Digital Marketing Victories
The Digital Marketing Victories podcast is a monthly show where we explore and celebrate the soft skills and tactics it takes to lead digital transformation successfully.
Great digital marketers understand that people are the most challenging part of doing their jobs. This show focuses on the people part of their digital marketing wins – and what tactics or skills the guests used to align people with their marketing strategy.
We feature people who have persuaded others to adopt new technology, change their attitudes or behaviors to support a digital marketing initiative or have led internal change around digital marketing plans. Our guests all have one thing in common: they have figured out how to tackle the people part of digital marketing success and are willing to share those tips with others.
Digital Marketing Victories
Increasing your soft skills as a Digital Marketing Manager
In this episode, we’re joined by Paddy Moogan. Paddy is Founder of The New Leader, a training platform that enables agency teams to become more effective managers and leaders. He also works with agency founders as a coach and non-exec director to help them navigate the world of agency life. Previously, he spent ten years as CEO and co-founder of Aira, a digital marketing agency based in the UK.
This episode dives deep into the practical skills that separate mediocre managers from inspiring leaders. You'll discover why active listening is Paddy's secret weapon (born from an unexpected place), and how to deliver difficult feedback in ways that motivate rather than discourage. Whether you're struggling with delegation, managing remote teams, or having tough conversations about performance, Paddy offers actionable strategies that work in the real world of agency life.
| A good leader is probably someone who listens... They're better at listening to people. They try to empathize. They try to have a high degree of emotional intelligence, and I think really, they're quite selfless in many ways. ~ Paddy Moogan
This episode is for you if you’re curious about the following:
- How to become a good manager
- If you're in a management role and you don't have any management experience or training
- How can you improve your management skills
- How you can improve your leadership skills, no matter what your professional position.
Connect With Paddy
- Visit The New Leader website
- Connect with Paddy on LinkedIn
- Follow Paddy on Bluesky
- Follow Paddy on Mastodon
Resources
Find resources on episode webpage.
Here's how you can support this podcast if you’re enjoying the episodes and finding them useful:
You can send me a donation at buymeacoffee.com/DMVpodcast. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our email list so that you don't miss any news about the show or new episodes.
Get 15% off when you sign up today for PodUp or PodAllies with code [DigitalMarketingVictories15]!
Leave Feedback
Your feedback matters to us! Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts on the podcast and how we can improve it.
👉 Leave feedback
Get In Touch
- Tweet us at @dmvictories
- Email us at admin@wostrategies.com
If you’d like to know more about change-makers in digital marketing, celebrate their wins, and discover how they built a breaking ground career, subscribe, share and comment on the Digital Marketing Victories Podcast.
Thank you for supporting our podcast!
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Victories podcast, a monthly show where we celebrate and learn from the changemakers in digital marketing. I'm personally obsessed with how digital marketers sell through and get their ideas executed. I'm your host, Catherine Watsier-Ong. I'm the owner of WOStrategies LLC. We focus on organic discovery for our enterprise clients with a training-centered approach. Today, we're joined by Patti Mugen.
Speaker 1:Patti is the founder of the New Leader, a training program that enables agency teams to become more effective managers and leaders. He also works with agency founders as a coach and a non-exec director to help them navigate the world of agency life. Founders as a coach and a non-exec director to help them navigate the world of agency life. Previously, he spent 10 years as the CEO and co-founder of ARIA digital marketing agency, based in the UK, and this episode is going to be perfect for you if you're curious about how do you become a good manager If you're in a management role and you don't have any management experience or training, how you can improve your management skills and how you can improve your leadership skills, no matter what your professional position. Paddy, welcome to the show. Cool, thanks for having me. Can you just give our listeners a little bit of background about how you ended up where you are now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course it's a bit of a weird kind of journey, but at the moment, as you said, I work with agency founders and owners to help them be more effective, of running their agencies and help navigate the wonderful world of agency life. But before that I ran my own agency for about 10 years or so. That actually did SEO, ppc, content, pr, all those kinds of things as well. But I kind of fell into SEO con-op accident.
Speaker 2:Many years ago I was studying for a law degree at university and got a little bit bored and in between lectures I was building websites because I'd always kind of had that skill, and kind of got back into it during university, built a few websites. They had zero traffic whatsoever. So I naturally went online to figure out how do I actually drive traffic to these things, figured out you could make money through websites, through affiliates and ads and that kind of stuff, and eventually made a little bit of money. And then eventually, when I finished university, realized you could actually get a job and have a career doing this thing called SEO that I was just messing about with really my spare time and then got a job at an agency, eventually moved to London and then eventually started my own agency. So yeah, a bit of a weird journey, but I don't think anyone really gets into SEO deliberately. We all kind of fall into it back then, really.
Speaker 1:I know I don't think anybody does so. That's interesting though, because I don't know many folks that started a degree. Did you finish the law degree?
Speaker 2:I finished it just about. My grades were okay, but probably reflective of the fact that I was very bored about halfway through. It was fine, I didn't hate it, but I realized quite quickly it wasn't really for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's interesting. So let's talk a little bit about the leadership. So what do you think makes a great leader in digital marketing?
