Podcast Transcript

[00:00:55] Sean: G’day everyone, and welcome to the ScaleUps Podcast, where we help first-time Founders learn the secrets of scaling so they can fundamentally fulfill the potential of their businesses, make bigger decisions with greater confidence and maximise the value and impact that they can create in the world. And I am very excited. I'm your host, Sean Steele, and today we have Timbo Reid, of the Small Business Big Marketing Podcast. How are you today, Tim?

[00:01:32] Tim: Sean, all the better for being on the ScaleUps Podcast. Thank you.

[00:01:37] Sean: I'm very pleased to hear that. Now, I am actually an avid listener of your show. 

[00:01:40] Tim: You're the one.

[00:01:41] Sean: I'm the one. And I'm pretty ruthless I have to say when it comes to my podcast groups I cull quite regularly, and yours is made at least through six culls so far.

[00:01:52] Tim: Oh, that's interesting because I did a cull yesterday. And what was the criteria for your culling? Mine was simply have I listened to an episode in the last six months?

[00:02:02] Sean: For me, it's actually is, have I learned anything and done anything with it? If I haven't done anything with the learnings then not just delete and find something else. Because there's obviously something that's making me not do it. Maybe it's laziness. Not sure. But I think one of the reasons we first connected is we actually have a relatively similar audience. You know, our audience is typically sort of Founders in the 2 million to 20 mil range. And so, I know you probably got some that are still a little bit earlier about, you know, they're often in service industries, they want to go there business, they're often first time entrepreneurs, so they don't know what they don't know. They often haven't built a business bigger than this before, but also, they naturally come out of practitioners, like the recruiters or their trainers or the developers, or the technical people, the salespeople. 

[00:02:47] Tim: They are not marketers.

[00:02:47] Sean: They're not marketers. Usually, actually, when I think of all the people that I know in this space and in our community, very few of them have come from marketing to founder land, which is interesting.

[00:02:59] Tim: Well, you know, and I sort of jokingly say, they're not marketers, Sean, because they are, and all of us are marketers. Marketing is everything. Everything is marketing, no matter what you're doing. If you've got a business card, then you're in marketing. You know, if you've got a sign out there, you've got some uniform, it's about getting your message out there in front of the right people. So, we're all marketers in some way, shape or form.

[00:03:19] Sean: Absolutely. Yeah, just more that they haven't necessarily had a job as a marketer. And so, they don't think that they understand marketing, even though they've figured. If they're at 2 million already or 15 or 20, they've obviously figured out something about product market fit and getting something to work. They've got revenue coming in and it's going to rot. But there's always more to learn. And they're also often looking for things that they can, you know, the podcasting is often an opportunity to step back and reflect and think about the business and go “Ah, actually that could be way better.” Sometimes it's just one thing or two things I can chat to with my guys tomorrow and see if we can implement something around that. And so, I guess for those who haven't heard the podcast, I mean, you host a top 10 podcast, Small Business Big Marketing. You started that 10 years ago, 12 years? 

[00:04:02] Tim: 13 in June, 2022. 

[00:04:05] Sean: Look out. That makes you an OG, mate. 

[00:04:07] Tim: Yeah, it's pretty much… 

[00:04:07] Sean: I don't want to say veteran. 

[00:04:09] Tim: I think I was the first business podcast in Australia, although then, you know, what is a podcast? You know, it wasn't if there wasn't free audio out on the internet that you could listen to on demand for free in some way, shape or form, but, you know, yeah, so what is a podcast and when did they really start? But yeah, 30 years ago. And there weren't many around that's for sure.

[00:04:32] Sean: I feel like that should be some kind of like OG certificate that you've got up on your own.

[00:04:36] Tim: Mate, I was thinking more of a statue in some prominent, like Macquarie place or something, but, you know, okay, we'll start with a certificate.

[00:04:45] Sean: I love that. You've got over 5 million downloads. You've got a Facebook group with a few thousand business owners in there, which I've been in by the way, and I love the energy I'm in there. It's very cool people, very focused on just applying and learning and sharing and supporting each other, which is great. You got a book called the Boomerang Effect and you're usually in the absence of COVID, I expect, out and about doing speaking gigs and emceeing all over the place. 

[00:05:09] Tim: Yeah, well that, yeah, COVID could have put the cod wash on that, but it's coming back, it's coming back and it was a direct result, you know, like you talk about podcasting or we haven't yet, but I'm sure we will podcasting as a marketing channel. Now for me, it actually isn't podcasting, is my end, it's not a means to an end. But, having said that, it's created some amazing things in my life, and one of them was a speaking career. And that's just a direct line from starting a podcast to finding myself on other people's stages.

[00:05:38] Sean: Love it, mate. And of course, most importantly, after we connected, I discovered that we lived five minutes apart from each other, makes us sunny case locals, which is fun. But, you know, I figured after all of that time and all of that experience, you probably learned a couple of things about marketing that might be useful to share with our audience and get them in a bit excited and inspired, because I know one of your big things is people falling in love with marketing as a hobby. And how do we get them to love it? Because the more they love it, the more they’re likely to do it in the more creative way, they’re likely to get, and probably I imagine, they're less scared of failing, they going to be the most sort of… they'll test, and test, and learn. Is that how you think about the hobby? Like, why is that a focus for you? 

