How to Be Intentionally Curious In Your Marketing With Charlie Whyman, Host of Curiosity Key…

Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory

Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory

About The Guest

Charlie Whyman is a Business Development Strategist, B2B LinkedIn Consultant and Trainer, Speaker and host of The Curiosity Key Podcast. Charlie has experience working across more than 10 different industries and sectors in various commercial leadership roles — as well as having experience as a Rowing and Olympic Weightlifting Coach.

In her teachings, trainings and podcast, she speaks about curiosity, and how it applies to entrepreneurship, sales, marketing & leadership.

Talking Points

• 02:04 — ​​$12.5m sales pipeline.

• 07:23 — Everything needs marketing.

• 11:41 — A born entrepreneur.

• 13:46 — What is intentional curiosity?

• 15:39 — Most businesses don’t have a marketing plan.

• 20:50 — The OTTER framework.

• 26:14 — How to optimize every customer touchpoint.

• 29:42 — Sales vs. marketing.

• 31:06 — Biggest marketing misconception.

• 42:41 — Advice for entrepreneurs.

Show Links

• https://twitter.com/charlie_whyman

• https://charliewhyman.com/

Show Sponsor

HubSpot Podcast Network — https://hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

Canva — https://canva.me/successstory (45 Days Free Pro)

Canva makes design amazingly simple (and fun)! Create stunning designs with your photos and videos — even if you’re not a design expert!

JustWorks — https://justworks.com

Run your business with confidence with Justworks. Get simple software + expert support for payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance.

Quantum Metric — https://quantummetric.com/podoffer (Code:Success)

Quantum Metric automatically quantifies opportunities in your digital applications, helping you prioritize with more speed and confidence.

Postie — https://postie.com/successstory (Free Demo)

Postie is a technology and data company transforming direct mail marketing into a digitally managed channel.

Flatfile — https://flatfile.com

Create an intuitive data onboarding CX in minutes and say goodbye to messy spreadsheets. Help your team spend less time cleaning messy spreadsheet data, and more time using it.

Watch on YouTube

What is the Success Story Podcast?

On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups and entrepreneurship.

The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.

Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas and insights.

He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs and everyone in between.

Website: https://www.scottdclary.com

Podcast: https://www.successstorypodcast.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/scottdclary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottdclary

Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdclary

Facebook: https://facebook.com/scottdclarypage

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/scottdclary

Read The Transcript (Machine Generated)

Charlie 02:04

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on the show. It’s a real honor. To see, Curiosity has just been my mantra throughout my entire life, like I was considered that naughty kid at school, because a lot of my teachers kept saying, like, she needs to stop asking questions. Because I was always really curious to know, like, why are we learning this? What is this gonna enable us to do? And I think it’s just always come across. And I always call myself like, kind of an opportunist. So I can sort of see opportunities in different areas. And if I’ve ever been curious about them, I’ve always asked the question, oh, well, can I get stuck here? And can I do that? Or how would that work if I explored that a bit further? So I, I wasn’t very curious between the age of about 15 and 18. And there was a few things that happened in my, in my sort of earlier years. And I just got kind of got stuck in a rut. And I was funneled into doing an engineering degree, because I was very good at math and physics. I love science. And I think evidence based and I also like taking things apart and building them back together. So I found myself doing this engineering degree. And it just wasn’t fitting together. I did not see myself being a chartered engineer. So I left the degree and I moved to Sardinia, Italy. And that my plan was to essentially help my father renovate a house and then move on and try and figure out the meaning of life or whatever, as you do when you’re like 1920. And hit the house came with like 160 olive trees. So I was really curious. I was like, oh, how do you make olive oil then? What’s the difference between this tree which is for olive oil, and this tree, which is for eating olives, so I started asking all these questions and getting stuck into the science behind producing olive oil. And I started my first business, which was to make olive oil from the trees imported into the UK with other Sardinian produce. And that was really my sort of first real kind of experience in the marketing world, even though I refuse to believe it was marketing, because I used to think all marketing was evil back then. And so that was a lot of fun. And the oil won two awards. It was a really brilliant adventure. But I was always kind of wanting something more, something a bit different. And so I got a job, I worked in sports. Then I worked for health care. And then somebody that was working in the space that I was at, saw something in me and invited me to come and work with her husband’s company, as a marketing assistant. And I don’t know anybody that’s listening to this that knows that if you are the only person in that company responsible for marketing, you’re not just responsible for marketing. You are responsible for everything else that nobody wants to Do and but I was really fortunate and I’ve always worked with people that have let me pursue my curiosity to ask questions to understand how things can be made better. And I was able to do that. So I got to demo products down the world’s deepest goldmine, I was able to host conferences in Platinum mines, I got to launch Minimum Viable products by creating curiosity. Because back then, we weren’t able to talk about the products that we were developing. Because if our competitors that had much bigger sales, marketing budgets than we did, caught wind of what we were doing, they could come up with a competitive product and to market. And then just market was out of the out of the industry. So we had, at that point is kind of one of my favorite pieces of experience, my favorite success story. Because we had this product, we couldn’t tell anybody what it was and what it did. And but we needed to generate enough curiosity so that we could launch it at this event. And we could generate a really solid sales pipeline for it. So that was a really interesting challenge. And LinkedIn was a massive driver for us in creating that curiosity in that campaign. And that resulted a 12 and a half million pound sales pipeline at that one event, plus an email list and lots of other exciting opportunities, too. So that was kind of the springboard. Yeah, just to tee it