Speaker 2:And has your own leadership style evolved over time? Yeah, it definitely has evolved, and I think that one of the things that has definitely become clearer to me as time has gone on is a good leader is probably someone who listens, and I think that we often kind of grow up and go into the workplace thinking that a leader is really confident, charismatic, they're able to hold an audience, they can speak in front of thousands of people, and whilst those things might be true, I think for me, really a leader is someone who isn't necessarily obviously a leader. They're better at listening to people, they try to empathize, they try and have a high degree of emotional intelligence and I think really they're quite selfless. In many ways, they don't mind putting other people first and trying to really get the best out of people by focusing on them, not themselves. I think really those are the kind of things that come to mind now, and I can say that because you know, I think that over the years I've developed quite a lot as a leader.
Speaker 2:I was a manager when I was working at an agency. I then became the owner of an agency, so I was leading in a very different way and being a manager in a different way. So I've definitely changed over the years and learned as I've gone, um, but fundamentally, you're never perfect like now. I've been doing this for 15, 20 years. Um, I'm not the perfect manager or leader, and I think also accepting and knowing that is quite important as well, because there's always something to learn. There's always different circumstances, different people, different ways of working, so I find that quite exciting as well, but I think that's also very important not to forget that you're never done. You're always learning.
Speaker 1:Especially in SEO, because you're on the agency side, particularly because your clients always change. There's always a different mix of people at the clients and different yeah embedded cultures that you have to figure out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find that exciting and also stupidly challenging, which is why I do the podcast, because it's constantly navigating, yeah, managing people, um, exactly yeah, and actually on that point that you asked about, kind of in digital, especially that you're not just managing your own team but you're basically managing the clients right. So you're having to really shift day to day on managing an individual who may be struggling to progress in their career, might be having problems at home, might be struggling to learn something, and then you've got to go and jump on a call with a client who might be struggling with the results they're getting. So that's still managing people and leading people. So it's a very difficult balance to have. So in digital and in agencies in particular, you're having to switch hats very, very quickly oftentimes. Now, that's quite difficult, that's quite challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally agree. So how do you inspire your team while ensuring that you're still keeping the vision and the goals of the organization clear and actionable?
Speaker 2:Let's be honest, a lot of people won't be overly inspired by the goals of an agency. For example, an agency probably wants to do good work, they to grow, they want to be successful, um, but that doesn't always excite individuals. So I think it's mostly about trying to find out what excites them as individuals. What does progress mean for them, what does what excites them to get out of bed in the morning, to come to work and those kinds of things, and hopefully those things align with their job right, because if they're completely different, then that's a whole other problem to try and address. But for an agency, often it comes back to doing good work for clients, getting results, being professional, being nice people to work with that kind of stuff. So as long as those things can align and those bigger picture things can align with the individual, I think you can connect them quite well. But ultimately you can't do that without understanding the individual and what inspires them and what kind of makes them excited about the job, and trying to connect that with their actual job.
Speaker 2:And, for example, some people just love selling, they love sales. Some people hate it. You know, some people don't want to ever be in a pitch in their careers. I wanted to do the work, so understanding those kinds of things are quite important, because you try and force people into something that they just clearly are not very good at or don't want to do. That's really not going to inspire them. So, wherever you can, trying to adapt the work that has to be done to the team is really important too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I agree, I was thinking of moments where I was being forced to do things I didn't want to do.
Speaker 2:So you were talking a lot about listening.
Speaker 1:So do you have and I know we've talked a little bit about listening with the episode with Dana Theus on the show but do you have particular strategies or habits that you've worked on to improve your own listening skills?
Speaker 2:Um so, um kind of. So my, my instinct around listening actually comes from the fact that when I was younger I had a bit of a speech impediment. So actually I'm not a very confident speaker, especially in kind of small groups, in loud environments, that kind of stuff. So I was always the quiet one when I was growing up and coming into the workplace. So I kind of did it by accident and just realized actually this thing that I do is actually a bit of a strength, so I started to lean into it and use it. So for me it kind of came quite naturally to be a listener in the group and to people.
Speaker 2:But the one thing that I do try and deliberately do is often, like you know, when someone says something and you feel the instinct to immediately reply or give them some insight, something like that, sometimes that's not the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you're best just to take a second and pause, and I think that can be quite powerful, because when someone's sharing something with you, someone's struggling with something, they just want you to say something that is quite meaningful, not just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head. So I think when it comes to listening it's important to then kind of obviously listen to the person quite deeply and be very present. But I think for me I deliberately try and just just take a second and pause before I blurt out a reply, and that's that's worked quite well for me over the years, because I actually do think about what I'm going to say. I don't just kind of say whatever. The first thing comes to mind is that seems to reassure the person that I am thinking about this, I'm not just saying something to break that awkward silence that we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the more you mention that, the more I think about how I wish I could remember this book.
Speaker 1:But there was a author on a podcast speaking about a book, particularly about the cultural differences of the pattern of talking, and the reason it stuck out to me is that she was from New York and in in New York city, particularly the the way you communicate and support the other person, there's this habit of frankly interrupting and saying something really quickly and it's all known like in New York city, that's like a positive, reaffirming pattern.
Speaker 1:But, dear Lord, you take that to the South here in the U? S and that's a problem. Anyway, I'm absolutely intrigued by this pattern that you grew up with in relation to talking to somebody else and realizing that, while it's your native pattern and if you were talking to somebody in your home environment, from wherever you came from, it would be fine If you take that speed and pattern of talking to a different culture, you're going to run into conflict because it's it could be the opposite of what their pattern is of speaking. I don't think people talk about it or think about it enough, especially since we work with global teams now. Anyway, side note, I just have to find someone on the show to talk about this, because I'm utterly fascinated.
