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The Digital Marketing Podcast
Futureproof - How to get your business ready for the next disruption
00:32:22
An Interview with Minter Dial
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast. My name is Kieran Rogers and today listeners, we have an interview with Minta Dial and Minter. I've been following you on Twitter for a while. You cover all sorts of topics, but just kind of give us a little bit of intro about you, who you are and where you come from, that kind of thing.
- [00:35]
B
At 53 years old, you end up accumulating all sorts of histories. So let's say my elevator pitch is that I'm 53, married, with two children and have changed countries 15 times in my life. So I like to say that change is a part of me. I've also had 34 different domicile addresses during those 53 years. If I were to describe myself, I kind of feel of myself. I don't belong to any one country. I like to take the best out of each in terms of my life. The thing that pulls it all together is I like to say I'm a connector storyteller and someone who likes to elevate the debate.
- [01:16]
A
And you've written a book all about disruption and why we should care about it. Tell us a little bit more about the book because that's really what I want to focus on today and it's a really interesting subject you've written on.
- [01:30]
B
So the name of the book is future proof how to get your business ready for the next disruption. Co written with a great pal, Caleb Stalkey, a man from the north. And the idea of this book is to really mobilize people around disruption and rather than focusing just on what it is and large theorizing. The ambition of the book is A to carefully curate what are the most disruptive forces and B, provide some kind of strong roadmap action plan orientation for brands and leaders and entrepreneurs to know what to do about them. Because it's all great to know intellectually that artificial intelligence is there. But then if I'm a businessman working as a middle line manager or an entrepreneur with 10 people, what's it to me and how do I integrate into my business? And that's what the purpose of the book is.
- [02:23]
A
And tell us a little bit more about Caleb. He sounds fascinating. Tell me more about him.
- [02:27]
B
Well, he is. So Caleb and I have been a perfect match. We really come from different areas. I'm sort of older, corporate, 16 years at L' Oreal and working in investment banks and so on. Although I've had two entrepreneurial experiences before, the mindset Caleb, a man from the north, living in London, married as well, with two kids. He is younger. He's about to hit another milestone in the number of 40, but his background is much more entrepreneurial. He runs Storky Media, which is of course helping. It's an agency that helps businesses on their media and their creative needs. And he brings to this table a strongly practical entrepreneurial spirit. So whereas Minter sometimes adds these large multisyllabic words, Caleb just brings back down to brass tacks. And that is the beautiful mix that we've created together.
- [03:25]
A
He's a northerner. They're well known for telling it how it is. I love that. That's good.
- [03:32]
B
Exactly right.
- [03:33]
A
So what is Future Proof about and who is it for?
- [03:37]
B
All right, so Future Proof is about the disruptive forces. There are 15 as identified in the book, 12 of which are nominally technologies, not necessarily new, because some have been around for a long time, like AI. Of the 15, there are also three that deal with mindsets. And these mindsets are truly the most disruptive component of the whole lot. So with regard to these mindsets, they essentially are everybody's all the time. What I mean by that is that whether you're working or not, we're all customers. And naturally the first port of call is going to be to organize yourself around, helping get your business better, which means having more customers that are buying more from you and so on and so forth. However, in the meantime, you also need to know that your employees need to be your number one customers, your number one fans. And so you have this real challenge to have the internal mindsets of an organization, therefore, let's call it the culture that is created and crafted in such a way to leverage and optimize the way you explore and communicate externally. And the challenge with all of this for leaders of business, whether you're an entrepreneur or a big business, as the CEO at C Suite is actually figuring out the path through that. And one of the most important parts of our book is to say that actually the responsibility for the leadership is also to be acting themselves and learning and doing it themselves, as opposed to dictating it from on high, looking over your glasses and saying, well, that would be a really good thing for you all to do. No, it starts with your own digital hygiene and understanding. Because if you commission an agency to do a Facebook program for you, but you don't know what it's like to have that rude thing pop up in your stream, then of course you're going to pay the agency to do these silly Programs that cost a fair amount of money now and won't be quite as effective because people are going to start unsubscribing from you. You need to understand it in your own gut.
