Linsey Houston on Storytelling for SME Branding

speaker-0: you're talking about small businesses, then your business is probably very, very, very, very reflective of your own personality, your own experiences, own origin story. Things like that. speaker-1: Your own outview of the world. Yeah.

How how we should charge, like yeah. speaker-0: So maybe an exercise, ⁓ if you're willing to try and do a bit of an exercise now, then what are your origin stories? What is it about paid ads that drew you to that? speaker-1: Hey, what's up?

Jeremy here, the online ads guy, founder of Digital Growth Marketing. I got the ⁓ pleasure to interview Lindsay Houston today. ⁓ she is the founder of Storytellers Australia, have been around for a long time, work with the upper end of the a lot of the B to B biggest bigger businesses in Australia. ⁓ storytelling isn't really my strong suit and ⁓ good thing that I mean direct response to advertising because storytelling doesn't ⁓ doesn't affect it right away.

⁓ but it's definitely a very strong part of her business. And I wanted to learn from her how what can we take from the bigger businesses that we can come and play in the SMEs and how I can improve my own skills. And you just don't know where's the conversation going to go when we first started. But I was very clear when she did a demo with me on how storytelling can be weaved into ⁓ can be weaved into the ⁓ SME marketing.

⁓ we didn't start there in the interview, but we definitely got there about one third of the way through. ⁓ and also how she was able to show me a different side of story. It's not just about ⁓ coming up and telling your story or try to try to make it into pictures and things like that. So yeah, give it a listen.

I think you like it. Thanks. ⁓ Lindsay, thanks for coming on the show. ⁓ so great to have you, you have you invite me to the facility to showcase what you guys have been doing and ⁓ you know, very ⁓ very professional setup yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ thank you! Welcome to the studio. speaker-1: As a direct response advertiser, you know, I'm always at the very bottom of the funnel. We don't get to see the whole spectrum of the storytelling aspect of it 'cause that's usually already been told and whatever simmers down to the last bit is where I come in.

But yeah, I'd love to learn more from you. ⁓ maybe we can start off with ⁓ the Storytellers Australia's own story. So that was nine nine, ten years ago you guys started? speaker-0: years ago.

Yeah. So we started in 2017. So we had three very good years before COVID hit and we were doing, started off as a business that provided creative services to data driven businesses. So tech, finance.

construction and the things that we were well known for in those years were drone videos and studio. And a studio was a bit of a side hustle back then. it's turned into a bit of an obsession to the studio we have now. speaker-1: Yeah, okay, cool.

All right, amazing. So in when it comes to storytelling, if there's a big the land leases and stuff that comes and starts working with you, versus ⁓ SME, which is probably a lot of people who listens to this podcast, like how how different is it and what are they looking for usually? speaker-0: Okay. So, the bigger businesses have got a marketing department for a start.

So there's a different setup there. So with a marketing department, it's their job to understand what messages the business is, the business needs to communicate, in their marketing. ⁓ so both the long and the short of it. So, there's a, a famous study conducted by Field and Benet in the UK, ⁓ where they, ⁓ talked about the long and the short of it.

So long advertising, is your brand building, your storytelling. ⁓ the stuff that's not going to get an immediate sale, but is going to garner attention and, ⁓ build trust and. build an emotion so that you associate, ⁓ a feeling with that business. speaker-1: When you see it you're kind of rem reminded of all the time and then over time it builds up that brand equity, what they call it, and it's along of it.

Okay, cool. speaker-0: And then there's short marketing, which is what you would be more familiar with, which is, I need sales. Get me something that's going to activate sales straight away. And Field and Benet did it across many industries, but their kind of average was a business needs to invest.

60 % into brand building and storytelling and 40 % into the activation side of things. speaker-1: That's that's very that's very ⁓ specific. I like that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, cool. Yeah Yeah. So when the bigger brands come to here, they they do they come already with ideas and already equipped? They said this is a message, this is what we're getting out, and you're more of ⁓ execution or you do they use you your services to discern whether it's a good idea or not, or do they want your opinion into it?

