Behind the Scenes with Charlotte: A Candid Podcast Chat

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Transcript

1:17

Hi there. This is a bit of a different podcast episode because I was interviewed by my, uh, one of my business buddies, Dr. Jay Watkins, who used to be a colleague in a group coaching program. We were both in and has become kind of a business friend, and we worked together from time to time and just. Shoot the breeze and generally help each other out with bits and bobs. And she invited me to go on her podcast and speak about, uh, my experience and how my business got to this point. And I just thought that it would be a really useful, um, or interesting rather thing to, for you guys to listen to as well. So I'm sharing here on, uh, the Caffeine podcast and I hope you enjoy it. Speak to you next time. Bye.

Dr. Jo Watkins: 1:58

Welcome to the podcast, Charlotte.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari: 2:01

Thank you. And I have to say, I'm really appreciating your backdrop for the people who are listening on audio and don't know. Jo is currently on a desert island, according to Zoom, and that really resonates with the fact I just gave you. So, lovely to be here. I

Dr. Jo Watkins: 2:12

love it. I know, I'm on my desert island that I kind of, every time I switch on Zoom, I kind of wish that I lived there, sort of. But I was just saying, it is a bit windy on my island, isn't it? It is. I can see why you're wearing a jumper. Yeah, there's a lot of movement and, um, I'd love to say that Swansea Bay looks a little bit like that today, but it doesn't. Before we get into the nitty gritty, the citizenship of two, where, where are those two countries? Uh, Britain and Italy. Oh, nice. And the five? The Italians made me work really hard to get that citizenship. It took me 14 years, but I won in the end. Amazing. And what about the five that you've lived in? Ooh, okay. Um, France, Italy, Cambodia, South Korea, and I'm going to include the UK as well. Fabulous. And before we went live, we were just talking about, um, talking about how, how we go about working and traveling, which is something we can, we can touch on a little bit into in the sort of what we're going to talk about. So it is brilliant to have you here. Um, I have had the absolute honor and pleasure of working with you, um, recently quite a lot. So let's just go back a little bit. As you know, I'm a doctor. You're in this world that us doctors look at and say, what does that actually mean? What does she actually do? I don't understand because we've been programmed to only understand one thing. So tell us a little bit about the kind of people you help, what you do, and maybe a little bit about how we ended up working together. Yeah, absolutely. Well, is it okay if I just go back a bit, just to give some context? Absolutely. So just, um, before we hit record, Jo was telling me that, um, she wasn't aware of what a brand was until relatively recently. And I think, um, I think this is really key to the story because I think we're often, we're really, really aware of what we know and the track that we're sticking on and we're not always aware of all the other opportunities and the ways of doing things in the world. So I. I have been obsessed with brand for as long as I can remember. I have known that I've wanted to work around the world of brand, uh, but I was shit at art. Sorry. Can I swear? Okay. Fine. Um, I was just, yeah, really bad at art at school. And I was like, well, that means I can't be a creative person. I, you know, at school and they just like put you into these, they just put labels like you're not creative. You're the humanities person. You're not a science person. You'll never be a doctor. It was like, You know, you can't do all three sciences at GCSE. So those opportunities are off the table for you, which is something I've thought about a lot when we've been working together and the kind of the mindset of who you, who you work with. Um, so with that in mind, uh, I went to university to do marketing with a kind of communication and fashion slant at Leeds Uni. And, and then I, um, I've worked with. Creative agencies for the most part during my time in, in companies as an employee, um, as kind of, um, one of the only non fee earning people within the business, which is a really weird role to be in, in a service provider. So I have worked in raising the profile and winning new business for those agencies, um, that's been the vast majority of my time, uh, in industry. And, um, There was a bit of a curve ball that happened. I left my last agency that I worked at full time and, uh, where I was head of marketing a new business and across three different continents. Um, and we, I, I had an opportunity to go work with a tech startup, a very well funded tech startup in Silicon roundabout. Um, it was the heyday of, um, Of that world. And there was so much money going into it because of EIS funding, et cetera. And, uh, I came into this company who really, they, they had no marketing function whatsoever. So it was completely blank slate. And this was so weird for me because I'd come from working in like really regimented kind of environment. You know, agencies are very precise. They're like perfection. Everything has to be done a certain way to tech startups, which, you know, the mantra of the industry is, you Move fast and break things. So I had this incredible opportunity to experiment a lot more. And over the period of about six months, I realized I'd learned more in that six months period, um, than I had in kind of like the preceding 10 years. And if I could take my experience in, uh, with technology automation that I