Talking About Marketing
#Marketing#Business#Education
Talking About Marketing is a podcast for you to help you thrive in your role as a business owner and/or leader. It's produced by the Talked About Marketing team of Steve Davis and David Olney, with editing by Tim Whiffen. Artwork by Casey Cumming. Each marketing podcast episode tips its hat to Philip Kotler's famous "4 Ps of Marketing" (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), by honouring our own 4 Ps of Podcasting; Person, Principles, Problems, and Perspicacity. Person. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. - Oscar Wilde Principles. You can never be overdressed or overeducated. - Oscar Wilde Problems. “I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity. - Oscar Wilde Perspicacity. The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. - Oscar Wilde Apart from our love of words, we really love helping people, so we hope this podcast will become a trusted companion for you on your journey in business. We welcome your comments and feedback via podcast@talkedaboutmarketing.com
Talking About Marketing Teaser2022-08-31
Amping up for the release of the Talking About Marketing Podcast, Steve and David share this teaser for what to expect from this new and exciting show!Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
3 min
Finding Your Story To Tell2022-09-06
Revisiting storytelling for marketers In this first episode of Talking About Marketing, we cover storytelling by doing a dive into some academic literature to see if we can give you some handy starting points for refreshing your content marketing. For our first segment, however, we go a little philosophical as Steve shares some insights from the Stoics to help us deal with negativity in our organisation. There's a timely topic in the mailbag segment, with Steve sharing a question about .au domains; should we or shouldn't we bother. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David splashes on some Old Spice to see if their groundbreaking campaigns from 10 years ago would smell as sweet today. We hope you find this helpful. Episode show notes with timecodes 01:38 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Learning from the Stoics Steve's been in front of more than 8000 business owners, and in workshops, mentoring, and ongoing consultancy work, he's been there as they've dealt with catastrophes, accidents, and toxic humans. So, in this segment, he shares a short snippet from a series of talks about stoicism by philosopher, Professor Willam B Irvine, that's actually had a huge and immediate effect on him when it comes to cutting off the dead weight of the bad players he's encountered. 10:09 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Unlocking storytelling for content marketing The common theme running through this topic is the reference to Joseph Campbell's idea of the hero's journey, which is a big and complicated set of steps that the ideal story should follow. But the critical thing at the centre of Campbell and that nearly everyone focuses on in their own writing is that someone tries to achieve something and they're blocked and they're not blocked in a small way. They're blocked to the point we're actually continuing is really difficult. For our stories to succeed, we need to identify the struggles we've faced, often across different levels. These can include: A struggle with self A struggle with other people A struggle to be given an opportunity A struggle to get resources Or a combination of all of them Sadly, though, very few experts cover the importance of "struggle" in storytelling, which is why David wrote a paper about the topic, and why Steve spoke about Storytelling structures for tourism marketing earlier this year. Listen to the full discussion for further explanation and some actionable points to apply in your business. 27:47 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Should I register a .au domain? Ivy from Golden North sent me an email, which involved her forwarding one she'd received with the subject line: Dot AU Domain Name Deadline Looming for Australian Businesses. I've been swamped by lots of people asking me whether they should register this new Top Level domain name and my answer tends to be, yes. The short version is that Australians have until 20 September 2022 to get priority allocation of a dot au direct domain name if they currently have the matching dot com dot au domain name. In short, if you have a .com.au, the simple advice is to claim your .au version and just redirect it to .com.au for now. Should you ever need to lead with the .au you will have it, and not have to worry about somebody else taking it off the table! 32:20 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Does Old Spice still smell nice (or did it ever smell nice?) For this segment, we rolled out the famous Old Spice campaign from 10 years ago to review its success back then and ponder whether such a ploy would work today. You'll have to listen to the episode to get our verdict.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
41 minWhy answer people's questions? (Inbound vs outboud)2022-09-20
The only "trick" in content marketing is that the content needs to help your ideal customers In this episode of Talking About Marketing, we ask, why answer people's questions? As you'll hear in the discussion, there are compelling reasons for revisiting your website content and running the simple "what's in it for me" test on behalf of your ideal customers. For our first segment, however, Steve taps into some findings from an Oxford professor on how to think better, especially in relation to our marketing tasks. In the mailbag segment, Steve shares a question about an alarming email a client received about their website security certificate being down. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David tunes our senses by reliving the United Breaks Guitars classic, one-man campaign that made an airline take note of poor, neglectful service (eventually). We hope you find this helpful. Episode show notes with timecodes 01:38 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. How to think better Steve plays a snippet from Oxford professor of mathematics, Marcus du Sautoy, from one of David's other podcasts, Blind Insights with David Olney. Professor du Sautoy has written a book, Thinking Better: The Art Of The Shortcut, and as he discussed themes from the book, Steve immediately thought of many of the business people who've been in his workshops over the years. There is often a high mixture of excitement and a gung ho spirit when people are having a great time in a workshop, but when Steve chats with them later, some people have lost their oomph. Typically, they've gotten themselves stumped and what was taught ends up going into the Too Hard Basket. So Steve plays some insights from the professor, that might help us adjust and prepare ahead of workshops or other challenging tasks. the bit I thought was relevant - it's about knowing it will get hard in the immediate future, as well has being prepared to make some decisions about how you might approach new tasks. 10:09 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Inbound vs outbound marketing. There's no "question" which is best David started by asking: Why can't I concentrate? Why can't I sit for any length of time and read a book? Why can't I stay on a single web page and read the whole article from start to finish? It's because in the context in which we now live we face constant disruption. Interruption. For a very long time outbound marketing was often called interruptive or disruptive marketing; an ad would pop up and disrupt you from what you were doing and if it was colorful and entertaining. Maybe that was once okay because you weren't interrupted and disrupted very often. But that's changed now. By about 2005 to 2007, the period in which Steve was starting to go out and run social media workshops, people were starting to get overwhelmed by things. At this point, the realisation kicks in among some very smart marketing people that if you actually give people answers to their questions about things they're concerned about or things they want to achieve that are their dreams, they will build a relationship with you, they will trust you they will purchase from you and they will be your greatest advocates because they feel like you treated them with respect and that in a world where interruption is just everywhere all the time. Learn more in our discussion. 27:47 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Has my SSL certificate really stopped working? I received a flurry of three emails from clients all along similar lines recently. As is typical (and I am glad my clients have learned to bounce emails off me when they are unsure), Michelle from Hok Homes took a few moments to ask, do I need to do anything with the below? Here's what she received: AutoSSL has renewed “hokhomes.com.au”’s Domain Validated (DV) SSL certificate. The new certificate lacks 8 of the website’s domains. It then lists 8 various subdomains that are all linked to an account such as cpanel, webmail, calendars, etc. What's happened is the AutoSSL regenerates itself every month and if there is even a split second's gap in the process, the system sends a hideous email that looks like the robot from Lost In Space - Danger Will Robinson. If you get these, you can go into your cpanel hosting and check the status in the Security tab OR go to your website and have a look in your web browser. If there's a nice padlock there, all is good. If the padlock is broken, then you do need to address the situation with great importance. But the big lesson - please use your relationship with your trusted person to bounce any suspicious emails past them whenever you're in doubt. You can hear my explanation in the episode or read it here: 3 Alarming Emails Small Business Website Owners Get – And What To Do About Them. 32:20 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. United Breaks Guitars For this segment, we rolled out the famous United Breaks Guitars protest song and consumer movement, started by singer/songwriter, Dave Carrol.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
38 minThe Planning Fallacy2022-10-04
The secret to planning well is to understand that planning does not come naturally; being an expert in one field does not mean we have expertise in planning In this episode of Talking About Marketing, we ask, why planning often fails and the short answer is that it often boils down to the planning fallacy. David explains all through the lens of Grand Designs host, Kevin McCloud. For our first segment, however, Steve taps into the story of the Emu, as told by Tyson Yunkaporta in his book, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. It's a helpful way of understanding toxicity in workplace relationships. In the mailbag segment, Steve shares a question about dealing with logins; where and how to store them. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David asks us to THINK about the THINK commercials run by IBM more than 20 years ago. Oh, how less fraught our digital world was back then! We hope you find this helpful. Episode show notes with timecodes 02:05 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.How to think better Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, is a thought-inspiring book by Tyson Yunkaporta. Tyson is described by some as an Aboriginal philosopher, and Steve draws an intriguing inside from the creation story Tyson shares in his book about the Emu. The story suggests that the Emu (with a capital E) is the world’s original malignant narcissist, and we've probably all run into people like that in work and play. As Steve shares, Tyson recounts the Emu story from Nyoongar Elder, Noel Nannup, in Perth, in which, "all the species sat down for a yarn to decide which one would be the custodial species for all of creation. Emu made a hell of a mess, running around showing off his speed and claiming his superiority, demanding to be boss and shouting over everyone.” As is explained in the book, it takes the whole tribe or office or community to manage narcissists; it's almost impossible to deal with them by yourself. 