- [05:41]
A
I couldn't agree more with that. I think very often because by its very nature more senior people tend to be focused on summaries and therefore key metrics. You get this situation where they look at the volume and they're not necessarily understanding for any one campaign who within those large numbers it's turning on and off. Is it just appealing to a mass audience or is it actually doing that but also really hacking off your core customers because it doesn't quite ring true to the brand? Minta, many of our listeners may quite naturally feel quite complacent about disruption. I think very often it's one of those fascinating things that happens to other people or other industries and that's not necessarily the case. Is there anything you can share with us that really gives an insight and can convince people feeling a little bit of complacent about disruption that they really should take it seriously wherever they are?
- [06:33]
B
Well, the natural way I go with that is to highlight all the examples of these companies that are now under lock and key because they didn't bother thinking about it in enough time. The little example I'm going to bring, I think which is relevant today, even if they're big names, still is very illuminating. In the larger business case, there's Elon Musk who is saying that within two years time Tesla will have a level 5 fully autonomous car. Level 5 is the highest form of autonomy, as you probably know, that there are five different levels. Ford saying, oh my gosh, this is. Well, first of all, the beginning said it's not important. Then they sort of taken stock of its importance. And then the last CEO said, well, I think we should be getting. I think we should be able to get a level four by the year 2021. In other words, four years from now. So that is late and less. And I think the stock market completely understands that by the fact that they have such a lower valuation than Tesla does, despite the not making money and selling one small fraction of the number of cars that Ford is. One of the chapters in the book is around the autonomous car or assisted driving cars and naturally of the people or the sectors that are going to be impacted, there are those who are directly involved in autonomous cars. I could not talk about that. However, it turns out that there are a lot of other complementary areas which will be impacted. That of course include the cities and how they are being run. It will also include at a more personal level, the way your employees come to the business, whatever your business is in. So if you're not thinking at some point, how can I leverage my business and or the comfort and satisfaction of my employees with autonomous cars in, let's say, two years time, then you're going to miss a beat because by the time it comes out, you'll be one step behind your competitor, who actually figured out that providing a fleet of autonomous cars for your employees not only increases their satisfaction, it will increase their productivity. Because instead of driving one and a half hours and getting frustrated with honking horns and traffic jams, they're working in the back, doing conference calls, which allows them to come back home at 3 o' clock instead of 5 o' clock and on the way home they're still working. That is an example of the type of disruption that's out there. You might read about it, but the problem is you actually need to learn about it. I don't know if you, Kieran, have ever driven, let's say a Level two, which is basically the type of cars that are on the road today, but a level two is a massive difference versus a regular car. And if you haven't done a level two car in two years time, you will be way behind in not understanding what it's about. Naturally, Level 2 car doesn't really actually help us move the plot forward. We need to get into the autonomous cars in order to be really having an impact on productivity and so on. But even having a level 2 car is a massively more comfortable feeling as a driver. So you might end up, if you have a lot of people over time, having less accidents because of the nature of safety that the AI in the car is providing. You'll have less frustrated, less fatigued employees if everyone has a level 2 car as opposed to a regular car. I don't know if that speaks to them.
- [09:55]
A
Yeah, I think so. I think the point you're making is that, look, this can happen in one industry, but it's actually affecting how people are spending their time on mass, potentially. And actually I can see from what you're saying that actually the social divide that these new devices could drive will drive a demand for the product enormously. Why would I want to be driving my 0.45 level car? She's probably closer to what I currently drive when I'm missing out on not only something that gets you from A to B, but gives you something we're all really sure of now, which is more time.
- [10:36]
B
Absolutely right. And so within the book, the things that we try to identify are a. You have these specific technologies that have massive impact, but for the large part of them, they are interrelated. So it's not just about autonomous cars. It's autonomous cars and AI, for example, or. And Internet of things and. Or big data. So if you start wanting to. If you want to open up a retail store and you're not figuring out how IoT and autonomous cars could be impacting your traffic flow, you need to start thinking about the stuff earlier.