Okay, yeah. speaker-0: Sometimes they're very well formed ideas and they just need someone to execute. And sometimes they ⁓ want our creative opinion if they want to sort of test the boundaries a little bit. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, important.

speaker-0: So, in a bigger business, they've obviously got a marketing department so they can map out all of the long and the short and coordinate with all sorts of different types of agencies that are there. speaker-1: Do different because you are you are one you might be one aspect. You might use you guys for one aspect of the bigger journey. Okay, interesting.

Has anything like 'cause when you when people talk about marketing and from big big conglomerates and those ⁓ the higher end of town, they they I often hear about bureaucracy or it's all, you know, paper pushing. And but I I do believe there's a lot of brilliant people in those departments. Do do you see like do you ever get surprised like wow that's a brilliant idea? Like do you ever see stuff and go, Wow, well done guys.

speaker-0: We're part of our picture down here and we don't often get to see the bigger picture of what they're building and what they're creating. So that's for their marketing department. So their marketing department is mapping out all the things they need. So let's take a technology business, for example.

So they need to raise awareness. So maybe their... ⁓ ⁓ doing some activations, ⁓ going about the city and sort of talking to people or free things or whatever. maybe they're doing some branded content of, know, maybe you've heard of them, but you want to find out more.

So there's some videos for them to look at, or they want to read more because they're there. speaker-1: Do you want to? speaker-0: they're more of a reader or they're on a train or things like that. And then sort of downloading white papers and putting your email in.

So there's all sorts of different steps in the elements of what's needed. speaker-1: Did so when a big company basically it's it's kind of you're kind of like the second level. Like the big ideas already the overarching ideas there, they might you might not see the whole picture but they've you've got aspects of storytelling to do. Yeah, it sounds good.

speaker-0: Yeah. And that's their job. Do you know what I mean? Like that's nothing to do with me.

They come to me and they, and they say, um, we've, we've got this message that we need to tell these people. So can you help us form that message? We probably want it. They've probably decided already how format it is.

Is it going to be a video? Is it going to be an article or whatever? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: So we often think of ourselves as brokers between the business and the audience.

they tell us who their audience is and they tell us what their message is. so maybe their message is, they found out, the marketing team have found out that their customers are 20 % more likely to engage in a business that has got gender equity or something like that. So they work with their HR team and they work with their marketing team to put into place a system or an initiative to help build gender equity, not just because it's what's ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: that what they found out is that it's more likely they're going to get hired, but also because it's the right thing to do.

So it's a nice little push on both sides. And so they put this in place and now they want to communicate that with the ⁓ community, with the people who they want to talk to about it. So they would come to us and say, we want to tell them about this initiative that we've done. Well, The audience is probably not going to care too much.

the bat. Like there's a, there's a famous marketer called Mark Ritzen. And one of his phrases is nobody gives a shit about your brand. And you know, like you're not going about your day thinking, ⁓ you're not agonizing over a brand.

Like you, are like as a business owner, like speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the brand. Yeah. Yeah.

You know Yeah, but not to the Yeah. speaker-0: No, it's all consuming to you. But to them, so what we do is we try and find a creative way for them to be interested in it. the business message is we have better gender equity, but maybe the way to go about sharing that with an audience is to tell the story of how they've brought on a new female person into their team and she's going to describe a day in her life.

speaker-1: Or okay, got you. Okay. So I see I see the whole picture now for for the whole journey now for the bigger business, right? They kind of I I see where storytellers Australia will come in and be able to add that value.

When it comes to the smaller business, when they don't have the luxury of that, of like the 'cause the the production like that, thoughts behind the strategy all takes time. Yeah. Or takes planning. And like this these equipment's more cheap, like to bring that out somewhere and to tell a story, it's not small money, right?

