The Marketing Rules Podcast in Writing: Arel Moodie

by Julia Fras | Aug 7, 2023 | The Marketing Rules Podcast in Writing

00:00.00

ThinkinCircles

Welcome back, everybody to the Marketing Rules Podcast. It is my absolute pleasure to have Arel Moodie join me today. We have been backwards and forwards a numerous number of times trying to get you onto the podcast and our ice first kind of spotted you on LinkedIn I think I was kind of I think you’ve probably done a podcast with someone else that we follow. I was hugely impressed, and I thought I’ve got to have Earl on here I had Lynn had a look at your background and then it just got even better from that point. So, it was an absolute honour to have you on the podcast.  for everybody listening who doesn’t know you know I know you as the likeability strategist but there are huge amounts more that you’ve kind of done. So maybe you could give us a little kind of brief kind of tour of your background and what you do nowadays.

00:44.62

Arel Moodie

So, entrepreneurship kind of was my  my starting point to it so I got interested in entrepreneurship and the reason why I got interested in entrepreneurship was I was like well if I become this hugely successful entrepreneur then I get to become an  motivational speaker a professional speaker that was always my love my passion. , the pathway to get into speaking happened a lot quicker than I expected started getting into speaking I’ve been doing that now for 17 years and , absolutely love the topic speaking has allowed me to speak at  the white house in America TEDx stage. , it’s leveraged me to get a tv show. So, I host., Disney plus show called family reboot which is produced by Kelly Rappa again for all our UK listeners those at us so big. Kelly Rip is Us base I don’t know how big she is in the UK but to be able to do all that really happened from my love of public speaking. So, whether it’s speaking at the TEDx stage whether it’s being on Tv shows whether it’s halting podcasts. How do you create a message that resonates with lands that’s been a big part of who I am and now what I’ve done is leverage that into a tech start-up called talka.com which helps speakers measure the effectiveness of their presentations through audience data and feedback. Which most presenters get absolutely no feedback if they do. So, we’re trying to elevate the craft of speaking and that’s kind of where we are today.

02:06.99

ThinkinCircles

It is such an important kind of area and something that’s never really kind of again discussed huge amount, right? I know as a business owner myself I do a lot of public speaking I also feel I’m terrible at it right on numerous cases I’ve said I don’t think that’s gone particularly well. But I have no idea and I have no way of measuring that right I have no idea how successful I’ve been you know unlike when you do stuff online, I can tell because I’ve got either lead come in, I’ve had people listen you have comments you have feedback. But when you do it in real life, I mean I’ve got 0 idea I think I stink most of the time in all honesty. But you know it’s great that kind of you’re putting this together this kind of platform that can help people potentially like me to kind of one it works as what am I doing a good job and then how do I get better at this kind of thing right? How do I empower myself basically and use this for my business which. Kind of what we’re going to talk around today right? and is how kind of how speaking and presenting can really be tools for you know everyone who’s listening today. So, from a kind of I think would be great to kind of start off from right from beginnings like how we can use speaking as a recruitment tool right? because you know that’s our that’s our main audience. So

03:15.90

Arel Moodie

Yeah, so. Well, what’s interesting to note about speaking as a skill set is since we all speak there almost is this inherent belief that either well, I’m good at it or I’m miserable at it. There are really not many people in the in-between right? and even those of us who may consider ourselves to be very good.

03:20.47

ThinkinCircles

How do we go about that?

03:40.10

Arel Moodie

If we’re honest with ourselves every time we present when we’re done presenting. There’s that thought of well did they like it did that suck was it good? I think we can go into some specific strategies I think on how to approach the content. No matter what you’re presenting on and then how to measure it so when you’re when you’re looking to approach it. My. Philosophical approach that’s different than most is that I think most people focus on what should I say so I must present to a client I need to present to maybe I’m presenting to a bunch of potential candidates or maybe I’m doing an in-house presentation and I need to present to my team. Most people say what is it that I want to say how do I want to say it? What’s my first point. What’s my second point. What’s my third point that’s the complete wrong way to look at a presentation. It’s completely backwards the right way in my opinion to look at it is to ask yourself after this presentation. What do I want my audience to. Remember that’s the key now this is the strategy, the visualization that I put people to, and it usually allows you to get exactly what you want to say very quickly imagine whatever you’re present. So, let’s say I’m doing a client meeting and I’m presenting to this meeting, and I want this client to you know, hire me from my digital marketing skill set right. Or maybe I’m presenting to a bunch of potential folks that I’m like hey I would love for them to work with us I think would be great instead of saying here’s what we do? That’s great here’s what’s amazing I want you to imagine that you walked into a coffee shop six months from now and you’re going to get a quick coffee and as you’re running in very quickly. You see the key decision makers that were at that presentation from six months earlier having a cup of coffee sitting down and talking and they’d go hey remember when James came and presented to us. Yeah, I remember Jay I man I love to jab he’s he was awesome. The 1 thing he said that I still remember to this day. The 1 thing he said that impacted me the most was and then what would you want to hear them say in that moment to feel like yes, six months from now if you just remember that that would be amazing. And that is what’s called the paradigm shift. Every presentation’s goal is to do 1 thing. It’s to shift a paradigm to shift a perspective and if you know what that answer is then you build your entire presentation from that one idea do I want them to get that. This is a family community., do I want them to get that we’re flexible and we care about you as a person. What is that? 1 thing that if they just remember that 1 thing then you build everything you need to say around that and that’s how you put together a presentation. No matter what you’re presenting on for something that sticks lands and matters. Now you can give multiple points, but they all must lead.