Scott 06:30

up. What can you talk like, what was the product? Can you speak about it now? Yeah.

Charlie 06:38

So it was a laser scanning system that you could mount on a vehicle, you could use it as a backpack. And you could also mount it on a drone at UAB or a helicopter. Okay, so it basically saved a significant amount of cost for a lot of the surveying companies that wanted to start adopting laser scanning technology. So it was very disruptive. It was very cost sensitive. And it was very exciting to work on.

Scott 07:05

So that was a very, very successful there. So and what was what was, so let’s talk about that that was sort of your first implementation of any sort of marketing strategy in your entire career, really was for this very highly technical secret project?

Charlie 07:23

Yeah. So I think that was the first moment where I felt like I wasn’t just winging it, or making it up as I went along. I think I’ve done lots of things in the past. And, you know, there were lots of things that were working. But I think at that point, I never realized that what I was doing was marketing. I didn’t have a label for any of the stuff, I had a real aversion to learning as well. So I didn’t read any marketing books. I didn’t follow any of the marketing gurus. And I was just doing stuff because I listened to what the customers were asking. So every time I heard a question pop up at a trade show or conference, I responded with a piece of content, every time somebody wants you to dive into more detail about a particular product, or every time somebody rang up with a customer service, customer service query, we responded with content. So we kind of developed accidental personal brand is not just for myself, but for the other experts working within the company. And none of us really thought of that as marketing. We just thought that was the thing that we were doing, because we were being helpful, and we were trying to be as useful as possible to our clients. And one thing that happened shortly after we launched this disruptive product was that we had the opportunity to sell laser scanning technology to the UK police force. And at that point, this was just a distributor relationship. So we were just reselling a piece of technology. And the market was told they had to buy this technology, but they didn’t want it. So this opened up lots of questions because we went in in the same way that our competitors did, by trying to market to that audience in the same way that we’ve done to the surveying companies. And I remember taking a step back and talking to one of my colleagues thinking this is just not going to work. Our competitors have a much bigger sales and marketing budget than ours. They’ve got so much more clout, they sell products and services that are already entrenched into these police forces. So they have the upper hand. How are we going to do this because there was three and a half million pounds up for grabs. And you know, we were a relatively small company. So we started talking to the police and understanding right, okay, well, why didn’t they want this technology? What was their resistance towards adopting it? And the more we started talking to them more, the more we started to understand how they behaved, what their goals were, and how aligned and misaligned it was with the goals of the overall police force. And this for me is the most exciting Think about b2b marketing is that it’s not just about understanding the goals, the pain points or challenges of the business that you’re trying to teach that you’re trying to reach. It’s about understanding the individual goals, pain points, challenges and values of the people that are not just going to be using the products and services, but also going to be making those decisions too. And finding a strategy that’s going to go in to meet the needs of each different person, and bring it all together. And curiosity for me is, is that key? Because the more intentional you can be with your curiosity, so pre plan your questions, understand, what do you want to get out there? What’s that, that positive end results? And how can you ask questions that leads you to that end result? And we were 93% of that contract? So it it works?

Scott 10:50

Yes. So So yeah, like, you know, practice what you preach like that. That was That was incredible. And now you see, I think you see a shift in a lot of business to business, b2b marketing, that is more focused on curiosity. But also still, there’s a lot of people that curiosity and like you said, not just selling to the company, but selling to the people within the company that actually are going to be using the product or service or whatever. But I think that that’s I’ve only seen a shift towards more conscious marketing efforts and sales efforts recently, like this isn’t this is you, I think you were probably a little bit ahead of your time and being so empathetic towards towards the customer.

