← Uncensored CMO
Uncensored CMO
Social media masterclass in community and influencer marketing with Elfried Samba (ex Gymshark)
01:12:58
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome back to the uncensored cma. Well, it's really good to have you on the show. Welcome.
- [00:11]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Like I was saying, it's great to be in this, like, really fancy studio. I never thought I'd be in a studio quite as, like, stylish as this. Talking about the thing that I like the most with someone like yourself.
- [00:24]
A
It's an honor, and I should say, actually, for everyone listening and watching this, this is thanks to the very lovely people at Uncommon Creative Studio. So, Natalie, Lucy and Nils, big thank you and all the crew who very kindly offered. They just moved in and they very kindly said, we'll create some space for you to do some podcasting in the studio. So this is episode number one from Uncommon. So great to have you, man, and excited to get into this. I must start by complimenting you on the hat and the outfit. Right? We were having some good man kind of chat before in terms of, like, bags, hats and outfits and the love of black, you see. So you're definitely my kind of guy. What's the hat about? Because I only see you in the hat. Is it, like, part of your kind of thing?
- [01:10]
B
So there's two stories, right? There's a cool one, and there's, like, subtle reality slash embarrassing one. So two things happened. So I was approaching my 30th birthday, I think I was, like, 28, 29. And I knew that 30 was coming, and I was like, I'm about to have a quarter life crisis, right? Like, who am I? Have I done enough? Who do I want to be? What's my legacy? All that stuff. And at the time, I also realized that usually family members in my family go bald by the time they get to 30, right? So I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to get bald as well. So I was like, I need to figure something out for that. But then I was watching this Netflix series about creativity, and there was an episode, it's called Abstract. There was an episode on Tinker Hatfield. So creative director at Nike, he designed the Jordans, et cetera, et cetera. And not only is his name Hatfield, he wears hats and fedoras, right? And I watched the scene of him just, like, walking, because he used to be a pole vault, a pole vaulter, and was just walking on the track with a blue T shirt and his hat on. And I was like, God, he's cool. If I was, like, 50 or 60 and I just looked subtly cool, that would be really dope. But I can't do it then, because then I look like I have a midlife crisis after it now. And. And I went through a few, and the first ones made me look like the undertaker in the wrestling, and it just wasn't quite right. And then eventually I found this company called Guerin Bros. And they just did it just right. It was like, I don't know that Pharrell Williams was doing his thing with the Vivian Westwood hat. I was like, that's a bit too much for me. So I found one. No one sells it anymore. And it just became like, my hat. But then the good thing about that is it solved the balding problem, because if I have hair or no hair, no one will ever know. It gave me a signature, which means that people can identify it with me. But then also, it's almost like my trigger when I wear it, that it's time for the show. It's time to go out there and give your best from a creative standpoint. And it's almost like you create a character for yourself, which is super dope.
- [03:11]
A
So what happens when you take it off?
- [03:12]
B
Right.
- [03:12]
A
Do people not recognize you anymore? They're like, hang on, who's this imposter that's just come in?
- [03:16]
B
I've been to events where people have literally spoken to me for a couple of minutes and said, oh, let's connect on LinkedIn. And they're like, I know you, but where's the hat? And literally, if I hop on a call and I don't wear my hat, everyone feels, like, disappointed. I can see it in their faces. Yeah. So now it's almost like I need to give the people what they want.
- [03:33]
A
So keep the hat, man. It's great. You're doing a great job.
- [03:37]
B
Makes me look cooler than I actually am. I'm just a nerdy kid from the Congo, really.
- [03:41]
A
Now, ladies and gentlemen. He's definitely cool. No, definitely. We had a good chat on luggage and outfits to wear when on planes already. So it's good. It's very cool. Now you. We were comparing dissertations, which is quite amusing because we took some very different routes, although we found some commonality in our dissertations. But you were thinking about kind of social media and impact on business that social media can have even when you're doing a dissertation. So what did you learn doing that?
- [04:06]
B
So I thought I was going to be a doctor like my dad until I realized that I was, like, terrible at science, Right? But then I never liked to back down for a challenge, so I was committed to making that happen because my whole thing was all about making my Parents proud. I just moved to the UK with my family. They pretty much like sacrificed their relationship for us, because they did. They've done 18 years long distance. It's only now that they're actually starting to actually see each other every single day. But they did it all for us, right? So armed with this, almost like fuel to pay them back for the sacrifice they've done for us and this golden ticket that I had, I was like, I have to do something that I could be great at, right? Because in our family, going to university, working hard, really aspiring to be the best, that's just the norm. That's what we do, right? But then also, I realized that I also had the responsibility to show my younger siblings the example, right? We're very close, and I'm not a dictatorial person. I don't tell people what to do. I just lead through my actions. I said, I have to do something that resets the tone for what we need to do. And when I was figuring what that thing is, I was. I stumbled onto a iPhone keynote and Steve Jobs was presenting the. The iPhone. And honestly, at the time, I just started using computers and. And it was really technical to me. And he was able to explain it in a way that made sense to my simple brain. And I was like, whatever he's doing, I want to do that. It's not the tech bit, it's the storytelling bit, right? And I was like, it's marketing and there's a whole. And it's not in what you say, it's in everything you do. It's almost like, you know when you watch Karate Kid and they say that kung fu is not just like what you do, it's in the way you live. It's like from the clothing or being like, simple. It's a way of life, if you will. And I said that I want to be everything. That's why I still wear black till this day. It started from then, right? And. And I said, okay, I want to be a storyteller and marketing. I want to be able to simplify very complicated things in a way that gets people to act or get bought into something. So that was that side. And then I watched this documentary, well, not documentary, a film called the Social Networker. And it was about Mark Zuckerberg. And I was using Facebook to reconnect with my friends back home during that period. But I didn't know that it came from a 23 year old. And the thing that striked me was the fact that I saw the headline of a 23 year old saying no to Yahoo after they offered him a billion dollars. And I was like, what the hell is he on? Right. Because if I went to my mom and told her I'm not taking a billion dollars, she sent me right back home.
- [06:48]
C
Right.
- [06:48]
B
So I was like, okay, so that's pretty cool. I love the rebellious nature. There were two entrepreneurs that just didn't fit the mold. They aligned with what I stood for. So there's the creativity, simplicity, that side young rebellious disruption element, almost like a f you to the system side. And then the missing piece was the whole element of like meeting me where I'm at when it came to like my business knowledge and understanding. And Jay Z did that for me. So Jay Z is famous for seeding scriptures around business in a very poetic and rap like nature. Like him saying women lie, men lie, numbers don't. Made me really obsessed about data analytics and not just opinion.
- [07:33]
C
Right.
- [07:33]
B
So he would say something in a way that I would understand and then I would be able to like therefore articulate that to other people. And I think that enthusiasm got me thinking about this thing called social media marketing. Because I was like, I learned about the marketing about the social. Well, the 4P says product, place, price, promotion. But place doesn't have to be a physical space. It can be where your attention and your mind is. So that's where the world's going to go. And really. So I put my dissertation together and the title was How Small to Medium Sized Businesses can use Social to Compete against the Large competitors.
- [08:07]
C
Right.
- [08:08]
B
And it was marked down because of lack of Harvard references.
- [08:11]
A
No.
- [08:11]
B
Yes, because she marked up. Because it should be marked up. But, but, but there's a funny story with that, is that I believe that so much that I was like, they're wrong. But they were really right because I had to have references and evidence. Yeah. To prove it. But then there was nobody that was actually thinking about it the way that I was at the time. So I said, well, I'm going to be the reference. And that's why every time when there's like a uni student or I have the opportunity to do things like this, this is just creating more references for people.
- [08:40]
A
Yeah.
- [08:40]
B
That were thinking about or that think the way that I did at the time to like draw to as an example that this is actually like, you're not, you're not, you're not crazy.
- [08:49]
A
Yeah.
- [08:49]
B
This is actually happening.