09:53 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.The Planning Fallacy At the time of recording this episode, Steve and David were putting together another planning day, this time for a not-for-profit organisation in the health sector, so we decided to share some of the thinking and principles behind our planning sessions. The key insight upon which our planning workshops are based is captured in "the planning fallacy", as proposed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. It can be summarised, thus: The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task—even if it contradicts our experiences. Coupled with this, David explains how this fallacy is exacerbated by the fact that we overestimate our planning abilities. As David argues, there are not many professions in the world that actually train people to plan from first step to end of project, and even in those professions that do plan, more often than not they end up with too much of a fixation on the plan, and not enough awareness of reality. The trick with planning is approaching it with the right mindset, which means being able to say it's iteration number one, and then when things change, feeling comfortable in adapting the plan into iteration number two, and so on. It's a fascinating topic of discussion and we hope you'll one day get the chance to have us lead a planning session for you. 22:21 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.Has my SSL certificate really stopped working? Steve shared an email from a long-time client and friend in Darwin, Jon, from Dunwrights Electrical. He wrote: Hi Steve. I looked for the login for dunwrights.com.au and was unable to find it. Jon is in a much better place than most small business people because he's not using his browser to remember passwords, but working out the solution that is best for him in a process he continues to interate. Steve reflects on this and gives a solid plug for password keeping software - especially timely in relation to the Optus Network hack. 27:28 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.Think IBM - was focussed on big things For this segment, we cast our minds back to the IBM Think ads that are more than 20 years old. IBM managed to change from selling people desktops to solving people's problems. HINT: Success doesn't come from how you make something but from how you solve people's problems.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
33 minWriting Without BS2022-10-18
In this episode of Talking About Marketing, we discuss how to be clearer and more engaging in our communication; in short, writing without BS. It's funny how fluffery creeps into business writing, whether that's internal messages, emails to clients, or advertising. Instead of being one human talking to another, some switch flicks inside us when we try to write in business settings and suddlenly we lean in to leverage the low hanging fruit as we pivot to think outside the box so we can be disruptive! For our first segment, however, Steve taps into the story of industrial designer, Alfred Boyages, who champions what it means to run a business with a vision. In the mailbag segment, Steve shares a question about what to do when you get emails saying someone's changes your account details. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David asks us whether or not Volvo's famous Crash Test Dummies campaigns would still have the same impact today? We hope you find this helpful. Episode show notes with timecodes 02:07 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. How to stay true to a mission In the Small Business Big Marketing podcast some weeks ago, industrial designer, Alfred Boyages shared a story about how a motorcycle accident he had turned out to be "seriously lucky". As it turns out, with time to think in hospital, he came up with the idea of a motorcycle helmut that was smart; it would alert riders to road hazards just like the oil slick that caused his mishap, which he saw too late. Forecite Helmuts was born and it has a cult-like following, and very healthy revenues to boot. But Alfred doesn't think of it as a cash machine, he has a bigger mission; to make motorcycling safer. How "top of mind" is your mission? 09:53 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Writing Without BS Josh Bernoff has a lovely book in the business section, Writing Without Bullsh#t, and in this segment, David teases out some of the insights without the expletives. Josh's message in Writing Without BS, is to get us all to transcend BS, write short, replace jargon, and treat your reader's time as more important than your own. This is why Steve starts the segment with his favourite quote from French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter. David discusses our reality of trying to communicate in a noisy environment, and where average news stories are lucky to get 36 seconds of our attention. Our lesson: Unless we can change how we write, our emails, reports, and websites don’t stand a chance. 20:43 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Someone has updated your login details Steve shared an email from Simon, a client based in Perth, who got this message from his website host: Hi Simon, This is a courtesy email to advise that someone (quite possibly yourself) has updated your account details. If this was not you, we suggest that you log in to your Account immediately and update your account information and password to prevent any unauthorized access. The good news is that these alerts are helpful. If it was you, all is good. If it wasn't, then you can spring into action. The bad news is that this email has the link to logging into your account as a hyperlink. This is not good practice. We should NEVER trust links in such emails. Our lesson: If we were not the ones who'd made the change, go to the company's website directly or via Google, and log in from there. Too many crooks are too good at making duplicate sites on very similar web addresses, to ever allow us to trust links in unexpected emails. 24:28 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. A day in the life of a Volvo crash test dummy In 2003, Volvo made a movie featuring its head crash test dummy. Clive Alive was designed to build on Volvo's heritage of car safety. In this segment, David and Steve discuss whether such a campaign would still be a "safe" one in 2022. Would it work today? You'll have to listen to the episode to get our verdict.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
34 minBurn Social Media Down2022-11-01
There are times you simply need to destroy what exists in order to replace it with something better We go back to 2015 to start this episode of Talking About Marketing, in which we consider whether we should burn social media down and develop new strategies for marketing in the social channels. The discussion centres around an insight from Forrester Research in 2015 that stated, "social ads aren’t social; they’re just ads." The key message is a big like an Emporer's New Clothes moment; yes, brands do stick out like sore thumbs when trying to mingle amid humans wanting to catch up and joke around with each other. For our first segment, however, Steve goes very "meta" by playing what he said on FIVEaa about what David Olney had told him about changing jobs and resolving the tension between finding fulfillment in Staus vs Value. In the mailbag segment, Steve shares a question about what to do when you get an email prompting you to renew a premium WordPress plugin. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve revisit the Smiths Chips Gobbledok and chew over whether or not it would still have "crunch" through today? We hope you find this helpful. Episode show notes with timecodes 02:15 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Status vs Value In Steve's regular radio segment about small business on FIVEaa with Richard Pascoe, he recently reflected on the story of Talking About Marketing co-presenter, David Olney, and his realisation that the biggest fear he had when leaving Adelaide University as a lecturer to pursue life as a consultant, was the giving up of his status. As Steve explained on the air, David noted that blind people have low status in our society, so to risk "lecturer" status was a big deal until he started tasting what it was like to bring value to clients. The resounding accolades he began receiving have since drowned out the echoes of his lecturer status. In this segment, we discuss what that might mean for us, in our day-to-day work. Are we holding on to a role or business because of the perceived status it brings? And, if so, is that coming at the cost of getting intrinsic and extrinsic rewards awaiting us when we focus on truly bringing value to every interaction we have with clients and/or customers? As David recently wrote on his blog: At University I had a reasonable amount of status, tried to add value for my students, and was not valued by the institution. As a Strategic Communication professional, I probably don’t have much status (I assume I am now seen as David the marketing guy), am valued by my colleagues, and add value for our clients. Having now experienced these two different combinations of status and value, I can categorically state that I prefer being David the marketing guy. Being valued and adding value is more rewarding and important to me than status. 12:35 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Burn Social Media Down This discussion on how to approach social media in an effective way as marketers, arose from the seemingly evergreen 2015 article by Augie Ray, entitled, Burn It Down, Start From Scratch And Build a Social Media Strategy That Works. The pertinent points are summarised by Augie, thus: People take social media seriously, and so should business. Consumers work hard to block and ignore brand messaging. Consumers do not trust brand content. Consumers count on brands to be present in social media, particularly on Facebook. Consumers expect brands to engage on consumers' terms. Consumers want fast, responsive customer care in social media. Consumers want to collaborate with brands to develop better products. Brands win when they get people talking to each other, not about the brand's content but about the actual Customer Experience. As we discuss in the episode, "doing social media right" means being present but also learning to measure the right things. As Augie says: Toss out your social media scorecard immediately. The first step to refocus social activities on what matters is to change what is measured. Stop rewarding employees or agencies for generating engagement that fails to deliver business benefit and start measuring what matters--changes in customer loyalty or consideration, positive and authentic Word of Mouth, inbound traffic that converts, quality lead acquisition and customer satisfaction. And there's a recurring theme from this discussion that runs through our podcast, especially episode one about Telling Your Story, namely, that: Brands that win in the social era will not be better at storytelling but in using social media to hear, help, educate, encourage, empower, connect and respond to their customers and prospects as individuals. We hope this discussion gives you plenty of food for thought. 23:36 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Do premium plugins need updating? Steve shared an email from Donald, who had forwarded on an email about a renewal invoice for a premium WordPress plugin. His question was, do we need to renew this? The short answer is, yes. While premium WordPress plugins will continue to operate after a license has expired, not renewing means you don't get access to updates. As we know, plugin updates don't only include improvements but also improve crucial safety and security tweaks that could mean the difference between your site working or your site breaking. Or, worse still, your site staying safe or your site being hacked. Our advice is always to renew these plugins but to double-check you are still using them first (it has happened that someone has decided to stop using a plugin in favour of a better one while forgetting to cancel the premium subscription). 26:40 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. The Smiths Chips Gobbledok Chippy, chippy, chippy. If you're old enough to remember ads in the 1990s, you'll remember the "creepy", furry Gobbledok used by Smiths Chips to connect people to the allure of the rustling of a chip bag and the crunch of their chips. Steve and David discuss the ad series, look at consumer feedback under the ad on YouTube (which is split between lovers and haters), and ponder whether such ads would work today. You might be surprised by the conversation that arises.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