Charlie 11:41

So I grew up with both of my parents had local businesses. So my dad had a car garriage and service department petrol station, and my mom had a small children’s wear shop. I’m very good at learning from other people’s mistakes. Because I always want to know why that mistake happened. And I think this is something as well, that comes from my engineering background is that we don’t see mistakes as failure. In fact, we want to fail. That’s the goal, we want to fail fast, so that we can constantly learn and we can constantly keep moving forward. And that’s the only way that we’re going to move forwards. And with my mum’s business, it got broken into loads of times. And it didn’t last a very long time. It definitely wasn’t a success story. But there was definitely learnings that we could take from it. And in my dad’s business as well, there was a lot of learning that I gained from that, because I don’t know if you have it over on your side of the pond. But over in the UK, we have a stereotype for a salesperson, which is generally like that used car salesman. And you know, one of my dad’s employees, we used to call him Trevor two suits. And he was that stereotype, you know, he didn’t care what the customer needed. He just cared about selling the car maintenance budget was my dad was a complete opposite. He hated sales. And all he did was just want to make the customers happy and give them something that they wanted, that made them achieve their goals. And that made them want to come back because they felt safe, they felt trusted. And they felt like somebody understood them. And that was his approach. And I think I’ve always had that. And I just think the more you can understand how your customers behave. And the more you strive to better sell and better serve, that’s going to come out and your marketing. And as long as you have that purpose to make a difference to somebody else to be useful. Again, you can start being more intentional with your curiosity, because you’re trying to understand how to make the lives of your customers better.

Scott 13:46

That’s intentional curiosity. It so describe it to me, but that’s like the what you just said, focusing on always making the lives of your customers better. That’s that’s intentional curiosity.

Charlie 13:56

For me, yes, in a nutshell, because I think my I believe that it’s through business, that we’re going to make a positive impact in the world. And I think that if you have a business, it’s your responsibility to think of more than just yourself and think of more than just making profit. And it’s that sort of, you know, looking at what is the purpose of your company? What difference Are you trying to make in the lives of your customers, the lives of the people that work for you with you? What difference Are you trying to make in the world or even in your industry? And I think it’s that like, this sports analogy. And when I was growing, it was always like, right, okay, how can you make that boat go faster to coined the term like, how can you if you don’t win a race, you look at the next race and you just think, Okay, how can I apply what I did that build on that so that I can win the next race, or at least be better than I was yesterday? And it’s the same in business. It’s like, Okay, cool. Well, I’m doing this marketing, or I’m selling this product. And I’m working with these customers. How can you improve on that all the time. For me, the biggest difference is all in those marginal gains. It’s all in that, you know, the little tweaks that you can make the little things that you can do the little experiences, and a little moments that you can create is going to make people want to keep coming back to you and tell other people about as well.

Scott 15:15

I was looking on doing some research I saw on, I think it was either your website or your podcast, there was a point. Most businesses don’t have a marketing plan. So we’re talking about we’re talking about customer centric marketing, we’re talking about being curious and intentionally curious. Let’s take it a step back. What do you mean by that statement, that nobody that most businesses don’t have a marketing plan.

Charlie 15:39

So just in my experience, most businesses don’t have a marketing plan. And also, I think, when I started my business, I originally set out to help people with events and trade shows, I didn’t want to do it for them. But because I had a lot of experience doing events and trade shows, I saw so many opportunities to help people and businesses be more effective, more purpose driven, and get more from their activity, because it was very much seen as like, oh, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to go to this other event, I hate it. I don’t like speaking to customers, I don’t know if they’re interested or not. We can’t measure the ROI from this event. And you know, all of the above. So I did a piece of research. And the conclusion was that people didn’t want to pay to learn how to do events and trade shows better. They just wanted to pay somebody to take it off the hands and do it. So I was like, Okay, what do I do then. And that’s where I got to the LinkedIn training, because everybody kept asking me about the successes that I had had, and my team had had on LinkedIn. And then that that just kind of snowballed, and it just happened. But what I found was that everybody wanted to know how to leverage LinkedIn to get more leads, more sales, more referrals, but they still didn’t have a marketing plan. And I found that a lot of the training that I was doing focused on, right, okay, let’s have a look at your marketing strategy. And then let’s use LinkedIn as a tool to help you achieve your marketing objectives. And for me, marketing isn’t just lead generation, it’s sales, it’s customer service, it’s referrals. It’s, it’s the whole mix. So I think that you know, if you look at your overall business objectives, so beyond just what do you need to do in order to survive? But also, what do you need to do so that you can thrive and grow? And then think, right, okay, well, what marketing do I need to do to help me achieve those objectives?