So when it comes to on the next level, for the ten man teams, the trading with twenty vans or even less, like that's a different like ⁓ shorter timeline, would you say? Shorter timeline, different package, different ways of adding value when it comes to storytelling? Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. So in the last six years, podcasting has gotten very popular and that is for a very good reason because it is a affordable ⁓ way to create content, have conversations, talk to people. So that's one sort of affordable way to be able to. speaker-1: Help them tell the story.

speaker-0: To get out there and you want to be talking about your business, you want to be talking to other people, I call podcasts organized fun. You've reached out to me, there's no reason for you to talk to me. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah.

speaker-0: I don't know, like maybe let's go for a coffee. Let's see if there's any opportunities. Maybe we'll talk to each other again at some point. Maybe we'll just go home and forget about each other.

you know, that's that. But with a podcast, this is creating a moment between us that we will both remember each other more fondly. content that we can share with our audiences to share our message. So I think...

Yeah, look, part of me thinks, and I understand sort of the early stages of business, that early stages of business are hard, you're bootstrapping, ⁓ running on empty. ⁓ You need it. speaker-1: Yeah. it but we need this you need it but you need the like to get the right I mean it's just that there's so many competing priorities, the storytelling aspect of the business yeah kind of goes into a lower priority bucket.

Yeah yeah right so I'm just thinking how do we make it more applicable or or do you think that there's just not room when there's no not enough budget at the start, you know? speaker-0: I think everybody needs to have that marketing message and understand their marketing strategy. the, I mean, the basics of starting out with, with marketing is to probably try and establish a budget. Let's think about actually, let's take it back to absolute bare bones.

There was, there was one person I speaker-1: Like what's happening? Sure. speaker-0: was watching a documentary about, and he was an interior designer and he got his first job and he got a photographer and he said, just take all the pictures of me doing this job. And then, then that's what I'm going to use to show everybody the job I can do and then go to the next job.

So if at a very basic level, you know, there's a... phrase if you didn't take a picture of it or take a video of it, did it even happen? Yeah. So like if you've got no marketing strategy, you've got no money to invest in someone to sort of help you build these things, do market orientation, segmentation, targeting, positioning, those sorts of important.

speaker-1: Capability studies and yeah. Yeah. Like your angle, your unique ⁓ your values, all that stuff, yeah. speaker-0: out.

If you haven't been able to get to that stage yet, then at the very, very least, just document what you're doing. Like that's the sort of bare bones of it. So people just know what you're doing. You're communicating.

I don't know. I am a florist. Here's a picture with me with flowers. Then the next time that person thinks of a florist, ⁓ I saw someone with flowers on the internet.

They must be a florist. I'll look them up. speaker-1: So where when I first started, ⁓ 'cause I didn't even I accidentally fell into the business I'm in now, right? 'Cause somebody else was ⁓ my mentor was doing it.

She was like, I'm not gonna keep growing, so why don't you just take some clients, buy some clients off me and we'll just you can just get started that way. That's how I started Yeah, that's how I started. But I didn't think about stories, ⁓ didn't have a story and I always thought about my own story, which aspect of it can I weave into the marketing material and all that. And over the years I think that's actually probably not the right way to go about it.

But w as I talk to more and more people, I can see how they strategically we wave ⁓ weave their story and their clients' stories into the thing. I go, that's good. Like you don't even realise it. There's people who do it very bluntly, who do it badly, but then there's people who do it quite cleverly.

And I think, wow, that's a skill to have, you know. speaker-0: think when you're a founder of a business, I mean, this is different to huge corporations with marketing departments, analyzing and doing all that. If you're talking about small businesses, then, Your business is probably very, very, very, very reflective of your own personality, your own experiences, your own origin story and things like that. So.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, all of that our view of the world. Yeah. Teams and you know Yeah. How how we should charge, like yeah.

speaker-0: So maybe an exercise, you're willing to try and do bit of an exercise now, then what are your origin stories? What is it about paid ads that drew you to that? Is it the technology? you got a background in...

speaker-1: Patience. But I came from small business. Yes. I came from small business.

So over the years, because I've been talking about this for a while, ⁓ the my story is more like I put together, like I figured it out along the way. So it was impatience 'cause I was working in bigger marketing departments, right? Yeah. During my career change from being a small ⁓ one man in a van, I was a technician.

