No David, Franz Kafka Didn't Direct It's A Wonderful Life – Episode 159

It's the same as when clients say to that, well, I don't actually want to put any information on my website because my competitors might see it. It's the same sort of thing. Well, you know, I don't want to let AI look at my website because they might tell other people, well, kind of. That's the point of your website?

Okay. So welcome back. It feels like the wrong thing to say. Welcome back to the, um, Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast, which has been in, uh, in a state of suspended animation since what, July? Yeah. Because obviously, um, my partner in crime, Alex, left us and then Cam came along, decided he didn't really like B2B stuff. And, uh, he didn't last long. And, um, and we just haven't got around. We've been busy, busy, and we just haven't got around to doing it. So you had the bright idea of doing an end of year.

Round up of 2025 podcasts. This will probably come out halfway through 2026 and be completely irrelevant.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But, um, well, if you, if you're going to sort of sort of chair it really, then I'm happy to, but, um, I'll hopefully have some meaningful answers for you, but we'll see.

Okay. Well, I was just thinking we could talk about the sort of stuff that's been changing in the world of digital marketing over the last year because, um, it's kind of all all changed and everything's up in the air and nobody really knows what's happening because we've got things like AI overviews and zero click marketing and AI mode and all this stuff that's happening so that when you search for things, it's not about clicking on a link anymore. There's all these different options and it kind of changes. Yeah. Or does it?

Well, I think that's it. Yeah. It does. It changes or does it.

Does it change things?

I mean Sergey Brin was being quoted I think this week as saying that he was, um, openly admits that Google kind of dropped the ball where AI were concerned they had they had concerns over, um, dumb chatbots giving dumb answers to questions, which is fair, which is fair because they did and to a certain extent still do. Um, but he was um sort of saying, you know, they were now obviously trying to play catch up with, with open AI and um.

Um, Gemini's got way better.

Yeah. And version three has just come out I think hasn't it.

So yeah, you get, you can have like quick mode or thinking mode. And thinking mode seems to be fairly sensible.

I think, I think what's happened for most people, um, if they're, if they're kind of switched on this year is they've gone from maybe using AI for like generative AI for, you know, creating crappy blog posts and doing like, you know, Google fodder if you like. And it's gone from that to recognising just how useful it can be if it's used in to actually help with productivity.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's the big change.

I mean, Phil, who's obviously sysop and he does, you know, all the like he's looking after the wood project where we're doing like software development for for wind farm monitoring and, and work permits in wind farms and things like that. Um, he's a, he's an advocate of, of AI from a coding point of view, because one of the frustrating things and I remember, um, Steve Milne who's at, uh, who heads up digital at fifth ring and he and I were in business together a long, long time ago. And I remember he said once, like what he finds frustrating because he was a really good coder and he would like, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He knew exactly what the code would look like when it was written, but he had to sit and write it.

Yeah. Which is a really boring, time consuming.

Yeah. So I think.

What? Not the clever.

Bit. Exactly. Yeah. And I think what we've, what people have realised with AI is that, that it can take care of some of the, um, legwork if you like, as long as you could have done it yourself. And I think, I think it's at its most powerful. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you could, if you could have done it yourself, that's when it's at its most powerful. Um, that's not to say there aren't people out there now who claim to be designers or developers or writers, and they're completely reliant on AI, but I think people like that will get found out. Ultimately, they'll get family.

The pool gets smaller because AI can only draw on things that already exist, and you're kind of almost ever decreasing circles unless you chuck original things into the mix every now and again.

You can sort of I mean, I'm my, I mean, we, we use Google workspace. So like you, I've got full access to Gemini, but, um, my kind of tool of choice, my partner in crime is Claude and I.

Find bestie as Claude.

It isn't, it is. I'm finding it like really useful. So I've used it to help consolidate thinking I've used it to help me when I'm putting together strategies. I've used it to help me put together content. Um, and I've used it.

Recently the, the spinner for our I did.

That's right. Exactly. I mean, one of the most exciting things that actually Phil introduced me to it, and it was actually using Claude as a as a coding agent and being able to talk to a machine and tell it what you want. And it then writes the code.

Speaking words and it turns words into actual code. That's great.

It's, it's hugely powerful. And it's, and it's and serious developers are using it. It's not just like allowing, you know, idiots like me who want to do a little bit of coding now and again to be able to not have to kind of remember the ins and outs of PHP or JavaScript. Yeah. Um, so using, using the AI for that has been really useful. And then inadvertently, AI is also, you know, introduced me to some of the tools that I wasn't using in some of the boring things like spreadsheets. Yeah. So when I wanted a spreadsheet to do something funky, you know, I was working with, working with it. We're working with my friend Claude, Mr. Hopper. I was working with Claude with it, and Claude said, well, you could use these equations or we could write this, this app script. It's like, Okay, that sounds interesting. So it actually helped me write a script so that the spreadsheet did some really cool stuff that I was struggling to kind of figure out.

So stuff that's sort of beyond what I can do without getting really complicated.

Because I think, I think in digital marketing, I mean, when you, when you like you and I, who are, if you're like at the, you know, the, the top of the organisation, we don't do enough of this and enough of that to be completely across it all the time. You know, you have to refresh your memory, you have to go back to it. And I think AI certainly helped with like, like a short circuit, if you like that kind of, uh, oh, how, how is it we do that again.

Sort of thing. And I know the reasoning and I know what end result I want, but the ins and outs of getting to that point.

Yeah. So I think productivity improvements in productivity, um, I find, um, you know, I'm, I find that I get stuck sometimes just kind of getting going. Yeah.

And it really made a difference to that.

It has. And so like, if you're just kind of staring at it and you think.

You know.

Screen.

Playing.

That kind of blank screen syndrome type.

Thing, a few words onto the paper, just like getting a structure for something can help you get going. Like, okay, yeah, right. If I start here, I know exactly what I need to say now and that's.

Going to help me with, uh, help me put together the structure for this document. Here's a, here's a, here's a request for some, you know, like an opportunity that's come in maybe and he's a request, like, help me structure a document. Yeah. You know, and it'll just help you create that structure. And you might finish up scrapping a lot of the stuff it gave you, but it's at least.

