Episode 55 Interview with the podcast “One Eyed Man” by Mike Stopforth.txt
English (US)
01:00:00.080 — 01:00:05.080 · Speaker 1
If you treat podcasting as an island, it tends to go a little, arrives.
01:00:05.080 — 01:00:10.080 · Speaker 2
Whether or not they should be on social media, and they've come to see us specifically for that.
01:00:10.240 — 01:00:16.840 · Speaker 1
I've come to believe that the secret to great content is nothing more than compound consistency.
01:00:19.520 — 01:00:42.440 · Speaker 2
I'm super excited to be talking to Mike stop fourth today. He is a serial entrepreneur, a author, a speaker, a jujitsu enthusiast, occasional flier fisherman. Uh, this man does a lot. I don't know where he fits his marketing work in, but he does. And I can't wait to pick his brain today about podcasts.
01:00:43.480 — 01:00:44.440 · Speaker 2
Hello, Mike.
01:00:44.560 — 01:00:46.320 · Speaker 1
Hi, Janet. How are you?
01:00:46.360 — 01:00:48.560 · Speaker 2
I'm good, I'm good. Nice to see you.
01:00:48.600 — 01:00:57.680 · Speaker 1
It is nice to see you, too. I feel like we're internet friends. Right? Like internet friends are people you have a relationship with on the web? Yes, but very seldom get to see a face to face.
01:00:57.720 — 01:01:04.710 · Speaker 2
Exactly. And I was going to put you on the spot and ask you if you can remember where we met in IRL.
01:01:04.750 — 01:01:10.910 · Speaker 1
Thanks, Jenna. That's a great start for me. And no way that I could come out of this looking bad at all.
01:01:11.190 — 01:01:12.990 · Speaker 2
It's fine, let me tell you. Let me tell.
01:01:12.990 — 01:01:14.030 · Speaker 1
You. Was it a conference?
01:01:14.070 — 01:01:15.950 · Speaker 2
No, it was the Gareth Cliff show.
01:01:15.990 — 01:01:17.230 · Speaker 1
Oh, wow. Okay.
01:01:17.270 — 01:02:03.190 · Speaker 2
It was. It was a radio chat, um, about social media. And I was invited by Jade. And when I arrived on the day I met you, and I suddenly realized that I was way completely and entirely out of my depth. And it was such a hectic. I think it was like 45 minutes where we were on air. And I just remember thinking afterwards, well, I am very lucky to have come out of that alive, but I didn't have sufficient, uh, expertise.
with the panel that I was alongside. So that's how we met. And that was 2014.
01:02:03.310 — 01:02:18.750 · Speaker 1
Cannot believe that. I mean, I can't believe that we were there. And I do remember it now. Um, I remember Jade, uh, inviting me to that. Yeah. Um, but that was certainly not the case. Uh, Jennifer. Kimberly, that's 11 years ago. That is a lifetime. And a bit ago.
01:02:18.790 — 01:02:28.910 · Speaker 2
It was it was. It took me about 45 minutes to scroll far enough in my Instagram feed to find it, because that was the only way I thought I could remember when the heck this was.
01:02:28.990 — 01:02:29.550 · Speaker 1
That was amazing.
01:02:29.590 — 01:02:37.070 · Speaker 2
So yeah, so that was a long time ago indeed. And I think Cerebro was, uh, what what you were doing at the time.
01:02:37.430 — 01:03:00.220 · Speaker 1
Yeah. That's right. So 2014 would have been a really interesting time for us at Cerebro. We would have been, um, in our first year after selling to WPP. So we were okay integrating ourselves into the broader WPP family. Um, yeah. And we were growing quickly at the time. It was a it was a really interesting time.
01:03:00.420 — 01:03:39.660 · Speaker 2
I just remember being flabbergasted by the depth of knowledge that you had on social media. Um, and where we were as an agency were so small, and we were sort of just dipping our toes into the water with our clients because they had, um, I guess, for want of a better word, forced us into the space, you know, coming from a kind of more creative brand, um, agency into now having to think about this whole digital world.
Um, and yeah, I have always held you in very high esteem because your, your knowledge on that day was, was clear and, uh, yeah, it was, it was really exciting.