06:29.74

Arel Moodie

To that one idea that they’ll remember six months from now.

06:34.40

ThinkinCircles

I mean that already I think there’s that you’ve already kind of you’ve given us already a kind of a paradigm shift right? You’ve already. You’ve you obviously kind of you’ve teased us into this basically because your paradigm shift is I remember Arow. He told us what we need to think about is the paradigm shift in our presentation so that is very clever, but so once we’ve kind of we’ve figured this kind of this this shift. What we want people to remember us for right is that you know do we is that like a single point is that a kind of just a feeling across the entire Presentation. You know how we build that kind of content into that presentation. So, it lands, and it is it is it. 1 thing can it be multiple things is it the whole thing you know.

07:15.80

Arel Moodie

So that’s where this is the part that does take reflection right because this is called the big domino right? What is the 1 thing that if I knock this domino over all other dominoes must fall because of it. So, when I’m thinking about let’s say for example and I’m making this up.  I’m a small business I’m a start-up and I want to attract a talent to work with me this talent’s amazing. They could go to any company whatsoever. How do I get them to want to work with me so I was like well what is it I can say hey we’re flexible. Well, everyone’s flexible. Hey where you know we care about you? Well, everyone cares about you, you know so I want to ask myself. What’s that 1 thing that if I can nail would nail would knock down all the other things and then everything else becomes a cherry on top. So that’s really where the process of reflection and thinking comes from so it might be hey listen, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder because you’ve been working for companies your whole life and you’ve taken them from you know, 0 to $10000000 with your skillset and you’ve never gotten a piece of the pie before. So, you’ve had all these happy clients and customers. But you’ve never been able to benefit from a liquidation event from an acquisition when you work with us. We’re going to give you know points in our company or ownership in our company because we believe in you so much that not only will we get you to.

08:43.75

Arel Moodie

, market rate salary. But upon a liquidation event by working with us. You get to benefit from your skill set so it could be getting them to buy into the idea that hey you’ve grown all these incredible companies and you’ve gotten nothing when they’ve gone public, or they’ve liquidated, or they’ve been acquired why is working with us. And getting to that point so valuable. So, if I go That’s my one domino because if I can get them to say well, I know I can take your company at 10000000 but I’m still getting my salary, right? So, like you know it doesn’t necessarily affect me none. But now I can say here’s why we’re poised to be good, but here’s where you’re going to get that and again, I don’t know if that’s everyone’s individual big domino. But if I can get someone to tie into a liquidation event, I build my presentation around why we built our organization to make sure everyone on this founding team benefits upon a merger and acquisition liquidation event. Why that’s so important then I build up think about all the organizations you’ve been with that have gone to these amazing things and you’ve gotten nothing that ends with us because we want our success to be your success not just in theory but in practice. So, if they leave in six months from now. Go oh my gosh like. The thought of this company. You know getting bought and me getting to set up my future children. That’s the 1 big domino so you really must ask yourself based upon the situation we’re in based upon the person we’re speaking to what’s that 1 big domino that knocks over everything else. That’s unique to us. And once you nail that it’s it. A lot of the presentation takes care of itself. But there are specific elements that I’m happy to go over that should be in every presentation to get to that paradigm shift.

10:26.64

ThinkinCircles

Sure, So I mean this is also almost like kind of a you know, almost like a go to Marketed philosophy to a certain extent as well. Right? I mean what you’re talking around there. You can put you can put this into your business philosophy doesn’t just have to be part of your presentation and how do you have people remember your presentation or remember a talk that you’re giving this is much this can go way beyond that right? because the great example, you just gave is  is maybe more at the kind of values of that business can kind of kind of push in that direction and that’s the that’s the 1 thing that you know makes their employer brand. Better than ever other people’s because they’ve got this 1 example which you know which is going to attract people from all over the place.

11:06.80

Arel Moodie

Yeah, and that and that’s exactly right because the thing is when you can figure out and I think this I call it you know coffee shop strategy. It’s not liked a fantastic like name. But conceptually if I know what’s that 1 big Domino what moves it, I can build entire campaigns around that I can and then I can look at every single nuance of. Why this is important why people don’t other people. Don’t do this why we’re different and then when you have like you said a go-to-market strategy that’s messaging when you have messaging that’s memorable. That’s really what we’re going for. You know when people say things like we have the best customer service we care about people the most it’s like. That sounds really like kind of generic. But if I say well, what does I want my audience to remember about us I want them to say that hey we’re elevating this industry by you know for example with taluka dot. Our goal is to elevate the speaking industry by allowing data to be present. We want the best speakers to be brought to the top. And the worst speakers to either get better or drop out right? like that’s what we want to do because how many boring horrible presentations have, we all sat through in some conference or another and there’s no way to judge it right? So, if we can bring it to the top of everyone can go well hey look, I don’t want to be bored when I’m at an event. I want to be the best version of myself I want data to prove that I want this like rising tide to lift all boats. So, when you when you create that message that is memorable. Yes, you can use in a presentation, but you can use it in your blog posts. You can use it in your digital marketing strategies in your recruitment process to why should you work with us.

