Transcript
hello there friends Welcome back. I am Stuart P Turner and this as I’m sure you already know is the Flow State podcast. Uh please excuse my somewhat croaky intro I’ve had a little touch of the man flu but I’ve survived Don’t worry. This week I am talking to the wonderful Ashton Tuckerman general manager of 22 Digital. We covered a huge array of subjects in this conversation. In-house versus agency, the power of marketing, the trap or the temptation of direct attribution, uh why do an MBA as an adult you know person and most importantly why the marketing industry is awesome and you as a person in that industry are part of what makes it awesome. So welcome to the show Ashton. Thanks for joining and obviously it’s like pleasure to meet you in the way that we now meet everyone online. Um for those people who do not know you or perhaps haven’t heard of you would you like to give a quick intro to yourself and who you are to the world of marketing uh and and anything else that you’d like to tell everybody about what you’re up to at the moment yeah.
thanks so much for having me. So um hi everyone Hi listeners. Uh my name is Ashton Tuckerman I am currently an MBA student. Uh so I I won’t say that I uh am a CMO because right now my full-time job is studying my MBA at UKQ. Uh pleased to say that I have uh scaled the summit and I am on the downward slope. So I only have a couple of units to go. It’s very exciting I’ve been doing that all year this year. So uh it’s been a change and a challenge and just wonderful in all sorts of ways. Uh but before that yes I have been working in marketing. So I have been working in marketing Oh gosh this is it’s always the fun uh when you start to age yourself. Uh I’ve been working don’t reveal any any secrets. You’d have to come out now actually. No that’s it I’ve been working in marketing full-time for 12 years now. Uh and my most recent experience was a chief marketing officer and general manager at a startup called Gather. So that’s a private chef marketplace where basically the chef brings the restaurant to you. Very cool company. Um prior to that it’s been a mixed bag. So I’ve worked in-house I worked agency side. uh I actually started as a content specialist. So content and brand are my jam. Uh and then over the years I’ve sort of worked into more generalist roles. Uh I’ve worked for big companies like Flight Center big communications companies like Havas which is the fourth largest communications company in the world No big deal. Uh and then I’ve worked for teenytiny companies as well uh and most importantly startups. So uh those who might be familiar with me on LinkedIn would know my newsletter hopefully or you do now. It’s called the startup CMO and that’s because most of my marketing experience uh has come from startups. So the likes of Gather the likes of you foods uh and then some of my clients are from agency land as well. So very much addicted to the startup culture building getting your hands dirty growing businesses. Um I love it and anyone who has been in that position before will understand the addiction to the chaos that we create there. So yeah in a nutshell that’s that’s what I’m about.
Awesome. Well look I think um I mean I was actually before before we started I was just thinking that we could do a whole like separate conversation about the varied you know sides of your career so far Ashton because I think you you’ve been in some really interesting areas and you know combining all that together I think is obviously like super interesting um just in terms of what you what you pull together for startups. But how have you before I get too distracted already how have you found the shift from uh you know from sort of working in those pretty intense environments to you know getting back into the world of education. has it been a bit of a challenge to sort of sit down and concentrate on one thing again. it’s yeah it’s a really good question. Uh so I’m doing uh my UKQ MBA in the intensive mode. So as advertised it is very intense. It it is at least 40. Yeah it’s about 40 hours a week. So I keep saying that is the job. That is my job right now. Um what that looks like is over the course of uh 12 months it is a new unit every 3 to 4 weeks. So it’s yeah where you would usually I guess most people when they think of you know studying you think of your undergrad which is you might have a couple of lectures a week and maybe a couple of tutorials I was thinking of. Yeah and you’re you know you got an assessment due like every couple of weeks maybe maybe something mid- semester maybe something end of semester but it’s really stretched out over about 13 weeks. So the intensive mode squishes all of that down and you do a new unit every 3 to 4 weeks. So in comparing uh going from a very fastpaced startup environment it’s been great. So it’s it’s a very like forlike replacement. So I think anyone who’s not used to the pace of a fast moving environment I think they would come into the intensive mode and go what have I signed up for uh but for me it’s been it’s been nice because I haven’t I haven’t had to take my foot off the throttle between working and studying.
Great. No that’s cool. Actually it’s funny you say that cuz I was just thinking back to my uh you know I’m losing interest in the end of my degree like third year when I was like uh just really trying to take the boxes to actually pass at the end now. But um that sounds quite fun. Is it um and and did do you have anything particular in mind when you started it or was it just a you know what was your thinking around um going back to study and and how that might sort of you know help you shift your career forward. yeah it’s a great question. Look I have lots of reasons why I decided to do the MBA. Um I guess the the main one is just getting that broad business acumen. So you know I I love marketing I feel like I’ll always be involved in marketing in in some regard but I had started to reach these levels within my career where I was you know having a seat at the table in the seauite um working with boards and I really felt for me personally that there was a gap in the business acumen side um particularly around the financial literacy. I’d say like that was that was just something I hadn’t had a lot of exposure to uh and the yeah the operations you know the the ops the finance the the long-term strategy those things were kind of just missing pieces for me. So I guess a big reason for me pursuing the MBA was to fill those gaps. Uh and very pleased to say that uh mission achieved I have been I’ve just finished accounting I’m about to move on to finance. Uh yeah it’s been it has been definitely challenging for a uh you know a words person um and a marketer to just to speak the language of accounting but but so valuable. It is it is a reminder that this is exactly what I signed up for. So I guess that was the big reason was kind of looking around going when people don’t have the answers of should the company move this way or should the company move that way I would like in the future for me to be the person who if I don’t have those answers hopefully I do but if I don’t have them at least I now have that knowledge to ask the right questions to kind of get us to that stage. So it was really about sort of leveling up in a more holistic business capacity. Um also I like I like studying I’m a bit of a you know especially marketing I’m a bit of a marketing nerd. Um and there’s also just that person the personal goal as well. I’d always said I wanted to do my MBA by a certain time in my life and I only had a year left. So that I really had to decide the deadline you know to get in there get in there. Yeah. But yeah so far so good No regrets.