Yeah, it just.

Kind of got you.

Moving. Have I missed anything? You know, what else should I put in this document? Yeah. And what what's missing? What have I forgotten? And it can just help with that as well. But the other thing obviously is people are now using AI to search.

Yeah. That's right. So you've got AI mode in Google haven't you?

So AI overviews and AI.

AI overviews is one thing. AI mode is like, you're almost like starting a conversation with an agent and then you're trying to get to the get to to resolve something. And that's the thing that I think people have been most, most the most concerned about. Yeah. Is like, well, is that, does that mean that that search is dead?

But I.

Don't think.

It is.

If you just want an answer to a question, then you might never leave Google. You might never leave Claude. You might never leave Gemini. You're just getting answers to the question. Although if you read the bottom, it'll say this might be wrong, you know, or words to that effect. So you still have to then do some research.

Give it sources if you are.

Generally. Well, yeah. That's right. So, um, I think I, I'm not fretting. I mean, we've, we've had some fantastic opportunities coming in recently and they've come in, I think maybe one came in from organic search, one came in from paid search. One maybe more than one came in from paid search. So I think.

We had one from ChatGPT as well.

Yes. Yeah. We've had, we've had some stuff coming from sort of AI generally, but um, you know, people are still finding read evolution and risk, asking us to look at a piece of work for them. Because of Google search, whether it's organic or paid, I'm indifferent. Whether it's organic or paid, I'm not bothered. I'm happy to pay for clicks.

As long as you're found in the right place by the right people. And I think the AI searching on AI, either the AI overviews are going into ChatGPT or whatever, and asking questions is is just another way. And I mean ChatGPT or whoever has to get its information from somewhere. So it still has to be able to find you. It's just that there's more. It just, it's just like, it's like TV. You used to watch four channels and search. You used to just have to be on Google. Now you've got to be in lots of different places. And, and AI have got got to be able to find you in the places it's looking, but it's still a very small proportion of the overall sort of traffic to people's websites. Although even over the course of this year, I've seen it get bigger.

Yeah, yeah for sure.

The number of kind of clicks to someone's website coming from AI is bigger now than it was at the beginning of this year.

Yeah. And I think as well, um, traffic to websites from organic search, possibly from paid search as well, but certainly from organic search seems to be down.

It's broadly down the whole zero click marketing.

Yeah.

That's right. People are just yeah. Looking for answers and not bothering, clicking through to get more information.

And there's a big question there, isn't there? Because you can, you know, block the, the AI, the large language models from, from using your data, from using your using your content. But I'm not, I'm not really an advocate of that. I mean, it's, it does seem, it does seem that somebody, somewhere, as has always been the case, he's profiting from the hard work of companies that are working on producing great content, you know, so that so the AI can hoover it up and, and, and just say, hey, you know, don't go anywhere else. Here's the answer. Yeah. That's right. But as you say, it's kind of, you know, stealing other people's content in order to.

Do the same as when clients say to that, well, I don't actually want to put any information on my website because my competitors might see it. It's the same sort of thing. Well, you know, I don't want to let AI look at my website because they might tell other people, well, kind of that's the point of your website.

Yeah, yeah.

I think you have to make it available. Yeah. But that's the whole thing. Like people aren't clicking from Facebook anymore or LinkedIn. You're not even supposed to put links in your posts anymore because nobody's clicking through and they, they don't like you having clicks that take you out of their platforms. So they sort of downgrade posts with clicks. And so you've got to like, it's all about, you know, your brand has to actually get more important because you've got to be visible and people have got to understand what you're all about without clicking through. And then in their own good time, go and find you because they've, they've got an idea what you do. So it's.

Yeah, ultimately people will still need to speak to people at other businesses to get problems solved, whether it's to get a heat exchanger designed and built or whether it's to, you know, sell a particular product, you know, or whatever it is, ultimately, You know, we've got to just look at how we're using all of these different tools in order to tell our stories and, you know, make our brand, make our customers brands, um, a brand, you know, a thing that people want to interact with, feel confident to make contact with because yeah, I mean, it could be in a, I mean, we know, um, we know, you know, at least one freelancer who's seen work significantly drop off this year. And that's partly because of Canva and Canva AI and the whole Canva affinity thing coming together. I mean, that was big news this year from a marketing point of view. You know, if anyone's listening to this and you need some software for manipulating images and photographs and everything else, you know, I'd say, you know, don't buy Adobe, just go and get affinity. It's free and it's fantastic. And then if you want to, you can then pay additional to have the Canva aspect of it because Canva bought affinity Canva AI. So you can.

Just tell.

It, tell it what you're looking for, and it'll kind of go, do you mean this? Or do you mean that? And, you know, and so, um, I mean, AI is not all good news. I mean, you know, there's some stuff out there we need to be, I think we need to be careful with. But broadly speaking, for some of the, um, a lot, for a lot of the, um, you know, creating ideas and, and sort of the legwork on stuff and like that, it's, it's proving, it's really proving to be a valuable tool really is.

So what about SEO? You know, is SEO.

SEO any more boring? It was a previous life. Um, no, I mean, it is still important. Of course it is. But, you know, SEO has always been about, um, you know, from a, from a content point of view, you know, create the content that people are looking for exactly, which also AI is looking for. Yeah. Um, make sure your pages are put together properly and make sure there's no technical barriers, you know what I mean? And if you kind of get all that stuff right, you know, you're halfway there.

Yeah. Google's banging on even more about it's e e a t thing. The expertise, um.

Experience, authority.

Authority, trust. Um, and that that's even more so. But it's basically about, you know, right. Good stuff that people actually want to read and make it useful and make it relevant.

And it just feel tedious though, doesn't it? You know, write good, authoritative, entertaining content. It's like, you know, it's like you're being forced, but, you know, companies have been forced to do all this. Well, I guess they've got a choice. They can just pay for clicks, pay for attention using all the, you know, radio, TV, Google ads, all that kind of thing. Um, I guess all Google's trying to do is like, if you want to appear in our search results, if you want to be useful to people, you know, this is what you need to do.

Yeah.

It just, it still feels sort of tedious, you know, it just kind of.