01:03:40.460 — 01:05:30.410 · Speaker 1
Thank you Janet. That's very, very kind of you. Very generous. Uh, I, I think any expertise that I shared then was only by virtue of having to solve those problems really quickly for clients at the time. And, you know, there are advantages to being a first mover, but there are also disadvantages and that you you learn a lot of tough lessons really fast.
And we had to learn a lot of tough lessons fast. And we messed up a lot. And I suppose often those, um, failures and disasters are your best teachers. And that helps us, I think, gain a lot of, um, experience and expertise quickly. But I think we also like one of the, um, central tenets of that business was sharing knowledge as well.
So we would we got into the habit of, of documenting and, and writing a lot of material about, um, how we thought social media could work best for brands. And then we committed to sharing that knowledge in ebooks and stuff like that, and that that worked really nicely, both as a marketing tool and as an internal education tool.
Um, but yeah, I mean, as much as I might have liked to have believed I knew some things about social media, then the world of social media has changed so much that often today, I feel like a complete outsider. Um, I've never really been strong in the paid or performance space. The technical performance marketing space, and it feels like social media is largely, uh, media and a little bit less social these days.
Yeah. So, um, I'm still learning and still working hard to stay up to date with what matters most to our clients. But, um, yeah, I appreciate the kind words nonetheless.
01:05:30.570 — 01:05:55.560 · Speaker 2
Okay, so now I'm ready to pick your brain on this other realm that has become available to, um, brands. Um, now in our day. And that is the ability to be present, either audio only or audio and video in, um, the podcast world. I'd love to know your thoughts on on where podcasting fits into modern businesses.
01:05:55.640 — 01:07:26.200 · Speaker 1
Yeah, so I mean, ironically enough, podcasting predates most of the the social media that you and I and our clients feel most comfortable building profiles on today. And, um, you know, initially it was it was blogs, wikis and podcasts and the technology that tied it all together was this magical thing called RSS, an XML feed.
And this allowed us suddenly to broadcast and share content on the social web in a way that hadn't been possible before, unless you had significant technical expertise. And, um, yeah. So podcasting early on was this, like really fringe geeky activity that, um, was interesting but hadn't kind of fully developed as a, as a medium.
And I think podcasting kind of got lost in the wilderness a little as. As the more established social media platforms became a primary, um, space for brands to communicate with their audiences. But I think as as the platforms have evolved and gotten more powerful, um, I think brands have felt that they have less of a relationship with those platforms.
I mean, if you've ever had a Facebook page or a Facebook account get hacked and you've had to resolve that, you know how helpful meta are in terms of acknowledging those issues and resolving them for you quite bluntly. They don't they don't care at all.
01:07:26.440 — 01:07:28.200 · Speaker 2
That's helpful is not the word.
01:07:28.200 — 01:09:29.230 · Speaker 1
Uh, you know, they're not they're not struggling and you are not a priority. It doesn't matter who you are, actually. Um, and so what has happened? I think with that, um, ebbing of trust in those traditional social media channels, is is clients looking back to platforms that are intrinsically social, but that they can own and control themselves.
So, you know, kind of how do we think about building content that lives beyond the feed and that isn't subject to algorithmic nuances, and that we can use really powerful paid strategies to support and amplify, but ultimately bringing people back home to the spaces that we can own and control. And one of my clients used the analogy once it feels like they're building mansions on land that they don't own, you know, which is it was quite a powerful visual representation of that.
And. Yeah. Yeah. And I think podcasting is a tool that now offers us the opportunity to develop content in interesting ways that our audiences become more familiar with. And obviously as platforms like Spotify and Apple have helped bring podcasting to or podcasts rather to the masses. Um, it feels less geeky and less fringy and a lot more mainstream.
And yeah, I um, yes, I've certainly felt that. And I think our clients have felt that the challenge is that just like any channel, um, if you treat podcasting as an island and to its own, uh, in and of itself, it tends to go a little awry. So the same strategies apply, the same fundamental communication principles apply.
It just happens to be a channel where we can exploit and explore audio in interesting ways.
01:09:29.270 — 01:10:21.580 · Speaker 2
We also feel that it does something more human for the brand. And our feeling is that as content generation in other spaces, um, even video content creation is just getting easier with the AI tools that we have now. Um, people that want to be seen to be real, um, leaders in their businesses or um, even brands that want to communicate with their customers using podcasts, they can do that in a more real way, through either just their voices in an audio podcast or in discussions where they're being filmed and and they have video content as well.