- [08:51]
A
That's such good advice. I remember weirdly I came into marketing through finance and through kind of investment banking, which is a really Odd thing to do. And I just sat down with, with one of our custom customers and I realized that what the customer was doing who's a marketing director sounded fascinating. And I realized that in marketing you're inventing the future that doesn't exist today. And what I was doing in my accountancy role was accounting for the past. A bit like your Harvard. I was the Harvard reference of like, that's how it has been done. I'm not interested in that. I want to do how could it be done differently in the future? And it's much more exciting, isn't it?
- [09:25]
B
But what you realize with the world, we put a lot of titles on things. A lot of people think that I have to be a marketeer. Let's peel that back a little bit, right? The best marketers understand people and they can get people to believe or act in a particular way, right? And that's all it is, right? And whether you are a data analyst and you use the storytelling from that and you can say, actually this is what's happening, I need to get you to act this way.
- [09:55]
C
Right?
- [09:55]
B
If you can bridge that gap between like people and an action or a feeling, then you're a marketeer, if you will.
- [10:03]
C
Right?
- [10:03]
B
Which is why whenever people ask me like what is it that I do? I never use titles that are like defined by time, right? I always say what are things that will always be around? And tastemaking is one of them. Creative taste making, storytelling and community building. So whatever that is today, that's what I am. And I like to use like timeless titles like that.
- [10:24]
A
Yeah, I love that. We were saying before we, like 20 years ago everyone was rushing to learn Chinese, weren't they? And then 10 years ago, everyone was learning to code, you know what I mean? And then AI is like taking care of everything for us. And actually what is left is community leadership. Well, in fact, we were chatting as well, weren't we? That I heard the global economist at LinkedIn, which is like, I just think one kick ass title about titles, right? Global economist at LinkedIn. But she was fascinating because she was saying, look, there's a massive increase in search in LinkedIn for AI skills, or more correctly prompting skills and development skills, right? But which said there are five skills more in demand than even those skills. I'm like, wow, it must be like technical stuff, right? And it wasn't at all. It was all creativity, problem solving, leadership, building teams, all the human things, the eq, that's what's in demand now. So sometimes I guess we in kind of Creative industries think of it as a threat that are the computers taking our jobs? But if anything, there's a rush to emphasize the kind of skill set that we have.
- [11:24]
B
So I remember when we went to school, right? And there was always like, you know, remember B tech, right? And then everybody used to say, well, the B tech courses. But then those are the jobs that are going to be in demand in the next couple of years because those are the jobs that keep us human.
- [11:39]
C
Right.
- [11:39]
B
We thought that reciting or learning about something and then recalling it in an exam is going to be the thing that's going to almost like protect us for the rest of our lives. But it doesn't help us anymore because the computer can do that. So what's the thing that's going to differentiate us from the computer is going to be our human nature. In a world where IQ is being democratized, the only separation between brands, people will be those are double down on the human.
- [12:06]
C
Right?
- [12:07]
B
And at the end of the day, if everybody has access to the same tools, people will always look for a point of differentiation and trust, right?
- [12:14]
A
Yeah.
- [12:14]
B
And it's just, I think it's just a matter of time. So if anybody's in the marketing world, in the storytelling world, I will say that this is a good time to be there because that's what the race is going to be about. It's not going to be about because product quality, I think is the most important thing. I think it's the most important p. But then when product quality goes up for everybody, then what else is going to differentiate?
- [12:36]
A
Right?
- [12:36]
B
Yeah.
- [12:36]
A
Makes complete sense now. You cut your teeth early on, didn't you? Gymshark and what, like, what an amazing ride to be on. And I would love to know just that experience, like building a, well, unicorn. I mean, I think Ben is the youngest, isn't he? The youngest UK billionaire or something crazy like that. But what was the secret to building? Because you were very famously community first, weren't you? And actually from chatting to the guys as well, you didn't try to be Nike and Adidas and everybody else. You tried to create a community and be different and be about the gym and that kind of thing. So what was the secret to building that community?
- [13:13]
B
Well, there's three things. If I can try to articulate what it feels like being in a machine, like being in a, in a, in a rocket ship like this, right? Because I think a lot of the time we, we talked about the fact that I was there for seven years, right. And what everybody is seeing is the nice, like PowerPoint slides about how the company has grown during that time or the headlines, right? They almost see like the montage video, but when you're in it, it feels completely different. And I guess the best way to describe it in this three ways. One, it's a. You're building a rocket ship while you're flying, right? So. So it's like you're building as you go. The other is you feel like a lot of young old souls and young bodies, right? So you go through like in seven years, you probably go through like 30 years worth of experience, right? Because you go, you look left and you look right and no one has an answer for you. You have to figure it out. And there was no chat at the time, right? So it's funny when people say, well, we had books at the time, now we say, well, we had Google at the time, right? So there was no. There's not actually. You had to figure it out, right? And the other is it almost felt like inflation, right? You always had to become 8, 10% better the next year, otherwise you would not. We're not growing at the speed of the business needed you. So my job role never really changed from the start. So I came in as a social media executive, but then I still had the same responsibility seven years later. The title got bigger, the team got bigger, but the responsibility of looking after the community and social media side stay the same, right? And. But then the difference is it went from, oh, I'm going to be the social media executive of this great fitness brand that sells gym clothes to eventually you're almost like, with great power comes responsibility. You're looking after this massive community and everything that you say is a political statement, right? So you have to grow with that. And I guess when I joined the business, I found out, so first and foremost, I used to love these guys called the Hodge twins, right? So I was into fitness at the time and I used to watch their YouTube channel that they're the guys that invented the term gains, right? So everyone started talking about gains after the Hodgk twins. And I realized that they were going to Birmingham Body Power, right? And I was like, and they're going to be with this company called gymshark. And I was like, who the. Who the hell is that? I'm here to see the Hodge twins. So I went to the NEC in Birmingham to go see them, but I couldn't because there was like a four hour queue and not only were people like wrapped around the other stalls to go see them, but there was also, like, an army of influences. And I was like. And then I. My brother said, well, there's no way in hell we're going to queue up for four hours, but we'll look at the stand from afar and then see if we can catch a glimpse. But then once I was there, I realized that everybody that was working there was, like, my age. And I was like, this is really interesting. And then what they were doing was they were giving out free gymshark clothing. If he gave. There's a story about that, and we'll talk about it later, maybe. But they're giving out free T shirts, right? If you gave them your data. So I went there, did it, and I wore some gymshark stuff. And then I was, like, hooked on the brand ever since. And my big thing was, what if I could ever work at gymshark? So I'm not one of those people that just goes to people and ask them for stuff. I like to almost, like, get people to come to me.
- [16:29]
C
Right.
- [16:29]
B
I'm an inbound guy, and the only way that I could do that was through LinkedIn. So what I did was I said, you know what? Maybe I can get the attention of the guys at gymshark. And I realized that they were hiring for a social person, but there was, like, 300 or 400 applicants already. And I was like, I'm not going to stand out. So I hired. I followed everybody that worked there, and then I just started posting, like, stuff for free. Like, that demonstrated my marketing knowledge. And then they just kept engaging with it. And then eventually I got called in for an interview, and the rest was history. And I got interviewed by Ben and Dan Knight at the time. And. And it was great. They asked me one question. They said, like, tell us about yourself. I took over the interview, and I think they thought he's crazy enough to just, like, let him do his thing. And. And when I went in there, I didn't understand the thing that made gymshark special, because I was not the person that started. The gymshark community already started. And a lot of people think the gymshark community was digital. No, it was physical. So they started at the Expos, and the whole thing was, we'll put on the best show at the Expos, and we'll make sure that we're going to go there and everyone's going to stay. They're going to come for the Expo, but they're going to leave being gymshark fans. And that's where it started. Right. And. And so it's not a content thing. It's like using IRL to disrupt URL is what we usually tend to say. Now, when I went to the brand and we talked about the aspiration now, the aspiration was to become the leading sports brand globally. So Ben is not a small time dreamer, he's a big time dreamer. But then I took it literally. Just like when everybody says, want to be like Apple and they just become like Apple and they think differently. But that's the ironic bit about it, right? And I started to elevate the content, I started to professionalize the systems. But the community, we created a bridge between us and them, right? And then actually I say that I only have three, like, actual meetings with Ben in terms of, like official meetings. And within my first month, I thought I was going to be out the job because they got a friend of mine now whose name is Jody, she actually did an analysis of why gymshark Social sucks.
