The branding and tone of voice bit is really just like an integral part of all of your marketing. It doesn't. You don't suddenly arrive at it and it's finished. And also, you just need to think. I think about what it actually means and how it translates onto your website rather than just like, oh, okay, we're going to sound confident and articulate. And then that's job done.
During that meeting, which, which you're alluding to. I desperately wanted to pass you a message to say, do not speak. Did I speak? You did, you did. But no, I mean, yeah, you didn't really spoil anything. But once clients are talking with each other and disagreeing, it's a great it's great just to sit and listen because you'll learn so much about the business. Well, you know, one, you know, the management team think this and some of the people who are below the management team think that. And then then they're having a conversation about it. And it's always worth just.
Never had before. But never mind.
Yeah, yeah. It's always worth shutting up when that's happening. Welcome back to Digital Marketing From The Coalface. Our last podcast had quite a lot more downloads than normal.
Three rather than two. Yeah.
Yeah. Which is a thirty percent increase. I'm quite delighted with that. I know. Yeah. So I think someone accidentally downloaded it because they thought it was something good. It's very unlikely they downloaded it intentionally anyway.
Well I mean it's got your face on.
It's probably a boomer like me who bought a new phone and just started pressing buttons and suddenly downloaded our entire back catalogue.
Get that horrible northern twat off my screen and he accidentally downloads it.
Right. I've got a few topics which I thought we'd chew chew over. Obviously, you know, digital marketing from the coalface, plus a bit of politics and bullshit as the usual format for this podcast. We got invited, sent an RFP request for proposal and quite often, well, nearly always we we politely decline. We're not huge fans of RFPs. We prefer to have a conversation and spend a bit of time with people and figure out if we're the right team and then give them a proposal and and see if it fits and see if we're a fit. They're a fit and all the rest of it. But now and again things come along. We think, oh yeah, look at that. So this thing, this thing came on and it's kind of two pronged. It's one of those kind of, um, interesting ones in that, you know, we want to improve our brand, but we don't want to rebrand.
Yeah.
You know, we just want to. Okay.
Yeah, just make it a bit shinier.
Yeah. Can you make our website more web ish? But, but not too web ish. And how much will that cost?
Yeah.
You know, it was one of those kind of things, but, you know, nice bunch of people. We had to catch up with them and had a chat with them. So it's and I guess where I'm coming from is like, there's an element of like brand refresh and we can nail it and there's an element of, well, they've got a HubSpot website and they're thinking of being in HubSpot and going down the route of WordPress or something like that, which.
Is an interesting decision.
It is. I mean, you know, if they were a poor company and they just couldn't keep up with hubspot's pricing, I could understand it, but they're not. I think I think they've had a badly a bad experience, as in a badly put together HubSpot website, which they find difficult to manage and own and grow and everything else. And, um, and so they just like a lot of people do, they've assumed it's the content management system that's at fault, not the way it was put together for us. But that aside, um, there's a branding element and there's a web element and I'm confident and we've had a conversation internally about it that we could nail the whole piece. However, we don't tell a great story. I think it's fair to say when it comes to brand, when it comes to helping companies really figure out what their brand is, who, who they are. We can't tell a great story that we can do it, but we've done it plenty of times and we can do it. And as I explained to them, um, when we do great work for companies and they, they might say, can you take a look at this for us as well? And we, and we, you know, we basically do work on their tone of voice and their brand and sometimes on their their brand guidelines and all the rest of it. And so I guess what I'm asking is, have any views on how to be straight up and honest with people whilst at the same time really wanting a piece of work and knowing absolutely knowing you can nail it.
Yeah. Without sounding like you're trying to blag it.
Yeah. I mean, we've never been blaggers. I mean, all new businesses were far from a new business these days. But you know, when businesses start out, there's an element of blagging, you know, people like there's one person in the business and they speak about themselves as we as in, oh yeah, we'll hear it, you know, Acme engineering, we do this and we do that. And it's like, wait on it. It's just you, you know, you should say I.
But.
You know, there's an element of Rachel Reeves in your CV, isn't there? You know.
I see part of me thinks this is sort of an imposter syndrome thing as well, because I sit I sit slightly on the periphery of this. Sorry, I'll clear my throat. I don't really get involved in the mucky branding bit at all. So sitting outside of that whole process and looking in, it does seem to me like every time somebody comes to us and says, oh, you know, really like all the work you've done on our website, we're not one hundred percent sold on our brand. Or more likely, we think the brand is holding us back or we're spinning up a new company, as happened quite recently. We need a brand for it. Can you guys do that as well? And we do actually do a pretty good job, but I think.
Don't oversell it.
Well. Um, but I think the thing is like, because you're quite close to it, you look at that and you think, oh, I don't want to overegg my experience, I don't want to overexaggerate that. I think, you know, it's probably just one of those things. And I think a lot of companies do this where they're like, oh, we do that occasionally, but probably not enough to really talk about it. So we'll let that work float past us. And in fact, thinking of a client we're working with at the moment in the energy industry, where we're sort of overhauling their website quite rapidly at the moment, we have quite a few conversations with people internally there who are like, oh, well, we have technically done this before with the tool two or three times, and it worked really well. But we can't, you know, we can't really like sell it on that basis. And I'm sitting there thinking, but why not? Have you've done it two or three times and you have a track record and you can prove that it's successful. Why be ashamed or embarrassed about that? I think it just.
And that's the reason I raised the subject, is it? You know, we question ourselves and think we can do this. We can definitely do a great job for them. But we we're not going to bullshit and we don't maybe tell a brilliant story about how we would do it. Our processes may be a little unconventional.
And, and that's the bigger piece is that we haven't really thought about the branding around our branding process. You know, it requires what you're talking about there, like coming up with a compelling story, working out how to frame it. Yeah, the evidence, working out, how to frame it, working out what the process is going to be and how to sell that is, is the whole piece really. It takes time and effort and energy. And until you sit down and think, right, okay, I'm going to dedicate a week to, to just figuring out how we can sell brand a bit like clients until they sit down and spend a week thinking, okay, how can we really go after this market for for our tool or whatever? It's not going to happen because these things don't happen by accident. You don't just sort of luck into the branding space has to be a concerted effort, I think. But I, yeah, I don't think anybody starts with a more solid foundation, if that makes sense. Like nobody comes to these things and thinks, right, I've done this thirty times. Now I can finally start talking about it because you don't, you don't get to thirty until you're selling it aggressively. Yeah, it's not fake it till you make it. It's just be honest about your your abilities.
Yeah. And if you put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer, whether that be an engineering company, um, an oil company that are looking to, you know, will that tool that you guys have got solved my problem that I've got over here. Yeah. Um, you know, you've got, you've got to tell a compelling story. And if your story isn't, we've done this a thousand times, we've killed it. These are the results that we've had then is there somebody else who can tell that story who's going to get the work Whereas, you know, you know, by being honest, I mean, I know for a fact that by being straight up and honest over the years, we have missed opportunities where, you know, where if we maybe just kind of. Yeah, Rachel Reeves did a little bit. You know, we might, we might, we might have got the gig.
Well, it's I think it's more that if you don't have the experience, tell a different story. You know, if I came to you tomorrow and I said, right. You know, I'm gonna, I don't know, like it services say. And I said, look, I've done it. Services, you know, sort of holistic, um, retained IT services for three or four digital marketing companies. I don't have the biggest track record, but I'm really successful and I'm really hungry and I'm looking to add more clients to my portfolio, and I will work my ass off to make it work for you. That is still compelling. It is. And if somebody walks, you're.
Still asking them to make a leap of faith and take a bit of a gamble.