I don't know if you have any thoughts on that and how it might fit in this new AI age we find ourselves in.
01:10:21.620 — 01:10:45.139 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Um, I think that consumers are even at some subconscious level, drawn to things that feel more human and real because it's hard to tell what's real from what's not real anymore. Um, and so I think there is something to be said for this movement towards that which I can trust and which feels more human.
The
01:10:46.140 — 01:11:33.100 · Speaker 1
the fascinating thing about podcasting is that it is so low barrier to entry, right? Literally anyone can create a podcast. Um, overnight, there's many jokes about the number of middle aged white men who probably shouldn't have podcasts and yet still do. Um, and yeah, it's so, so I say it's a double edged sword because from a brand perspective, that low barrier to entry is is an advantage because you can experiment and explore very quickly.
But it's also a disadvantage because we don't always approach the channel with the same level of scrutiny that we might. Um, in the example of a channel that has a higher barrier of entry. So let me let me try and explain what I mean there. Um, if I offered,
01:11:34.220 — 01:12:36.960 · Speaker 1
um, my financial services client, a channel on DStv. To broadcast their content. To create stories to showcase their thought leadership. To amplify the people in their organization. I think they would spend an enormous amount of time thinking about how to do that deliberately and smartly, and how to carve out the storytelling and how to be relevant to the big audience that exists in that space, and especially if that required a significant production investment up front with podcasting, because the production cost is relatively low and the audience is out there in the ether waiting to listen to us, and the barrier to entry is so low, we don't necessarily apply the same level of strategic scrutiny to how we're going to show up.
We tend to experiment, right? And this has happened over and over again. This happened when, um,
01:12:38.040 — 01:12:55.720 · Speaker 1
clients set up their first Facebook pages in their first Twitter, now X accounts and their first Instagram pages, is that, generally speaking, it was either done to keep up with the Joneses. So so to match the, the, the um, the strategy of of the.
01:12:55.720 — 01:12:56.600 · Speaker 2
Team should have.
01:12:56.680 — 01:14:20.120 · Speaker 1
A competitor. Yeah. Or because I kind of have to write like everybody else is doing it. So should I. So like, either jealousy or fear. Right. Which aren't ever really good strategic motivators, but are frequently the most powerful. Um, and what happened was we would see a lot of candidates used Instagram as an example.
Um, TikTok, I guess, would be a prevalent one now, as well as they would set up a channel, start building content for it, maybe even do a good job of it, build up a follower base, and then kind of arrive at a point where that, like, I had 4000 followers and this nice populated grid and a whole bunch of lovely videos and no idea whether or not it was actually working.
Um. Like what? How do we know that all this time, effort and energy is actually benefiting us or our audience at all? And so the danger with low barrier to entry channels, any of them, and a lot of the social and digital channels that are available to us, I think fit comfortably in that space is that we don't we don't we don't offer the same level of of strategic scrutiny or creative scrutiny or even like storytelling scrutiny up front.
And I think that's that's something that is a far bigger challenge, I imagine, for you ushering your clients into the space than getting them comfortable with the idea of a podcast is in the first place.
01:14:20.160 — 01:14:55.270 · Speaker 2
Well, we sometimes are met with, um, consternation when we are sitting across the the boardroom table from a potential new client. And we we argue Whether or not they should be on social media, and they've come to see us specifically for that. Um, you know, it's the same sort of question as you could, but should you?
Yeah. And so I think, you know, the, um, the availability of the channel doesn't actually necessarily mean, um, that the business should be a participant there.
01:14:56.070 — 01:17:27.650 · Speaker 1
Yeah. We've actually we've codified this because I think it's important to actually operationalize it. And we from a strategic perspective, um, we'll take clients through a multi-step process when developing a strategy. And, and it starts with this. I think there's four questions that clients should answer when it comes to any communication strategy, regardless of the channel.
It's who are we going to be? Why are we doing it? What are we going to say and when are we going to say it right? So so identity objectives um content and then publishing or frequency or whatever it might be. Yeah. And and the way that works is that first we decide who we are as a brand. Most brands know that already, and that's pretty well established, hopefully.
Um, the challenge with social channels is that, um, who you are has got a lot more to do with what your audience says you are. Than. Than what? Who you say you are, right. And if there's a gap between who you say you are and what your audience is, you know who your audience is. You are. That's a challenge already.