- [18:38]
A
Oh, no.
- [18:38]
B
Yeah. It was basically an analysis about like, well, we're not doing very well right now. And I was like, oh, that's not good, is it? And then Ben was like, alf, we think you're the guy, but something's got to change. But then what I realized then is that the thing that made gymshark special was the fact that the community felt that it represented them. And the most important thing about the brand is making sure that that distance between the community and the brand never becomes wider. So I could piss people off internally, even sometimes piss people off externally, but as long as that gap doesn't change, I'm unsackable, right? Because then I'm Switzerland, right? And that means that actually everything is like, just keep. As long as this happens, that's when the alarm bells go. As long as this stays the same, especially as we go. Which is why as the brand was getting bigger, the more it lean into transparency and accessibility, to the point that sometimes Penn did like a company updates before the company knew about it. It went straight to the community, right? So really leaned in on that. And the guys already had a million followers at the time, so I went to learn from them, right? I knew the theory, I knew what it could be, but I didn't know gymshark and I didn't know the gymshark community. I didn't even know the bodybuilding world I trained. But then I think the thing is, whenever you go into an industry or a job, be a student, be the enthusiast before you try to be the expert, right? And I think it was a piece of humble pie that I had to learn from the team, and then I had to win their trust.
- [20:14]
C
Right?
- [20:15]
B
And that's what happened.
- [20:16]
C
Right.
- [20:16]
B
And to the point where we go from nearly losing my job, and about 24 months later, we're getting an honorable mention from Mark Zuckerberg. And that's Inside Company in Birmingham. And once you teach once, once somebody like me who comes from the Congo and grew up in Africa thought I was going to be a failure. And then I. And you get that level of validation from one of your reference points, the sky's the limit from there.
- [20:41]
A
That's. That's incredible. Isn't it interesting how, like, from the outside, you look at gymshark, incredible successes, you think it's really highly polished, but of course, inside a rocket ship is chaos, carnage. Like having to learn on the job, isn't it? I mean, it's funny actually experiencing this to a much more degr, but in my kind of job at System One and also in the podcast, both are expanding really rapidly and it becomes more chaotic, doesn't it? Success brings with it huge challenges as you scale. I mean, scaling is not easy. I mean, what are the challenges that you were in, obviously a formative period of takeoff for the business. What were the challenges you faced in that kind of scaling up where you might have been the one guy to begin with, and then suddenly you're leading others to do it as well.
- [21:28]
B
So there's a lot, right? First and foremost, there's no blueprint. There's a blueprint for how you grow a business, but there was not a blueprint for how you grow a business in the way that we wanted to do it, right? So you almost have to just have a very comfortable relationship with failure, right? Otherwise, if you. And there's actually like. There's a quote that's been going viral recently from Arsene Wenger. I'm an Arsenal fan for those that have been noticed. And he basically, they asked him, so how do you tell the difference between players that are going to make it versus those that don't? And he said something like, the stamina of the motivation is way more powerful than the intensity of it.
- [22:09]
C
Right?
- [22:09]
B
So it's almost like people think that I have to just be more motivated. No, you have to create systems that trump your motivation. That just gets you to just show up every day, whether it's a good day or a bad day. There's not a good day. There's not a bad day. There just is.
- [22:21]
C
Right?
- [22:21]
B
And you almost have to go through this mental barrier of just getting really Used to losing a lot. And think about it, think about my role, right? So I like to say that my role is almost like the FIFA president role, which is more like not, not, not more trickier than even like the president of a country, right? Because you're always going to make somebody unhappy. Especially when you have a social led brand where the Instagram pages and tick tocks are the shop front window of the company, right? So, so, so essentially from the moment, and by the way, I was posting first and then I had a team and I will talk a little bit about the challenges in leadership and within a second, Ben's liked it. Leadership have liked it. The rest of the team have liked it. So you can make a mistake in private, in an organization, you can't do that in public.
- [23:17]
A
Totally.
- [23:18]
B
And by the way, we're posting 50 times a day across different platforms. So you have to be 100% and in an industry where, and I always talk about the fact that perfection is like, fuck perfection, right? Like perfection is the enemy of progress and growth, right. And so you have to be able to give your team the ability to flex up and create, but then also you have to not mess up. And that's the thing that I was dealing with when I was making that transition from being. I just got to a point where I could trust myself to run the page because I had my own systems, I had team members, I had all that stuff. But now to work through a team and it just wasn't working. And that was my second meeting with Ben where he said, alf, we think you're great. This leadership thing ain't working. And he said, well, we've got two options. Either we're gonna figure it out and we'll slug it out and we'll make it work. Or you can be a independent contractor, independent contributor or something like that. You can still do what you do. You have no direct reports. Just think about the ideas and the guys will execute. Which one is it going to be? And I said, I'll do the second one. I want to be the independent. Is like, think about it. I was like, no, I thought about it. I'll do is like sleep on it, right? Because he knows me really well and that I'm challenge orientated. And every single time he presents a challenge to me, I will probably like accept defeat and then I'll go back and something will happen in my brain that will just like bring me back out for war. I'm a David versus Goliath kind of guy, right? Like, I don't Back down. So after I slept on it, I thought, of course I'm not going to back down. But then if I'm going to be a leader, I have to do it my way and I have to study the best people to do it because I don't do things half hearted. It's pretty much toxic. I'm an all or nothing kind of guy, right? So. So when I said I was going to commit to it, I committed to being the best at it. So I had to go completely different and say I can make sure that even if I don't touch anything, I'm going to go from being Michael Jackson to Quincy Jones.
- [25:30]
C
Right.
- [25:31]
B
I have to conduct the orchestra, so I have to work through my team. And then I studied it and it was a long, a long process. It was painful and that was probably the thing that I had to learn the most because then I was given the easy route and I took it. But then the power in that is that you have to have leaders that see you before you see yourself and they give you the room table to grow.
- [25:55]
C
Right.
- [25:56]
B
And I think that's the. I always say that my undenying like loyalty to Gymshark is because we were perfect for each other.
- [26:06]
C
Right.
- [26:07]
B
I gave Gymshark everything and Gymshark gave me everything. So it's almost like it was the best time of my life if I would from a career standpoint. So I couldn't work anywhere else.
- [26:15]
A
I love the phrase you used about them seeing what you hadn't seen yet. Yeah, that's really powerful. The ability to spot kind of potential a bit. And also the. I love the thing he talks about the stamina point as well. That's huge, isn't it? Because like, you know, you see so many people like just get start and then fail sort of thing and they just haven't got that stamina to keep going, pick themselves up, keep going. Because most, most of it, you know, we probably most people see the highlight reel. Right.
- [26:42]
B
They don't see montage.
- [26:43]
A
Exactly. They don't see the two hour film that went before, which is all the stuff that was hard and difficult and they had to learn from.
- [26:51]
B
And also in film, everything ends at happily ever after. Yeah, but what is the ever after?
- [26:56]
C
Right?
- [26:56]
A
Yeah.
- [26:56]
B
No, I actually think that if somebody was to create a film that starts at the end and then says what happens next? You start to see what life is actually about.
- [27:05]
C
Right.
- [27:06]
B
And that's the thing. And going back to the fact that that was a Ben moment, but I think Noel was on here as well.
- [27:14]
A
He was, yeah.
- [27:14]
B
And Noel probably gave me the best feedback that had probably one of the biggest impacts on my life.
- [27:20]
C
Right.