12:40.80

Arel Moodie

And you won’t sound like everyone else and I’m a big advocate.  part of my process in putting together. A message is asking myself. What has my audience probably heard a million times already and how I make sure I don’t sound like that now I could talk about the same thing. I just can’t talk about it in the same way and that’s very important to knowing who’s your ideal audience who you’re trying to bring so you don’t necessarily have to create a brand-new idea, but it does help to talk about it in a different way and that’s being clear with what am I trying to achieve what are my goals. And those things sound so basic they can be like forget forgotten but it really does help us create a memorable message.

13:24.38

ThinkinCircles

You see what I like about this as a marketeer you’ve kind of got an entire kind of campaign built around what your message can be and then that weaves its way into your presentation and into everything else that kind of sits either side of that and around the back of it as well. 1 thing that some., just did occur to me is you know are. You’re very kind of charismatic. You speak very well your practice this and you kind of you could do this. You know like that what about for some people who maybe aren’t as kind of forthright or as confident potentially as you come across. How do they then kind of elevate their presentation kind of skills from beyond what you just said from the people who kind of who are kind of who aren’t the great presenters but might have a great message and great thing to talk about you know is there a disconnect there. How do we? How do we match those 2 things together.

14:14.31

Arel Moodie

This is what I recommend in that case so the first thing to understand is, you know someone like the Dalai Lama and someone like Martin Luther King Jr have very different speaking styles very different orders if anyone’s ever seen any of their historical speeches. There. They’re almost as night as day as possibly can be but wildly effective in their individual pursuits. So, the first thing that I would encourage someone to do is to find a presenter whether it’s a historical figure whether it’s someone on YouTube whether it’s someone within your life or your company. That you say they’re on the same frequency or vibe that I’d want to be on one day, right? and this is important if I’m super soft spoken and super quiet trying to be this big bombastic orator will be so uncomfortable and so outside of your normalcy. You’ll never achieve it so you kind of want to say like based on my vibration. My frequency am I a more you know laughable. You know, charismatic personality am I a more subtle am I a more you know Steve Jobs type presenter that’s a little bit more like straight to the facts and so you’ve got to find someone who’s already achieved greatness. That just has the same frequency the same vibration of what you resonate with and then genuinely in the beginning you try to channel that person and I know this sounds like not the best advice because most people say be yourself. Don’t be anyone else I think in the beginning you don’t know how to be yourself yet as a public speaker. You don’t know what your public persona is so it’s better to find someone that you okay, you know what? I really like you know; Simon Cowell I’m just going to choose him is not necessarily a good speaker but like I just like how direct he is, and I like how like to the point no nonsense. He commands a room. I want to I want to emulate that. So, then you just literally if you spent, I would give it 1 to 2 hours it’s not even a lot of time watching YouTube videos of him interviewed you in interviews watching him giving feedback noticing his manual arms. How does he say and then when you speak literally try to channel. Your inner Simon cow if you will, you’re not going to be that good right away because everyone’s a mess before they a success, but you’ll be able to be like well how would this person say it and then you do that and then what happens is you stop wanting to be that person and you want to be your own person. And you find your own voice but, in the beginning, if we’re so caught up in sounding stupid or sounding bad. We don’t go after it, so I encourage people to find someone that feels like they’re the same frequency as you channel watch like some videos get some tape into your subconscious mind of that person. Channel that person when you present and do it enough times until you start going I don’t really like saying it this way or it feels too much like them I want to do it this way then you’ll start getting your footing and find your unique way of speaking.

17:18.75

ThinkinCircles

That’s some great advice and it’s something I’ve personally done. I know when I first started the podcast. There were a few people that I kind of listened to repeatedly and followed them and kind of thought as almost and tried to emulate them until I found my own voice. 1 of the things that I suffer from a little bit and then I think I know a lot of other people do when it comes to presenting generally is nerves right? And that can you know I’ve seen people kind of presentations become absolutely crippled by someone who’s particularly nervous and you can see that they’re nervous and that affects all you think now, man, this person looks nervous you must have some tips for how we kind of go about kind of tackling that thing you know,  whether it’s imagining the entire crowd naked for focusing on 1 person at the back of the crowd. All those kinds of them. You must have something else. You know this? This must be you. You must get people over this.

18:13.95

Arel Moodie

Yeah, so I’ve never I’ve never seen I’ve never thought picturing the crowd naked would be helpful I never understood that like I’ve heard that since the beginning of my career and I’m always like why that take one that seems like such a mental exercise to do and 2 Why would I do that so there’s 2 ways to deal with nerves the first thing to understand is nervousness only comes from lack of preparation that is the only place that nervousness comes from when you know, no one gets nervous in the morning to tie their shoes. You don’t get nervous to go down and be like am I going to do this right? But if you’ve ever seen a five-year-old try to tie their shoes. They’re really flustered by it because it’s just new. So, whenever you’re nervous about a presentation what that’s really saying is there’s something about this that you’re not prepared for so that’s like basics number one, so you’ve got to prepare and that just comes from repetition you know. Would love to say that there was you know don’t do hard work like it is work but so if you’re nervous, typically what you’re nervous about is a certain point in your presentation. Typically, you’re like I feel good up into this point then I blank out and I kind of forget the next part and I’m so nervous I’m going to blank out. Well, that means that there’s, there’s a transition point that you need to either create a visual cue for create a written cue for or something there must be something that reminds you of what you need to say so that’s preparation. The second thing this was my like big a.  that completely made me feel comfortable in front of. Any audience that I’ve ever spoken in front of, and I’ve spoken in front of some really like high pressure audiences and ones where I’ve psyched myself out and, it’s always been true. What I’m about to say literally no one in your audience wants to see you fail. No one think about it for a moment. Okay.