40 minTo Sell Is Human2022-11-15
Not everybody feels comfortable "selling". In fact, most of us feel darn right uncomfortable at the thought of "working someone" so you can get them where you want them. But, of course, that's all based on a fairly narrow definition of selling; the forced selling of a huckster. In reality, every time we want to "advocate" for a choice of restaurant or TV show, or recommend a book, or strive to hold attention at a dinner party, that's a form of selling. David Olney riffs on insights from Daniel Pink's book, To Sell Is Human, in the Principles section of this episode. For our first segment, however, Steve reflects on the empire of Gladys Sym Choon, a fashion and gift store with a long history in Adelaide. In particular, he reflects on the intuitive (and most likely deliberate) branding activity undertaken by the store's namesake, back when being Chinese in Australia was a fraught situation. In the mailbag segment, Steve shares a question about domain names and business names and whether the twain should meet. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve revisit the bomb of all bombs from the Australian car scene, the mishappen Leyland P76. Yes, a fuel guzzler released at the height of the oil crisis of the 1970s. Could it have been avoided? We hope you find this helpful. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 02:32 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.Embody Your Brand In 1928, Miss Gladys Sym Choon was the first woman to incorporate a business in South Australia, opening her mini emporium, adjacent to the Adelaide Fruit and Produce Market, at age 16. Many decades later, Miss Gladys Sym Choon is still a going concern and Steve believes that part of the brand's staying power can be traced back to the way Gladys embodied her brand. In a lot of the early advertisements for Miss Gladys Sym Choons, Gladys is seen holding Chinese lanterns, or wearing exotic dresses, but in her private photos, she never wore any of those things. According to Steve, this is a clever way of "living" the brand, whether or not is was deliberate or intuitive. He discusses this with David Olney in the opening segment. 14:38 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.To Sell Is Human To Sell Is Human, by Daniel Pink, takes a close look at the art and science of selling, dipping into social science to unearth some counterintuitive insights. In our discussion, David Olney picks up on Pink's model of Attunement as an importan element of selling. Attunement means you can’t just sell to people, you need to build a relationship with them, so that you understand what they need/want in future, and what they will say about the brand to other consumers. This is the entry point into our discussion that will hopefully excite you about selling by finding an authentic, human way to go about it and understand it. 24:56 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.Do premium plugins need updating? Steve shared an email from Kylie, who had just started a business and had registered a domain name that matched her rather obscure business name. When he asked her why she didn't choose a more search-friendly domain name, she said thought domain names had to match business names. As Steve explains, that is not the case, and they were able to snare a perfect domain name for her fledgling venture. 29:35 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.The Leyland P76 Leyland Australia thought the tagline, "anything but average" was perfect for their muscle car in the early 70s, made to go head-to-head with those big Holdens and Fords. Only problem was. There as an oil crisis running wild during the production process and the car that boasted you could fit a barrel of oil in the boot, hit the stores just as everybody was clambering for 4 cylinder Japanese cars. Steve and David discuss the car the lessons we learn from not adapting to changes in the marketplace. Hop in and learn whether or not this conversation is Super or Standard!Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
38 minBe Useful, Grateful, And Valuable2022-11-29
Joe Polish is a highly capable marketer, but he surprised David and Steve by inserting the word "grateful" into his mantra that we should approach networking, relationships, and business, with a blend of being useful, grateful, and valuable. in situations, I initially struggled with why he sandwiched grateful between useful and valuable. When I wrote about value in my blog post, in terms of adding value and being valued, I considered useful and valuable in my own way, but I didn’t think to add grateful into the mix. As is discussed in this episode, Joe's reference to being grateful, tunes into the emotional aspect of every situation; something that's easy to overlook if you're simply focussed on adding value or being useful. For our first segment, however, Steve wanders through some insights shared by legendary comedian, John Cleese, in relation to creativity. He especially hones in on Cleese's warning about how we can let ourselves stray aware from the important path of being creative. In the mailbag segment, Steve reflects on a recenty discovery of how to change his communication style to suit the preferences of a client. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve ogle over the TV commercial for Antz Pantz that neither of them believe would be made today. Or would it? We hope you find this helpful. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:47 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Beat A New Path To Creativity The Monty Python legend, John Cleese, says political correctness is ruining creativity in all aspects of human activity and at age 82 he recently attended FreedomFest (an annual gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas) to discuss creativity. Putting his war on wokeism to one side, for this episode, Steve shares a wonderful description that Cleese shared, of how our brains can habituate away from creativity. Steve argues being aware of this is a sure way of noticing when our creativity is losing the battle against lazy thinking. The interview we took the snippet from, was Cleese with Nick Gillespie from Reason. 14:31 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Be Useful, Grateful, And Valuable In every situation you encounter, in which you can be useful, can add value, or can be valued, there is an emotional aspect to what is going on. For example, we can feel good about being useful, be grateful for being able to help, and be grateful to have added value to whatever is going on. In short, we always act and react in an emotional way, so it makes sense that it's better for us to acknowledge the emotional aspect of our behaviour, because this is the part of us that's crucial for building long-term, healthy relationships with other people. The conversation in this episode arose after David and Steve both read Joe Polish's book, What's In It For Them?, which also happens to make a great mantra to repeat whenever we are doing anything with our marketing hats on! The extra video snippet in the show notes on the website, captures a great analogy from Joe; you can't expect to get heat from a fire until you've added a little wood. This reminder, coupled with a commitment to trying to be useful, grateful, and valuable, is an empowering mindset with which to approach networking sessions and all interactions in daily life. 28:29 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Methods of communication Steve shared some insights learned recently from a client who was difficult to pin down to set meetings or get project feedback from. While Steve is happy chatting on the phone or in a Zoom session (or even face-to-face, Covid permitting), his preferred method of communication with clients and mentors is email and/or SMS. He prefers this because it creates a record of what's been said and what times/dates have been mentioned. However, with one client, Steve noted that timelines were blowing out. It was all solved recently when Steve asked for communication preferences directly. It turns out this client's email inbox feels impenetrable and he just can't bring himself to tackling it unless he is directed to a specific email. There are no right or wrong answers on this topic. In this case, however, communication is now stellar; SMS for most communications and an SMS to alert the client to a specific email when needed. Hopefully, this might help you manage communication with your clients and customers. 32:14 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Antz Pantz In 1989, model, Toneya Bird became very famous for a very risque TV commercial for Antz Pantz. It featured Toneya on a bed wearing nothing other than panties and a tanktop. As she twists and turns on the bed, ants start crawling up her legs and across her crotch, at which point we meet Rex The Ant Eater in bed with her. He wants the ants, so she says, Sic 'em, Rex. It became a well-worn phrase that entered the vernacular at the time. But would it work today? Go on, sic 'em David and Steve! As an aside, Bird rose to fame via this TV ad, but after modelling for a few years she moved to Europe and married a Norwegian prince. At that point, she virtually stopped modelling. The marriage didn't last very long however, and after the divorce she had a child with an Austrian prince. They later married. And as far as we know they still live in Vienna.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
41 minStrategic Alignment And Customer Obsession2022-12-13
All the research says empowered employees make a huge and positive impact on businesses but the concept scares the living daylights out of owners and managers. That's why, smart speakers and authors like Josh Bernoff and Stan McChrystal, change the language to terms like Strategic Alignment And Customer Obsession. It's more palatable to the C Suite! We unpack this in the Principles section of the podcast. Meanwhile, a random playing of an old Tom Waits song gave Steve cause to pause and reflect on how rarely he stops to pause and reflect. In the Person section, he riffs on that with David and they come up with some thoughts to share with you. At the risk of sounding like a broken record of the same vintage as Tom Waits' Heart Attack And Vine, Steve uses the Problems segment to share a story of woe about two new clients who'd both lost control of their websites. And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve reflect on a refreshingly different road safety ad, honey buns! We hope you find this helpful. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 03:37 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. The Radio Is Off The Air Th little bit of the Tom Waits song, Diamonds On My Windshield", has a lyric that caught Steve's attention, it goes: "The radio goes off and it gives me time to think." Steve heard it while listening to the River Blues program on Radio 5mbs - the fine music station in Adelaide where he's a board member - and it jumped out at his consciousness. We rarely get time to think these days, unless we're disciplined in making that time, and it's robbing us and society of depth and innovation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GADAgEZYuR4 13:57 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Strategic Alignment And Customer Obsession If you want your employees to relate to your customers differently, do you ask them to change what they do first, or do you change the systems that support them first? This is the question at the heart of this segment, as David reflects on the work of Josh Bernoff (Empowered) and Stan McChrystal (From shared consciousness and autonomous action to strategic alignment and empowered execution). It's a nailbiting discussion if you believe you need to micromanage everybody around you, or rule by putting the fear of god into people. If that's not you, you'll probably be applauding, as David works through the key points. 30:08 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Control of your website Steve reflected on two cases from recent days where an organisation has lost its web person and has ended up stranded with broken websites and one riddled with malicious code. The lessons: Always have full administrator access to your website and web hosting and domain name. Always ensure updates always happen. Treat websites as importantly as you would your office or shopfront; looking for shortcuts can result in great pain and damage. 36:10 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Keep The Bromance Alive In 2015, a rather ear-catching TV commercial was produced, encouraging "blokes" to listen to road safety messages. In it, rather blokey blokes spoke to each other like sweethearts, using endearing terms like, take it easy on the road, honey buns. The juxtaposition of these characters using dialect usually reserved for cutesy lovebirds, turned heads and got attention. Would such a campaign work today? Hop in, and let Steve and David take you for a drive around the key points.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
