The one with Content, Culture, and CX | Paul Banks Founder & Chief of Different Thinking at Javelin Content Management E148

🎤🎞️“The one with Content, Culture, and CX” with Paul Banks, Founder & Chief of Different Thinking at Javelin Content Management in the first CX Passport of the year! Episode 148🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

3:32 Helping businesses communicate and create emotional attachments

9:15 Content marketing influencing customer experience

14:45 Avoid the trap of brands forgetting the humans

19:08 Dangers of brand damage from human content mistakes

23:10 1st Class Lounge

31:00 Why Small Medium Businesses matter?

34:45 Serving as a Volunteer Constable for 10 years

38:20 Contact info and closing

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-banks007/

Podcast Mackem Magic: Bedtime Stories That Come to Life https://open.spotify.com/show/4ypNB92Xg4N8FBcMjEN5hX?si=3442ca39ccc14abc

Transcript

Paul Banks: 0:00

For me, people buy people, they don't buy products, they don't buy services. They buy people that they can believe in and stand by.

Rick Denton: 0:14

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. When you hear content marketing, does that make you think about customer experience? I bet that might be a stretch for you the season CX passport traveler. Hang with me a little bit here though. Six passport is about hearing from a wide spectrum of what customer experience means and how to deliver it. A key element of delivering great customer experience is knowing what your customer thinks, knowing what your customer wants, knowing what their desires are their expectations, and then aligning your delivery of your brand promise to those needs, wants desires and expectations. Now you may start to see where I'm going here successful content marketing finds an overlap with customer experience that I'm eager to explore with today's guest, Paul Banks, founder and chief of different thinking at Javelin content management, bringing over 20 years of experience helping businesses to create and deliver content that engages and informs their customers Paul knows content. Paul's approach to content marketing focuses on creating content that resonates with customers on an emotional level. He believes that the best content is not just informative, but also inspiring and engaging. Now one of the ways that Paul helps businesses create content that resonates with customers is through storytelling. Something that listeners you know, I absolutely love talking about storytelling, probably is that stories are one of the most powerful ways to connect with people on an emotional level. That's also why you might hear Paul's voice hosting a podcast, maca, magic bedtime stories that come to life. Check the link in the show notes and enjoy an episode when you are tucking in tonight. Not just a right brain kind of guy. Paul also teaches businesses how to use data and analytics to understand their customers better and create content that is more likely to resonate with them. That creative and that analytical side content gets created great than what in addition to storytelling and data driven content creation, Paul also teaches the business about the importance of content distribution. He believes that it's not enough to just simply create great content, you also need to get in front of the right people. Paul teaches businesses how to use a variety of channels to distribute their content, which is where the value really resides. And folks, Paul was a volunteer constable for almost 10 years. Get this LinkedIn description starting with it's 3am. Brits. Oh, let me say a better it's 3am Drunken Brits are pouring out of the bar and into the streets. Whoa. Now that is going to be an interesting influence on Paul's career that I definitely want to get in today. Paul, welcome to CX passport. Thanks,

Paul Banks: 3:27

Rick. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me along.

Rick Denton: 3:32

Let's let's let's enjoy this passport journey today. I mentioned this multi decade career going through a lot of what I talked about there in the intro. You recently decided back in February of 23. So earlier this year, to start your own business, helping other businesses communicate and create that emotional attachment I talked about earlier. How are you going about that?

