The Psychology of Marketing: Overcoming Risk Aversion and Uncertainty – Episode 155

Uncertainty is a big one, isn't it? And in our industry, one of the biggest ones in recent times was search engine optimisation. SEO. People started offering guarantees. If you pay us to do your SEO, we guarantee you'll be on page one of Google. And we were basically being a bit cute, you know, like they would get people to number one in Google for something that nobody ever searched for, for example, what they were doing, I guess, is playing into that reluctance to embrace the uncertainty. I need my website to appear. When people search for X, Y, and Z, this company have said that their guarantee that's going to happen. Whereas this company, they've said, you know, we can't guarantee that because we don't control the rules that can change from time to time. So guess who got the work? And then at some later stage, the company that were being honest, you know, they then get approached by which time the budgets been spent. What can you do for me now on a fraction of the budget that I originally threw at this with those clowns. So welcome back to Digital Marketing From The Coalface for the episode. That nearly didn't happen because I just wasn't feeling it really.

Yeah, I was the same.

You kind of assaulted me on chat and kept throwing awful ideas at me. And in the end, I thought, I'm just going to have to do this so that he shuts up.

Well, it's funny.

And here we are. And here we are.

We've talked. So sorry. Go on, go on.

No, no, no, you please go on. You need to ask all the questions and do all the talking this week.

All right. Okay. Well, it's something we've talked about before. You know, when you're wrestling with a problem and it's just like, oh, I can't work this out, you know? And in this case, it was a bit of inspiration. You know, I hadn't, I hadn't found any during the week. And normally I write things down. And as soon as I started typing in the chat and assaulting you, as you put it, it was suddenly a stream of randomness came out. And I know myself, there's two types of people. Those who solve problems within the mind and those who externalise them. And I definitely fall into that latter category. I mean, it's really common for me to go to somebody. Can I just talk this problem through with you? And before I've even finished describing what the problem is, I go, oh, it's all right. I've got it.

Okay. Yeah, I can relate to that. Absolutely relate to that. Yeah. As you as you're saying it out loud, you figure out the answer.

Yeah. And you know, the stuff I've done in the past with sort of some of the personality profiling tools, um, there's clear evidence for that. There's kind of half the profiles solve things in their head and half of them have to externalise them. So. So by starting to come up with ideas, most of which were rubbish. Yeah. It just started to flow for me, which was great. It might have been the coffee.

Which was rubbish ideas. I was maybe a bit harsh there, but what was meaning was, is what we don't do in this podcast is say like seven ways to improve your blogging or, you know, four ways to make sure you use TikTok properly and all that, because there's plenty of other dickheads doing all that stuff. So, you know, what we're doing is just digital marketing from the coalface. or it's just chatting about stuff that we're doing. And the way that this podcast works is like, as stuff happens through the week and there's been a lot going on as stuff happens, um, scribble it down. Oh, I'll talk about that in the podcast and, but some weeks it gets to the predetermined time when we agreed that we would, you know, record the podcast. And I look at my notes and think, ah, not really an awful lot going on there. I mean, and I'm and then, and then I'm sort of like thinking, okay, we're going to start recording this in ten minutes. And I have no idea. And sometimes we just jump on like we are now. Sometimes we just jump on. And then as soon as we start recording and having a conversation, we find things to talk about, stuff that's been happening that hopefully, you know, in some tenuous way is either entertaining or helpful, educational or, um, preferably both. So you did actually throw some things out, which started to make a bit more sense. And it was only like three minutes ago, but obviously I've completely forgotten already and I've written a few things down as well. And actually, one of the reasons I thought to myself, you know what? He's obviously keen to do this, and he's got some thoughts and some ideas which I might be at a knock into shape. He actually got me thinking about some of the things that have been sort of, um, taxing me over the last week or so. Interesting. So I've written that down as well. So we can start with you want to throw something out there, whether it's something to do with what's happening in the world or whether it's something to do with what's happening in our world.

Yeah. Just, you know, it's a volatile market, I suppose, at the moment, but when isn't it? Yeah. And I just started thinking about our clients and, you know, when they come to us, are they coming to us with a problem that they need to solve, or are they coming to us with a vision of where they want to get to? And was there any commonality? And the answer was no, there wasn't. But that got me thinking about strategy. You know, and broadly speaking, there's two types of strategy. There's a moving towards strategy or moving away from strategy. And both have their place. So if you want to really.

You mean moving away from strategy, as in moving into tactics and just doing stuff.

