Interactive WTF with Colleen Babcock

Speaker A: Colleen Babcock, what one thing do you wish you'd have known 10 years ago?

Speaker B: You know, and you asked me this question, um, and I knew it was going to come. I thought, what do I really focus on? And I'm a little bit sort of ashamed to say. I've only learned this fairly recently, which is that spending time on personal development is not a selfish thing. And I really sort of had gotten to a point where I thought, you know, that's spending that time on me. That's not spending the time on my team. You know, it's not spending time on the brand. Um, but recently I. I have a coach. He's an amazing coach. Um, he was a former CMO himself, Gary Keough. And, um, I've really altered my opinion on that. Um, spending time on me has helped me understand how I'm showing up for my team, how we show up across the organization. It's been a real game changer for me. And I think, you know, some of the work that Gary and I sort of worked on at the beginning was around values, which I have to confess, at the beginning, I thought was a little bit fluffy. You know, it's a little bit like, let's have a group hug and sing Kumbaya. Um, but it really wasn't. By getting to really grips with what do you. I value. It's meant that when, you know, I see. When I'm interacting with someone and maybe they have a different value to me or something they've done really conflicts with the value that's really important to me. I now notice it. Instead of reacting to it, I observe it. So. Oh, that's interesting. That's. That's sort of conflicting with that value. And the other thing I really talked a lot about with Gary is that values, even really positive values. So one of my values is commitment, which I have a very deep and wide, uh, commitment thing. And, um, we talked about the shadow of that, which is that sometimes I can be so committed I can work myself into the ground, and then I'm helpful to no one. And, um, say, really learning that to take breaks, not have breakdowns, you know, is really, really important. So it's really altered my opinion about some of those things. And, um, take the time to figure yourself out. You will show up better for your team. You will show up better for your organization. Wish I'd known that 10 years ago.

Speaker A: There is something interesting, isn't there, about learning that even something that is really positive and something that is one of your strong points can actually have a Negative somewhere else. Because some, you see, we see our own positives through that blinkered view of, well, this is really great for everyone, because who wouldn't want me committed 110% to everything but the shadow that it casts? Uh, I love that phrasing, but it's, uh, everything, isn't it? Every positive we have, even the really great positives, there's a negative somewhere, isn't there? Being able to understand that and then be able to just account for it in what you're doing can make a huge difference.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was huge for me. And I think the other thing that was really interesting is I really leaned hard into the coaching and I used my friends, my family, um, my colleagues to help me with that, to help me understand it. And when I was trying to figure out what my values were, I said commitment. You know, one of my best friends was like, yes, 100, don't even have to discuss it. Move on. Um, and, um, you know what? I said energy, because quite a high energy person. That doesn't mean I sort of expect everyone around me to jump around like they're on Red Bull. Um, you know, I want them to just come at things with, with care and passion and, you know, that's really means a lot to me. But I sort of was stuck on a third one. And, um, one of my really good friends who I went to university with, um, said, well, fairness, justice. And sort of listed off things that for me were about fairness. And, um, then when I was speaking to, uh, my boss, who's our CMO at rightmove, um, Matt Bushby, and he went fairness without me saying it. Why does everybody seem to know about fairness but me?

Speaker A: It's just natural to you. It's not, probably not visible because it's just every day, but there is, um. So there's something I'm going to throw at you here because those three values, I've never done that exercise, but could well be, uh, could represent me as well. And I think that's why when we met, kind of, you know, Colleen, this is going really, really well. And maybe that that's, uh, why. So the two things we've talked a little bit about, commitment. When it comes to energy, I get told, yeah, you're high energy, you're great. I actually hate working with too many people who are high energy like me. Not because I feel like they're taking my space, but it's like putting a group of puppies together that, you know, looks really wonderful. It looks like there's lots happening, but Actually, it's just chaos. And I love it when I work with people who are completely, completely opposite to me. You were just sort of sat in a corner like, yeah, look, can we just dial it down a touch? I think it works really, really well. And then the second one is fairness. Fairness kills me sometimes because there are times when you can't be fair to two people. And, uh, by being fair to one of them, you are going to be unfair to somebody else. And it wrecks me when that happens. And learning to be able to deal with that, to be going like, oh, we can't, we all can't get fairness out of this, actually, someone's going to get an unfair outcome. Breaks your heart, doesn't it, when that happens?

Speaker B: Yeah. And that's again, a shadow of it. Um, and I think really it was so interesting that both, um, you know, my boss and my best friend were going fairness before I did. And then with Gary, I sort of did an exercise where we mapped sort of my career highs and my career lows, and all of my career lows were linked to fairness. And, um, a lot of my career highs, sort of. Gary pointed out, you know, a lot of your highs are about like this intensity. You know, you really like the sort of sense of intensity and the, the energy of it. But I'm like you, I really crave people who have a different energy to me because they see things in a way that's different to how I do. And I love that. I love that sort of diversity. So when I'm saying I'm looking for people with energy, it's not my energy. I don't want them to have my energy. I want them to have their energy and whatever that looks like for them.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's superb because it's, I think, certainly a mistake I'd have made when, when I was younger was being attracted initially to working with people who were very like me. And, um, it's only maybe through avoiding a couple of nasty train wrecks, career wise train wrecks, that we realize how do we put some more thought into, you know, how do we approach this on the different angles and different places. And I think that's why I love the Rebel Ideas book. I don't know if you've read that by the, oh, uh, the table tennis guy whose name I've completely forgotten in the moment. But anyway, he wrote Rebel Ideas about the power of diverse teams and I really, really appreciate it. Sort of finding some structure to go around that thinking.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's such an interesting one. And there's another book that I've just thought of, um, which I'm completely blanking on the title so I'm gonna have to get back to you about it. But um, it's from Tim Harford and he sort of talked about the power and diversity of teams that have so much difference and actually a little bit of friction, a little bit of, you know, we don't communicate in exactly the same way, we don't think in exactly the same way actually gets you to better results and I really see that. And so, you know, when you are building a team looking for people who bring something to the table, you don't who are better at something that you're not that great at, you know. And ah, that's, don't be afraid of that. That's definitely something I see with, with people who are maybe for the first time hiring or first time managers. They might be, you know, feeling it feels safer to have people who are a bit more junior. I'm like, you know, hire people who are better than you and they've got different skills than you and it builds a better team.