I was a trade. speaker-0: Right. Okay. So that's another point.

You've got this background in... In trades. In technical trades. speaker-1: So I was driving around a van and then when I was changing my career and I was in in ⁓ the marketing departments, everything was moving so slow.

They say, ⁓ do this and it's gonna you know you might work in nine months. I who's gonna working who's gonna wait for nine months? speaker-0: Which, that's the side of marketing I'm on, yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, that's right.

But that's the side of the tr the the part that trade is not gonna deal with that, right? Yeah, so that's the part of the ⁓ the the part that trade is not gonna ⁓ deal with. So and then my marketing manager at the time, James, shout out to James, and he said, ⁓ Jeremy, you're so impatient. The the only place that you're gonna see instant results is in media buying.

In paid media. I said what's paid media, I didn't get it. And then he showed me what Google Ads is. I said, ⁓ my gosh, this is amazing.

I said, why aren't we doing more of this? And that time it was a B to B company, we're doing more ⁓ LinkedIn advertising. Yeah. So it was like really expensive.

We don't see results straight away. And this is what gravitated me towards paid advertising, my in-kate. speaker-0: And then do you think also there's parts of your personality that you're more responsive than, ⁓ you know, planning for two, five, 10 years, things like that. So these are all things that are part of your business as well, because all of these traits have become the business that you provide.

if we're talking about. responsiveness, ⁓ speed. These are things that you can start to weave into your story. So maybe it's you, you do reels with a stopwatch or something like that.

Do know what I mean? Like, so like you're on the clock. How fast can I? So you're taking the traits and personality.

speaker-1: Do this thing. Okay, get you now. speaker-0: of yourself because you're the founder, you're the business. And you know already that that's going to be a mirror of your business to yourself.

And then how can you creatively... speaker-1: Yeah, draw that out. Draw that out. And articulate it in front of the audience to let them know.

And doing a little like a little bit of a more fun way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. ⁓ speaker-0: I never thought about If you do a video and you're like, here we go.

Hi, I'm really responsive and I'm really impatient and that's why I'm in ⁓ paid ads. No one's gonna... speaker-1: There's gotta be a way to articulate that. speaker-0: Yeah, you find a way to engage them in an interesting way that they're rooting for you.

Like, so you're on the clock and they're like, they're waiting for the payoff at the end of like, what's going to happen? Like, is he going to make it or is he... speaker-1: Yeah yeah. See, that's a talent.

You know what I mean? That's a talent like you have, which I would never think about. Like for me, ⁓ my head straight away, my my head's going to the tactical stuff. Right.

I don't I don't think I don't think about that at all. I don't think about doing that. And I think that when you do that very well, it comes out well, it's not cheesy at all. When you don't do that well, it's cheesy, it's dance videos, it's stuff that's not aligned with what I'm doing, you know?

speaker-0: It's okay and like you know I've done cheesy dance videos in the past like yeah, it's all part of process I've been doing this for nine years. So you know like if you go back Nine years on my social media. You'll be like what the hell is this chick doing? Yeah, think there's chickens in there somewhere on the Instagram Even though that was a fun day getting chickens in the studio, but um Yeah, like it's speaker-1: Yeah, nice.

speaker-0: learning and it's reps and it's remembering also that everybody is worthy and valuable and everyone's got their own skills. you know can't you know look at that person over there and jealous that they're doing this because you've got a great skill as well. speaker-1: Not a meeting. ⁓ Yeah, for sure.

⁓ so in I think you touched on this point already, but like in terms of raw ingredients, when a small business comes in or small medium business comes in, raw ingredients to even start this is what like they have to have a case study kind of thing. They have to know who they're serving, I guess, target market, a good case study before you even even even start talking, you know? speaker-0: So there's two sides of it. So if they're DIYing and they're really on a low budget, then those are the sorts of things that they can do for themselves.