Speaker 2:It really is. And actually on that, if I can just share a quick story on that as well, I actually did some work when this was back at my second agency in about 2012, 2013. And we did a project with an agency in finland and I was one of the people that flew to work on this project. I was going to be there for like a week, week and a half, and when I got there I kind of had my point of contact sit down with me and say, okay, so, just so you know, you've been some client meetings with finnish people. And he said we have this thing called an awkward silence. And, um, it's uh, you call it awkward silence, we call it a comfortable silence.
Speaker 2:And he says what will happen is you'll ask a question, you'll present something and then you'll stop and then there'll be silence for like 30 seconds, maybe even a minute, and it's because people are thinking about their response. And I was like, oh, I'm not used to that. That's a bit strange, particularly, like you say, working with lots of East Coast Americans as well. It never happens. And then it happened to me in a presentation and thankfully he gave me a heads up on this, but it was so even for me uncomfortable, but because of the way Finnish people work, they just don't feel silences. They're very comfortable to sit there and just literally think before they respond, and that's the exact polar opposite of what you just described in New York. And put those two things together, it's going to be really difficult to navigate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I had this experience where I was trying to talk to somebody in the New York City office is when I was at Ketchum and she wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise and instinctively I started interrupting her and still in the back of my head I was like this is so rude because she was senior to me too, and I got off the phone and I was like, oh, I'm going to be totally called out from HR. But instead she sent a glowing recommendation to my boss. Glowing recommendation to my boss. I had picked up their patterning and it was totally fine to abruptly interrupt her. Anyway, it's just very a unique way of pacing your conversation that is radically different than other places. Yeah, and it has to do with listening, because New Yorkers I wouldn't say they don't listen, but it might seem like they're not listening because their pattern is to affirm that they're in the conversation by interrupting and making like some sort of little sound.
Speaker 1:Um, but that's not that everybody knows that that's what they're doing. Um, and you know, being from New England, I think I pick up a little bit of that too. I think there's probably some in New England too. So if you're having hard conversations, whether it's about behavior or performance or even a need for organizational change, what's your approach for setting that up and having those hard conversations?
Speaker 2:and having those hard conversations. Yeah, so I've had many over the years, some of them individually, some of them to whole companies with layoffs and stuff like that. So One thing that I think is true of all of them is I take the time to really plan those conversations and I always think that a lot of people know these conversations are coming as well. I think a lot of people. If it's bad performance or someone struggling with their role, it's never a surprise, so bringing it up is never the issue. I think it's the way that you bring it up and the way you talk about the issue that matters. So taking time to plan that and how you're going to approach it is really important Because also clarity really matters, so being really clear on what you want to say, because also with hard conversations, you could probably say so many things that the call message can get lost. So I take time to plan. Okay, what are just the couple of main things that I really need to say here? What are? I take time to plan. Okay, what are just the couple of main things I really need to say here, what the most important bits and I try and make a note of those also as well.
Speaker 2:I think when people are maybe expecting this conversation, the worst thing you can do is just kind of like start it but not really get to the point and just kind of like just talk around the issue a little bit and kind of give context.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things I prefer to do is to cut to the chase and kind of get to the punchline and be like, okay, here's the thing, it's gonna be a hard conversation, here's the thing that we're gonna talk about, say what it is, and then give the context afterwards. You can kind of say this quite well by saying, okay, I'm gonna cut to the chase, I'm gonna explain what the point of this conversation is, then I'm going to give you the context information, then we can talk about it, so kind of not having someone sat there listening to you, but really thinking, well, okay, where is this going, what are they going to say, what's the outcome here? I think that can make things worse and less clear. So cut into the chase, get to the point, then explain the context, the rationale, the reasons, reasons, that kind of stuff and what you're going to do next afterwards. I think that's my general approach, whether it's to a group of people or one person and that typically over the years, is serving quite well that's a.
Speaker 1:that's a great tip, um, especially with things like layoffs and restructuring, and I've been through a few of those and I can think about ones that have been communicated well and not well. So how about just feedback, especially when you're addressing underperformance or unmet expectations, or maybe even, I guess, positive feedback? But do you have a way of delivering that that would be heard, knowing that the personality on the other side has probably different ways of absorbing the feedback?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that has really helped me over the years is actually to treat all feedback as very personal to the person when they receive it. So one of the things that you often read about is that you should try and separate the problem from the person. So when you're giving feedback, they try not to take it personally. It's not about them. Now, whilst that's well intentioned and somewhat true, I think, to me all feedback is personal. You know, whether I'm telling someone that you know they may have done something that couldn't mean they lose their job, or they've just made a simple spelling mistake or grammar mistake, it's still them that's done both of those things. So it's still personal to some extent.
Speaker 2:The question is, just how personal is it? And so when I'm giving feedback, I try and think about how personal is the feedback? Is it something that is actually going to go to the heart of who they are as a person? Is it about their personality and just their attitude, their behaviors? If it is and I may take a much longer time to prepare for delivering that feedback if it's on your end of the spectrum where it's like, okay, they've done an seo audit and they've misexplained hreflang, then of course.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fine, that's objectively wrong. I can tell them it's wrong, I can explain why, and that's less personal to them. So I'll try and spend time thinking about okay, how personal is this feedback? Is it objectively wrong? What they've done is a bit subjective Is it about them as a person? And then try and plan the feedback appropriately, and I've got a few frameworks and different ways of thinking about that that I'll try and lean upon based on how personal it is. But ultimately, the more personal it is, the more I'll plan that feedback and the more I try and think about how to deliver it versus something that's quite trivial, that I might just deliver quite quickly approach and conversation style and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:do you also bundle it with like next step training suggestions, coaching?