That no that’s really cool to hear actually because I um I know a few people not not marketing people who’ve also gone back and sort of studied for either like career change you know reasons just kind of got bored and were like in a position to be able to do it and you know very similar mindset of just like kind of run out of stuff that I’m really getting challenged with and I want to go do something really different but I’ve I’ve heard very different things um from what they’ve got from it but the mentality was all the same of like you know I’m kind of hitting a bit of a wall here in terms of personal develment velment just want to go and you know really sort of have a shift that’s going to make you excited about what you’re doing again right um and a few of them said the same things where they were like look I’ve you know getting on a bit it’s time to time to do it now not I’m shifting your a little bit by the way just that was their feedback but it’s just one of those things it’s a bit of it’s a bit of a now or never sort of situation and I speak to so many people and a really common thing is a lot of people saying oh I’ve thought about it I’ve thought about for a really long time and I think like any big life decision there really is no good time. Um I decided to sort of pack it all in and and go for it full-time. That’s that’s a that’s not an option for everyone. That is absolutely a sacrifice. Um I would not be able to do that without a very supportive husband thankfully. Uh but you know it’s for me it was just no there is never going to be a good time. Uh and I I couldn’t imagine doing this while I was working as well. So I’m a little bit um kind of onetrack minded in that way. When I’m in I’m all in on something. So yeah it’s like when I’m working for a company you know that’s my company and I’m all in. Uh but so so now it’s like I’m all in on the MBA and yeah very very compartmentalized. Like it look I think there’s a lot of uh there’s a lot of value in that ability to. Yeah just just really focus on one thing. Like it’s a personal failing slash possible uh quality depending on how you look at it I’ve learned about myself as well is like I’m the exact opposite of like just always distracted or interested in stuff that’s just happening and then I’m like oh what about this other thing that seems more interesting than what I’m supposed to be doing right now. which is not ideal when you’re trying to you know actually like run a business and then like build another one or even just do you know whatever’s on my list today is already like I haven’t really started so it’s um you know it’s fine load a common story a very common story. yeah it’s just you know you sort of It’s the personal journey is what’s important right as you learn to handle these things which is which is fun.
Um well look I think it’s that’s an interesting start and segue into some of the points you mentioned in in the notes you sent over. I think um you know it’s there’s a lot of discussion in marketing at the moment which is one of the things you and I started talking about and and obviously directly relevant to your MBA about like you know what is what is the the ultimate job of a marketer now. because um I was speaking to uh someone who was on the podcast previously actually episode’s not out yet about this who she focuses on mid-level management sort of area in marketing and was like look it’s a an often fairly bad overlooked space there’s not a lot of support you’re often moving from a specialist role into a managerial role that’s not easy. you know it’s um an interesting transition and obviously you’re kind of coming out the other side of that um Ashton sort of shifting up to the as you mentioned the seauite the business management ment level. Um but that already is like three different jobs right if you’re in marketing so what I’m going to put you under probably a bit of pressure here but if you were to sort of just neatly characterize what you think a marketer’s job is now in a let’s say in a startup business can you can you do that can you neatly define that or is it still just a bit of a mess of like look do everything that needs to be done but make sure you’re generating money. yeah it’s a good question. Unfortunately you know my answer is going to be the context is really important. So it the first thing is it really depends on the business that you’re working for. Where is that business in terms of you know their their kind of lifespan are they new are they starting are they scaling are they well established are they retaining the status quo or are they sort of challenging or disrupting something so that’s probably the first thing especially the marketers remit is really really different across all of those contexts. Um so I think in in any case for me the marketer’s job is to clearly take those business goals and translate them into actionable actual things that can be done to generate revenue. And that’s you know a lot of people will maybe disagree with that in terms of when we talk about you know brand marketing experiential all of those kinds of things. But at the end of the day any business’s goal is to make money. Even a not for profofit it’s like you know the more money they make the better for you know the people that they’re raising money for. So every business is in business to to to make money to do more of what they do. And it’s the marketer’s goal to support that through you know connecting that business to their customers or their audience or their users.
Yeah Yeah Okay. Like I look I think that’s a obviously I was I’d be surprised if you could just throw out you know like one one answer to that whole question but I think that’s a really interesting starting point. And you know I suppose to zoom in on a specific example um you know to your point around startups and if if you’re in that sort of um you know even zooming in on startups specifically if you’re in that sort of growth phase where you’re like maybe maybe you’ve got a bit of money or you’re start starting to see a bit of market traction and you you know you know what you need to be doing in in one particular area. Um I see a lot of like there’s a lot of reductionist kind of chat about this stuff at the moment about and I think you mentioned it in people being like oh well marketing you just do like advertising where you’re just doing you know fluffy coloring in brand stuff in the traditional um fairly offensive definition from from some from some angles. So do you think there is a um particular sort of skill set or mix of the you know the kind of the thinking and the skills that you’ve mentioned that works well there. like is there and the reason I ask that question is that there’s a lot of jobs I’ve seen in market recently for very unrealistic profiles where you’re like you know you’ll need someone with like five to seven years who’s done like every single digital thing ever and is also a brand expert and a communications expert but is also happy to work for like you know some super entry level salary and you’re like I I don’t know if that’s people not getting what they need from a marketer or if that’s just marketing people not really understanding the value that they add or a combination of both but I’m keen to hear your your thoughts on that now you’ve been on the more academic side of that from a business management point of view.
Yeah it’s a really interesting one especially in you know I think we’ve all seen those job ads that’s like we want this unicorn who can do all of these things and they have you know 10 years experience but we’re paying you $70,000. And it’s like this is this is ridiculous. And you know that that’s a red flag about that business. It’s like you’re you’re expecting this marketing function to to come in and do everything and save the business uh but you’re clearly not placing value on them in terms of that sort of remuneration package. Uh it probably does speak to that misunderstanding of um marketing’s remitt. There are a lot of blurry lines always I think when it comes to the marketing department. uh or the marketing person especially when you’re in a startup you are the you know the yes the wearer of the many hats. Um but what I would sort of highlight there is the difference between a specialist and a general generalist marketer uh and the different fit that that probably requires for different organizations. So it it does depend on your resourcing. So if you have the you know the the privilege of having uh you know the the money to be able to sort of grow out a marketing team because you have grand plans and those plans are going to be realized through all of those marketing functions then that’s where you’ll probably see a lot clearer delineations of yes your your remit is in um you know marketing analytics you are the analytics person and you are the performance media person and you are the you know the social um and the partnerships person. whereas yeah obviously in a smaller business or a startup you generally start with one person who can cover all bases. um and that’s where I like the idea of the T-shaped marketer. so that is you have this breadth of skills across the top so it’s you know things like content brand social PR um performance paid analytics all all of those different things where you’re like “Yep I I know I know how to do all of these things or in a pinch I could upskill really quickly. I I I get all of these things I’ i’ve done it before I could do it pretty you know pretty okay.”. But then the you know that that vertical line of the tea is where you really drill down into into your specialist area. So it’s like yep I I know all of these things across the top but it is you know digital and it’s paid media where I you know I am the expert. So it’s kind of you’ve got your generalist across the top and your specialist sort of down down the row. And that’s what I think generally in marketing I find unless you really stick to your niche unless you’re like I really love this little corner of marketing. um I I really love you know influencers and partnerships I I love that and I’m going to stay in that. If you’re a bit more of a portfolio career marketer then you generally become that t-shirt marketer where you have that breadth of skills but you you can really sort of zero down into into one particular category.