20:07.40

Arel Moodie

I’m a listener of this podcast right now. So, I’m listening to James I’m listening to me speak. You don’t want me to suck as a guest. You want me to be a good guest. You’re not you clicked on this, you might be driving right? now you might be going for a jog or washing your dishes and you chose this episode because you were like. I want it to give me something so in reality no one in your audience wants you to fail because if you fail that means they fail now what every presenter who gets nervous often thinks I don’t say every presenter most presenters think well they hate me they don’t want me to be here. They think I’m stupid. They think I’m done. No, it’s the opposite. It’s like hey listen I’m giving you have an hour of my time you’ve got this podcast I don’t want you to I want you to do well. So, once I realized everyone’s rooting for me to do a good job even when I mess up, I just acknowledge that I messed up I say oh you know oops You know of you know that’s embarrassing and I have never had an audience that hasn’t been like it’s okay or laughed with me. But if I start going? Oh, I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have I should have been more prepared I I’m so embarrassed I let me let me let me start again. Let me start again is they’re like dude, it’s fine like just. You don’t have to start? please don’t no one ever wants you to start again by the way like no one ever sets 15 minutes in get a mulligan and start over right? So, if you just realize that your audience wants you to succeed and if you mess up, you just address it now. Our fear is oh but like what if this client thinks I’m not professional or what if this candidate thinks that my company doesn’t have their stuff together almost 100% of the time from my lived experience. People will see you as a human if you mess up you acknowledge the mess up and then keep going. No one really will hold it against you.  I think when we think we must be perfect. We become almost a caricature of who we are. And then we trust that character less and we don’t know why whereas if you are able to just realize oh look, you’re listening to this Hopefully you’re like wow this is helpful and if you think I suck that I’ve lost, and you’ve lost. We’ve all lost. But if you’re like no I want this to be good and I mess up and even if 5 minutes of this isn’t good. Hopefully the rest of it is good and that’s how we all win. So, once you realize everybody wants you to win and you’re prepared I mean you can literally go out there and vomit on your audience and you’d still get like a rounding a round applause.

22:32.40

ThinkinCircles

I You know I don’t recommend anyone de gooses and does that, but you’d be prepared.  I mean that’s some amazing advice and don’t recommend. Is it up chucking is that what we call it up chucking I don’t I don’t recommend any up-Chuck okay, no up Chuck but if you did, you’d be okay.

22:48.80

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, something I will kind of take to my next kind of presentation I am so guilty of underpreparing though for presentations. Usually that is kind of where I think my nerves come from, I think sometimes and when I’ve kind of done things more than once and I’m a bit more kind of used to doing it a bit porn practiced. That’s when I get a bit more relaxed about it. I always try to equate it to be being a bit like a muscle the more you work it the stronger you get it right? It’s one of those things and you’re right? You do have to put the kind of hardworking just being, kind of charismatic and for funny or confident isn’t necessarily always going to take away from a good presentation because again as we’ve talked about in the time. Content matters, right? and taking people on that journey to leave them with that the big domino basically was the big Domino. So, let’s assume right? we’ve that we’ve had we that we’ done our presentation whether it’s internally whether it’s to externally whether we’re talking to a client a new client whether we’re talking to a group of people at a conference or whatever it might will be now we want to know how well that went. You know? So how do we measure this? What’s the measurement of success for your presentation I guess this is where some of the technology that you’ll bring in kind of can support us.