No moving away from your current position anywhere other than here is better. Yeah. Okay. So if a lion's chasing you, moving away from is a really effective strategy. It doesn't matter where you get to as long as it's away from the lion. Yeah. And, and there are times I've, you know, been in companies where, you know, sales are dropping or, you know, whatever it might be, you know, particular challenge. And, you know, the executive and the leadership are wrestling with the problem of, well, where do we want to get to? And they can't see how they can get to where they want to get to. And actually, sometimes you're better off just moving away from where you are because it gives you a fresh perspective. Yeah. And, and that's adequate. So, you know, from a marketing perspective, as a minimum, that's a, you know, our digital footprints, rubbish. Our website's outdated and broken and it's vulnerable and well move to a minimum viable product, minimum viable product of something that's better than you've got. Whilst we're thinking about where you want to get to, you know, because that will be on the journey, but it might cost you a little bit more because you have to do the work twice sometimes. But so yeah, I was just thinking about that in terms of strategy and, you know, some of the work I've been involved in, which you're aware of, it's that kind of what does success look like? So that's the moving towards strategy.

So it's one of the things, one of the questions that we ask when we do discovery is like, you know, can we all agree like in twelve months time where we're going to be what in an ideal situation, where are we going to be? And that's, that's a good question. But before you go on your little preamble there reminded me of a joke. Um, and I can't remember if it's, if it's, um, one of the old northern comics or what it was, but it was a bunch of people running down the street running towards this guy and the guy says, well, what's going on? What's going on? And the guy shouts, there's a lion escaped from the zoo. And the guy says, oh, Jesus Christ. He said, what direction is it going? And he said, well, we're not chasing it. I don't know, I liked it, but you were talking about chasing strategy or trying to move to somewhere different. Whether you're trying to consolidate a position that you're in and it's a good position or thinking, look, we're just in the wrong place here. Let's go. Let's go somewhere else. Yeah. Come on. Carry on.

No. And that was it, really. It just got me thinking about that. And actually, when I look back and it doesn't matter whether it's marketing, sales, business development in totality, you know, you you're almost constantly and always wrestling with that because the minute you you agree your strategy, it's not necessarily out of date, but you need to adapt. And, and, you know, if I want to get to the top of a hill and I see a path to get there, you know, if I'm walking along the path and it's suddenly flooded, I've got to change direction. I'm still aiming to get to the top of the hill, you know, and to use a cliched metaphor, but it's the balance, isn't it, between constantly adapting, being agile, all of these you're pivoting, which is one of the favourite buzzwords of the, of the moment, uh, versus actually moving roughly in a constant direction. So you actually get to where you want to be. And it's not a, it's not an easy challenge that really.

No, and you're right, though, to point out that it has to be a strategy first approach. Yeah. And I say that because it's really obvious. And I think more a lot of the people, not most, but certainly a lot of the people that come to us these days, they are, um, you know, recognising that they need somebody to help them figure out the right strategy. But we do, from time to time still get people that come to us saying, um, we need some help with blogging, we need some help with content production, we need to produce some videos. And it's just because they've seen a competitor do something on TikTok and said, why are we not doing that? And they've seen, they've read a piece of content and they've thought to themselves, why are we not doing that? So they've gone for a full, full on kind of, um, let's, let's employ or deploy some tactics, um, and see what happens. Now sometimes, you know, just trying some stuff out and seeing what happens is a decent enough strategy. It's certainly it's a decent enough thing to do to inform strategy, just like, you know, throw some stuff up and see what, what, you know, what happens, which way the wind is blowing and what happens to it when you throw it up. But, um, yeah, increasingly, um, figuring out the strategy is really important and it's not necessarily as difficult as it sounds, because if you're running a running a business and you're trying to figure out, um, the right strategy, should we move into, um, producing the stuff that we produce for a different market? Should we move into different geographic areas, all that kind of thing. They're difficult, big strategic decisions. But when it comes to digital marketing strategy, it can be quite straightforward. You know, it's, it's always nearly always down to like, who are who's, who are our people, who are our tribe, who are our ideal customers? And like, what do they look for? Oh, actually, you know, our ideal customers, you know, we've figured out that they consume lots of video, right? Well, the video platforms might be a place where we need to think of, you know, of, um, trying to use it, that kind of thing. So although we say strategy first. It's not like we've got this workshop full of machinery. We've got these skilled people that can turn bits of metal into things. What things should we produce? It's not that sort of complicated. It's not that kind of heavy lifting.

I mean, you made a really interesting point there about trying some stuff. And, you know, when I think about our client base and, you know, my background in particularly with engineering companies, I guess less so with tech companies, you know, particularly software tech companies are used to trying stuff, you know, and moving quickly. And if it fails, you know, bin it and start something else, you know. But with engineering companies, if you think about what they do and who they sell to, my experience is they're often quite risk averse. So you almost sometimes get in that cycle of overthinking things. And the the strategy has to be perfect before you try and deploy any of it. And that kind of perfection.

Well, especially if tooling is involved. Tooling Is so expensive. For example, in an engineering company.