- [11:12]
A
So one of the key strands in dealing with disruption, as you'd expect with the book, is digital transformation. What's the difference, in your opinion, between jumping on the digital transformation bandwagon and actually reaping the rewards from it? Because I think you made some interesting distinctions on that.
- [11:29]
B
Well, I think there's pretty much not a single person or major company that hasn't gotten on the bandwagon. So in the end of the day, if you're not on it, then you are even further behind. The challenge is that going from saying it, thinking it, and doing it. And my strong belief is that it has to start with the individuals, especially at the top of the company. And what I mean by that, it's not like they need to have set up a committee and get this thing rolling and then hire some consultants. What I actually fundamentally feel is that for whatever the technology is based on the strategic objectives that you have, the individuals at the top of the company actually need to be doing the work themselves, which means that they actually need to be going out. And if they don't have a level 2 car, we'll go out and get a Hertz Volvo S90 or some BMW new series and do the experience and see, well, what is that like? What do you think it makes you feel, and what do you think it could do for your employees should you roll it out? And going back to the strategic issue, is that I think a lot of companies lack a clear and shared understanding of what are the strategic imperatives. Of course you want to make money, but what is the true strategy of the company? And if that strategy is not clear and precise and well shared, then the issue is you end up jumping on the next shiny object. You end up trying to do all of digital, because ultimately digital is touching everything in the company. So it's about having a clear understanding of strategy and then applying what digital technologies. And I say with an S because they're interrelated, that will help you to Achieve your strategic objectives.
- [13:09]
A
What was the most personally transformational thing you learned through writing this book?
- [13:14]
B
Well, I'm gonna say a shout out to Caleb for injecting more personal stories. I think in the end of the day, we need to believe and feel digital. And in the end of the day, we really all operate through our emotional being, not our rational being. So with Caleb, this is this great enlightenment with his wonderful personality, which is an effervescent man that he is, bringing in his personal stories, which is really something. I've always felt otherwise, but I didn't think it was necessary or even possible in a book. And he made me. He really brought the best out of me in that case.
- [13:53]
A
One of the challenges in setting up this interview, Minta, was it's a big subject, actually, and actually it's. You know, the book goes into things in quite a lot of depth, and I really wanted to give our readers a little bit of a taste of some of the great content that's in there. And in the book, you explore three mindsets dealing with a disruptive world, which we touched on earlier. We've got meaningfulness, responsibility, and collaboration. And, you know, I found it really interesting that for you, meaningfulness is one of the most important mindsets. Can you just explain what is meaningfulness?
- [14:28]
B
In short, meaningfulness is having a sense of purpose. It's something that one hears a lot about. But in the end of the day, change is a hard thing to do, and especially in large organizations where there's a lot of entropy and lethargy. So if you can inject meaningfulness into what you're trying to do, it's going to help move your cruise liner to be more powerful and more effective. So what does meaningfulness mean? Well, it means having a. A sense that what I'm doing has a bigger purpose than just the task at hand. There are very large purposes, and there are also very smaller senses, things that can be done at the task level to provide meaningfulness. So that means, for example, if I give you a task and you accomplish it, that provides meaningfulness for you. It doesn't have to be all about Mother Teresa and fixing the world, but there are. So there are ways to inject it in the smaller micro levels of a day, but there's more powerfully when you have a sense of purpose for your organization. So let's say you are making some kind of beans. Well, beans. We all know what they do for you, but beans are also part of your food, and you are what you eat. So are you linking your project Your product to this notion of how you are improving people's well being and for everyone in the organization, do they realize and recognize what part of what they're doing is supplementing that larger cause? So this sense of meaningfulness, especially in a world where we actually have choices, where choices what we do, although we have very limited time and I think in this world we're also completely overwhelmed with communications and multiple devices and really a lot of choices. The ones who feel inhabited by a greater sense of purpose, a greater sense of meaningfulness in what they're doing will get up a little earlier with a faster beat to their walk and I think be more engaged in what they're doing. So this meaningfulness I think is so important in the sense of this sort of financial rush that everybody's in on a short term basis so that we get a sense of a greater satisfaction in the small time that we are on this earth, that we're doing something that has something better than just making money.