Speaker A: Well look, we could tell we are both on the same page because we similar values. You can't remember the name of the book and I can't remember the author of the book I'm talking about.

Speaker B: So we're doing so well. Andy.

Speaker A: We are cut from the same cloth. Which interestingly is cutting from cloth. Maybe something we come back to later in uh, the episode. Right. We are going to cut to an intro and then we'll be back in 60 seconds with the rest of the interview with Colleen. And I um, promise you we'll have the titles and the names of those books in the next 60 seconds. Hey and welcome to the strategy sessions. My name is Andy Jarvis. I m am the host of the show and the chief strategy officer at ah, Eximo Marketing. Today's guest, who you've already heard me talking to is Colleen Babcock. She's head of partner marketing at Rightmove. And you're going to hear over the next 30 or 40 minutes how she approaches that job at uh, Rightmove. You're also going to hear some really interesting stories about her past and her background, how she approaches public speaking and what you can learn from working in a theatre that is really, really useful for marketing. More than you would think. Before we get on with the show I would ask for two things. Number one, I would ask you if you like the show, can you leave a like or a comment somewhere? Uh, it does really help more people discover the show. So thank you very much if you do that. And ah, number two, if you don't like the show, drop me an email. Goodness sake. Don't tell anybody in public you don't like it, but send me an email because I wouldn't want anyone thinking you don't like the show. But I do really appreciate feedback, good and, um, bad. And my details are uh, in the show notes. So let's get back to Colette. I'm going to go and find out where my microphone actually is. It's been pinched, which is why I'm using a bit of a lo fi setup for today and I'll go and see if I can find. You've got it. Back to the show. So, Colleen, welcome back to the strategy sessions. Now before I ask you about your career, I did promise 60 seconds ago we'd tell people the titles of those books. So Tim Harford's book was Messy how to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy Minded World. And the book I mentioned was Rebel Ideas by Matthew Said. So there's links to both of those in the show notes if you want to dig into them and get them. Right, enough of me. Colleen, tell us a little bit about you.

Speaker B: So, um, I'm head of partner marketing at Rightmove, which means I look after the B2B marketing teams, um, at Rightmove. I'm also a spokesperson for the brand. So I do broadcast tv, um, radio interviews about the property market. So that's a more recent addition to my job at Rightmove. I've been at Rightmove now for 11 years and I've worked in the property industry for over 20 now, so quite a long time in the same sector, which I do really love.

Speaker A: You are a lifer, uh, in the property industry then, by the sounds of it. And has it changed? Sorry to talk of it. Has it changed a lot? Because in many ways property industry is still the same, but there's also been some huge differences which I think rightmove have been at the forefront of.

Speaker B: Well, certainly it does change over time. Um, and you know, you stay in it long enough, you kind of see so many different ups and downs in the market. You know, I first got into the property industry in around 2005 and of course 2008 we had the financial crisis. Um, so that was, you know, huge change that sort of, that happened around that time. Um, we've had Brexit, we've had, you know, the pandemic when the property market was Completely shut down. You know, it was a really a big change. But of course before then, um, right move came around um, in 2000, so it's been over 25 years now. And that really did change how the market operates. Um, making homes available to people, all the information available to people in a way that they could discover it in a way they never had been able to do before. You know, previously you had to sort of schlep up and down the high street, looking in all the estate agents windows, um, trying to find the right home or looking in newspapers, that kind of thing to try and, and find the right place for you. But now it's so much more accessible and easier and more transparent for people.

Speaker A: So I did six months as an estate agent, um, my first job out of uni while I was trying to find a proper marketing job. And I made a career out of talking to people who slept up and down high street. A career I did six months talking to people slept up and down the high street. But as someone who, you know, buying and selling houses subsequently it's just easier and better. Uh, but not every listener is in the uk. So do you want to give us just a kind of a sense of scale, size, competitors? Because does a right move exist really in every market now, whether we're talking about across Europe, across the US or is it very much sort of a British thing?

Speaker B: There are portals that operate in most m of the international market. So in the US there's a portal called Zillow that's really well known. Um, it's slightly different uh, way of operating in the US though. So in the US they have something called um, mls Multi Listing Service. We don't have that in the uk. So um, what, what the arrangement basically is is that estate agents, letting agents, new homes, developers, rental operators will um, advertise their properties that are available for sale or let to our audience. We do have uh, about 80% of all time spent on property portals is spent on Rightmove and we do have the UK's largest choice of homes as well. So um, that um, obviously makes us the market leader. And um, so for people in the UK and quite nice about uh, when you work for rightmove in the UK and you say you work for rightmove, you sort of immediately get people going, oh, I love rightmove and tell you wonderful stories about how they found their home. And it's all very heartwarming and lovely, um, because everybody knows what it is. I just try not to ever say that I work for rightmove to a taxi driver because they will talk about house prices the whole journey. And I know a lot about house prices, so it's always a very chatty journey if I mention that to a taxi driver.