I definitely agree with that and I think um yeah I can’t remember who I was talking to about this but I was having a conversation about the uh yeah the the sort of return sort of of the uh the t-shirt market recently just because of that like explosion of you know specialisms everywhere. and I’m sure you see this as a fairly um you know prolific user of LinkedIn as well where you often get specialists pretending that they have that sort of tea profile but in reality when you start to talk to them they struggle to climb out of their uh their niche and don’t really seem to get how they fit into the bigger picture which I think is a quite a big challenge if you don’t really know who you’re trying to engage as well. I guess going back to the you know your point around do companies know who they need no they just sort of ask for everybody and hope for the best. I guess that’s right. And and generally you know it’s it’s an assumption but I think when a company’s asking for someone to do all of these things it’s because they they don’t know. you know they they don’t really know what’s working or what’s going to work let’s just do all of these things. And that does mean that you’re probably doing a little bit you know you’re doing a little bit of everything okay where you could be doing a couple you know two or three very specific things really well. So look it’s not a bad starting point I think you you don’t know what you don’t know. Um and it’s not an unusual thing especially in this world where you know our economy and the markets are changing all the time sort of you know week to week at the moment. And so what worked yesterday might not work today. So that’s that is that is one of those concerns as well about putting all your eggs in one basket. If it’s a you know our business really just relies on Google ads. That’s where all of our you know that’s where all our business comes from. Uh and then suddenly it could and I’ve seen it before it could literally just stop working the next day. So there is a risk when you’re like you drill down you’re like nope we just need we just need a paid media and that’s it. at least experimenting and having some other you know other irons in the fire because that that could be dangerous if things go ary and we know that they do.
Yes. Look I think that’s a very good point actually that um because there hasn’t been any major major disasters in channels for a while that I’m aware of you you reminded me of like um my like my original sort of the way I came into market was from um e-commerce and like got into like SEO and like the whole sort of marketing on a shoestring for these two sites I was running which was for an agency. um but they were like because they were so reliant on search predominantly like paid search and SEO like when you remember the days of you know Google update something you know a huge industry segment is destroyed overnight because they’re messing around with the search algorithm which I anything happens as much to that degree anymore. Um because you know they’ve done ruining people’s lives now I think they know what they’re doing broadly speaking in search. But yeah those those kinds of big disasters like you just don’t don’t see as many like. um but I do still see to your point like that over reliance on one or two tactics or channels that I find quite surprising. It might not it might not even be the channel itself that something’s happened to. It might you might have suddenly a new competitor has entered the market and they have big budgets and they are driving up your acquisition costs. You know what I mean so it’s like it could and and that absolutely happens as well. You know someone kind of enters the playing field and it’s like oh suddenly the game is a lot harder. Yeah. And it funny it’s funny you say that actually because I’ve I found this over the past sort of few years when um I’ve like run a couple of startups that you know kind of went somewhere and then didn’t go anywhere major and then we’re we’re doing another one at the moment with my partner in the US. But what I didn’t realize is like exactly that that you know you can have the best idea in the world. Like everyone has great ideas right but if someone just comes along who’s just got loads more money like they’re just going to they’ll just beat you immediately because we’re like oh we’re not millionaires you know we’re not set on infinite budgets to just do all this stuff tomorrow like we’re trying to bootstrap it and make it work. So uh yeah it sounds really stupid saying you know but I was like oh that was a bit of a revelation actually. I was like I thought just my genius ideas would carry me through to to success but sadly sadly they don’t.
That’s a really interesting point. Yeah. And look I’ve actually been thinking and working on this a little bit um as part of my MBA. So um I’m doing my capstone project at the moment in entrepreneurship and you know there’s no shortage of great ideas. Think there’s 40 of us in the class Every idea is amazing. Uh but it just sort of the the whole sort of project is proving for everyone especially those who have never had that startup exposure how difficult it is to actually do the thing and ideas are a dime a dozen. you know you can’t trademark a good idea unfortunately until you actually start doing something. Um but it does come down to that you know if everyone has a similar idea or a similarly good product what’s going to set you apart. Uh and there’s sort of two really big schools of thought. One is that brand that differentiation piece. So it’s that intangible you know thing that’s wrapped around the product. Uh and then there’s the old sort of you know the the five forces. So um how are you competing in the environment you know is is what you’ve got um could it be substituted. um could a new entrant kind of disrupt that is it rare you know th those kinds of that that kind of old school framework of that um yeah I think it’s Porter Porter’s five forces of of like that that competitive differentiation. So uh it’s a really important thing to keep in mind because I think people get swept away with the romance of of a great idea right. and it’s like if you’ve had the idea chances are that other people have had the idea too. Um and if they they might have even tried it. So what is going to set it apart and what’s going to kind of hold it strong.
yeah look I think that’s um that’s a really yeah really important and interesting point that is definitely something that I’ve seen sort of uh kill enthusiasm in the startup world. Um cuz it’s it’s a funny one like you just I think maybe I’m just older grizzled compared to a lot of the other people who are probably ter online about startups but yeah they all seem to be in that there’s a lot of conversation at mindset of like I’ve had this great idea. um in no way validated whether it’s going to be a viable business or not just like I’m going for it I’m investing I built I see a lot of this with uh people who are like on building an app to go into like the app store for example. I was reading something on Reddit about this the other day this someone was like oh I built this app. Um it was like of all things like a product like a to-do app or something. And I was like then they were like “Oh but it looks like there’s actually quite a lot of to-do apps.”. And I was like “Where have you been for the past like 15 years of apps being released into Did you not do a little search?”. Of course there are a lot of to-do apps. There’s to-do apps on your phone when you buy it. I was like “Jesus Christ.”. Like which was weirdly reassuring because I was like “At least we’ve done some you know more diligence than whoever this poor fool was that was reading about.”. Uh yeah I shared a little tip for the website I tell you. I hope you haven’t spent a long time building that cuz that’s going to go absolutely nowhere. Like this story time. Yeah I thought you know I’ve got the best solution in the world. It’s like yeah who who cares okay. Yeah. Rather unfortunate but I was like let’s see that one less person for me to worry about in the global competition for you know for who’s going to win at business. Um yeah look I think it’s um I don’t know it’s funny obviously startup scene is very top of mind for me at the moment because we’re because we’re doing one but um traditionally I don’t really work with them. So I think um awkward segue into something else that I wanted to uh talk to you about before I get too distracted actually is you I know mentioned that something I found really interesting that is close to my heart as well having been an agency person for a long time which is that marketing seems to always be the only role or function that is constantly justifying its own existence inside businesses. Um and this is something I wanted to kind of dig into with you as well cuz obviously as you would know from your own agency experience that’s like very familiar territory if you’re a service provider isn’t it cuz you’re always like people invest money with you. you know they want to know that you’re doing good job but you’re always kind of commercially communicating but then when you get in house it seems that that just all still centralizes around marketing. So do you have any thoughts on one why that is and two what should you be doing to sort of you know preemptively address that issue or you know communicate your value more effectively I guess.