Um, then we then we look at objectives, right? So what are we thinking? Uh, through, uh, from a through the lens of reach and engagement and sentiment and conversion, all of the other important metrics that are critical for us to succeed. And then we go, okay, who do we want to speak to? Um, um, what do we want to say?
What? Like what what pillars, topics, themes are we authorized and credible to speak about? As. As. As the brand. And only then. After that. After we go. Identity. Objectives. Pillars and personas. Do we go? Okay. What's the appropriate platform for the ideas that result from that process? Um, because the reverse version of that where you go, we need a channel strategy for Instagram and for our newsletter and for billboards, is that when you retrofit it with the channel at the beginning, you end up sounding like a schizophrenic brand across any, you know, all of those touchpoints, and it doesn't make sense to the customer.
Like we've now failed in the endeavor to avoid making our complexity the potential customers problem. And yeah, I think there's there's a lot of work to be done around thinking about comms strategy as a unifying or golden thread, regardless of of channel. Yeah.
01:17:28.370 — 01:17:34.130 · Speaker 2
And tell me, how did you yourself make a decision to to start a podcast?
01:17:35.010 — 01:17:47.330 · Speaker 1
I covered this journey from a middle aged white man. It's like a it's like an entry level criteria. So we, we give away puffy jackets and and a Toyota and a podcast. That's how it works.
01:17:47.570 — 01:17:48.810 · Speaker 2
And a podcast.
01:17:48.850 — 01:17:50.730 · Speaker 1
Yeah. So, um, yeah.
01:17:50.890 — 01:17:52.570 · Speaker 2
I don't think that was your reason.
01:17:52.970 — 01:19:42.240 · Speaker 1
I speak about the podcast with deep shame because I don't, uh, afforded the time and energy that I should. And one of the critical components of any meaningful and successful podcast is consistency. And I lecture on this to everybody who will listen. And then I do the exact opposite myself. Um, so yeah, it provides a upfront caveat before I even get into it is that I could definitely be doing better.
Um, it's not the first podcast. I started. There was a podcast that I hosted with, um, Dave Doherty years ago, like 2008, 2009, early, early, early days called amplitude, which was a what's happening in the world of social media. Um, podcast, which was a lot of fun and actually really well received at the time.
But, um, again, Dave and I didn't have the discipline to keep it going. Um, we probably should have, because, you know, today we would we would be doing pretty well if we kept it going. Um, yeah. I, uh, I've come to believe that the secret to great content is nothing more than compound consistency, right?
Like, um, the most influential podcasters of our time are people like Joe Rogan. Um, and regardless of how you feel about Joe Rogan and his politics and his ideologies, um, he is successful because he is unfathomably consistent. He is just so good at producing content over and over and over and over again at a very repeatable and predictable rate.
And so he's a little bit like a Warren Buffet of content, right? He's not the best because he's the best. He's the best because he's been doing it longer than anyone else has. Um, yeah.
01:19:42.280 — 01:19:45.360 · Speaker 2
And his worry for him is he's going to run out of guests.
01:19:45.560 — 01:20:26.280 · Speaker 1
Apparently not. We could just keep recycling him like he's doing fine. Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, there are plenty of people that I discovered are very willing to share their opinions, regardless of what they are on the internet. And as long as there are opinionated people in the world, Joe Rogan will continue to thrive.
I happen to be a Joe Rogan fan, but only because I'm a fan of of MMA. Not necessarily because I'm a fan of his politics, but uh, yeah, I quite enjoy the UFC stuff, but. So I'm quite like, I'm deeply conflicted. Conflicted. But, um, yeah. So. So what drawn me drew me to setting up a podcast, schedule. Actually leaving Cerebro was a big part of it.
So I spent a lot of time, um,
01:20:27.320 — 01:21:34.430 · Speaker 1
very deliberately so the early part of my social media career, if you could call it that, was about building up a kind of reputation as being the social media guy, um, literally the one eyed man in the land of the blind. Right. So when everybody doesn't know what's going on, the guy that puts up his hand goes, I'll figure it out.
Becomes the the de facto expert, you know? Um, which, again, doesn't necessarily speak much to the depth of, of expertise, but just the willingness, the overwhelming confidence to say that you are the expert. Um, and, and so the net result of, of, of the cerebral journey was working really hard to get to reboot, to be a bigger brand than I was, because it's difficult to build an agency when you have to be in the room all the time.