- [27:21]
B
And so. So no is also from Birmingham. We're into the same stuff is almost like my brother, right? We're into hip hop music, we love like sports culture, we love socials, etc. Etc. So we speak the same language. So that he was always able to like, almost like champion me in things because he understood where I was coming from. But as the company became bigger and bigger and so to get a lot like professionals coming in from other spaces, there was a gap or a bridge between me and the people in the boardroom. And I will always present stuff and people just won't get it. And a lot of the times with very intelligent people, they won't tell you that they don't understand, right? They won't say I don't get it because I don't know what you're talking about. They'll just say that what you're doing is wrong. Right? So, so I almost just went into this like very like limited mindset of they don't know, they don't get me, it's us against the world, etc, etc, which sounds great, but then actually if your goal is to grow, you have to do it as a team. And, and I did a thing called NLP training which talked about the cause and effect theory, which is like the, the most successful people believe that everything that happens to them, good or bad, is down to themselves, whether it's true or not. At least you're not disempowering yourself to, to anything else, right? You're like, somebody slapped me in the face. I shouldn't have been standing there, right? So that's just my mindset because you can do something about it. So I said, okay, if people are not understand. And Noel said this, he said, alf, what you're doing here on this side is brilliant, but then everybody has to be able to understand it, right? If you can work on how you communicate and storytell and you can think about what you're going to speak before you do it, and then you can communicate it clearly, you'd be the most dangerous person on the planet.
- [29:10]
C
Wow.
- [29:10]
B
And that's what he said to me. He said, he said, if you can learn how to communicate what's happening in your brain, you'd be one of the most dangerous people on the planet. And for me, don't position growth as a, as a tell off. Position it as an opportunity to unlock a superpower. I will jump through Hoops to get that power, right? So I was like, okay, I'm going to study the best speakers, right? Like, who are the people that speak the most? Who are the people that articulate themselves? And I really honed in on the storytelling bit. And now the thing that people always talk about, I told people that I. The idea that I'm even speaking on a podcast right now. If you ask the gymshark faithful of old and they hear me on a podcast, they always message me like, I can't believe you can do it. Because Ben was in the same spot, and I think he did a podcast with True Jordy. And as soon as he got off, I was like, how did you do that? And then. And then I spoke to him about it. He said I was working with a coach, and he told me about, like, the rule of three and all those different things. And I just noting things down. And what happened was the pandemic helped me because we're all on zoom calls. So what I would do is, first and foremost, I found out about that thing from Nelson Mandela that said the best leaders speak last, right? Why? Because one gives you the time to hear everybody else's opinions, Right? And also, you don't sway the room so that people don't tell you the truth. So what happened was, first is to speak first, and then I'll put my foot in it, and then I'll just say something, and everyone will be like, what the hell is this person talking about? So then I just said, you know what? I'm just going to speak last. And then once people are speaking, I'll write down notes about what I'm going to say. And so everyone would wait first to see is Alfred going to speak? And then I would wait, and then somebody else would speak, and then I would just give one point, and everyone would be like, that's really good. But then what I would do is I'd put the notes right by the zoom camera so people think I'm speaking to the camera, but I'm just reading my notes, right? So I'd write down one note, max three. And I would just speak in those terms. Oh, no. Because I got feedback from. We did an off site, and then they were asking everybody, what are the things that people need to improve on?
- [31:13]
C
Right?
- [31:14]
B
And everybody wrote down for everyone. And mine, everyone wrote waffle. Did they? Yeah, because I just. They're like, you just talked a lot, right?
- [31:23]
A
Yeah.
- [31:24]
B
Because I didn't know how to simplify things and arrive at the point. So I said, you know what? I'm just gonna create restrictions for myself. Keep it at three points max and keep it really, really brief. And then make sure that you arrive back at what you were saying at the start, right? And then I just practiced that. First it was literal notes and with words on it. Then it was just bullet points and now I have mental notes. So before, even now, when you're about to ask me a question, I've got three points. I want to hear three stories. Let me get to it, right? And that just helped me become so much better at organizing my thoughts and communicating.
- [31:56]
A
I love that so much. That's really, really good. I'm probably a bit similar to how you were. I tend to talk and think at the same time, so. And then I saw about three points later, I get to what I should have said. I got. I got properly schooled in this, actually, in my sort of corporate job I had a few years ago. I remember we'd always, like, in the exec, we'd always debate some big stuff, right? Like the CEO would ask a question, right? And me, being a good schoolboy, would always like, put my hand up first, go, ah, I've got some ideas on this. And I'd go, you know, just get the ideas out there, thinking I'm going to like, win the room, you know, I was thinking, like, it's like a presidential campaign. I'm going to win everyone over first by going first, right? Anyway, the sales director was way smarter than me, right, because he would do what you do, right? He would just sit back and look at all the reactions of the room and he'd look at the face of the CEO and look at what the CEO was paying attention to and what the CEO is writing down. And then he'd always wait to hear what the CEO is thinking. And then suddenly he would just go, yeah, and we work out which way the room is going. And he'd go, yeah, me and the team have been thinking about this for a good few weeks now. I've already come up with a plan to address exactly that thing. And I'd have gone first and said the opposite kind of thing. I just said, man, that is genius. Do you know what I mean? You just get the benefit of everyone else's wisdom, you consolidate it and you come. I mean, he went one step further, which I think is a bit naughty of like, pretending he'd got it all worked out already. And, oh, yeah, the team already on this, they've had it done for days or whatever, which wasn't the case, you know, but that is an art, isn't it? You know, listening is three times more powerful than talking.
- [33:27]
B
And also just having the confidence, the self assurance and confidence to just like restrain yourself, right? Because I was realizing that and I watched a masterclass from Lewis Hamilton, right? So like I said, I love to have references from places all over the place, right? And I like to admire. I always think that success leaves clues, right? And you can, because I studied Kobe Bryant. And he said that to get an edge, you look at, like tap dancers and film artists. The reason why he calls himself the Black Mamba was because he realized that actors method act and they create an identity which goes back to this whole thing, right?
- [34:04]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:05]
B
I am not who I am at home. I am a new character when I go to the space. So you learn reference points from everywhere. And going back to this point, I like to just like, learn what different people have done. And Lewis Hamilton, there was a point where I think he won one championship with McLaren, right? But he was finding it really difficult to win another. But that's because he said that F1 was his everything, right? And because it's his everything is emotionally compromised, right? So there was a period when he started to do things like do fashion, do all this. And everyone was like, why are you distracting yourself? Just think about racing. But it was like, no, I'm all these things, but I boil it into one. Which therefore means that I'm like. It becomes my everything. Whereas now if I can express myself emotionally in all these different areas, I just have rational brain left for F1, right?
- [34:58]
A
Yeah.
- [34:58]
B
And then he went on winning eight championships. I said, you know what? And then going back to the leadership point, I realized that because gymshark was the only place for me to express myself creatively, it became more to me than just the job at hand. So I started to overstep what was required for the company to go from wherever it needs to go. So what happened was I started posting on LinkedIn again, right? And then I was like, you know what? That gives me the feeling or that, like, edge of, like posting something out and waiting to see what people get come back with. But then I could then just allow my team to create and take the shine for once, right? And that was so good. It was therapeutic. Is therapeutic because it still allowed me to keep my finger on the pulse. It still allowed me to be creating at the same. The same pace as what the team was. And because I was so used to building big communities that I just built my own, right?
- [35:54]
A
Yeah.
- [35:54]
B
And then now that's the thing that people know me for more. So some people now say I know you from LinkedIn. Whereas first it used to be I know you because of Jim Shop, which is super interesting.
- [36:04]
A
Oh is we're going to come and talk more about us because it's. I've been on a similar journey to you. Not quite as far ahead as you are. You've done amazingly well. But so many points in that. But I found doing podcasting and doing LinkedIn as almost my kind of therapy and energy session because I get so much kind of motivation out of doing it. And it's almost like because you use a different part of your brain and suddenly you can kind of in the other job you can start thinking more clearly and you get perspective and you get ideas and this sort of thing. Although it can feel like this tension. Ah, I've got to give. In my case, I try and do an hour a day on LinkedIn something and that can feel, that can feel like a burden. So sometimes I'll get up earlier, I'll get up at 6:00, not 7:00. Cause I want to spend an hour on LinkedIn sort of thing. It feels like, oh man, that's really hard. But by the end of it, I'm really energized and motivated. I'm learning all the time.