Yeah.
As opposed to a safe pair of hands who've like, we've done this a thousand times. Here's some examples of who we did it for. Here's some clients we did it for. Go and speak to them.
But different things appeal to different people. And then there are some companies that will hit, oh, we've done this a thousand times before and think, great, you know, they're going to phone it in. They're bored of it. They're not really like on the cutting edge. Probably like all their tactics are three years out of date. So I think it's, it's just about how you frame it really and how you think about it. Yeah. I certainly don't know that. Like if you, if you actually look at the number of agencies that have done more than five or six really big brand projects without before they've started sort of selling branding services and going after that market, it's probably quite small. I don't imagine many people sort of luck into twenty jobs before they can start banging on about it.
A lot of the work we do is, is brand work. You know, the, the content that we produce, the messaging that we write, the stories that we help people tell, that's all brand. It's all about, you know, what, you know, helping to develop that messaging and creating the, what people say about them when they're not in the room, which is, you know, my, my overarching simplistic but, but, but still, for me, persuasive, you know, idea of what a brand is, what people say about it when you're not there. And, you know, we help businesses with that all the time in just about everything that we do.
Literally all the time, and even when we're not directly involved in helping them come up with the brand, as I was trying to articulate to you earlier, but quite poorly, I think, you know, this, this thing happens where we often get handed a brand guidebook by a company that they've had put together by a third party agency and told to interpret that, you know, make this, oh, we want a confident and articulate tone of voice. Make that happen across all of the pages on our website. And it's like.
That's not what that means. Not clear examples of what that means or, you know. Yeah, exactly. Um, well, one, one that we got recently, you know, for a company who shall remain nameless and the messaging document that we were given, I mean, they're just all, all it's full of is category descriptors, you know, that's it. There's nothing, there's nothing in that that sort of sets them apart at all.
And in that meeting, which will probably end up circling back to later in the podcast, I'm sure, because it's certainly on my notes and probably on yours, but in that meeting.
Managed to expunge it from my brain.
In that meeting, you know, that was one of the really interesting things, isn't it? Because they were there sort of half of them were saying, yep, we're one hundred percent set in the brand messaging. We know exactly what the tone of voice is. We know what our brand is. And the other half of the people in the room were sort of like, hmm, you know, do we do we? Are we sure? Like, have we definitely. And I think it's really interesting, isn't it? Like there's no yeah, the branding and tone of voice bit is really just like an integral part of all of your marketing. It doesn't, you don't suddenly arrive at it and it's finished. And also, you just need to think. I think about what it actually means and how it translates onto your website rather than just like, oh, okay, we're going to sound confident and articulate. And then that's job done.
That was, that was during that meeting, which, which you're alluding to. I, I desperately wanted to pass you a message to say, do not speak.
Did I speak? You did, you did.
But no, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, you didn't, you didn't really spoil anything. But once clients are talking with each other and disagreeing. It's a great. It's great just to sit and listen because you'll learn so much about the business. Well, you know, one, you know, the management team think this and some of the people who are below the management team think that. And then they're having a conversation about it. And it's which apparently they've.
Never had before, but never mind.
Yeah, yeah. It's always worth shutting up when that's happening and just let it happen. And, and let them, let them do their thing.
So it's really interesting though, because, I mean, bringing it back to the whole RFP thing that we started this conversation, I think that meeting we've had a couple of RFPs through recently that. Yeah. And in my head, it's just sort of like coagulated into this, this one sort of thought really, which is that I've never seen an RFP or sat in a meeting like that where somebody spent ages preparing all the groundwork and wants to present you what you need to go away and do where it's ever been. Correct. Like it's, it's, it's, you know, people spend literally hours of their lives putting together these very granular documents. I mean, one of the ones that we were discussing earlier this week or maybe the end of last.
Week, Another one, you mean?
I think it was in such granular detail, but it was all completely wrong. Well, you know, it was just misplaced.
Yeah. They'd spent a lot of time thinking about their digital footprint, their online presence, etc. but they'd been thinking about all the wrong things.
It's like, oh, we, we must have tracking codes on all the forms so we can track them. And it's like, that's just. Yeah. Why is that a concern? Like.
We need to know when somebody presses the submit button on a form.
Never mind what the website is.
Because there'll be something in your CRM.
Look like how it's positioned. The story we tell, how we want people to use it, what information we want to present. It's oh, when they eventually click a button for some undisclosed reason, we want this to happen.
And it's like, well, here's the thing. Chill out. I know who you're talking about. And I think that RFP closed today, so we submitted our proposal to them on Monday or Tuesday, in fact, Friday. But the person was off on Friday, so they picked it up on Monday. Oh, thanks very much for sending this through so quickly. And we'll get back to you after the twentieth when we're making a decision sort of thing. Now, I don't imagine for one second that they'll come our way, because we have very politely said, yeah, thanks for that document. We've like looked at.
It, but that's not.
What we've answered. There was some very specific things in it that their stakeholders were concerned about, and I answered those questions. But the rest of it was basically us saying, that's all very good, but guess what? We'd love to sit down with you and really talk about it and together put put together a scope of work that's going to get you from where you are to where you want to be. And I don't think they'll go for it, because I think they'll look at all the work they did in that document. Some other agencies will almost certainly have.
Well, you just go.
This is what you've asked for. This is how much we'll charge you to to deliver it. And it's whether the internal person who's who's responsible for that document is, is, is grown up enough, if you like to say, actually what they're saying makes a lot of sense that maybe this isn't what we need. And, and having a conversation to start the process makes way more sense.
But maybe I'll out myself as very naive here. How is that not the most sensible starting position for every business? Well.
I'll give you. I'll tell you why, but just just before you go into one of your rants and then then you can go into one of your rants. Well, it won't matter. It will if you, as a business, have hired a fantastic team of people and you've put together, properly, put together a well thought out strategy, but you want a, well, a really switched on agency to help you deliver it. Then you might present to them a meaningful plan of attack. You've done all the discovery. You've done all the market research, competitive analysis, analysis of your own data, looked at messaging, looked at clients. You've interviewed people, spoken about what they think about when they're going to buy what you sell. You've done all of that and you just but you want an agency who can add a bit more value rather than just like a freelancer who can like create the pretty pictures and do. Do you know, monkey see monkey do type stuff? So in that situation, that's fine, but that hardly ever happens.
Well, it's knowing.
Can continue with.
Rant. Well, it's knowing, isn't it, that you're actually in that position because I think a lot of people think they're in that position. What surprises me is that I talk to clients in the engineering space, particularly all the time, who say exactly the same thing. People will come to us, they'll tell us they need this tool. They actually need a different one. Somebody will come to me.
With.
A spec for an irrigation system, and it must do exactly this at precisely this RPM, and it must move exactly this amount of water through pipes of this diameter. And I look at it and I think, well, that's all absolute horseshit. You need three pumps spread around the site, and the amount of time that people seem to spend putting these documents together, reviewing the documents, telling people that the documents are rubbish. It just seems like the whole thing would be much more effective if people started from the assumption that, you know, I might feel like I ought to know, but I don't really know what I'm specifying. So I'll start a conversation early.