And so I worked really hard to get to the point where people were buying Cerebro, not because I was in it or a part of it, but because Cerebro was better. Um, and this the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And we got there, and I was really proud of it. There were people that contracted the cerebral not knowing that I was in it, and that was really cool.
Um,
01:21:35.510 — 01:23:32.140 · Speaker 1
but when I left Cerebro, I suddenly realized I'd done that job so well that I no longer had a public profile. And if I was going to build another business, that it was probably a good idea for me to reinvest in that. So I, I spit and polished the website and I started, you know, tweeting and LinkedIn again and all of that sort of thing.
Um, and the podcast was, was, uh, something that I really wanted to add to the mix. And so I did some work with, um, another production company, um, who helped me in job to set it up and get it running and, uh, yeah, for the for the early part, I think, gosh, I think we're like 70 episodes in now, but it should be a lot, lot further along.
But, um, the early part, I was pretty good at keeping things regular and consistent, and I've sort of fallen off the wagon, uh, starting, uh, rodeo. Um, that's kind of gobbled up most of my time over the last year and a half. Um, but I loved it. I love conversation, and I love challenging discussions, and I love, um, learning from people who are way smarter and, uh, more successful than I am.
And, um, and the show really aimed to do that. Um, it was also, I think, inspired by the realization that the world had become very binary and very polarized. And it's thinking, and I am convinced that leadership, if we have a future as a species, uh, its leadership must be comfortable with discomfort, it must be comfortable in the gray and the uncertain and the unknown.
And so the one I meant was really about that. It's like, how can we figure out the the difficult topics in the spaces between binary belief systems and ideologies. Um, and yeah, so it was it was a lot of that. And um, I still I still care deeply about those topics and I still have many conversations I'd like to have.
I've just been not really good at keeping it up to date.
01:23:34.020 — 01:23:44.100 · Speaker 2
Well, we had an idea. We we were thinking when we were looking at your fantastic book, um, that you've got 52 apes just sitting right here.
01:23:44.140 — 01:24:19.850 · Speaker 1
I mean, this is not lost on me, Janet. I am aware of what is right there. I mean, I haven't even done a good job of marketing the book. Never mind the podcast based on the book. Never mind the movie based on the podcast. Um, no, I just yeah, yeah, it's a no brainer. Like 52 was designed partly because it is so easy to turn into other pieces of content.
Um, I mean, one of the things I originally thought about when I was kind of trying to get the one eyed man concept of the ground was doing like a, like a podcast that was just based on questions like me just asking 20 questions of a guest. Um.
01:24:20.530 — 01:24:21.130 · Speaker 2
Okay.
01:24:21.170 — 01:24:42.530 · Speaker 1
Which is what what I kind of it has evolved into, it really is me just asking questions. But, um, yeah, I, I think that there is a second life there somewhere in the, in the space between, um, one ad man and 52. But I'm just gonna have to figure out how to get my ass off the ground, and maybe I'll get closer to it.
He seems to be.
01:24:43.250 — 01:24:43.770 · Speaker 2
Finding the.
01:24:43.770 — 01:24:45.010 · Speaker 1
Time. Yeah.
01:24:45.130 — 01:24:57.610 · Speaker 2
Um, when you are typically filming or recording your your apps for your podcast, do you do those one at a time? Do you group them together? What is your process look like?
01:24:57.970 — 01:25:29.570 · Speaker 1
Mhm. Um, generally speaking one at a time. Um, but I have been very fortunate to partner with brands on some of the series and, and seasons in one. I've. Man. And in those instances, we will generally, um. Will generally block, uh, book talks and interviews just to keep a similar feel and rhythm around them.
Um, yes. Because if those episodes are too far apart, you tend to lose some of the, um, ethos and vibe of.
01:25:29.570 — 01:25:29.850 · Speaker 2
Of.
01:25:29.970 — 01:25:45.530 · Speaker 1
Of those sessions. Yeah. Um, but generally speaking, I will, I will, I will record them one at a time. I think it's a lot smarter to, to block record both from an efficiency and a consistency perspective. So you're definitely doing it the right way.
01:25:45.570 — 01:26:22.880 · Speaker 2
Well, it does require a little bit more planning, but you get a lot more out of that time for sure. Um, you also, you know, I think you will have experienced it as well. You get into the flow of it. You know, by the time we have finished filming our, you know, 12th episode for a season, uh, we're really starting to find our stride.
