Tag Archives: LinkedIn

Quarterly Close

I couldn’t wait to share this Google Lyria song, “Quarterly Close.” (Public Domain, of course.)

I will be using this song in a video that will be posted to the Bredemarket blog, to my Facebook and LinkedIn Bredemarket pages, and on my Bredemarket YouTube channel.

But you’ll have to wait to see it.

Until Monday, June 29, 2026 at 6:00 am Pacific Daylight Time.

In other words…near the quarterly close.

Let’s Go

Here we…go.

Behind the scenes

In the ultimate example of repurposing, I adapted the Bredemarket promotional video “It’s Time” to serve as a vehicle for my search for full-time employment—an embedded position with employer benefits.

Yes, many of the video’s themes are identical to those I emphasize in my Bredemarket consulting…because…I am Bredemarket. Even my AI helper Bredebot knows this.

And I use the same Google Lyria song.

“Liturgy of the Falling Rain.” Google Lyria.

Let’s Go

Here is my repurposed personal version of a Bredemarket video.

“Let’s Go.” Google Lyria/Gemini.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbredehoft

The Wildebeest Speaks Again After a Long Silence

Well, well, well. I haven’t updated “The Wildebeest Speaks” since (checks notes) March. Because reasons.

So I’ll provide an update about the work I’ve performed, the experiments I’ve conducted, and my latest contribution to the sum of human literature.

Visit LinkedIn to view the latest edition of The Wildebeest Speaks, “Bredemarket Update: Work, Experiments, and My Latest Publication.”

Google Gemini. Source.

The “Open to Work” Effect

Jobseekers, including myself, have endured endless debates about the pros and cons of LinkedIn’s “Open to Work” green banner. While these debates seem to have died down, there are still arguments about whether the green banner does more harm than good.

  • The good? Legitimate employers know that you are open to work.
  • The harm? Scammers, AI-powered resume writers, and other ne’er-do-wells also know that you are open to work.

Customers won’t find you unless you buy this shady service

But this is not confined to jobseekers.

  • Bredemarket receives an uncounted number of telephone calls, from multiple numbers, all of which begin with the same question: “Am I speaking to the business owner?”
  • The caller then offers a free consultation regarding your Google Business listing and your Google voice search results.
  • And when I bother to take the calls, they are disappointed to hear that Google yanked my Google Business listing (Google never told me why, but I assume it relates to the fact that I do not physically conduct business at my UPS Store mailing address).
  • And that it was the best thing for me when Google did that.

You don’t walk up to my office and request a retainer or hourly services or small projects. You contact me by various means and we talk, you in your office and me in mine. Even the local customers aren’t going to drop by, especially since my City of Ontario business license prohibits me from meeting customers at my home.

Anyway, all these cold callers are NOT part of Bredemarket’s target audience.

And the myriad of Google Business Listing advisors are just one of the types of people who have no interest in buying my services.

How to attract real prospects

So I create Bredemarket’s content to attract identity, biometric, and technology marketing professionals. Two recent examples:

Advent International Plans to Sell IDEMIA Public Security
Amadeus!
Proof of Humanity Does Not Prove Identity
Uniqueness is not identity.

Oh, and I also create content for wildebeest fans.

In Product Marketing, Strategy Precedes Tactics

I’ve decided to tweak Bredemarket’s public presentation by talking more about strategy. And although I’ve written some new strategy content recently, it’s a heck of a lot easier to repurpose some of the old content I’ve already written.

Such as my July 31, 2025 personal LinkedIn article (separate from Bredemarket’s “The Wildebeest Speaks”…which reminds me, I gotta write another one of those).

Job duties and SMART OKRs

The personal LinkedIn article was called “The Joy of Product Marketing Strategy, or SMART OKRs.”

Let me define the acronyms in the article title:

  • SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
  • OKRs: Objectives and Key Results.

Putting it simply, the article talked about the myriad of things a product marketer was expected to do at one company.

Or at any company, frankly. Product marketing job descriptions are fairly interchangeable. Go-to-market. Sales enablement. Competitive analysis. Metrics. Cross-functional collaboration. If you think YOUR company’s product marketing is amazing and different…it isn’t.

The entire list of product marketing duties is a bunch of tactical moves. A brochure here, a battlecard there. It could devolve into a lot of meaningless busywork. (Says the guy who has now written over 2,000 blog posts.)

But WHY are you doing all this junk?

That’s where the strategy comes to play.

Why?

For example, why are you establishing and obtaining approval for this?