But that does happen because, you know, companies well, for example, if you are, um, I was going to say an oil company, but I'm going to an energy company and you want to build a battery storage facility, for example, or a solar farm and battery storage facility. A lot of companies will say, right, we've got this big lump of land. It's, you know, we've had the, um, whoever it is looks at it say, well, you know, it's flat and it's, you know, we can, we can, we've got open skies. It's a really good opportunity to create a solar farm and battery storage. And they'll just go and find somebody who can come and speak to them, talk them through, you know, the process that they need to go through in order to deliver a successful outcome and then just deliver the whole thing for them. There are I mean, that happens all the time in engineering. You know, you get these is it the feed studies that they do, um, feasibility engineering, conceptual concepts and all the rest of it. So it does happen. And then like you say at the other end of the scale, you know, it's people are tasked within their organisation. Right. We need a website. Right, right. An invitation to tender. tell them what we need, and then go out and find somebody to deliver what we've asked them for. Yeah. Um, and that happens a lot. And you're absolutely right. The really, the, the meaningful, more grown up way to do it, whether it's websites or whether it's any sort of professional service or just about anything really is to identify people who clearly do what you need them to do and interview them, engage, have a conversation, have a coffee, and then narrow it down and then decide who you're going to work with. And then start the process of figuring out what success looks like.
Because, because, you know, you know, I mean, we love it when we get HubSpot enquiries. For example, you know, somebody a message pings and somebody says, I need help building HubSpot website. This is what I need it to do. Are you interested? And we often are, and we often talk to them. But even those emails really, if we're being honest about it, are quite misguided. You know, somebody has independently decided on a CMS for no real reason, because we all know that they're all pretty much equivalent, and then they're going down the route of only interviewing people who say they work in that specific CMS, which means, you know, fabulous that they found us. But but, you know, just being sort of logical about it, they've also missed the opportunity of speaking to other agencies that may actually be more suitable for solving the problem they have. If only they hadn't locked themselves into that.
Well that's right. We've had conversations with people where they've said, we've got a, I don't know, Umbraco website, which is based on ASP dot Net Microsoft stuff. We don't touch any of that garbage. We just don't do it. And we're never going to we're never going to do it. But like, the way that we could help them as a business is lost because we don't just use a particular piece of technology. Yeah. Um, but that I kind of that feeds into the kind of transactional nature of our industry. Yeah. A lot of people don't recognise the value that we can bring and just see us as people that, you know, bolt things together. You know, they don't see us as the engineer. They see us as the mechanic.
Well, it's interesting though, because, you know, the irrigation manufacturing company that I was talking about before, they say exactly the same thing, you know, people see them as somebody who provides a product. You give them the.
Pump and some pipes and some nozzles.
Yeah. Put this box together and they'll be like, oh yes, my Lord. And tip their cap and run off and like, do the thing, whatever it is that they would. So, and, and, you know, their biggest frustration is actually, you know, if people brought us in really early in the process and actually consulted with us, we could find much more efficient ways of you.
Do you do you hear it all the time? And I guess that that is related to the, you know, what, where I went at the beginning of this around the idea that like, we've got this opportunity where we know we can nail it, but we can't really tell a good story. So we'll maybe only bid on the bit that we know we can nail, which means we probably won't get the gig because somebody else will maybe be able to actually do the whole thing, or they'll blag bit the bit that they can't do and get the whole gig anyway.
See, I think it's a really interesting concept that, you know, just by having done a hundred branding jobs, you're more suitable to brand a company than somebody else.
Yeah, it's I kind of empathise with what you're saying because when people, um, it's like when people say, oh, you know, like I was looking at a website today and every of all of the people pages, you know, John has got more than fifteen years experience, yada, yada, yada. Susan has got more than twenty years, blah, blah, blah.
fifteen and in a month.
Yeah, but, but it's like it, you undoubtedly learn a lot when you do something for a long time. You learn by osmosis, but you can still be rubbish at something. Having been doing it for twenty years.
We should know.
We should know. That's right.
No one hundred percent, one hundred percent. And I think it's this age old idea that, you know, just yeah, somebody's history, the story. They've got a hundred brands under their belt and they'll hours and they're not really willing to evidence it. And it's especially egregious in like web development territory because like we're it's.
The second time this week you've said egregious. We said it in a meeting and the client went, what does that mean?
I'll stop with the ten dollar words. Yeah, absolutely. Um. You are completely derailed me now. You're a horrible man. Um, no. Um, what I was gonna say is web development companies that are like, oh, these are all the clients we've worked with. And like, we're quite transparent. There are sections on our website, I think deliberately to sort of combat this where we actually detail the work we did for a client and link you to them and talk about the results.
And invite you to speak to them if you.
Want. Absolutely. But an awful lot of people are very guilty of being like, oh, we've worked for the NHS and this group and that group and the other organisation. And what they mean is like, we built a sort of like, you know, five pound pamphlet. Yeah. Made a web banner, did an advert once. And it's like this whole sort of like fake it till you make it thing. I don't know, it's a weird thing. It's like you have to have the experience. But equally, the experience doesn't really tell people anything about your capabilities. So I don't.
Know. Yeah. Because if it was the case that you really just need twenty plus years experience, there would be there would be nobody. I mean, there are brilliant creatives and brilliant coders in their very early twenties, for example. And like, if it were true that you need to do something for twenty five years in order for it to be, you know, for you to be any good at it, then that, you know, every single designer, coder, etc. would be mid forties plus.
Wouldn't they? Absolutely.
I mean, you're not bad at your job and you're only thirty two. You know what I mean? So you've been doing this now for over twelve years.
Over twelve years. Yeah, absolutely. A thirty two is ancient from my perspective, and I don't like being reminded of it. I don't know if I am quite good at my job sometimes, but no, I get what you point.
I think moderate, moderately adequate, moderately adequate. Yeah.
Let's not oversell it.
No.
Yeah. But I mean, it's just that whole idea, isn't it, of sort of knowing, being confident enough to put yourself out there and say, I can actually do this, even if I haven't got sort of thirty brands in my pocket.
Yeah. I think the realisation that most of the world is busking and blagging and hoping for the best and, you know, paddling under the water whilst serenely gliding along like a swan is kind of the norm. Yeah, I think the difference is some people do that and don't care. Yeah. And some people do that trying to really care. They will do like we do. We'll do whatever it takes to deliver what the client needs. We'll over deliver. When we commit to doing something, we absolutely commit, we own it, we deliver it. And so yeah, but, but, and we'll always be up front with people. And, you know, like I say, I said earlier, you will definitely have cost us gigs for sure.
Absolutely.
Right. Well, that was that, that was quite interesting. I quite enjoyed that. Yeah. You were moderately adequate again in that conversation. That's twice today you've been moderately adequate once when you were doing the work for the client earlier. And then in the podcast, I know.
Please, sir, can I have a sticker.
A sticker? You might regret asking for that, but yes, I've got something in mind. Go on. You've got some subjects or subject?
Well, I have one thing that's sort of it's not really related to that at all, but it is a question which all I've written on my notes is how bold can you really be? Um, and it goes back to that irrigation client we were just talking about. So I don't know how, uh, how transparent I can be, but, but basically the thing with them is we're currently putting together a sort of state of the industry piece for them. So launching the new, the end of the first quarter, I guess, um, they want to go out and say, you know, this is where the industry is, this is what to be wary of. This is what.
To. And they're trying to be completely impartial.
They're trying to well, this.
And this is the point.
They're trying to be completely impartial, except that the sort of, uh, the, what the client really wants is to sort of rant about, um, the sort of malfeasance in their industry and how rubbish everybody is and how everybody is really out to line their pockets and deliver a pretty poor service, which is probably like true, you know, like from the research that we've done, it does look that there is, it does look like that is actually the case.
Just sell them stuff. Put it in, walk away. It doesn't work quite right. Oh, sorry about that. Anyway, we're doing.