But do you find that in your experience, do you find they bring that mindset into marketing as well, rather than just going, do you know what? Yeah, we're prepared to give something a go and if it doesn't work, we'll change it quickly. Yeah.

You know what? It's a good question. Increasingly I've I've heard prospects say to us, look, you know, we realise that, you know, we're going to do things that might not work. You know, they might, we might spend some money, do some stuff. And what we thought was going to happen, didn't happen. So that's quite refreshing. I mean, it's not something that makes me feel good. If we if we look at something, create a strategy and deploy that strategy, and it didn't quite go to plan, things didn't quite transpire the way that we thought they would. Um, yeah, that's the sort of stuff that keeps you up at night, keeps you awake at night rather. And, you know, and it's kind of, I don't know, it's a difficult one, but at the same time, yeah, it's it, you do have to be prepared to take some risks. And if I guess as to your point, if you if you're from a very risk averse, um, environment, like for example, nuclear, um, that might feel sort of alien. Yeah, perhaps.

Yeah. That, that almost, I'll call it experimental approach. Yeah. I'm not talking about being experimental with the strategy, but yeah, I remember when I first started working with you guys and you were telling me about things like form a, B testing. I was like, what the hell is that? That sounds complicated. And basically putting two versions of the same thing out there and seeing which one people click on more. Yeah. So yeah, a green button might have a ten percent higher click rate than a red button or, you know, moving the video a third of the way up the page actually increases how many people fill in the contact form or whatever it might be. And that like constant experimentation with visuals, layout, colors, messaging to a degree, as long as it's within the main sort of story that's agreed from the strategy. And I just, I find that experimental approach quite interesting because, um, it's not an exact science, is it? It's not like engineering, where you've got codes and you've got standards and, you know, everything has to be done in a particular way. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm just scribbling something down because we've, we've leaned into once again, the nuclear industry and said, you know, how risk averse it is, etc.. But there's a reason that the nuclear industry is risk averse. Correct. It's it's because it's made some absolutely howling cock ups in the past. What should we do with all this waste? Well, I don't know. Should we dig a big hole and put it in? That'll work, won't it? Uh, yeah. Yeah. That'll work. Let's just do that. MM. You know that big hole we dug full of? Yeah. It's kind of leaking. Oh, shit. How do we get it out? Well, we can't really, because it's so deep, you know what I mean? I mean, I'm just making stuff up, you know? But you can probably relate to what I'm saying. The nuclear industry has made some dreadful mistakes in the past, but they were almost necessary. It was experimental work they were doing. They were trying to solve the problem of giving humans, you know, unlimited energy for, you know, and so, you know. But I suppose the experience now has put them in a position where they are. They've gone to the opposite end of the scale because the, you know, it's gone so badly for them. That experiment, the experimental nature of the work, the, you know, with, you know, with hindsight, the bad decisions that they made perfectly sound decisions at the time, no doubt, or maybe even at the time, it was a bit like, are you sure? Mhm. Go on. Let's just try it. You know, I don't know. You know, you'd know the history of it better than me, but, um, where am I going with that? I suppose where I'm going with that is, is um, people who have worked with organisations that have been a bit laissez faire with their budget and they've spent money on things and they haven't worked. And you know, an obvious example is we get customers coming to us and I've got something to say about this. Um, you know, during this podcast, customers that come to us with dreadful websites and that's not necessarily a website that was built when God was still in short pants. It could be a website that was literally finished two months ago, but it's actually completely and totally not the website the company needs. And we come across that, you know. Um, so go on. Did you want to come in or not?

No, no, you said you had you'd written something down. You wanted to talk about this.

Yeah. So like clumsily segwayed into something, um, that's facing us just now with probably more than one client where we've landed a new client, we've only got one client. That's one person or one organisation that's now a client, but we've also got another organisation that we're in, you know, advanced conversation with about becoming a client. And in both of those instances, they've got dreadful websites. But also in both of those instances, they, I think, believe that those dreadful websites can be somehow fixed when in actual fact, it's probably not the case that can that can be fixed. They're so awful, they're so wrong for what they actually need, that we kind of need to rebuild them. And that's not us trying to generate business, trying to generate work because we've got them as customers. They're going to spend money with us over the next year, two years, three years, whatever. So it's not a case of of trying to somehow maximise an opportunity. But I, I've really wrestled with this one because, you know, kind of what I want to say, certainly to one of them is, look, I know that we've spoken about basically putting some lipstick on your awful website and making it, making it look and perform a bit better in terms of search, performance, etc.. But ultimately, you're still going to be in a situation where you've got a not very good website. It's just going to look a bit better than it used to look and perform a bit better in search, but it's still not what you actually need. Um, and I've really struggled with it because, you know, they would have to go and find additional budget to do that. So, you know, we're, we're almost certainly just going to finish up over delivering on the gig in order to make sure that they've got something that's really going to work for them as we continue to work with them over the next, you know, whatever it is, you know, number of years kind of thing.