And we look at the first couple of ones we've done in that batch and we're like, oh, we seem to build stuff, you know. So I definitely think there's a there's a bit of psychology there that you, you find your flow when you are doing them consistently.
01:26:22.920 — 01:26:41.520 · Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely started out again. I think, you know, any great content is rewarded by consistency and it should be muscle. It should be something that becomes second nature. But um, yeah, if like me, you let it linger too long, it you do feel like you're starting from scratch every time, so I do I do need to get better.
01:26:42.120 — 01:26:49.440 · Speaker 2
And, um, talk to me about, um, how you select guests. What is your process? Is it people that you're keen to talk to?
01:26:49.840 — 01:28:29.790 · Speaker 1
Yeah, more often than not, it'll be either either quite organic, uh, based on, um, a series of conversations that I've had that have led me to a point where there's a bunch of questions that I want to pose to a particular type of person, um, or it'll be, uh, based around a project or an interest that I have at that point in time.
And I can double whammy. It's a bit of research, plus, um, plus a conversation, plus an episode. Um, but, yeah, I've been blessed with such a broad network of people, um, that I get to connect with that. It's made a lot easier for me to, um, access really great, smart, challenging, uh, creative and interesting.
Um, uh, guests. Um, and again, it also helps when brands approach and go, look, we, you know, we'd love to help you put together a season on X or had an opportunity to do a really cool, um, leadership season, um, with a, with a whiskey brand. Uh, did, um, a whole series around digital transformation with the financial services brand?
Um, and then worked actually with a sports marketing and agent, um, uh, on a series on sports leadership, which was fascinating. Got to speak to, uh, Daisy Ray, who coaches banana banana and got to speak to Enoch, who at the time was the coach of of the Proteas. So, like, really got access to some amazing, uh, minds.
Um, yeah. And it's I've been really spoiled with the, with the relationships that are already in my networking that I've been able to, to leverage.
01:28:29.870 — 01:28:46.350 · Speaker 2
How do you prepare for those discussions. Are you. Do you stick to a format of questions? You kind of inferred that maybe there were a set of questions that were, you know, ones you like to come back to? Is it is it very structured, or do you just kind of see where the conversation takes you?
01:28:46.470 — 01:30:12.060 · Speaker 1
Yes. I always have a planned script, um, which is is generally speaking, it's almost like a decision tree of decision tree of questions. And that's kind of emerged over, over time. And I've shamelessly used, um, AI to help me transcribe what I've taken the transcripts from all of the episodes, and then I've looked at which questions have come up the most, and then kind of coupled those in a process flow, which makes it a lot easier to replicate.
And yeah, the, the, a lot of the questions in 52 came out of that exercise. Um, I love I love a good question. I love big, beautiful and bold questions. Questions that force you to get out of your comfort zone and to answer from a place of deep, sometimes deep insecurity or deep humanity. And I think those are the questions that people are most interested in listening to.
Um, and yeah, so so I've spent a lot of time mapping those up. And I do have this little black book of, of questions that I kind of go to for each episode. I do a lot of research into guests as well. I think the the easiest way to open a guest up is to surprise them with your knowledge of them very early on in the conversation.
So if you've done a little bit of homework and you've discovered that this person is into is competitive.
01:30:12.100 — 01:30:13.780 · Speaker 2
CategoryFishing on the orange River.
01:30:13.980 — 01:30:52.620 · Speaker 1
Fly fishing on the orange River. Yeah. Um, that's a great way to, I think, connect at a deep level with their interest. And it just kind of strips away those barriers that they might have in place and makes the conversation that follows, I think, a lot easier and a lot more organic. Um, but then I guess there's a part of how to play as well.
I mean, I have learned that it doesn't matter what you say, some guests just aren't, um, comfortable with this kind of space and this kind of interface, and. Yeah, that's that's I mean, there's a certain chemistry to it that is innate and great when it happens, but if it doesn't, then, you know, like, not every episode is going to be great.
01:30:52.660 — 01:30:58.420 · Speaker 2
Have you ever had any apps that you actually just haven't gone with because the interview has, has felt.
01:30:58.460 — 01:30:59.810 · Speaker 3
Oh my gosh, so bad.