[00:06:17] Tim: I use the word hobby, it just occurred to me once a few years ago when I was reflecting on, you know, I interviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of successful Founders. And one of the criteria is for being a guest on my podcast is that they must be a Founder. They must have an interesting story of growth, what Founder hasn't, and marketing must've played a role in helping them get there. So, all of them love marketing, or at least respect marketing. Love is a big word, but they certainly respect the power of marketing, and I think we can learn a lot from that. And then when I started actually listening to the way they spoke about marketing, not necessarily the marketing they did, but it just sounded like, geez, you're talking about as if it's a hobby. And when something's a hobby, you find time for it, you diarize it, you can't wait to do it next time, you find the resources in terms of money, energy, whatever it requires to do it. And you really look forward to it. And my view on marketing and my view on business is that; look, it's serious, and sometimes it's depressing, but marketing as an important aspect of business, as an important lever of business is actually one of the least depressing things you can do. It's one of the most fun things you can do. So, if I can, through the Small Business Big Marketing podcast, make a mindset shift in my listeners that; Hey, marketing is fun. Let's just agree on that. And now here's some things you can do around the marketing of your business. Then I think it's a win-win and maybe that's one of the reasons why the Small Business Big Marketing podcast has had the success it has over the years besides its longevity.

[00:07:53] Sean: Yeah, I like that. If you think about, where are the places where you get to be a bit creative, to your point, you know, business can be a bit serious and kind of product development and marketing are really those two places where you get to, it's like, okay, like let's get our creative sort of a mindset out. And that is fun. And when you find something that actually works, you’re like; boom, this is great. Let's do some more of it. Let's see if we can improve it.

[00:08:13] Tim: You know, even that in itself, creativity. So, you mentioned marketing is an opportunity to be creative in our business, and I 100% agree in a very literal sense. You know, you're given the opportunity of writing a fun subject line on an email you want to send your list or you are coming up with a theme for your conference, or you're thinking about the creative idea behind a social media post. So, that's pure creative, but I think creativity and business is under-done. And we hear the creative accountant, you know, anyone can be creative and it doesn't necessarily mean in our marketing. It can be in the way we employ people, it can be in the way we develop products or services, which is all, again, marketing is everything. But I think creativity, and I come from an advertising agency background where big brands paid big agencies, big dollars for big ideas and the big part of that is the ideas part. And as business owners, most of us can't afford that luxury of having someone else come up with the campaign. So, we're left to have to write it all, or produce it. And to that end, don't be afraid to be creative, because most people listening to this go; I'm not creative, that's the jeans and t-shirt brigade over there. And I don't agree with that.

[00:09:28] Sean: Yeah. And so, I was going to ask you about your background, because I think people need to understand. What sort of informed your views on marketing? I'm interested if you can maybe just give us a bit of the background, but also what did you take out of that, that you rejected or that you didn't like, or that you saw didn't work that's actually kind of informed the way that you think about marketing?

[00:09:45] Tim: So just to be clear, background is like, how did I get to this point? 

[00:09:49] Sean: How did you get to this point and actually become an expert in marketing, but then what did you learn given you came out of agency.

[00:09:58] Tim: Without boring listeners of my career highlights. I mean, I went from marketing at uni to working at a large agency called Clemenger for 12 years, looking after brands like Mercedes-Benz, Uncle Tobys, Dulux, the Yellow Pages. I remember them. 

[00:10:14] Sean: Hey man, I worked for them. Don't knock the Yellow Pages. 

[00:10:16] Tim: Ah, yeah, gosh, I've been back in the day. What a brand, what a brand and what an irony now, you know, like that anyway. So, 12 years there and then various other jobs, Marketing Manager for Flight Center, went, did some charity work at a crowd called Reach Down in Melbourne, but did always in the marketing space. And if I reference back my 12 years at Clemenger was, there was a lot to learn; good and bad. You know, by the end of that 12 years, I couldn't wait to get out of corporate. So, the bad stuff was meetings for the sake of meetings, meetings to justify your existence, little action or at least tread carefully into taking action. And I just found that insanely boring, because then when I would meet a small business owner, when I was in my corporate life and they'd say, what are you doing? I’d say, I’m in advertising and like, oh geez, you know, I'm really struggling with my marketing or you've got any tips? And of course, I would give them the tips. And then they'd come back to me or ring me and say; “You know, we implemented what you said, it was great. Thank you so much.” And I'm like; “What? You implemented it? You took action just like that? Didn’t you have a meeting?” 

[00:11:30] Sean: I was expecting to be paid just my views. 