Paul Banks: 3:56

I can it's been a fascinating journey. Rick, I'm not gonna lie from from working in call centers to working in retail like you said, working in the police force out into a an AI tech startup and now running my own business. It's a journey that if you'd told me where I am now, five years ago, I would have laughed you out the room because there's no way Paul Banks was going to do any of those things. super pleased to be here nonetheless. For me, you nailed it in the intro. Storytelling is something that is so drastically underrated. In the current day and age. I was brought up you know, when I was a kid, my mom and dad read to me regularly books were a big part of my childhood stories, movies, TV shows, but and then I got into things like Stephen King and books and really expanding out the narrative. And I love I don't have time for any more, or wish I wish I did like I'm gonna I'm gonna have a car catch up, when my kids do what your kids have done, recommend more kids get a bit older, and I get a bit more more sleep back, then I might get some time to catch up on all the Stephen King novels that I've missed for the last four or five years, started out with good intentions. So yeah, and helping other businesses communicate and create an emotional attachment. I think what we forget in this current day and age is that people buy from people. And now more than ever, the the ability to create content that showcases who you are as a person is in the hands of the people who need to showcase themselves. That's the first time that's ever really happened. For a long, long time. If you think back, you know, if you go back to, you know, the stone age, people sat around fires, and grunted each other, telling each other stories about what they've gotten up to during the day, I've no doubt, right. And the people with the most interesting stories were the village elders. And then we got into this whole chunk of time where people grew apart from each other, built cities and villages and ever increasing populations. And we forgot how to communicate with each other. And it becomes so much harder to communicate at scale, because everybody was living in pockets of their own friendships, their own circles. And businesses can be like that, as well. He can be siloed away within the business and not really sharing with the rest of the business. And what the power of, you know, certainly now video for people is its ability to make that world a much smaller place and share your story and who you are as a person combined with who you are as part of the brand. With so many other people. It's a one to many relationship. And I think it's the first time for a long time that we've had that capability started with podcasts. And it's now eking out as technology catches up and internet speeds catch up, we're now into the point where you know, we can get on camera together like we are now Rick, and you know, I don't look like it marry off from the 1980s all the time. Not all the time sometimes.

Rick Denton: 7:01

Yeah, but I can get that effect in here. If we'd like. That can be a lot of fun.

Paul Banks: 7:06

Why not? Let's do it. So yeah, I help businesses kind of share that story and your people want to people love podcasts and things like that. For me, nobody wants to take a risk on a 30 minute podcast time is finite. People want to know a little bit more about you before they're willing to, you know, give up that that chunk of something that's so precious to them that time. And so I help businesses turn that into smaller micro moments, we call them micro moments where people can understand whether they resonate with you or not, in order to trust you to get involved with a longer form stuff and really start to get to know you.

Your CX Passport Captain: 7:42

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 8:09

You know I've seen even in CX passport, the level of engagement that comes off of a YouTube short just looking at views that's counts the views of a 62nd or less short can be dramatically higher than the listens the downloads associated with the the full episode, it makes sense in a short attention span. There there the CX passport listeners and I'm so thankful for you that are the core, they're going to be there every weekend week out but someone who's just sampling, they may want a little taste of it to see if that's something want to give it their time to. And a little tip listeners don't forget about the one and a half x if you're really short on time, hit that one and a half x and you can consume even more CX passport and other podcast episodes as well. You really hit me with the storytelling, Paul, and it's something that I know I believe from a voice of the customer perspective and how we influence leaders inside of a company, right not content management, but inside of a company, that that story is what really hits the heart, they can look at a chart, they can look at the data. But it's the story of the customer that's impacted positively the customer that's impacted negatively that I have seen drive the most amount of change. And I think that's where I'm starting to see the linkage here between content marketing, and customer experience, because I alluded to in the intro. I didn't necessarily walk into this with an automatic linkage between content marketing, and the practice the discipline of customer experience. So I want to ask you tie that together in your mind, how does that content marketing influence and then drive the customer experience for a brand? I'm in a brand I'm doing content marketing, how is that influencing the overall customer experience for our brand?