Scott 17:32

And I love that. Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but no, no, God, what I was just gonna say, so I’m just so now I’m, for the listeners, I’m sort of laying out this this framework. So like, first of all, we have to understand what marketing is and what marketing isn’t. And of course, when you know, when we’re talking about this, we’re talking about people that are don’t have huge teams don’t have resources, they may not understand, you know, that marketing is, is much more than just going out to LinkedIn and getting some new leads, like it’s a holistic view of how you approach your customer. So now we have we have that definition. That’s it’s a great definition to start from, we lead with curiosity. So that’s, you know, you’re intentionally curious, now, walk me through customer centric marketing, because that would be the I guess, customer centric marketing, across everything you do every interaction every every engagement you have with the customer. That’s sort of the the end goal, correct?

Charlie 18:29

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think if you if you pull it back to the what is the purpose of marketing purpose of marketing is to drive revenue in the business? How are you going to drive revenue is to find new customers to sell to, to sell more to existing customers, but also to develop new products and services so that you can take the first two points. So when you look at the purpose of marketing, look at those different areas, you can be intentional with the curiosity to say, right, okay, so we’ve got this existing customer base, this is always the easiest place to start. How can we sell more to them? What can we do to make their job easier? What can we do to make their business go smoother? What can we do to solve more of their pain points and challenges and leverage the relationships that we’ve got already? Then it’s like, Well, okay, so these are the people that we’re targeting, how can we attract more people into the business? How can we make the lives of more people and more businesses better? And it start asking those questions and kind of like reverse engineering the process? And then when it comes to sort of developing new products and technology, it’s okay, so what are our customers asking us for that we do not have right now. Or what are our customers talking about? that we need to look towards the future to help them with their business and their future as well? So it’s not being curious just because you just want to sit there daydreaming all day thinking what’s the next big thing but it’s think About right, okay, what problem Am I trying to solve? How many different ways can I think of doing that? And then, which is really going to help us achieve those specific objectives that you set within your own business?

Scott 20:12

And what do you see? So this is this is, this is great framework now. So what do you see? Or what do you advise when when companies are doing this? How do they sort of action on on those steps, some sort of like high level tactical takeaways for reaching out onto LinkedIn or to reaching into an existing customer base? Maybe conducting customer interviews? I don’t know, what what are some things that you sort of your, I guess, your framework without, you know, laying it all out? Because obviously, I don’t want to, to speak with you and to pick your brain and to reach out to you, but what do you what do you recommend just to get started?

Charlie 20:50

So so my framework is sort of behind me, which is an author. And, yeah, not just the aquatic animal version is hilarious, because I use a lot of mountain climbing analogies and metaphors. And you don’t see otters at mountains, but they’re very, very, very curious, curious creatures. And so yeah, the first thing is to start with the objectives. So like, you know, if you look at your long term vision of the company, let’s say, for example, you want to launch new products and service, because you’re, you want to launch a new product, because you’re a service based company, and your future vision is to sell the business for a certain amount. And in order to do that, you need to have a physical product, but you’re two, maybe three years away from doing that. You then have a look at right, okay, so t in otter tools, what tools, assets and resources do you need in order to achieve those objectives. And it’s if you want to launch a new product, and you don’t currently have an email list, you want to make sure that when you’re at the point of launching that product, you have an established audience in order to do that. So it’s that kind of, you’re building about foresight into it. But also, if your objective is okay, I just want to go from one to 2 million pounds in revenue, you then have a look at what tools assets and resources you already have. And then you can start asking questions around, right. Okay, what can I leverage further? What can I squeeze more out of? How can I optimize that and make that better? So in the context of, you know, like, a lot of people think tactically when it comes to marketing. So you know, you’ve got a another marketing expert or agency saying you need to do webinars, webinars, and the next big thing, webinars are going to help you achieve your objectives. Rarely do they ever say that or put numbers against it. But it’s like, okay, so you’re going to run a webinar. So you’re going to need a landing page, you’re going to have to get people to that landing page, you need to get people to actually join the webinar, when it starts, you want to get people to stay to the end, there are lots of different touch points, or breadcrumbs, as I like to call them along the way. So if you’ve run webinars in the past, more often than not, you can have a look at those different breadcrumbs. And you can say, right, okay, well, we’ve only got 50% of people that view this landing page actually opt in. So how can we increase that? And Okay, so we’ve only got 30% of people that opt in actually showing up to our webinar. How can we increase that?