Yeah. But it's also common sense. I mean, you know, writes the stuff that your customers want to read, right? Stuff that's going to help them and then they'll find it and then they'll think you're probably know what you're talking about.

And make it easy for them to read it or listen to it, you know? Yeah, I'm a, I'm a lazy reader. I'll happily listen to stuff. Yeah.

And YouTube, that's another thing this year, like YouTube is, And it's like everybody's going to YouTube to search. It's not just searching on Google.

They're searching always the case. It's been, you know, it's been a search engine for a long time.

Even even more.

I mean, I go there all the time. I'm always thinking about buying a motorbike or thinking about changing my car or thinking about buying another drum kit or whatever, you know what I mean? And YouTube all the time. I want to, I want to actually listen to somebody decide if I think they know what they're talking about. You know, this is all back to this, what you were saying about experience and authority.

And trust who you think is just like making it all.

Up. I mean, we've all I mean, you know, we've all like started watching a YouTube video and realized this person's an idiot. I don't want to I don't want to know what they've got to say. So, but but we, you know, we do make those judgment calls. And I think, I think, uh, obviously we, we've been talking about AI. AI in video production has just gone off the scale this year. And it's just ridiculous from.

Some of the things that can do.

You can make.

People speak a different language, but it's not like it's not dubbed. It's like their mouths moving and it does actually look like they're speaking that language.

I don't know if you saw the, um, Alan Partridge. Um, was it he was, he was like, how, how are you or something? It was his latest series. It was basically mental health and all this.

Kind of thing.

Alan Partridge. Well, I really enjoyed it. It was good. And he and they were doing some AI stuff, you know, and the AI videos because he'd invested in an AI company.

Okay.

And the AI videos, you know, they were putting the person's mouth in the wrong place. And then like the head would turn around like an owl or something like that. It was, it was, it was really funny.

I mean, you still get extra fingers on people's hands and things.

Yeah.

That's right. But it's getting so much better.

Well, it is, I guess it's like, well what, what do you want to use it for? I mean, I mean, you could if you've got an idea and you can just talk to um, what's it called, the Gemini video tool.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So if you can just talk to it and, and get some ideas down and then go and then get Leslie involved and say, right, this is, this is my idea. This is what I'd like to see. This is this is AI's version of it, you know. Is this something that we should.

Create that earlier I had like a client, we were trying to sort of think of some ideas for videos. And they've got a sort of a, a thing that you draw that you put cards in and it's like, ask the video, the video thingy feel to, um, make it into video. I'm not making any sense. Make the, make the image into a video and actually like made the draw slide in and out and it was really realistic and, and it just gave Leslie some ideas or it helped me kind of communicate some ideas to her about how we could use.

Well, we did the same with, um, for, for, for our client that does all the tachograph stuff.

That's, that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

The thing that slid in and out.

That's right. Yeah. So we created that kind of, uh, we created that video because we had this idea of like a lorry with like sparks coming out.

Oh yeah. That's well, yeah, simulate that.

You know, the data was.

Transmitted.

Transmitting from the lorry back to back to HQ and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it was interesting, it was good. And then you had a situation with another client where they'd said to you like this, you know, this office space. We want to show people what it would look like as a dentist room or as a this.

Or.

Or a spa. And they were going to get like CGI and they were going to spend a fortune. And you basically went like, here's a picture, make it look like a doctor's office. And you chucked it back at them and they were like, wow.

They were like, yeah, that's exactly.

And that was like, you know, it took no time at all. So I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, it's good because the client saved a load of money and somebody somewhere didn't get paid to do that.

I know you do, kind of.

Because we.

Just.

Pay whatever we pay for our AI and it did it.

But all we needed was to give people a rough idea so that they could have could set their imaginations kind of moving in terms of, okay, that's what this space could do. It didn't need to be detailed and accurate, although, I mean, there's obviously still a place for that, but that wasn't really what we needed in this situation. It was really just a, for example, you know, some scenarios.

That's right.

So.

So I think I think broadly speaking, what we're saying is if you use it, it's almost like if you could afford to have like a couple of underlings. Yeah. And you could have these ideas and you could say, right, John, go and do this. Right. Susan. Go and do that and then come back to me when you've done that. And then we'll put it together and we'll and we'll and then we might try this and we might, if you could have that resource. So it's giving you, I guess AI used, used well, is giving you that kind of resource, isn't it? It's like giving you this, this, this buddy who's very productive, um, needs to be monitored. I mean, it, you know, it constantly tells you lies. I mean, I was using it on a, on a Google ads, uh, campaign and, and it confidently said, yep, there's fifteen headlines and they're all within the character limit. And they.

Weren't. Yeah.

You know, it's like, and, but then when you it's Claude's funny because when you then say, you know, you give me some of them and like they're outside the camp. Oh, you're absolutely right. I should have checked that.

And yeah, you go back and say, what about this. Oh yes. Yes. Yeah. And then it's like, it's like it thought of it and it comes back and gives you something.

I think I think that's a good point. And I think what you need to be, you know, if you really want to try and get the AI working to your advantage, you've got to like let it know somehow you've got to try and get it to understand that like, not to just agree with you, you know, like, you know, like when people get to a certain point in a business and.

Everyone just says yes to.

Them. Yeah, everyone, you know, I'm thinking of like, yes, CJ no, CJ or whatever. Yeah. The rise and fall of Reginald Perrin and that reference would be lost on many people, I'm sure. But I mean, yes, you know, CJ um, you know, you, it can become your yes your yes man.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It has to be able to go like that's a load of rubbish. What are you talking about. That makes no sense.

Yeah. What was really hilarious when I, when I got that JavaScript for the spinner for the video, which may or may not come out before Christmas. Um, just a bit of fun we were having as a little Christmas video. Um, is that it was clearly using trial and error to try to try and get it to.

Work was doing exactly like we would have done. That didn't work. What about oh, I'll just try this. I'll try that.

I'll do, I'll do it. And then I'll do minus one at the end and see if that puts it in the right position. You know, won't bore you with what it was trying to do. But it was, it was clearly just trial and error.

And it was still pretty heavy by the end. I mean, it did the job and it was great. Yeah.