Paul Banks: 9:47

So I think for me, and again, to give the audience a bit a little bit of background in terms of my last role was directly selling conversation analytics. So when we talk about analytics and data, I was directly set In Conversation analytics into contact centers and into enterprise contact centers. And so it's something I've had a lot of time to think about over the last three, four years, Rick. For me, people buy people, they don't buy products, they don't buy services. They buy people that they can believe in and stand by, and the world's best brands and brands like I mean, you know, I'm English, so Dr. Martens shoes, for me, are an ideal example of this right not every brand managers to do this, but Dr. Martens, they employ people who were there were there, the shoes, their boots, they're attract a certain type of employee, they have a culture, they have a strategy, they have a brand that resonates with people. What's really hard to do, I think is certainly in business to business more than business to consumer is we forget about that personal element, we forget how to market who we are. And for me more importantly, and I always go back to Todd Caponi, when I when I say these things, it's been transparent about what we're not. Because we shouldn't try to be all things to all people. That's where you end up with bad fit customers who churn who take up the majority of your time, who want things that aren't necessarily on the books, because they come with false expectations. When you create that personal brand, that personal storytelling, and you help share what resonates with you your opinions, and combine that with the business as well, because let's not forget, we're all out in order to pay the bills at home and, and pay other people's bills and things right, we've got all that to do. But for me, the brands that do this the best are the brands that lead from the top down. And their CEO and their senior leadership team are taking an active role in helping share that brand culture and strategy through social media. They're active on it, they live and breathe, the values that they drive down through the business. And so everybody within the business can see those values displayed publicly, and become themselves much more likely to display the same values and strategies and they attract the right people to work with them. They attract the right partners that support them. And then importantly, because a lot of the consumers are also there watching all those interactions happen, then the right consumers are attracted to the business as well. Whether that's other businesses or or you know, the general public. So for me, it is really about helping showcase. Like I said, what makes you you, but also what your business is and what it's not about. And where it's not a good fit, just helping make that clear to people so that they can go down, you're not wasting their time, then you're not wasting your time, you're not wasting their time. And it just becomes much more efficient.

Rick Denton: 12:50

Yeah, you know, it read that really hits me. It makes me think of a couple things. One is something that a fellow see ex colleague of mine who he and I talk a lot, Nicholas Eisler, and he talks a lot about brand promise in less about customer experience in its purest sense, but that that it really is about what the brand says it is. And then how do they deliver on that brand promise, and that fit the content marketing is a key part of establishing what that brand is. I could I could bitch out the wazoo about Ryanair, because I'm not the target customer for Ryanair. But there is a customer for Ryanair, there is a customer for spirit who loves the spirit brand and exactly that. And through how spirit messages even through its pricing, its its content, all that's out there. It is declaring to me, Hey, Rick, you're not our customer. And that's okay. Right. And so I like what you said that it's not just about attracting every possible customer. It's also about helping customers self select themselves out of that brand. I remember, I was consulting for Bose several years ago, about five, six years ago. And there was a time when they were really exploring the the in store retail approach. And one of the key elements of their in store retail approach was attracting the right talent. Well, by having the brand, the Bose brand stand for something, people who love music, people who love high quality, audio, all of that it attracted a talent to the store that could then represent that love for music, that love for high fidelity sound, and be able to communicate that brand to the customer. And so everything that you're describing from content marketing into the retail space helps align that brand promise there. I've used the word brand a couple of times here are actually a lot. You've used the people, the people part of it and so I imagined that this part is really going to resonate with you but one thing that I see is that brands frequently get themselves caught up in themselves as brands. But as you said people don't buy from brands people buy from humans humans are buying from humans. A brand has sometimes going to have a risk of forgetting that customers Are humans that they're just part of a profile? What happens when a brand does this? The opposite of what you're describing before? And then how can a brand recognize they're in that trap and avoid it going forward?

Paul Banks: 15:15

It's an interesting conundrum. And I think there's a real danger for the bigger corporates more than anyone else. The smaller the business you are, the easier it is to react to things. And the less levels of leadership and bureaucracy and red tape especially around market and because we know our market and loves to tell people what they can and can't say. And again, we discussed this briefly on the CX T the other day, it's it's, it's exactly right, which is

Rick Denton: 15:44

we become more collaborative as a podcast host right?