Charlie 26:14

And it’s just looking at each of those touch points and thinking right, okay, what can we optimize? What can we leverage? What can we make better? So I always say that everybody, every business is already sitting on a mountain of value. And every business is already doing amazing marketing, whether they realize it or not. And the missing piece is to bring it together into what I call a curious marketing system, which basically just looks at right, okay, how are we generating curiosity in our in our markets. And a lot of marketers call this awareness. I think in today’s day, and age is not enough to just make people aware of you, because so noisy online and in trade shows need to make them curious, you need to make them want to find out more. But that’s not enough, you then need to make them curious and turn that curiosity into action. So how are you going to take care of people and turn them into a lead. And that’s like, you know, development of lead magnets, making sure that you’ve got book a call making sure that you are leaving those breadcrumbs so that your audience knows what step to take next. And then after that, we all know not all leads turn in sales. So you need to sort of branch them out. So right okay, so what happens to the high quality leads that you need to have a sales conversation with or you need to do a demonstration? What are those breadcrumbs that you need to leave so that you can turn those leads into sales? And then on the other branch, it’s okay, so these leads that are curious, but not yet ready to buy? How can we nurture that curiosity, build that excitement and give them reasons to then take that next step and go down the sales route? And then the sales route is like, okay, so from a marketing point of view, how can you make their experience super special? How can you take advantage of each touchpoint each opportunity so that their experience is incredible, they want to tell others about it, they want to keep coming back for more, and they want to turn into referral partners. And think this is well, I love, again, engineering me having a system and a process each different step of this system. You know, because if you assume your best clients are going to give you a testimonial or become a referral partner, you using what I call hope remarketing, which is really difficult to track. And it’s just a bit, you know, your hope is not a good marketing strategy. Whereas if you say, Okay, so I’m going to put a checklist in place so that every client that goes through my system, I asked them, if they know anybody that would benefit from our services, or that would benefit from using our products, you ask them for those LinkedIn recommendations, you ask them for the case studies, you build it into the process. So you’re not wasting any any energy in doing the things that you should be doing anyway. And you’ve got that free energy to be curious and to kind of like heighten your spidey senses to pick up on the things that they’re saying.

Scott 29:13

I love that. Thank you for bringing that down. I appreciate it. And do you think like do you see a shift in in in businesses being forced to market this way? Do you see that more businesses are being curious or do you still see just from your perspective, many people still default to the de facto Tony to suits used car salesmen, outbound sales, you know, kind of kind of strategy?

Charlie 29:42

I think, I think both are always going to be around. I think the old fashioned way of doing sales is never going to go away. But I think companies that adopt that old fashioned approach to sales are going to get left behind and are going to struggle to keep up. I hosted a marketing club call at the curious marketing club. And we were having a discussion about innovation earlier today. And we were talking about tips and strategies about how you can stay on top of the game and always be looking forward and not getting left behind. And a lot of that is just to be curious to be asking, you know, if you work within a team to be asking the team, what do you think? What’s your experience? How can we add more value here to be going to your customer base, asking them, you know, what’s your biggest challenge? You know, where do you see yourself in a few years time? How can we help you get there? And you know, and supporting them on that journey?

Scott 30:47

what’s the what’s the recurring biggest issue that businesses face? Or that you see businesses have when they come in contact you? Because they’re wanting to

Charlie 30:57

say, Yeah, they don’t know where their customers are? Or they don’t know how to how to start conversation with them.

Scott 31:06

Interesting, and and what would you say the biggest, biggest misconception about marketing is that still widely believed?

Charlie 31:15

That you just do marketing, and then it will work and deliver you lots of leads, so you spend the money, and then it will just magically work? And I think the biggest misconception is that it’s it, it’s a one time thing, or you just do it when you need to do it, unless I’m talking more from a small business point of view. So like the SME market where you’re having to be resourceful, rather than how can you embed this in the culture of the company and empower all of the customer facing employees at the bare minimum? to really know what is the mission of the company? What’s the vision? Who are they targeting? And how to engage them in a curious conversation, so that they either want to find out more about how you can help them or tell other people about you.

Scott 32:01

It’s an interesting, I, you’ve brought it evangelism a lot. Yes. But you spoken about it quite a bit. And I and I love I love speaking about evangelism, I think it’s something that nobody really many people don’t take advantage of, of getting their employees to evangelize the company for them, because they don’t know how to unlock that in their employees. So, of course, employees don’t own the company, you can’t expect employees to care as much about the owner. But still, what you’re talking about is at least showing them the vision showing them the finish line, so that they understand where everybody’s headed. So do you have you have tips? Because I think half of this is yes, you spoke about, we have to be innovative in the sales and marketing strategy that we you know, that we use, but also, how do we how do we get everybody to buy in? So what are some tips that you may have for an entrepreneur that feels like there’s a disconnect? Because I’m pretty sure I’m sure there’s more disconnect between entrepreneurs and founders and their and their team, then there are companies that don’t know how to market properly, I’m sure that at least some companies get marketing, but I’m almost positive on virtually no founders that I’ve worked with really get their team day one, unless they’ve worked with somebody to figure it out. Or they’ve been a serial entrepreneur.