Speaker 2:mentoring, I don't know, yeah, those kind of things yeah, there has to be some kind of next step, one way or the other. And the next step doesn't have to be something really big or concrete or tangible. It could just be another conversation, it could be we're going to follow up and talk about this tomorrow or that kind of stuff, so but you can't just leave it hanging. So, yes, there has to be some kind of the next step. When it's something that's quite maybe personal to them and maybe their attitude, their behaviors, um, the next steps should be quite concrete but also probably going to take some time. You can't just fix those kind of things overnight. And also you can't just expect someone to necessarily change who they are like.
Speaker 2:Sometimes. You want someone who may be a bit more bitey or a bit more direct with how they approach things. So you don't necessarily want to take that away from someone. You just have to help them channel it in the right way. So actually I want people to work for me who've got strong opinions, who don't mind being candid and direct and open. But sometimes, maybe with a client, they may just need to brain it in a little bit because they could upset a client by being a bit too direct. So in that case I'd work with them to try and coach them on how to keep who they are and not change that, but also adapt it to the client or different situations. So, yeah, definitely need next steps. But if it goes to the heart of who they are, it not change that but also adapt it to the client or different situations. So, yeah, definitely need next steps, but if it goes to the heart of who they are, it's going to take a little bit of time for those next steps to actually work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially junior kids with the. You know I always say it's really hard, because you walk into people that have spent a lot of time on their website and your job is to tell them that their baby's ugly. But you got to figure out how to deliver that message in a way that's not going to make them shut you down, which is the hardest thing. Yeah, exactly, um, okay, so we're doing a lot of more stuff remotely. I don't know if you still are in the uk, we've got, but generally I think our industry is pretty remote friendly. So how do you deliver negative feedback remotely? That's still empathetic.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think it's definitely still possible, but you have to essentially try to not do in some cases. So, for example, I would never, never, ever, deliver negative feedback over slack or email, something like that. It sounds obvious, but people do it, and I think the reason people do it is because they're scared to have the the actual face-to-face conversation and just say it for themselves rather than typing it. So I think, firstly, I would say that that's definitely not what not to do, because it definitely does happen for, especially for more inexperienced managers.
Speaker 2:So I think that when it comes to being remote, you kind of have to take the best medium you've got, which is often zoom teams, google, meet that kind of stuff and just accept well, I can't be there in person, but I'm going to have to say what needs to be said over zoom, and I think sometimes you can own that and say look, ideally I'd love to be with you face to face when I say this or wherever I deliver this news. We can't be. That's just how things are. So I'm going to do it like this instead. I think that's, that's okay kind of helps the the format a little bit more.
Speaker 2:But ultimately, I think it's even more important when you're remote, to understand who you're working with and how they like to be spoken to, how they like to receive feedback, how they tend to work, because some people love being on slack 24 7 and very, very active and very visible. Some people take themselves off for three or four hours at a time and go deep on a piece of work and come back again. Those kinds of things are very important to understand when you're working remotely, because then you can adapt your leadership and your management staff to fit those kind of people as well and how they want to be spoken to and dealt with so do you do that kind of informally or do you run your teams to do like a personality assessment?
Speaker 1:what do you recommend people do?
Speaker 2:um, I don't do personality assessments. I know a lot of managers who do. I'm not their biggest fan. I know that they've got value, of course, but I've never taken to them personally, so so I think they're worth looking into. That's your kind of thing, I think. For me it's.
Speaker 2:It's about having enough conversations with that person, where I get to know them enough just through one-to-one conversations with them.
Speaker 2:It's why I think one-to-ones are so important as opposed to group calls all the times, because it's on the one-to-ones where you really get to know someone.
Speaker 2:So I think that when I first start managing someone, I probably spend a lot more time than usual speaking to them on zoom or on google meet, something like that, just to get to know them a little bit more and then to understand me as well and how I manage people, how I interact with people.
Speaker 2:But also I do spend time trying to kind of set expectations around their, their job, their behaviors, kind of how to work with clients, and really trying to kind of set the standards so that when the time comes to speak to them about those standards they've had that deal with them already. They know what to what I expect of them, like, for example, for me. You know, I expect them to be on time to calls, to have an agenda. If they, if I, set up a meeting to send notes to the clients afterwards, like these kinds of things I I'm very upfront about and you can do that remotely just by speaking to them and sending, sending stuff afterwards, that kind of stuff as well yeah, okay, um, so also remotely, what do you do with personal development plans, like, how do you help the employee set it up and, more importantly, make sure they're still tracking?
Speaker 1:Is it still the one-on-one? Do you have, like I don't know, some sort of regular check-ins that they're updating their personal development plan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think actually with personal development plans, the approach isn't too dissimilar when you're working remotely. I think the fundamentals are still very much the same, which are you have to have stuff written down, whether you're remote or not, because after having it in your head probably isn't the best idea. So having it written down and kind of worked on is standard pretty much across the board. But I think having them own it and have them update it before you have your next one-to-one whether that's in a month or three months, wherever it may be making it clear that, hey, you own this, you update it, I'm going to help with it, but you're the one who has to update it before our next chat. Making sure that's very clear to them is really important. But I think with the remote side of it, it doesn't change the approach too much on that front.