Speaker A: I find often if you're talking to a taxi driver, especially in London, it's just easier to tell them you're an axe murderer because it kind of ends the conversation. Otherwise, what were you put away for murdering taxi drivers with an axe? All right, um, you know, m. Maybe slightly less embarrassing than having to talk about property prices for the next 30 minutes. Um, so look, you, you run that. You work for the, uh, the biggest property listing site in the, in the country, which is an interesting place to be because being number one. Everyone, everyone would love to be number one. But it does bring its own challenges, doesn't it? You've got to be able to differentiate and stand out from the market. But as you said, you work in the B2B side. You've also got a consumer end you. You've got a very broad group of customers who you have to serve. So how do you handle differentiation at rightmove?

Speaker B: Well, it's something we're really. We think about all the time, obviously obsession of many marketers. Um, and I think we actually went through a process where we really refreshed recently the brand. It was sort of around 20, 23. We had a new CEO at the time. We. We had a new CMO at the time. And we were really adjusting sort of our strategy and really looking beyond finding a property. And that's what everyone sort of knew right move for is. Is finding property. But we've really expanded that and started looking at actually how can we help people even more further into this whole home moving process. How we can help them figure out if they can afford a property, how do we help them move better and faster? And m. So we really wanted sort of a change in how we were talking about what we did. And so we did. We went through a process where we were rebranding. Now we didn't throw out the baby with the bath water. We decided we were going to keep our colors, our fonts, you know, our harrow we call it, which is the sort of, um, teal house arrow. That's our mark. And what we did decide that we wanted to change our tagline. We previously had find you'd happy, which had worked for us really well, um, for quite a long time, but didn't really flex beyond find and didn't work as well for the B2B side. And some of our audience groups there. So, um, when Matt Bushby joined as our cmo, we, uh, we did a really big refresh and really big piece. I was really excited because I'd been doing some work already on the B2B proposition and how we showed up as a brand on the B2B site. And I'd done a lot of background on that and Matt just looked at it, went through it with me and said, this is great. Let's bake it into what we're doing across the whole brand because we are B2B2C. And it really became a part of the overall brand. And our tagline, which became Believe it. Um, and we worked on that with Neverland Creative Agency. Uh, and we got there thinking about the B2B side, the B2C side, but also right movers, because we need to believe it. And um, I think for it to really be effective, that brand has got to come from the inside out. And um, I think that platform and that vision to give everyone the belief they can make their move works so well across all the audiences that we're speaking to. So that was a really big point of difference, I think, for us in how we show up for people.

Speaker A: Just in terms of, uh, how does the business work From a very, very simple level, am I right in thinking that the business generates money from estate agents rather than consumers, or does it generate income from both? And if it is both, what's the sort of rough split?

Speaker B: So the majority does come from our advertisers. So estate agents, letting agents, new homes, developers. We also have commercial agents. You can get commercial property. Uh, recently we had, um, a piece that came out in the news that um, Macclesfield Football Club was, um, bought on rightmout. Um, so, you know, that was a really fun campaign that you know, kind of naturally popped up for us. So, um, those, those agents who are advertising their properties or we also sell, uh, property data as well. It's another area. We are doing increasingly more to help consumers though. So you can now get a mortgage and principal, for example, on rightmove, um, as a, as a house, home mover. Um, and we are also increasingly getting into things like mortgage, sorry, insurance products. So for tenants, for landlords. So there's more coming in that space. But the majority of our revenue is coming from um, property professionals.

Speaker A: Which makes it even more important to make sure that the research that you've done is baked into the proposition, isn't it? Because it's easy to m. In fact, it's not easy. It must Actually be quite difficult because the traffic, the people come to your site because you've got consumers looking at it to come and buy a house. But it's symbiotic. But actually if you follow the money, that's that smaller group of customers who are paying you fairly regularly. So juggling both sides of that sounds really straightforward, but must actually be quite a challenge within the organization to make sure that it's done well and the balance sort of stays in balance, really, for all sides of the market.

Speaker B: Yeah. And absolutely make sure the brand works, um, for both sides of the market as well. So I think that was what was really exciting about the change that we made to believe it, that I really firmly believe that that does work across, um, the B2C and the B2B. But again, also for right movers.

Speaker A: The staff are a very underrepresented constituent in a lot of brands often, aren't they? You know, and I get it, right? It's got to work for your customers. I talk to your customers, bring the customers in at every stage. But when your staff have to bring this to life, it's really important that they believe it as well, isn't it? And I know shamelessly leaning on your line there. Uh, so it. But it is important that everybody gets on board with it because we've all seen those places where, you know, they said all our stuff, buy into this. And you're like, they, no, they don't. We've all seen it, haven't we?

Speaker B: Yeah. And, and I think, you know, when we went out, we launched it, um, you really saw sort of how people did buy into it. Um, we were just doing, um, uh, sort of training in the office on Tuesday. Everybody was there wearing their sort of, right, move, believe it hoodies. And, um, the guy who was hosting was like, I want one. We're gonna arrange one for him because he's so admiring, uh, the hoodies everyone had on that we're like, we'll get one.