“a multi-tiered go-to-market process identifying the go-to-market tiers, the customer-facing and internal deliverables for each tier, as well as the responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed organizations for each deliverable”

Let me list three reasons:

  • To ensure your go-to-market efforts contain the correct deliverables for the tier. Running around like a headless chicken to guess what you need to produce is idiotic.
  • To make sure everybody knows what they have to do. You don’t want a go-to-market effort to tank because the VP of Product won’t approve the customer success internal deliverable.
  • And let’s not forget the biggest reason of all: to allow the product in your go-to-market revenue to get a ton of orders and make a ton of revenue.

Because that’s why you’re marketing products…I hope.

Ask before you act

A helpful tip: before I get into the minutiae (tip your servers, I’m here all week) of a project, I ask a lot of questions first. “Why?” is the first question, but there are more.

The seven questions I ask. One you’ve seen the movie, now read the book.

Speaking of asking, if you want to ask Bredemarket for help with your strategy and tactics for content, proposal, and analysis work, click on the Content for Tech Marketers image below and schedule a free meeting with me.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

Deepfake Recruiters and Invisible Recruiters

Why do scammers target anti-fraud experts? Because sometimes we’re dumb too.

But in this case I didn’t fall for the two deepfake recruiters who emailed me yesterday.

However, I have some concerns about the REAL recruiters that the fraudsters were impersonating.

Deepfake recruiter 1, the Senior Vice President

The first fraudster emailed me early Tuesday morning California time:

Hi John,

I hope you’re doing well. My name is Ethan [REDACTED LAST NAME SPELLED WITH AN “E”], Senior Vice President at Aerotek, a national staffing and recruiting firm.

I’m reaching out regarding a confidential, retained search for a Senior Product Marketing Leader with a real, actively operating company in the identity verification and biometrics space. Your background in product marketing, go-to-market strategy, and competitive intelligence across identity technology firms stood out strongly during our shortlist review.

This role is ideal for leaders who drive product launches, shape competitive positioning, and accelerate growth in B2B/B2G SaaS environments.

If this aligns with what you’re exploring, I’d be happy to share the full role brief.

Best regard 
Ethan [REDACTED LAST NAME SPELLED WITH AN “A”]

When a Senior Vice President can’t spell his own last name consistently, that’s a warning flag.

When said Senior Vice President emails me from ethan.aerotek.desk2@gmail.com, that’s another.

Finding the real recruiter

So because I am a Know Your Recruiter practitioner, (Adriana Linda, Kristen the guy, Amanda the guy, Randstad and Indeed people) I looked up Ethan on LinkedIn.

Turns out Ethan is a U.S. based person employed by Aerotek, with the same picture used in the Gmail account (which I guess qualifies this as a “deepfake”), but he is a Recruiter, not a Senior Vice President.

So I messaged the real Ethan on LinkedIn early Tuesday morning, reproducing the email message above and prepending it with:

Ethan, I received this from a Gmail address

Replying to the fake recruiter

Then I responded to the email from the fake Ethan:

Ethan, I have contacted you via LinkedIn. Please provide your Aerotek email address. Your client will understand.

My final comment probably went over the fake Ethan’s head, but any identity verification company would clearly understand why a candidate would insist on an Aerotek address rather than a Gmail address. Except in certain circumstances that I’ll address later.

And of course Aerotek would be very concerned about fraudsters impersonating real Aerotek employees…or so you’d think.

Back to the fake, who responded a few minutes later. Oddly enough, even though Ethan is U.S.-based, this email indicated that my reply was received in a time zone eight hours ahead of the Pacific Time Zone. Anyway, here’s the fake Ethan’s non-surprising response.

Thank you for reaching out. I’ve been experiencing some technical issues with LinkedIn this week, so I appreciate you continuing the conversation here.

This is the usual tactic employed by scammers. Stay off reputable platforms such as LinkedIn and move the conversation to another platform, in this case email. At least fake Ethan didn’t direct me to WhatsApp or Telegram.

As of Wednesday morning I left both conversations there. I didn’t reply to the fake Ethan’s latest email, and the real Ethan didn’t reply to my messsage.

And that’s a problem.

Concerns about the real recruiter

As I mentioned earlier, Aerotek obviously doesn’t want fraudsters impersonating their employees. And Aerotek employees certainly don’t want fraudsters impersonating them and lifting their facial images for fake Gmail accounts.

But the real Ethan apparently hasn’t checked his LinkedIn account in over 24 hours, and is completely unaware that a fraudster is impersonating him.