Like ⁓ work out what their business is, what their value is, and also how are they going to make people know that whatever service or product that they have, Whenever someone thinks I need this product or service that they think of them because they know that they exist. speaker-1: Yeah. A lot of try and error too as well. A lot of figuring things out.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of try different angles, see what resonates kind of thing. Yeah.

As well. speaker-0: Yeah, 100%. And you'll do some doozies, no one's going to remember your doozies. They're agonizing over their own doozies too much.

speaker-1: That that's that's how it usually is, yeah. Was that was that the was it you say there was two aspects to that? speaker-0: Yeah, well, the other one is going back to sort of everybody's worthy and variable is if it's not your thing, I just I kind of recommend not to try and do it yourself too much. If you're on a budget and you're at the beginning of your business, I do understand that you have to.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-0: make do and it will be just a case of like, here's me with some flowers on a forest, come and see me sort of thing. I don't know, it'd be a word of mouth, but I think you really want to get to a point where you have a marketing budget and in the early days of a business and a marketing budget can be as much as 20 % that's needed because you've got no brand equity. You've got no built, um, investments.

everything that you do is an investment. So. get a logo and we crush your like five grand or something. ⁓ that's an investment.

then hopefully once you've done that, that's been paid for. That's, that's a brick in your house that you've bought and paid for. And then a website, social media presence, all of these things are brand equity, things that you have built as part of your ecosystem. your digital shop front or speaker-1: I like that.

speaker-0: literal shopfront, to a point where there's a little bit of value in it. It's an intangible asset, so you can't hold it, but it is an asset that you have that you've bought and paid for. And then bigger businesses, so the likes of McDonald's, they've spent, I don't know how long McDonald's has been going, like 70 years, 80 years, they've spent all of that time speaker-1: I like that. Yeah.

speaker-0: making it so those golden arches, ⁓ TM, those golden arches, every time you see them, you think to yourself, do I want a burger? And that's not an accident. They've spent 80 years manufacturing it so that anytime you see it, your brain without thinking about anything else, thinks to yourself, do I want a burger? speaker-1: Yeah.

Yeah. And and if I'm me, I'm trying to establish myself locally in a area, right? So I'm currently building those bricks as you're speaking, ⁓ the the bricks you're talking about into my own brand. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that now that I've been around seven years, ⁓ storytelling is becoming more and more important for me. But when you first you just try to make payroll. Of course.

You know? Just make just try to make payroll. But no, it's good. I think I think it's really good.

And I was talking to another guy, I'm not sure if you know him, ⁓ another ⁓ marketing strategist But he does more small business and big business. ⁓ Chris Molotti. Yeah yeah yeah. You Chris Molotti, yeah.

So I inter Yeah, so I I interviewed Chris Mullotti and he he explained a concept to me and this is what I want to talk to you about as well. It's called ⁓ sufficient bias. Okay. Basically, now that people use AI, just because you can do it better than how they would have done it, it's enough for them.

Which he argues that's not very good. Sure. speaker-0: Never met him but I've seen him a man. speaker-1: So I think that that applies here too.

Now you got AI editors, AI scriptwriters, AI IDs, AI strategists. But I don't think that can replace or even come close to like ⁓ a good service that knows what they're doing. Right? 'Cause you'd be able to catch the nuances, you'd be able to sit across someone and get find the the points of tension and push back.

But AI can't do. So Yeah, I think it's a lot better. Yeah. speaker-0: I mean, if we're get on the AI debate, there, it's been an interesting journey with AI.

So when it first started, it was like, the graphic designers are the ones that are gonna get replaced. And then it started producing pictures with six fingers, you know, like weird artifacts coming out and so, oh, okay, it's not ready to replace the graphic designers yet. And then it was going to replace the strategists. So people started doing their strategy on AI and then they kind of like got maybe lost in it and their strategy wasn't working and you know that they're okay.

Maybe it's not going to replace the strategists. And sort of more recently, and I think this is something that's coming up more and more is I've been using AI as a little bit of a therapist. To sort of, know, like, you know, this, this part's going on in my life. Can you explain what's happening?