yeah it’s an interesting problem. um and I think especially you know the more exposure you get as a senior marketer you start to realize that a big part of the job is constant education. it’s constant education around why you’re doing what you’re doing and and justifying that spend. um it’s just an opinion but I think it’s because marketing is so visible and it’s so public. I think people have a lot of opinions about marketing because they they see it and they sort of engage with it every day. It’s the old I’m on Facebook so I know how Facebook works kind of thing you know or it’s. Yeah it’s easy You just oh you know posting Oh you just post on social you just post. And it’s like there’s you know it’s it’s very hard to sort of justify that and change the mentality. um unless you know you sort of put the effort in to to educate. Uh and and sometimes you’ll find that people don’t want to be educated about it. But yeah it’s a really interesting one. So why does marketing sort of have to constantly justify its existence or be the you know be the scapegoat or have the magnifying glass sort of put over put over them when other departments like um you know operations finance technology they probably don’t face the same scrutiny. Uh and and that’s you know that’s that’s my perspective I don’t work in those departments. So you know I think others would be like oh no we we get scrutinized believe you me. Yeah. Um but just in my experience I found that you know and I think a lot of people would would agree that the marketing budget is probably the first line to sort of be crossed out when push comes to shove when things are getting tight. Um generally marketing budgets are on a decline. Uh I think it’s um it’s it’s almost as low as um pandemic levels at the moment sort of globally. Um I think you know it’s it’s from memory and like please don’t quote me on this. Um I I did look it up not too long ago but I think it’s about 7% of a company’s revenue is is like the average sort of marketing budget at the moment where you know usually that’s around 10% and in a high growth business you’d sort of expect it to be maybe 15 to even sort of 20%. Um you know if if you’re really trying to sort of push push the boat out and move things along there. So um marketing budgets are yeah they are absolutely on a downward trajectory. Um and I spoke to somebody the other day who is an agency and she made a comment you know sort of saying “How are things going?”. She said “Yeah they’re okay You know we’re getting a lot of clients sort of pulling their marketing budgets but she was very circumspect and she said but it’s fine and in 6 months time they’ll they’ll come back because they realize that they’ve sort of you know cut their nose off despite their face that they they cut these budgets and suddenly all of the growth kind of dries up as well. It’s like oh that was actually sort of serving a purpose. So I think it’s a gut reaction. It’s a we need to we need to stop spending but it’s the yeah okay what’s the flow on effect if you if you turn off that tap what does that look like. um and that’s sort of I guess it goes back to the question of you know what’s the marker’s role there and it’s like look first and foremost making sure you know what the business is trying to achieve what those goals are and that the work that you’re doing and that your team is doing is contributing to that. You’re not just doing things because you you think that’s what you should be doing or you like this kind of activity. Unfortunately you know it really does need to be measurable and it does need to have that direct connection to the goals that the business is is trying to achieve. So you know if it’s not then that’s a problem and that’s where you will find yourself uh you know on the receiving end of some difficult conversations from the CFO or from the board probably. So that’s that that’s the challenge right. it’s like are you actually doing the right things to help the business achieve its goal. uh and also another problem that I find um and have obviously been guilty of myself is talking to the higherups in a marketing language when they need me to be talking to them in the business’s language. So I’m talking to them about you know channels and you know automations and click-through rates and cost per acquisition and retention rates and lifetime value and all this sort of stuff. It’s like I actually need to be translating that into a language of oh okay well we’ve you know acquired X customers we’ve retained X customers lifetime values this cool. what does that actually mean that actually means this much money for the business over this period of time if we can sustain that and finding if we found 10% more of these people this is what it looks like on the bottom line. so instead of just telling them what I’m doing I should be telling them what this means for the business and why we need to keep doing this.
Look I think you covered a ton of super interesting points there and I think going back through those like the I think the one you raised there which I find most interesting and often most overlooked as you mentioned is the context of what you’re communicating. because um this is again one of the big lessons I learned quite early on in in agency world is like you know to your point around specialism earlier like while I may be very excited about you know what’s happening in the depths of a search campaign most other people outside of the search industry could not care less about how bid strategy works or why we should be testing new ad formats or whatever. So I think you know the unfortunately the passion for the industry often um can somewhat blink you to the fact that most other people just don’t really give a shit about how it works. They just want to you know as one of my uh friends was saying they just want the sausage. They don’t want to understand the disgusting process of producing sausages. So I was like that’s not you know the most complimentary example but I get what you’re saying Dale which is fine. Um but I think the other point you raised which is an interesting one um circling back around to that whole sort of uh justification and how you should be communicating is I was just looking up some stats while you were while you were talking there. So the situation is actually according to Gartner even worse budget-wise. Apparently in 2024 um the percentage of revenue going towards marketing is only 7.7%. uh according to Gartner down from a high of 11% in 2020. Um but interestingly over the same period the investment in labor m and agencies has all dropped. Um but the investment in paid media has gone up quite significantly. which is odd because paid media is broadly less effective and also more expensive than it used to be. So like that to me um I think to your point Ashton just suggests that you know marketers from the people at Ghana have surveyed are potentially not doing really the job they should be doing in you know driving stuff that works what they’re doing is kind of leaning into easy stuff where it’s easy to show results because everyone’s happy to pay for advertising whereas you know like as you would well know like a lot of the the channels that used to work I say back in the day say 10 years ago you know social media was very cost effective you could reach loads of people search used to work super well. um that was before you know the fragmentation of all those networks before cost started going up before programmatic launched so you know I mean do would you agree with that assessment. Do you think that is unfair to those marketers. um who may be just trying to protect their jobs or should they just you know grow a bit of a backbone and just try and educate their seuite stakeholders in how they should be doing things properly.
yeah it’s really it’s really hard you know it’s obviously really hard. I think you get sort of tired of pushing back after a certain point as well if you constantly feel like you’re just validating you’re validating your role and why you’re here. uh you know I think it it becomes really challenging and especially in a really challenging economy. I think people are like you know what I’m just going to I’m just going to do what I know will look good to people and that that sort of speaks to that um increase in sort of paid media and and advertising because it’s attributable. It’s it’s really easy. It’s like the old gumball machine. It’s like I can put a dollar in and I can get something out. you know and that’s um that’s just sort of it’s it’s disappointing but I get it. Um because it’s safe. It’s actually kind of like a weirdly it’s not low risk but is perceived as like a low-risk activity in a high-risisk kind of economy. So I I get that. Um it’s also really difficult to take that holistic look at marketing because I think we all know that you know that people will it’s every touch point with your brand. It’s all of it. It’s you know the it’s just it’s it’s all of it. It’s not just the ads that they’re seeing on search. It’s the you know event sponsorship which you know how do you quantify that. and I’m sure like a lot of people have ways that they will quantify that but you know how how can you sort of justify oh we should spend $5,000 to sponsor this event in the same way that you justify we should we could spend $5,000 on this paid search campaign because I can tell you exactly or very close to what results we’ll get from that paid search campaign. I can’t guarantee and I can’t really tell you exactly what we’ll get from that event sponsorship but in my experience they’re both so valuable over the long term of a business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve you know been to an event spoken at event at an event and then off the back of that had you know really valuable business related conversations from that that have led to bigger things. But it’s so long-term. It’s it’s kind of almost like this marketing karma right like you’re putting it out there and you know that it’ll come back. Um but yeah because it’s sort of not numbers on a page it’s it’s a lot harder to justify when times are tough. So yeah I I get it and I’ve been there a lot myself especially when you’re in startups. You don’t have um a lot of you don’t have a lot to play with. You really just need to sort of do what you know works. Um the risk like we’ve said is what works now might not work tomorrow. Uh and it also means that you’re not sort of testing and trying new things at a time when you know the platforms are changing and you know trying new things all the time as well. So that old oh we tried social it didn’t work that’s it’s kind of not the right mentality you know what I mean. so if if nothing else if if people can take something away from this it’s you know the old 8020 rule. spend 80% of your budget on on the safety on the things that you know work. Put that 20% into testing new things always. like just just keep doing that and you can it’s a lot easier to justify that 20%. But if through that 20% you unlock something great suddenly it’s you know suddenly you’ve justified the need for more of that. It’s like if we can keep testing and if we can keep trying these new things we’ll we’ll get more of this. So it it really is so important.