- [16:49]
A
For shareholders, it is interesting in that simply making profit and money is not terribly meaningful or certainly it doesn't reach out to the hearts of the, of the masses and make them think. That's amazing. That's really amazing what you do. You make money.
- [17:04]
B
My distinct feeling is that if you're going to go and do business and you're going to spend 12 hours of your day, why not do something more meaningful? So it's our encouragement for those who have that in their ilk to go out and do it. Whether you're leading the company or working within a company, provide meaningfulness. I mean, you can do it with your family, by the way, much less in a business.
- [17:26]
A
So I mean, you describe meaningfulness as one of the most disruptive of the three mindsets that you highlight. Why is that?
- [17:34]
B
Well, I think that most companies don't. It's not on the radar. You know, let's say if you're an entrepreneur, you're basically starting it up. And as we know, most entrepreneurs don't work out. And this idea of adding meaningfulness into it, wait a second, don't bother me with that. I don't even have time for it. Just like branding. So a lot of entrepreneurs don't really get into branding and I think that contributes to the burnout, it contributes to the failures because they haven't spent time on these sort of larger concepts. We're all about trying to make the product work and make your employees more efficient and more effective. Whereas if you spend some portion of your time, not all of it and some elements of your resources, not all on meaningfulness, then you're more likely to create a more long term durable company.
- [18:19]
A
It is interesting. You sort of create an energy that supercharges things, I guess, don't you? If something actually has meaning and it's something that actually can reach out and I can care about it, it does create that energy.
- [18:30]
B
Yeah. And I think that it. But it's not an easy thing to necessarily do. I call it finding your North Star. Your North Star. And if you think about your organization, most companies are saying, well, I need to progress, I want to make more money and more profitability. That's sort of what everybody does. The challenge is finding a more precise definition of your north that not only is shared by everybody, is also different from others. So that's basically, if you will, another way of expressing what is a brand. And once you've got that, then you need to make sure you're hiring for that same value set and attitude. Because if you as a CEO are not representing it, then you're absolutely screwed. Secondly, if you're not hiring people who are buying into that mentality, that attitude, that mindset from the beginning, then you will inevitably over time lose that energy that you were just talking about. So it's about having this group of people that can have great diversity in terms of their profiles, but have to have this link with 1 or 2 or 3 maybe values, but not more within your organization.
- [19:34]
A
That really resonates for me and I'll tell you why. Many years ago, I worked for a lovely company called Lizelle Skincare. And they had this thing called the Precious Recipe, which to be honest, when I first joined, it was a little bit out there. And the Precious Recipe was a whole set of really important core values that everybody in the company subscribed to. And it was a very simple document. It was a one pager and it'll be written right at the company's foundation by the founders and the first employees. And they wanted to set out what was important, why are we doing this and what are our values. And this thing became absolute lore. It was constantly used throughout everything that we did at the company. And if anybody from Lizelle is listening to this, I have gained an enormous amount from what I learned from that Precious Recipe. It was certainly very customer focused, very much about doing things for the customer, but also about having a great ethos and having a lot of fun, fun doing it. And it was interesting they would even turn to the Precious Recipe when they were facing difficult, bored decisions. Well, what does the Precious Recipe say we should do so? Actually, that little bit of time spent early on within the company's foundation laid the foundations for a lot of success and a lot of growth. I'm quite convinced of it.