23:52.34

Arel Moodie

I’ll give a I’ll give a no tech and a tech way to do this right? So, I’ll give a no tech in a tech way, right? So here is the no tech way to do it ask yourself. What’s the 1 thing I want my audience to remember from this presentation, right? So, you get clear on that and then. Right? after right after an hour later if you can’t do it right? after a day later if you can’t do it. An hour later doesn’t matter if you can find the audience just ask? What do you remember about the presentation. Do they respond consistently to what you wanted them to remember. That’s the low-tech way to do it. So, if I want you to remember this is your opportunity to succeed upon an exit, I want you to benefit from an exit and I go speak to them and say what do I you remember and theine I just remember you were nice. Well, that means your message didn’t land the thing you wanted them to catch. They didn’t catch. So, the very low-tech way to do this is you know to go up to like maybe 1 of your co-workers if you can’t like maybe you’re talking to like clients or recruiters and you don’t have the luxury of asking them. But you’ve got like a co-worker or a team member that’s with you simply ask them. What did you remember most about my presentation and. If their response is somewhat like what you wanted them to remember that means you, you’ve nailed it. That means you’ve locked it in if it’s not no issue.  now the other thing which is also low tech. If someone talks more about how great of a presenter, you are and not how great the message content or thing was for themselves. There’s something that needs to be calibrated some speakers are so caught up in saying poetic things or being fantastic on stage that it becomes distracting. All you remember is how funny the person was. There’s a lot of people were just stand-up comics and then they say go out there and believe in yourself and then they walk offstage, and they just told joke after joke. So, you’re like, you’re funny, but you know you’re not you were funny but your message in its impact me and at the end of the day anytime we’re in a place of public speaking. Our goal is to impact our audience. So that’s low tech if we want to go tech. That’s why we created talked so what tlacoyo is a very simple software. We have a free version. A paid version. We have users all over the world that use it after you present if it is appropriate like if I’m doing a client pitch, I probably wouldn’t use a Qi code; but we have a talk slide that has a qi code that’s built in and if it’s like a team development a staff development. Maybe it is a public presentation at a conference or an industry event. You say hey the only way I can get better is I want to know what you liked about it I want to know what you disliked about it so I can improve upon it. Take 2 minutes scan this Qi code. Let me know what your thoughts are and what takeout does is it takes the audience data and automatically turns it into a visual chart, and we track your responses over time and put all your data together. So, you get individual views of your data. What were your scores on how valuable it was do people want to , reattend. , things like where it is engaging interactive inspiring and there’s different things you can measure that’s pre-built in and then you can literally see a graphical representation of what the audience thought because one of the biggest things that happens after we present, we go did I do a good job and if someone brings you in to speak. They’re curious. Did you do a good job. So, if you have data that says yes, my audience found it valuable or no, they did it then you can look at the qualitative feedback and go well, what did we miss because the way talks dot works is it moves based upon how people answer so if they answer in 1 way it goes in one direction the answer another. So, we’re always capturing the most relevant data. So, if someone doesn’t like it. We capture that for you. And now if they don’t like it because they go, I don’t like gingers and I didn’t like the colour of your beard. Well then like there’s nothing. You could do about that like keep it moving. That’s not valuable feedback. But if it was like I felt like you were rambling, and I didn’t know what the point of this presentation was until halfway in oh that’s actionable feedback I need to get to the point quicker so that audience feedback you just must learn what’s useful and what’s not useful and if you get that and you get periods of time where you get data over time. There’s no way you don’t get better with that kind of insights.

28:05.92

ThinkinCircles

I mean I mean it sounds incredibly useful, right? And I suggest everyone who is into kind of presenting or presents a lot or that even kind of webinars or does any kind of public speaking I would suggest kind of go have a look at talk it up., Aria it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you today if anybody wants to know more about you. We will include all your details in the show notes, and we’ll include links to the two talked as well. So, everyone can have a look at that sign up for the free version and or even try the kind of pay for versions as well. We haven’t coughed anywhere near as much as you. You can possibly do today because we haven’t talked about the likeability strategy, I talk about the authorships that present other there all kinds of other the three that left out there that we could talk about. So maybe we will kind of have you back and we’ll talk about a few of those other kind of points in the future. But now arrow moody thank you very much.

28:56.75

Arel Moodie

Absolutely and you know what I want to eat my own dog food I don’t know if that’s a saying out there I’m in America I don’t know this is a saying I hear anyway. So, in the show notes you’re going to see a link that says talk dot ac slash moody, that’s my feedback link. Let me know what you thought about this episode when you if you click on that link if you put in the code rules are you les I’ll know that it’s from this episode. So let me know what you thought about it was it helpful was it not helpful. So, in the show notes you’re going to see that link and I want you to see in in action and I want feedback if this sucked let me know that it sucked. If it was helpful. Please let me know is helpful because it’s how I become a better guest on podcasts like James is here. So, thank you James for having me. Thank you for listening and make sure to make memorable messages.

29:39.17

ThinkinCircles

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much.

Watch the interview:

The Marketing Rules Podcast in Writing: Mike Ames

by Julia Fras | Jul 28, 2023 | The Marketing Rules Podcast in Writing

00:01.38

ThinkinCircles

Welcome back, everybody to the marketing rules podcast and it is my pleasure to have Mike Ames from Flair with me know I think Mike probably a lot of our listeners will probably know who you are ah because you’ve got a pretty good personal brand and a pretty good profile. But for those who don’t. Ah, I haven’t car ologist you before. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about flair and the work that you do there.

00:28.30

Mike

Okay, thank you James and delighted to be here with you talking about a very interesting subject today actually? Um, okay so I am best described as a scalability consultant. So, I help people scale their business There’s this myth. But all you need to do to scale a recruit in business is add more staff get more clients get more vacancies fill them repeat and if you do that? What will happen is your business will implode and you’ll eventually become what they call a yo-yo company and recruitment is full of them. You need to create a solid foundation and what I do is help people. To do that using our 7 pillars methodology which some of you might have heard about at the moment we’re in the process of um, putting more of our content online so that people can access the sort of stuff that we normally do as a coach or consultant and people pay us for like live. But going to stick that sort 2 thirds of the way through now stick in that online so people can access it whenever they want, I’m very excited about that project to be doing well.

01:27.11

ThinkinCircles

You do a lot of live streaming and things yourself right? You where you know presenter yourself.