You know, one of the good things about that I like about Claude, which I think you said Gemini doesn't do, is you can reference other conversations you've had with.

It.

And, and use that. And, and, and I've seen it like I've been asking it something and then it's, it's, it's told me. Oh, yes. But red evolution does da da da da da da da. And ignores that because of what I've told you before. So the memory aspect of Claude is quite powerful, quite useful.

I'm doing something wrong. But I did ask it if it could do it and it said it couldn't. It doesn't seem to remember stuff. I've told it in other conversations.

I think one of the biggest changes that we've seen, and I'm not sure if this has happened just this year, but initially there was restrictions. If you wanted to say if you said to ChatGPT, probably quite a while ago now, but or Gemini like, go and look at this website and tell me X, Y, and Z, it couldn't do it.

It couldn't.

Go out. And and it can now. And that's the beauty of it. So you've actually got it working like, like a, like an agent going out into the world pulling stuff in and, and then you can say right now, do this to that information you've just found.

And that's what to review a client blog and sort of compare it to competitors blogs and see like where the gaps were like what, what else we could be doing that you hadn't already done. It was quite brutal. I mean, it, it wasn't a yes man at all. No, it was like, well, it does this, but absolutely doesn't do this and you should be doing this. And it was it was quite harsh.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is good.

It's good. That's what you want. You want it to look and see the things that that you've missed.

Yeah. That's right. So yeah, I think, I think, I don't think um, I think we've come a long way in the last twelve months. And you know, arguably we're behind the curve somewhat, you know, but I think we've come a long way in the last twelve months in the way that we've figured out how to use it to help us do our job even better. Definitely, definitely. I think that's.

Been and we're all we're all using it in different ways.

Yeah. Because obviously we've got the, you know, a mix of skills in a, in a, in a, in a full service agency. Like. Yeah.

So you're in the new year to like, maybe do like a lunchtime session where everyone sort of brings forth what they've used and yeah, um, can kind of pass that on so that somebody can go, oh, I didn't know you could do that and just like help each other and actually sort of build a bit of a knowledge base about, um, how to use it.

I think that you need to make the point. This, this isn't about like getting AI to do work, pass it off as our own work and, and charge clients.

God, no.

Like, you know, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about it being able to help us be more efficient. Yeah. Maybe come up with even better ideas. Yeah. Um, I think, I think for, uh, for creating MVPs, minimum viable products, it's fantastic for that, for mocking things up, whether it's something creative, an image, whether it's an app or whatever it is. You know, these are all the ways that we can just become, you know, ever, ever more productive and creative as a, as an agency.

Yeah, it's helping us just sort of fill in gaps or move forward and, and, you know, adding an extra dimension that, that we don't necessarily have.

And I think over the next, you know, the next twelve months, there'll be a consolidation, be interesting to have this conversation in twelve months time and say, well, you know, how did we leverage social media? Sorry, how did we I've got social media written down there. How did we leverage AI? Um, you know, over the last twelve months where, you know, given what happened in the previous twelve months, and I think there's got to be a consolidation, there's got to be a, a kind of. Right. So we know it'll do all these things for us. Now let's, let's actually do all these things and, and get it to help us. And to a certain extent, I think like there are some similarities with social media because social media can be a powerful force for good, in my opinion, but is predominantly used as a, as an evil, You know, melting.

Melting pot.

Of shit. I think there's a lot of.

There's a lot of.

Bad stuff. Even when people are trying to do good things on social media, some half will come in and, and put their poison in their, you know what I mean? And, and I think to a certain extent, it's because as as a species, if you like, we're just not yet quite figuring out how to use it properly. And I think same with AI, I think maybe with AI, we've, we've speeded up because I think it's social media.

It took a lot longer to come in. And at the beginning it was being used to for nice things. People were having nice conversations, pictures of food. Well, yeah, but at least it was being used for nice things and communication and keeping in touch. And now it's just turned into sort of like a pot of vitriol.

I must admit, it's been a huge time saver because, you know, when I used to like, take a photograph of my beans on toast, going to town, get the photographs developed, get loads of copies, then go round all your friends and give them photographs of your food and all that. Now you can just put it on Facebook and it's so much easier.

So much quicker.

Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I think as with them, as with social media, I think we're still kind of trying to figure it out. I mean, it's quite funny when we speak to, um customers, potential customers. Um, I think it's very easy for people to just focus on what they want to do.

Yeah.

And then just expect people are going to take time out of their busy day and their own lives to watch whatever crap you want to produce.

You've got to go. What's in it for them? What's in it for them? You know them, entertain them, educate them. Otherwise make it worth their while because otherwise they're just going to keep scrolling.

If it's something I said to Alex once, I said, when you're doing something like just look at it and does it pass the so what test?

Absolutely.

And I think, and I remember him commenting, oh, it's really useful, really useful. And it's very simple. Yeah. You know, but if you're, you know, if you're, if you're doing anything on social or whether you want to produce a video or whatever you want to do. Does it pass the squat test? Could somebody look at it and go, yeah. So what? Not interested.

You got to put yourself in their shoes. You're not going to look at it from your point of view. You've got to look at it from their point of view. As with all marketing.

I mean we're lucky because it's B2B. You know, we are lucky because the stuff that we work on, broadly speaking, is like people while they're at work trying to solve a problem that's making their life difficult or trying to solve a problem they've been tasked with to find a solution for, for their boss or for whatever. Do you know what I mean?

So you want to know. Yeah.

So we, we can understand. Whereas, you know, I suppose in B2C, if you're trying to get somebody interested in buying your trainers instead of those trainers, there's a little bit more.

More.

Of a challenge.

Yeah. Nobody's going to like research their beans on toast. They're just going to buy the ones they normally buy. And if they're not there, I.

Think we'll call this episode Christmas and beans. Beans on toast for Christmas. There you go. Yeah, yeah.

Saves buying a turkey. Doesn't it just have the beans on toast as an example. Yeah.

Okay. So what are you saying?

I was gonna say, um, talking about, um, things that people don't care about. Do you want to talk a little bit about what we've been doing this year? Like very briefly, like.

Well, I can make it very brief. I mean.