43 minWords To Make The World Do Your Bidding2022-12-25
Don't you wish you could weave some words and have people fall under your spell? In the Principles section, David explains how author, Blair Warren, has compiled a list of 27 words that will achieve this end. Is this hocus pocus or does it have substance? You're about to discover it's the latter! Meanwhile, following our remininiscing about the infamous "ants" TV commercial recently, we're returning to the topic like ants to a sugar spill. Steve argues that the behaviour of forrager ants, well, 10-15 per cent of them, gives us some clues about what to do in the eternal battle of working out whether to say yes or no to new opportunities. In the Problems section, And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve reflect on a refreshingly different road safety ad, honey buns! We hope you find this helpful. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 02:33 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Be Like The Ants Author and retired poker champion, Annie Duke, has written a book called, Quit. She thinks the concept gets a bad rap because our society has bought into its opposition disposition of grit; sticking at something all the way through, all the time. In her interview with Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast, Annie's description of supposedly wayward forrager ants who are not part of the long column of other ants, provides a great example of when it is okay to say yes to an opportunity that you're not sure about. As an aside, her book says our flawed mental accounting is what makes us confuse wins for losses; physical ledgers start from the start and tabulate what's been achieved, mental ledgers start at the end and count back. She also revisits the intriguing thought experiment of monkeys on pedastals. Steve explains that in the episode. 14:26 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Words To Make The World Do Your Bidding People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies. Our job, as marketers and communicators is to try to validate and fascinate people, rather than trying to correct and convince people. These insights are expanded upon by David, after his reflection Blair Warren's 2022 book, The One Sentence Persuasion Course: 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding. 24:03 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Velcro on your website Steve reflects on a recurring theme coming up in mentoring. Many websites cut to the chase, assuming visitors have a certain degree of knowledge and understanding. However, what's really needed is some velcro; some content at the top of pages that allows people to see themselves and have a sense of safety that they are known and understood. Every site always has room for improvement and testing. 28:02 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Accessible Adelaide Fringe? Just how accessible is the Adelaide Fringe? This week, we're looking at the Adelaide Fringe TVC from 2016. Surprisingly, it is all imagery and music. And that does seem to be a constant theme of all Fringe ads this century. For David, these ads mean nothing, because he cannot see the content. Does this mean the Adelaide Fringe is paying lip service to accessibility? What would David and Steve do differently? PS Steve has a Fringe show of his own in the 2023 Adelaide Fringe. It's called 100% MBA Success: Whisky And Trivia With Professor Longsword. It will be a lot of fun and you can follow that link for more information and tickets.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
37 minSaying No To Pulling The Wool Over People's Eyes2023-06-04
This is an important start to our second season. Through the Marketing Rebellion book by Mark Schaeffer, we are all reminded that we control only a small slither of our branding efforts. Customers rule the world. We explain in more detail, along with poking fun at stuffy branding agencies, making notes about the upcoming change to Google Analytics, and reflecting on whether or not the University Of Adelaide's 2016 campaign, Seek Light, actually lit a fire for their enrolments. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:39 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. When Branding Goes Bad Over summer I listened to some old (2020) episodes of Very Bad Wizards, a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), and they took a blowtorch of cynicism to the newly announced University of Oregon branding document. I mention this because as people in our business, we are often our brands and we can feel inferior next to "big brands" so I thought I'd start with a little taste of how these two professors mocked pretentious branding, when the University Of Oregon released its branding kit. Here are some of the sections that David Olney and I then lampooned. Jeez. The pretension! FORWARD-THINKING We never take our eyes off the horizon. We exist to help push humanity forward. To pass on a better world than we inherited. We don’t just lift up the people around us, we build stairways so the next generation can climb even higher. NATURAL Ever notice how purely itself nature is? A tree is a tree; it doesn’t try to be anything else. As always, we take our example from nature. Sometimes we’re intense and focused. Sometimes we’re relaxed and approachable. Either way, we don’t try to force it. We just are. INCLUSIVE Everyone has an irreplaceable gift to offer. Corny, but astoundingly true. Inclusion means more than just acceptance, though. It means welcoming everyone into the room. And listening. And supporting. And collaborating. And celebrating their uniqueness. EXTRAORDINARY You know when you crest the summit and catch that first glimpse of the whole world laid out at your feet? Yeah, that feeling. We never stop chasing it. Our hunger for the extraordinary is what makes us… well, extraordinary. UNEXPECTED We love research that raises eyebrows. Insights that spark new perspectives. Solutions that defy old assumptions. And don’t even get us started on art. Surprise disrupts our thinking, opening space for new ideas. It’s why we sometimes zag when others zig. BOLD We know who we are, and we call it like we see it. But never in a rude way. Bold is what you get when you combine self-confidence with respect for others. We speak courageously, take risks, and stand up for what we believe. We’re not arrogant or conceited, but we do swagger sometimes. What's the main point for us? Be yourself. Even if that self aligns with how we want our brand to per perceived. We are unlikely to have that disconnect that big brands have. 13:36 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Will You Join The Marketing Rebellion? In his book, Marketing Rebellion, Mark Schaeffer, talks about the current state of marketing as being one that comes at the end of lies, the end of secrets, and the end of control. David Olney explains this in more detail in our discussion. He also references, the author, Pulizzi, who argued for the concept of "audience first". In other words, as Adelaide Fringe artists are noticing at the moment as The Advertiser stops doing reviews and other media outlets all seem to be favouring their advertising-supported shows, you need an audience before you sell a product or stage a production.] David also shares an insight from his partner, Karen, whose embroidery group embodies this wisdom. 27:46 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Give In To Google Re Analytics Amid the upcoming end of Universal Analytics also known as Google Analytics 3, comes much worry about what to do to maintain reporting of visitor behaviour on websites. Steve's big tip: Google is offering to migrate your old GA3 Universal Analytics to GA4 and if you have not set up GA4 and done very little with analytics, then let Google go for it. If you put effort into GA4 set up, then go into your current GA3 accounts and in the GA4 Set Up Assistant, click into it, scroll down and turn off the offer of transition. 31:14 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Have You Seen The Light? For our glance back to our past this episode, we discuss the University Of Adelaide's 2016 campaign, Seek Light. David Olney has particular insights because he was a lecturer at the university then. As a side note, our editor, Tim, was a student at the university then and features in the ad and its thumbnail cover image on YouTube. The question is, did this mysterious and supposedly uplifting/inspirational campaign lead to more enrolments? As far as David recalls, the answer was no. And the reason: students were contemplating large HECS debts. They needed more than vague allusions about seeking knowledge (something applicable to all universities) to let it sway their decisions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
38 minBelonging To The Brand2023-06-04
Would you join a community build around your brand? If you're anything like Groucho Marx, you'd refuse to join any club that would have you as a member, which is why this episode might make some uncomfortable and challenging listening, re Belonging To The Brand. This book by Mark Schaefer, offers community as a new frontier for marketing to explore, but it's a high stakes option where people will be able to smell bad motivation from miles away. Later in the episode, we tackle community in different ways, reacting to an article that labelled The Banana Splits as the best TV show of all time. Yep, it certainly has a passionate tribe of fans, which is one flavour of community. Plus we reflect on reading and how to embed it into our lives better, while sharpening our alertness regarding a different type of scam from any we've mentioned before. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:57 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. For The Love Of Reading We talk a lot about reading on this podcast, so we thought it would be fitting to talk about reading habits. As business owners or leaders, being exposed to fresh and structured thinking can shine a new light into the shadows of current operations. New insights might affirm what we've been doing or cause us to take stock and decide to change direction. This opening conversation was inspired by one held on the podcast, Econtalk, and, in particular, the episode from April 2022 in which host, Russ Roberts, had a sprawling conversation with Tyler Cowen of George Mason University, who Russ describes as an intellectual omnivore. 08:39 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Belonging To The Brand In his book, Belonging To The Brand, Mark Schaefer asks, can a business have a community or serve one? David and Steve discuss this "radical" idea and try to ground it in the practicalities of small businesses or organisations. Can we create communities that don't get dismissed by cynical consumers or citizens? 20:23 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Registration Scammers On the day of recording, Steve received two scammy registration letters, one from Registry Australia and the other from Online Business Registration, both trying to lure him into their worlds to renew registrations with them. While they stick to the letter of the law and have wording on the letters saying they are not official and they are not invoices, the whole thrust of these letters is to get a busy business person to assume they are routine and official, and just pay them, thus, making the business person their customer and from that time forward paying higher fees for their registrations. It is yet another reason to be vigilant when receiving unsolicited communitation, whether that is email or paper-based. 22:39 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Best TV Show Ever Steve stumbled upon an article recently that named The Banana Splits as the best kids TV show ever. That's a big claim. So, for our Perspicacity segment, David and Steve decided to reflect on the way we label things like TV shows as "best ever" and whether this can ever be subjective. And they also ponder how timeless some cultural programs might be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