- [21:00]
B
Well, Kieran, it's interesting you mentioned that in another beauty world. I used to run Redken Worldwide and we were in 40 countries and we were owned by L'. Oreal. And despite being owned by L', Oreal, which has its own corporate culture, very strong within Redken, we were able to craft a very specific space and hire even within or without a very specific different type of person. And the challenge or the really the strongest impression I came away with was that writing that Precious Recipes is super important. It's a really interesting exercise for your team to get together on. The key is twofold. One is expressing that recipe and breaking it down into specific actions, behaviors, vocabulary, rites, rituals, signals that become more obvious to everybody and become really an explicit version of your culture. The second thing is that it has to be led and operated by walk to the talk, as they say, by the CEO and his or her sweet.
- [22:08]
A
C. Yes, I agree. It can't be something that, you know, a PR agency have spun. It has to become the way.
- [22:16]
B
Really it is the way and the way is the way, the way we talk, the way we interact. And it needs to have integrity amongst our employees. You need to have. There's some great guy, Robin Sharma from Toronto said, make sure your audio is aligned with your video. And in this case, I think that you need to have a culture internally which is aligned with your external desires. Because of course we want to gain the clients and gain more money. But you need to make sure that and how you operate internally is aligned with what you're trying to achieve externally. For example, you really want to be customer focused. Okay, well then a customer writes a message, let's say on some social media they will expect to be responded to very quickly. If internally your email practice is more about cya, AKA BCC or cover your ass and it takes six or seven different people to authorize and approve different communications, well, you're not going to get it. So you need to create a culture of immediacy and responsibility within the organization that recognizes the importance of the customer throughout. So it needs to start within and it helps you actually operate without.
- [23:26]
A
That's good meaningfulness. One of the core mindsets and there are two more really important ones there for people to explore as well. I really like. One of the things about the book I really like is that You've added a pie at the end of every chapter, which I thought was really clever. Can you explain what this pie is and how it works?
- [23:48]
B
You can have your cake and eat it too. So the idea of the pie, as with every chapter mindset or technological force is to break it into some kind of action plan for the reader. And very importantly, we start with the individual because the second chapter is all about responsibility and about self responsibility so that as an individual reading the book, it's important that he or she actually takes it on board for her or himself. So the P starts it's about your personal action plan. What should you, Karen, be doing tomorrow morning or right after this call? What should you be typing, looking at, doing to get involved? The I stands for internal, which means what should you be doing within your organization and what are the first things you can start to be doing starting tomorrow? And of course looking further out. And then the E is for external. What can you be doing with your external stakeholders and or customers? So it really starts with your personal hygiene. What you're doing individually. Your eye is making sure that your internal organization is optimized in such a way to better operate with your external people.
- [25:01]
A
I just really liked it. Very often when you sit down to read a book, you take on a lot of, you know, really interesting stuff and then that's great and then you, you put the book down and you do nothing about it. And this, this was one of the more challenging parts for me in reading it actually because actually you come across, you sort of hit, hit the reader with lots of suggestions on actually. Okay, so, so you know, you agree with this. We've made a really good case for it. What are you going to do about it? Well, we recommend, if you want to get started, let's try this and try this and try this. And it's about self transformation, it's about influencing your organization and then it's also about influencing external factors and I guess lining everything up so that it all works and rings true 100%.
- [25:44]
B
The three mindsets we have at the beginning are hopefully a strong flavor for everybody. Of course it's going to take up the first something like 90 pages talking about this. But if you don't get them, then you won't get the next 12. The third mindset is collaboration. And why is that important? Well, of course we're talking about I need to work better, break down the silos. Sure. But we also have to recognize that a lot of these forces operate together and there's no way you can be the expert of all of them. So you need by definition to be working with external experts and parties in order to understand better and leverage these technologies together. The cocktail of technologies you choose, of course, has to be linked to the strategy you're trying to implement. But the experts in the ecosystem, the collaboration partners with whom you're working, need to be then adopted and adapted according to what your needs are. My desire is to open people's minds up, to give them energy back to your point where they have that desire, the angst, the curiosity, the excitement to go and fight through what is going to be hard, which is change. And as I read at the very beginning with my great friend Sam Villa, who was one of my mentors in my life, he said change is for sure, growth is the option.