developed during that tech startup, uh, marketing, um, role, and then bring it back to the agencies that I really loved and missed working with, frankly, then it would. We have the potential to kind of really accelerate what they were capable of doing, the reach that they had, the new business opportunities that would come in. So I basically found like, it's like the little bit, I don't know what it's called in the Venn diagram, like that plus that equals superpower. So then I started my own consultancy, caffeine. Um, predominantly working with creative agencies from kind of one person through to 250 people in multiple countries, helping to do exactly that. We raise their profile, help to draw new business into them rather than go and cold call or do ads or like just hammer people over the head with a message when they don't want to hear it and really position them as an authority so that clients come to them, um, and stay and they're visible in front of those prospective clients as well. Um, And it was working really well, you know, I've had caffeine for, I think, 10 years now, 10 years next year, um. And I, some door shutting. I was just checking you weren't disappearing off into the sea. I know I look like I was, but I've just shut the door. I don't, the family, despite the instructions, I'm filming a podcast still. They never do, do they? Carry on, carry on. Um, and. And so I knew it was going really well. And over time I started getting more and more referrals and I realized that it didn't just appeal to creative agencies, even though that was my stronghold. It really pretty much what I was teaching them to do and what was implementing for them, um, works for pretty much any service provider. Um, the, we do a variety of things, but kind of the mainstay involves LinkedIn. And basically if your client's on LinkedIn, it works for you. That, that is kind of the, the long and short of it. Um, yeah, so I, not that there's any secret sauce, but I don't want to make it over complicated. So, um, I'll kind of leave it at that and you ask me any more questions to kind of probe out what, what it is, so to speak. Amazing. So, I mean, what a great story. And I think a really good example of, like you say, combining everything. Combine, you know, looking at what you love, what you're good at, what. What the world needs and getting out there and actually providing it in your own, in your own agency, taking everything that you've learned along the way. And that, that story is, is something that you hear about quite often in this sort of corporate marketing setting, but it's certainly not something we as medics do. We do the opposite. We just go down this very linear path of, you know, escalating through the Um, through the grades until we get to a point where we then stay in that job for the rest of our lives. And yeah, I remember somebody, somebody who I, who has helped me from early days finding that quite obscure because he's like, you know, in the, in, when you get to that point in business, you at least move company every four or five years, every four or five years, keep it alive. Whereas we're just in this, this either GP or consultant position for a long, long time. So Thank you for telling that because I think it puts this in context and we, we talked a bit about brand right at the beginning and I told you the story of when I first started my, with my granola company 15 years ago, I knew that I wanted to make this thing and I knew what it was and I knew what I wanted to be called. And somebody said, well, you can get a grant for branding. I was like, what, what's branding? And they were like, well, you know, to like, make it look nice on the label. I was like, oh, right. I thought I just did that on, you know, some, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how I thought that happened. And a branding consultant, Lucy, um, Ali Hopper, who's still around. She's amazing. She came around to the kitchen table. And she was asking me what brands I liked. And I was like, I don't really even know what a brand is. And she was like, right. Okay. We've got to start basic, go to the cupboard, get your beans. Um, and she was brilliant. So we, we don't know this stuff. And I think sometimes we enter this world of business. We suddenly feel like literally a fish out of water. So learning from people like you is really, really important. And, but, you know, branding is essentially, you know, the look and the feel of your business, isn't it? And why somebody is going to come to you over somebody else. Um, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then the LinkedIn thing I'd like to talk about a bit more. So, so in terms of the branding and how we market ourselves, can you just tell us a little bit about that? As, as little people that are, you know, people with a lot of knowledge that are going out there and feeling like little fish in a big pond. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I predominantly, it's interesting. You mentioned the two reference points behind, weren't they? Well, I spent the majority of my, um, in agency career. Um, so when I was working within bigger agencies, they were predominantly brand and packaging design companies working with FMCG brands. Now that is a whole lot of words, but basically it means things you find in the fridge, in the cupboard, things you find in the supermarket. There is such a phenomenal amount of money. And thought and psychology and I mean, it's mind blowing how much, uh, how much energy is put into what the package looks like on the shelf. Um, uh, honestly I could spend, I could spend three episodes talking about that. It's fascinating to me. But what I do predominantly now is, um, is not on behalf of brands that are, uh, consumer facing. It's working with, so things that lay people by in their spare time. Um, it's working with service providers and businesses to shape their personal brand, their company brand through, um, not necessarily what it looks like. We're not a, well, in fact, not at all. We are not a, we're not really an agency. Um, more consultants, to be honest, we Um, very much have a teacher man to fish approach, um, help you get things set up. And so you can continue to manage them internally, um, rather than do it for you, because a lot of small to medium sized businesses don't, for various reasons, either financial or, or control reasons, don't want to be working with an external provider in the longterm. And, and I certainly felt that way when I was in agency, um, And so what was I going to say? So what we do, how we shape that brand from, um, a, uh, a business perspective and just thinking about what would be most useful to your audience. I think, so it's really interesting. I now serve. Um, a lot of branding and marketing agencies. Um, I've mentioned they're not the only people that I serve, but it's fascinating how they can do this all day long for their clients and they can't necessarily do it for themselves. And I, I just want to say that's universal. Okay. If that feels, if that feels familiar, like it's just. True of parenting. Parenting. It's like parenting. It's like parenting. You can Oh yeah. Parent other people's children all the time. Yeah. And like for example, most of my family works for the NHSI grew up in my mom's house. She didn't own a thermometer and sent me to school for two weeks with gular fever'cause she refused to believe I was sick. So it's like, you know what you're talking about? No, but they the, the things that we practice at work don't necessarily apply, do they? When we're, we're looking at our own own world. So that's, that's. the point that I kind of want to make with that. So often I'm taking them back to basics and thinking about, because they are often, um, well, sorry, I'll bring it back to the lens of, of your, um, of your world, Joe, and the people that you work with. So, Well, the exercise that we make anybody that we work with do right at the very start of working together is, um, define who they is their target audience. And I hate the classic customer profile, like avatar. I hate going through that. I expect it's like, to me, it's such a waste of time drawing a picture of what that person's face is, looks like, or, but we do it through, um, uh, LinkedIn, which really focuses the mind. Cause that's ultimately what we're going to be using in the longterm. So we use a tool called sales navigator. It's a paid, um, Uh, tool within LinkedIn. Um, that is the main expense when, in terms of what we recommend clients to do. And it comes to, I think around 800 pounds a year at the moment, best money I spend in my business. Um, well, I'm sure we'll get onto that later on, but, um, we use the filters within sales navigator to, to really define down who our target audience is. Um, on behalf of the client. And then once we've defined that down, and trust me that's not a scary process, it's actually really enjoyable if you like investigating things. It's a bit, it's like the Sherlock Holmes kind of part of the job and I really love it. I'm actually in a spiral of doing that right now. Um, Joe, we talked before we hit record about not being able to meet on another app, it's because I'm in Sherlock Holmes mode and I've got 20, 30 tabs open on LinkedIn because I'm doing this for a client right now, um, just ahead of our call. And once we've kind of defined who the audience is, then we speak to them. Um, so we do customer listening and that basically is, um, speaking with a list of questions to people who've either worked with you or are respectively would, would work with you in the future. You know, they're your kind of target, um, uh, person. And we asked them a series of questions, which is designed to really get under the skin of what their hopes, dreams, fears, pain points, challenges are, and, and more. Um, We pull all of that together and then we, um, analyze it and pull out key themes. And that is really what's at the heart of creating a, um, a client led brand. And by that I don't mean you're just kind of like following behind them like a little sheep. It's, it's making sure that your brand is consistently speaking to the challenges, hopes, fears, that your, um, your perspective Uh, client has, otherwise it's just going to fall on deaf ears. And if you do that, people think that you're psychic. They think that you, um, understand them, uh, to their core. They're like, how do you know this stuff? That's exactly me. And it's, it's really funny. It's cause they've just told you and then you're repeating it back to them. Um, so that is kind of the foundations of how we help to develop what your brand personality would be like in terms of your marketing and your content as a service provider. Brilliant. And I think this, you know, I, everything you're saying, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of seeing the imprint on the stuff that I talk about within my program. And I, we, you know, we, I suggest people get on calls, get on as many calls as they can with their, with their ideal clients or the type of people that they think they want to work with. It's only when you get in front of those people and ask those people the right questions that you really understand, um, what their problems are and how they're feeling, because otherwise you're creating quite often. In, in my experience for sure, you're creating