Yeah Look yeah I completely agree with that and I think um we used to be massive on testing all the time. That conversation definitely seems to have dropped off over the past the past few years which you know I think for all the points that you’ve that you’ve raised is you know shrinking budgets like economyy’s crap like people just maybe are a bit burned down and you just can’t can’t be bothered which is completely understandable. Um so yeah look I think um I mean you know to your point I think there’s probably a whole other conversation you could have about sort of the the ways in which we could address like the you know the contraction in market and what marketing should be doing there. I think the the the really important point you raised which is zooming slightly out into I suppose out of the out of the detail a little bit is like um that point around you know marketing ultimately being a a communication you know sort of methodology right. and I think I’m was part of the problem here so I’ll make a small confession from my earlier years in being like an ardent you know advocate of digital to almost the point of zealousness which is not obviously useful because you ignore things that do work. But the example I always used to use when I was doing a lot of e-commerce work is like um you know when people like why do we need to search why do we need to do like insert whatever you’re like well you know you wouldn’t open a shop in the middle of some sort of derelict area of town and then not tell anyone that it’s there or how to get there because you won’t make any money will you. you need to if you can only afford the shop in the industrial wasteland then you need to be very clear that you’re going to have to tell everyone where it is and why they should go there and you know why it’s better than everything else that’s on the doorstep and you need to like make them think that that journey is worthwhile right. so like the the job of marketing as with many startups is like no one knows who you are no one cares who you are you need to make them care and let them know who you are. so that in and of itself is um very intrinsically tied to our sort of human animal brain thinking where which is where this rambling point is going that you’re you know the the parts of marketing that can’t be measured which is where digital has a lot to answer for obviously do work because you know road signs work they tell you where to go. you don’t click the road sign and say thanks for showing me you know that I need to get off at this exit but you can’t take the road signs away because then there would be chaos on the roads right. so like marketing I think using that analogy works in a very similar way where I do think that um a lot of the faith has been lost in the human aspects of how marketing works. And that’s where a lot of older media probably didn’t do enough to make older media. Just real world non-trackable media let’s say hasn’t done enough to necessarily justify its place in you know a marketing mix. Um and to your point about events you know it works because people like meeting people. You know people are social they want to meet people they want to work with people they like. It is impossible to deliver the same experience purely digitally right now despite you know people like Mark Zuckerberg’s best efforts. Yeah it’s just it’s just not the same. Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’s bad Just not the same. Yeah. And you know like that’s that’s what motivates you right ultimately. Um so yeah I think I think that’s a real that’s a real challenge and obviously that was all very much exacerbated by the co period when none of us could go anywhere.
Yeah Yeah That’s it. And yeah look it’s really I think it’s really um tempting and really attractive to just sort of go all in on things that are digital and fully attributable because you’re not going to get as many questions about it because it’s numbers in a spreadsheet and it’s like “Yep it’s it’s easy Yep this equals this Cool No worries.”. U but yeah it does mean that you’re missing out on on the full picture. You’re really just sort of doing you’re really just doing one thing. Um the good example I will bring up is Airbnb. Um look I I love it and hate it because people you know a couple of years ago when they were like “We’ve put all of our money into brand. Like it’s brand all the way right?”. And everyone’s like “This is great It’s the perfect example of why brand marketing is so important.”. And I’ll say “Yeah absolutely.”. But they were only able to do that because they spent so many years and so many millions and millions and millions of dollars doing all of the digital marketing right. because they because they did all the search because they did all the you know partnerships work because they did all of the other sort of quantifiable attributable stuff. It’s like it’s it’s not like Airbnb I I feel like sometimes people like Airbnb is successful because they invest in brand marketing. It’s like no Airbnb is successful because of their business model and the way that they were able to scale it. And now they’ve reached a point like Coke where they don’t have to bid for terms on you know Google search or they decide that’s not actually the most important thing. So we’re just going to remind people why we’re great. We don’t need to tell them what we are you know anymore. It’s I don’t think you when you go and walk the streets of um Queen Street Mall or you know Bit Street Mall or whatever it’s I I really don’t think that Uber are giving you first time usage vouchers anymore right because we we’ve moved on from that. It’s just like literally if you haven’t used Uber by now I don’t think you’re going to you’re not customer. Yeah I’ve gone full circle with them. Like I’m back to I’m back to normal camps now. I’m like have become almost too bother. Yeah. But that that’s it. It’s you know it’s um it’s probably just too much of a simplistic view I think to go this works uh and this is what we’re going to do. It’s like no you you constantly marketing is the perfect mix of art and science. If you like to be creative and like to try things and like to be surprised by the results it’s great for that. And likewise if you if you like to do things that are a sure thing and you like things that are sort of you know facts and figures and numbers and trends it’s great for that too. And then if you like both of those things to kind of completely be flipped upside down and suddenly not work it’s also great for that.
Yeah Yeah I think that’s that’s really um quite a fun way of looking at it actually cuz we um you know back on the subject of education like I’ve been speaking to a few people in the in the world of higher education who run you know marketing courses and or teaching adjacent subjects who are all constantly paranoid that they’re you know behind the market and behind what’s happening which I guess is the inevitably going to happen when you’re in pure academia and you’re not on top of it. but yeah they were um they were sort of the same things that like a lot of the students I think are very surprised when they start to get exposed to um companies who because all these people obviously bring in like you know companies or marketers like you who are doing doing the doing to give them a here’s what this job’s actually like when you if you decide to go into it. Um and yeah a lot of them were yeah just extremely surprised about a lot of the things that you just mentioned you know like the amount of things that fall in the remit the amount of data that’s available the the you know the blank spots of like but what if you do out of home what if you just do loads of classic print billboards that those guys are always pasting up on big signs like how does that work like. um so it’s quite fascinating just hearing about that because having come into it from obviously did a degree that was completely unrelated um didn’t really want to get a job and then just kind of fell into it. Like you sort of forget how much you’ve been exposed to over the years and then going back to the start it’s like a real eye opener where you’re like oh my god just don’t know. Oh I do know how to do things There you go. So yeah I just did my marketing unit with my MBA. Um uh just like time goes so fast. It could have been last month It could have been 3 months ago. Uh no I think it was just just last month that I probably finished it. Um but how was that a real job i wasn’t sure what to expect going in because I was sort of like I’ve been working in this industry for 12 years you know and now I’m going to sit in sort of a post-graduate class you know teaching us about marketing. Um but I was very open-minded and I was like I’m sure I’ll get something out of it. What I actually got out of it was a confirmation of the value that I bring to a business. So that was that’s a wonderful thing to take away. Um it was amazing to come in and hear a lot of people’s very narrow definitions of what marketing is especially sort of all the engineers in the room. There were you know a lot of comments around oh marketing is advertising or marketing is sales. You know that that was kind of the the really obvious thing the thing that’s kind of yep it’s right there It’s right front and center right. Um but for me you know my definition which I think at the start of classroom was like what are you talking about and then we literally came full circle and in the last class that was what we finished on. We’re like what is your definition of marketing now at the start my definition was marketing is everything. I said it is marketing is everything that you see and hear and feel about a brand. It is everything from you know Yep the ad on TV the ad on social. It’s you know the brand that you that you wear. It’s you know the Nike that you’re wearing. It’s the you know the feeling that you get when you sort of see or hear or or talk about it. It’s when you work within the company It’s kind of everything that you sort of hear about it and the things that you tell other people. So for me it’s like every it is communication. It is every touch point that your brand has with the world that that’s all uh whether it’s a good or a bad thing that is all within the remitt of marketing.