01:31:00.250 — 01:31:05.090 · Speaker 1
I mean, it's been five years now. They definitely have been some, um,
01:31:06.170 — 01:31:06.610 · Speaker 1
I,
01:31:07.930 — 01:31:18.090 · Speaker 1
I yeah, there's one that I could definitely remember, but the awkward part is that, you know, generally people are like, let me know when it goes live. And I'm like, yeah, that totally. Um, and then you're like.
01:31:18.130 — 01:31:18.370 · Speaker 3
Oh.
01:31:18.370 — 01:31:18.690 · Speaker 2
Well.
01:31:18.730 — 01:31:19.010 · Speaker 3
For.
01:31:19.010 — 01:31:22.290 · Speaker 1
Sure. Yeah. Three years later, I don't think it's for like, yeah, yeah.
01:31:22.610 — 01:31:24.410 · Speaker 3
Um, I'm still busy.
01:31:24.610 — 01:31:54.810 · Speaker 1
I've also hilariously and I've been in shows that didn't go live, um, which is it can only have been because of my, um, my lack of, uh, of contribution. No, I did it. I did a panel video podcast for quite a well known, uh, entrepreneurial personality in South Africa. And me and one of the other guests on the panel, I don't know, we were just in the mood on the day, so we were having a full go.
And I think, uh, based on that dynamic, he decided not to make it live. But, uh, no names shall be mentioned. Um.
01:31:55.650 — 01:31:57.930 · Speaker 2
Sure. Okay. We'll talk about that one later.
01:31:57.970 — 01:32:26.810 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Off the record. Um, yeah. I suppose if it's absolutely abominable, then then I would have a conversation with that person around whether or not they're comfortable with it going live. And, um, but I suppose it's one of those, um, one of those things that you have to deal with when you're creating content.
Again, it probably matters a lot more to you than it does to your audience. And I think most audiences are very forgiving of these things anyway, so they're not enjoying it. They'll just skip to the next one. So yeah.
01:32:27.610 — 01:32:32.370 · Speaker 2
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you a little bit about your book now.
01:32:32.730 — 01:32:33.130 · Speaker 3
Sure.
01:32:33.170 — 01:32:37.050 · Speaker 2
52 big questions for business leaders.
01:32:37.410 — 01:32:38.090 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:32:38.570 — 01:32:40.570 · Speaker 2
How long did it take you to write this?
01:32:42.130 — 01:34:42.440 · Speaker 1
Uh, start to finish. Just under two years. But that's not two years of writing. Uh, it's two years since the idea was sparked, um, by an Entrepreneurial friend of mine, a dear friend and mentor of mine, Matthew Giancarlo. There's a conversation we had on the back of a game drive vehicle, um, when we were away on retreat together.
On retreat. Um, and then that evolved into a shared document where we were contributing questions to it, and then that document died. We let it die, and we just neither of us were picking it up, and neither of us were driving it forwards. Uh, neither of us are particularly good at maintaining momentum on things.
We're very good at starting things, not necessarily finishing them. Um, and so, uh, Matt and I checked in after a couple of months, I hired a project manager to help us to sort of herd the two of us into action. She helped me get the project through to phase two. Um, and then it died again and sat there, hovering over my head like a dark cloud of shame.
Um, which is where a lot of other manuscripts, incidentally, are currently. Um, I have a few unfinished projects that hang over me. Uh, with shame. Um, and then, uh, a lady by the name of Jackie Nash, um, uh, who I've known for many, many years and haven't had an opportunity to work together. We connected.
And, um, I said to her, please, this is a project that is dear to my heart, but that I cannot get over the line. And I need you to help me do that. And then. Yeah, probably 4 or 5 months after, um, after Jackie and I first spoke, we had a draft ready, a manuscript ready, and, um, Tracy MacDonald was kind enough to support it.
And. Yeah, then we went into editing and typesetting, and it came to life in September last year.
01:34:42.800 — 01:34:48.720 · Speaker 2
Out of all of these questions. Which one is your favorite?
01:34:49.120 — 01:35:00.350 · Speaker 1
Yeah, sure. There's a few there that are deeply, deeply personal. And it's no coincidence that, you know, there's there's different sections in the book and the one that is like the, um,
01:35:01.510 — 01:36:11.580 · Speaker 1
the one that is the most complicated or the most dense is the one around self-improvement. I really like this idea of, oh, yeah, I just moved my camera. Uh, I really like this idea of kind of self-evaluation and self questioning, but the question that haunted me a lot, um, is if your if your life story was divided into two chapters separated by a singular event, what would the event be and why?