Anything. And that's a difficult one, isn't it? I mean, it's not it's not just a marketing dilemma that, you know, any service provider will recognise that where, you know, you've engaged, you've had really good discussions. Your initial thoughts suggest one approach, but as you get into the meat of it and start to really see what's there and what's required, actually, you realise that approach isn't necessarily the right approach for what they're trying to achieve. Yeah. Um, and when that might cost a little bit more, certainly up front, it's how do you present that back to the client without looking like you're trying to screw them over? Basically. That's the dilemma.

Exactly that it is the dilemma. Yeah. That's right. Um, and you, you, I suppose in your, you know, BD role with engineering companies, um, you've probably found yourself in situations like that where you've come up with a solution as you start to engineer a, or rather, as you start to engineer the solution, you see opportunities to do things better that weren't discussed at the start of the project. And now you feel like, well, to be honest, we've now figured out if we did this, that would extend the life of it by ten years, or it would make it more efficient, or it would just make it better in some other way. But we are going to need extra budget to do that. And you go back to the client and the client says, yeah, but you said that would cost a million quid. We budgeted a million quid and now it's like you're starting to build it. Now you're saying you want another three hundred thousand quid because you've figured out a better way to do it. You know why? How is how has this happened sort of thing.

It's really interesting, actually, that a colleague of mine helped me solve that problem on a consultancy gig a few years ago, and where it came about, the client basically said, I've got this solution and I want you to implement it, and I won't go into the details of who or what the solution was for. It wasn't marketing though. Um, and we recognise that the solution that they were presenting to us wouldn't fix the problem we were we're trying to fix. Okay, but how do you turn around to a client and say, we know better than you, basically, because that's how it would come across? So he said there were a technical company. So they were used to the concept of engineering design principles. So if you're going to build something new, you know, what are the design principles before you get into the detail design and so on. So we came up with some design principles and went back to the client and said, right, we've listened to you. We think this is what you're trying to achieve. And there was about seventeen of these things. Yeah. And let's go through them and refine them and make sure we're right. Yeah. And they were and we did that. We had about an hour with them going through all of that. And this is great. Just what we're looking for. Yeah, we understand it now. Great. So we then took their solution and went, well, it won't meet, you know, six of these design principles. So now you've got a choice. You either abandon the design principle and change it, or you abandon the solution. And we come up with a refined, refined solution. Yeah. And, and what it did was depersonalise it. It wasn't then our opinion versus their opinion. It was one set of criteria against another set of criteria. And, and that was really, really helpful because it avoided any confrontation with them. Yeah. Um, and it's something I've been using on some work recently as a similar concept. Um, because it does take that sort of my opinion versus your opinion out of it. Yeah. Um, which in subjective matters and marketing is subjective to a degree. Yeah. Um, you know, it can be very useful, I think. Mhm. Mhm. Anyway, that's page three hundred and seventy three of how to be a consultant. Yeah.

Or how not to.

Be or how not to be. But there is also that balance for me. And, you know, as a CEO, I had a few years ago and he just he would always say perfection is the enemy of the adequate. Yeah. And there was always a sense with a lot of what we were doing, because it was in that engineering tech science space, you know, um, that you had to design the perfect solution before you started doing anything. Yeah. And yeah, actually doing, doing that meant you achieved nothing because you're always in the design phase, never in the implementing phase. Yeah.

Yeah. And life's life's kind of lived in those gray areas.

Absolutely.

It is. I mean, you know, I was listening to something on the radio today and I don't fully understand what the story is, or I don't have all the detail on the story, but there's some sort of tax fraud investigation going on related to the, um, the high speed. What's it what's it called? The high speed rail. Oh h s two h s two. Yeah. So not only is that project been an unmitigated disaster in terms of going over budget and what it's potentially anyway, what it's doing to, um, to the countryside, at least for some people. I mean, I think there's elements of it have been cancelled after people have had their houses compulsorily purchased and knocked down. I don't know if I don't, I don't know if that's actually happened or if that's somewhat apocryphal. But, um, you know, there's, it's been a disaster and now they've got this, um, this, this tax fraud investigation as well. And yet when that project started, you know, the, the grandiose plan, the grandiose idea of like, you know, increasing or decreasing the travel time between Birmingham and London and Manchester and London and, you know, just kind of making the train. Um, you know, what is it they said in those old adverts. Let the train take the strain. I love train travel, as I've said to you numerous times. And I know you're no stranger to train travel. Train travel is great. Um, and if it can be made a little bit quicker, then then smashing. Although I don't get on a train to London from up here in North East Scotland. Um, thinking I wish this journey was an hour quicker because you know, it's, it's eight hours and it's eight hours to sit and watch the world go by. Do a bit of work and, and generally, you know, just be in a nice place I think. So I don't know whether it was absolutely necessary to look at this in the first place, but it just seems to me like, you know, these, these big projects go, I don't know, they just go off kilter so easily, so quickly.