Give me some context. Give me some ⁓ theories that are well known to sort of try and explain this. And what I found was that it was telling me that these other people in my life, ⁓ couldn't grasp. speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: the reality of what was happening. And ⁓ it was very, very, very defensive of me. You are not the problem. Well done for even asking the question.

So brave of you. Well done for discovering this about yourself. ⁓ And you could tell them anything and it would say, well done for discovering this about yourself. You know, like I'm made of chocolate.

speaker-1: Yeah, okay, got you. Yeah. speaker-0: Well done. It's really brave to discover that about yourself.

⁓ I realized that, because it's very easy to get lost in it because it's like, you're not the problem, it's there. Like, don't worry about it. And then I realized that, ⁓ no, you know, they don't mean any harm. there's just a communication breakdown or there's just a problem that we need to fix.

⁓ That's broken down. They're not a villain. They're not this. you know, AI is not going to replace therapists.

Therapists still are very much needed. going back to everyone is worthy and valuable. you know, there's talk of AI replacing lawyers and accountants. And I just don't think it's true.

think everybody makes a contribution to society. speaker-1: Hmm. speaker-0: And AI replacing anybody is just an AI company marketing to you. speaker-1: Yeah.

I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, that's the speaker-0: trying to get money off their own.

yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think it holds up. speaker-1: So more to do with the ⁓ w with what's happening like with AI and ⁓ in terms of like storytelling and that kind of thing, like what are you seeing more of? Like are you seeing more of slop and that like just say that we're talking about SMEs who's trying to use it to utilize storytelling or to build their base asset, ⁓ what are my values, this is who I am, that kind of thing. Like do you think it's a it's it's enough to substitute the low end work to get rid of some that stuff?

speaker-0: I think like the therapy example there, think you just have to be careful because it's going to act as a mirror and it's going to tell you what you want to hear. And it's going to be very hard for you without the experience, without the knowledge to question it, to discern it without the help of a professional. And also you can just get sucked in and just use AI all the time. speaker-1: To discern it.

Who's seen it? speaker-0: rather than, I don't know, so listen to a podcast or yeah, yeah, or read a book or go to the library and you know, like. speaker-1: It's like a cheap substitute. A shortcut becomes a shortcut for him.

⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right.

Yeah. Cool. ⁓ no, that's been really good. And I just wanted to to I've got two last questions written here was more around where where do you where is the heading?

Like where where's storytelling heading? Story storytelling and as a concept, I know it evolves, certain aspects stops working, I guess, because it's overdone, overcooked, and you kind of speaker-0: We all know what shortcut... speaker-1: Kinda keep evolving, right? To different aspects of storytelling.

Yeah. speaker-0: So storytelling is an investment into your business in two years time. So whereas your work is very responsive in its now and it's like, need some leads, get them in. Whereas storytelling is more of a long game.

Where is storytelling going? think storytelling is more important now with AI. to differentiate. That's a really good point actually, because AI is a algorithm of everything that has come before, everything that has happened already.

So it's just a pool of unoriginality, whereas storytelling is originality because it's an investigation. It's journalism into, that's what we do. Like it's journalism into another business we're asking. speaker-1: You gotta differentiate.

speaker-0: Like, you know, what's your origin story? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and that's a really human thing to, to pull out of somebody to, you know, what's your origin story?

⁓ okay. I remember. I know what you're talking about that you did this thing in 1996 and at the same time the spice girls were big and we were all out in the. speaker-1: Exploratory, yeah.

speaker-0: the park, you know, running home to watch Fresh Prince of Bel Air or wherever it was on TV. So we can really contextualize it. Whereas AI doesn't have that same experience. So whereas we can lean on sort of cultural references and things that we experienced to tell a really engaging story that has nostalgia and has...

⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, got you. See, that's the thing. When you w when you w yeah, nuance and the side when you say these things, it's just like I just feels like there's so much knowledge.