A lot of it, apparently. And irrigation is like irrigation contractors who are going to be looking after irrigation system. We'll put the spec together and then they'll go out and get an irrigation system. And then they will basically say, oh yeah, we'll check it every month and we'll keep up to date on it and we'll do wet checks and, and they don't ever do it. And then the system breaks and the landscape dies and it costs millions of dollars and pounds or whatever to remediate.
So the company we're talking about, our client, um, they are, um, the good guys, they want to do it properly.
I think they genuinely.
Are, they want to have a proper rant about it, don't they? But instead of ranting, you've kind of well.
I've.
Tried to shame them into making it less ranty and more constructive.
I've tried to shape it and make it very impartial and draw on studies and surveys and reviews and sort of like build an actual picture of where the marketplace is. And every time I give it to the client, he's like, well, yeah, but you're just not being bold enough. Like you can just say what you can say. What I'm saying to you. They're all crooks. And I'm like, I get the sentiment, but I'm not sure we really can. And it's just really interesting because it's, you know, it's something we talk about a lot as well. You know, plain English, straight talking. We want to tell people the honest truth, but it's like, how honest can you actually get away with being in business? And, and where is the sort of like line that you can't cross anymore? And it's quite interesting because sometimes I think people who do just play straight across that line and are just like, yeah, everybody else is a crook.
Well, here's a curveball with respect to that because it's a really good topic. Here's a curveball. How do you talk straight and convince the people that you're talking straight? Yeah, because one of the challenges I have is I always talk straight. I mean, I'm not rude, but I'm never going to bullshit. We don't need the work. It's just how I am. I'm a, you know, believe me or don't believe me. And this is the exact problem I'm talking about. I am a straight talking guy. I'll do anything for anybody. I'm an honest person. And how do you talk straight to a client when the client maybe thinks you're full of shit? You know, how how do you. It is. It's very difficult.
As soon as you say. One thing I always remember is in year five, we went up into Miss Hartigan's class and she sat us down on the first day of term. And she and. And this is how much of an impression it left, because I still remember her name. Sort of.
Miss Hartington.
Miss Hartigan.
Hartigan. That's an interesting.
And she wrote on the board, I am fair. And she said, that's the only thing you need to know about me. And she was the most vindictive, miserable woman I've ever met was not in any way fair.
Right. So that was a smokescreen.
But but but it's the problem, isn't it? Because people generally don't say what they are. And as soon as you say like we're honest and straight talking people are like, oh, they're at it.
Well, he's a he's a very simple example. We are advocates of HubSpot. We, we built our rebuilt our own website using HubSpot because we like it. Yeah. Genuinely, because we like it. The devs love it. We like building sites, using it. It's a lovely system to use, but it ain't cheap. It's nowhere near the most expensive. I hasten to add, but it's not. WordPress is free, you know. It's not free. Yeah. Um, and so when I'm talking to customers, you know, I always like, we use it for our own site and we don't have to or a bunch of geeks. I've said this a thousand times before, but we, we use it because we really like it. And I think you'll like it. And I think you'll find and, and without any exceptions, clients who've adopted it love it. They think, yeah, it's great. It makes owning and running a website so much easier. It's great. Um, I always say like, if you do buy it, we are, we're HubSpot partners. We will get a small commission. It's not a lot of money, but we do get a commission. We'll also negotiate hard with HubSpot to make sure you get a good deal. And I just have to do that because I, I would never want them. I put it in that proposal that went out to that client today. You know, like, yes, you've made the right choice choosing it. We, we like it. We think you should use it. You've said you want to use it. We will get a commission if you decide to use it. Um, but it's this, you know, it's this transparency, it's this, it's this being honest. And that is also kind of being bold as.
Well, sort of a little bit like the whole like self-depreciating humor thing where you can show somebody that you're self-aware by making a joke at your self-deprecating, what did I say, depreciating like an asset. I mean, I am I mean, well, I just think you're depreciating in value. That's whether.
I am.
As this conversation goes on, self-deprecating. Um, yeah, it's that whole idea, I guess, that if you say something at your own expense, you are sort of illustrating your, your sort of judgment and fairness. And I guess, yeah, saying we get a small commission achieves that. But yeah, I think it is a really interesting idea, isn't it? It's just like, how can you, how can you sort of navigate that very, very difficult line between being seen as straight talking and just being seen as a bit of an oaf or.
Somebody said somebody said recently, I can't remember if it was on a podcast or a book I'm listening to. Uh, and they said something like, you know, I was he was talking about what other people think of you. Yeah. And they said something like, I am not responsible for what somebody else thinks about me. It is none of my business. And so I think, like, what we do is we're straight and honest with people. If they think we're full of shit, if they think we're snake oil salesmen, if we if they think we're not looking after their best interests.
Nothing you can do about it.
Nothing you can do about it. No. And we shouldn't ever try because we we just need to be authentic. And if we are. And we are authentic. But if we if we're just authentic and people go, nah, I'm going to buy off this, this bullshitter instead, you know, then let them.
Go for it. Yeah, it's interesting, but one thing I do notice about you and the approach that you take is you never bring anybody else down. And that's, I think, what.
Ruins my head.
But I think what rubs me up slightly the wrong way with what this client's trying to do is that it's it's being honest at the expense of other people. You know, it's saying these people are bad and I am good. And I think that's the bit that maybe we we never really do that. We don't sort.
Of. I think you can be cleverer than that. Yeah. You really can. You you can point out some of the bad practices.
Without actually.
Without actually pointing the finger at a specific organisation. Um, and I think, I think people get subtle, I don't know if it's the same in the US, because I know we're talking about a client in the US. I don't know whether they get it quite the same as we do. They probably.
Do.
They probably do. Um you know, so I think um, but going back to your original point about being bald, um, I think. I mean, you can with, with the digital media experiment with that. You don't have to kind of like front and centre on your public facing website that people find when they're searching Google be bald to the point of taking risks that might bring you down as a business. Um, but you could certainly experiment with it, I suppose. I think as long as you're being honest. um, and authentic. Then I think that goes hand in hand with being bold, I think. I think so. Very good. You mean you've got me thinking about maybe there are there are situations now where we do need to be a bit, a bit bolder.
Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because I think once you start really sort of thinking about these things, clearly, you're like, well, that is, you know, calling it, calling out sort of malpractice. Bad behaviour in your industry is probably no bad thing if it actually helps people make a decision.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, I got caught out, um, a couple of months ago where I was involved more or less as a spectator in a kind of branding type conversation that the client had organised and invited us along to. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I just thought that was just an absolute crock. And so, you know, I pinged the pinged the boss and said, what did you think of that? And he's a bright guy. And he saw right through me. And he was like, well, what do you mean? What did I think of that? What did I'm just. And I said, we had a conversation. Then at the end, he said, you still haven't really told me. Like, why did you say, what did you think of that kind of thing? And I was just like, oh, well, you know, and I kind of, I kind of just left it and left it hanging sort of thing. Um, if I'd been bolder, I would have just said to him, I just thought that was a crock of shit. It was a waste of your time. It was a waste of my time. And we achieved nothing. I should have said it. And he might have said, right, you're sacked because I thought it was fantastic and you're full of shit. And I'd be like, okay, fine, that's fine, but I'll tell it like it is. Yeah. Um, because in business, um, there is just so much bullshit. I've got a little scribble of some of the other subjects, which we might, we might touch on, although we're already kind of horsing through our allocated time. Oh, we can take as long as we like. We're in charge where the bosses of this podcast.
Oh.
Yeah.
All right. Um, I think that was a threat. Yeah.
It sounded like an idle threat, didn't it? Um, so I've lost my thread.
Well, it's an interesting point that though, because I don't think I've ever regretted telling the truth, I've definitely regretted not like lies of omission where you're like, oh, that was fine. Or, and I actually, it's one of those things that I really hate about myself. I find myself doing it quite a lot. You know, a client will say something that is like patently stupid.
