand and podcasting

Jess Ruhfus is the kind of girl you have a conversation with once and feel like you’ve known for a lifetime.  Down-to-earth, charming and a self-confessed dork. We just want to eat her up.  But, like, in a cute way, ya know?

One thing’s for sure.  Jess Ruhfus is a lady on a mission.   After working in the PR space, Jess noticed a gap in the market for businesses wanting to take their marketing efforts to the next level through collaboration.  So, TADA! Collabosaurus was born:  A dating site for brands.

Your personal branding is effortlessly cool and bloody brill.  Do you have any advice for business owners wanting to develop their personal brand along with their business? 

“Pay people to describe your personal branding as “effortlessly cool and bloody brill” and you’re halfway there (laughs). I cannot believe the word ‘cool’ comes to mind because I’m legitimately one of the dorkiest people you’ll ever meet, but that’s so lovely, thank you!

I suppose I stumbled into consciously having a personal brand, by default being attached to the Collabosaurus business. Advice for business owners is, do it your way and what’s comfortable for you. The great news is that you can shift and change your strategy as you learn and grow.

What you’ll likely find in small business is that people connect with real humans, and having a personal brand or presence is simply an excellent way to establish trust, rapport, a conversation and extend the impact of your brand.”

You’ve recently taken the leap to expand into the U.S. market (go you!!).  What prompted the move?

“A lot of people don’t realise – we actually have a presence in the states already! It’s small, but it was enough to push us to make a move on one of the biggest markets for Collabosaurus‘ growth. Our second largest website-traffic source to Australia is the U.S, and so I was attending a workshop on ‘international taxation law’… sounds like a wild night, I know! At the workshop, Austrade’s Landing Pads program was mentioned as an option for Australian businesses interested in expanding, so I applied to the San Francisco landing pad on my phone while I was *ahem* listening intently to the panel of brilliant financial people.

A few months later, I got an email letting me know I had been accepted and I had 48 hours to confirm my place! A mild panic attack later, and here we are in San Francisco.”

Collabosaurus helps brands create powerful connections!  Can new startups and people who haven’t established a large social following still benefit from it?

“YES!! Absolutely. It is 100% NOT about social media followings or business size. Co-marketing and collaboration marketing are all about leveraging what you already have. That could be your skill-set, your products, your time, your venue space, your email list, or your *highly engaged and growing* social media channels, or your content creation skills. Collabosaurus works for brands big and small! The only requirement is that you need to have launched your business – or at least be very very close.”

You’ve got your last ever $500 to spend on marketing your business. Apart from collaboration (wink), what would you spend it on?

“A year-long subscription to Collabosaurus, which is $360 for the entire year. That gets me up to 60 potential co-marketing connections with amazing, complementary brands for social media, product or event collaborations that can double my reach of new customers every time. I could spend it on paid digital advertising but pffft – Collabosaurus is 30x cheaper than those (shock!) so cheap. I know.

The remaining $140? I would either be spent it on driving new people to our podcast – Stop, Collaborate & Listen – so that they can build awareness and trust through valuable content, or to bring a small event to life. Every business is different, but I really see the value in localised, event marketing and high-value content.”

Bingeing Stop, Collaborate and Listen is one of our favourite past times.  Would you suggest that all business owners start a podcast?  And has it affected your relationship with your audience?

“Oh, you are amazing! Thank you so much for listening. Podcasting has been an incredible channel for Collabosaurus – quite unexpectedly. I started the podcast as a complete experiment, and we just surpassed 26,000 listens with no advertising behind it or guests to promote it.

I wouldn’t say that every business needs a podcast, I think it really depends on your audience demographics, whether they consume podcasts, and whether your content is the type of content suited to a podcast medium.

For us, it’s been fantastic because a podcast episode connects on a different level and engages people in a different way. The same way Instagram stories works really well for us, we love podcasts because it’s a great medium for delivering engaging, highly valuable content in a way that’s fun.”