I'm not trying to suck up on it, but there is. Like there's so much difference between what you do and what I do, even though we're both kinda in marketing, right? Like I would consider across someone, a client, for seven years, which I've had clients for seven years, I would never get to that. 'Cause I'm not cut out for it.

Do you know what I mean? I'm not made to have those kind of conversations. Whereas you can get to that very quickly and be like, ⁓ this is the assets you should be creating. You should talk about this, you've got to talk about that.

Yeah. So ⁓ last question I had on my on my list was ⁓ as I w so your website's revamped from last time I met you, right? It's completely redone now. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's really good with the flywheel thing. So you're with a flywheel, it's more about correct me if I'm wrong, this is what I this is how I read into it. It's like speaker-0: This is good feedback for us, I'm like intently listening to what you think about it, yeah, it's quite new, speaker-1: So it's like the the story is also in the hiring of talent which brings in quality work, mm-hmm execute quality work and becomes the story of the case study to go again. That's that the flywheel kind of thing?

Yeah. What you want you wanna talk about? speaker-0: So that's our experience in the world and the service that we operate in. So we are B2B data driven industries and we are long marketing storytelling.

So that's our pot that we sit in. And our experience of that is that marketing isn't solely about getting sales. It spans much more of a whole communication strategy throughout your business. So what we devised and have discovered over nine years is that the first point of your flywheel is your team.

So you know, whether you've got five people in your team or 500 people in your team, ⁓ everybody has to be aligned. you know, the icky guy of everyone, know, you doing your passion? Is it commercial? Is it something that's going to, ⁓ play a very important part of the group?

⁓ to bring it forward. So part of that is vital communication and storytelling of each other. Like, so everyone feels seen and heard and understood. There's no sort of quite resentment brewing or misinterpretation of management's style or toxicity or things like that.

speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: You know, the, the, the team is, is, is critical in your success. So a business can come to us and say, we want you to help us get sales and we throw loads of money at trying to get leads or, ads and things like that. But if, if, if they don't have that kind of like the back work of their business, having a really good communication system, it's going to be really, really hard to get to this sales part.

So the second part after connect is innovate. And that's what kind of this studio is really good at. it's all about thought leadership, having conversations, ⁓ coming up with new ideas for the industry, sharing ideas, finding different people who are good at different things. you know, leading the industry with the things that you know, and the things that you're good at, connecting with people.

So everybody understands when I, when I need ads for my business, ⁓ Jeremy's man, because I've seen all these reels of him talking about it and I believe him and that's, you know, speaker-1: And connecting with people. speaker-0: I can't be bothered with a Google search. speaker-1: Because of that. And and you you're doing a lot of like the ⁓ sharing ideas and and people are kind of like ⁓ fleshing out the ideas with you?

Well in these situations, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's your de definition of of innovate. Yeah.

Okay, so the talent comes first. Yeah. speaker-0: So yeah, so connect is your team. Innovate is your thought leadership.

Then is delight. So this is setting up your user experience. speaker-1: more like delivery but only calling delivery. I know what you mean by it, but it's like the deliver y implementation speaker-0: So your website, your social media presence, your logos, you're investing in your brand building and your brand equity.

you know, ⁓ I've looked for ⁓ some electronics online and I find a website that's got a nice logo and it's got a nice website and I trust them. So maybe I'll buy electronics for a bit. If I go to a website that it's pixelated and doesn't look right, then no. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So your, your user experience is going to impact whether those people come. So you can have, ⁓ the best tender, the cheapest price, the best team, but they could go to your website and go, speaker-1: Yeah.

Yeah. speaker-0: these guys really? Like maybe they're not as big as we think they are. speaker-1: Gotcha.

So it's congruency kind of thing as well. Like alignment with the whole thing, yeah? So make sure you don't fall over in that area. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah.

And then once you've done those, then you can think about the achieve part. So the achieve is your sales. do you have a nice capability statement? Do you have a nice sales process that gets you through?

Do you have videos to sort of answer common questions? If people have an inquiry, do you have a folder of images? Yeah, ready to go to say, you want to find out more about this? Here's a folder of the things that you want to see.