And you'll agree.
With them. And I'll be like, well, I agree with them, but I'll just be like, well, if you want to do that.
Yeah, yeah you do. I've seen that. And I, and I think, you know, given where you are in your career, it's not unusual. I think when I was your age, probably I would have been a lot worse at it than you are. Um, you know, I think generationally things have moved on a bit. I was, I, you know, even probably well into my thirties, I was still, you know, very humble. I'm just a working class lad. I'm an imposter. I shouldn't be here. And I was very, I was quite timid. And it's only as you get older and more comfortable in your skin, you realise that the world's full of people haven't got a clue what they're doing. And then. Yeah, exactly. Again, we're back on Swans, aren't we? There's a couple of swans now living on the golf course on the fifteenth, because there's water there and they've been there now for the last two weeks. It's really very beautiful things. They attacked you? I think they've paid and they've just decided we're going to live here. Everybody else is on the big lock. See how I said that? They're not lock the lock over there. And, um. But they've decided on the little piece of water and they're quite happy. They're very nice. Um. Yeah. So I wouldn't beat yourself up about it, but you know, if I can coach you and bring you, get you quicker to a place where you're more like me, if you like, then I'm happy to do that. And yeah, if you're confident in what you're saying and the client is like speaking absolute nonsense again, not not in a rude way. Yeah. Shut up, shut up. You know, you clown.
There often times recently where we've both been sat in a meeting and I've looked at you and I've thought I really just want.
Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. What, you want to do that to me? Well no there's there's ways and means. Um. Yeah. And you'll learn that as you come to more and do more of these um sort of discovery and, you know, initial engagement type meetings and trying to help and try and understand what clients want. Um, my biggest problem just now, if I'm being absolutely honest, is I'm a bit bored. Sometimes I've got to, I've got to figure out how to be more engaged. You know, I shouldn't say it, but sometimes I find myself like, like looking at some of these things, just thinking, hmm.
Well, one of the things.
Excited about.
This. Yeah. One of the things that I find quite interesting is that especially with like engineering companies, and it's not to sort of, um, they're a primary market, so I won't dunk on them too hard, but they just.
All maybe moving swiftly on. No, it's just.
I just, I find myself recently in quite a few situations where people sort of act like they have like this completely unique problem that nobody's ever seen before, and they're trying to wrestle down the most complex thing in the world. And it's like, dude, this is a problem that literally every company in your market has. Yeah. And you know, and everybody is trying to navigate exactly the same set of challenges. And they're, they're like, I've got no idea how we'll get through this. It's impossible. It's like, well, it's not, because everybody.
Else is the third time this week we've done this for somebody sort of.
Thing. So I get where you're coming from. I don't yeah, I'm not at the point where I find it in any way boring really. I just think it's interesting to note that it's time and time again. Same problems. And it is unfortunately time and time again the same solutions, which is just yeah.
Yeah. But for me, it's cyclical. I go through phases where I just, you know, I just get up in the morning and I'm just, I just can't wait to get at it. Yeah. Um, and there's other days where I'm kind of thinking, oh, you know, just like everybody does. And I, you know, you know, on average, no, that's not the right word, broadly speaking, not really the right word either. I love what I do. Yeah, I do genuinely love what I do. It's why, you know, I'm still doing it and I'm going to keep doing it for quite a long time yet, I hope. Um, but that doesn't mean that within that love it, love what I do, you don't sometimes just get a bit jaded with it. You know.
I don't think.
Mostly when people kind of Div don't engage properly, you know. I suppose. And then like, it's like I've said, sometimes maybe I'm not fully engaged either because I'm just, like I said, a bit jaded, but maybe I'm being too honest. Maybe maybe shouldn't say that in a podcast. Nobody listens to this podcast anyway, so it doesn't.
I don't think there's anyone listening in business that's worked. I mean, even in just any job really, where you do it eight hours a day, eventually you're going to get into a sort of cycle of being like, oh my God, this is annoying. Yeah, I think we all go through it. And I think sometimes we try and sort of obscure that. And one thing I hate more than anything is people who refuse to acknowledge it and are like, oh no, I absolutely love my job every second of every day. No you don't.
Yeah. No you don't. Um, why are people so narky? Did you get a sense that that everyone's just a little bit. Is it because we're fed up with the winter and we're just kind of. Spring can't come soon enough. Is it post Covid?
Is it aimed at me?
Is it.
Behaviour review?
Well you have you have you have seemed a bit grumpy this week, if I'm honest, but it isn't aimed at you.
I can tell you why I've been grumpy this week. If you like.
You can tell me in a.
Minute.
Um, I think, um, I think people are broadly a bit grumpy, and I wonder if it's. I wonder if some of it is social media where we're allowed to be grumpy at complete strangers with no repercussions. Yeah, but tell me why you're grumpy this week.
We took Vivian's, um, pacifiers dummies away. Oh, so she's learning to sleep without them.
And she isn't.
Like, two hours sleep, maybe at night. And it's like, fuck me. Oh, no.
Wow.
Like, pull myself out of bed and I'm like, I can do it. Yeah, I think. Yeah.
But it's because I never had kids. I didn't have I haven't been through that whole like year, you know, years on end of getting up three or four times through the night and just being dog tired, permanently dog tired. Um, so I empathise. Not empathise, I sympathise.
Well you have it from the fire service don't you. I think you go through.
You get a shout once every blue moon in the middle of the night and it's, you know.
Messes you up.
A little bit. Can do.
But to your point, I think you're right.
Why are people so grumpy and narky?
I actually think it's less about the fact that social media allows you, the individual, to be nasty without repercussions. I think it's way more to do with what we consume. I think in general, so there's that whole thing in psychology, right? Where it's like, you, you like think, and then you internalise the thoughts and then they influence your actions. Yeah. And what we basically see all around us is, is just like people shouting at each other. It's like clips of Piers Morgan calling somebody a stupid idiot. And then it's like clips of Donald Trump calling people stupid losers. And then it's like some people shouting about that. And yeah, you know, the whole media is.
Only bad news in the media, in the in the mainstream media.
Well, it's not just bad news though. It's it's people being aggressive is like the default now. It's like, you.
Know, soap operas, which I don't consume soap operas, but they are just basically half an hour of solid people being horrible to.
Each other. Yeah, absolutely. And even in the way that like newspapers frame things now, it's like you're, you know, if you read a newspaper headline, somebody can't tell somebody something, they've slammed them for it or they've, you know, it's like the language is aggressive, the content is aggressive. It's just like, it's endless.
What, what's the end game? Where do we where are we going?
More aggressive people, I guess. I don't know, more miserable, unhappy people.
But give me an example. Can I give you an example? Absolutely. So so I think you might have been privy to it and maybe not. So, um, as you know, I've been quite vocal in the campaign to get a bone bridge fixed. Bridge has been out of action now for almost sixteen months. Council have done the square root of nothing so far. And um.
That was very restrained.
Yeah. And it'll be another two years probably till the bridge is reopened. But, but there are things that they could be doing um to sort of make it slightly, slightly less shit. Yeah. Um, but it got me thinking about like bringing other communities, Scottish rural communities together, thinking like we've got a stronger voice. If we come together than we have, like, hey, what about my bridge? Yeah, what about my bridge? You know, that kind of thing?
Because you'll know the bridge is closed to.
Bridge at Harford Bridge, up at King Edward Bridge, down at Park. Down, down on the way to Aberdeen.
Literally dozens.