Speaker A: We're sorting out for you the key thing as well. With Believe it, you've moved from find, um, your happy to believe it. Buying a house is such an important emotive decision for most people who do. Almost everyone who does it, you know, we, we talk about making a house, a home and all that sort of thing, but you put your life down in these places. We're both in ours at the minute, and you spend a lot of time here and you make a connection with these bricks, water, bits of paint. So the fact that you've kept something so Immortal believe. It is really, to me as an outsider, but as, uh, someone who has looked at property. But it's really important that you've managed to capture that special moment of buying a house. Was there a long process to get there, or did it kind of come up fairly early on and everybody just nodded sagely and went, that's it. That's the right bit of work.

Speaker B: We did explore different routes, but we knew we wanted to go down the emotive route. And interestingly, the work that I had done previously around the B2B side, we had gone. We need to be more emotive. Because I think the temptation would be to be marketing is to go really rational. You know, let's talk about loads of stats. And it's, you know. But the thing is, even if someone is purchasing a product or service for their business, they're still a human being behind it. There's still emotion behind it. They might be spending their company's budget, or they might be spending, you know, um, their team's budget, but they're. When they're making that decision to choose your service over someone else's, they're putting their personal professional reputation on the line by recommending that. And I think, especially with property, as you say, it's so personal. Um, and the over 20 years I've spent in this industry, every property professional I talk to acknowledges that this is, uh, a people business. It's not about the bricks and mortar. It's not about the finance. It's about the people. Because home is such a central thing, it really changes, you know, how you feel and how you experience your life. So it's just a massive piece. So to be able to really get to grips with that emotion, Both on the B2C side, but also the B2B side, and not leave that behind and really, really think about this in a more emotional way.

Speaker A: In a discipline that's full of myths, the. One of the biggest myths in marketing is that B2B should be rational. There's lots of research doing the rounds at the minute from, uh, various places, LinkedIn, B2B Institute, all sorts of places about just how wrong that is, but it will not die. You've been on the B2B side of the business for a decade or more now. You said, you know, so what challenges do you face? Because I'm sure even within rightmove, a company that seems to be getting it more right the most, there is still this tendency to just wheel out the stats is there at some stage. So what are the challenges that you face, then how do you counteract them when they come across your desk?

Speaker B: You know what? Stats have their place. I love a, uh, stat. I talk about stats all the time. You know, it's not that stats are dead, don't bother with stats. But you need to lead with the emotion and you need to really tap into why this matters to someone and why they need to be thinking about this as part of their business. And then you can give them some stats that help them post, rationalize that decision. Because as much as we would like to think we're all rational human beings, we make decisions in a really emotive way. You know, we buy in in a really emotive way. And then we need those stats to go back to our boss and say, these are the reasons why I think we need to choose this particular product or service. So they, they do have their place, you know, but story is more important. And, um, I think that's one of the things that tends to get left off.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Have a killer stat here or there, that's really going to help people feel calm in the choice that they've made. But you need to have a story that is powerful, that is relatable, that is really human, for people to remember it and, frankly, care about it.

Speaker A: The fact is, the more you learn about how people operate, the more you realize we're just chimps in shoes. That's it. Right. That's 95% of what we are, or maybe the opposable thumbs as well. Other than that, we behave astonishingly similar to primates and apes. So being able to tap into that and like you say, story is just critical and important to that. So as you've done this, you've said you've kind of rolled it out to your staff. How did you get this out to your other stakeholders? Because you say you've not changed the mark, you've kept the harrow, did you call it?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Is that a portmanteau of house and arrow Harrow? Right, there you go. Yeah. So you kept that. But you got a lot of stakeholders and a lot of, certainly on the consumer end, might only come to the site for a while and then never come back. But also you've got a whole raft of thousands of stakeholders around the company which, around the country, which sort of fall within your area. How did you launch this new position to them? What were the. What were the practical things you did on the ground to make sure everybody followed along with it?

Speaker B: Well, actually, in terms of the B2B side, that process started way before the launch. So actually we got them really involved from the very beginning across all areas of the business. Whether that was product developments, sales, you know, commercial finance teams, customer support, marketing, just everybody represented. And we had a big workshop where we really went through sort of pulling apart, you know, some of the things that we were doing really well. But it was much more focused on our partners, on our agents, on our new homes developers. You know, what do they care about, what do they need? Really putting them at the center, but pulling on all of this institutional knowledge that we had from all the people who deal with those partners on a regular basis. And we sort of started there. So they were involved right from the very beginning. And um, we came up with four different potential routes. And one of the interesting things I found that came out of that, the feedback we got was I don't see how this works as a B2B campaign. I don't see how that manifests as B2B. They could see it for B2C but they couldn't see it for B2B. So when we went back, we, the whole team, we kind of had a, a big sort of like everybody scour and, and find all your favorite B2B campaigns. And what we sort of did is we put them on a spectrum from very sort of corporate sounding to actually really far on the other side of the spectrum of very whimsical. And we put them in front of those stakeholders when we went through the possible routes that we'd come up with. And we said, tell us, you know, how far on this spectrum from really corporate to really whimsical do you think we should be?

Speaker A: Sorry, I'm just interrupt for a second. Just if you see him smiling and laughing when you say that whimsical has recently become my favorite word. Um, I know that sounds quite boring. I have stumbled across a guy on TikTok who refers to Irish dancing as whimsical skedaddling, which just creasy m me because it's the perfect description of Irish dancing. So during St Patrick's Day it was everywhere on my feed. And now every time I hear the word whimsy or whimsical, I'm just giggling away to myself. So apologies for interrupting, but every time you say whimsical, I'm having a little moment. I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well for you.