[00:11:31] Tim: Yeah. Well, not even that. It's like, didn't you have to have a meeting about that, and like all that? So, I all of a sudden go, wow, these are my people. Because I'm an action taker. I'm considered, but I don't, you know, I consider for a brief amount of time and then I take action. And I used to say that in an embarrassing way, because I thought, well, you’ve got to have strategy and you've got it. And you know, you're probably more on the other side, Sean, where you are, you know, you do more of a planner and I don't think there's a right or wrong, and I've interviewed someone recently on the Small Business Big Marketing podcast, a guy Tom Griffith who owns Emmer and Tom's juices. And he had no plan. As did Lord of the Fries Founder, who I put out this week, she had no plan, slowly step. So, why am I telling you that? Because I think that in corporate can be slow. What I did learn, there was some great disciplines around communication, like the fundamentals, when I say them and I'll share them with you, sound obvious and boring, but not too many small to medium business owners. So, knowing who your ideal client is. We spend a lot of time in big agency land, understanding the ideal client to the point that you'd go and do research groups. You'd go to Vox pops out on the street. You'd stand in supermarket aisles. If you had an FMCG client and watch people buy a product and great, you know, we all should do that. But really understanding them at not just a demographic level or their 20 to 45 year old white collar males with a tertiary degree. That tells us nothing. So, understanding a customer or an ideal client at an emotional level, you know, what problems do they have at your business can solve? What does success look like to them, and what keeps them up at night, how do they feel about the industry in which you operate and the products or brands and services that you sell? Knowing this stuff, then allows you to go and craft marketing messages, copy for your website, copy for ads, keynote scripts, whatever it may be that we'll hit them between the eyes. And we spend a lot of time on that in advertising. So, little disciplines like that were awesome, and I carry them with me to this day. And I say to business owners, you know, look at what big business are doing in your category, but don't necessarily follow it because it's just what they're doing. You know, break the rules, look outside your category and see what's happening else elsewhere.

[00:13:59] Sean: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that comment, and just for your view, I'm far from a planner for the sake of planning. Like all of my stuff is how do we rapidly get a good set of direction, for a small amount of time. And how do we make sure that execution is constantly informing that strategy? We are always stepping back and every 90 days. We're re-evaluating the priorities. We're always looking back at what's happening. And actually, the biggest part of the planning work that I do in the three-year strategy stuff that I tend to do with clients upfront is actually product development. It's actually value proposition stuff. It's actually, exactly your question. Okay. What are your clients currently height about yours sector? People like you, your commercial model, the way it all works. And from those kinds of questions, you end up with a stronger product. And all of those turn into things that you can do to grow your revenue usually faster than your competitors. And you're not spending all your time looking at your competitors, you spending your time, understanding your client and what their problems are and how you can add more value.

[00:14:55] Tim: And we don't do that anywhere near enough. I talked about the example of, if you're an FMCG product, you should go and stand in the supermarket aisle. I learned that from a famous old advertising man, Kevin Luskin. Now, Kevin is at the top of the, he was. Kevin must be 80 now, well and truly retired, as an aside, his son is the drummer for Paul Kelly. Irrelevant. But Kevin was the Doyenne of FMCG marketing, Fast Moving Consumer Goods stuff, products you see in the supermarket. Kevin started a business called Growth Solutions many years ago, and Growth Solutions charged at a very high price for Marketing Directors and CEOs of large FMCG companies to spend time with Kevin to better understand how to sell more product. And these are the heavy hitters. You know, these are the Marketing Director of Mars or Uncle Ben’s or Dulux, big, big brands. The very first thing Kevin would have them do is whack on the jeans and the t-shirt and head down to the local supermarkets and watch people buy their product or watch people buy their competitor's product. Simple staff. I interviewed Jerry Ryan who owns Jayco caravans. Jerry demands that every single one, there's a caravan production line, I have never seen a caravan built, but as you can imagine, there's a production line. And on every single caravan being built, there is a photo of the purchaser, the couple, the grey nomads, the family that have bought that actual van that the mechanics are working on. Awesome. You develop it. There's empathy immediately. You're going to do a better job. You're going to love your job more, you know, I think it's a beautiful thing when you start understanding 

[00:16:34] Sean: 100%. And if you're a Founder bringing a, you know, a marketing manager or something into your organisation, someone to help it out, just give them the first week to call every customer that you've had in the last two years. Like say, you're not doing anything this week, other than calling these customers and finding out what their experience was like, what their problems are now, what else they're working on, what happened before, what happened after? Like get close to it, because from that, you're going to learn a lot and a lot, a lot about what we should be doing strategically. Tim, the word Helpful Marketing is pretty much written everywhere. It comes out of your mouth on a very regular basis. What do you mean by Helpful Marketing? 