Of them. Yeah, there's lots of bridges. I mean, you know, the bridges in Aberdeenshire are in a parlous state. And Aberdeenshire Council are kind of really like, like they're out of their depth. They don't know how to fix it. And but anyway, so I, and I only put these videos on our, on our fixer Bainbridge action group page. But then I thought, well, maybe there's a wider opportunity here to bring rural communities together. So I'll put the video on TikTok. Um, just saying, is there an appetite, you know, for other communities to come together? Maybe we could have a louder voice, we could make representation to, to government, etc.. And one of the, um, I've had some comments going like, yeah, great, great. Good idea. Yeah, that'd be good. So what was one of the comments? Yeah. Um, from, uh, what was he called? Torren? Aaron Bach or something like that. So he said, yeah, that's just what we need. Somebody else coming up from England telling us how, telling us where we're all going wrong. And I just thought, okay. So I was going to call him a dolt, which I should have done, but I thought, no, I won't. I'll just say, right. Okay, mate. I've lived in Scotland since nineteen ninety. I run a rural business. I run a business in rural Scotland. We employ twelve people. And for the last for the last seventeen years plus I've been a firefighter with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service helping to support my community. Um, so, um, do I pass? Is that okay? And I've got no response, obviously from the dolt.
Of course.
You haven't. Because, you know. But I just thought he read me saying, you know, saying like, maybe there's an opportunity for communities to come together, but turned that into just another English beep, beep, beep, you know, coming up here telling us, telling us what to do. Yeah. And he's only done that because he's angry. And why is he so angry?
People are in a perpetual state of anger. I mean, you know, I quite like Reddit and I quite like the.
Do you like it because it's less angry than Twitter?
No. Well, it's not it's not less angry than Twitter or X. What it does allow that I like is, is time for more nuanced discussion. So people will generally, if you posit a theory, go through it and respond with a decent, more.
Like a forum. It isn't a soundbite.
Yeah, it's a forum and it encourages proper discussion.
No character limits. No no.
No. And so I think it fosters better discussion. But there as well, you know, I'm involved obviously in quite a lot of the politics subreddits and the Scottish politics subreddits particularly are a breeding ground for that kind of just just like anger for nothing. It's like he suggests something. It's like, oh, you're one of them. Yeah. You know, you're a horrible you probably vote Tory. You've probably killed a child. Like, why do you hate old women, child? It's just like, you know, it's just straight to extreme violence. And I don't know, I think that is the internet broadly now in general, I think that is the internet. The default setting is anger, which. Yeah.
But I think there's an opportunity for people to, to not rise to the bait to, to kind of try and calm the waters when people are trying to make them rough. Yeah. Because I don't know, I, I just think we've got to a point where we just, we just need to calm the calm down. I nearly swore again.
Well, a little bit of introspection as well, because I think one of the things I see a lot on Reddit is people who don't really have a considered opinion on something feel they ought to want their voice to be heard and will default to saying regurgitating a sort of angry soundbite that they've heard elsewhere. And I think an awful lot of time and effort and heartache could be saved if people just stopped and thought, do I really have anything unique and original to contribute to this? Maybe I won't, but I think part of the problem with social media is, you know, every time you log on to Facebook, it said like, what are you feeling? It's like this idea that every thought and every instinct and everything is valid, that you ought to share it with the world, which.
But don't you think there's also an element of people? People assume a lot. So, um, interesting book I'm reading, listening to at the moment. So he was an example. It's a behavioral science book. So they were talking about context being being so important. So you walk into work and there's a person who's down on the look in a doorway asking for asking for money. Okay. And you see really smartly dressed business person could be a man, woman, business person, just walk right past them. Just kind of like not even take them on. Just walk right past them and you're walking and you think, oh, I mean, you know, they could have actually put a anyway, you reached into your pocket. No change. You've just got a fiver. So you immediately put the fiver back, avert your gaze and just keep going. But you'd previously decided that that person was a gift because they didn't give that person any money. You didn't think for one minute, maybe they haven't got any change. Maybe they haven't got any. He just. You just decided what? And I think that goes on all the time. People see somebody do one thing. Like that guy saw me on the bridge.
Yeah.
Immediately assumed that I moved up from England ten minutes ago, and I was going to take over the place and tell all the Scottish people what they're doing wrong. Do you know what I mean? Just completely out of context and completely wrong.
Well, it's that age old thing, isn't it? We judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions, and I think we're just very quick to sort of jump to that sort of thing. You're like, well, I know when I do it, it's because of X, Y, and Z. I'm like, oh, I was having a really bad day. But he cut me off at a junction because he's a twat and he drives an Audi. Yeah. It's like, well, yeah, you don't know how much sleep he had last night. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
I went through a phase with driving and, and see, when I saw bad driving, I just said to myself, oh, what a shame. Inexperienced driver and tried to calm myself down. I'm back to calling them twats.
Okay, so what I was gonna say is, you know, that's actually like a therapy technique.
I'm sure it.
Is. It genuinely is. Yeah. Um, it's that whole like interrupt idea and like reframe and it's like, if you say to yourself, oh, that's a shame, Then you'll start. You'll start feeling sorry for them rather than angry.
But if we can just for a minute, kind of pause and try and consider all of the potential variables, or at least some of the potential variables in any given situation, we can draw very different conclusions if we just like, calm down a little bit. Um, you know, going back to the bridge stuff, there are people who are part of the Facebook group, the action group. It's four hundred four or five hundred people in the group who just like, oh, councillors are rubbish. They're not representing us councillors. And I'm invariably defend the councillors because I say, well, it's kind of they're powerless. They actually can't do anything. There really isn't any money. They they really don't have any power. The engineers in the council really haven't got a clue.
And what you're really angry about is the fact that there isn't a sort of grown up system in place, and there isn't anybody to say, okay, well, you know, your bridge is broken, we'll fix it. And that is aggravating. But I think you're right. It's not the fault of the perpetual middle manager who really can't do anything to me.
This country needs to bite the bullet and invest in, you know, undertake a massive infrastructure and just accept it's going to take two hundred years to pay for it and just get on with it, you know what I mean? Because it actually economically, this this kind of patch and repair mentality is going to hold us back. Yeah. Other countries are not doing that, I'm sure. And we, you know, it's just ridiculous, you know, and that's not just because our bridges are I mean, the bridges out the roads are crap. Um, you know, our broadband is rubbish. You know, there's, there's a lot going on, right. There's three things going on, but I'm sure there's more if we dug about, you know, but they're all infrastructure related and you know, we're just letting our infrastructure crumble and, you know. Yeah, we haven't got the money to fix it. So what we're going to do with that is spend two million quid patching it up. And in twenty five years it'll be Donald Duck again.
Well, you back to that whole like shoes thing, isn't it? You know, poor people buy shoes every year because they have to keep buying cheap shoes and replacing them. Whereas rich people buy one pair of shoes in less than twenty years.
That doesn't quite hold up, because I've got a pair of locks which are about two hundred and seventy quid, a pair of brogues, and if you wear them a lot, you have to keep sending them away and it's one hundred quid to get them repaired.
So not.
True. Not not not strictly true. See, that's one of these fallacies, isn't it? The shoe fallacy.
The fallacy.
Yeah. That sounds like a breed of dog, a shoe.
So who knows, maybe they could spend all this money on infrastructure and it's still all fall apart.
Well, yeah, it would if the council built it because I'm not convinced that they would do a good job.
Well, that's the one thing that I think is really interesting, you know, because I'm obviously my wife grew up in Singapore. Um, and there, you know, something roadworks need done. They will literally it will be like eight hours maximum. They close the road, they'll fix it, they'll open it again and cars will go past.