Speaker B: So you're going to be really far on the whimsical side of the spectrum then.

Speaker A: Definitely. That sounds like me. I will shut up. Carry on Sorry.

Speaker B: So we then went through with those stakeholders and we said of these campaigns, like, what things do you love? What things do you do not love? Pulling apart the visuals, the tone, the messaging. And it was really, really interesting. People like, oh, yeah, all of These messages are B2B. You know, standing on the Elizabeth line the other day and, um, just looking up and down the carriage. There's so many of those campaigns that are now B2B. You know, once upon a time they wouldn't have been, but they're just everywhere now. So it's so interesting that people are seeing those messages and yet they still ask the question, but I don't how this shows up as a B2B campaign. So they were involved right from the beginning. And then of course, we validated a lot of the things that came out of those workshops with, um, research, with our partners. Is this right? Um, some of the things we absolutely got spot on. Some of the things we didn't. And we then adjusted. So we had the stakeholders in from the very beginning. So you didn't have to then win them, um, over because they were already part of it. Their views were in it from the very beginning. So it makes it so much easier when you then go out and say, here's what we're doing with what you gave us.

Speaker A: There's a great lesson there for anyone about when you start to engage. I, I do a lot of that engagement with, with companies and with clients. And yeah, I'd probably say out of every five engagements I get, I would say I feel like I've been brought in too late on four of them. Um, not, not post event to try and sort of rescue it. But you sort of sat there going, it had been great if I'd have been here two months ago, you know, just at least before you started getting to this point. Uh, so the fact that you started so early on engagement feels, um, like might have felt hard work at the time, but actually paid off hugely in the long run, I bet.

Speaker B: Yeah, it really did. And there's so much wisdom in all of those people. You know, I think there's sometimes a bit of a reticence with marketing because everybody thinks they're a marketer. And so you kind of get people coming up to, you know, what we should do, we should do this. And um, you know, we've all experienced as marketers, but sometimes there's real gems there. You know, don't walk past it because there could be something really fantastic in some of those suggestions. And by getting people involved at the Very beginning. They really feel like it's theirs. They have a little bit of ownership.

Speaker A: I think the same about angry complaint emails as well. Uh, so many companies, if they get a snotty email in, kind of write it off because it's just somebody angry sending an angry email in. And actually, if you're like, just put it down and come back to it on Monday. And if you pick it back up and go, right, take away the swear words and the anger, what's the bit in the middle that they're actually saying? Oh, that's not working properly. There's something in that. And you can miss some really good suggestions, whether it's because, yeah, everyone wants to be in marketing or the customer's angry or whatever. But if you just take a step back and get a bit more humbleness about you and just be like, what is it that we're saying? And why are they saying that? You can often. It doesn't mean you react to everything, but you can find the good thread in it. And I think when people do it with a good heart, it's easier. But there are some good things in there from people who don't do it with a good heart as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, I always teach this piece around. Objections are like a big dog. Now, I don't know if you've ever had this experience. Um, I'm very small. I'm five foot two. Um, and I was much smaller when I was a little kid and I had, um, I had a neighbor who had a very big dog. And when I would go over to their house, I would always get jumped on by this big dog. And it really scared me. And, um, one day the dog jumped up on me and I got pushed down the stairs. And, um, I, you know, it's all scraped up. And I went back to my dad crying. And, you know, dad, the dog jumped on me. And my dad's really amazing with dogs. And my dad said, tell me what you do when the big dog jumps on you. And I said, well, I back up. You know, I try and get away from. And then he backed me right down the stairs. And my dad said, the next time the dog jumps on you, lean forward. Because that big dog, to jump on you has to come up on its hind legs and it's got its paws on your shoulders. So when you lean back, the full weight of the big dog is coming on top of you. But if you lean forward into the dog, it unbalances the dog. It's got to come down onto all fours because it can't balance on its hind legs like that and you can deal with the dog down here. So I think whenever you hear an objection, always lean in, ask more questions, seek to understand, get really curious, lean into the big dog. And, um, actually that's when you find out really great insight. Leaning into the big dog. Don't be scared of it. That is the moment to lean in.

Speaker A: We're going to clip up the last 90 seconds and push out on social to promote this episode because it's genius. So it's a great story. But that, uh, lean into the big dog because, yeah, objections are often seen as a. Not a terrifying dog, but certainly an annoying dog. Um, often from, you know, uh, customers, people who just like to whinge. And it's the same 10 people who send in these things all the time, and the same objections and the same complaints. Lean into it. See what you can get there. No, I love that. I love that story. You talk about your background a little bit with a slightly awkward segue, but I do want to come on to your background. I said at the beginning we might talk about cutting cloth a little bit, but you have a really interesting background and an interesting route into marketing, um, from, you know, your childhood through to when you got to the uk. Tell us through. Take us through a little bit of that.

Speaker B: Yeah, So I do have a bit of a squiggly career. It's a bit of a weird one. I don't know if it was squiggly or just like a really abrupt about face. So I, I went to university and studied theater design and production and I worked professionally as a head of wardrobe in theater. So I can make you a period corset in eight hours. Um, you know, it's one of those skills I never get to use.

Speaker A: Um, just what I need.