Paul Banks: 15:48

You become so corporate, that it's hard to let yourself be free and and attract the people who are the right fit. And you become so scared of offending the wrong people. This is the other side of things, you know, us, you want to try and attract everyone because we don't want to offend anyone, we want everyone. And it's not about offending people necessarily, but putting them off, like given them red flags, while the red flags are there for a reason. A digress. For small brands, it's really easy. For small brands, it's really easy. You know, the, you see the bigger brands, doing their polished videos, their adverts, the, you know, the really swish logos, and they're all about the brand itself. For a small business. If you start to go down that route, and copy those guys, then you're going to end up with the same sorts of problems. But as a small business, which is dangerous. In what if you if you if you if you resonate around the brand too much you become disconnected. It's not emotional. I talk about chat GPT a lot. Right? On big on automation. I'm big on helping people solve their problems with automation wherever can. But chat GPT is great at the things that you give it to do, within reason. So ideation brainstorming contextualization analysis, format, and you know, all those sorts of things, brilliant app, but ask it for to create a personal post for LinkedIn, for example. It's rubbish. It's rubbish, it really can't do it. And the reason it can't do it is because it doesn't have any personal opinions. It doesn't have any experience to draw on. It doesn't have any flavor. If we're going to talk CX passport, right doesn't have any flavor. Whereas personal conversations do they reflect us as humans, they reflect our so then people can much more easily resonate. And for me, the ideal situation is where the brand or the person becomes synonymous. That's why I always advocate for senior leadership being part of this because then they can, they can do that. So for me if you're, if you're a bigger brand, and you see this happening, so the telltale signs are, you've got high churn rate and your customers, you've got high churn rate your employees, your complaints are starting to escalate, is that you're attracting the wrong sorts of customers. So for me, just to take a step back from that, and ask yourself, for me, it's about is the culture right in the business as a start point, right? And are we sharing that culture through every channel that's available to us, because as a business, we should be proud of that culture. If that's if that's what we've decided is for the business, and we need to be proud of that and to be shouting it from the rooftops, regardless of what it is. And, you know, if you look at things like, what's going on Twitter, and x, you know, Elon will shout proudly about the sorts of culture and work ethics that he expects from his employees. Guess what, he's still got no shortage of employees, and he's still got no shortage of people who want to work for him, because he's just attracting the right sort of people that he will whether whether we can we talk about?

Rick Denton: 19:08

Sorry to interrupt you there, Paul, because there's actually a question that I wanted to ask you and then now you brought this even further to I want to ask you this question. And you talked about it's ideal when a brand presence is synonymous with its leadership. So the leadership embodies the brand they are they they the human are also they the brand I was going to ask you but even for you brought up Elon Musk, but even now more intently. Okay, but what about the risks associated with that? Because the brand is this human LIS entity that can have a defined set of values and a defined set of style that human can choose to do something else and specifically in a case right now where Elon Musk as the brand representative, you're right x Twitter are very tied into who he is as a person. Well, his comments Recently, the controversial comments that have made have seen a massive decline in advertising as a result. So how do you balance that risk between the brand being an entity of itself, the need and the desire for the leadership to take on that brand and the persona of being the voice of that brand, with the risk of that human could go off the rails and really damage the brand?

Paul Banks: 20:27

I think it's really hard to discuss that specifically with Elon. Because I think I think it's almost that controversy. And that up and down relationship that people have come to expect that is his culture and brand, he will go out and say things that are damaging to the brand. whether, you know, the wrong things. They're ridiculous things to say the slanderous things sometimes, there's but I don't think if I'm honest, I don't think he ever says anything that he doesn't understand what he's about to see. And the hornet's nest that it's about to kick up. I think he does things on purpose. I think he's and people might disagree, I think he does it with with a strategy behind it. And I don't think there's anything that he's done that's permanently damaged, that like, look at look at Tesla, still going strong still really, and have, you know, pre orders months and months years in advance for their most popular ranges. So I think Elon is a specific case to himself, and probably okay, like such a unique personality that it's hard to put that on. But I think what I tend to see where businesses have been successful with these things is, as a growing business, the leadership team will become synonymous with the brand. If they're doing it right, the two will become and we did this in my last role, right? We made Jimmy was the C or synonymous with the module analytics. Yeah, I saw that associate of one with the other. You couldn't, you couldn't think of one without the other. But then we got to a point where we've grown, we've done what we needed to do, and we'd educate people about who we were. And we then start to pivot Jimmy away from being that public fierce. So that the brand start to branch out on its own, but still live in the same values. So I think there's a case there where you can take that human, put them on the wrong path, away from the brand again, so it's kind of, you know, this, this, this curve on one side, and the strip thing on the other side for the brand, is we bring the humans in, we elevate that experience, and then we take human back away again, so they can go off and take them on projects. Because no one leader nor one personality within a business is permanent forever, like they're going to move in, they're going to move out, we go in different directions as a result. So I think it's just nice to reflect all the different personalities with the brand, as well as like you can, you can start to ship. You know, over time, we've had all these different cultures and strategies mixed together. But if we've done it right, that that brand strategy still reads through it all, at various levels.