32 minWhat Sunglasses Would Heroes Wear?2023-06-04
We do tend to think of heroes as solo champions who save the world. But no hero (or business leader) is an island. Even the iconic hero, Superman, relied on Lois and Jimmy to get him out of tight scrapes when the likes of Lex Luther weakened our superhero with Kryptonite. In this episode, we reflect on what historical stories about heroes and leaders on the battlefield can realistically teach us about how to lead, relate to, and appreciate the people around us. Plus, we urge you to celebrate your quirks! Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:26 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Celebrate Your Quirks Stanley Kubrick was auditioning for the air steward for 2001 Space Odyssey, and the woman who got the part had arrived at the audition having just come from a dentist appointment. She was disoriented by the drugs and couldn’t walk properly. As history reveals, Kubrick loved her tentative walking; it evoked images of moving in weightlessness. She got the part. The moral of the story is even if you're not you're 100% ready, do it anyway. This is especially so when pitching for business because you never know if there’s something about your quirk or your flaw that is exactly what the other party is looking for. 07:31 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Belonging To The Brand David is halfway through listening to Christian Cameron’s series, The Long War, which is centred around the exploits of Arimnestos of Plataea during the protracted conflict between the ancient Greeks and Persians. The first three novels in the series already inspired him to think about leadership in a more integrated way than he had considered until now, as well as motivating him to comprehensively situate leadership within the broader contexts of the rule of law and what makes a good life. "Over my years of lecturing and consulting, I have listened to more books about leadership, virtue ethics, and what makes a good life than I can remember. Even though I can remember quite a bit, and can tell you something useful about every book in my nineteen page recommended reading list, a lot of the pieces don’t fit together in a cohesive and immediately relatable way. After reading three of the six books in The Long War series, I recommend that you should listen to/read Christian Cameron’s novels next time you want to reflect on, and learn something new about, leadership." Arimnestos is a complex, sometimes noble, and regularly flawed character, making his way through a brutal and beautiful world, which is simultaneously familiar and alien. He very quickly becomes a dangerous man on the battlefield (a “killer” in the parlance of the series), and learns that a hero can change the course of a battle, but cannot win it on their own. This lesson is reinforced when Arimnestos becomes a leader in war. Leaders/heroes can do things that their followers can’t, but without disciplined, well trained followers to fill the space they cut, and to walk the path they forge, heroic actions frequently only result in tragic stories of what might have been. 15:55 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Helping Donna Steve is working with a lovely woman who is creating a social enterprise, so he's particularly conscious of helping her save money wherever possible. During troublesheeting a premium plugin that is a key part of her new site, the tech support people needed some specifications from her webhosting. Not rocket science level information, just information that would take a little time and chatting with the webhost to access. Steve was able to arm Donna with the exact wording she needed to ask and she was able to get this information herself, and in the process she stretched her budget just that little bit further. Depending on your interests and time and budget, it's always worth checking with contractors about any aspects of the "grunt work" they're doing for you could be done in house. It is a balancing act because there's no enduring value in learning how to do something you'll only do once, but in some situations it might just be a smart way to stretch your budget further and even move things forward a little quicker. 17:54 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Le Specs, Le Tough Ever broken an expensive pair of sunglasses? Steve has. Too often. He made a decision years ago to stop wasting money and stick to good but practical glasses. He's gone back to taking a chance with more premium sunglasses again, thanks to needing prescriptions, but there was a time in the 80s where a pair of Le Specs actually lived up to their promise and withstood his punishment. David and Steve discuss the Le Specs, Le Tough campaign and ask, would it work today. We think it would. Listen to the interview to find out why.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
23 minThe Founder's Dilemma2023-06-04
If you're a founder (or you work for one), you will find this episode helpful if you've had to navigate that point in a business at which a founder's personal abilities and capacities are overrun by the demands of growth in the business. It is at this point that founders need to make some profound adjustments to avoid their business imploding. This crossroads is typically met when an enterprise reaches the 5-15 employee mark. In other topics this episode, we cover the TikTok security threat, the Guardian's iconic Three Little Pigs campaign, and the way that you think you're watching YouTube but in fact it's YouTube that's watching you. 02:27 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. YouTube Is A Case Of The Tail Wagging The Dog As a business owner or leader in the modern age, you are probably busy producing content, juggling work demands, and being exposed to content in your daily life (or you fret that you are not doing as much creation as you'd like to) but for the Person segment, Steve took a moment to reflect on how our content consumption is being curated and governed by others. Through an interview with successful science-educating YouTuber, Derek Muller, from Veritasium, on The Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast, episode 923, we are reminded how much we need to be vigilant. As Derek explains in the interview, he has been producing videos (including viral videos) on YouTube for a long time (more than 10 years) and maintining success means modifying production to please the website's algorithims. To ignore the changing formula that determines whose videos get exposed to new audiences, is to relegate yourself to becoming irrelevant. For example, in the early days, YouTube favoured producers who built their list of subscribers. Back then, if you accrued a large number of subscribers, they would then be exposed to your new content and, by default, this signalled the value of the content to YouTube so its algorithm would then share your work with "strangers". But in recent years, they've changed to different measures of what is popular, front-loading the importance of how many people view the opening seconds, resulting in producers now having to handcraft thumbnail still images with catchy titles and opening sequences that "jazz up" the content to snare a share of the ever diminishing moments of attention of YouTube viewers who increasingly consume contenty by scrolling the site while on mobile devices. Derek explains this means meatier topics are sadly overlooked in favour of shallower ones. We all lose from this. But YouTube wins. It's sobering stuff, and Steve argues we need to take back as much control as possible when using services like YouTube. By disabling autoplay and by using your own search terms to hone in on topics of importance to you, you will stay in the driver's seat as much as possible and avoid being sucked into a vortex of titillation. As an aside, Steve also referenced a Sam Harris interview in which his chat with AI experts, Stuart Russel and Gary Marcus, referenced research revealling that those of us who binge watch TV are UNHAPPIER than people who watch a little. Apparently, it boils down to opportunity costs. We later resent the time we have wasted. The main takeaway is to take time to curate your viewing yourself, save things for later, and stay in control. The same goes with streaming services. If we go in with a shortlist of content was want to consume, we'll be less likely of falling victim to the infinite scroll. 10:48 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. The Founder's Dilemma During his years of working as a consultant, David Olney discusses the gap he has discerned between leaders’ visions of what their teams should be doing and their teams’ understanding of and ability to do what they do. He explains that when leaders have a particular take on how to translate top level strategy into something that their teams can do every day, it often ends up being at odds with what their teams have been historically habituated to do. As a result, teams often lose their motivation and impetus for action, lose faith in their leadership, and move on to other teams and organisations. While David first noticed this in large organisations, he has increasingly seen it in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which is why he has dubbed it The Founder’s Dilemma. For the sake of brevity, as you'll hear in the discussion, David notes that founders either hold on to control and information very tightly, blunting their people’s ability to grow and contribute to the enterprise, putting future growth at risk; or they surrender a bit of control and share some information, empower their people to contribute, and the enterprise can grow because of a shared vision, responsibility, and trust. You'll hear the full discussion in the episode and can also read David's article here: The Founder’s Dilemma: Building your business without blunting your people. 23:34 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Leaving TikTok Steve raised the issue of privacy in the digital age arising from a chat with his eldest daughter, AJ. AJ had watched a TikTok video explaining how much monitoring the app does of its users, prompting her to delete it. Steve then explained that almost every app on her phone is tracking and selling information about her, even our beloved weather app. This happens when you let the app track your location to serve you with local weather. She didn't realise that her location was then being sold to local councils and other enterprises so they could target her with advertising, etc. As he explains in the segment, they then went through and made judicious decisions about which apps were to be deleted, which would stay with mobile/location data turned off (except when in use), and which ones provided enough value to live with the privacy trade off. 36:33 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. Three Little Pigs - The Guardian In 2012, an ad for the Guardian's open journalism won a Cannes Lion Award. The "Three Little Pigs advert" re-imagines how the story of the three little pigs would be covered in the digital era of news gathering. Steve and David discuss this ad in the Perspicacity segment to ponder whether it might work today. Listen to the discussion for the range of items raised but in short they note the naivity of our society back in 2012 where our embracing of the eruption of social media discussion was welcomed as a triumph for humanity. We have since seen just how dark and manipulated this "town square" can be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
36 minThe Road Less Stupid2023-06-04