Yeah Yeah Look I think that’s I mean that’s exactly how I think about it as well. Like it’s as you say like without marketing like you have no medium through which to communicate what you’re doing to anyone. So um without yeah without marketing how are people how do people know about you how do they find you what do they think about you as well it’s you know that those are the the big things. Yeah look totally. And I think um interestingly that um like you know brings me on to the next point around. um you know kind of customers and and customer value and just the relationship with customers as well which is interestingly has come up several times in in the last few conversations I’ve recorded. um and the ones that have just come out actually with with Jen Arnold who does a lot of uh voice of customer work for government and public sector companies. Um so you know we we were talking about that I don’t know if this has come up in in your MBA or your career as well Ashton but like the a lot of the focus of marketing often is on new business and communicating to new customers whereas in a lot of the businesses that um I’ve worked with the sort of thinking tends to drop off a little bit with existing customers either from a feedback loop perspective or from a you know retention and growth point of view which is quite surprising considering that’s where you should probably be spending a lot of your time as well right. like at least half your time to look after the people that you have spent all that time winning. Um is that like is that something you’ve experienced as well or do you have any thoughts on the the sort of role of marketing in retaining people and just continuing to understand exactly what it is that they want from your company or service or whatever it is that you’re doing.
yeah. Uh look I’ve definitely experienced it. Um I think especially for growing businesses there’s usually a big focus on on acquisition. It’s just sort of a game of numbers. The more people that we can sort of get into the funnel you know the more that we’ll the more we’ll win. Uh yeah and look I I think generally retention marketing is very um under undervalued and ignored. I am seeing a shift. uh not sort of probably not enough but I think I think the pressure that you know the current sort of economic climate is putting on businesses is making them realize we’ve we’ve got we’ve actually paid like you say we’ve paid all this money and we’ve spent all this time winning over these customers. M we need to make sure that they either stick with us or that they resign with us or that you know if they’ve fallen off that we can pick them up again because you you’ve sort of already put in the hard yards there right. and so yeah it’s I’ve experienced it Absolutely. Um and I think sort of moving forward the the retention piece for me is something I would place a lot more emphasis on and really trying to look at that you know that that’s true sort of lifetime value of the of the customer and that realization that you know the people people have kind of signed up or purchased for for whatever reason. It’s like you need to capitalize on that. How do you find more people like that how do you turn those people in from you know purchases or users into brand advocates. you know how do you get them selling on your behalf so yeah it’s it is so important and it it costs so much less to Exactly focus on the people that you’ve already that you’ve already got right. i think it’s I can’t remember the numbers but it’s it’s substantially it’s substantially less. But yeah that would be a huge takeaway for anyone is you know if you’re not focusing or if you feel like you’re not focusing enough on retention marketing um you you need to yeah you need to start now. You need to you know be be valuing and be you know communicating that value to the people you’ve already won over.
Yeah Look yeah completely. And I think um I mentioned this example quite a lot but there’s uh obviously using a lot of software products I’ve seen some of the um panicky shifts in SAS worlds off the back of some of this stuff recently where um I’m sure you’ve noticed as well there is a literal you know explosion of surveys of all kinds on like every SAS product I use that definitely weren’t there like three or four months ago. And they’re all like “Oh would you mind just reviewing this feature?”. Or like “Can you just tell us what this latest interaction was like?”. And I’m like “You didn’t care before So I only know UK now because you know to your point earlier marketing budgets getting slashed so SAS budgets are also getting slashed and we’ve yeah we’re only a small business. um you know kind of by design and we’ve just because we test a lot of stuff we obviously end up with like you know tons of tools that we’re sort of subscribed to that we don’t need. So we’ve just done the same you know slash and burn on stuff that we’re like it’s not useful and we’ll test it again in like a year or whatever. Um but yeah they’re all like you know exit survey What why don’t you want to go with this what’s going on i’m like well you know I’ve had a subscription running for three months that I haven’t really used. You could have clearly seen that I wasn’t very active and maybe talked to me earlier and maybe I would have stayed but um yeah I see a lot of uh a lot of missed opportunities there at work because I just. That’s an interesting That’s a really interesting one. That’s almost like oh well we’ve got you in now so our job is done. Like you say it’s like you’ve stopped talking to me now you did all this work romancing me and now we’ve we’ve gone on a date and you’re not saying anything. You know it’s it’s it’s kind of it’s a little bit that’s exactly what it’s like right and then it that would be the perfect analogy is if. um you know you were chatting to someone you know on on an app and it’s it’s going great. It’s awesome. And then you go on the date and you’re like “This person’s a mute Like what they they’re ignoring me What is happening?”. And then they ask you to marry them. That’s that’s what businesses are doing. It’s like all the romance at the start and then nothing and then a proposal. You’re like absolutely not. Like you Yeah this is this is not winning me over. But it’s you know I would really encourage people to and this is something I’ve been you know that has been hammered home in our entrepreneurship unit. Uh it’s actually having real conversations with people. So uh I think you know we’re all guilty of it. You get a bit complacent and you’re like yep I know our customers I I know them I know what they want want to know what they’re thinking. It’s like no we’re people. You know we’re changing all the time. You you know things might surprise you. So I guess kind of check your own bias and stop making those assumptions and have you know beyond just sending out some surveys that you know only a particular type of customer will do. Try to have just a couple of really qualitative conversations with customers. And I I guarantee that something is going to pop up and you’re going to go “Oh oh my gosh I needed that reminder.”. Or “I didn’t realize that.”. So beyond the you know all of the quantitative yep surveys yep 50% of customers say this and 75% say that. it’s like yeah that that’s good. That’s really really important but you need to back that up with that kind of thick data that qualitative as well. You need the insights right it’s the data will tell you one thing. You need the actual sort of human insights underneath it as well. So yeah check check those assumptions and actually aim to every time you’re doing that you know quarterly or half yearly survey try to have five customer conversations. Try to have real conversations with real humans and I I guarantee there will be a light bulb moment that comes out of that.