Speaker 2:Again, that was happening. I worked in an office with someone as well. Um, I guess with personal development plans it's more about, again, making sure you understand the person, what drives them, what motivates them, and they're not just projecting a plan onto them that they don't really buy into or isn't really meaningful to them but could be meaningful to you, but if it's not meaningful to them. They're not going to buy into it or take it on board or work on it yeah, yeah, and I sort of mean the personal development plan in a positive way.
Speaker 1:I just realized when I said that word that there's like a negative connotation to it um, but I do think that you can just set up a plan for increasing your skill set in variety of ways with your manager and have it documented and um anyway. So I was more thinking that than like you're in trouble and you have to meet these things or we're going to fire you kind of thing. So have you modified any of your leadership skills to the remote marketplace or the remote employees at all, or is it just about the same? Are there any other soft skills that you've been working on or picked up for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, being honest, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, obviously throughout COVID, and I'll be honest in that I probably didn't adapt quickly enough to that. I was one of those people that thought, oh, it'll be a few weeks or a few months and we're going back in the office. And clearly it wasn't, and now, arguably, we're never going back to the office properly ever again. So it did take me a little bit of time, but I think that when I did start to adapt to it, I realised that actually the fundamentals of managing people are still the same. So for me, things like giving feedback, doing one-on-ones, doing personal development plans, those kinds of things are still the same in the remote world versus an in-person world.
Speaker 2:The bits that I've tried to adapt and change a little bit are very much around when I'm speaking on zoom or if I'm writing stuff on slack, just being a bit more thoughtful and just trying to imagine a bit better how someone's going to receive what I'm saying and what they're going to hear, because when you're in a room with someone it's it's a bit easier to notice when you've made a mistake or you've messed something up or you've said something that someone doesn't understand or it may bother them.
Speaker 2:That's a lot easier to pick up on in the same room, whereas when you're remote particularly if someone doesn't have their camera on or is over Slack you don't know how stuff is being received and how stuff is being kind of reacted or responded to. So I think for me I've just tried that a little bit harder to be clear when I'm on zoom or on google me, or if I'm writing something on slack or an email, just checking myself a little bit just to make sure okay, how could someone perceive this? How could I respond to it if I can't see them? If I can't see it, let's try and discover myself a little bit more. So I think it's about just thinking a little bit more about people's responses, knowing that you can't see them in real time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay. So this year and last year have been really bonkers for SEO. The change is intense. Like I've been in the industry for 20 years, I'm feeling it. I think I've talked to all sorts of other SEOs. They're feeling it. I've been in the industry for 20 years. I'm feeling it. I think I've talked to all sorts of other SEOs. They're feeling it.
Speaker 2:So do you have any advice for helping your teams with that uncertainty and change and keeping their stress level at an even keel, even though it's bonkers of the fundamentals of what we do? Because, at heart, whether you're a technical seo, a copywriter, a pr or pbc person, mark, the principles of marketing is still very much the same right in terms of having a good product and getting in front of the right audience, that kind of stuff. And I think no matter what happens with technology and changes, those fundamentals still remain mostly the same. I think going back with SEO, like SEO has changed massively, but it's still about a technically sound website, really good content, a good user experience for customers and building the brand up links and mentions that kind of stuff like that hasn't really changed since I started doing it I don't know how many, 20 years ago now. It's the stuff around the edges that changes. So for me, I try to remind my teams that, okay, remember that the fundamentals are still the same. And then the things that change around the edges they are very important to think about and to concentrate on, but don't get carried away with them and don't kind of panic when they come along.
Speaker 2:So with AI a classic one. At the moment, no one really knows what is going to happen with ai, no one really knows the impact of it, how it's going to change things. So let's just take a second, take a breath, not panic, not change things overnight, just see how it plays out and start to experiment, start to try things and then but not remember, not forget that the fundamentals are still very much the same and we can try different things to improve what we do. But don't panic, don't kind of jump on bandwagons when you're not sure about them, don't just go with the flow just because everyone else is. Just take a second, take a step back.
Speaker 2:And it's okay not to know the answer yet, because things are changing so quickly and I think sometimes we feel under pressure, particularly from clients in the SEO world, to know the answer straight away. So if a client asks well, what does AI overviews mean for my industry? So you've probably done that, but it's okay to say, well, we're not sure yet. We're doing this, we're doing that to try to understand it a bit better. But don't think you have to just pretend to know it all from day one, because no one really does.
Speaker 1:No, no. Saying I don't know, but I'll get back to you is such a skill.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you get younger kids really comfortable doing that. But yeah, it's definitely something that we need to make sure they're comfortable with. And one of the other things I used to do is I especially if you're younger, you know, and your career takes up a huge chunk of your life and who knows what you're doing outside but I used to see a lot where they might lose perspective about the larger where we are on the planet, and so I would always recommend that, if they're not, maybe volunteering, that might help, like, anchor them in the rest of the wide world. Anchor them in the rest of the wide world, you know, because if you're feeding folks that don't have a home or they're hungry or whatever the issue might be, I just think it gives you perspective. Not that it's not important to make sure that your clients are, you know, hitting their revenue goals and whatever, but if you pull out a little bit, I think it might help regulate your stress a little, like you know ultimately, you're probably not working on a website where people are dying probably.