Speaker B: I know. Um, you know, and I really enjoyed being in theater. It was really fun. Um, but I decided it really wasn't for me. I've no. I know at the time it was referred to as the pink ghetto. Um, um, it tends to be a lot of women, gay men who are paid significantly less than people in other roles. Don't know if that's true now. So it's quite a long time ago. And I just decided I didn't. I didn't want to stay in that career and be better for 30 years. Um, and, um, when I came to the UK from Canada, uh, you know, I didn't really quite know what I wanted to do. And I met, um, Richard, who's my. My former boss at the estate agency I used to work for. And he said, why don't you just come, come work for me for a little bit, Just like as a stopgap. And um, I accidentally stayed for 10 years. It was so fun. Like, I came in sort of doing like kind of PA work. And um, um, the guy who I was, um, doing PA work with, I was on holiday and I said, you know, what do I do for these two weeks? And Richard said, well, I've got the CRM system. I don't know, I don't understand how it works. I was like, well, does it have a manual? Because I'm the kind of weirdo who reads manuals. And um, I read it all the way through and um, figured out how it worked and rewrote all the communications and automated everything and, you know, coded up some automations for some of the marketing that went out. You know, window cards and property details and all that kind of thing. And then training matrix for the team. How do you, how do you use this system, etc. And uh, I never went back to being a PA, so that kind of fell into the marketing side through this CRM system. And then on the side I was kind of blogging on my own and m, you know, curious about SEO and social media. There was a really great marketing manager there at the time who'd been at, you know, sort of BBC magazines and she really mentored me and helped me. And I was learning about all the new stuff, um, all the different channels that were coming out around that time, you know, said to my boss, let's have a blog. He was like, I don't know what that is, but okay. Um, so we, we had a blog before, you know, most estate agents did.

Speaker A: Um, that dates you, unfortunately.

Speaker B: I know, doesn't does. Sad but true. Um, so, you know, I ended up leaving theater behind. Um, interestingly though, my, you know, background in theater, particularly being head of wardrobe, it's actually really quite applicable because a lot of what you have to do in that sort of role is, you know, scheduling, budgeting, and uh, you know, there is no deadline more firm than the show must go on. It makes you very able to hit a deadline.

Speaker A: Absolutely. This is what I wanted to talk about. Years ago I was introduced to the concept and I wish I knew who it was who introduced me m to it so I could credit them. So, but as I can't remember, I'm just claiming it as my own idea. On projects, every project, website, new brand, launch, whatever has a go live date. And you know, if you're listening to the show. Put your hand up if you've ever missed a Go Live date. Everybody's hands going up. Can you ever think of a show that's ever missed m a curtain up on the show on opening day?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: They don't miss, do they? You know, if you've got it in the diary as Friday, um, the 17th, it starts at 4pm At 4pm on Friday the 17th, the curtain comes up and there's people sat there watching. So when I work on projects with clients and they talk about the Go Live day, I was like, no, no, we're calling it the Curtain up there because we're not going to miss it. We still miss deadlines sometimes, listeners. I'm sorry, I can't promise you we don't. But I would say I think we miss fewer deadlines these days by having that sort of the curtain is coming up at that time. So how is it that, uh, theater groups never, ever miss a deadline yet? Project managers, with all their training in Prince, whatever it is that they do, and Six Sigma and all that, and marketers and very clever people and software developers, none of us can hit a deadline yet in theater. They never miss. What is it they do differently that means they never miss.

Speaker B: I think part of its mindset, you know, it's not an option. The show will go on. Um, and there were many times where I was sort of sitting sewing at one o' clock in the morning, you know, because we needed to get the show done. And you do what it takes. You draft in extra help, you know, you make compromises, you figure it out, you find a way and, um, make it happen. But it is, I think it's a big mindset issue wonder as well.

Speaker A: Like there's various sportsmen and women who are teaching businesses how to be high performers that I've just had coffee with a hostage negotiator who does helps businesses do negotiations and sales training and stuff like that. Lots of different sectors that don't necessarily make sense sell consulting services to businesses. Have you ever heard of people in theater doing like project management stuff? So stuff starts on time because it feels like a big miss if it doesn't happen.

Speaker B: You know what, you just hit on one of my passion topics because.

Speaker A: Hostage negotiation.

Speaker B: No, I do.

Speaker A: Sorry.

Speaker B: I love the fine arts and you know, I love theater still to this day. Um, you know, I also love painting. Um, I do a lot of painting and I really think. And there's, there's a really interesting book which I'm going to forget the title of again, so we're going to have to do another check the title Isn't this terrible? Um, the Master and his Emissary.

Speaker A: That's what it's called by also in the show notes.