Charlie 33:17

Yeah, I think you, you’ve said it in your podcast in the past, which is that, you know, the the key to success is when the CEO, or the MD gets marketing. And I think when they get marketing, they will put the effort into making sure it is embedded in the culture. And so practical tips, because I love this side of things practical tips is just make sure that your your team is aligned with the vision of the mission. So you know, have weekly huddles where you’re reinforcing that message. You’re letting your entire team know where you’re at now, where you going, and what you need to do in order to get there. And this way, you’re inspiring your team. And I’ve seen this firsthand to come to you with ideas and opportunities. And this is how I grew my career by just seeing an opportunity and thinking we could totally get that deal. But let’s figure out a way of doing it. You know, rather than just thinking that’s not my job title, you know, it’s just about thinking outside of the box, and collectively working towards that vision. And the second thing as well is to make sure that the entire team knows how to talk about the company and the products in a very simple way. So that when they’re out at nightclub in an extreme environment, if somebody asked them, What do you do for a job, they don’t need to go into war and peace, but they can succinctly and quickly articulate what the company does. So that the other person, if they’re in a position to will say, oh, tell me more. I’m interested. Or if it comes up in conversation that I am that this person wants really interesting. They did this. I could connect you.

Scott 34:58

Yeah, that’s great. I like that. I like that analogy a lot. That’s very important. Because I think that that’s also, you know, that’s lost on a lot of employees, they, they, they have, they have an idea of what their job does, or they have an idea of at a very tactical level, but how do you just like, What’s that? What’s that, you know, organization wide elevator pitch that everybody gets buys into, and not like not like, you know, when we talk about this, to be very clear, there’s not like, a top down, forcing a vision on a team approach, that’s not, it’s not going to work, it’s just never gonna work, you’re never gonna, you’re never going to force someone to buy into something, they may, they may bullshit you, they may look at you, because they don’t want to lose their job and say, Yeah, I totally get it. Like that makes sense to me. But if if it’s not something that they get that they align with, that they really understand or they buy into, then it’s not it’s not a company vision, it’s your as a founder vision, and that’s useless, in my opinion, because you’re not going to be on every sales call, you’re not going to be the one posting on social media, you’re not going to be the one writing and copy on your website. So just something you know, make sure that it’s it’s actually something that is created from of course, you have a strong, you have a strong understanding of what your business does. But also, I love that open door policy that you know that two way, communication, transparency, feedback, a lot of people say they do it, they don’t do it properly. So if you have if you have your sales reps, your marketing, individuals customer success, whatever it may be, you know, they’re the ones who are on the ground talking to customers, and they come back with real, real takeaways from the conversations they have, it’s probably best to, you know, put the ego aside and, and try and figure out how to include those feedbacks and those learnings into into your core company, because that’s what everybody else is feeling. That’s what everybody else believes. And that’s how you get.

Charlie 36:50

Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it work, and I’ve seen it fail. And I think it’s that, like, people don’t consider the power of internal marketing. But also, it’s that like, I think a lot of companies feel so much pressure to pitch and sell. You know, it’s that age old thing, you know, if you go into a networking room, you ask everybody who’s his cell, everybody puts their hand up, you ask everybody who’s here to buy, and nobody puts their hand up, you know, if you go in trying to sell the thing that you’re talking about, if the person that you’re speaking to whether it’s somebody in a networking environment is somebody on LinkedIn, it’s somebody at a trade show, or if it’s somebody in the coffee shop, whilst you’re waiting to pick up your coffee, if they have no interest or need for what it is that you’re selling, they’re just going to filter out what it is that you’re saying. So you’re wasting your breath by explaining what it is that you do. However, if you can flip it on its head, and you can come up with an elevator pitch or a pitch, that isn’t a pitch. But instead it sparks the curiosity of somebody else, they are far more likely to either ask you to tell them more about that. Because whether they want it or not, they’re interested, therefore, they’re going to remember it more. And then also, if somebody else at another point in their life or their time asks them, Do you know anybody that does x, y, and Zed? They’ll be like, Yes, I think you know, so you can empower your employees to be able to do that. But you can also empower your customers to do that as well. So you you know, you’re creating a like a community or a fan base of, of advocates and people that can do your marketing for you. But you have to know what you want them to say. It has to be simple. And it has to be repeatable.