Speaker 2:I totally agree, and I think I've had to say that a few times to people over the years and remind them a bit that we do SEO, like come on, like we're not curing diseases, we're not sending people to Mars. You know we're not kind of doing life-changing things every single day. Yes, what we do is important, but have a bit of perspective and that's actually a good thing to have and sometimes just go outside for a walk, like, and enjoy the fresh air. Don't be stuck at your screen all day thinking this is, this is my whole world. And so, yeah, I think you're completely right that we need that perspective. No matter what you do, you need to remember, kind of, where you are in the world and kind of like the impact of what you're doing particularly gets very stressful as well I mean, unless you work in an er as a doctor, then I've got no advice for you.
Speaker 1:But generally in the digital space. Take a breath, walk outside, yeah, um. So do you have any tips for how to create this is so funny that I'm mentioning these words with the current state in america, I just have to say that um, but an inclusive workplace where people from diverse backgrounds actually feel like they're part of the team. Do you have any tips about that? Sorry, that's a lot of sarcasm in my voice because of what's going on currently.
Speaker 2:No, I think you've got every right to have that kind of sarcasm right now. Um no, I think that I I was speaking to someone just this morning about this exact area as well, because we were talking about how a lot of companies over the years have been paying lip service to this whole area and just kind of like pretending that they care but not really doing anything, and saying stuff and not doing anything. And I think, unfortunately, with what's happening in the States now, more companies have got the excuse to not do anything.
Speaker 1:Now, just quietly, just let programs go and press release an executive order. It's not a lot, all right, that's my little rant, but like it's not a lot. And yet all of these people changed all of their dei and you know, initiatives in a heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are the ones that probably weren't doing much of meaningfulness in the first. They might be doing stuff, but they probably didn't care right because I've dropped it so quickly. It clearly wasn't a big deal in the first place. But in terms of the more positive side, I feel like one of the things that we did years ago era is to try and address this through our hiring practices and trying just to put our opportunities, put our jobs in front of more diverse backgrounds, people with diverse backgrounds, different areas, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Thankfully, the pandemic helped with this a bit because obviously that opened up geographically different areas of the UK for us, rather than just, you know, the next 10-20 miles.
Speaker 2:So that definitely helped quite a bit as well.
Speaker 2:But I think the main thing that helped with us was just kind of the starting to be more aware of it and starting to actually be more conscious of it and starting to know that there are things you can do to take control of some of this.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is around the hiring process and to get more people of diverse backgrounds into the workplace, into your company and then, when they're there, uh, listening to them, speaking to them and trying to find out okay, what more can we do here? What more can we do to support, what more can we do to give opportunities to people from different backgrounds? And also there's a lot of um companies and organizations out there now explicitly do this as well who train people from um maybe poorer backgrounds, where they don't have university access and stuff like that in digital skills and then with companies. So I think final companies as well, it's quite important because they can bridge the gap a little bit as well to help you kind of on your journey. When it's something final companies as well, it's quite important because they can bridge the gap a little bit as well to help you kind of on your journey when it's quite difficult sometimes to do on your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it's super important because the more especially, depending on what client you're working on, the more diverse your team is, the more prepared you are to work with different clients that also have a diverse audience set Right. Prepared you are to work with different clients that also have a diverse audience set right. It's hard for you to market to an audience if you've got nobody on your team that has any idea what that audience is about without doing a ton of user research. So delegation?
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 1:I have not had problems with this, but I know some people do have problems with delegation. So what advice would you give to people that have trouble letting go and managing the delegation process?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one of the first things I'll try and remind people is that you're only really holding yourself back if you can't delegate, and you're also holding back the people who work with you and for you as well, because ultimately, as you become more senior, when you become a manager for the first time, you become busier and you physically can't do everything that comes into your inbox or onto your to-do list. So if you try, you're probably going to fail. First and foremost, um, if you hardly succeed, you'll probably do it whilst burning yourself out and not doing as good a job as you could do, but also as well the people below you and in your team. They want to take stuff off you, they want to actually be delegated stuff and to take on more responsibility, because that's probably what we did as well. That's when we were doing it, as we wanted to take on more work.
Speaker 2:So I think, remembering that, if you don't do it, the bigger picture here is you're holding yourself back and your team back, but also it's a, it's a necessity for people to develop and for you to develop as well, and it really helps improve your I guess your footprint across a company. So if you go from being, let's say, an SEO consultant working on your own clients, you affect those clients. You can make positive change with those clients. If you run a team of, say, five people who have each got their own clients, that could be 20 to 30 clients that you indirectly influence as well. So if you can embrace delegation, it actually increases your, your influence, which feels a bit weird and backward, but that's that's how it works and I think that's why I'd remind people to keep mind with delegation and the the greater good here is the greater good for them as individual and their team as well well, and oftentimes the things that you delegate help your junior people learn new skills.
Speaker 1:So if you don't give them some of the harder stuff, sometimes you're like holding them back from either and like grabbing it yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:You know and it's funny now that I'm obviously chatting with AI like everybody else is I'm deeply digging into my delegating to an intern skills, Because the more prescriptive you can make your instructions with AI, the more successful they are, and the more prescriptive you can make your instructions for kids straight out of college, the more successful they will be. So it's going to be helpful if you want to be successful with AI prompting. So, retention Do you have any tips around how you're retaining people, knowing, of course, that agency folks last what? Three years or less and then flip over?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think there's a few bits to this. The most obvious if you think about the reasons why people often leave. I think there's a few bits to this. The most obvious if you think about the reasons why people often leave um, the two biggest ones, um, that people probably cite are more money or a promotion. Yeah, they've been promoted to a higher job somewhere else or they're being offered more money or both.