Why do smart people do dumb things? This is the question posed by author Keith Cunningham and discussed by David and Steve in this episode. One hint might relate to how much time smart people spend each day actually thinking. It's an interesting discussion that might just help give you the edge in life and business. Steve also picks up an unexpected insight from the book, Chokepoint Capitalism. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with disabling thoughts that can rob us of happiness and clear thinking. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:41 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Chokepoint Capitalism While reading Chokepoint Capitalism by scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow (a great book, by the way, that explains how Amazon, Spotify, book publishers, record labels, and streaming services all conspire to exploit artists by keeping us happy) one quote grabbed Steve unexpectedly. Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy. In this discussion, Steve and David discuss the profound truth in this quote, and offer a couple of mitigating strategies. 09:21 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Travelling The Road Less Stupid Smart people do dumb things. So argues, Keith J. Cunningham who labels himself as having been one of those "stupid" people. David explain's Keith's thinking from his book The Road To Less Stupid, in which the author sets out to show us that we don’t need to do clever things to succeed in business: we just need to do less dumb things. Keith argues the vast majority of our poor results are consequences of emotional, overly optimistic, and insufficiently thought out decisions. The solution? We all need to invest more effort to make and utilise thinking time. Here it is summarised on a bumper sticker: Operators react and sweat. Owners think and plan. 18:47 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Domain Name Registrar A plea from Steve. If you do not have direct access to your domain name registrar and your webhosting, stop everything and get it sorted now. While working with some people running a fishing charter business, Steve experienced yet another small business that had no idea about these very very important bits of information. It is a complete and fundamental business risk not to have this rectified ASAP. And if you'd like to know who is recorded as the official registrar of your Australian domain name, visit this service: whois.auda.org.au. Need help? Book a little time with our web people. 21:56 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past. The 5AD Superchart Something different for this segment is a walk down memory lane to the once great 5AD Top Forty charts. Steve recalls these charts kept the radio station top of mind. It gave a focus to our understanding of and access to popular entertainment for many decades. Former 5AD legend, Greg Clark, recently shared a video from the popular music show he used to present, Music Express, when they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the chart. But would charts like that work today? Do we need them? Steve and David discuss this in the podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
33 minThe Lost Art Of Delayed Gratification2023-06-04
How do you get through to your customers and potential customers in this era when pleasure is not only expected but still leaves them jaded? It's hard to be novel and the star of the show these days, for any more than Andy Warhol's famed "15 minutes" because all of us are saturated with pleasure triggers. Professor Anna Lembke pulls the curtains back from this phenomena in her book, Dopamine Nation. It makes for some sobering reading. Why did we have that drink, take that pill, ogle over titillating stories at the bottom of that online news story, spend hours trawling Netflix for something to bingewatch, or even pick up our phones to find ourselves reading this? We are seeking pleasure in the form of distraction. If you can stay with us, you will be rewarded by some intriguing insights for yourself and your business. It should only take as long as it takes for the head to settle on a freshly poured pint of Guinness. Oh, that's the subject of our Perspicacity segment! But we start by punting a footy around a country paddock, as Steve shares his unexpected and surprisingly effective method for switching off during down time. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:41 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Country Sport Shortcut On a recent holiday, Steve stumbled onto a "hack" that helped him get into relaxation mode, fast. Like most founders, he's pretty ordinary when it comes to switching off, but an overheard conversation in a bottle shop changed that. On Friday evening in Middleton, Steve popped into the local hotel to get some whisky and wine (a nice segue into the next segment about being addicted to pleasure), when he overheard a couple of local lads talking about tomorrow's footy game against Mount Compass. The next day, Steve and his family grabbled lunch in Mount Compass and then paid their $7 a head adult entry fee to access the local sports ground where his wife watched the local netball with one daughter, while he watched the local football with the other one. Just 20 minutes into this process, having already having the first of many strangers come and sit next to him and start light conversation, Steve realised he'd cracked the code for finding the "off" switch for work and the "on" switch for social connection and relaxation: an afternoon immersed in country sport. It might not have been as relaxing for the locals but because Steve had no skin in the game regarding team loyalties, he was able to just enjoy the atmosphere of humans engaged in good-spirited competition. If you try this on your next stay in a regional area, let him know what you discover. 06:40 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Dopamine Nation Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, helps us understand why instant gratification has become the norm. According to Lembke’s argument, we live in a world of easy pleasure (fast food, instant entertainment, gaming, and pornography, just to mention a few) in which the addictive potential and pursuit of pleasure is ubiquitous. Consequently, instant gratification characterises our age, and has some dark consequences: the more pleasure we experience, the more pleasure we want; the more pleasure we have experienced, the more pleasure it takes to get the same buzz; and the more pleasure we have experienced, the more any moment of suffering begins to feel like extreme pain, which can only be countered by even more pleasure. Under these conditions, it is becoming progressively more difficult for people to concentrate on boring/neutral activities for any length of time, and people are becoming even less willing to do uncomfortable things. Unsurprisingly, people who have learned delayed gratification, who can manage their pursuit of instant pleasure, have a real advantage in most aspects of life. The only significant downside of delayed gratification is that people can learn to work so hard, for so long, that they can forget how to experience pleasure (that's a reverse segue back to the opening section about finding peace int local sport). We all know at least one workaholic who no longer remembers how to have a relaxing day with their family and friends, or how to do something just for the sake of immediate pleasure. Our pleasure-pain balance can be messed up by both too much pleasure and too much suffering through hard work. Delayed gratification is especially useful and only sometimes problematic, while instant gratification has become detrimental to our wellbeing. Therefore, we need to reflect on how much pleasure we seek, how much pain minor suffering causes us, and how hard we should work toward our long-term goals. In the conversation between David and Steve, they discuss what this means to us with our marketing hats on. 19:32 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Achieve SEO Gains By Attending To The Small Details I have long had some fun entries on my much-neglected personal site, stevedavis.com.au, including some fictional About Me pages. They have been designed to "cash in" on and experiment with the Google value of my namesakes like famous cricket umpire, Steve Davis, famous jazzman, English footballer, and, of course, the snooker player. Two weeks ago, I gave those pages a quick nip and a tuck, in which I double checked wording on the pages, ALT text on the images, and meta description information. Despite having been published like that for more than 10 years, that "SEO spring clean" resulted in me getting around a dozen email enquiries for Steve Davis the snooker champion, having never had one ever before. So, when inspiration isn't quite there, go through and spruce up the pages you have; you might be pleasantly surprised (as many businesses were early in Covid when they did just this and saw great results) 23:31 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past. Waiting For Guinness We reflect on an old ad for Guinness, this episode, because it amplifies the high degree of delayed gratification one needs while waiting for the head to settle on this black brew. Could such an obscure ad as the Guinness Horses ad work today? Listen to the chat.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
31 minNew Better Best2023-06-04
Continuing on from our discussion in episode 6, The lost art of delayed gratification, this time, David and Steve ponder the challenges we all face when the marketplace is full of businesses and media working overtime to be "novel". Despite needed to do some ethical gymnastics, they stumble upon a marketing mix that might help you have your cake and eat it too, without selling your soul (or your business). You might recall how much Steve fell in love with the classic Russian novel, Anna Karinina, over summer. Well, this time he's fallen for a contemporary novel writting in the sweeping but observational style of Russian literature, A Gentleman In Moscow. His insight for all of us, related to a particular passage about the twice chiming clock. In the problems section, Steve shares some thoughts on when you should or shouldn't consider paying for support for WordPress themes. And in perspicacity, the Mastercard Priceless ads are in the spotlight, including a particularly naughty one that might not be safe to listen to at work! Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:50 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. A Gentleman In Moscow The novel, A Gentleman In Moscow, by Amor Towles, comes highly recommended by Steve if you have the mindset that allows you to slowly devour a story that is succulent in every detail. The book revolves around the fictional character, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is a Russian aristocrat. When he returns to Russia in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, his death sentence for being a "social parasite" is changed to one of staying within the walls of the Hotel Metropol in central Moscow, for the rest of his life. To take one step outside would mean instant execution. Towards the end of the book, having received guardianship of a little girl, Sofia, he is asked by the child why his heirloom clock only chimes twice a day. His explanation is something of note to all of us engaged in our enterprises, either as business founders or leaders. As you hear in the excerpt, his father wanted the clock to chime at noon as a sign that one's well-earned lunch break is now. The Count's father believed that if you'd been up since sunrise, you should have completed your day's work by noon, especially because the lack of hourly chimes would mean a lack of distraction. Likewise, the only other chime was to happen at midnight and if you heard it, the Count's father would argue you have not gone to bed early enough to maintain this disciplined regimen. For us, the notion of hiding clocks or other signals that draw our attention and make us anxious about deadlines, could well be the key to deeper, longer bouts of concentration and productivity. But what of rewards? The father believed that having worked a full day by noon, one should be able to spend the afternoon in pursuits of interest and curiosity without any guilt. Let us know what you think about this. 09:50 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. I Only Want New Billy Joel sang, in The Entertainer, that he knew where he stood. He knew he was just another serenader, your current champion, but that if he didn't stay in the charts we'd soon forget him and he'd be "put out the back in the discount rack like another can of beans." It's a sobering thought but one that is realistic, especially in the fickle sector of fashion and entertainment. We have noticed the dominant culture in social magazines and sites like Glam Adelaide and CityMag, that headline space only goes to "new and novel" things. Here's a sampling taken at the time of recording: COMING SOON: Owner's of Ovo Gelato are set to open Adelaide's newest authentic pizza restaurant, Padrino ... bringing incredible Italian cuisine and ... NEW: A river-side pizza restaurant and brewery with cheese and beer-making classes on site? We can't wait! Stay in the loop and subscribe to our… NEW PIZZA JOINT in the western suburbs … Westside Pizza Joint Whipping Up Cheeseburger Pizzas Has Landed ... satisfy all your devilish cravings with a cheeseburger pizza only on offer … It must be a disincentive to try to craft something of solid, lasting value, when media buzz and energy is constantly focussed on the latest fad; invest money in a new gin bar that serves drinks in glasses made from cardboard from wine cartons, get a hit of publicity, and then never rate a mention again until you go out of business. It can be a vicious game and soul-destroying if your values are around considerate consumption and enduring value. That said, while building up a loyal audience through quality and word of mouth is a solid gameplan, occasional flirts with fantasy seem to be wise to introduce you to new people who might then become your loyal tribe. Listen to the podcast to think this approach through further. 