- [36:55]
B
I think people forget. So I say, going back to the whole conversation around the EQ generation, right, I'm convinced that the future CEOs and leaders, they have to understand how to do social. I think it's going to come from people from the social generation. The reason why is because people don't know what is actually happening in your brain at the time, right. And how I evaluate. So there's two different ways that we evaluate great talent, right? And one is more about like education side and the other one is more about how the brain works. So my co founder and I see that there's almost like four categories of people, right, from an educational standpoint. So. And it's not just like our opinion, just what we've noticed, right? At the very top, the best talent, others that have some form of like high level education, but they actually get shit done. They do things. They're actually where the what they do trumps what they think. And you'll see that with people like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, they all went to like really great universities and they just dropped out, right? The next level is those that haven't got any education at all and they just execute very well, right? Those are the only two challenges you should worry about. And then you've got people that are really educated, but they don't do anything.
- [38:02]
A
They're dangerous. They are so dangerous.
- [38:04]
B
That's. That's very dangerous.
- [38:06]
A
Yeah.
- [38:06]
B
That's probably like the one you should look out for the most. And then you have people that are not educated that don't do anything.
- [38:10]
C
Right.
- [38:11]
B
But. But effectively, what I mean by that is that. And why does it work that way is because executing is the minimum requirement and doing stuff is what gets things done.
- [38:21]
C
Right.
- [38:22]
B
But some people know how to storytell to others how to do it well, and they can articulate what it is that they're doing as it's happening.
- [38:29]
C
Right.
- [38:29]
B
So it's not necessarily formal education. It's more, can you create or what you're doing in a box and systemize so other people can do it too? Can you story tell what you're doing as you're doing it, or are you just doing it? And it's just a feeling.
- [38:43]
C
Right.
- [38:43]
B
And the thing about it being a feeling is you can do it, but then you'll never trust anybody else to do it because you don't know how to teach other people how you did it.
- [38:50]
C
Right.
- [38:50]
B
Which is why in football, I say that the best football manager in the world is going to be Sergio Busquet. Because he sat in a team with stars for like 15, 20 years and just he was like, you guys are the stars. But then his position was never questioned. I was like, what would he have learned? Yeah, what would he have seen?
- [39:11]
C
Right.
- [39:11]
B
Which is why I'm like that. That's why Pep Guardiola and all those guys play in that position. But I was going to say, so that's from a talent standpoint. But on the other side, what's happening in the brain of somebody in social is I think there's four different levels. I think that creativity is the minimum requirement.
- [39:27]
C
Right.
- [39:28]
B
People think that social is about being creative. No, it's not.
- [39:31]
C
Right?
- [39:31]
B
That's like, that's great and all. And you have to think creatively. But I don't. I think that's a junior level of thinking in terms of like. Because you're thinking about the output, right? And it's not about, like, age or anything. It's just about like. That's just like what you see. The next level down is all about psychology. Those that understand people. And I think that social is behavioral psychology at scale. You have an understanding of the pulse of the world right now.
- [39:55]
C
Right.
- [39:55]
B
And the genius thing about Elon Musk buying Twitter. I think a lot of people right now are almost like using the valuation of the platform to justify that it was a bad move. I'm like, no, he's got a pulse of the world and he can. What can you do with that?
- [40:08]
C
Right.
- [40:08]
A
100%.
- [40:09]
B
And especially if he makes everybody unfiltered, then he has the real pulse of.
- [40:12]
A
The world and he's got the data behind that as well that we don't even see.
- [40:16]
B
Jay Z said, women lie, men lie, numbers don't.
- [40:18]
A
Right.
- [40:19]
B
That's all I'm saying.
- [40:20]
C
Right.
- [40:20]
B
And then the level below that is platform mechanics. So you understand how these different platforms work.
- [40:27]
C
Right.
- [40:27]
B
And you understand the way that the reason why they, what they do is they create these incubators that keep people on the platform for as long as possible. And if you contribute to that, like by you giving people something of value to keep people on the platform, they reward you.
- [40:41]
C
Right.
- [40:42]
B
That's effectively what it is. And now they all reward different things. And once you understand those different things, you can reverse engineer that.
- [40:48]
C
Right.
- [40:48]
B
But that's like a, like a coding, like level of thinking.
- [40:51]
C
Right.
- [40:52]
B
So you're not just saying. It's almost like when they say that a chef that only cooks their favorite dish will have an empty restaurant.
- [40:59]
C
Right.
- [41:00]
B
You almost have to cater like a DJ for what the platform and the audience wants. And you almost like you have to work outside yourself. Like method acting.
- [41:08]
A
Yeah.
- [41:09]
B
So it's like, it's a great exercise for your brain. And then at the bottom, those that really get to the top, they also understand social dynamics. They, they cannot just understand the creativity, the psychology and the almost like platform mechanics. And that's just tailors you to one brand. If you want to be able to be the same, but for multiple brands, you have to understand who that brand or that person is to society. That's the reason why Ryanair can get away with things that British Airways can't.
- [41:39]
C
Right.
- [41:40]
B
Same industry trying to go for the same audience. People that want to go escape somewhere, but then they mean different things to society. And once you get clocked that bit, you can do that for any brand. And that's what we look out for. It's like one, are you a doer? And then two, at what level are you thinking about things?
- [41:59]
C
Right.
- [42:00]
B
Which I think is super, super interesting.
- [42:02]
A
That's amazing. I love how you've broken that down. I mean, you apply that to brands exactly in the way you probably, but. And you talked about your kind of LinkedIn journey as well, how you Used it early to attract gymshark. You used it as you're exiting, of course, or on the kind of way.
- [42:18]
B
Because you wrote.
- [42:18]
C
You.
- [42:18]
A
Didn't you write like a breakup letter to effectively to Gymshark when you left?
- [42:23]
B
No. Well, I wrote it on LinkedIn or.
- [42:25]
A
A love letter to, you know.
- [42:27]
B
But honestly, whenever I go back there, and this is just like the honest, honest truth, I always say, like, I don't regret the decision because I think it was great for my growth and I think that we always have to evolve. But then whenever you go there, especially if you, if you chase comfort and if you chase like a safety, whenever I go back there, it just feels like, oh, my God, I love this place, right? I love the people. We have great relationships with everybody there. It just feels like how we did. And there's like this whole new group of talent that are there but probably don't know the hell you are. But it's just like it. When you're a part of that, it never leaves you, right? You always feel a part of the journey. But as people, naturally, we always have to evolve and want more and do more, right? And I was like, well, I want to. If my parents are going to sacrifice everything for us, I've. I've. I have to be able to show them that that was the best thing they've ever done, right? And now it's no longer to the point where it's like doing it in service of them. I just want to do it right because I'm just like, you know how right now the world is in a very paralyzed place where people are talking about immigrants this and immigrants that. I was like, well, I want to show you what an immigrant can do, right? And not just for myself, but how can we demonstrate what of a positive impact immigration can have on society when people are selfless instead of selfish, right? And I was like, then I have to do something that's much bigger than myself. And I feel like the best brands, the best people create whys and visions that are in service. And I always say that I can tell if somebody wants to be a Bill can have the capacity to be a billionaire or not. I can tell it in a sitting. And when you ask them what is it that they want to do, if they say, I want to be the best or I want to create the greatest thing at this, I'm like, you're not going to do it. If you say, I want to help people do this or I want to unite people, or if you do something in service of People, the world becomes smaller, right? Because then people are like, oh, we all want that. That's when you get talent that are not on the table. You get opportunities that are on the table because people buy into that. United cause, right? And then I said, you know what? That's a skill and that's a system, and we want to be able to do that with more brands, right? So we did. And the reason why I left was because I almost, like, describe it as. I felt like Hermione in the Prisoner of Azkaban, right? When she had that clock where she could see the future, et cetera. I think I just got to a point when I got really, really comfortable, right? I bought a house on Gymshark campus. I was about to get married. All these things were happening, and I was like, I'm going to be here forever, right? I was like, I was settled in, et cetera, et cetera. And then I'm not going to mention the brand, but my favorite company, and I probably hinted it before, and people from my favorite company started, like, reaching out to me and saying, would you want to come with us? And that was probably the biggest. Almost like, validation that you might be all right at this. And by the way, a lot of things happened before that point that would have probably given me the signals that I'm okay at this thing. But it was only when that happened, it had to be really extreme for me to say, holy crap. Like, this is beyond. You're not just good because you're a Gymshark, you're just good, right? And I was like, I can't unlearn that. What do I do with that, right? And first I said, yes, I want to do it. But then I said, well, I said, the Gymshark's the last place I was ever going to work, right? And I said that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do something that I'm fearful of doing. And one of the things that I had to tick off was starting my own business. But I was like, what am I going to start a business in, right? I was like, what skills do I have, right? Like, starting a social media agency doesn't make any sense. That would have worked five years ago, right? But now everybody has one, right? So I was like, it has to be something better. And then so I did the Ikega exercise, which is like, a four is a Japanese proverb that talks about, like, your one true calling. And it asks you four questions, which is, what are you passionate about? What are you good at? What have you been paid to do? And what does the world need?