Speaker 2:So I think, fundamentally, whilst you can't always control that, you can't always, you know, give people exactly what they want. On those two things, I think, having a team and a culture where those things are quite transparent so, for example, when someone knows that for their current job role, this is the salary band you know from here to here, this is a their potential, and then knowing what the next band is for the next role, that kind of something, being very open about the potential, is the first step here to setting expectations, then also being clear about what you expect of them in their role and how they can get promoted into the next role and what's expected of them there. I think those things have to be almost like fundamentals and something which you do no matter what. And then the third part, I think, is actually understanding that everyone is next step in their career. Everyone wants to know they're working towards something, and sometimes those things will be something quite big, like a promotion or a power rise. Sometimes it's something smaller, like a qualification, or working on a new type of client, or maybe leading a client meeting for the first time if they're quite junior these kind of steps in their career, and I think it's really important to understand, as a manager, what those steps are and making sure that anyone, at any point in time, is working towards something that's meaningful to them.
Speaker 2:Because that's often when people start to think about leaving, when they're getting up in the morning and they're thinking, well, okay, I might be paid quite well, I might have an okay job right now, but I don't feel like I'm actually having an impact here. I don't feel like I'm actually working towards anything. I'm just kind of going through the motions a bit. That's when people will start to think well, maybe I should go elsewhere, just explore my options a little bit. So I think it's really important just to try and make sure people always have something in front of them to work towards. Everyone's going to leave at some point. You're not going to do this for everyone for their whole careers, but I think those are the three things I'd really try and think about. So the clarity of the paying promotions and then the idea that you've got to always give someone something to work towards in the next step.
Speaker 1:Right, the plan of some sort of growth plan that heads them to wherever they want to be. Yeah, yeah, okay. So this is like the 10 million pound elephant in the room, because I brought up in plenty of other episodes and we're all a bit lost managing up.
Speaker 1:I personally in the last. How do you? Two things, maybe techniques for managing up as well as time management. That was always my problem, always my problem spent so much time managing down and actually doing the work that I just failed to schedule. Whatever that is to manage up, what tips do you have?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I've kind of been on both sides of this, because running a company, you're you're kind of the person at the top who everyone else has to manage it up. So I've kind of seen it from that perspective, but also being the person who manages up as well. And I think the one thing that I'd say from both sides is it's really important to understand what the person above you actually needs or wants from you, because some people will want massive details, some people want maybe reports and something quite tangible. Some people just want a chat every couple of weeks, you know in to know things are okay.
Speaker 2:And for me personally, when I was running my agency, the approach that I took with my team was look, we've got all of these clients, all of these staff. If I don't hear anything about any of them, I'm going to assume everything is okay, because I can't physically check all of them every single day. I can't physically go through every single day. So for me, the expectation for them to manage up to me was okay, bring me problems, I'll help you solve them. I want to know the good stuff as well, but if something's going wrong, I'll help you on it. If I don't hear anything, I'm going to assume that you're good and that's it and that really helped them to manage up to me, because then they would bring me the, the stuff I needed to know about the stuff that was maybe clients about to leave, someone's about to hand their notice, wherever it might be, normally it's normally it's the bad stuff that found its way to me as a result of that, not the good stuff, but that that was okay. So I think it's really important to understand what your boss or the person above you needs from you and doing your best to try and adapt into that way of working.
Speaker 2:And on the point around time management yeah, it's tough, but I think ultimately you should be spending more time with your own team and supporting them proportionally than the team above you, I think, because that kind of kicks it all the way down throughout the whole company as well. So I think there has to be that kind of balance, but it should lean quite heavily towards. That sounds really bad. Looking down, know, looking towards the team below you yeah, it's been in time with that sounds horrible, but you know what I mean. Um, because that's where the work's being done right. The people above you, obviously very important strategically and kind of in terms of bigger picture. But an agency or brand lives and dies by the work it does, um, so I think that's where most of the manager time should be spent proportionally so it sounds like the big tip is interview your manager to figure out what they need from you and what format and how frequently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and not to say that I've always had, but my last experience was actually wonderful um, I would randomly walk by with the good news and be like, can I interrupt you for a second? Okay, I gotta. I got to just tell you something I decided, but I've had plenty of other options where I was horrible at managing them, anyway. So how about this cross departmental collaborating with client folks? You obviously don't manage. What kind of soft skills do you think people should work on boosting to get better at all of that.
Speaker 2:I think that when you distill all of this down, whether it's internal or external, I think a lot of it just comes down to communication. And when it comes to external people, it's probably even more important to master the skills of communication, whether it's written via email, zoom, slack, written documents, that kind of stuff or presentations. I think a lot of it comes down to that. And actually one of my first managers back at Distilled years ago said to me that communication solves all problems and at the time I was like I'm not sure it actually does, but I actually think it's true most of the time that most problems you come up against, particularly externally outside the company, can be solved by communicating and understanding and then trying to, in the future, preempt problems and communicate effectively.
Speaker 2:So I think if I had to really focus on one soft skill to help externally, it would be communication problems and communicate effectively. So I think I've had to really focus on one soft skill to help externally, it would be communication and, again, learning how clients want to be communicated with what they hate, what they dislike, what they love, that kind of stuff. I think that's where I'd really double down If I was going back to the start of my career I would try even harder to be a good communicator in terms of presenting kind of sharing, kind of information um that kind of stuff and listening, so you didn't, uh, explicitly say it, but a big piece of it is listening to figure out yeah, respond to yeah, um, so all right.