Yeah they.

Do. That's just the nature of big projects. I mean, as you know, just now in our village in Aboyne, uh, bridge is out of action and has been out of action now for, I think, over eighteen months, and it's going to be at least another eighteen months before before the piss poor Aberdeenshire Council fix it. And I think, um, I worked out that it's taking a lot longer to fix it than it took to build it. And it's, it's all down to red tape, lack of funding. Um, I think lack of ability to a certain extent. Um, it just feels like, and again, this is going back to something I was listening to on the radio today where I'd heard the HS2 story, you know, and the presenter was saying, you know, just, just why does nothing work anymore? Which I thought was overstating it somewhat. There's plenty of there's plenty of projects that do work, but even projects that go well, you know, there's elements of those projects that wander off into like, oh shit territory.

Yeah, yeah. Again, for me, and this is very much oversimplifying it, but two things come to mind when you tell those stories. One is my favorite fallback. Rory Sutherland, when he was talking about making, you know, travel from the UK to Europe quicker by train, you know. You know, looking at investing fifty billion quid to knock twenty minutes off the train journey so it could compete with flying. And he said, you've misunderstood people. You know, it's not about getting there quicker. They will use the train more if it's a more certain and more pleasurable experience. So he said, if you give me fifty million quid, I would guarantee getting more users on the train and less in planes than you spending fifty billion quid. And I'm going to paraphrase him incorrectly here. But he said, I'm not going to do it by making the journey quicker. I'm going to do it by making the journey more pleasant so it's more desirable. So first thing we're going to do is get the Wi-Fi working properly. Yeah. And and then we'll provide the best quality wines, you know, served by, I think he said, I'll hire the, the most attractive male and female supermodels, you know, and it'll cost you fifty million quid, but your train will be rammed. Yeah. As opposed to spending fifty billion to knock fifteen minutes off the journey because people don't actually mind waiting. What they like, what they don't like is uncertainty. And that was one of the reasons Uber overtook black cabs.

I'd written that down. I'd written Uber Uncertainty down. If you hadn't raised it. I was going to mention.

You can talk about that. So they're not listening to my voice. No no.

No no. Carry on.

It's that concept that you can be in your house or flat or wherever you're at and say, when's it going to come? Oh, it's not going to be for twenty five minutes. Well, I've got time for a cup of tea then. As opposed to standing on the pavement, not being sure when the next black cab is going to come round the corner, you know. So the waiting itself is not a problem. It's waiting when you've got uncertainty. So you cannot then do something with that time that's useful to you. Yeah.

Uncertainty is a big one isn't it? And in our industry, um, one of the biggest ones, um in recent times was um, search engine optimisation, SEO and people started bringing, It was, people started offering guarantees. If you pay us to do your SEO, we guarantee you'll be on page one of Google and position one on, on, on Google. And they they started making promises. They started, you know, writing checks that they know they, you know, there was no way they could cash them. And they were basically being a bit cute, you know, like they would get people to number one in Google for something that nobody ever searched for. For example, there you go. If you type this into Google, look, you're number one. Yay, success. And the what they were doing, I guess, is playing into that uncertainty or, um, reluctance to, to, to embrace the uncertainty or they were looking at like, you know, I need my website to appear when people search for X, Y, and Z. And I'm this company have said that they guarantee that's going to happen. Whereas this company have actually been, you know, they've said, well, you know, we can't guarantee that because we don't control the algorithm. We, we don't control the, you know, the rules that can change from time to time. Um, so guess who got the work? And then, and then at some later stage, the company that were being honest, you know, they then get approached by which time the budget's been spent and you know. Right. What can you do for me now on like a fraction of the budget that I originally threw at this with those clowns who and again, we're back to this, you know, that's, that's what happens with projects. I suppose it just, it just turns out that that, um, you know, shit happens, I suppose.