[00:17:10] Tim: Well, to be literal, marketing that actually helps your customer or prospect make a more informed purchase decision often in your favour. So, there's two types of marketing, and neither is right or wrong. They just are. There's Push Marketing and there's Pull Marketing. Helpful Marketing lives in the Pull category. And I'll explain that more in a minute, but Push Marketing is advertising, direct marketing, letter box drops, sponsorships by nature, those forms. And we're talking marketing communications here, by the way, the marketing is much broader, but just as a Marketing Communications. You know, by nature, Push Marketing, you have limited time. You've got 30 seconds in a radio ad. You've got a quarter page in the local newspaper. You've got A4 page to drop into someone's letter box. You've got a signage on the sports ground that you're sponsoring. As a result of having limited time or space, you cut to the chase, buy from me, buy soon, end of financial year sale, product price, product price. You know, you don't have much time to do much more. And there's a role for that. It's a good brand awareness generally. Got to have deep pockets with Push Marketing because once the advertising campaign is finished, you've got to find another X dollars to run some more, as long as it's working, that's okay. If you're spending a dollar and getting 10 back, find lots of dollars. But whereas Pull Marketing, is where you pull people towards you because you've been so insanely helpful. And in order to be helpful, an example of a Helpful Marketing would be on your website. This is a very literal example, but I love it. It's great for SEO. It's great for one-on-one marketing. It's great for positioning you as an incredibly helpful business. On your website, on the primary navigation bar, have a learning centre or a knowledge hub. I don't care what you call it, but behind that is every single question that you and your staff have ever been asked by your customers and answer that question in beautifully rich detail. Now, if you're selling chocolate bars, this ain't a great idea, but if you're a real estate agent, or you're a builder or you're an architect or you're a chiropractor or you're an accountant, this is a good idea. So, there is a great case study of river pools in Phoenix, Arizona, which I site in one of my keynotes. And these guys are the largest installer of in-ground pools in North America. And they've embraced Helpful Marketing by having a learning centre/a learning hub on their website. One of the most frequently asked questions when you're having an in-ground pool, wanting to have an in-ground pool installed is, how much does an in-ground pool cost? So, on the river pools website, there's this beautifully long page with videos, links to other pages on the river pools website, because that's how your hold people, great copy, spreadsheets, photos. And it's just an insanely helpful page. Now, as a result of that really useful page, River Pool is ranked number one organically on Google in North America when someone Googles “How much does an in-ground pool cost?” It's also great for one-on-one marketing. When someone rings up and says; Hey, talk to me about price. River Pools will still talk to them on the phone about price, but then they'll send them the link to that page on the website and it’s Wow. And the video on that page is by the owner. So now we're starting to see the owner. Now the business is starting to be humanised. So, that's an example, Sean, of helpful marketing, and really, the many, many ways to be helpful, but it's quite simply understanding the problems that your customers have and going about answering them. Because the funny thing is, in business, we do it all the time. You'll probably get a call from a prospect today, and they'll have a question for you that you've probably asked 50 times before, just continue to answer it. But at the end of that phone call, to be able to say, can I send you a link that goes into even greater detail? You're positioning yourself so well.

[00:21:01] Sean: I think it was on your podcast actually, that I heard, correct me if I'm wrong, but somebody who had built a sort of hangover cures. 

[00:21:08] Tim: Bob Wheeler. Yeah, Recovery Room.

[00:21:12] Sean: And I love that he was talking about the fact that, he's like, well, we've got on our helpful marketing angle. We teach people how to do it themselves, so they don't have to come to us whatsoever. But as a result of being so helpful, people come to us. 

[00:21:25] Tim: Yeah, that's right. And this is the thing, because there'll be many people listening, so that example is a great one. Bob has three clinics in Las Vegas and might've been Austin, Texas. I can't remember where, but you go there and you might be dehydrated, you might be hung over, whatever. And he does intravenous, vitamin-C intravenous, fluids, whatever it is. But he also shows you how you can do it at home. So, it gives away all his knowledge for free, and people go, well, that's dumb, but actually what happens? And this was proven in a case study with Geek Squad out of New York. So, Geek Squad was a business many years ago that would come to your home. They were dressed as geeks. They looked like out of the blues brothers, short white shirt, business shirts, black shoe string tie, black goggle glasses, black slacks, and whoever wears slacks, but you know what I mean.

[00:22:19] Sean: Awesome. 

[00:22:19] Tim: And those guys and girls would come to your home and install your surround sound, or update your software on your computer or fix your technology. And the best marketing, what they would do was on their website, you could go to their website and they tell you how to install your surround sound. They tell you how to update your windows or whatever it may be. And when the owner was interviewed about this and being questioned, why do you give it all away? He said, our best customers are the ones who watch our videos thinking they can do it themselves, then realising it's harder than they think. But with development, we've got their trust because we've been so helpful.

[00:23:00] Sean: That's a 100%. And if you think about it from a customer perspective, you go; well, these guys obviously know what they're doing, and they've got the kind of character that I would like to deal with because I don't feel like it there's going to be some sort of snake oil salesman behind where I'm going to pay them some money and they've got some secrets. It's not about just because you can be told how to do it, there's a lot of things in all of our lives that we can watch a YouTube video on, but it doesn't mean that we're not going to pay for a service. We could probably all learn to do our own accounting but that doesn't mean that we're going to try to replace our accountants because actually that's the last thing we want to be spending our time doing.

[00:23:31] Tim: Yeah. 100%

[00:23:32] Sean: Yeah, I'm with you. You mentioned the keynote before, when I was researching, I saw that you had a, I don't know whether you still do this keynote, but you had a keynote called the 10 Ridiculously Clever Marketing Ideas That Built Amazing Businesses. Do you still do that? 

[00:23:46] Tim: I have two keynotes. Not that one exactly. My most popular keynote is around helpful marketing, which I call That Little Known Marketing Secret, which the secret is helpful marketing. The second keynote that you're referencing is now called Kick-Ass Marketing Ideas from Kick-Ass Entrepreneurs. So basically, I've taken the 690 interviews that I've done on the Small Business, Big Marketing podcasts. And I've just captured some of the really big, clever, not necessarily expensive, but interesting and effective ideas. And it's a keynote that I actually really liked giving because it's quite interactive and a little bit different to the others and it's all based on real case studies.