a solution to a problem that you have potentially, but you haven't really gone out there and interviewed anyone else. So it's almost like you've got a case study of one, which is generally, you know, quite often a problem that you've come across yourself and you've gone out there and created what you think is the, is the solution to the problem without doing the interview. So getting in front of people, and that's what you're doing on a much bigger scale by doing this. Yeah. Yeah, and do you mind if I just say a few more points about that because there are a few tips that I think will be helpful. So, um, First of all, you would not believe how many people think that they can skip this se step and it's not relevant to them. It is the biggest mistake you're likely to make if you don't get this foundation level thing done. And I know it's a bit scary, um, especially, and I have this complete fear around speaking to my own clients because I'm scared. What, what if I didn't perform or what, you know, just classic. Self esteem. So I get an independent person to do this for the most part. I'm massively over delivering and it's not actually a concern, but you know, I'm not saying I'm immune to it is, is what I want to kind of communicate that. But do not skip it. Just like feel the fear and do it anyway, or get somebody else to do it for you or speak to people you haven't actually worked with, but all your prospective audience, because then you don't have to worry about what they say about the experience of working with you. Um, A couple of points that I really recommend, uh, to kind of encourage you to do this. Well, I mean, we give our clients a list of questions to ask. Often the conversation becomes more organic, but that you've got questions to kind of come back to, to make sure that you're kind of covering off the points that you need. And I really recommend going in with structure and doing these calls, not necessarily in person, But on zoom, like we're speaking right now, I have this incredible tool plugged in. Um, it's from free it's called fathom. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's, um, it basically sits in the room with you and, uh, records, uh, what you're talking about, creates a transcript. Afterwards. You also have the option to kind of click bookmarks. If a point came up that you really want to remember, but basically you can focus on talking, not note making, and that's really crucial because if you're This is the time to be curious and to really kind of probe. You don't want to be thinking about formulating your next question and not really listening to the answer because probably there's kind of kernels within. It's the classic psychologist approach of, and what, and what else? And what else, you know, like you keep asking that you get to the really, really juicy stuff. So you want to be able to focus so you can ask the what else at the right points. And, um, Also, I recommend like most of the people that I work with carry around like a Moleskine notebook to all their meetings. I don't know if you've probably got one on the table. You can relate. I just recommend on the very back page, like jot down whenever a client, you know, outside of a customer listening environment, um, jot down when somebody complains about something, you know, not just your kids. But somebody you'd like to work with, or they talk about what they'd hope to do, or a trend that they're concerned they're not focusing on, or just anything. And that is a really good resource when you're thinking about content creation, be it podcast episodes, lead magnet. Website content, uh, social media posts, just that, that start with that. Um, and then the final thing is once you've got all of that and you come into analyze it, and you're looking at this huge document of transcripts, this is where it's really helpful to use something like chat GPT, again, from free put in, uh, All of the gumph, like from all, all the transcripts from the phone calls, all the notes you've got at the back of your moleskin, um, and ask it to analyze it and kind of group it, um, so that you've got kind of key themes coming through, and then you've basically got the foundation of what you should be saying to your audience. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Those are, those are fantastic, fantastic take homes, guys. And I'm going to link, you know, link those things that you talked about, fathom, I think, and the use of chat GPT. Again, most medics come out in a visible rash when I mentioned because that's like, what's that all about? That's going to take over the world. And it's in terms of like, You know, getting through those idea blocks, generating content from what you've got already, signposting you, um, breaking things down for you. I mean, it's just, it's just unbelievable, but I just, I want to come back to a couple of things that you have mentioned. And I, and I, and I love what you've just said. I think it's really, really helpful. I want to come back to this teach a man to fish concept you, that you talked about and. Again, when we go in, when we step into this entrepreneurial world as doctors, we often absorb a huge amount of information from huge numbers of experts. Generally, lots of very glossy people telling us how easy it is to make money while we sleep. Um, how, you know, you can get to 10 K months within four months and then leave your corporate job and how life is so much better and glossier on the other side. And I find a lot of people come in. With, um, sometimes a failure of a complete feeling of failure because they've not achieved that in a very short length of time. Um, and I think some of this is put