Well, yeah, I've got, I've got an interesting book to my left here called How Big Things Get Done by Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, who's done some amazing studies of huge global infrastructure projects and why basically none of them ever run to time and schedule. And yeah, I'm not going to paraphrase him because he's an expert in the field. But guess what? Most of it comes down to people. So you can have, you can have the most robust processes and the best systems and, you know, great governance in place for decision making, but it's down to the people. Yeah. And, and again, Rory Sutherland, one of my favourite things he says is about economics. Economics is treated almost like it's the laws of physics. Well, it's not because, you know, it's not cause and effect. It's cause feelings, emotions then effect. Yeah. Or behaviors even. Yeah. And, you know, we do like a bit of jeopardy in our lives. That's human nature. If we didn't, we wouldn't follow sports. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I'm a this might put some of the listeners off, but you know, I'm amongst the sports I love. I like football and the team I support. I've happened to win the league. So the last three games I was watching them. The results meant didn't matter and I dead rubbers. Yeah. And I just apart from a bit of pride and watching the odd entertaining goal. Do you know what it was the dullest football I've ever watched because I wasn't invested in it because we'd already won the league, you know.

Yeah. Whereas the Aberdeen Celtic Scottish Cup final, Scottish Cup or Scottish. Yeah. Scottish Cup final on Saturday was was really quite special wasn't it. Absolutely. It was. Aberdeen were absolutely one hundred percent not going to win that. There was no way. Like just it was just a case of by how much? By how many goals will will Celtic win that match? And um, and they didn't. And it was a, I don't watch football, but I actually did watch that. I found it quite thrilling. I just flipped it up on my phone in the house and started watching it. And I was glued to it. And I'm not a football fan, but but suddenly it just the whole thing came alive, you know, if I turned it on and it was like, you know, Celtic for Aberdeen nil, I would have just I wouldn't have watched it. But like it was like they were down one nil. Um you know, with um plenty of time left and um and then I saw it was one one all heading towards full time and then uh, and it was really, I mean, talk about strategy as we did earlier, Aberdeen clearly figured out that there's a possibility this might go to penalties. And I don't know if you did you watch it. Have you seen.

I literally flicked.

Channels. The penalty.

Shootout was on.

Off the scale. They were fantastic. Whereas Celtic they had two penalties saved and Aberdeen just just slotted them. They just kept slotting them into the top corner and Schmeichel was just nowhere. He couldn't get anywhere near them. It was. It was so good to watch. It was almost like, what was it like? It was like they'd prepared so well for that penalty shootout that they just made Celtic look silly. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there was, you know, that was a thrilling a thrilling watch because it had everything. It had the unexpected, it had emotion and everything else, which I suppose got nothing to do with projects. Because what you don't want in projects is the unexpected. Oh, we didn't realise that if we dug a tunnel through that big rock, it turns out that it's made out of jelly, and it's just going to cave in when we don't know, you know, it's just, um, yeah, we've kind of somehow segued into, uh, into no man's land with that.

Just a little bit. I don't know how we get back from that one. Oh, I've got a link. I can, I can go full circle. So.

All right. Okay.

Good sports psychology. So years ago, there was a famous penalty from an English footballer where he he hoofed it right over the bar. Okay.

Lineker.

No, no. Waddle waddle waddle.

Waddle.

That's right. Yeah. And it was quite comical.

Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, is that correct?

That's correct.

Yeah. Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle. Yeah.

What was the cricketing one.

Oh is that the one where people actually speculated that he'd done it on purpose? Because, because thingamajig wouldn't wouldn't have been in the final because he'd been yellow carded a second time or something. I don't think Gascoigne.

No, I don't think so. I think.

You remember.

The one.

Yeah. Yeah. You know the one I do. That was that game where Gascoigne. Yeah. Gascoigne. If they if they'd won that penalty shootout and gone to the final Gascoigne would have missed out on the final. Yeah, right. I'm pretty sure and I'm sure there was speculation that he did it on purpose. He can't he wouldn't have looked. But anyway. Go on.

Well, apparently what he was saying to himself before he missed was don't miss, don't miss, don't miss. And of course the brain can't cope with negatives. So his brain was actually hearing miss, miss, miss. So he did. And you know, years later you see Jonny Wilkinson in the rugby final, you know, doing his visioning to get over the bar. And you know, it's it's a you know, at the core of all sports psychology now imagining visioning. What does success look like? You know, to the point where you can hear it, smell it.

And what's the science saying on that? Is it saying that it helps?

We're going to get into physics now, mate.

Go on then.

So this is thirty year old physics. So there'll be more modern theories. But basically you've got neural networks in your brain which are electrical conductors. So as you will know as an engineer.

Sign ups and things.