- [46:47]
C
Right?
- [46:48]
B
And. And I was like, well, the world doesn't need any more gym leggings. It already has it. Well, we have the Ben Francis story. We have that. We know we can do that. There's a. A billionaire in the social generation. My dissertation has been ticked off.
- [47:03]
C
Right.
- [47:04]
B
So, so, so we don't need that anymore. But then what the world needs is to a demonstration that diversity, especially in the creative world, makes business sense.
- [47:11]
C
Right?
- [47:12]
B
So that was one world need. And I was like, but then actually one example is okay, but multiple examples defines the point, right? So could we create a unicorn factory? Okay, that makes sense. Now let's go one step back. Wanted to create a company where the mission was to unite diverse creatives so people that think differently and challenge each other, because that's the world that we. And we need people that have a safe space to challenge each other. And then can we help make brave brands famous? Because what we mean by that is that I recognize the first moment I stepped out of gymshark, I thought that everybody wanted to win, but I realized that 95% of people just don't want to fail.
- [47:55]
A
100%.
- [47:56]
B
So I said, well, that's not who I want to work with. I changed. It was first United diverse creatives make brands famous. I moved and I added the word brave. And bravery doesn't mean disruptive and crazy. It means you just want to take a first step forward. Right? If you just don't want to lose, we're just not going to align. That's not the gear that we're in together. But if you want to win, then, or you want to grow or you want to be better, I can do something with that. Then it just becomes a dial, meaning you where you're at and then taking you where you need to go. So we said, okay, we're not going to be a social media agency. We're going to be a community marketing agency, because that's what we do. And what does that mean in simple terms is how can we make your brand be so significant and mean something to a niche group of people that they tell everybody else at scale, that's actually the most efficient way to grow, because not only does that increase lifetime value for those that like metrics, but it also decreases cost per acquisition because then you're not paying for new customers. So it's just people come in and they stick.
- [48:57]
C
Right?
- [48:57]
B
And then also a lot of people think that social and marketing is a reach game, but really it's more of a depth game, right. And a connection game. And I always tell people that if your brand only relates to 1% of the global population, that's 80 million people.
- [49:15]
A
Yeah.
- [49:15]
B
So who's your 80 million? And if they can tell two people, how many people is that right? So instead of spraying yourself way too thin, giving like 2%, 2% in all these different buckets, just go all in on one group and get them to tell everybody else about it.
- [49:29]
A
I really please. One of my really strong principles is always let other people tell your story. You know, I mean, because if you, if you say to me, hey, hey, you should check out this new kit I'm wearing, I'm going to take, I'm going to, I will be googling it this afternoon, right? And hopefully next week I'll be wearing it. What passed a poster. A small chance I might remember, I might not remember. Depends how good the poster is.
- [49:50]
C
Right?
- [49:50]
A
But if you tell me something, it's probably 10x more likely. I'm actually going to. Because I'm going to go, hey, he thinks it's good, it must be good. You know what I mean? It's like there's an element of trust you have in that brand that gets transferred to me because of my relationship with you, isn't it? So I just think the ability to scale that through, I mean, we call them influencers, don't we? But scale that through community is so powerful.
- [50:11]
B
And go back to your point, right? Like, which is why I don't like titles or connotations that are defined or limited by time. Is that influencer marketing always existed? Yeah, it has always existed. Michael Jordan with Nike and Michael Jackson with Pepsi and even beyond that, right. It's almost like I think what marketers have done because so I, because I thought I was going to be a doctor. I was obsessed with maths, right? And my maths teacher told me that mathematicians are lazy, so they find the easiest route to the problem, right? Which is how you simplify things. And one thing that I realized, I think Gary Vaynerchuk said something, it's like marketers ruin everything because when they seen it work for somebody else, they will abuse it to the point where they just, it stops working and people get so put up and they go to the next thing and that's what's happened. But then the, what they've done with influencer marketing is people are treating it like a billboard, right? They're like, you have this amount of reach, we're going to put our product on There. And that's how we're going to shift our sales by 0.0 what percent or whatever that is. But the missing a trick there, influencer marketing is probably the biggest recommendation you can get.
- [51:25]
C
Right.
- [51:26]
B
So you need to go for people whose recommendations actually matters, not who's the biggest. As the biggest microphone is who actually has a genuine. Who's trusted by people because they actually make a decision, because that's what they believe in.
- [51:40]
A
Yeah.
- [51:41]
B
So you almost have to give your product to the person, see whether they even like it before you actually just like, decide to work with them. That's the way you should do it. And I think a lot of people, when you look at the way gymshark does influencer marketing, I think a lot of people think that they're getting close. They're not even anywhere close. The reason why is because Jim Shark said, you know what, it makes sense because you get scale. It makes sense because obviously it's like advertising at scale through human. Right. But what they're really missing is that gymshark have basically understood that the theory of the Avengers is something that everybody gets born into. Not only they get these individual people that put them together and made them a team. So it's almost like combinations that you never thought would be part of the same team was what everybody else does. They take one person in isolation.
- [52:32]
C
Right.
- [52:33]
B
We changed everything from our images getting people to be together. It was all about, we're gonna win by creating the best team, not the best individuals.
- [52:42]
C
Right.
- [52:42]
B
And that's how we're gonna outdo everybody else. And so they did. So they just said, you know what? We're gonna get all these people. We're going to make sure that they actually live and breathe the brand. We're going to make sure that actually. And they fly people over to handshake with them to make sure that you are who you say you are. Because if we give you the gymshark badge, you're not just an influencer. You work for the company and you're there for a long term. And you're going to be around us and you're going to be around everybody else. So you have to be brought in.
- [53:07]
C
Right.
- [53:07]
B
So it's not a marketing tactic. It's so important to the brand that they bring these people together and they represent the brand.
- [53:15]
C
Right.
- [53:16]
B
So there's a form of, like, unity that comes with it. And the reason why it works is because people believe that it's genuine.
- [53:21]
A
Exactly. That's exactly. I mean, even on the podcast, to a much Lower degree. I get approached quite often by brands going, can you go and talk about this? Right? And I go, do you know what? I could, but my audience would know that I don't really do that, you know, because they've heard 150 episodes of me talk about this thing and then suddenly I'm turning up going, oh, look, funnily enough, I now believe in this thing. You know, it's like, you know, and. Or they give me a script, it's like, oh, we'd like you to say these things, have these points, you know, whatever. And every time I go back and I go, do you know what? Genuinely, if you give me, if you say what you want to achieve, but you give me complete creative license, I will create something 10 times better for you.
- [54:04]
B
100%.
- [54:05]
A
It will be authentic, it will be organic, it will be true. And you have to trust me that your brand will benefit. And this is a weird thing for me to say, but I'm just going, you're going to have to make a leap of faith now that basically by being authentic, people will listen and hear and respond and feel emotionally to what I'm saying and then they'll discover you. But if I just go out and go, this is an advert from the uncensored CMO for the da da da sort of thing, they know it's paid, they know it's placed. You know, I mean, it's like people.