[00:24:27] Sean: Fantastic. How much am I going to get out of you in this podcast on those, from that keynote, are you able to share some those?

[00:24:34] Tim: I've already shared one which has River Pools.

[00:24:38] Sean: River Pools? Okay, great. That's good, one out of 10. Keep going.

[00:24:41] Tim: Ah, look, again, I know I'm a open book, I'm happy to hopefully someone will listen to this and go to their association and say booked him to come and speak. So, you know, I'm happy to share because that's how it works. If you're asking, are the big ideas that have come from interviewing so many successful Founders. You know, I'll give you two or three more. One of the most popular episodes is with Joshua Nichols, from Platinum Electricians. He owns, an Electrician's Franchise out of New South Wales. He's got, I want to say 80 franchisees. Josh is the lead franchise and Founder. Josh recognised at the start of his business, that Sparkies weren’t highly regarded in regards to their promptness, their cleanliness, they customer service, they're okay doing changing the light bulb type stuff, but they weren't very good at everything else. And so Josh has created and continues to implement a 21-step customer manifesto. It's essentially a customer experience. So, every single one of his Sparkies every single day, when they go into someone's home or work must adhere to the 21-step customer manifesto and it starts off… And you know, Josh, even in the interview, didn't reveal all of them. I think he might've revealed about 11 of the 21 steps, but arrive five minutes early, not 10 minutes late, don't park in the driveway, don't walk across the front lawn to get to the front door, use the paths, take your shoe off, or at least put some kind of booty coverings over your boots, if you see a light bulb that's out in someone's home or office change it, but don't charge them for it. Little things, right? Little things that individually actually aren't that interesting, but over the course of 21-steps, all of a sudden, you're wowing your customers and you're creating a great experience that's going to get talked about. So, that was pretty mind blowing. I really enjoyed.

[00:26:44] Sean: And I've got to say, I mean, that industry, fundamentally still the trade sector is just so right. Like this it's so easy to elevate your business in comparison to your competitors because the standards are unfortunately incredibly low. Like I had this great guy come and do some work at our place. I can't remember what it was, plumber or a roof tiler or something. And at the end of it, I was like, Mate, I'd really love to give you a review. Where do I do that? He's like, oh, I don't really have any of that sort of stuff. And I was like, I'll write anything you want. Like, you know, that was an excellent experience. You're fantastic. You're doing all these great things, but it didn't even have any marketing infrastructure whatsoever. Whereas, my plumber has got an app where, you think about to your point about the timeframes, one of the most annoying things, of course, they were trying to manage these jobs and they taught that that's quite a hard thing to do if you've got, you know, six guys out on the road and you're trying to optimise where they go and all the rest, but his app sends you a notification when he is 30 minutes away. And then when he is 15 minutes away and when he is 5 minutes away, because he is just tracking his car, in contrast to your house. And it just small things like that, you go, wow, such a big level up, but a simple application. 

[00:27:53] Tim: It's such an awesome thing to do as a business owner, go away for a day, take your mentors or your team or people whose opinions you respect and have a bit of a planning day around customer experience and do what Josh did. And the simple exercise is simply, and I look at it as horizontal timeline. The left side is when someone comes into contact with your business for the very first time, it could be a podcast interview. It could be a business card. It could be uniform, signage, and ad. And then all the way along that timeline to the very other end, the right-hand side is post-purchase after someone's actually bought from you. Because there's still opportunities to wow them. All along that timeline are moments of truth or touch points where someone continues to come into contact with your business. So, it could be your voicemail message on your phone. It could be your website. Again, it could all these different things. Someone comes into your office and is greeted by the receptionist. And the exercise is, for each of those touch points, how can we make it so that our customers go, wow, that was a fun phone message. I was greeted beautifully by your receptionist. There was an awesome invoice you sent me, you know, there are always opportunities to wow your customers and the guru, the genius behind this concept, it was the light Tony Shay who passed away a few years ago. He started Zappos, which was the biggest online shoe retailer out of Las Vegas. And he wrote a book called Delivering Happiness. And it's an awesome book. And again, not many businesses do this and it's such a, everyone's trying to find a point of difference in a world of parody. And this is one, you know, and it's fun. And you do this kind of stuff and marketing will become a hobby.

[00:29:46] Sean: I think there's also some ancillary benefits that people don't think about when they're, because it's very customer focused doing this sort of customer journey work and to going, okay, how do we make all these touch points? Where are the places to make it as a six-star experience? And to your point, it can really wow the customers. One of the other things that happens when you do this really well, which I learned in a case study, it was with Harvard education program and they did a case study and it was fascinating. There's like 50 entrepreneurs around the world. But then the guy who ran this jewellery business, who the case study was about, then that sort of posed some questions in the case study. And so, everyone's got their views on what happened in this case study. Then the guy who actually runs the business at the end, he comes in and he goes, well, this is what actually happened in my business. And what was fascinating, he built this, it was jewellery store experience and it was wedding rings, but they just went so far and be honest, they’d do this incredible depth of interview with both partners and to be able to create the right ring. And then they would essentially take all these elements from their past, the important moments, places they'd been. And they would actually craft this whole illustrated sketch like a storybook and so on. And then they would integrate some of those elements into the ring. And then when they did the reveal, it was like this huge ordeal, this whole reveal, like it was massively built up and music and perfect environment, all this stuff.