I've got, I've got, I see what you've written down. I've got the same thing. I've also got B Corp and the niching thing.

Oh right. I forgot about B Corp. Yeah. That was big.

You can talk about talk about talk about the B Corp first briefly.

Okay. Because nobody cares. We're now B Corp certified.

There you go.

Well done. So we are members of Edinburgh Chamber and they brought a thing up called B Corp five hundred by twenty thirty. They want five hundred businesses in or around Edinburgh and we have an address in Edinburgh. We do work with companies in Edinburgh, um and like most organisations or hybrids. So you know, does it really matter where we are. We wanted to work with companies in Edinburgh so we went after it. Um so we, we put our name forward, we said we'd like to be part of the first cohort for that, which we did. We embraced it. Um, fortunately we had Stu available to us and Stuart, loves. He loves a form. Yeah. And he basically helped us work through the rigorous process. And it took almost exactly a year. Yeah.

It was.

Hard. Yeah. I'm sure the inaugural kick off thing might have been August ish, but the first workshop was, I think November. Yeah. And we got our b-corp status in September, I think. So, yeah. I mean, if anyone doesn't know about B-corp, just, you know, research it. I won't bore you with the details of it, but it's just about the way you run your business for, for people and planet. Yeah. More than just.

Profit making money.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Doing, doing good as well.

Yeah. I mean, there was some aspects of it that made my teeth itch a bit. You know, they were slightly twitchy about some of the customers that we love working with because of what they do. But, um, as in, you know, they work in the energy industry and, you know, b B corp's a little bit, a little bit sniffy when it comes to like getting oil out of the ground or gas out the ground or possibly minerals out the ground, which create computers, which become Anyway, um, you know, I.

Just know it's a bit of a fine line.

It does make your teeth itch a bit, but, I mean, I was absolutely delighted that we. We're in, we're in good company. There's only, I think two or three thousand cops in the UK.

Yeah. We had the number.

About ten thousand globally thereabouts. Maybe it's growing fifteen thousand maybe. But it's, it's not one of these things where, you know, you fill in a form and join, you know.

It's a process.

It's a really, it's a rigorous.

Process that you go through, you work and yeah, you.

Say you do this, prove it. You say you do that, prove it. Do you do this? Do you don't? Well, you need to write. We now do this, prove it. You know, it's all that kind of stuff. So it was a rigorous process. We're in good company.

The nice thing was demonstrates change the way we did things. We were doing it anyway.

Yeah. I mean that's thank you. That's a really good point. I mean, one of the reasons that it appealed to us is we felt like we were a B Corp type company. You know, we're a flat structure. We like to think, you know, we work well as a team. Um, we, we do think about the impact of the work that we do.

And we operate in the local.

Heat pump.

And we're. Yeah, it's just gone. It's not warm in here. We're very aware of the local community. We participate. We're, you know, we're yeah, we do things that that B Corps do. So we thought it was a good fit for us.

And yeah, it was. I mean, some people take years to get their B Corp status. Um, anyone thinking about it, all I would say is like, you know, give somebody the task of getting your company through it, whether you pay an outside consultant or hire somebody or however you do it or assign it to somebody and give them the resources in-house to do it, that's the way to get through it.

Definitely. It's a big job.

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there'll be, you know, we could sort of wave it around in front of some potential customers and they'll be like, so what? Never heard of it. But, you know, I think it's important that, um, I think it was important to go after it. I'm glad we did it. And, uh, obviously it's, it's an ongoing process as well. You don't just automatically that's it. That's not like it for life. Now we have to resurface, fight something like that. And they're actually changing dramatically. So I don't know, you know, how that's going to impact on us or not.

From what I gather. I don't think it should be to shouldn't be to I don't think it affects us particularly, but I don't know the ins and outs of it. We'd need to look into it. Yeah.

So yeah, that was big. I mean the B Corp thing was, was something that we really wanted. We went after it and and we got it. And that's, that was something to be proud of. And we've got a lovely wooden.

We do have wooden plank that's sitting in the office. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's good.

Because the end of the year has been sort of fairly full on and lots going on. We haven't actually, you know, maybe and maybe for the start of next year, you know, you, me and Karen and whoever else wants to get involved, we could sit down and think, right. You know, is, is what should we be doing? What could we be doing to, to actually, um, make sure that the, the time and the money that we invested is something that we, that we can leverage. And I mean that in a very, you know, in a very, um, ethical way, uh, obviously.

We're not going to exploit.

It. No. that's right. It's just it's just a case of like, there are businesses out there who want to work with other b-corps and, you know, we just want we need to make sure that, that we're in the mix. If they're.

Looking for, they know about.

Stuff that.

We do. Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah. Make ourselves visible. Yeah. And the other thing we did this year, which was pretty big for us, and we've been talking about for about ever is, um, going after a specific niche. We kind of, we kind of half heartedly did it a few years back and said like, right, we're B2B and we're going for B2B. But, um, but.

We never, we never narrowed that down.

No, we.

Always.

Tell other people, well, like, you know.

Your customer isn't everybody.

But I may have mentioned that, you know, your market is not everybody. The, the more you go for a specific audience, the more that your messaging is going to be relevant. Yeah, you can talk directly to them. And then when they read it, they're like, oh yeah, that's relevant to me. I get you and you get me. And, and it's much more effective and more focused. Yeah. And, and we actually did it.

Yeah we did. We did. And it was ringing me to tell me the car's ready. I think.

It was nerve wracking, but, um, so.

Did it. Did it work? I think it was more nerve wracking for some than others. So yeah, just to paint the picture, we started in business in two thousand and three, um, in, you know, based in Aberdeen initially. So clearly we were going to almost certainly work with some engineering companies. Yeah. That was so we've, throughout our history, we've worked with engineering companies. My background was also heavy engineering, first shipbuilding, um, down in Barrow in Furness originally, then the oil industry up here and before, you know, changing career. So and even even with this business, I was coming at it more from the technical side than the creative side. I'm not a creative, never have been.

Um, and even my background, although I'm a marketer, um, I've worked in construction and tech and trains and things like that. So very much on, on the industrial side as well.

So what we did, we had a, you know, a long conversation and we decided, and I still keep questioning this. It was this year and it was around about March.