Speaker 1:So what mistakes have you made as a leader and how did it shape who you are now? Do you have any stories to share about what you would have done differently?
Speaker 2:um, the there's what there's, two that come to mind. One of them is quite tactical. That was very early in my career probably 13, 14 years ago that when I was managing someone and they were very good at their job but they kept making mistake after mistake after mistake in written documents like audits, keyword keyword research, data analysis, stuff like that, and it was really minor stuff like spelling and grammar, stuff like that. But also sometimes a bit nervous about going through a google doc and calling out such minor mistakes that I would look like a school teacher going through something with red pen and that I'd lose a bit of respect because I've been so pedantic about highlighting these mistakes and a lot of these mistakes. It would literally. It literally took me longer to flag it than it would have taken for me to fix it. So I was like, well, just fix it yourself, it's fine, it's more efficient. Classic issue, though, that I didn't see at the time that person didn't learn and this person was like, oh, it's all perfect and they didn't learn from their mistakes. And the moment that I stopped doing that for a few weeks, their google docs were covered in suggestions and kind of highlights and stuff like that. But eventually I started to learn and so it's so tempting just to say I was quicker to do it myself. Actually it's not, because, comparing that over time, I should take longer to fix all those mistakes and then just kind of deal with it the way it should. So that's probably one mistake, um.
Speaker 2:The other mistake that came to mind when you asked me that question was um, actually, when I was leading my agency, a mistake I made was, um, assuming that people listen to me all the time, like they don't like, especially in the remote world where you're doing zoom and stuff and people have their cameras turned off or they're checking slack at the side or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, so I think, yeah, I don't assume people listen to you all the time and so key messages often need repeating. Uh, firstly because, yeah, people sometimes don't listen or they zone out a little bit, sometimes people just don't understand it, they're not clear, but they won't ask you to make it clear, so they just carry on as normal. So I think for me, as a leader of an agency, um, repeating stuff over and over again became quite common for me to make sure that key messages, key things, were understood and listened to. So, yeah, maybe when you're a leader of people and you're trying to convey something, don't assume that everyone's listening all the time, or don't assume that people understand everything you say first time around as well, because they probably don't, particularly in a remote first world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, isn't that also just the fate of us being trained by the internet and our lack of attention spans? Sadly right, we just have a short attention span. I mean, when we market to other people, we repeat it multiple times. It's like one of the tenets of brand marketing.
Speaker 2:But yeah, great tip.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if somebody wanted to transition from their job now into a leadership role, what tips would you have for them?
Speaker 2:This one's probably a bit self-serving, but the first thing I'd say is go and get some training, because most people don't get training. So I'm not sure what it is in the US, but in the UK there was a stat last year that said that across all industries, 82% of managers go into that job with zero training whatsoever. So actually a lot of people who go into the job not really knowing what they're doing. And so I think, first and foremost, I'd advocate for yourself and go and get some training, whether it's formal, informal, whether it is just go and try and get some help. And the other thing that I'd also say is when you become a manager for the first time, particularly at agencies, you end up doing two jobs for a while. So you still end up doing your old job, which might be SEO, ppc, whatever it might be working on clients. Because when you become a manager, those clients don't suddenly disappear, right? They don't just get taken off you overnight, because you get given a team. So you end up doing two jobs for a while makes you very, very busy and probably quite stressed. So try to avoid kind of thinking that as a manager now you have to do everything all at once and trying to put in new ideas and try and do all these new things that you might want to do.
Speaker 2:Keep it simple for the first month or so. Just listen to your team, speak to them, try and understand them and try and understand their jobs, understand their challenges, understand what they do. You wouldn't believe how many managers don't really understand what job that people do, particularly larger organizations. I don't really get it. Um, so I think, because you're going to be so busy in a short period of time, keep it really simple. Don't try and do what I did many years ago, which is like bringing in all these new systems, these new tools, these new ways of working without really understanding the team first. So, first and foremost, speak to the team, listen to them, understand them. Just be present with them for a few weeks and try and really get them. Before you start running out this idea or that idea or this tool or that tool, just spend time with them in the first few weeks, because it's going to be busy, so you can't do anything anyway, so you might as well spend that time effectively, which is normally speaking to them and getting to know them and understanding them.
Speaker 1:That's a great tip. That was what happened with me. I never thought of it that way, though, but yeah, you're going to be swamped Totally, so this has been super helpful.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping that the listeners find it valuable. I found it valuable. So what kind of win or resources do you have to share with the listeners talking to afterwards which helps managers become more effective? So I basically every week share pretty real-life situations and real-life challenges that managers will often encounter and to share kind of actual ways of how to overcome them. And I'll cover some pretty kind of difficult topics, sometimes from kind of you know, how do you fire someone, how do you actually put someone in a personal development performance plan, that kind of stuff, and how do you actually give someone difficult feedback. So I try and tackle quite difficult problems. So, yeah, my newsletter is probably the one place where I think most managers should start learning.
Speaker 1:Great, and how can people learn more about you?
Speaker 2:I'm on LinkedIn, Paddy Moogan. There's not many people with that name, so definitely go and follow me on there. And also my website is thenewleaderdigital.
Speaker 1:Great, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time with me today. Thanks so much for listening. To find out more about the podcast and what we're up to, go to digitalmarketingvictoriescom and, if you like what you heard, subscribe to us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Rate us, comment and share the podcast please. I'm always looking for new ideas, topics and guests. Email us at digitalmarketingvictories at gmailcom or DM us on Twitter at DM Victories. Thanks for listening.