And I've seen that where they build railway bridges and they say, right, we'll do it on Tuesday night. Yeah. And by Tuesday, by Wednesday morning it's actually been done.
It's finished. And here we just seem to have a massive problem where everything is just done sort of in a very mediocre way and falls apart very quickly and just yeah, just inefficiency all the way through, isn't it? Yeah. But it's not. Rachel, from back to your point about who we take our anger out on, it's not Rachel from accounts that's responsible for that. Absolutely not.
And I was being unfair. I don't dislike Rachel Reeves at all. I think she's doing a really difficult job. I think she's kind of tripped herself up a bit with this CV nonsense. But I was I was being they were cheap, cheap jibes.
I think that, generally speaking, part of the government's job is to be the figurehead for all the bad news. And I think, you know, it's no surprise, because one of the things I thought was really interesting was everybody was saying like, oh, the, the, the sorry, the Labour Party honeymoon has been really short this time. You know, they've dropped in favorability really quickly and they must be doing a shit job. Well, but do you.
Not what you think I'm going to say? Well, go on.
I think it's just the media environment. It really.
Is what I was going.
To say. You know, it's of course.
Never been in power when social media is as prevalent as it is now. I mean, because, you know, in twenty ten, when they went out of power. It wasn't. And it really is now. And I said numerous times, they're going to find it really difficult when they get in power because you get held to account, not like every week, like every five minutes.
Yeah. And it's very easy for reform. Um and, and Kemi Badenoch and her friends to, to be like, oh, well you've done this wrong. This is bad. And their voices are amplified. Their job is just to criticise the government. That's it.
Which is ridiculous. I mean, the job of the opposition is to be constructive in their criticism, not just to criticise.
The bloody not.
But yeah, I agree, I agree. Um yeah. Because I know we we know we do in this podcast talk, you know, slag the government off, but we, you know, we would have, we would be doing the same if it was the Tories who were in power. We're not partisan. We're just kind of being.
And it annoys you and I both equally when the Labour Party talk about their fourteen years of oh, well.
But the general public are doing that now. If you listen to talk radio, they'll go like. And as soon as they start losing the point, because the presenter will maybe say, yeah, but that didn't really happen, did it? And then they'll go, oh yeah, but you know, the backdrop is fourteen years of. And that fourteen years is a trope. Anyway, it's absolute nonsense.
Is absolute nonsense. But we'll not get away from the fact that actually, if we're being one hundred percent honest, the last conservative government was a bit shit. Yeah. You know.
And so and so were the Labour government before then. Because because that's what governments are. It's a very difficult job. You're always going to finish up losing power and people saying, well, you were a bit rubbish.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, the one that's one of them that all over social media just now is Labour talking about two million extra NHS appointments, which is absolute horseshit.
Yeah.
You know, they're comparing apples with oranges and I think that will backfire on them because somebody is going to come up and say, here are the statistics from the ONS. This is what happened. You've just told us a pack of lies. And why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep shooting themselves in the foot?
Well, they've done it with the housing thing too though, haven't they? They're going to build you know, I remember well, this is exactly it. They keep saying it though. They keep saying, oh we're gonna build five million homes by twenty thirty.
Have you built so far? None.
And then and then they'll bring on like a guy from some building industry body and he'll be like, there's literally no way there aren't enough builders and there aren't enough bricks.
And then they'll bring Angela Rayner on in another boots and she'll say, yeah, we're gonna build loads of houses, you know, get lost. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I say, I think being a politician and politics is a very, very tough game. It's a tough gig. I really do think that. But they don't help.
But we do. Well, we do have some terrible, terrible politicians don't we.
So probably um what did you have anything else on your list? Because I've got plenty more I could talk about if you can be asked.
Yeah, we can keep going. I mean, I've got things, but they're boring things, so we'll do your stuff.
Well, it might not be boring. Ask it. And if it's boring, I'll just say, no, we're not talking about that.
Go on. Google's fourth quarter results. No boring video, no boring videos.
Not boring, is it, Leslie? Video video video fascinates. Maybe the videos you're doing just now not not not really thrilling you. They're not exactly.
Looking at looking at David's face.
But um, well, I'm hardly ever on videos. That's one thing I've noticed all the social media clips for our podcast. It's always him. It's never me. I've noticed. I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing.
I think that's just confirmation bias.
No, I don't, I don't, I don't.
Have you counted how much screen time you're getting?
I would like.
Who was.
It now and again to get a little mention. But no, it's always Alex. But that's fine. That's how it has to be. Uh, I don't mind. I can, I can put up with that. Um, I bought um, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a drummer, but I like to fiddle around on the guitar and I bought. Have you ever seen those little things? You plug your guitar into it and then you plug your phone into it, and then you've got all the guitar effects or on an app on your phone, and you can just listen to it. So you don't have to make anybody any noise anyone else can hear because electric guitars don't make much noise. You know, if they're not amplified, it's called an irig. So it's an Irig HD. I bought and I was like, oh really? It's going to be great because I can just sit, you know, we could we sit watching the telly. I can put my headphones on and just noodle away on my guitar with all these cool effects and play around with stuff. Could I get it to work? And you know, I'm not a technophobe. I'm pretty sure when it comes to tech. Could I get it to work? I could get a lovely clean guitar sound through it, but none of the effects. Anyway, I contacted them and they gave an extensive email back within about twenty four hours. The first thing on the list was try this. That's it. Sorted. It worked. It was I. I just thought, uh, what they call it I k e I k media or something like that. Anyway, it's the Irig HD that I bought. I thought it was brilliant. You know, I just thought great service. You know, it was me being dumb. Kinda. I mean, it could have been made more obvious what the problem was. But anyway, it now works and I and I'm thrilled with it. So I just thought a little bit of good news rather than all the mourning that we've been doing so far.
Talking to the wrong person about guitar tech, though, because I was talking to. Was it Pete Henderson? Yeah, yeah it was.
He's a bass.
Player. He's a bit. Well, that's what we're talking about. But I was like, I was saying to him, I, you know, I still like valve amps and old school tech.
Well, here's the thing.
If you if.
You got a beer still, have you not actually.
Got.
An actual bass guitar times six. Yeah, right.
Well, as opposed to what? A bass fish that's flopping about.
As opposed to like you've had.
Guitars.
You've actually got guitars, right? So if you buy one of these things, you can then using your phone, have all the valve amp sounds, all of that stuff into your headphones, you might encourage you.
To pick it up newfangled.
It's actually really, really good. I'll show you it.
I'll give it a go.
Um.
Sounds fun.
I haven't got the I haven't got it with me, but I'll show you the app. Um, and let you see it. It's, it's called amplitude. Yeah. That comes, that's, I think it's the same company who make the app, but there's loads of other apps like tone X is the one that they do the more up to date version of it, but you can buy like free apps that basically people have put a load of guitar pedals together and created one pedal that makes this, you know, you sort of strum it and it's brilliant. It's really good, but it might just bring the instrument to life a little bit so that it'll encourage you to start fiddling around on it. But anyway, they were, they were, um, I'm just taking, you know, hats off to them. And, you know, and if you're listening, you could send me some goodies.
If you want to sponsor an episode, if.
You want to sponsor an episode.
Um, three people listen to this podcast.
Yeah.
Well, you're onto a winner.
There's just a few more started listening to it just or at least if that's, you know, possibly. Anyway, I'm going to bring up an old chestnut. Are we all right to carry on? Are you fed up now?
Lesley was born fed up. Okay. She said that with a smile.