19:40 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Paying For Support Is Wise We've been working with Donna on a web project and have needed to use a product for her WordPress site made by Radius Themes. As is common, premium products sometimes come with six months support and just as her allocation of time was up, we had a few more question. The Radius team was brilliant throughout, sending back helpful, custom videos and instructions to sort our issues. It was an easy decision to page $20 to extend support for another six months. Sometimes, in the WordPress environment, it's easy to get stuck in "free" mode and neglect the value that comes from paying for premium services and products. 21:47 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past. Pricelss Unless you consume zero media, it's hard not to be aware of the Mastercard Priceless campaigns. These ads usually show the dollar value of certain items but then, when showing how these items were used to enjoy time together with family or friends, the tagline notes that such times are ultimately priceless. Like this one, from 1997. You might be surprised to hear that both Steve and David were glowing over the enduring value of the messaging in these campaigns. This is because they tap an eternal truth; money can't buy you love but it is needed to buy the supporting things that you need to survive so as to be able to love. In researching this ad, we discovered a strange strand of marketing called subviral marketing, nicely defined in this Guardian article: Subviral marketing is a topsy-turvy trend that's said to be being pioneered by brands including Budweiser, Ford, Levi's and Mastercard. While traditional viral attachments feature short, slapstick video clips stamped with the brand's logo and web address, subviral campaigns are carefully shot to seem like they were produced by an internet prankster. The Mastercard reference relates to a cheeky ad brought to our attention by our editor, Tim. This might not be considered safe for work, so watch with caution. For the record, we are not suggestion you use subviral marketing. The risks outweigh the rewards. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
29 minThe 49 Rules2023-07-21
It's one thing to be good at marketing. In marketing, you choose the areas to fish and select the right bait and plan the finer details of your fishing expedition. However, if you get a bite, can you land your prize? This latter part of the process is called Sales. In this episode, we discuss David Sandler's 49 rules of sales. According to summaries.com, the rules can be divided thus: Rules 1 - 6 are the core concepts of the Sandler System and can be used to transform your selling process. Rules 7 - 33 are the heart and soul of executing your sales process. You have to do what works. Rules 34 - 49 are all about reminding yourself of those principles which are all too easy to forget. David Olney and Steve Davis share their insights into these rules and how to apply them. We also stretch the boundaries of content this episode, with a reflection on some sizzling consumer marketing commentary by comedian, Chris Rock. In fact, the show stretches more than a pair of Lululemon's yoga pants! We traverse a very common problem that can frustrate your website, domain, and online services usage before finishing off with an ice cold, AI-generated Coke. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 02:18 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Selective Outrage A few weeks ago, Steve watched the Chris Rock comedy special, Selective Outrage. At one point, Rock launches a tirade against the sportswear retailer, Lululemon. He ridicules the signs they apparently have in their storefronts saying they do not support racism, sexism, discrimination, or hate. But he then goes on to note that they sell $100 yoga pants, so they must hate somebody: the poor. It was a well-delivered joke and it picks at an uncomfortable topic in the world of marketing. We do believe our businesses should stand for positive, community-building principles but maybe that's better done by living and demonstrating those principles. Placing signs in shop windows or posting catchy, cute value messages in social media, is a hamfisted, short cut for trying to get kudos for being good. Steve also saw a superb Welcome to Country at the Thunderbirds game on the weekend and noted how it was authentic and earnest, contrasting greatly by the increasingly long and convoluted Acknowledgements Of Country appearing at the beginning of some theatre shows. Again, it takes time, effort, and expense to have an elder appear at the event, so some organisations just pile on the "make up" as they confect concern. 13:32 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Sandler Training's 49 Rules The topic of sales training has come up recently in mentoring we've been delivering, and David referenced Sandler Training's 49 Rules. As you'll hear in this discussion, there are some interesting points from the principles encapsulated by David Sandler that can make a positive impact on your business. David Olney is particularly taken by the Power of the Future Yes. Another point of interest is Sandler's transactional analysis. Sandler argues that in any sales process the emotional child of the buyer must be excited (emotional drive overlaps a lot with inbound marketing), the adult within the buyer needs to be able to reason it is good (the rational mind at work at the end of the process), the parent gives permission (emotional and rational together). Meanwhile, Steve uncovered the vivid imagery of Rule Number 2, Don't Spill Your Candy In the Lobby. He plays a snippet from Dave Mattson's interpretation of this rule and Steve thinks it's pertinent. Instead of rushing to "spill our beans", we first need to make sure our prospect actually wants our beans. 27:18 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Check The Spelling Steve had a client battling to register for a paid Zoom account over the weekend. He offered to step in and help but she was keen to keep trying a little longer. Found out this morning that after 48 hours of struggle and wondering why she was not able to log back in to pay for her upgraded account, she has been mistyping her email address. Yes, a simple typo is sometimes to blame. 29:16 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past. Coca-Cola Masterpiece Does Coke add life to AI or vice versa? This is a little on the side of the ledger for “do it because you can rather than because you should”, reminding me of the early 3D movies where an actor sweeping would pause, look at the camera, lift their broom, and gently poke it at the audience “because they could”. What saves this from purely being a simple showcase of using AI in film, is that the playfulness is on brand with the Coke advertising legacy; they’ve simply swapped beach antics, surfing, or novelty extreme sports for a romp through the art world. What is unexpected and unintentional messaging, however, is that the protagonist in this Coke ad is not being physically active. Instead of cartwheeling around the place (and burning off those syrupy calories) he’s just sitting there, passively seeking inspiration from the AI zeitgeist. Hmmm, sounds familiar?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
37 minUnderstanding The Meganet2023-07-21
How much does AI really understand? How much have we made ourselves its slave through our social media usage? And what does this mean for our marketing efforts? In this final episode of the second series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to the endeavour of human craft as well as our proclivity for finding the laziest way possible to do things with AI. David Auerbach is a writer, technologist, and software engineer, whose latest book has shone a light on the way our social media usage has helped the large language models that power Artificial Intelligence to have richer insights into how humans intone and communicate. As we discuss, the current state of technology and social media is a double-edged sword for marketers. Meanwhile, back in the "good ol' days", we catch a glimpse of all the background effort applied by Michelangelo to enable him to be the artist we admire. Yes, it's another case of an overnight success who put in thousands of invisible hours to make it all look so easy. There's something in this for all of us!! And we close out with a tip about getting more views for your YouTube videos and why we don't really need to envy AI robots. Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 01:36 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. What Would Michelangeo Do? In his book, Resilience, Eric Greitens, a Navy SEAL, shares a series of letters he'd written to another Navy SEAL who was hitting rock bottom and struggling to adapt to civilian life. What separates this book from other books written by Alpha males, is that Eric is very well read and has a knack for weaving ancient writers, poets, and philisophers into his letters. The book powers forward and is probably best consumed one letter/chapter at time rather than than being binged because it is dense with observations, suggestions, and lessons. One that piqued Steve's interest was letter 8, where Eric is talking about the importance of honing our habits. One great insight was that the key to success is actually to train at enjoying training because once you enjoy training, the rest is easy. But by way of example, he shares some thoughts from the master artist, Michelangelo, who had detailed notes on things to practice and consider when painting. The end result being that when it was time to paint, the artist was in his flow state. All of us could probably do with extra tweaking around our habits, whether that's the habit of blogging, or reflecting on our enterprises, or making sure we're looking after our health so we CAN keep producing the output we desire. 