down to, you know, I've got to be able to outsource everything or I've got to learn to do everything. And I've had both of those extremes within my life. Business career one, you know, initially I did everything myself with the granola. I didn't outsource anything. I didn't really know what I was doing. The whole concept was alien to me through to the how people where we outsourced a lot and grew a team very quickly. And that has its different challenges. So how important is it for us to do the things in business for us to understand these, these things rather than just letting go of everything, because surely there's a There's something here about longevity, isn't there? Like, it's about podcasting, for example, and getting your kids to help. And, you know, can you speak a little bit about doing it all yourself versus outsourcing? Yeah, I wrote a lot of points down as you're talking. It made, I was thinking about how my company has developed itself, because I really relate to what you're talking about. 10K months, six figure business, um, reading Denise Duffield Thomas books, like, Looking at Marie Forleo, thinking course building is the solution. Like, I, I don't know if any of these words I'm saying will resonate with your audience, but I know certainly if you're in the online business world, those are things that will likely pass through your mind at some point. Um, it's really, I have shiny, massive shiny object syndrome, and it's so easy to get distracted. Um, so I'm going to say a few things, they all kind of relate back to each other. I think, um, the center of what you talked about was this kind of idea of, um, growing a team. So a lot of people think growing your revenue equals growing your team and enlarging things that way. I think it's so important. This is why we do the teacher, mentor, first, uh, approach started. For a couple of reasons, because agencies have a really high level of need of control. When I was in my last agency role, I had a quarter of a million pound a year budget. Like it was not insignificant, but I ended up sacking all the external agencies and support we were using because we were redoing everything because we had such a high need for control and, uh, having it just. So I was like, this is the, not necessarily me, but this is the reality of this work environment. So actually outsourcing doesn't necessarily work for a lot of audiences. So don't, don't think that growing a team or getting extra support is necessarily going to be the key for you and is really kind of. Um, tied in with this success and growth. Um, the other thing about that is it's, it's super important to have done it yourself first. Like if you don't know how to do it, you will not know how to outsource it in the most efficient way. You will end up wasting money, time, energy. You will write off that channel, whatever. I'm thinking, you know, if it was a marketing channel, we were outsourcing like podcast or social media, you will end up Saying, oh, it doesn't work because you haven't briefed that person properly. It doesn't mean they weren't a good person. It doesn't mean it wouldn't work for you. So I think it's really important to try things for yourself first and understand what is important. Now that then is mind blowing to the average entrepreneur because that means that you've got to do You've got to do everything and you don't. So bringing it back again, I think it's really important to understand what are the essentials, what to focus on. And when you do have shiny object syndrome, or it's just overwhelming, you start entering this world and there are so many messages and you're like, Okay, I will focus, but tell me what to focus on. It's really hard to find somebody who's genuine and, um, has walked the walk, you know, much like you, Joe, and, um, is able to say, no, I can tell you that's a dead end, but you, and, you know, you should be focusing on this. You should be thinking about that. And that is what I offer to my clients as well. It's like, Those things you're doing. I did those. We didn't see any return from it. This is what is offering return. So I recommend starting with that. So you are going to have to try a lot of stuff, but it's good to have a list of stuff that is appropriate to your type of business, your stage of business, your location. Because so much of the resources we look at are from the U. S. Where the audience type is very different, you know, consumer, like, Behavior is just very different. So it's not necessarily suited to your audience. I think there's a couple of other factors that come into this as well. I think it's really important to be self aware and understand who you are and what your personality is. Um, so I, yeah, I am, I mean, it's, it's not a therapy session, but it's like, there's so many, I now see as you're asking the question is like, oh yeah, that's why my business took that channel. So for example, um, We've experimented with loads of different marketing techniques over the years. The reality is I love having conversations like this. So now all of our marketing waterfalls down cascades down from, um, the podcast, which is essentially just started with me recording conversations I was having anyhow. It wasn't like we went out there and said, we're gonna start a podcast. I just hit record on a conversation I thought would be useful to other people. And how it's evolved is now we're curating so often it's. Um, uh, there's a lot of solo episodes. Um, there's a lot of interviews as well. We're interviewing our clients clients. We're interviewing our own clients. We're interviewing prospective clients who are kind of at stage further on. We're interviewing other service