[00:31:04] Tim: And you could argue that he's got a headstock because he's dealing in a deeply emotional area of wedding and engagement rings, and that type of stuff. But you mentioned jewellers, Carl Schwartz owns Zen ox or Zenex or something diamonds down in Brisbane. I interviewed him years ago. I think he did similar. He's probably seen that case study, he's a marketing monster, this bloke, and would have probably implemented that, but he's got simple stuff. Like he knows that when couples come in to the jewellery store, the bloke is like, A) he knows he's about to spend a whole lot of dough and B) He knows he's got no idea about jewellery. And so, he's sort of like a shag on a rock. Carl has, and I can't remember what he calls it, but I'll call it "the soon to be husband seat” or the partner seat or something like that. And he just says, come over here, mate, come and sit down. Can I get you a beer while your lovely lady has a look around? It's so bleedingly obvious because actually it is a problem. I don't know about you, but I don't really enjoy going into jewellery stores. I feel like completely out of my comfort zone, but I'm made to feel comfortable.

[00:32:12] Sean: The thing that's interesting about those approaches is one of the comments in this experience that I really walked away with was, in services based businesses where so much of it into your 21. manifesto, it’s that individual rocking up and actually following those steps that makes a difference. You said in the absence of actually building this as a process and designing these wow factors in there, having to expect to get five stars all the time or better, you're actually expecting to be at their best every single day. Like every one of your team members has to be absolutely nailing it for your business to succeed. He goes, if you build this in the right way, you can make your people feel like heroes with their customers on their worst day. So actually, if you can be great on their worst day, when they come with their best day, goes up another level, but actually that's part of the purpose. It's actually for your team as much as the customers, because that's what motivates your team. It makes them want to come to work and give more, which I think is really sometimes missed when we think about that.

[00:33:11] Tim: A 100%. Let me share a couple of other ideas that have come my way. Tom Dickson from Will it Blend. Now, this guy was a YouTube sensation about 10 years ago. He has a company called Blendtec in the States and they make blenders for the likes of Boost Juice and McDonald's and all those guys. They're good blenders, but he also has a range for the home and it's called Blendtec and it's a boring blenders company, right? He went from a boring blenders company to YouTube, literally one of the original YouTube viral sensations through extreme product demonstrations. One day he said to his marketing manager; “Do you know what? Our blenders will blend anything. They would blend this iPhone.” And the marketing manager said; “Tom, you're fool, but let's try and put your money where your mouth is and let's try.” So, they went and set up a little stage in there in their office, Tom dawns of white lab coat and some safety goggles and looks like a laboratory professor. And he stands there and holds this iPhone. And he says; "Here is the newest iPhone. The question is. Will it blend” And then for the next three minute, he blends this frigging iPhone. Of course blends and he pours it out and he goes; “Careful, iPhone dust, don't breathe it in.” And then he blends hockey pucks. He blends PlayStations. He blends car door handles. He blends golf balls and glow sticks. And it's just wonderful series. And you go, you know, some business owners would look at that and go, that's so trivial, business is so serious, but hey, this has sold millions and millions and millions of dollars in blenders to put his blenders on the map, he's a YouTube sensation. He's built a personal brand off the back of it, probably making a fair coin from actually advertising on YouTube because his videos have 20, 30, 50, 60 million views. In fact, I take that back, hundreds of millions of views. And the marketing idea there be putting aside the stupidity is extreme product demonstration. If you really believe in your product, then prove it. 

[00:35:17] Sean: Yeah. 

[00:35:17] Tim: And again, we don't see that enough. Another one, what other one would I share? I really like the, I'm sort of pulling out strange ones because I think again, we don't see enough strange or interesting marketing initiatives. Patty Lund was a dentist who hit pretty hard times. He got deeply, deeply, deeply depressed. He hated his business. He hated everything about life. And as we know that dentists have the second highest suicide rate amongst professional services behind vets. And so it's pretty in pretty hard times. And before I tell this story, if any business owners listening, Sean, that is doing it hard and they're out there. Let's not kid ourselves. We've all been there. Please ring lifeline, or please find someone and please talk to someone because it doesn't have to be that way, you know? Patty hit rock bottom. He found the energy inside himself to ask himself, why am I so unhappy? And what would make me happy? And he did a really deep introspection and he talks about this in the interview that I did with him. He really sat and sat with himself and asked those questions in a really honest way. And he came up with the answers and he turned his business completely around and his life completely around by doing things like sacking 75% of his patients who he didn't like to work with, the 25% remaining he gave two private invitation cards. They were essentially business cards and said, if you know people like yourself, please give them this card, I'd love them to be a patient of my dental clinic. He got a private number. He took down his signage. He locked the door. You had to ring a bell to get in. You couldn't just walk in. He started baking cinnamon bands. He called them dental bands to hide the smell of Novocaine. He gave the patients a panic button if they were in any way feeling uncomfortable, he'd just stand back. Once the button was hit, he'd stand back. And all of a sudden he found himself working three days a week. I heard he started at 2:30 most days. Thank you very much. That was a dentist joke, Sean. And he was making more money than his colleagues because all of a sudden, he'd created scarcity and he'd created a business that he and his staff loved. So, I think the learning there, and if you want it to apply that thinking in your own business is to, and I learned this from the original podcast that I’ve ever listened to called Killer Innovations, and a guy called Phil McKenny, he's the VP, the Vice President of Innovation of Hewlett Packard. And this whole killer innovations process was simply around identifying… one of the ways of using Killer Innovations was identifying all the conventions of the industry in which you operate. So, for a dentist, you know, it's an open door, it's not a private number. You have signage, you don't cook stuff. And these are all the conventions. And then the question was, what if you flipped each of those conventions 180 degrees, what does that look like? And then if it looked kind of interesting or at least half compelling, then go and implement it. And again, it's just challenging. It's challenging how we do things, because if you do the same old stuff, you get the same old stuff, right?