Rick Denton: 23:10

Boy, Paul, that, that I wish that this were a double episode, because I would want to explore that point even deeper, maybe we'll get into it a little bit. But I think it's wise for us to take a little break here. The beauty of travel it can be wearing. And even in a conversation perhaps sometimes we find ourselves in a in a place that we want to take a little break. And that's what I'm going to invite you to do here. And I'd love for you to stop down. Join me here in the first class lounge. Let's have a little bit of fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Paul Banks: 23:45

I spent when I when I first got occurred.

Rick Denton: 23:49

I love it when it starts with a laugh.

Paul Banks: 23:53

When I first got promoted into a middle management position, we were pre children. We were We were young living living together, we didn't have much of a didn't have much outgoings at all and I was doing pretty well for myself. So we decided to go on a once in a lifetime holiday to the Dominican Republic. And we went and we enjoyed the culture and the people we went to the south side of the Dominican it is such a wonderful, beautiful place with beautiful people and a fantastic culture just there just breathe with service and support and so happy in their lives. And so we enjoy that once in a lifetime experience so much that we did it another five times. So we definitely you know that that for me was an it was just a completely different culture. I love languages as well. Languages are such a big passion of mine I can I can't really speak multilingual. If I'm fair, I try wherever I go. I always try my best to kind of pick up local languages and so that children back there.

Rick Denton: 25:06

Oh, good. Well, Dr is a fantastic a little easier for me to get to. It's about a five, six hour flight from where I live. So it is a place that is your right. Absolutely. And you are so spot on, we could spend a whole episode talking about this. If you just speak just a little bit of the local language, it is amazing how much that can endear you to the people that you're dealing with. If you come in there, I'll use the ugly American just yelling English louder. Well, that doesn't serve anybody well. But if you can say, you know Abloh sola poco Espanol, well then suddenly you start to build those bridges. Let's talk about some bridges that you haven't yet built yet. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Paul Banks: 25:46

I think, for me, I actually a little bit closer to home for me, I think a dream travel location for me is I would love to to the Swiss Alps. And, and and around that area because for me, I I grew up in what family holidays for me where Scotland and which you know, is very well known for its mountains and the snow and scenery. And I've got quite a few friends who live sort of Belgium area who who shout and rave about the Swiss Alps all the time. So I'm actually very much on my radar. I just need to convince my wife that called Holiday isn't necessarily a bad holiday. I'm not quite sure if she agrees.

Rick Denton: 26:30

Like, yeah, the cold holidays can be a hard sell. For some people. I am maybe one of those people, there's a place for it to what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Paul Banks: 26:43

So many so many choices. I think for me, I love some good Asian cuisine. I think, you know things things like a bit traditionally made like we have a problem in England is we have so many meals that are in the Anglophone side, I think is anglicized as that is the way to put it is like alright, we have this mental picture of what things should be and when foreign chefs cook the food for us to cook what we think we want as opposed to what the actual original recipe was. And I love getting into those places where you can get the original recipes. You know grandma's recipe that's been passed down five generations and it's it's not all swanky and expensive and all the rest of it, but it's just hold some real good yeah, oriental grubs, or for me things like just just simple things like kung pao chicken, like I love a real good home made with with Sichuan or or whatever. It's just that sweet and sour. whole genre of dishes is just amazing. I love it.

Rick Denton: 27:56

You've hit me in one of the spaces I hope nobody ever asked me that question because I just struggled to answer it as well. But Asian especially Thai really gets me in the favored space. Let's go the other way. What is the thing you were forced to eat while you were growing up but you hate it as a kid?