providers who help our clients. So we can understand what is the, the kind of hybrid, you know, where do things cross over. But they're all conversations that I should be having in my business for personal, you know, business. What do they call it? Continuous professional development, I think my mum calls it. She's an occupational therapist. And it's that kind of thing. So think of it as that for your, your non NHS role, if you have your own business. Oh, I love that. So we have an appraisal system in the NHS and we do CPD, we do learning. Yeah. To get through our appraisal and it is the same. I love that analogy. I'm going to have to go and create some sort of, but it's, it's just so right. It is our continual professional development and it is our personal development and, and we cannot expect to outsource. I think you're totally spot on outsourcing stuff and not understanding means that you're not giving the information and people you outsource need information, um, to be able to do a great job. And however amazing they are. So I think that's brilliant. Can I add a couple of more things on that? Sorry. I, I just wanted to say as well. Um, it's not just about your personality. It's about the reality of your life. So the other thing was, I was looking to a lot of people when I started my business who are single and don't have kids and don't plan to and have all this time to dedicate to their business. I have two small children. I work part time. Those things are not going to change. They're non negotiables for me. It's really important to me that I work, but I don't, I also need to spend time with, uh, my local people and be at certain pickups and drop offs. Not all of them. Um, I need to be flexible so I can go read to my daughter's classroom when I'm invited to at 9am on a Wednesday morning. They never give us enough notice, but, you know, I'd like to be able to participate in those things. So it's really important to me that I don't, uh, create in Marketing my own business, I don't create a, um, a really rigid structure that doesn't have flex. So, like I said, those conversations that we record for the podcast are ones we would have anyhow, they then become our podcast, they become our, the transcript, Script is the starting point for our blog post, uh, it's the starting point for our email that goes out, um, or multiple emails and all of our social media content, um, both posts and snippets are linked to newsletter. So it just, it's just one conversation and then everything flows down from that. So be realistic about your time, your personality, the things you should be doing anyhow, and how they can kind of, things can overlap, you know? Yes. Yes, that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And this, I think people that are, that are established, they know who they want to help. They're out there that maybe they've got their first five paying clients. They're maybe looking towards how to introduce group programs, courses, that sort of thing. Once you know who you're talking to, This is fantastic advice. And I'm starting to see that myself in these conversations that I'm having collaborative of things that I'm doing. It all links together. I think for those who are very early days, this is a conversation to, to listen back to as you go through your, through your, um, your journey without reaching out to some of the shiny American opportunity, listen, podcasts that are out there, this is real life to mums. Talking about how they grow their business around their family. And I'm as guilty, um, as anybody is of occasionally thinking, God, I've created a business that, you know, now I'm sitting in front of zoom all day while my daughter's doing her work on the kitchen table and I'm kind of popping in and out and, you know, I've got that flex to cancel for sure, but I've created quite a rigid day. And I think it's sometimes. You do create yourself a job that means that actually nobody else can actually do what you're doing anyway. So you've got to be mindful of what you're creating. And I really bang on about that personality type, um, what you want your life to look like, what, you know, what you're actually signing up to. Brilliant. Love that. So we are going to just touch on, before we wrap up, we're going to touch on this organic reach versus paid reach thing. This is how we came to work together. So I always say to, um, my clients, you know, your, your business and getting what you do out there is going to take time or money or both. And, you know, you can stand with a loud hailer outside your house and shout, or you can use some of the tools that are now available, particularly for an online business. So I started off looking at Facebook ads and I've done some Facebook ads, but I very, I've done that for a couple of businesses and I've got some amazing people in my world that help with Facebook ads, but I've realized that my clients, entrepreneurial medics are not on Facebook. They're on LinkedIn. They might be on Facebook in their WhatsApp feeds, but they're on LinkedIn. I've been working with Gemma Gilbert, you and you and I met through Gemma and you put something as a suggestion to me. Do you want to tell everybody what that was and how that started? Looked for us. Gosh, it was, I think we first started talking specifically about this in February and then life. Life. And we didn't really do anything about or rather, I didn't really proactively do anything about it for quite a long period of time. And then we were pivoting our business to more directly, um. I guess target, um, beyond agencies. Cause like I said, agencies were naturally, uh, we were targeting them, but naturally through