[00:38:44] Sean: I love that. There's a great image that you'll be able to find online if anyone wants to Google it full of Cirque de Solei, which was a great example of something very similar thinking, that they looked at all the features of typical circuses. So, you think about it, you're in a white tent, there's animals involved. There's always some kind of a hero person, individual, that's just kind of one person with the brand or the famousness. You've got low quality food and wine and beverage type experience. Like there's all of these things that are very common. And what the concept was, if you try to compete on everything that your competitors do, and then do a few things different, you will go broke. And you will have very limited differentiation because you can't do everything that everybody else is doing and only have a little bit left to just out-perform, marginally on one or two things it's not different enough. So, where do you actually choose consciously not to compete whatsoever. They were like, okay, bugger the white tent, we're going to the opera house for court, there's going to be no animals whatsoever and there's going to be no heroes. Everyone is going to get paid the same. Everyone is going to work to same. Like we're going to go, you know, the things that were missing, they looked at the opera and they're like; there's this whole crowd of people that don't come to the circus, but love to go to the opera or love to go to a U2 concert or whatever. How do we take that significant investment in lighting and stage and sound and turn it into performance with dance and then the choreography, and really double down on those things. And the average ticket price for the circus is what, 30 bucks or 20 bucks or something. And they was charging a 150, a 180, 250 and VIP's at 400.

[00:40:32] Tim: Yeah, so same philosophy. My aggressive about four weeks ago on the Small Business, Big Marketing show was Declan Lee who owns Gelato, Messina. And again, you know, a Gelati shop, but if anyone's ever been to a Gelato Messina, it's more like going to a nightclub than it is an ice cream shop.
And he was just basically done exactly the same as Cirque de Solei or any of the other businesses that just challenging the why things get done, because we just fall into the same old trap of what everyone else is doing and it's boring and it's not effective. So anyway, then some examples, Sean, I could keep going, mate. I think you said this interview is only five hours long, so.

[00:41:13] Sean: We're almost there. Well, what about the stuff that people get wrong? I mean, you and I both see Founders who are trying to build their businesses, and you're taking it very much for a marketing perspective, I'm looking a little bit broader from that, typically from the way they're building their business and the strategy and the foundations and all that stuff. What are the things that you see that most trip people up when they're trying to do this stuff, or most seem to kind of keep their business stagnant and spinning the wheels,  what's going wrong? 

[00:41:41] Tim: Oh, wow. Where do you start with that? I don't think there's enough respect for the power of marketing. I think there's a lot of frustration around marketing, so they try something that didn't work. So they go; “Well, I'm not going to do that again.” Or “Marketing is flawed.” Which is ridiculous. I mean, an example of that would be, you know, everyone is doing paper, click advertising. So, like whether it be Google AdWords or Facebook ads or something like that. And you know, that seems relatively, in terms of putting a campaign together, it's pretty easy like that Facebook and Instagram, and they make it easy. They say, here are the fields to complete, write your headline, write your copy, give us a link to where you want to send people. Tell us the image you want to put in the ad. That all seems pretty easy, but actually it's pretty complicated. Getting a headline right. Getting a landing page right. Getting some copy right that's compelling. And so therefore, if people do try Google ad words or Facebook ads, and don't realise the importance of copywriting, the ad campaign is going to fail and they're going to go; “Well, Facebook advertising sucks, and so does marketing.” And it's not true. It's not true. So, I see not enough respect paid to the power of marketing. I don't see it being diarized like, you tripped to the accountant or the solicitor or the real estate agent, you know, to manage your property or your location. So yeah, you know, that's the big one, And that's, I hope that this discussion and maybe people go and have a listen to my podcast and develop that love and respect for marketing and it'll give them some things that they can go and do. It's a bit off topic, Sean, but another thing I see is business owners not looking after themselves. And I find myself as I get older, having a greater concern and interest for the wellbeing of business owners. Because again, why are we in our own business, we could go and work for the man, right. Go and work for the man and probably a decent income and go home each night and not to worry. You're in your business for a reason, your reason was different to my reasons, different to the next person's reason, but it is our business. It's our baby. We're putting our heart and soul, our own money into it, our reputation. And for that to work, you want to be working in a well-being sense; body, mind, spiritually, emotionally. Not easy, but if you are finding yourself in the shitter feeling really average about things, then you need to sort of stop and take some time off and reflect on what's important to you. And I like the idea of, if you're in overwhelm, the 3Ds; Do, Delete or Delegate, so write that massive list of what is going on in your business. Don't judge it. Don't try and categorise it. Just write a long list of all the things that you think you need to be doing and then go through it with three different colours. “Do” is the stuff only you can do, that you love doing and you get it right. “Delegate” is the stuff that you you'd like to do, but you know that someone else can do it because there's a process or a system around it, or there's someone better at it to do it. And then “Delete” get rid of it, because really, you know, you do that every week. You know it's not making an impact, you just doing it. Get rid of it. So, not enough business owners, look at it.