Speaker B: Also in the show warning though it's really dense and academic. Um, but there I did find a podcast from the author which was a little bit more accessible. I loved it though because I'm such a geek. And um, really it's sort of talking about how we value sort of left brain thinking, analytical thinking more in our culture than we value right brain thinking now. There was a time when right brain, left brain was like, you know, the thing sort of like the 80s when everybody talked about it, but they really talked about sort of what those sides of the brain do. But actually what this neuroscientist is talking about is it's not what those sides of the brain do, it's how they think differently. And uh, what the left hand side of the brain does is break things down into small pieces. What the right hand side of the brain does is sees big picture. And um, in fact it's the arts, it's music, it's theater, it's painting and sculpture, literature that require big picture thinking. You can't play a piece of music without right brain thinking, without big picture because you've got to meld all the pieces together. And it's so interesting that when in schools we cut those things that teach big picture thinking, we overvalue the, the left hand side analytical break things down, um, into tiny steps. And that has huge value. And that's actually where the title of the book comes from, the Master and His Emissary, which is based on a Kafka story, um, that the master teaches his emissaries to go round and, and across this wide territory and you know, share all of his learnings. And um, the master sees the value in the emissaries, but the emissaries don't see the value in the master. Say the master is like the right hand side of the brain. And um, the emissaries are like the left. And I think it's just absolutely so interesting that actually if you get a left hand side brain injury, the right hand side of your brain will work really hard to recover the left because it sees the value in that being able to break things down into small steps. If you get the opposite injury, the left hand side of the brain is okay, the right hand side is damaged. The left hand kind of goes, don't, uh, need that side of the brain and the recovery rate is poor. Doesn't see the value in that right hand side of the brain as much. So I think that's really, really interesting. I think actually culturally that's where we're at. We're not seeing the value in art and um, you know, the fine arts yet when I'm sitting painting and I think about, you know, I go through that whole thing where you have that sort of blank page fear and you just have to get started. And I think this happens all the time with projects. Or you get halfway through and think, oh God, this is ugly. And like every painting I've ever done ever has at least one, usually multiple ugly stages. And so does every project I've ever worked on. But if you just keep pushing through the ugly phase and hold the faith, it'll come out most of the time. Not all of the time, but most of the time. So I think it's got so many great lessons to teach us but we don't think about it that way. We tend to lean more on sports.

Speaker A: I can think of one project I worked on a couple of years ago where uh, the task was effectively solve a problem in the day. There was a demographic didn't use this client couldn't work out why. So we went in and worked. And as we were going through the process I would say we were 85% the way through. We'd got all the data in the world for it that we could possibly get our hands on from interviews and surveys and their data and uh, all sorts of stuff. And it was just messy and ugly and nothing made any sense until it did. Do you know, I remember vividly I was sat in a room in Newcastle with a couple of other people and somebody on a screen and there was just this moment where we all and that ugliness turned into something beautiful really. And probably 80% of the idea that eventually launched was captured in about a 10 minute window. Yeah, there were some bells and whistles and add ons and things like that, but holding your nerve through that because there's times where you're like going, we've got literally nothing to show. We could show them all the ugliness but there's no beautiful thing here. And I'd never thought about it in those ways but where the value lies in your head. But we do right from school age, don't we? We, we prioritize that. And you think about where the academic system really came from. It was about building units of production to work in factories and things. Well, not working factories but effectively to do something like that. And the curriculum is modernized, but the thinking behind it hasn't really. So we kind of undervalue creative aspects of what we do. Certainly in Western cultures, I would say that's true. Don't. If it's true everywhere else. Do you think there's any time that's going to change? I know that's it. You're not doing education policy, you do housing. But do you think it's going to change anytime soon?

Speaker B: It's something that I think that it's very difficult to convince people of. You know, what is the value of creativity? I think in the, the age of AI, it's going to get more interesting, um, because, you know, what is the value of creativity in the face of AI? And you know, I think it can give us more space to be more creative potentially. Um, and that's, you know, how we sort of think about it. But, you know, it's one of those things that it's really difficult to convince people. It goes back to this kind of rational versus emotive thing. It's very sort of similar kind of argument. It's, it's all about the rational. It's all about breaking down the steps and being very analytical and that's what's really, really important. And actually no big picture emotion connecting to people, that's important. So, you know, it's a difficult one to convince. I know. Um, I grew up, my mum's a music teacher, um, so I sort of grew up with that. And that value of this is really, really important and what it contributes. But I do still see that is still being cut right now and people are not focused so much on it. But I, I really hope that people will get to grips with it and start to see that the creativity is so worthwhile.

Speaker A: Just to build kind of spin off there a little bit. You said there about creativity and having space. I want to talk just a little bit about your approach to public speaking because when we did a planning call for this, you introduced me to a great concept which was the interactive what the fuck moment. Right. It's something I do generally when I'm speaking, although I call them lean forward moments. Think I might borrow the interactive what the fuck. It's a much better way of describing it. So explain, you know, kind of your, your process and if I hope I'm not sort of selling your IP off for free here, but, uh, you know, explain the concept to us.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So this sort of goes back to, to something my mum taught me. Um, my mum has A philosophy that nothing in the world is ever boring. There are only boring people. So if you're finding something boring, what are you doing wrong? And this was such a huge philosophy in our family that we're not. Even. Even though I'm 49 years of age, I still don't say the word boring. I say B word in front of my mum because we could say some choice four letter words in front of my mum, but we could not utter the B word yet. It's still not allowed. So, you know, really this was all about trying to make things as exciting as possible. And I've sort of taken this approach from when I was a kid into how I present as an adult. And I absolutely love presenting. And I know you also love presenting, Andy, which just makes me feel so seen. Um, you know, because so many people

Speaker A: say we are two separate. We are the same side of the same coin, aren't we?