Yeah, yeah. And if you just think of them as a series of wires, albeit biological versions, but as you know from your engineering background, the thicker the wire, the lower the resistance. Okay. So the way thought patterns occur in your brain is the electrons follow the path of least resistance. So the and that's because certain cables in your brain, if you like, are thicker than others. And the way you create those cables being thicker one way is through habit. So it's repetition. Yeah. Practice, practice. Exactly. The other one, it can be done through immense emotional stimulation. So you know, your best mates trapped under a car and you suddenly find the strength to lift them off the car, off them, you know? Which you could never normally do. Um, so habit and practice basically. So the more you envision yourself doing something in the successful way, you create the pathways that then the brain tells the body what to do. So. So years ago, I used to do a lot of cycling. I imagined myself getting really fit on the bike and all the rest of it. And I didn't have the healthiest of diets, but literally I spent an hour imagining me climbing up a big climb on the bike and doing it quicker than I'd ever done it in my life. The next day, I had urge for healthy food. Yeah. And that was my body trying to make that vision a reality. Basically released all the right chemicals into my body to make me want to be healthier. Yeah. So that's all the sports people do. So going full circle, it's back to, you know, with strategy. What's the vision? What does success look like? What are we trying to achieve? Yeah. And if you if you haven't got clarity on that and it's not emotionally what's the word stimulating. You know, it doesn't in some way motivate you, then you're never going to achieve it.

Yeah, I, um, I had a good round of golf on Saturday and um, I went up yesterday, decided I went to the range yesterday. So I, yesterday was Sunday. It's Monday today. So I had a good round on, on Saturday came, I don't know seventh I think in the Spring Cup or something, whatever it was played, played reasonably well. There's a couple of other people, two or three other people played out the skin. One boy posted a phenomenal score and so he won it by a country mile in the end. But, um, golf's a funny one when it comes to that. Because because I can play golf, I can play golf really well. Um, you know, for a twelve handicap or I play a reasonably reasonably good golf. Um, and now and again, it all just works and you feel good and you, like you say you visualise it and you know, you play out your skin. And I've certainly had a round of golf that would have if it was if my handicap was based on that one round of golf, I'd be a decent single figure handicap golfer. But, um, going back to this dawn thing. You know, the second our course is out of bounds, right up the right hand side, there's a wall, and the third is on the other side of that wall, and it's out of bounds. And so you stand on that tee, don't slice it, don't slice it, don't slice it. Whoosh. And then it goes over the wall. Oh, it's gone over the wall. And it's bizarre because it's not like I, you know, I habitually hit a massive slice. And so the likelihood of it going over the wall is really high. I wonder if it's something to do with this. Don't slice it, don't slice it. And your brain just goes, slice it. It's a bit like, uh, let's see, what was it called? Was it called Jeff Cobb the deaf, the deaf stunt man on, on, um, on the Fast show. Yeah. And the guy would sit, guy would say to him something to him, and he would go, you want me to jump through the window? And and he would, he would go and do it. And even though it wasn't what he was being asked to do, it was it's one of the funniest characters on that, um, program, I thought, but, um.

But the brain.

You've got me thinking.

Now.

Yeah, you've got me thinking like when I play, if I go for a few holes tonight, I'm going to try the power of positive thought and see if I can visualise the shot I want to play and see what actually happens.

So next time you get to the second, instead of saying, you know, don't go out of bounds, say to yourself, hit it down the middle. Yeah. Um, and see what happens. And the reason is the brain cannot cope with negatives. And this might sound a bizarre thing, but in order for it.

And this is science fact.

This is science fact. Yeah. So, um, there's a really easy sort of test of this. If you, if you get somebody just to sit in silence for a minute, close their eyes, clear the mind and say to them, don't think of a pink elephant. So for you not to think of a pink elephant, you've got to recognise what a pink elephant is in the first place. So your brain actually thinks of a pink elephant. You know, it might quickly replace it with a grey elephant, but it's already thought about a pink elephant. Yeah. So and if if anybody's got young kids out there, this is a classic technique for young kids. And if you haven't got kids, if you're in an environment where there are kids, you will hear parents saying, don't run on the grass. You know, don't, don't, don't run near that road. Don't drop that glass as the glass drops. Yeah. And we're kind of almost pre-programmed to tell people what we don't want them to do. But actually, if you tell them what you do want them to do, it's not a guaranteed success, but they're much more likely to do it. Yeah. And my eldest son, who's twenty five now, when he was about two, he used to lick his lips all the time when he was thinking, which is fine in summer, but in winter he'd get really sore, really chapped lips. Yeah. So what do we keep saying as parents? Don't lick your lips. Don't lick your lips. He carried on, didn't he? So we we kind of thought about this. Right. What is it we actually want him to do? Well, what we actually want him to do is keep his tongue in his mouth. Mhm. So we started saying to him, keep your tongue in your mouth. And we reinforce that message. And within twenty four hours, he'd stopped licking his lips. Mental issue. And that for me blew me away, you know? Um, and, you know, I'd find myself running towards, you know, the end of the garden and about to run through the gate in front of the cars that were going down the road about to shout, you know, don't run into the road, you know. He's like, hang on, stay in the garden. and they would change direction. Yeah, it's quite bizarre to watch because they're more susceptible because the brains haven't fully developed and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, this whole concept of, you know, tell people what you do want them to do, not what you don't want them to do. Yeah. And same with yourself if you're playing sport. Yeah.