Paul Banks: 28:15

To mortals and it's weird right? Because I love tomato or best food. So I can eat smart or food I can eat the sorta but if you give me a raw tomato to eat my mom loves them. My dad used to grow them in his greenhouse in the garden and he was so proud of them out and like I remember my dad giving me one in the in the garden one day was that son just just try it and I was always I always wanted to try them because it's Dad's right and he's really proud of them and just want to just want to make him happy. And I remember like putting in my mouth and I just bit down and like and I wouldn't spit it in the binder that I'm so sorry that and I could see it was really good and I'm like I just wish I wish I liked them. I don't know something about the texture of them. I'm very texture oriented like mushrooms. I can't eat a whole mushroom. But I love chopped mushrooms in and I love the flavor of mushrooms but I couldn't eat chunks of mushroom

Rick Denton: 29:17

I have I have heard that that it's the texture I've always loved tomatoes even as a kid but those who don't I've heard it's very much the texture option there I love I love this question. I love getting the stories the backstories I visualizing you in the greenhouse with that there let's go back to travel to close out the first class lounge what is one travel item not including your phone not including your passport that you will not leave home without.

Paul Banks: 29:41

These days it's a pack of baby wipes I think. But on a more serious note, I think my e reader Rick because like for me when I'm when I'm on holiday I'm doing one or two things. I'm either out on an excursion learning about the local culture and experiencing things firsthand. Or I am relaxing and taking downtime with an offline ereader. With Stephen King books probably on it. That for me is my idea of fantastic holidays, just going between the two and just really relaxing.

Rick Denton: 30:24

Paul, I've definitely heard the ereader come up a couple of times on that one. I'm still I adopted one for a little bit. And now I've just gone back. I love that physical manifestation of the book, the problem is travel with a book really kind of suck. So I can see why that would be your one item for the e reader. Although, as I heard a child in the background, I can see why baby wipes was the first item that came to mind. And I think that is actually a wise choice. Listeners, I am not going to let this episode end without getting to the 3am comment. But there's something I want to ask Paul first. And Paul, I want to talk to you about, I know that you target small and medium sized businesses and right before we entered the first class lounge, we were talking about associating the human with the brand. And sometimes a brand evolves to a point that they don't want to associate the human, the brand, or the human sometimes themselves does things that the brand doesn't want them associated with it. And you mentioned getting into that larger business space adds complexity. I'm curious, you said your target is that small to medium sized business. I may have stumbled on some reasons. But really, in general, why do you target that size? Business? What is it about that size that intrigued you?

Paul Banks: 31:34

I think for me, it allows me to create a much more personal connection with the person whose content I'm going to be creating for them. So I think that's crucial for me is I want to I love helping people tell their stories. And for me, it's a learning experience. I'm well I tell people this all the time, I'm the world's luckiest guy, because I get to tick their content, their thoughts and their enthusiasm and their background and their stories. And why they do what they do. They're that you know all this passion and enthusiasm that they send over in a 30 to 45 minute video. And my job is to help them tell that story. But I get to ingest all that information at the same time, and it comes out. So it's just a fantastic experience for me to be able to help them. But I think more than anything, is when you get to the bigger businesses, it can become a full time role. Just trying to get through all the levels of business to get something very simple signed off, you know, this world, right? That just all the levels of Alright, okay, well, we need to involve this guy and get involved that guy, we've got small to medium businesses, I get to talk directly to the people who aren't going to impact on who can make their own decisions. And they can react much quicker. That's that's the Beauty for me is we've got this need right now we know that in six months time, we're going to be struggling for our pipeline, we need to be building our presence, we need to build out a brand. And we want to do that now. So for me, it's like I can see the impact directly. And also, it's just feels much nicer. And one of my big why in life is you know, my wife thinks it's to pay the bills. Yeah, I've got to pay the bills. But that's not why I got a while ago to work is I want to help people make better decisions, whether that's in their personal life, their work life, you know, their professional life, whether it's better business decisions, whether it's making the right choice on a software choice, whatever that is, that's the bit of my idea that I love doing. So working with small medium businesses, I know the impact of that decision is much, much bigger, and influences people in a very different way. So for me having that number that that link that direct link to outcomes is crucial.