01:38.39

Mike

Recruitment show, which used to be every Thursday, but we’ve now changed it to twice a month because we’ve also launched a much shorter sort of 5 minute ask Mike ah YouTube channel. So, if you’ve got specific very granular questions. You can ask them, and I’ll nail them for you at least I’ll give you my viewpoint on it which. May or may not agree with. So yeah, we do and um, um, and occasionally we do webinars we do workshops we do all those things for free. So, I’m sure if people check me out on LinkedIn. They’ll see them all. There.

02:02.70

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, yeah, well as always, we’ll include all your details in the show notes at the end if anybody wants to know, ah a bit more but as you said what we’re going to discuss a day and dip into your wealth of knowledge. Um, specifically to with regards to recruitment agencies is sales of marketing. Um, and how you get the 2 to work together. You know there is the old and adage that you know the marketeers think of the sales guys over there picking up the phones and shouting down the phones and the sales guys think the marketeers are the colouring in department. Um, now as a marketeer myself. I’m more than aware that I know exactly what? what? What we do and I’m very aware of what the sales guys do but a lot of businesses that do are in the position to have a marketing team or an outsource marketing team and they’ve got their recruiters getting the 2 to work together and to really   gel. And get them to communicate together is really it can be quite difficult. Um, so let’s start there. How do we get the 2 let’s what how do we get the 2 teams to talk together to talk about the same thing and get and talk the same language which is maybe the first thing to overcome.

03:12.00

Mike

Okay, that’s that is an interesting subject. Um, and I’m glad we’re talking about this because in my first business which was quite rapid growth. We went to forty million quid in 10 years seventy odd million in today’s money because this was in the 90 s. We didn’t spend a single penny on marketing, and I was very proud of that. Um, and the reason that we didn’t spend any money on marketing is I didn’t know what it was quite frankly we were a relationship sales business, so we built relationships with people and then we sold to them is what we did. So, in my mind, marketing was as you say colouring in, I’m going to use that from now on it was pretty much mishmash money that was spent, and I couldn’t really see the benefit of it, so I didn’t do any of course had I known then what I know now about marketing. It would have been one hundred and forty million turnover business you know because. Um, if it’s done properly recruitment ah marketing particularly can be a massive support to the client facing team that you have if it’s set up properly and I think the first thing then in answer to your question is a proper awareness of what marketing can do for salespeople. In some cases, I think it’s viewed as a well they do that it doesn’t make any difference to us because I’m a salesman you see James good balance today on today’s show I don’t really care what they do because I’m just going to go and win clients really so you go ahead and do that boys and ah and we’ll just do this and actually it shouldn’t be like that at all I think the formation of a growth team which has marketers and salespeople and perhaps communicators on there as well I think is really important to bring it all together but awareness in answers to the question I think James.

04:51.14

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, and is that do we get there by just as simple as having the 2 teams even just sit near each other or work in the same environment or be able to bring 1 person from each team in on those team meetings. So, someone from a sales team joins the marketing meetings, and vice versa. Ah or is it the marketing team presenting to the sales team and vice versa. How do we   get the 2 kinds of communicating.

05:19.80

Mike

Okay, when most of the recruiters I deal with don’t have a marketing function or have a very basic one and I help them build something which is you would probably think it’s quite rudimentary because you’re a professional marketer I just want. Something that’s going to support the sales function I just want people to see the benefit of it and I think to answer your question. First, I think the marketers must make very clear what products effectively or services if you will. They’re offering the sales team and then what they will get from that, so it is a traditional feature benefit model look we can do this for you, and you’ll get that from it and then the third part of the triangle is they can prove that they deliver it look when we did this last time this happened, and you got that. So, if we do it again and you do this then we’ll get more of it. I think for me marketing for this is going to this is going to show my very simplistic view of marketing and I’m embarrassed to say this in front of you James but there you go here. We go as a salesman marketing for me is what we call the four cs, so I want someone who’s going to produce good quality thin. And chunky content is on both types I need both types for sure I want someone who’s going to produce some collateral which can have all my key messages in it, and I can use when I’m with a prospector with a client and I want it I want it to save me the bother of having to say things because it does it for me. Um I want someone I want um some campaigns to be built so that I can start a conversation with people add campaigns you know connection campaigns so that I can point the campaign at somebody and when I come in at the end. It’s no longer a cold call. It’s now a warm call. And lastly, I want a communication strategy which means all of our content and all of our collateral is being pushed out and put in front of the people that I wanted in front of and I want dashboards all over the place and then what the heck’s going on because I know as a salesman if I have that my job is easy because don’t Forget. In Recruitment. You must build a business which is going to produce exceptional results with average people because statistically you’re going To. You’re going to employ average people. You know, ah, it’s ah what do they call it a bell curve statistical Bell curves. You can’t fight that you know when you’re very small. You perhaps have all these brilliant people. But as you get bigger, you’re going to hire average people so you must have those average people delivering great results and one of the ways that you can do that is take away a lot of the heavy lifting with your marketing team. Let it do the work instead of your salespeople in those areas and leave them to do what they do. And I think if it’s presented in that way, we can do these 4 things for you. This is what you’ll get from them. This is how you use those things, and this is how we monitor it I think you get a completely different view of the from the salesforce of the marketers and what they do.