Okay. So we need to think about how we bring that into marketing and specifically digital marketing.

Yeah.

Click this link, fill in your details on this form and buy this shit off us.

Well, basically we do do that. I mean, we're on a website. Do you ever put, you know, don't click this link? Yeah. If you do, it might be one of those. I know somebody's trying to be a bit provocative in the marketing. Yeah, yeah. And of course the curiosity gets the better of you. But actually in reading, don't click this link, the brain's hearing click this link, you know, so it'll do it.

Well, curiosity getting the better of you. That's something that's used in the really shitty end of marketing a lot, isn't it? Because, you know, all you see in clickbait is like, you know, some sort of picture that draws your eye and then you will never guess what happened next sort of thing. You know what I mean. Or your half a sentence dot dot dot. And so you're oh, I need to know the rest. Now click. And you know, it's, it's powering those like news websites and the like that are just full of intrusive, intrusive adverts.

And I see in my newsfeed all the time, particularly again for sport, you know, you'll see something like such and such a manager, his replacement at this club. And I'm thinking, I didn't know he'd been sacked. And when you get into the article twenty six page, you know, scrolls down. It says, should he ever leave the club, they're already thinking about who might replace him. And here's a likely contender. There's absolutely no information in it of interest. So classic clickbait. Yeah.

You know what as well. It's it's actually out of control because um, I'm, I like to think I'm pretty good at spotting these things. And I, you know, I tend to be very good at ignoring clickbait, I believe, but there was one recently, um, announcing the death of Ozzy Osbourne. Wow. And I was thinking, oh, Christ, he's supposed to be touring again. He's supposed to be doing like, a farewell tour. Another farewell tour rather. And, you know, and I was like, oh, you know what I mean? I clicked through to it and yeah, just complete nonsense. So, you know, the desperation in some of this, some of this stuff is, is beyond belief. We do work in a rather, um, sort of shitty industry in some respects.

Why, why is that? Is it because, I mean, you can't get away with it in print journalism or on TV, you know, Ofgem or not Ofgem. Sorry. Um Ofcom regulate all of that. Is it just because there's too much of it and it can't be regulated or can't be regulated effectively.

I think it's back to that thing that where, you know, when we've said to clients, if they want to put on, on their website who some of their clients are and they want to stick some of their client logos on there, so they get, you know, by, by association, it makes them look better. And we tend to say, look, you know, you put it on and apologise if later if they ask you to take it off. And I think that's what advertisers are doing, they're doing, they're just pushing the envelope and trying things out. And if they get told off or they get even worse, they might get, you know, fine for it or whatever. They'll just face the music at some point and probably not pay the fine anyway. Bit of a law. One to leave to leave on. I can't leave on. I've got. Well, I think we're going to actually, because we've been blathering on about all sorts of shite for quite a long time now. I have, um, there's some things I was going to cover, but I'll cover them next time. I'll just put some teasers out there. It was just some, some code, some computer code that I wrote for us, which was, which was quite interesting. I'm gonna be going to that. Um, I was at some point going to try and introduce the idea of talking about selling time, um, something that we don't do. But, but I know a lot of agencies still do. And then, um, there was going to be a bit of a bit of a moan about, um, yeah, I won't go into what the moan was going to be about because I haven't decided yet if I'm going to talk about it. So I'll, I'll leave that hanging. But um, yeah, I mean this has been a particularly driven, um, podcast. Anyone that's got to the end of this, I mean, hats off for, for sticking with this drivel.

Honestly, you didn't have your Red bull, did you? You didn't have your wings.

I didn't have my wings actually. No. I think Red bull is definitely something that's needed. And you know what I'm going to do? I am going to just get back into the habit of scribbling down stuff as it happens through the week. So I've got plenty more, plenty of, um, real relatable stuff to talk about.

Can I add toner cartridges to the list?

Toner cartridges? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we'll talk about toner cartridges. Well, in fact, you're going to be on holiday next week, aren't you? So we won't be doing one next week. Although I might go on the unsuspecting Cameron into a podcast. Uh, he starts on Monday. Mhm. And, um, I'll see how he feels about getting involved in the podcast. So I might, I might record one with Cameron, just see how he feels about doing a podcast. So we'll see how that goes.

We have covered psychology, strategy, visioning and negative thinking. Oh, it's not bad in one hour. And your golf.

I know. Forty three minutes. Yeah. Right. You've been listening to, uh, Digital Marketing From The Coalface with me, Dave Robinson and my colleague Stuart Harrison. Um, there were some little bits of marketing in there somewhere, um, as well as all of the usual streams of consciousness. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

Ta, ta.