[00:45:11] Sean: I spent a lot of time in that conversation, Tim, because I'm often working with Founders who are thinking about, okay, they might be trying to plan some kind of an exit or succession or something in the next three to five years. One of my first questions is, how are you spending your time at the moment, and what are you good at, and what aren't you good at? Because the ones, if you're trying to accelerate your growth rate, which is quite often why people come and work with me, that's all great, but that's not going to happen if you're doing a whole bunch of things that are sucking the life out of you. And so, if you're not actually playing to your strengths and usually, our strengths are things that we enjoy and that we love, and we're better at. And all the things that you just talked about, that's the space we need you playing in, because if you are in the weeds in areas that you're no good at, you don't enjoy and take energy away from you, you're actually not going to sustain this period. It may get harder. And what'll happen is you'll actually start unconsciously sabotaging the business because you don't want to feel like that anymore. And so, it's incredibly important, I think for Founders to do that reflection.

[00:46:08] Tim: And it's hard because we're so busy and we're working in the business and not on the business or we're not working on ourselves. So, I get it. I suppose that just in answer to your question, Sean, the other thing is what they're getting wrong is, continuing to do marketing that's not producing a result. I encourage business owners to at least carve out 10%, just marketing that scares the pants off them or 20% to marketing that they just haven't tried, but they'd like to get around and allocate a budget to. If it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world, but if it does get a bit of traction or engagement, then; hey, maybe start to integrate that into your major marketing. And again, make it a hobby, play with it, test stuff, but stop doing the same thing over and over and over because it just is easy.

[00:46:56] Sean: Yup. I absolutely love that. And I think that's a great place for us to leave our conversation today. You know, folks, if you've enjoyed that conversation today with Tim, I think, one huge takeaway I take away from that is, takeaways that I take away. There you go. It's a double-take away. Is for this to actually be diarised and for this to be fun, and for you to turn it into something that you look forward to, because it's in that space that you're actually going to feel like, to your point. It's something that, I would just think about. I'm reflecting back on my last job as CEO and prior to that, how often I put marketing as a diary item, you know, like I often had strategy because that was, I guess, more my job than maybe somebody else's, but actually, marketing, which could be talking to my customers, that could be actually thinking about new and creative ways to test and trial things or getting some information about what's actually working from our team or from our customers and what's not, I think that diarisation turning it into a bit of a system, but not so that it's boring, not so that it feels like it's a job that you've got to do. It's actually something that you look forward to.

[00:47:53] Tim: 100%. Well said.

[00:47:55] Sean: Well, mate, thank you so much for all of the value you share today. I'm sure people have got a huge amount out of that. Where would you like to direct them to if I wanted to hear more, get inspired more, where would you send them?

[00:48:04] Tim: I demand Sean, that everyone listening goes to their favourite podcast app and at least subscribe to the Small Business, Big Marketing podcasts, because hopefully they'll find value there, and there's 690 plus episodes sitting there waiting for you to listen to. And if you do need a speaker for an upcoming conference, head over to www.Timreid.com.au, and they can see my speaking services. Thanks buddy for having me on, and well done to you of having a podcast and sharing your love of business and helping others, you know, it can only do good for the world.

[00:48:39] Sean: My pleasure, mate. Yep, we have a great time here. So, folks, if you've enjoyed today, like Tim, please jump onto the ScaleUps Podcast. Great if you can leave us a review, our team absolutely loves that. It's not just me who works on this podcast and everybody gets a huge kick out of it. It helps to get to the hands of more people. You can of course, jump on the website if you'd like to be notified of when new episodes drop, you can find us on the socials, but most importantly, just make sure you're subscribing on the app so that you get pinged when the new ones come out. And so, just to leave you with one thought, the only thing that can absolutely guarantee that you're not going to scale your business is actually giving up. And whether you're trying new things in marketing and some of them aren't working, you got to stay unshakeable in your faith that you're going to get there and you've got to stay flexible in your approach. So, hopefully today you've learned some new things that might be able to help you flex that approach a little more. You've been listening to ScaleUps Podcast. I'm Sean Steele, and I look forward to speaking with you next week. Thanks, so much, Tim.

[00:49:31] Tim: Thanks, Sean.