08:12.92

ThinkinCircles

Um, I mean I think that’s I don’t think that’s simplistic at all. What we might dd on is that strategic element as well. Like you know how does it align with the business and that’s one of the other things that um I always think is important that that marketers need to get involved with is right? What is marketing actually doing for the business where does the business wants to be here in 5 years’ time does marketing align to that and how does it  achieve those is apart from the  the day-to-day running stuff of getting your getting your message out in front of people and some nice  some nice pretty presentations for when you’re in those client meetings you know were how going to ah,  ah,  move that forward. I always think that finding something that the 2 teams can work on together. Okay, if there’s something that they can if there is a push for something within the business, I think that always helps right? So, we need. You know we’re looking for. We’re opening a new office here to get the sales teams and the marketeers to work together on that. I always think when you can get them a line like that then that’s always that always   works right.

09:33.66

Mike

I Think so I do like the idea of having a growth team though. Growth team meeting growth teams which are made up of different aspects of the growth function because that project becomes a whole lot easier then because look, we’re going to do this thing, what do you think what can you bring? Well, we could do this, and we need this, and you have ah a collegiate meeting rather than and us and then type of meeting. Well, it’s art marketing again, you know doing those things. Oh, bloody salesman not bloody. Ah you know I do think you’ve got to move away from that. Um, the starting point on that space. So, I would say would be the key messages definition of the 7 key messages that you need in marketing because when you have them, you’ve got a very clear definition of the people you’re going for what you want to say to them. Um, you have an idea of why you’re different why you stand out. Why. Clients would give you an opportunity. You know why they would choose you over someone else once? those are all defined which I think you must do together I don’t think you can just leave marketing to that, and you certainly can’t leave sales for that. That’s for sure if you can do that together. That’s a great start I think as well. Around the communications when you’re pushing content out or collateral 1 of those just as again, it’s all about nomenclature I suppose. But for the purposes of my discussions today content is just adding value either as thin content which is like blog posts or LinkedIn posts or chunky content which is content almost good enough to pay for almost good enough that the client would pay for it and so again, the salespeople are saying well you know we need this sort of stuff to go out so that people are going to react to it, or we need this piece of content chunky content Because. We want to offer it to all these prospects I aren’t really talking to us because you can change the dialogue away from hey gives a job or we’ve got this great candidate to hey would you be interested in this because it like deals with that problem I know you’ve all got it changes the narrative away from those transactional sales to something around a conversation that you can have, and more people are going to start a conversation with someone if they feel that they can get some benefit from it Well chunky content will do that, and the marketers produce a chunky content. So, but they don’t just sit in a room, and do it they work with the salespeople to make sure they get the right content that the Target market.

11:55.93

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, I completely agree. Um I think that that that stuff is as obviously they would as a market incredibly powerful, and I think it you know it. It can be the initiator of that conversation and build that awareness of the brand and make that done cleverly can make sure you’ve got a warm content when you do follow that through and um and target those people a big fan of that way of working. Um, so that’s the content piece and it’s interesting. You talk around like the growth strategy because we’re finding more and more marketeers considered as growth could cast themselves as growth. Marketeers. So that’s a very much more trendy term now for because that whole growth piece is a is where we I think the marketers want to position themselves within the business. It’s not just marketing. It’s growth marketing. Um, and I know from our own experience that. We define ourselves as a growth marketing agency as well. We what we have done in the past and that those 7 points that those 7 book key messages. You know a marketing speed. You know that’s your positioning statement. That’s who you are what you do? why? you do it who you do it for and why you’re better than everyone else at doing it. Um, and I think that again any business listing in if you can get to a stage where you’re defining that stuff which is difficult though as ah as a recruitment agency because you do some stuff. That’s very similar to everybody else more than likely. Um. And so, defining that I think can be difficult. So maybe so explore a little bit that but bit more Mike that would be interesting.

13:28.90

Mike

Oh, it is here. Well, the new term that people are using now is the flavour of recruitment and it’s a mix of different things. So did you know that ice cream I don’t know what your favourite flavour of ice cream is James but mine happens to be room and raisin. Moment, I don’t know whether you’ve got a favourite but that there you go. But if you did, I’m turning it we well that’s 98% the same as roman rain but it’s the 2% is a bit of colouring a bit of flavouring and in my case, a few raisins tossed it.

13:51.60

ThinkinCircles

I don’t I’m not a massive ice cream fan if I’d be honest, um, yeah, but yeah, but I do it would be chocolate or something like that right? And yet we prefer one over another quite vehemently and I don’t like min I don’t like Cho I like this that there’s a 2% difference recruitment is the same 98% of it is 5 boxes on a whiteboard you know, get client get vacancy and find candidates qualify candidates in place right? So, it really isn’t that difficult to do, but it is very hard to differentiate because we’re all doing the same thing. So, what you’re looking for is that 2% which is different which then gives you a flavour so that then you can say to the clients look you know if you if your tastes happen to coincide with our flavour and we can prove the flavour taste the way it does because we got all these video testimonials right? so. If it does and you eventually will work together. It’s not ah, it’s not a timing issue whether it’s three months three weeks or 3 years it makes a difference. This is our flavour and if you like it then come to us if you don’t then my advice is with due respect just go down the street and get somebody else’s flavour because this is ours and that’s alien to most recruit us because they want to embrace everybody and include everybody’s big mistake push away the people that aren’t right for you and the people that are will be attracted to you and this concept of productization which is a brand for ages I think it’s got out of hand quite frankly now to be fair.