It was this year.

Yeah, sure it was. Because I keep thinking, no, no, we've been doing this for longer because it feels so embedded now. So, so like it's helped us just like know who we are. Yeah. So basically, as you say, we've niched down, we've, we've just decided, you know, industrial and tech businesses, you know, that bits have been a bit tricky. Is it industrial? Is it engineering? Is it tech? Is it construction? Is it manufacturing. So we're still playing with it a little bit. But we've kind.

Of sort of heavy, heavy end.

The bottom line is if somebody comes across us, you know, what we want them to look at is, is, is actually see, oh, these guys work with businesses like ours. Yeah. And that has worked really well.

I mean, they weren't like businesses like ours. They, yeah, they talk our language as we say and.

Say on our, on our site because we do. I mean.

We understand and they know how to to deal with this.

I mean, to put it in the words of I mean, I was down in um Aylesbury um last week, had a fantastic meeting. Um I think the gigs as good as ours, it was just such a good meeting. Yeah. I mean it was, it was a really, really positive meeting and they'd actively sought us out. Yeah. And you know, in their words, they said, you know, what we felt was with you guys, we wouldn't have to explain ourselves. You would actually understand what it is that we do. And I'm not saying I could I could design heat exchangers. I mean, if I put my mind to it, I could, but but, you know, I'm not like a heat exchanger expert, but it's not like. Yeah. And so, you know, it, it makes it less painful for the customer because.

Less.

Stress, less risky because they can see we've helped other engineering companies or the tech companies. Um, and it just makes them feel like they're in safe hands. And, you know, in our game, it's all about making people feel safe.

These sort of companies, they don't tend to do have done a lot of marketing in the past. A lot of times, and they're, they're not really they're quite nervous about it. Yeah. And so if they, if we can take one layer of that nervousness out of it, it makes it easier for them.

Well, coming back on the train, um, I wrote a blog post. Hopper might have helped me a bit, but anyway, I wrote a blog post and it was about that, um, nervousness, you know, I can't remember, I can't remember.

I haven't even read it. No, I will read it, I promise.

You said that out loud. Um, and it's about that nervousness and we come across it a lot where engineering companies, particularly engineering companies, they've survived because they're good at what they do. They've got good networks. People know who they are, but what they've missed. The trick that they've missed is, is like when the old hands at, you know, Acme, we use engineering companies to provide our services limited. When the old hands there start leaving, the new people in there are going, oh, right. So we need some this doing. We need this designing, we need one of these building. We need them. You know, these these two bits of metal gluing together. See, I told you I was an engineer, you know, and, like, who do I speak to? Who do we go and who do we go and see about that?

They might want to like say, well, just because we've been using these guys forever, it doesn't mean that we have to keep using them. We want to go out to the market and have a look around and see if there's a better way of doing it.

So what we find is when we actually start working and we've got we've got the one down in Aylesbury and, and fingers crossed, a really big one. Um for an engineering company down on the south coast. Um we, we were, as you know, we were one of many, we were shortlisted to six and then we're hoping to get down to the final three, which would be then face to face meeting. Um, what we find when we look at businesses like that and the, the organisation down in Aylesbury I went to see last week is like, they're just not telling the complete story about what they do. Yeah. And I think it's a very engineering thing. It's like, and I identified with it when I was actually writing one of those blog posts. I was like, Jesus, that's exactly what I do. You know, I'm kind of and and this business has suffered, um, over the years as a result of it. It's like, you know, well, we, you know, we list the stuff that we do and we show them some stuff that we've done and like, why wouldn't they?

Why wouldn't they then just, it's the function. It does this thing.

So yeah. And we do that thing you're looking for this thing, we do this thing.

So come and speak to you and yeah, yeah. That's right.

Are they any good. What's the story like. Have they done it for all the all the whole.

Kind of.

Things.

Missing people, people making decisions. And people aren't particularly rational, even if they think they are. Even engineers are always rational.

If you listen to um um Rory. Um Rory um oh, not not Stewart. He's a politician.

Sutherland.

Sutherland. Thank you. Yeah. If you listen to Rory Sutherland, I mean, you know, all the anecdotes he comes out with, which are fantastic for the most part. Yeah. Uh, anecdotes about irrationality and and humans are we are irrational.

They look at a list of things they could like weigh up that one and that one, that one has more ticks than that one, but somehow they still like that one best. And they'll they'll do anything in their power to make it work that they choose the other one just because. Because it feels right. Yeah. And there's, there's no logic to it. A lot of it's just swayed by emotion or history or baggage or whatever they've got going on. So, you know, listing a list of it does, this is not enough.

No. That's right. So, um, so yeah, I mean, I think understandably some of the team were kind of nervous. They were, they made some valid points. Like they would say, well, what about this client? You know, a client who is still a client, if they'd come along after we'd set our stall out as like what we do, they would, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have been in touch with us. And that's fine. But I think it's important that you know who you're for.

You can't. Yeah. You can't be for everybody. It's, um, it's not as powerful. It's not as strong a message. And you probably don't do as good a job.

Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the organisations that we're hoping to be working with in the new year. You know, that's one of the questions we need to go through with them because they legitimately can service, um, defense energy. Um, they can, they can service a dairy food production, you know, and if we go ahead working with, I'm going to say, right, I want to know how much money each of these are actually making for the business just because you can do it, because.

It doesn't mean you.

Should be. Yeah. It's the oil and gas company coming along and saying, well, they do dairy and they do food production. No, they're not for us. Yeah, you know what I mean? We need we need somebody that's like, knows us, like really knows us. And so they may be missing a trick there. Who knows. I'm not.

Sure. And to be fair, the team and the guys who were like, oh, we don't think it's a great idea. They were really nervous. They turned around and went, oh, actually, I can see that it's working and they feel a lot better about it and they're quite comfortable with the idea.

I think so, and I think what turned it around for them was some of the really good quality. I mean, you know, when you're getting enquiries for five figure retainers, you think we're doing something right?

Yeah, exactly.

You know what I mean? When they're actually coming to us saying, we've got this, this, this amount of money to finally move.

Forward and, you know, to, to go back to the kind of so what, what's in it for you? You know, if people are if anyone's still listening, then, you know.