- [54:32]
B
Think that I'm this like, take a leap of faith, creative, disrupt everything kind of like person. I think it's probably the hat, right? People think that I'm a lot more eccentric than I actually am. I'm a nerd, right? I love numbers, right? Like I said, Jay Z told me numbers don't lie. So I always look at the numbers first and then I add a creative spin to it, right? So I taught myself how to do paid social, right? And me and the team went from that. And then we're getting the honorable mention from being like a right brain person. We taught ourselves how to do that. But even with that, marketers ruin everything, right? They forget. And the platforms are very, very smart. And what we've realized is, and when we talk about community marketing, the reason why it's important is because the state of the creative agency world right now, so. So I didn't want to create an agency because I never worked with any when I, when I was. We were growing at gymshark, just did it ourselves, right? But the reason why is because I thought I knew that you have to be Very objective with your approach. If you create an agency that is a social media agency and influencer managers, you're biased then because that's going to be the solution to every problem, right? So you almost have to do one level up and say one of these could be, but we need to be open to which one it is and make sure that those things complement each other as opposed to like going down a rabbit hole, right? So whenever you have like a brief that comes in and let's say for example, if it's one from Arsenal, if we got one, right, Just to pick.
- [56:01]
A
Any brand in the world at random. Arsenal, if you're listen, listening by the.
- [56:06]
B
Way, you know, so if it happened, what would happen is, is that I will immediately know that I'm emotionally compromised, right? So it has to be, I have to almost like go counter that. And even with interviewing, we always have a three person sign off process, right. Even if it's my company, because I know that that person would say I love Arsenal Football Club or I do this, then naturally in human nature we'll lean into what we like and enjoy, right? So we said that if we're going to start a social company, it doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people because it's much easier to sell if you just do one thing. And I was like, well, that doesn't work with my nature, right? So we're going to do a community marketing thing and our components are social influencers paid, obviously the strategy and creativity. But then there's like offline activations because we actually feel like to grow a community you have to do stuff in real life with documenting and capturing, right? So we're like, we do that and then wherever you want to start, we can start with one component. But just like an iPhone or Apple products, the iPhone's great, but it's only better when you connect everything else, right? So we said that actually we'll start where the problem is, but then you have to make sure that these things are all joined up so that it tells the story about your brand in the best way possible. Now going to paid, what people don't realize is that if you put an ad that remotely feels like it's marketing, your ads get almost like pushed to this 3% category of people that are ready to buy, right? So every time you're saying we're going to put these conversion based ads out in the whole 2 billion people or 3 billion people that are in the meta platform, that will only be served to 3% of the global population or the meta population, which therefore means that you're competing with everybody else that's doing that. So the whole world is competing for 3%. But then if you say we're going to do stuff in organic and with influencers that just resonate with people at a human level.
- [57:56]
C
Right.
- [57:56]
B
And then we're going to get that out there, you don't expose yourself to the 97% of the people. And then if you say of those people that engage with us, we're going to convert them. That's a much better way to look at it. Totally.
- [58:08]
A
And when they're thinking about their next hat purchase, for example, they'll be thinking about your hats. You'll get them pre prepared.
- [58:16]
B
Yeah, you embed the product experience in the story and the messages looking to get out there.
- [58:20]
C
Right.
- [58:20]
B
And then you have to lean because before you can sell to anybody, you have to get their attention first because you're, you're not competing against the other brand that's doing this thing. You're competing against cat videos and kit and these puberty pages.
- [58:33]
C
Right.
- [58:33]
B
These meme pages. And you're literally competing for attention because you're all media companies. So you're first competing against other media companies or other categories and it's almost like, oh, we're a music brand. Oh, first you have to get past my Spotify playlist. Right. So you're competing who you think is the competition. Isn't the competition. The competition is for attention first and then it's for connection and engagement and then it's for your product.
- [59:01]
C
Right.
- [59:02]
B
And then if you, I always tell people that if I, you know, when you walk around the street and then you have people that try to stop you for, to sign up on something or whatever.
- [59:11]
C
Right.
- [59:12]
B
You're more like to say no, I'm busy.
- [59:14]
C
Right.
- [59:15]
B
But if you see a street act that's really nice, you'll stop. Not only would you stop, not only would you might give it some money, but you didn't even take your phone out and record it.
- [59:24]
C
Right.
- [59:24]
B
Because it's a value up front. So what you do at first is say I'm going to give you something up front to get your attention and tell you a little bit about me. But then selfishly because we want to put you in the spotlight and then when you connect they were like, oh by the way, we happen to do this thing. And then when you're like, okay, that's interesting. Well here it is. If you want to buy it.
- [59:41]
A
I think that's the secret. The most like successful on content is being generous first. Like be generous, give something away that's useful, interesting, funny, whatever it is. And then, then you create a level of loyalty that then ends up getting paid payback at some point future.
- [59:53]
B
And going back to the point, that story I told earlier about how I attracted the guy as a gymshark, that wasn't because I was a genius, because I saw, I went on YouTube and this guy called Gary Vaynerchuk was yelling on a YouTube channel about his jab, jab, jab, right hook theory, which is a give, give, give and then ask. So I said, I'm going to add everybody. I'm going to give something and then you get people's attention and then they ask you what is it that you do, right? Because at the end of the day, we're in a place where the biggest decision maker for our choices is trust, right? Going back to the whole thing about AI technology being democratized. When the quality level is all up, people go with who they trust, right? And the who they trust is those that can articulate things or can resonate with people in a way that they understand, right? And that is why we do all these things, is because we demonstrate who we are and people will be like, you seem like my kind of people now. Let's do business, right? So I tell people, everyone asks me, they're like, on your LinkedIn, you never talk about butterfly effect, never talk about what it is that you do. I was like, I don't need to.
- [60:56]
A
Oh, totally. I totally agree. Because they're going to buy into you. I mean, personal brands on LinkedIn are so many times more powerful than corporate brands, aren't they? And I mean, you've grown your personal brand incredibly. I mean, some of your posts have just got insane levels, like hundreds of thousands of likes and things. What has been. What would be your advice? Let's say to somebody that's kind of sitting there going, because we're all media, aren't we now with social media, we're all a media vehicle of some kind. It's how you choose to use it. And so what would your advice be for somebody that wants to build a personal brand, maybe in addition to a professional brand, like the way you've done?
- [61:33]
B
So I'll give a fluffy answer because I know we're speaking to a lot of creatives and then I'll give a tangible answer, right? So the fluffy answer is, aim to give more than you ask, right? If you go on to if your general theory or your general approach and Direction is how do I give the most right in a world? Because I went on LinkedIn, I was like, everyone's like, I'm excited to announce this or I've just got a promotion or buy this now look at how great I am. I'll just be like, well, you almost have to go counterculture. Well, everyone's saying this. I'm just going to say this. I'll be the first account that doesn't ask you for anything. People, people underestimate how under appreciated being is it a contrarian is. So what happens is something will trend on socials, everyone will do it. You just do the direct opposite, do it until everybody else do it. And then you do something different because then you're fresh. Because what happens is you just become a scroll, right? Because people can already finish the story before it started because they've seen it before, right? So you just have to go to something. Everyone's. When you're going through is in red and then you're purple, like the purple cow.