referrals, we were getting different kinds of business. And I realized I was really enjoying working with individuals who have more kind of sovereignty in their business and ability to make decisions and are really clear about who they're serving. Cause they're probably working for a very specific niche, just like you are Joe. So what we worked. To, uh, set up is basically is what I would recommend anybody who works with somebody who is a professional or so service providers who work with professionals, whether they are employed or self employed or kind of thinking about becoming self employed, LinkedIn is likely to be the place where they're hanging out. Um, and LinkedIn is a massive, uh, Massively undertapped resource in terms of building your audience and, um, finding clients without spending a fortune. So to give some context, the first five years. no more. Eight years of my business. We only use LinkedIn. We only use what I've set up for you in order to win clients. And it was enough. And then I got all ambitious after I came back from my second maternity leave and I was like, we're going to grow. We're going to take over the world and spanked a load of money on Facebook ads the hard way. And now I'm redoing that. I've not given up. I do. Yeah. It's, it's not something to give up on, but it's a really easy way to waste a lot of money. Um, Probably too early on in your business, um, and linked in, I would. I would say, think of it as a kind of sandbox to try things out that ultimately you'd be able to move across to and scale up on meta ads. Cause there are kind of caps in terms of what you can do on LinkedIn that don't exist on other platforms where you're actually paying for traffic. Um, but it's a really good place to test things out. Test out theories without spending a fortune. Um, and you know what? It might just work and you might not need to go to another platform. And in which case, amazing, because I mentioned before that sales navigator is, um, 800 pounds a year. That could essentially be your marketing budget, uh, for finding your audience. And it was for us, like I said, for the vast proportion of time that we've, um, that caffeine has been in, uh, existence. So what we do, uh, you, sorry, the original question was, what have we done? Right. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's what we've done, isn't it? We've gone out there and, and, and tried to find entrepreneurial medics through us. We don't, I don't think we need to go into the full details, but it's like, it's getting that, like you say, service providers who are helping professionals having a system. Yeah. To get good leads and lead, you know, this whole leads word sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but if you've created a business and you're offering a service, you need to find the people that need the service. There are people out there that need your product. Yeah. And It's about finding those individuals on LinkedIn as opposed to Google ads or meta ads. Yeah, absolutely. And there is so, there's so much terminology around sales that makes it really scary for people who haven't necessarily had sales as part of their, um, as part of their business before. But if you think of it as the people who. Hopefully you're targeting people who would likely work with you, and then you're hoping to engage and get on the radar of people who might work with you at some point in the next five years. And then there are the, um, the kind of much smaller number of people who will be ready to reach, to work with you right now. And I think this can be shocking for people who haven't done sales and marketing before. They just assume that they reach out. You create the thing and they will flock. And Oh man, I can't tell you, I, I did marketing at university and I'm still constantly let down by the lack of flocking. So you just like anticipate you're going to have to build a long runway in your business in terms of outreach. I was having a conversation the other day with somebody who said they're a strategist. They work with really huge companies. Um, and they said, They believe after the many years in business that a founder should be serving, spending 70 percent of their time on marketing and sales, which is petrifying. You know, for the majority of those people that applies to, they're probably thinking that that's not why I started a business. That's not why I'm in charge of this thing. And essentially what we've, um, helped to do. You to set up on LinkedIn, the way that we recommend to most people, uh, as a starting point in terms of marketing and outreach. So you can start getting on the radar of those potential clients is, uh, has the ability to be automated, which is amazing because it means that yes, you are like, Effort wise, your business is spending 70 percent of its time doing outreach, but physically you're not doing any of it. You're responding to the people who are genuinely interested in what you're offering. Um, it also makes it less scary because, you know, even for somebody who's spent the whole career in marketing and sales, like I still get sweaty when I pick up the phone to make a cold call, like no one feels good about necessarily doing that kind of outreach. So we. There's a couple of things, not just automation, because the automation is doing it on your behalf and you're in a responding to the people you're interested, but we also, and the part we haven't talked about here, and we haven't necessarily done with your business, Joe, is we create something you're going to be reaching out with that you're really proud to reach out with, because you know, that it's genuinely something that serves the audience, which