I'm a big believer. There's a, there's a, and I can't remember the quote, but it's about it's essentially comes down to commitment when you commit to something, then, um, um, sort of, I don't know, not serendipity, but providence kicks in. Yeah. You know, I mean, things happen that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made that commitment. Yeah. That's right.

Ballpark. Whatever it.

Is, you're.

Putting yourself there and therefore you're gonna bump into more people who are also there.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we had a fantastic well, it wasn't for us, but it was a fantastic opportunity for somebody came in only yesterday and it came in because they make components and things for engineering companies. So they thought, right, well, these guys do marketing for engineering companies. We'll go and speak to them. As it turned out, they were looking for a heap of digital PR and everything else.

It was kind of the wrong kind of marketing. It was stuff that.

It was It wasn't.

For us.

And I really appreciate the opportunity. But we know we're not your guys. But it was like thirteen grand a month budget. It was a decent chunk of money.

Oh yeah.

You know, and, you know, they were quite happy to put that in front of us and say, would you like to look at this for us?

And we wouldn't have got that a few years back. But it just yeah, it's not the right skill set for us. But you know, it, it could have been it was the right type of client, just the wrong type of kind of marketing skills that absolutely that we didn't want to do.

So I think, um, I think broadly speaking, um, I think, and obviously we'll have a, a like, um, you know, a town hall at the start of twenty twenty six and see how people are feeling not quite twelve months on from, from that, um, from that decision, but I mean, the mood music I'm hearing is, is people are happy. I mean, they're seeing the quality of the new.

Clients.

That.

Are coming in, really exciting stuff to work on. That's right. You know, really more challenging probably because it's, um, just on a bigger scale.

Well, both of those are those opportunities I was talking about just just a moment ago. I mean, there's going to be so much great stuff to do for those customers.

Yeah, it's really.

Exciting right across the whole, the whole organisation, our, our organisation. So yeah, I'm really excited.

About every single person on the team will get involved in these projects.

And it helps you, it declutters your own life and your own messaging. When you, you know, when you make a decision like we made, it really does, you.

Know, it's less so, less things.

I mean, the funny thing is as well, we still get the odd enquiry and it's like, why on earth have they come to us? You know, they just but it could be they're looking for something very specific.

Yeah. Or looking for somebody to build them a HubSpot.

Website, for example. And they've only looked at HubSpot page on HubSpot website page on our site. So they're going, oh, well, these guys built fine.

You know, we're so happy to do that. I think I'm trying to think.

If anything has come along brand new since we sort of put the, you know, turned our messaging into exactly who were for. I'm trying to think I mean, our friends in Dundee. Yeah. That's that's tech. You know.

It's tech and engineering, so that's fine. They make the kit and I'm.

Trying to think if there's any. I don't think so. I think it's all been.

Yeah. And our nuclear people.

Oh yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

But yeah we haven't got anything that isn't.

Don't think so. No. No. So it's working. The message is out there.

I think so, yeah. And yeah. And we've got some really nice projects working on because of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's been fun.

And I think even if we decided it wasn't, it had been a mistake, I wouldn't be saying, right, let's go back and just say we're we can be. Yeah, we would pick another niche.

Exactly. I think I think it's definitely the way forward. I mean, we've known it and we've been we've been told it and we've been telling other people it. And I think we we are evidence that that it is a really good idea. And if you are thinking about it and let's go for it, I would say agreed.

And let's face it, the niche, if you can call it that, that we've chosen, it's not very niche. I mean, you know, engineering is big.

It's broad.

Tech broad.

Yeah. we're not narrowing it down to.

Well, for example, our.

Friend.

Yeah, exactly. I was going to mention a friend over in America who, you know, I don't know how he's getting on with it. We don't, we don't, we haven't spoken to them for a while. But basically, yeah, for those.

Listening.

He was like, I only build websites for people who service and supply household generators for people that want to make sure the power doesn't go off. If there's an outage, that's it.

Yeah. You get people.

America's a big place.

So if he if he.

Yeah you do. We only build websites for dentists. I mean, that's that's niche. And if that works, then like engineering and tech, it's going to.

Work. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, it's not a very narrow niche at all. It's not that risky, but it's still I think it's been a, been a really good move.

Yeah. I think one of the things that we're, I think we're also clearly succeeding with is, um, making sure that we, that people understand if we're a good fit for them and they're a good fit for us. It doesn't matter where you are. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking of one of the enquiries that came in, you know, they said, well, you know, Like, you know, well done. We've narrowed you down to the final six, but we just want to make sure that you, you know, you're happy to come and see us. We're not on your doorstep. And that that made me look at, for example, some of the messaging on our website and just make it absolutely clear to people like, yeah, if you're in, you know, any anywhere.

Yeah, we'll.

Come.

And see you. We're a good fit. We've got, we had a client in France, you know.

Had, have, have had, I don't know.

Yeah. Come and go.

They come and.

Go. Um but yeah, it's um nowadays like location doesn't matter at all. It doesn't.

But even even in this country, I mean they were concerned that because they're on the south coast of England that like the fact that we're predominantly in Scotland, would that be an issue, you know, and not.

No, it wouldn't be an issue at all. I mean, we may be in the middle of nowhere, but we do have transport links.

I also think it's a really strong message that like, don't worry about where you are and where we are. If we're the right guys for you and we really want to work with you, then we'll make that work. And, you know.

And we have done, and we can prove.

Have done many times and we'll continue to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. That's right.

Right. I think we've probably done this to death.

But you haven't spoken about that thing.

The thing, the thing we're not speaking about the thing.

We're not speaking about the thing.

Don't mention the thing.

Okay. Um, so any anything else? Um.

No, I mean, I was just talking about, you know, AI search and SEO and.

Yeah.

Yeah. The only other thing I was gonna mention is that that point where all the search console traffic dropped in the middle of September, everybody, it's a bit geeky.

But the.

People might go, oh, oh, my traffic dropped. It didn't. It was just like the way Google measured things and everybody got scared.

And Google suddenly realised it had been cocking up and.

It was measuring the robots and things.

That's measuring stuff it shouldn't have been measuring.