- [27:07]
A
So what do you hope people are really going to gain from reading this book?
- [27:11]
B
Minta what do I hope people are going to gain from reading the book? Well, at the very least, they're going to gain a few case studies that they haven't heard about. They're going to have a better understanding of what are the technologies that are the most important, separating out some of the chaff from the wheat and hopefully going to get another energetic step in their walk by looking for something more meaningful, by feeling more responsible as opposed to a victim of what's happening. And by collaborating people, sharing with people, finding out that actually life can be a whole lot more enjoyable and as we mentioned briefly, a little bit more mindful in our lives. Because, yeah, we all need to make money. And of course this is something of a luxury for some people because if you're a poor person in the middle of India, it's a different kind of story and a survival quest. But even at the lowest levels, we can all be doing something that's more meaningful. And as I said, it can be broken down into smaller pieces, as I have broken down and we've broken down in the book, in the five Ps and the different ways you can find meaningfulness in your life. So start with that and hopefully it'll be part of a movement of learning how to future proof your business.
- [28:26]
A
I think it really could be. I read a lot of books around this subject and I think the thing that really struck me with this is actually you really are creating sort of a set of of conditions and guides to help people cope with any form of disruption. I know you've got some good examples in the book, but actually the very nature of disruption is you don't necessarily know where it's going to come from and actually to take go to the extent of not, you know, I've read a few books on, you know, preparing your business for transformational change and disruption and stuff. And that's all well and good, but you know, what I really liked about this is actually you go into how should individuals be preparing for this inevitable disruption which certainly from everything that I'm seeing and reading at the moment, I think the rate of change is set to grow and become more disruptive almost exponentially. I don't think we've even begun to realize quite how different the world may be within just five to 10 years.
- [29:27]
B
I certainly don't know what the future exactly holds, but I know it's going to be radically different at a faster pace than it is today. And so we, I think you just need to get in this mode of understanding that it's always going to be changing. And one of the key things that Caleb and I really felt was important is that it has to happen at the individual level. So you have to have the self responsibility take hold of for example your cybersecurity at an individual level, take hold of your personal branding as an individual. Don't delegate this out to some agency. You've got to be doing it yourself because the quicker and sooner you start doing that, the better able you're going to understand the next layer that comes on the next Facebook, the next Google, the next Tesla. Because sure as night will follow day there will be other players coming in. I'm not suggesting that Facebook is going to disappear, but there are going to be other massive new players coming in and they will completely shift paradigms. And I'm talking for example within genomics. It's not even on the radar for the vast majority of companies companies but genomics could materially change the way we market. Are we getting ready for it?
- [30:37]
A
Well, I think it's a fascinating book and I thank you for sharing it with me. If we want to get hold of the book, when's out and where can we get hold of it?
- [30:45]
B
Thank you Kieran for having me on your show. It's been a delight. I love your podcast. I've been a fan for many, many years. So as far as the book is concerned we have our main hub which is futureproof Ly future proofly get your business future proofing. It'll be coming out on September 7th on all Good E retailers including Amazon.co.uk and we're going to be doing a book launch in London on 12 September to be followed exactly where and otherwise contact me mdial on Twitter and or on LinkedIn. You'll find me. But if you do it on LinkedIn, make sure you explain who you are and why.
- [31:27]
A
All right, Fantastic. Well, Mintus, thanks so much for getting in touch. Thanks so much for your time, and we wish you the very best of luck with the book launch.
- [31:33]
B
Many thanks, Kieran.
- [31:41]
A
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you'd like to get more information on the show, get hold of back issues of this podcast, or get details on any of the links we mentioned, please visit our website at www.targetinternet.com. if you've enjoyed the show, we would love to read your feedback. Please rate us in itunes or even better, write us a review. Or if you have any questions, please get in touch. We'd love to.