brings us back to that client listening exercise at the beginning. If you've really listened and it doesn't have to be hard, it's often called a lead magnet. I don't know if your audience is familiar with that term. Could be a PDF. I actually have a book. Um, don't feel like you have to do a book. My very first lead magnet was um, a five email sequence which was uh, one tip a day for five days about how to um, attract clients to your marketing agency. It was just that. It wasn't overwhelming and actually had a much better success rate than some of the like, Some of the much longer things that I've done since. So create something based on what you did when you listened in, um, that will serve the audience and reach out to them and say, Hey, I created this thing. I thought based on, you know, your profile, I thought it might be of interest. Would you like a copy? So you're not like hammering them with your work. You're offering something that is a value to them, which is another reason that our clients are proud to get in contact. Um, And, and yeah, and I think that summarizes it. I think the, the majority of the people that we work with to kind of give you some context, they serve their service providers, they serve professionals in some capacity, but the things that unify them is they have fear around sales and new business and marketing. They don't have a lot of time. They don't have a lot of money and they don't really have an idea about where to start. And that's ultimately who we serve. This is this kind of LinkedIn practice that we're talking about. Yeah. And we take our clients through all of those stages, by the way, defining your audience, building your list, doing the client listening, building something that will be a value to them. So building a lead magnet and then, um, reaching out to people and then automating it. And then what you do after that point. So we take you through that whole process. So if you were in a position with your business where it might even be concept. you might not even actually have a product or an idea. You might be looking, looking for evidence to leave your job. Um, then this would also apply for you. You can go through all those steps and kind of do proof of concept basically. Yeah. Amazing. Fantastic. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And I think there'll be various people at various points on that journey. And I think from, for the people that were within my program who have kind of gone from that, like, medic who's really struggling to see how they can do anything through to us sort of collating ideas and bringing together and getting out there and finding that proof of concept. They're often at a position where they've got an audience that they want to help and they've often got a lead magnet that they, that they have put a lot of time and effort into it. And I think for those people then to get out and, and Find their audience. But as I've experienced, I've been like, Ooh, is my lead magnet exactly what I want? And you find yourself like sort of procrastinating a little bit, and you've got to believe in yourself enough to get started with something, even though it might not be perfect. And you've mentioned a couple of things about, you know, things like the numbers of people that you need to bring into your audience who might want to get a free thing, who then might want to get a paid thing and then a bigger paid thing. We could talk for hours, but I think. Um, you know, it's a conversation maybe for us to have like a follow up conversation and in six months or so, once we've done this for a bit longer and seeing how it's going, um, to kind of feedback with some results maybe, because I think there's a lot in this episode. So I think, you know, I know we, I normally ask for advice at the end, but actually I think we've done this the other way around, we've gone with advice at the beginning. I think, I think if I can offer one piece of advice and it just touching on what you said, seek completion, not perfection. You're never, it's never going to be perfect. There are so many things in my book. You should see the Asana board, um, between me and my assistants, which is like all the things that I want to fix in the business. Um, And, or you make shinier or better, but if you wait, nothing will happen. So imperfect action, start before you're ready. All of those adages, um, think less, do more. These are the keys to being like, To kind of getting moving, a boss once said to me in my second day of a job, I was absolutely petrified. Um, it was really scary. It wasn't what I'd anticipated. And he said, Charlotte, when do we learn to cycle? It was like, he wasn't British native. And so his English was a bit. Unusual, but he was basically saying, when, when do you, when can you actually begin to kind of cycle and it's like, when you get your momentum up, when you start moving, like if you won't take your feet off the floor and you won't just continuously pedal, then you're not actually going to do the thing. And I, I, at the time I was like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And then in my leaving speech, I actually kind of said it back. And it was like, that was the best bit of advice I think I've had. Um, Because you need to do something in order to iterate and improve. So just start. Brilliant. Amazing. Well, I will link you up in the show notes. Everything that you've talked about, website, LinkedIn, and people can just reach out and, and get in touch with you. If they're interested in finding out more. Yeah. Absolutely. I'd love that. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Bye bye. Oh, thanks. My God. We could talk all day.