Um, so that's one of the questions that I loved. And I spent a lot of time thinking about, um, and it's just. Yeah, it's like a purely hypothetical question. There's no practical reason why you would ever have to answer that, except to think introspectively and deeply about your your journey. Yeah. So that's one that's that's my favorite.
One of the ones that I love to pose to my clients is, um, what would your company look like if you built it today? Um, and then have questions around people as well, you know, um, like, one of the ones I love is what would our company look like if our staff ran it for a month? Um, and yeah, lots that I think force us to.
01:36:11.620 — 01:36:12.380 · Speaker 3
And the other one.
01:36:12.380 — 01:36:17.780 · Speaker 2
Similarly, if everyone worked like you, I think I can't remember exactly how you posed it.
01:36:17.820 — 01:36:45.780 · Speaker 1
Well, I'm sure if you're a normal person, which I'm sure you are, that you're an exceptional person, but you've had the thought of if only everybody drives like me, the roads would always be fine, right? Like, I've definitely had that thought and I was like, what would that look like as a business question, right?
We all think we would as efficiently as possible. And if only everybody else was as detail oriented as we are, but we tend to very conveniently forget the times where we are inefficient or problematic.
01:36:45.900 — 01:36:46.220 · Speaker 2
The bad.
01:36:46.220 — 01:36:46.580 · Speaker 3
Habits.
01:36:46.580 — 01:36:51.860 · Speaker 1
Or bottleneck or drive like an idiot, which I'm also frequently, um, uh,
01:36:53.340 — 01:37:06.020 · Speaker 1
find myself doing. So yeah. So that's a question that just kind of forces us to really think about ego and how much room we create for people to excel, the things that they're good at and that we're not good at.
01:37:06.020 — 01:37:06.900 · Speaker 3
And yes.
01:37:06.940 — 01:37:08.620 · Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a it's a fun one.
01:37:08.660 — 01:37:23.540 · Speaker 2
I think that was the bit that, that kind of sat with me was that I could think of a couple of things almost immediately that are things that I do in my business that I don't need to do, but I like to do. And so I haven't handed them over.
01:37:23.580 — 01:37:24.500 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:37:24.540 — 01:37:31.140 · Speaker 2
But the best thing for the business probably would be for me to hand them over. But probably ego won't let me.
01:37:31.180 — 01:37:44.780 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Or then you have to go through the process of figuring out, yeah, you have to go through the process of figuring out what good enough is, you know, because it won't ever really be like you would do it, but good enough is fine as well. Um, so yeah.
01:37:44.940 — 01:37:54.690 · Speaker 2
And sometimes even I'm excited and surprised when someone gives us the solution that is so different, but definitely better than one I would have had.
01:37:54.850 — 01:38:16.650 · Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And that can only come from a a source that has a different background, a different experience and different cultural ideas and different ideologies. And, you know, our willingness to entertain those different voices, I think, is a critical part of building businesses that are set apart from the competitive mess.
01:38:17.090 — 01:38:29.450 · Speaker 2
Well, Mark, thank you. I have, um, really enjoyed chatting to you properly, not, um, over a social media platform. I appreciate you giving us so much of your time today.
01:38:29.650 — 01:39:08.850 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Janet, it's been such a pleasure, man. I think the work that you are doing for brands is so critically important. And not because podcasting is fun and interesting. Because engaging in any channel meaningfully, strategically, Um, and commercially, if we're honest, has got to be done, like with deep intention and deep consideration.
And only somebody who is, um, a natural storyteller, only somebody who understands the building blocks of brand will ever be able to, to, to articulate that like you can. So yeah, I'm sure that your clients are thriving off the back of that, uh, that insight and that knowledge. So well done to you.
01:39:08.890 — 01:39:09.810 · Speaker 3
Thank you. Mark.
01:39:10.570 — 01:39:13.330 · Speaker 2
It means a lot coming from you. Appreciate it.
01:39:14.370 — 01:39:37.730 · Speaker 2
Wow. Lots to learn from a very clever man. Um. I've hope. I hope you've enjoyed today's discussion with Mike. Please go and get his book. 52 Big Questions for Business leaders. And I think it should say 52 tough questions because there are some really, um, big meaty questions in here. Go and get his book.
It's a great read.