- [62:46]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [62:47]
B
You stop, right? You have to get people to stop. So you just be different because you're the predictor feed and you're something different. They'll stop and then you got three seconds to keep them, right? So, so, so if you aim to be a person that gives and people feel like, actually I elevate by consuming your content. I don't deflate or stay in one place. That's a good general theory to have. Now when it starts to go to the tangible bits is going back to. I know there's a stat about like people that podcasters, most of them don't exceed 10 episodes, right? And if you do it, you need to like the top 1% or something like that. And going back to the awesome thing I think is you have to create a system that beats your motivation levels. You have to say, I want to show up every day or. And you don't have to start with every day if you say, well, what's what I always say. And my friend Timo, Timo amu, his whole thing is all about being unreasonable, being slightly more unreasonable. It helped me out so much. I'm a, I'm a recovering people pleaser, right? And I realized that I was trying to be reasonable all the time and he told me, you need to be a little bit more unreasonable. I said, that should be your brand, right? And it helped me out so much. So I always say that you have to first start with a reasonable step before you can have an unreasonable leap, right? So what is reasonable for you. So if you post none at all for the first month, just post once a week and stick to that. And then it's twice and then it's three times, then it's four times, right? But create a system. Whatever that step is at the time, it should feel reasonable because it's just one step further. But then when you look back at where you started, it sounds like a leap, right? So you always have to make it feel reasonable, but it actually ends up becoming unreasonable, right? So otherwise you'll never stick to it, right? So it's like just showing up helps. Because what happens is every week you'll start to say, well, this worked and this didn't work, and this worked and this didn't work and this work and this didn't work. And the other thing about LinkedIn in general or just content in general, going back to the fact that it's not about the content, it's all about the context, right? LinkedIn's emotions and how people react to things is directly correlated with the day of the week that it is, because people that have that business hat on. So what people need on a Monday is different what they need on a Friday. So even if you're scheduling post, you almost have to say, does this work for Wednesday? Right? Because a lot of people tell me, well, I scheduled post on LinkedIn doesn't work. I'm like, because you're scheduling it based on how you feel on a Sunday, right? So you say, okay, I want to post every day. I'm going to schedule a batch sometime. Now, how would I. So you almost have to know yourself very well. Because otherwise, if you do it instinctively, you will naturally come up with the right post because it's how you feel. So you have to learn about how you would feel at that time and say, I'm just going to give a message that will work for me at that time, right? And on a Monday, you need some morning coffee, you need some excitement, some motivation stuff. In the middle of the week, you need to get through the hump. On a Friday, you don't even think about work, right? On a Saturday is when, if you are on LinkedIn on a Saturday, you're like the crazy motherfuckers that just want to see some edge and creativity. And then on a Sunday, hear me out. So on a Sunday, I love to post it around 6pm, right? 6 to 8pm because that's when you think about work the next day. And that's when people question whether what they're doing is aligned with who they are. Because I'm just coming out of the weekend, they're about to go to this thing that they're about to commit to. And that's when people are like, it's the right thing. So my poster during that time is like, are you in the right place? It's all about growth. It's all about. So you have to be very empathetic and you have to know who the audience. It's all about context, right? And then I think it's just like an iteration and test and learn process, right? You have to be a dj. You have to be the chef without the empty restaurant. It's not about what I want, it's about what they need. And you just adjust about what they need today. And then you just. That's all you do. So that's the strategy.
- [66:44]
A
I hope that helps, mate. That is so spot on. And it resonates a lot the thing. Because often I think no one. It's not that we don't know what.
- [66:53]
B
We should be doing.
- [66:54]
A
Most people know what they should be doing and they can figure it out and they can research it and so on. But what you said about the reason was the unreasonable is really spot on because you create habits. So when this podcast suddenly took off was actually when we just said, we're going to commit to weekly. And it's like, really? Well, every single week we're going to have a really interesting person on and a really good conversation. We're going to produce it and promote it. But that discipline of going I cannot get out of. Every Thursday we're going to record and every Wednesday we're going to launch. Right? I'm now committed.
- [67:22]
B
It's almost harder to not do it.
- [67:24]
A
Yeah. That is now my life, you know what I mean? And that discipline, that was probably the tipping point. I mean, the loads of things is like quality of gas. There's promotion, there's other things, right. There's compounding everything else. But that was probably the discipline point. You said the next reasonable step that creates an unreasonable result.
- [67:40]
B
And going back to that. I'm not a creator, I'm a taste maker or a curator is because I don't go against the tide, right? I don't try to create or talk. So there's two different types of marketeers in the modern day era. Well, in life, right? There's those that go in a dark room, think about an idea and they push it to the world, right? That doesn't work. And there's the others that say, we're going to listen to the insight and see what people are engaging with. And then we're going to reverse engineer and create our version of that. That's more likely to work, right? Because it's testing and learning. So if you want to come, like put together a Super bowl ad, right? If you go in a dark room and say, we're going to do this, that's a very expensive mistake. The best super bowl ads will start off as a tweet or a poll, right? Low lift, put something out there. We'll say, I think there was a test. I was actually speaking to the guys at VaynerMedia. They talked about this company. I forgot the name of the brand. And they had. They were doing a lot of testing organically. And then they did this poll and they basically said, how do you like your peanuts, right? Do you like, there was a mixed nuts, right? And they're like, when you have some mixed nuts, do you have the same nut all the time or do you just like eat it whole? And it just started this like pineapple on pizza wall within that community, right? So they got a hook that people can't ignore and have to engage in and they're like, okay, we'll turn that into a skit. Okay, that worked. We'll turn that into this. And then by the time they validated for free, by the time they pay for the super bowl ad, they're basically like, done. Yeah, watch this happen.
- [69:23]
C
Right?
- [69:23]
B
So it's like if you can test it for free. Which is why I always tell people the best way to use social, or in this case community marketing, is you work with content creators and influencers for them to create content on their channels. The best of the best that perform that you put on your channels, the best of the best, you put it on paid. If you are saying, we're going to create paid assets directly, Right. Okay, so you skipped all those steps and you pushed it to the world.
- [69:50]
A
Yeah.
- [69:51]
B
Because in your brain you're saying paid is to get people to convert. Whereas you're going to be in the 3% of people that are doing exactly the same thing. Whereas that bitch. You learn the 97% and then you can convert people with paid ads that have watched your stuff. It's so simple. Like, I think a lot of people think it's the dark arts, right? But I always say that if you cannot explain something like to a 7 year old or to anybody in a way that they can understand, you don't really understand it.
- [70:15]
C
Right.
- [70:16]
B
Like, and really a lot of the things that we talk about from, like, coding. I watched a documentary called the Playlist. It's all about the Spotify origin story. And they talk about the Spotify story from the perspective of Daniel Eck, the CEO, and every single other person that was there. And the one with the C2, I thought, I'm not gonna understand what he's talking about. But then the inspiration to increase the speed of how you go from, like, from how you. You select a track and this track plays was because he realized. And I'm not clever enough to be able to, like, articulate it in technical form, but what he saw was he saw a car approaching, a amber light. And what happens with the tech is it stops when the amber comes in. But that person sped on and he said, oh, we just have to speed up. Yeah, we're slowing down. And then that changed this place.
- [71:07]
C
Right.
- [71:07]
B
And I was there like, holy crap.
- [71:09]
C
Right?
- [71:10]
B
It's coding. It's just another form of storytelling, and it's just another form of understanding how the world. The world that we live in.
- [71:16]
C
Right.
- [71:17]
B
It's just a different language.
- [71:18]
C
Right.
- [71:19]
B
And if you. But then if you understand it to that degree, you can explain it to anybody else. And what happens is most people can only explain it at, like, expertise level and in the terms that they learned, but they haven't experienced that.
- [71:32]
C
Right.
- [71:32]
A
And I think we come back to what you said at Gymshark, which is it's the distance between you and your community that drives everything, doesn't it?
- [71:38]
B
Yeah.
- [71:39]
A
In terms of listening, that following the ideas through, amplifying the ones that work. Well, I kind of think now we did promise you Nando's.
- [71:46]
B
I'm waiting for my black card, by the way. So.
- [71:48]
A
Yeah, so apologies for everyone listening. That's just got kind of Nando's FOMO at this point.
- [71:53]
B
By the way, we used to have a sign. I think it's still there, Gymshark, that says Gymshark was built on big risk and Peri Chicken.
- [72:01]
A
I am into that.
- [72:03]
B
Oh, we. All the time. This is not sponsored, by the way.
- [72:06]
A
This isn't sponsored. If they do want to sponsor us, though, we are available. And, yeah, the agents are on hands.
- [72:13]
B
To me as well. Exactly.
- [72:15]
A
Oh, man. I could keep talking all afternoon. Genuinely. It's been a real blast. So thank you so much and, yeah, good luck with it. It's amazing.
- [72:22]
B
Amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
- [72:24]
A
Cheers. Good to see you.
- [72:24]
B
Cheers.
- [72:25]
A
Thank you very much for listening or watching uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show, so please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on X censored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.