So if you look at a graph of your traffic and about the twelfth of September, it takes a big drop.

Well, that's the thing. The traffic didn't did it.

No.

The impressions. Yeah. So the graph supposedly your website had been appearing in search fell off a cliff, but the traffic looked terrifying.

But actually.

Yeah.

Please don't worry. It is all fine. Don't panic, Mr. Mannering.

Yeah.

That's another reference that nobody's gonna understand.

Do you know what amazes me about dancing? I'm sure I've said it on the on the podcast before is I still I still see episodes I've never seen before. Yeah. This year I've seen at least one episode and I was like, I've never seen that before unless I just forgot about it.

I mean, you would have watched it when you were quite young, so you may have forgotten.

Yeah.

Um, you remember just out playing at the time.

I know, I know. Oh. What Christmas films have you watched so far? I asked you this yesterday.

Um. Home alone two and that's it.

Is Home Alone two better than Home Alone. Oh. Is it just easier to find on the streaming services that you subscribe?

No, I just I, I just like it because it's in New York.

Of.

Course. Yeah.

So do you want to talk about New York?

No. You're okay. But I do like I was in New York two Christmases ago, and it was very nice to.

But I mean, we are going on a trade mission, aren't we? So you've.

Got a.

Trade mission in February with again with the Edinburgh Chamber.

Which um clearly sounds like very, very hard work and um you know.

Florida in February.

Yeah, yeah. It's a tough, tough gig.

We tell you what will be tough landing in Aberdeen on your way home. Yeah. That would.

Be tough. I am taking a little side side mission to New York on the way home. So, um.

Visit the son.

Go and visit my son, who is lucky enough to live in New York. So I go and go and see him and, um, cramp his style on Valentine's Day. So he will be delighted. Um, make him take me out for a little. Little.

It's quite a compact and bijou little trade mission, isn't it? How many people are going.

Yeah, there's only like eight or ten or something. It's not masses of people. Um, so it should be quite nice. Like actually meet some, some other people who are doing business in and around. I think it's people from Edinburgh, Glasgow and.

Have we gone through the process yet of speaking with the organisers to say like, who do you want to speak to while you're over there?

I've had that meeting. So I told them what we do and give them a list of the sort of clients that we currently have. And it was again, very handy to be able to talk about sort of engineering industrial tech. And it narrowed it down.

An engineering company in Florida.

Yeah. Explain that. So. So yeah, that's, that's fun looking ahead to next year. Um, so what Christmas movies have you watched or what's on the list?

Uh, well, the list will be, um, the holiday obviously. Yeah. Karen will insist on that.

I love the.

Holiday. I quite like it as well. I've got to be honest. Home alone. Maybe. Maybe home alone. I might actually watch. Um. What's the one with Bill Murray? Scrooged. Oh, I love that. It's a great film. That's a really funny film. I might watch that again. And then of course, at some point I'll watch It's a Wonderful Life because it's against the law not to, but nobody else seems to really like it. I just love it. And I will cry in the in the relevant bits. And the little boy gets clipped when young George gets clipped by the by the, um, by the drugstore guy who, who's about to send some poison out to somebody and he and he says, you can't send it that because, because he was drunk, Because he lost his son in the war. If you've seen the film, you'll know.

Yes, it's very cute.

I like, I like It's a Wonderful Life.

Elf. Come, Muppets Christmas Carol.

I saw a little thing on their social. About. And there's a bit in it where Jimmy Stewart is like, if you if you know the story, basically, you know, suddenly it's as if he never existed and nobody knows him in the town he grew up in and everything else.

It's a clever concept.

It's a really clever concept. And then he's like basically breaking down and apparently. Is it Franz? Franz Kafka, Kafka, Kafka, isn't it Franz Kafka, the director Kafka.

Kafka was Franz. Kafka's the philosopher guy, isn't he?

Yeah, he is his name. But anyway.

Ignorance.

Yeah, I know, I can't remember. It's annoying me now. Um, but anyway, whoever he was, um, you know, he basically let the cameras roll and, um, Jimmy Stewart actually went, he was in the Second World War. He went, he went to war and the and they were saying that it was like all of the pent up tension and anger from the. When he was in the war because it was filmed in around about nineteen forty eight or something.

Right. Okay. Wow.

So it was all very, very, very visceral. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's a very powerful bit of the film. I mean, it is. I mean, I know it's it's not everyone's cup of tea, but.

No, I really enjoyed.

It. I tell you what I haven't watched. There's a colorised version of it. I'm trying to remember if I've watched the colorised version, I might.

That might be quite nice. Yeah.

I'm a big fan of black and white anyway, so I might not spoil it, but yeah. Um, so you're right. I mean, maybe, maybe I like Bad Santa as well with Billy Bob Thornton.

I don't think I've seen that.

Oh it's funny. It's very good.

Yeah. I must broaden my.

I'm watching him in London at the moment, which is a little bit a little bit predictable and a little bit, but it's quite good telly.

Oh yeah. It's all. It's all Christmas movies from here on in.

Yeah. Well Christmas movies. Yeah. That's right. Anyway, we're off in about twenty minutes to go and have our Christmas lunch over the golf. I'm looking forward to. I'm quite peckish.

Yeah, it's always good, good food there. So yeah, we're looking forward to that. And um, we're planning to resurrect the podcast. Um, well.

We'll.

Just.

We'll just do Christmas. Christmas podcast.

That's enough.

I think we will. I think we'll bring it back. And this is work. Well it's fine. Um, you know, it's just this conversational.

Kind of we'll get some other people in and, um, yeah.

See how it goes.

Get going in the new year.

So hope you guys have had a- God, I hate that.

Guys.

Yeah. Well, you know, when you're like, when you're in social media, like, you know, the videos that say, hey guys, click off scroll gone. I just don't like it. I don't know why. And I just did it.

You did it, I did it. Hope you people have had a lovely year.

I hope the three people who listen to this are had a great 2025. And um, and 2026 is looking as good for you as it is for us.

I have a very happy Christmas.

Yeah. Good. Right. Does it stop now? Great. Thank God for that. Hate trying to be cheerful. God. Yeah. What do you mean it's still recording?