Yeah Yeah I completely agree and like um it’s it’s something that’s been a recurring theme for me in all these conversations and with our clients. Um just going back to what you were saying earlier I think this is another really easy easy win for marketers actually internally is like almost every company I’ve ever spoken to is guilty of that hugely internal view of like this is who we are this is what we do we know our value blah blah blah. And then the minute you sort of shine the customer lens on that like you know we do a lot of like audience building and use a lot of the digital stuff and I’ve been working with a like a a prop a proper a proper market research agency recently who do a lot of the the you know um qualitative stuff. uh because you you know you can only exactly as you’ve noted you can only discover the intent by actually asking people right. no amount of digital data is going to tell you what someone was thinking when they when they click the button but yeah all the companies like that I’ve worked with now and in the past are all the same where they’re just like you know high on their own supply of like we’re amazing our products are amazing everyone knows what we do and I can literally call any of their customers and be like “What is it you think these guys do?”. And they’ll just have a completely different answer to what you know the board of thought. Um so funny I love that. Yeah. It’s like yeah you know customer value propositions are a dime a dozen. It’s like oh we we we do this right we do this. And it kind of goes back to having the best ideas in the world. It’s like yeah who you know and it’s a a genuine question. It’s like who cares like who cares about that. it’s like why do they care about that so yeah you know more often than not our value propositions that we come up with are from that internal view. It’s like we do this right and uh you know people don’t they don’t get it super wrong. They they if they’re focusing on that job to be done. it’s like what problem are you trying to solve for your customer if you’re focusing on that your value proposition is probably not too far off the off the money. But it it it really is not what you know to paraphrase uh you know a very overused saying. uh you know ask not what you can do for your customers but what your customers need you to do for them. It’s used a lot for a reason.
Yeah Yeah No look yeah I I agree with that. And I think it’s um I mean obviously it keeps me in a job so I don’t want to complain about it too much but I just think it’s you know constantly surprising to me that yes people are just like hey we’ve got these customers they all love us and you’re like do you know that for sure though or do you guys just say that to each other when you meet internally to you know make yourselves feel better. It’s um it’s definitely a funny one. Um and look that’s where. um I mean again like circling back around some of those issues that that you raised I think particular with particular reference to the startup um scene I think Ashton obviously where everyone’s struggling to sort of try and find that outright. like you’ve had a great idea you’re struggling to validate it and and get you know product market fit or or whatever stage you’re at but. um I actually think that’s probably one of the points where you know you you are talking to them a lot more and then as companies sort of seem to grow into scaling. um and you know getting hardcore into growth it’s it becomes a bit lost in the you know I suppose the maelstrom of becoming becoming a huge you know global dominating company if you’re successful. um so um I guess like are there any good mechanisms you’ve seen beyond just you know the point you made about actually just talking to your customers. um are there any companies you’ve worked with or or from your past where that’s been done really well. um or were they all pretty terrible and you you just kind of felt like it could always has been improved. Look it’s a it’s a good question. I don’t have a simple answer for that one. I think it’s Yeah I think it’s it’s so complex and it’s so tricky. Um I think the you know the sticking point is kind of not like I said not checking your assumptions. So you kind of do all of this research or you sort of do all this validation at one point and then you run with it and then that’s it and then you keep running with it and at some point there’s a fork in the road and you go why why is this not working. um the way that it’s supposed to or we need it to work more but it’s not. So it it’s kind of it needs to be that iterative process around sort of yep test measure learn test measure learn. just keep keep going and keep going but from a strategic perspective not just not just like these are the tactics these are the things that I’m doing on the channels right. I think that’s that’s the gap. it’s a lot of marketers are like oh I’ll well I’ll test some different messaging or I’ll test some different audience groups or I’ll test some different segmentation or whatever it might be. it’s like maybe you actually need to test a different approach. Maybe you actually you know it is that you don’t know what you don’t know. So it kind of it’s going back to that assumption of no this is this is what we think and this is you know this is the plan. It it’s it’s probably kind of going up a level and checking checking the plan and and and kind of iterating on that level not just down on this kind of executional level.
Yeah Yeah Like I think that’s I mean that’s like a really important point. It’s like so easy to get lost in the dayto-day of just doing stuff right which is what compounds that issue of you know just being too close to everything and then you just end up in a sort of a cycle of Yeah just just doing stuff and chasing your tail I guess. Um Yeah. And there’s never any shortage of things to do for a marketer right. and it’s and you you honestly like you know people are pretty good at checking you know efficiencies in terms of um let’s say team operations things like you know hey do we really need this weekly meeting because we seem to be kind of rehashing all ground and it’s just a waste of sort of everyone’s time or you know can we you know automate these kind of communications or or whatever it is. So those sort of efficiencies are really really obvious because they’re right in front of you in a day-to-day sort of sense. I think with marketing you just sort of you just sort of keep doing stuff and there’s no reason that you there’s no good reason to stop doing it right. so it’s if it’s a oh we post and look I’m super guilty of this Oh we post three times a week on Instagram. Yeah Why why you know oh well because that’s that’s what we do. Okay. you know what if you posted once a week or what if you posted three times a week on another channel or you know you just kind of have your structure and we are creatures of habit and we just keep doing the same thing. So it’s like we send a weekly email we post three times on Instagram we do X Y and Zed and you know that’s what we do and that gets these results. It’s like there’s no good reason for you to pull up unless you’re being really curious. and that’s probably what it comes down to. M are you being curious curious enough to go what if we didn’t do this or what if we did this instead. and it is that’s where it brings in that risk factor of yeah but we don’t know what that might do. It’s like there’s only one way to find out.
Look I think that’s you’re speaking my language there and this is something that we you know was an original sort of founding principle of flow state is like doing more with less. Um which is not to say like don’t test things and don’t to your point you know don’t always try new stuff because there’s always things that you don’t know that you don’t know but. um having worked in the B2B space a lot over the last you know kind of few years like the sort of core of our um growth program is like having a foundation of stuff that we know works that all businesses do whether that’s for the right or the wrong reasons it’s always happening that’s all kind of centered around that whole you know content search ial sort of set of activity and we’re like look if you just get all this up and running that will definitely generate you better results or we can optimize what you’re doing now and it’ll be better because we built a process to do it. We’ve built in efficiencies you know we know what we’re doing I’ve been doing it for years. Like we’re just like look that’s the table stakes. Just get this right and things will improve to a degree but then you know once you’ve done that we’re like okay well now how do you test that in other areas how do you then replicate that stuff. sometimes bits of it don’t work which is a rare occurrence because of the niches we work in but you know sometimes it just doesn’t or you’re like “Oh you know you might find that you’re making loads of videos.”. Like as you said like you might not think your audience is on like TikTok or whatever but test it for a couple of months maybe they are. Yeah. I mean I had a great like this is a really weird example I know someone who um has a podiatry business and they do very they’re very like factual kind of I don’t even want to say like dry videos but it’s like they’re definitely not sort of what you would think is a normal Tik Tok video but they they go off. They’ve had such a great result on that channel. It’s like you would sort of never expect that. But I think all of that speaks to probably the same issue you know in the startup world of it’s easy to go from zero to one. And when I say easy it’s because you’re you know something is better than nothing. So like you say it’s like yep look if we do all of this fundamental BAU activity it’s going to be better than what you’re doing now because we’re doing more. So more is more right. it’s so much harder to go from one to two. because then you there’s so many variables. And then you’re like okay well we know these things work. We don’t know about these things and we don’t know what more of this or less of this kind of looks like. So 0 to one much easier one to two much harder. So that’s probably that like startup and scale up difference.