Speaker B: That exactly. It's fabulous. So when, when I present and you know, I, I sort of present. I've loved presenting since I was a kid. I would win public speaking contests as a kid. We had them in Canada, sort of national competitions. I absolutely loved it and I still love it now. And, um, people would come up to me and go, how do you do that? And I kind of thought, oh, how do I do that? Because I think I was just doing it so consciously. I wasn't really thinking about it. But when I sat down and tried to break it down, I thought, oh, I. I do have a method that there is a method to this madness, you know, And a lot of it, um, came back to some things we've already talked about. Like, I really believe in strong substance in what I'm speaking about. So I really lean heavily into what are people going to take away and do differently. You know, what's the meaty takeaway? And I don't mean a kebab. I mean, you know, what are you actually going to do differently? Because you've heard me presenting about this topic. And so I lace that through. I have a really strong structure. I like to chunk things up so that it's really obvious what I'm talking about in the pieces. I lean heavily into story. We've already talked about why that's so important. And, um, I have a couple of really killer stats. Uh, specifically, if I'm sort of talking about marketing or if I'm talking about property, I'll lean into those three S's of substance. You know, structure story, stat. But, you know, going back to that story about My mum and the B word. And nothing can ever be B word. The other sort of hallmark of the way that I present is that I want it to be fun, I want it to be memorable. I want people to be really engaged. I want them laughing. So I really work hard from the very first second I step onto a stage to get people's attention. And that's where the interactive what the fuck Comes in. And, um, the. The. That sort of interactive what the fuck could be so many different things. You know, it could be a crazy title or it could be a strange structure. Um, I think I told you the story before, Andy, of when I was, you know, 12 years old, presenting, given, uh, an assignment by my history teacher to present about Tecumseh, who was a native chief, um, very involved in the War of 1812. And every single other kid in my class, like 30 kids, were going to present about the same guy. Ugh. And I just thought, oh. And I remember going home to my mum and going, mum, 30 kids, the same guy. And mom went, that sounds like it'd be. It could be B word. What are you going to do about it? And so in that case, I used the actual format for the presentation. I decided to hold a seance. And, uh, I was going to be the medium and call on the spirit of Tecumseh. I actually got a kid in my class to put up his hand, asked to go to the loo. He went. Actually went to the office to use the PA system. And so when I had the kids sitting in a circle, we were, um, calling on the spirit of Tecumseh. And they were all thinking, what is going on? What is she doing? This is insane. And then, of course, the voice of Tecumseh comes over the intercom. And they were all like, oh, my goodness. And of course, they did realize it was a kid in our class. You know, they. They realized. And then they. When they realized, they laughed. Um, but I also did something a little bit risky. I let them ask questions of. To come see. And, um, I thought this. That was a good way for me to make their presentations less B word for me, because instead of going, oh, here's another kid talking about the same dude, it was. I gotta pay really close, close attention because I've got to make sure I know everything that everybody in this class knows about Tecumseh so that I can prepare answers for the guy who's playing the role of Tecumseh. So, you know, you can do interactive. What the fucks that are crazy like that where the whole presentation is a wild format. Um, or it can be strange titles, I think, you know, stories that people think, what has this got to do with it? I once went and saw a speaker and she was talking about very, um, serious mental health issues. But she used, um, the psychology of Batman villains as her structure. So she used every sort of Batman villain to talk about a different diagnoses and then sort of went through people who in real life had those mental health issues. And her message was actually, um, people with mental health issues are much more likely to be a victim of a crime, not the perpetrator, which is a really serious message. But if she'd had that as her title, absolutely no one would have come to that lecture. As it was, it was packed.

Speaker A: I can imagine. Because I think the bit you said right at the beginning, the delivery mechanism for this changes by speaker and by subject matter and all that sort of thing. But actually the important bit goes back to the beginning. If people are smiling or intently listening, it's not every subject leads itself to a smile. But if people are intently listening, most of the time in what I talk about, that involves them smiling and enjoying it. They're learning. If you bore them, the distraction device comes out and they suddenly start sending messages and, and replying to Slack and emailing people. And, um, they're not going to hear anything and you're forever chasing it back. You make them at the beginning smile, sit forward and go, whoa. Okay, you've got them. And you've got them for the rest of the presentation as well. So I love the interactive. What the. I think it's fantastic. And I would urge anyone listening who's got a presentation to do. What are you going to do in that first couple of minutes that is going to grab people's attention? Not even first couple of minutes. First minute, I would say to grab people's attention. Put the phone down and see if you can keep them. Uh, you don't have to hold a seance, do you? No, absolutely not. Um, but it could help. You never know.

Speaker B: If anybody does, I absolutely want to hear about it on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because look, that's something that is, I guarantee you now, what was the 30 kids in that class, they are still talking about that now. Right. And 10 years since you left that school, they asked nicely done. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Uh, but they are still talking about that now. There will be someone having a drink tonight going, do you remember that? What was she called? Do you remember we did that say on someone talk. Yeah, that was wild. That's still happening. People remember that. You don't remember anything else anyone ever said. So Tecumseh in 1812, fought in the battle of. Yeah, exactly. Entertain people. Brilliant. You mentioned LinkedIn. Let's round up with that. Is that the best place for anyone listening? Gone. Jeez, Colette. Sounds great. Let's connect with her. Is LinkedIn your home? Is that where you hang out?

Speaker B: Yes. That's probably the best place to connect. If anybody does want to tell me about any seances that you hold or, um, how you're dealing with big dogs. Ah, that's the place to find me.

Speaker A: Excellent. Again, there's another link to Colleen in the show notes, and I'm now inspired to try and make one of my next keynotes that I develop some sort of seance to see if I can make this work. Um, challenge accepted. Colleen, Challenge accepted. I'll take that. Excellent look. Well, Colleen Babcock, thank you very much for your time. It's been amazing, and I hope when your mum's listening, she doesn't find this the B word. Hello, Colleen's mom.