Got you. understand that best. speaker-1: It's like reinforcing of the the everything else that's been got them up to this point. So in in simple terms, ⁓ when you have that as one of the higher parts on your website, as the ⁓ the connect, innovate, delight and achieve, what you are communicating to the prospect prospect is that in each part of that journey, Storytellers Australia will be able to help you a lot.

speaker-0: Yeah, so all your sales collateral. speaker-1: in a huge way, right? And if you follow the philosophy of it and implement the the assets and the the strategies that is given by you and the team, they're gonna succeed because that's the philosophy, that's the buying. Yeah.

They require. Yeah, okay, cool. speaker-0: And the story that you're telling to everybody. it's the story that you're telling to your team.

Do they have buy-in? Do they want to see you succeed? speaker-1: Yeah, even internally. I'm saying, yeah, even looking at internally, yep.

speaker-0: The story that you tell to the industry with your thought leadership. Yes. You know, do your, have you got partners that are going to refer to you? you, do you have trusted people in your industry who ⁓ can point to you when, people need it or ⁓ trust you for their own big jobs or things like that?

And, ⁓ and, and does have you invested in your brand? Like McDonald's, like makes you hungry. Like does your brand evoke an emotion that isn't frustration or annoyance or... speaker-1: They come to website, are they are the is it congruent with everything you're saying?

Do you have it like is it at the stature of what you're presenting to be as your thought leadership and ⁓ the people that's there? And then and then of course when they are convinced that you're the person to go with, they go, Well, can you just show us a few things so you know, so we can read it, so we can just make sure everything's ticked off and that's the last step, you kind of have it as well. So here we go. We have our case studies, we have capability studies.

speaker-0: Exactly. Love it. Love it. And there's a story that you tell.

Yeah. Throughout that. Yeah. Which is around your values and...

speaker-1: Yes, we'll weave that in too. While we're at it, yeah, amazing. Cool. Amazing.

Well thank you so much. ⁓ was there anything else you think I missed out and I didn't really talk about today? That you wanna let the audience know? speaker-0: Well, something I learned early on is I really like Queer Eye for the straight guy.

Queer Eye is simply known now. And what I really like about it is that it's a TV show that does good things. So they get paid, I don't know, 50 grand. They get paid more than that.

But let's say you get 50 grand per episode to make Queer Eye. And they could spend that on a quiz show that gives 50 grand away as a top prize or whatever. But instead they've used that budget to spend it in a really positive way to help people's lives. So they go out, not only to the person that they help to give them a haircut and change their home around a little bit.

⁓ And then all the people who watch it go, ⁓ I should... you know, brushing my hair now and again and get a, a, a better shirt or whatever. so it's the same with marketing. Like you could take your marketing budget and just say, I've got to give away.

We're going to give away 50 grand. That's, that's, that's the marketing. Or you can look for fun, ⁓ joyous. delightful, ⁓ positive, purposeful, things to do with your marketing budget.

And it's gonna be much more fulfilling, much more ⁓ something that is part of your job that you really enjoy. So marketing should be fun. Marketing should be the highlight. If marketing is stressful, then I...

speaker-1: Never thought about it. speaker-0: I would suggest that you're doing it bit wrong. speaker-1: There's no problem. Yeah, do you do a bit wrong, yeah?

Yeah. ⁓ amazing. All right. speaker-0: So just have fun.

Have fun and try your best. The second rule of Fight Club. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, nice. Cool.

Amazing. Thank you so much for ⁓ for being on the show. ⁓ hope we can stay connected. Yeah, cool.

Thank you. Hey, what's up? Jeremy Yang, the online ads guy here, owner of Digital Glass Marketing. If you ⁓ found whatever you're watching helpful, you found interesting, like, subscribe, comment, suggest other topics you think we should cover here.

We've aimed to release weekly episodes helping SMEs with marketing, advertising. speaker-0: Beautiful. Thanks, Jeremy. speaker-1: Talking to professionals about growth, processes, all that good stuff.

Right, see you on the next one.