Storytelling with Matt Skallerud for "30 Days – 30 Voices – Stories from America’s LGBT Business Leaders" [Podcast]

Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional

Storytelling with Matt Skallerud of Pink Banana Media New York City, New York

Links mentioned in the show -

Travel Gay Canada California Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce International Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Out & Equal Workplace Advocates Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association GayWired.com SheWired.com The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly

You can get in touch with Matt here -

Pink Banana Media Facebook.com/PinkBananaMedia LinkedIn

Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below! AUDIO TITLE: 30 Days, 30 Voices: Matt Skallerud

Welcome to 30 Days, 30 Voices: Stories from America's LGBT Business Leaders

You are listening to a special edition of the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Tune in for the next thirty days as we interview one business leader per day each day in June to celebrate LGBT Pride Month. That's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride month. You'll learn insights around business and marketing from those who know it best. And now, your host. She's an entrepreneur, a marketing maven, and an advocate for the LGBT business community - Jenn, with two N's, T. Grace. Hello and welcome! Hello and welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this special Pride Month episode of the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Information about today's guest and links mentioned in the show will be available on the website at www.JennTGrace.com/30days-30voices. If you like what you hear in this interview, please be sure to tell a friend. And now, without further ado, let's dive into the interview.

Jenn T. Grace: I am pleased to be talking with Matt Skallerud today, who is the president of Pink Banana Media. Matt began his online career in May of 1995 with the launch of the website www.GayWired.com. This website became one of the top three LGBT websites worldwide. He has been helping clients reach the LGBT community for more than eighteen years, and in addition to this he is a current board member for Travel Gay Canada and the interim Executive Director of the California Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Also he is actively involved with many key national LGBT organizations, which include the International Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Out & Equal Workplace Advocates just to name a few. So Matt, I've given the listeners a brief overview of who you are, but why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what your path looked like that led you to where you are today.

Matt Skallerud: Yeah! I always try to simplify things. I've just been very lucky. I went to school, I got my degree in engineering, got really bored with it in about three years and thought to myself, 'I got a degree for this? I don't know if I want to do this for the rest of my life.' And- but I actually went into sales, I was in this kind of high-tech R&D world of lasers and then I went into sales of lasers and the reason I bring all that up is because it was that combination of kind of just being comfortable with technology, and it was a perfect time. It was when computers were just really starting to come out. I used to have a Commodore 64, and then I had some of the first Compaq 286 and all these fun computers but I had the opportunity to really utilize them first for more on the engineering side, but then as things developed more on the sales, and then also very much marketing of products I used to work on in the lab. I basically took all those skills,