Causing damage to him and his employer.

If you’re a recruiter (or any professional) and you have a LinkedIn account, check it regularly. You don’t know what you’re missing.

But let’s move on to deepfake 2: technically not a deepfake since the fraudster only appropriated a name and not a likeness, but worrisome all the same.

Deepfake recruiter 2, the independent and invisible recruiter

The second fraudster emailed me late in the afternoon California time.

Hello John,

I hope you’re doing well.

I recently came across your background in B2B/B2G SaaS product marketing, particularly your work across identity, biometrics, and broader technology markets. Your experience driving product launches, developing go-to-market strategy, and building high-impact content and competitive intelligence frameworks really stood out.

I’m currently supporting a respected technology organization operating at the intersection of SaaS, cybersecurity, and identity, and your ability to bridge complex technical solutions with clear market positioning aligns closely with what they’re looking for.

Given your track record of both strategic thinking and execution (“ask, then act” definitely came through), I believe you could be a strong fit for this opportunity.

If you’re open to exploring, I’d be happy to share a brief overview of the role and why I feel it aligns well with your background.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Again this person emailed me from a Gmail address, consisting of the person’s name with an appended “8.”

Finding the real recruiter

So I checked out this person also, and discovered a few things.

  • This is also a real person, based in Europe. So she supposedly sent this email after midnight her time.
  • The real recruiter DOES have a Gmail address, but without the “8.” Why? Because the person is NOT employed by a huge recruiting firm such as Aerotek, but is a self-employed recruiting specialist. So it’s understandable that the real recruiter has a Gmail address. But as we will see, not advisable.
  • Her company name is her name with the word “Consulting” appended, according to her personal LinkedIn profile.

So I messaged the real recruiter with the message “Possible scam artist” and the email address (with the “8”) that sent the message.

Replying, and not replying, to the fake recruiter

About an hour later (now well after midnight European time), I received a second email from the fake recruiter that didn’t reference my reply to the first one.

Hello John,

I hope you’re doing well.

I recently came across your background in B2B/B2G SaaS product marketing, and your work across identity, biometrics, and go-to-market strategy really stood out—particularly your experience positioning complex technologies like IAM, biometrics, and AI-driven solutions.

Your track record in product launches, competitive intelligence, and building high-impact content at scale aligns closely with what we’re currently prioritizing.

I’m supporting a respected technology organization that is expanding its product marketing leadership team, and based on your experience, you could be a strong fit—especially given your depth across both public sector (B2G) and commercial (B2B) environments.

If you’re open to exploring, I’d be happy to share a brief overview of the role and why I believe it aligns well with your background.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I didn’t bother to reply to the second email from the fake recruiter, or to notify the real recruiter of the second email.

Eventually I received a reply to my first email early Wednesday morning…oddly enough, indicating that the fake was in the Pacific Time Zone, not Europe. (Note to scammers: change your computer and software settings so that your time zone matches the time zone of the person you’re impersonating.)

Here’s how the reply began:

Thank you for your message here—and I did see your note on LinkedIn as well. Apologies for the slight delay in getting back to you, I was tied up attending to a few things earlier.

Yeah, sure you saw my LinkedIn InMail.

Anyway, forget about the scammer. Let’s look at the real recruiter.

Concerns about the real recruiter

As I mentioned, the real recruiter has a personal LinkedIn profile and a Gmail address.

And that’s it.

  • I couldn’t find a LinkedIn company page for her consulting company.
  • A couldn’t find a website for her consulting company.
  • In fact, the ONLY reference I found to her consulting company was her personal LinkedIn page.

And that’s a problem.

The fact that she has no LinkedIn posts and no LinkedIn recommendations is another.

Now I’ll grant that many consultants get their business from word-of-mouth. Bredemarket certainly does.

But the only publicly-known way to contact THIS consultant is via email or LinkedIn InMail.

And as of now she hasn’t checked her InMail in over 12 hours.

What if she were to lose access to her LinkedIn account?

If you’re an independent recruiting consultant, own your own website, and don’t depend upon someone else’s social platform.

That’s one reason why Bredemarket offers several ways to reach me, most importantly the contact mechanisms available on my own website, free of the control of Microsoft, Meta, or any other company that could yank my access at the drop of a hat.

But there are others.

Bredemarket’s active platforms as of March 29, 2026.

So if you have content or other needs…such as the need to create content to publicize your recruiting consultancy…why don’t you talk to me?