15:20.99

Mike

That flavour is your product but it’s much more than that as Well. It’s your values. It’s your ups. It’s your promise of service. It is your plan the things that you offer with the feature benefit pairs. It’s you’re pricing. It’s the value ads that you give what else? do you do as well as put a Bu on a seed for somebody So that’s your flavour and you can really ran that out. And somewhere buried in the middle of it is we put a boom on a seat just like everybody else and I think if you focus on building a flavour when you do get in front of somebody because the marketers have run a campaign and at the end of it. Someone has said. Yeah, well Okay, what have you got then you can say well Okay, let me tell you what we have. And if you like this, we’ll do great things together if you don’t then we’ll just go our separate ways. It’s a massively compelling sales approach to take and it really works very powerful.

16:06.32

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, um, it’s an interesting point that um that your being very selective over your clientele. Um, which is difficult I think for a lot of recruitment agencies because you know, especially when they’re starting out. They’re going to take on everything. Um and that that message gets very much diluted very quickly with all good intentions. They set out going to be as niche as possible. We’re always told that recruitment recruiters need to be as niche as possible because as the as the ah our American Cousins butcher it.

16:35.46

Mike

Um, well I don’t necessarily agree with that. But I know I know people take that? yeah.

16:37.74

ThinkinCircles

Ah, riches the riches are in the niches, right? You know you know? um, but um, but yeah, it’s interesting being selective over your clientele and I guess the marketing can help with certain amount of that real defining who you want to work with yeah.

16:52.17

Mike

Massively so massively so because certainly with your communication strategy with the c that deals with communications and the thin content that you put out for sure as well as your collateral. Obviously, you put in this stuff out there and it’s basically saying look if you want. This flavour of recruitment and what you do your market is part of that flavour right? So, if you want this flavour of recruitment were you guys. You know you know you want to come to us if not, you need to go to those cats down the street because they’re the ones that do that. And I remember years ago in the 90 s we got a piece of work, and it turned out it was introduced to us from one of our competitors. 1 of their best clients because the client had asked for something that they couldn’t do, and they said Well it’s not as you need to talk to those guys they came. They did this one little bit of work for us. And then they went back to him, and we never saw head and a hair of them ever again. I think it’s that view that you’re comfortable in what you do, and you are at the very highest level, but you’re write on what you say about the stages that recruiters go through I heard about it as being or heard of it in in terms of the. 3 stages of mankind so that when we started out on the plains of Africa the question was what can I eat right? Sorry how can I eat so I’m just I just need to whatever I can do today to feed myself I’ll scavenge I’ll kill things I pick things or do whatever I can.

18:18.30

Mike

Hunter Gatherers and of course that’s a very unpleasant experience so you need then go to become a farmer then it’s what can I eat so have a choice now Ill plant things plant things I want pick can choose what I want and then the third stage which we all want to get to be where can I do lunch because we don’t really know where the money is coming From. We don’t care if wave got this business. Does all this stuff so stuff and we pony around at the top of it and when you start you are how can I eat but you don’t want to stay there. That’s for I’m sure you need to get out of that phase quickly and get into what can I eat and then become known as the guy to guys go to guys or go to girls that do that thing in the middle, and whatever that is for you. We do this I mean we can do all these other things as well. But we’re not going to talk about that. We’ll only talk about that when you’re a client but right now as an entry board. We are the go-to people for this and then they come and once you’re in well you can sell them whatever you like aren’t you. But. I think in that positioning which is a tremendous amount of marketing I think is involved in that so that people look at you and say I mean whoever hired average at anything I’ll go out and I’ll hire someone I’ll get the most average person we want the best person we want the person who’s that is the. Well known. Ah, as being able to deliver in that space. We don’t like at an average Joe average. So, I think it’s important for us as recruiters to be able to make sure that our image is such that with a go to person for whatever it is that we make the most money out of.

19:43.36

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, I mean I like that 3 stages of recruitment growing up and it’s interesting because you’re marketing and how you market and what you market will change will develop with that. Um, if you are a start-up then there’s no what you’re not going to be able to afford ah a marketing agency. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty at that point. Um and have a go it yourself and then you get to or growing up and what you talk about now you know, but.

20:08.81

Mike

You can smart sort it out. You know that many of the things that you need things like your key messages you can. You can have a gut you can. They can be good enough to go out with you know your communications strategy I’ll make a LinkedIn post every week I mean it doesn’t have to be complex. To start off with and I would argue it never has to be complex. But you know that’s just me. But I think that you the simpler it is the easier. It is. You’ll make a start and the and the sooner you’ll make a start the sooner. You’ll start to get the benefits from it.

20:37.92

ThinkinCircles

I completely and absolutely agree and I tell you what that is a great place to finish on our today I think Mike um, thank you very much It’s been an absolute pleasure ah dipping into your brain for the last  20 minutes um I’m sure we’ll have you back on at some point in the future if anybody does want to know more and work with Mike then we’re going to include all of your details in the show notes. So, anybody can. Reach out. Ah but Mike Ames thank you very much for being guest today.

21:01.70

Mike

Thank you for having me.

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