11:03 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Meganets Is there any way of shaking the dark shadows of our addiction to social media? Is AI something to be scared of? And have we helped make the AI monster smarter? There is a lot we could discuss arising from David B. Auerbach's book, MEGANETS: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Lives and Inner Realities. Steve decides to centre our discussion around three things of relevance to us as marketers: The reason why many marketers and users find social media puzzling (it's because we're all in filter bubbles) Why it's impossible for executives to control the junk and lies in social media sites The shallow depth of AI "understanding" David Auerbach is a writer, technologist, and software engineer. He previously worked as a software engineer at Google and Microsoft for many years before turning to writing. He has written on technology, literature, and philosophy for many publications. One of his opening observations is that people are not constant. When we interact, it is quite chaotic. Within all that content, there is more poisonous content in social media than ever before in human history. This is because in the past, when we were restricted to interacting with people in our locale, there would rarely be a concentration of people who agreed with our excesses. If we had fringe ideas, it would get blunted by others around us who would challenge it. However, social media has meant we can connect with likeminded people no matter where they are in the world. This has the result of making dangerous and fringe voices much louder than they would otherwise had been due to Volume, Velocity, and Virality. For marketers, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if we manange to get "in" with our people, we can surf on a really strong current of ready made customers. However, if we upset a certain person or group, they can quickly "pile on" with their fellow travellers; many of whom will comment anonymously. Secondly, David argues that when we complain that Mark Zuckerberg should do more to stop the poison in our networks, we are wasting our time. He cites many internal papers noting how little control they have over the networks. Every minute of the day, Google conducts 5.7 million searches, Discord uses send 668,000 messages, TikTok users watch 167 million videos, Facebook users share 240,000 photos. Algorithms just can't process the resulting chaos with any great accuracy. On top of all of this, us humans actually change the machines. Users search, Google watches what they like and don't like, the algorithm updates itself to change results, website owners change content, and the cycle continues. The same happens everywhere. And the scores given to how offensive certain terms are, need to be updated because often it is not the surface value but the cultural context that makes something offensive. For example, the phrase "I f*cking love you man. Happy birthday" was rated as 93 in 2017 as very vulgar, but that had dropped to 60 in 2021, while "drop dead" only rated as a 40 in 2017 but jumped to 71 in 2021. He explains how AI is not all that effective because it does not UNDERSTAND human language. The language models being used just work on the probability of what word is more likely to go after this word in this context. That's why the third point of interest was his explanation for how AI learns using deep learning. He explained that if we gave AI a pile of pictures of correctly labelled animals and asked them to separate them into separate containers, it would look at what all the dog pictures had in common and all the cat pictures had in common, as well as where the cat and dog pictures differed the most. These similarities and differences are not things humans would understand. It would be certain arrangements of patterns and pixels. It basically is a huge pile of variation about what makes things more cat-like or dog-like, without it being clear as to WHY. But because we have trained it, it becomes accurate. A new unlabelled image comes in, and it is correctly labelled. Eerily, David says our daily activities in social networks is a gift to AI. We are giving it a huge library of human interaction and, because the networks give us icons to click to show like and anger and love, the AI deep learning machines get an extra head start in categorising. In fact, David's forecast is that the mega networks are moving towards dumbing down the flair in human language so that we can feed the machines better. What do we do with this? It's a reminder that we are about to go through a time of vanilla writing and things will get very bland for consumers. Our job will be to find ways to keep bucking trends and staying human. Listen to the full conversation. 33:21 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Video Thumbnails If you've noticed videos on YouTube having catchy images with bold titles, it's done for a reason. Video thumbnails help grab our attention and if you haven't experimented with them yet, now might be the time. An easy way to start is in Canva which has a set of video thumbnail templates. 36:01 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past. A Hard Earned Thirst Unless You're A Robot A fun note to finish on. The Michelob ULTRA - Robots - Super Bowl 2019 Commercial features an AI-driven robot doing everything better than humans, until it comes to enjoying a beer. This ad has a bittersweet ending as the robot is left bewildered while humans enjoy the human experience of having a beer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
41 minHow To Write Copy That Sells2023-08-29
In this first episode of the third series of Talking About Marketing, we turn our attention to the all important task of writing words that "sell". But before we help you gain fame for your sales prowess, we begin with Marcus Aurelius' warning words about fame itself. In our mailbag, Steve is drawn into his broken record-like reminders about how clunky and miselading many Google warning emails can be. Then, for something different, we launch the first of nine Perspicacity segments that will focus on elements of David Sandler's very grounded and effective approach to sales. Get ready to take notes! Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes 02:18 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal. Fame Is Vanity Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He practiced Stoicism and wrote about his own Stoic practice in his journals. Steve opens this episode by reflecting on a passage from Aurelius' book, Meditations, which is a unique document. As the Daily Stoic points out, "it is the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man giving advice to himself on how to make good on the responsibilities and obligations of his positions. Trained in Stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius stopped almost every night to practice a series of spiritual exercises—reminders designed to make him humble, patient, empathetic, generous, and strong in the face of whatever he was dealing with." However, Steve draws out quotes about how fickle fame is, and for us, he uses the insight as a keel to give us balance as we get drawn into the rough and brutal seas of social media. 11:10 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today. Ray Edwards On Writing Copy That Sells Ray Edwards is a copywriter and communications strategist who's worked for some of the most powerful voices in leadership and business. Some of his clients include New York Times best-selling authors Tony Robbins (author of Awaken the Giant Within and Money: Master the Game, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (co-authors of Chicken Soup For the Soul), Jeff Walker (author of Launch), and many more. David leads a discussion about Edwards' short and functional book, How To Write Copy That Sells. 20:12 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners. Google Analytics Has Stopped Gathering Data Google continues as one of the companies that writes the most alarming and obscure error messages. The latest is one announcing errors with Google Analytics, now that it has stopped version 3 of the product and is only gathering website data through version 4. If you get one of these messages and have already configured Google Analytics 4, it is safe to ignore. Often, the error messages are come from old Google Analytics 3 set ups which are being held for historical data, given that GA4 cannot import old data. If in doubt, check with your trusted web/analytics person. 24:26 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past. Introduction To The Sandler Selling System Each Perspicacity segment this series, will focus on one part of the Sandler Selling System. David Sandler created this approach to sales after teaming up with a clinical psychologist so he could develop an approach to sales that would break the traditional stereotypes of salespeople. The Sandler Selling System focusses on mutual respect, clarity, and qualifying decisions. As David and Steve discuss, one of the critical aspects is the understanding of how important your own sense of self-worth is to your success (or otherwise) when it comes to selling.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
39 min
RefreshCRIMINAL MINDED MEDIA
CRIMINAL MINDED MEDIA IS FOCUSED ON CREATING AND DEVELOPING, ORIGINAL “ACCESS-DRIVEN” CONTENT. Our mission is to entertain, enlighten and inform our listeners, with stories that we alone have access to, due to our sources — think ‘Deep Throat’/Watergate scandal. We are a media network that feature stories, voices and opinions that are all to be found in our current slate of productions ranging from True Crime, to Sports, to Politics, and everything else in between, that is important for you to know, feel, and ponder. Let’s face it, we’re making the world a better place…
Documentary·Politics·News·True Crime·Society & Culture
Milking it [Discussions on Dairy]
Join us for an eloquent journey, a quest rather, in search of the most decadent, the most scrumptious theories on milk. This adventure will be be historical. It will be scientifical. But most importantly it will be theoretical. Omukama ('Superior Milkman') Taylor Johnson of The International Society of Theoretical Milk Drinkers, International: Society hosts with guest stars such as ChatGPT, his goat Estabon, and grocers across the globe!
Nutrition·Society & Culture·Health & Fitness·Philosophy
Orchestral Theatre
This podcast features a series of conversations with people who bridge orchestral performance and theatre by reimagining how concerts are programmed and presented, how musicians perform, where performance can occur, and the role of the audience in the co-creation of the live event. This podcast is part of a research project funded by the British Academy. For more information, please visit the project blog: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/orchestraltheatre Photo credit: Matt Belcher (Southbank Sinfonia)
Performing Arts·Arts
Organic Vision Podcast
Providing motivation to those with a vision that they want to bring to reality. Follow me on IG and TicTok for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/ty.orgvsn/ | https://www.tiktok.com/@ty.orgvsn?lang=en | www.orgvsn.com
Self-Improvement·Education
pontjókor! - Fehér Mariannal
Fehér Mariann műsora két részből áll. az egyik a #napembere , amelyben hétről-hétre bemutat valakit, aki tényleg valaki. a másik pedig az #életünkdolgai , vagyis egy téma, amelynek tényleg van értelme.
Music·Society & Culture·Mental Health·Music Interviews·Health & Fitness
Business in the Burg
The business podcast aimed at shining a spotlight on the best businesses in the Frederciskburg, Virginia Area.
Education·Business·Marketing·Entrepreneurship
Chats With Cass | The O'Donnell Homestead
Here, we slow down. Here, we sit and chat about urban homesteading, homemaking, and slow living. We have the conversations that are difficult. We talk about life, we talk about our character, we talk about the people we hope and strive to be. We tell stories and listen with eager ears. Here, we turn back the clock a bit. Like sitting in front of the fire with your dearest loved ones. Taking the time to sip our coffee slow, and tuck into a conversation without the rush and propensity to move onto the next thing-fast and ferocious without any regard what we might be missing in the meantime. Let's learn to talk to one another again, and find the beauty in magic in conversation and storytelling. Let's Chat. Slainte!
Leisure·Home & Garden·Relationships·Society & Culture
DAT Fitness Business Podcast
Need help with your fitness business? Join veteran online coaches Dan Smith and Tom Blackman who have been coaching clients for over 20 years between them as they discuss how to grow your fitness business. Both Dan and Tom are mentors to other coaches and they discuss real methods that work in practice for their clients and that have worked in their own businesses.
Health & Fitness·Fitness·Entrepreneurship·Business
Podcasts for the Planet
Podcasts for the Planet is a series featuring high-profile guests and looks at key themes in ecology, ethics, law, finance and more at this unique moment of crisis and change for humanity. Produced by Dona Grace-Campbell, Stop Ecocide Canada.
Society & Culture
What the Heck?
Welcome to the podcast! Join me, Glen, as we dive into the world of mysterious creatures and occurences! Every week, I'll look at something unexplainable, tell a story, and look at reasons that could explain them! Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mystery·Unsolved·Science·Unexplained·History·True Crime
Scan code
Listen anywhere