Scott 38:32

Yeah, I love that. All right. So we’ve gone into curiosity, marketing, we’ve gone we’ve gone in depth, I appreciate I appreciate all the you know, you really, really did break down some really good points. So thank you. So I like to do a little bit of rapid fire just to pull out some life lessons out of your career. But before we go into that, is there anything any other final thoughts that we didn’t tap into curiosity, marketing stuff that you’re working on now that you wanted to bring up? before?

Charlie 39:01

So in terms of what I’m working on, now, I am in the process of a rebrand because I wanted to really embed curiosity into my overall business. So my new business is curious b2b marketing. And is that like, I’m, you know, I’ve spent three and a half years really focusing on helping people leverage LinkedIn as at all, but it’s just a tool. So now I really want to help people with a step by step marketing plan that is simple. So like really stripping out all of the complexity that a lot of the marketing gurus out there that add into x, it really doesn’t need to be complex, and then just help them build momentum so that they can either do or delegate to confidently and effectively and, and I just think that since I started asking for help from external people outside of the company, that’s when it started making a bigger difference for me because you can be more curious and explore more and how to make things better than if you were just doing it internally. So that’s what I I’ve worked a lot with companies to do. And then also just to wrap up with the author, really, so I’m just so everybody’s got a really useful tool. And if you email me after this episode, got fragmentary, if you email me after this episode, I do actually have a workbook that you can that you can use, I’m happy to give it away for free. Because I think if you want to avoid wasting money, wasting time, wasting energy, getting frustrated, and experiencing all the marketing injuries that we all have all the time, use otter, because it will help you avoid those injuries. So his objectives, because there is no point in doing anything unless you know where you’re going, what you want to achieve from it. T is tools. So look at what you already have before start looking at the next new shiny object. The other T is training. So identify the gaps in your knowledge, your skills, your experience, and also your confidence, you know, and identify what you need to get help with and seek help. And the E is expectations. Really important. Because you want to make sure that you are aligning your own expectations of yourself. So do you have enough time, energy and money to do the things that you need to do to achieve your objectives? And if you’re working with other people, do they know what your objectives of them are? and expectations. And do you know what their expectations of you are really important, especially if you’re working with an agency especially and then they are is to constantly be reviewing and reflecting on what it is that you’re doing so you can know what to stop doing start doing continue doing an optimize. I like 12 week marketing Sprint’s I just think it’s a long enough to get stuff done, but short enough to not go down a rabbit hole and end up wasting too much time and energy. And but then also it’s don’t fall into the trap of just being always being busy or too busy being busy. Make sure that you are scheduling time to review and reflect and look at your overall marketing system. identify the gaps, identify the areas that you can optimize, and look for those quick wins. Just be curious as to how you can make things better all the time. So that’s the author.

Scott 42:21

Thank you very much. And yeah, send me send me links, because that will all go in show notes and people can check it out. Get the workbook and whatnots. I appreciate all right, some some life lessons to pull out of you. What was the biggest challenge that you had in your career? And how did you overcome it.

Charlie 42:39

And the biggest challenge was I was being set up to take over the company that I worked for a few years ago. So I was doing director development programs, leadership programs, and I was on track to do that. And then the two founders, it was a husband and wife company. And they started working with an external management consultants, and just sort of sub pushed me aside. And I didn’t really know what to do with that, or how to react. And it brought up quite a few feelings of like him. It was just a very uncertain time communication was really bad. And the company isn’t around anymore. As a result of that. And I got some therapy, I just decided, you know what, I don’t feel like I have enough enough emotional maturity to deal with this situation. I didn’t understand what was going on. And I turned from the company’s biggest star into its biggest rebel, which wasn’t serving anybody. And so yeah, I got some therapy. And that that was really helpful. It made me understand that actually, it wasn’t my fault. I just wasn’t having my needs met, and the communication was lacking. And he just, he just helped me figure out how to move forward and do different things. So then I just I got another job with another company and started moving on with my work my life.

Scott 43:58

So appreciate that. And I appreciate that, mostly, because if you are younger in your career, and you are working in situations like that, like usually, usually in large organizations are a little bit more protected. But in smaller companies, you know, founder owned private companies, the husband and wife, family businesses, sometimes it’s hard to know if what you’re being asked to do, or if the direction that they’re seeing your career down is appropriate. It is the or is even legal, like sometimes, you know, like when they’ve asked you to maybe take on extra duties or do this or that or whatever. So that’s very good learning for you, obviously, but just sort of a flag for people that are younger in their career as well. that not everything is not everything in the world is always perfect. And not everybody does the right thing all the time. Right. So and it’s not always your fault. Most importantly, it’s not always your fault. Yeah, yeah. If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be? Be more confident with your curiosity. What do you mean by confident with your curiosity? What do you mean by that?