I think that’s a super clear way to characterize that problem actually. And and and weirdly like we’re you know typically like our clients have been in the sort of mediumsiz enterprise space a lot of the time recently. So we do do a lot of startup work but we we haven’t been actively chasing them over the past couple of years. But yeah a lot of the um a lot of those bigger businesses have exactly the same issue you know they’re still trying to go maybe they’re not going from one to two but they might be trying to go from you know 1.5 to 1.9 or something in a much larger scale. But yeah it’s just more instead of doing more they just have more problems like because they doing so many more things at the same time. So yeah I think that’s a really interesting way to look at it. And I I love the way you characterize that whole issue of you know you can’t see the label from inside the jar is a great great phrase of it. Um but if the lid’s on the jar like how do you get outside the jar I guess is the possible problem. That’s Yeah. So it’s it’s a great analogy I I stole that from one of our guest speakers um from my my NBA unit of course. Yeah. It’s you know unfortunately I can’t remember exactly who it was but you know credit to that person but yeah it’s a great it’s a great one. You can’t see the label from inside the jar right. so you’re in the jar You know what the product is cuz the product’s all around you but you kind of forget what is going to make somebody pick pick that up off the shelf right. so it’s it’s it’s a really kind of it is that internal bias. And when you get you you you’re in the weeds right you’re just too close to the problem. So um in some ways that’s why it’s kind of healthy for uh companies to engage you know agencies and external partners. Even if you’re like “No no we do all of this in house.”. It’s actually a really healthy sort of exercise to sort of make sure that you are involving people outside your business because you know you you know your business better than everyone but you know h how does everyone else think about your business so that that’s probably a little a little watch out there for all of those in-house marketers. U and look I love being in-house but there’s also a huge value that agencies and external partners can provide to all of those businesses that have their own wonderful big marketing teams. Um and it’s great for those internal marketers as well to not only share their expertise but kind of have that refresh and that new perspective and you know a little bit of skill swapping and sharing as well. So that’s a little bit of that rising tide lifts all boats. you know it’s like we’re we’re kind of we’re stronger together and with all of our different perspectives and different kind of experiences that we bring to it.
Yeah Yeah Like definitely. Look I think that’s where you know obviously like as a as a longtime agency person like I think that’s where your experience is definitely set apart from a lot of other people who’ve only ever worked uh client side where you sort of you know you obviously have that deep knowledge of the brands you’ve worked with but lack the sort of breadth of you know many many use cases across either different industry sectors or or different brands. So um yeah I love both. I love both as well. And I look I I felt very passionate about after sort of seven years of being in-house I I really wanted to sort of experience agency and spent the next couple of years after that um working in agency. I I love both honestly. I love living and breathing a brand every day but I also like the impact of coming in as an agency and being able to sort of you know provide that kind of external expertise and kind of a a further a further reach and just like a lot more amplification sort of from from the outside rather than than the inside. And really sort of focused and specialized support rather than kind of it’s it’s almost like that generalist and specialist right. you know your in-house team is sort of trying to do a little bit of everything An agency partner can come in and focus in on one specific thing and really lift it up.
And just conscious of our time Ashton we’ve covered a pretty epic array of points there. Um in terms of attempting to somehow try and round off that conversation with some sort of a summary what would you. I think you know obviously coming through to the end of your MBA like getting back into work. We talked a bit about people in staffs and people coming into the industry like what do you what would you say to people who are you know either struggling a bit in the current climate based on all those issues that we’ve had now. you know budget cuts like challenges internally the communication side of things like are there any sort of takeaways from your recent experience that you think are like look get these on your radar or things people could be doing just to try and you know reinvigorate marketing in their business or reignite their own passion for the job if they’re perhaps feeling a bit burned out or struggling a bit at the moment.
Yeah Oh gosh how to how to sum it all up. um look I think if you’re if you’re on the outside and you’re you know struggling to find something new or you know your next sort of opportunity. um learn how to communicate your value. That’s a really big one. Uh not just sort of what you can do but the actual value that you bring to a business uh in a quantifiable way. So not just I managed this or I did this. It’s more Yeah And what what were the results what did that mean. so again it goes back to communicating it you know the way the board and the business leaders need you to sort of justify you know what does this mean for the business. um if you are inside if you’re in a business and you’re sort of struggling you’re feeling a little bit burnt out you know you’re sort of questioning your love of marketing which I think we sort of do from time to time. I’d say be your own internal cheerleader. So a lot of the time I I do hear from people around you know oh we’re not really sure what the marketing team does or you know oh we saw this and you know it was a complete surprise. So I think that internal communications piece is something that you can own. Uh and there’s no reason that you shouldn’t do that. So you know get other people excited about the work that you’re doing inside the company and remember that you have all of those employee advocates there. Uh so that’s that’s probably something that I would really encourage and there’s nothing there’s nothing that kind of reminds you of your own value more so than talking to other people about it or teaching other people about it as well. Uh so that’s probably the last thing actually is you know paying it forward and teaching others. There’s so many amazing like there’s just no shortage of great podcasts obviously. um you know communities LinkedIn groups LinkedIn pages. um mentoring organizations networking events there’s no shortage of them. So you know do kind of make the effort to get outside your brand or just kind of what you’re doing and and not only join those but contribute to the conversation. I think that’s the really important thing. You know don’t be a passive consumer. It’s it’s really important that you’re if you’re in the community that you kind of you know being part of that conversation as well not just you know being on the receiving end of it.
Yeah Look I think that’s a pretty powerful and pertinent point to end on because um you know that’s that’s exactly the reason I started doing this was like obviously postco you know like I’m working most of my team are remote like our clients are all over the place like it’s hard to it’s hard to actually get together with people. um and obviously everyone’s busy and it’s not amazing conditions so I think. um I completely agree with that. I just think you know the marketing community is a very vibrant and interesting one and it’s nice to connect with people and sort of know that you’re not alone in your struggles. Ash I think that’s right. That’s right. And nobody look nobody likes talking about marketing more than marketers. So Exactly. It’s lovely. It’s so great to talk shop and I know so many people who’ve gone off on their own and done their own consulting businesses and you know so many kind of people flying solo at the moment. make sure that you’re connecting with other people who are doing that. And I know some people who are um you know have set up that kind of you know weekly or or monthly kind of you know coffee and a chat. It’s just it’s so important to just sort of talk shop and you know swap war stories and just keep up keep up to date with everything that’s happening because we work in a very unrelenting fastmoving industry. So being part of the conversation is the way that you keep up with that. What an end to the show. Be a part of the conversation. That is how we get things done as the human animal species that we are. Don’t ever forget that. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Um love the dating analogy. There was loads of great stuff in there. We will be back next week. Different format mixing it up a bit maybe more regularly. Who knows this has been the Flow State podcast. I’m running out of things to say so this is the end of the show. Bye for now.