That meant you've got to keep pressing buttons, haven't you? Because of the ridiculous technology. Um, gated content. We were talking this week again, this is for a client and we've noticed a drop off. So basically adverts Google ad click landing page, put your details in, press a button and it's supposed to give you some information. But before it gives you the information it wants you to put in your name, address, your email, and all the rest of it. And they've noticed the drop off rate is increasing. So you know it. They're no longer getting the leads, this, this stuff, this lead magnet stuff, this gated content. Like tell us who you are so we can pester you and we'll give you this stuff. Um, we've talked about this a lot. And in that meeting we had, the three of us got together to discuss like, what are we going to do? We're going to play around with some different ideas and we've got some thoughts and ideas, and we're going to be quite bold to go back to your old earlier point. Um, but where are you on it on the whole?
I think it's a really good question. I think that if you look at it from a, like a marketing managers perspective, you're getting a steady stream of leads. There's not many as many leads as you could be getting, but it's a steady stream. And somebody comes along and says, I am going to take away people's incentive to part with their data and hope that out of sort of like a sense of goodwill, they will do the same thing. I can see why people are very reluctant to to buy into that idea. It's like, okay, maybe some people are put off by the form, but some people are filling it in. So I get to go back to my boss and say, some people have filled this form in, and that's a good thing. However, what I will say is that I have never, ever, ever filled in like a lead magnet form with my real email address ever in my life. I have, I don't.
Well, I have.
But I don't when people force me to. I have engaged when I've been given useful things.
That's a sample size of one.
Yeah. No, but but what I'm saying is that, you know, I can sympathise with the marketing manager who doesn't want to experiment with engaging the content. But ultimately, I think the quality of the leads that you get from gated content is rubbish because it's either a fake email address, an email address that people don't monitor.
Well, that's a good question because we we could ask them. And that didn't come up in our discussion. Like, how often are people filling it in so they can get the information they want, but like the information they're giving you is false. That'd be quite a good one to ask.
Yeah. Or even if they do fill it in, like, I don't know, man, like I just, I just don't know that it doesn't immediately erode any sense of goodwill towards a company to the point where them giving you your email address to access the information also probably means that's the last interaction you'll ever have with them.
Playing devil's advocate, I think we can overegg. I think we can overegg how important it is to. Or rather, how irritating it is because we buy any car, right? Doodle doodle doodle doo doo doo, whatever it is. So I, you know, from a few a while ago when I was thinking maybe it's a good time to upgrade. I've got the golf GTI, and I thought maybe I should upgrade to get a slightly newer one so that, you know, um, it's not going to cost a fortune to upgrade. Yeah. Shut up Dave. Right. Okay. Um, and so I went to we buy any car and it's like instant valuation. So you put your details in and it's like, great. Thank you for all the details. Right? Just tell us who you are and we'll send you the valuation. And I, and I hesitated many times and went, no, because you can go on AutoTrader and just type your details in and they'll tell you pretty much what your car's worth. But anyway, I in the end, I succumbed. And right enough, almost immediately I got a text. When do you want to book an appointment? I got an email. When do you want to book an appointment? click here or book an appointment. But even that wasn't massively irritating. I just ignored it. I just deleted it and like, no. And then alright, the next day, you know your valuation still waiting for you. And then the day after that, I think it certainly within a couple of days they'd stop pestering.
But this is exactly what I mean. So, you know, say say ten percent of people that see that form fill it in because they thought, oh, well, fuck it. I'll just give them my details and I'll delete the emails. Yeah, fine. Grand ten percent of people filled in your form to get the information, knowing full well that they're going to ignore your marketing emails. You get to go to your boss and you say, we have a ten percent conversion rate on this form. Fantastic. But all those people, however many hundreds it is, have absolutely no intention of.
Well, we did that did come up in the discussion about that client's data. And Julie actually said, well, out of the two hundred people that clicked through and the hundred people that didn't stop at the gated point, four of them turned into turned into customers, something like that, you know, so, you know, it's a vanishingly sorry. It's not vanishingly small, but it's, it's a, it's ever decreasing returns. You know, we were saying like, well, at the very least, let's experiment with engaging the content, giving people the information that we said we'd give them anyway without them telling us who we are. But then try and tell a compelling story as to why they should fill in the form underneath, tell us who they are, and we can get into a bit more detail with them and give them way more help than just putting a number on the screen.
And it is only a sample size of one. But you know, I remortgaged my house in December. I spent a lot of time on mortgage calculators, a great many of them, when you get to the end, they're like, before we can show you all the loans, tell us, tell us one company didn't. It was Uswitch.
And that's who.
You that's who I used.
Right.
They gave.
You a mortgage company, are.
They. Oh, well, maybe it wasn't Uswitch.
They're the ones that.
Yeah. No, it wasn't a mortgage company. But you know when you go through the brokers they end up getting like a commission and everything. So the point was there was only one website that would give me all of the different mortgage rates available at the correct prices.
The BBC used to have a mortgage calculator.
Yeah. Without doing all of the, you know, give us your details, tell us your life story. We'll we'll mark it to you. And they were the ones that in the end, I ended up going through their website to, to sort it all out. So I think you can buy goodwill by Ungated content. Definitely. I definitely buy into that because it's true for me. Um, but I think probably whether or not it's, it's the same sort of percentage of people that will fill out the form remains to be seen.
Is it the case that if you're a bit rubbish, then you kind of have to go down the forcing people to give you their contact details through. But actually, if you're pretty good, there are more persuasive ways than, than basically saying, I'm not going to, I'm not going to give you what I said I would give you unless you do this extra thing that you knew nothing about when you started the process. Yeah, it's still very popular.
I think it is very popular. But I think back to the the whole like behavioral psychology side of things, I think it does smack of desperation. And I think people immediately pick up on the fact that these guys are withholding information until I give them something of value, and that's not a very nice way to interact. And I think it's it's very silly to think that people are sort of immune from that psychology or that they won't notice that you're demanding something of them. So. Yeah.
Agreed. Okay. So what we're saying there is if you're thinking of using gated content experiment.
Yeah. Try it without try fostering goodwill by giving people the stuff for free. And then by all means, you know, say, you know, say at the end when you've given them that information. Oh, and by the way, if you want to know more, get in touch if you'd like personalised recommendations, if you'd like more information.
If you'd receive wisdom when it comes to getting content is only do it with stuff that's got real value that people cannot get anywhere else.
Which, you know, for a lot of the calculators and stuff just isn't true.
It isn't.
I agree. I think if you yeah, if you've done a really expensive piece of research where you've interviewed thousands of people and you don't want to give that away for free, then by all means charge for it or, you know, get it. Yeah. But I mean, actually, that's one point. That's a good point. Actually. That's the only time when that's not true of me. The only time I ever fill out like gated consent forms when I want research papers. I'm perfectly happy. Then if it's like, just. I'll just be like, yeah.
That's the value, isn't it? It's something of high value. So you're quite happy to.
I literally can't get it elsewhere because it's proprietary research and I need it. So. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Well, that's longer than normal, but I did quite enjoy that. Which means probably nobody, nobody else will because we did.
That's a that sounds like a them problem to me.
It is. Yeah. I've got some more stuff on my list, but I'm just going to leave it because it was a bit rubbish anyway, so I might keep it for next time or I might just delete it. I might just.
Tune in next time for the leftovers of this podcast. Great. Yeah.
That was good though, I enjoyed that. Um, if you've been listening to Dave and Alex on the Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast, where we talk about life at the coalface of digital marketing and all sorts of other nonsense. Um, if you like this podcast, please tell other people about it.
Yeah, or don't.
Or don't, I don't, yeah, I'm not really bothered. I don't know why I said that. Do what you like.