Charlie 45:07

So I had to be honest, I didn’t really struggle with confidence massively. But I think if I’d had that conversation with me, I think I would have done things with a little bit more. I’m trying to look for the word, I can’t think of the word, but I think it is that if you’re curious about how to make something better, don’t wait for the right time to bring it up. Or don’t wait for somebody else to give you the opportunity, boldly step forward and say, I can see a potential solution for this. Let me go ahead and try. You know, some of the most incredible experiences that I’ve had in my life have come from doing exactly that. And but I just think that if I was more confident, I think I would have made my life a little bit easier, rather than put myself under so much pressure to be perfect, or to be the best at it and send it to not fail.

Scott 46:02

As is everybody who’s like a people pleaser, right, everybody, please everybody else, which is, you know, I think it takes like, you know, I think it takes a few, a few bad experiences to, to get over the fact that you have to, you know, you obviously, you want to help everybody you want to do good work, but you do have to be a little bit selfish, and trust your own instincts sometimes, and especially when it comes to like taking bold moves in your career, and your business, whatever. I think that’s very important. I get it. Now I understand what you say confidence and curiosity. So like, just like trust, trust yourself, I guess. Okay, if you had to choose one person, or multiple people in your life, that that have had a major impact on your life, who are they? And then also, how do they impact your life? What did they teach you?

Charlie 46:54

So the, the, the primary person is my papa. So my grandfather, he was in his 80s when I was young, and he used to bribe me and my brother up hills and mountains with barley sugars and minimum bugs. And he was such a wonderful person. And he was very curious. He always wanted to know stuff. And, and he never let anything get in his way. So he was windsurfing and skiing in his 90s. And when he started to lose his memory, and we told him his car had failed, its mot because we knew that he wouldn’t buy a new car, and he’d be okay with that. And it was a much nicer way than just saying, Papa, you’re losing your marbles. We don’t trust you strive. And, and he was helping my cousin renovate her house, and he it was three and a half miles away. And he had he decided that he didn’t have a car. So he got on his bicycle, and strapped a six foot door around his waist and on his back, and cycled three and a half miles through the village with the door on his back, and it was 92 at the time. And and he was just one of those people that you know, nothing was ever an obstacle, age was never a thing. He was just like, if you need to do something crack on and get on with it. And, and he was he was under 103 when he passed away, it was just amazing, wonderful person.

Scott 48:16

That’s an incredible, that’s an incredible person that you can just see, you know, obviously, I don’t know, I don’t know him. But that sounds like an incredible man, for sure. Very, very good. That’s something that’s somebody I think we could learn from. Okay, your favorite source to go to learn to grow could be a podcast and audible a book, what would you recommend people to check out?

Charlie 48:42

Um, to be honest, I think keep it keep keep yourself on your toes, and don’t get stuck into just using one particular medium. I think if you can say right, I’m going to go to the podcast for this, I’m going to go to read it for this, I’m going to go listen to an audio book for this. Or I’m just going to go back old school and read a normal book. And I just think keep it fresh, keep yourself on your toes. And yeah, don’t get stuck in any one particular way, because you never know what you’re going to learn. And I think as well as that sometimes don’t be afraid to read something or consume something that is so far out of your area of expertise, or your industry or your zone. Because it is amazing what you can learn when you pull together experiences from different spaces. You know, that’s been a huge part of my success so far is that because I have such a diverse experience, I can pull different things from different industries and connect the dots. It makes life more interesting. And I think you learn more that way.

Scott 49:43

Did you have one thing that I wanted to get was do you have a recommendation for a book or a podcast that just says like obviously there’s probably many but do you have any anyone in particular that just that you’ve liked recently that people should go listen to,

Charlie 49:57

I should say my favorite podcast at the moment. For a moment is the high performance podcast. And it’s sort of psychology driven high performance. So they get sports and sports personalities, they get entrepreneurs, and all sorts of people that have a high performance lifestyle. And and I remember that I listened to it when they were talking with Jonny Wilkinson said, it’s a British rugby star. And I contacted the host. And I was like, I’m, I’m a really big interest I really big fan of the Formula One and the Grand Prix, as are you ever going to get anybody from Formula One on that? And then recently, they’ve interviewed Christian Horner, who is the team principal of Red Bull and totally water from Mercedes. So I’m loving that at the moment. And it’s just, I don’t know, I think it’s that, like, if you have that high performance mentality, and you listen to what drives other people, it can just help keep you motivated and inspire you and make you think about different things as well. So that’s my current favorite. Yeah.

Scott 51:00

And what does success mean to you?

Charlie 51:14

Being better today than I was yesterday.