Rick Denton: 33:49

You, you it comes through and how you're advising your business. And now I can see that kind of like you are advising your businesses. You, Paul have associated yourself with your brand. And it is very much a human connection oriented brand that I'm hearing coming through and through. Let's close out with will a different side of humanity. And I just I chuckled so much when I saw this in your LinkedIn profile that comment about 3am So thankfully, it's not 3am right now. So I think we're safe from all of the overserved lads and ladies that might exist. Tell me though, about that time when you were a volunteer constable and the stories that you experienced there. How do those influence your experience in your career today?

Paul Banks: 34:38

It was it was an amazing 10 years I think finished a couple of months short of my full tenure tenure. And it's something that I still still to this day I miss it's it's one of those jobs that call in and like I guess when when trouble happens when something kicks off. You either run towards it or you run away from it. And I'm one of those people that just can't help running towards it, I just naturally, if I saw somebody lying on the side of the road, I can't just drive the car past and ignore them, I've got to go over and check whether they're okay and help them up. And they usually drunk and passed out or whatever, like, you know, these things happen. But you know, I'm the kind of guy that can't, you know, if I see something happening, I've got a foreigner in and tell someone. So I know that my conscience is clear that I've done everything I can to help those people. And I got into it through a through a friend of mine. So I did work experience at university. And I was working in a factory DOING IT support. And one of the guys that was in the factory was a volunteer, he was a sergeant in the police force is a volunteer and he got me into it. And I worked every every in every part of that organization from response police into neighborhoods, police in dogs, section two substance misuse traffic, and accident unit. So I've worked across such a breadth of things. And some I could, I could tell stories to the cows come home wreck. But I think, for me, the things that I learned was around communication more than anything else. And you've got to adapt your communication, your style of communication, you've got it, the people who you talk to, aren't going to change who they are, they are who they are, when they're communicating with you, they're gonna communicate in their way. The really effective communicators out there can tailor their own body language, the way they talk, how they communicate what they do, the way that they communicate that to get through to pretty much anyone. And, you know, in that environment, you know, especially when response policemen are mounted in the busy city, and people are drunk, and they've had way too much to drink, and everybody just wants to fight with everybody else. You could easily just go away and put everybody in a cell. But that doesn't help anyone doesn't give a positive view of the police. Nobody wants to nobody goes out to have Well, some people do. Not many people go out to have a fight, you know, the end up in a fight because they've had too much to drink. And you've got to ask yourself, if that was me, would I want somebody to just lock me up? Or would I want somebody to support me and try and encourage me to do the right thing? They will always do the right thing. But that was part of the challenge was how do I get through to these people? Who aren't seeing sense? And help them make the right choice to go home? Sleep it off? Think about what they've done? Yeah, probably come back and do the same thing next week to be fair. But yeah, it's it's a very, very different environment to anything I've ever done before. And I loved it. If anybody gets a chance to do that. And then they're a good fit personality wise to do it, you should absolutely do because it grows you as a person 100%.

Rick Denton: 37:53

And I can already see how that would tie directly into Korea. When you're talking about communication. Everything you just said fits that content marketing conversation, it is knowing your audience speaking to who that audience is in a way that that audience wants to be communicated with adapting. Knowing though who you are right? I'm sure you always knew who you were as the constable you didn't change your brand promise of being the authority figure. You still maintain that brand, while adapting your language in a way that was helpful to those in whatever situation they were in, whether it be a traffic incident, or being to liquored up on the side of the road, Paul, I really would. It might be fun to just have an episode of truly just storytelling, but we'll save that for another time. Perhaps the the journey you've taken us on today has been fantastic. Thank you for linking content marketing, to customer experience, I see it in a much clearer way today. I love how we got into that conversation about the human associated with the brand, the risks of it, the positives of it, why it matters, and why targeting small and medium sized businesses matter. And certainly, understanding your volunteer constable era was was a lot of fun. If folks wanted to get to know more about you your approach to content management or Javelin content management in general, where should they turn to find more information

Paul Banks: 39:14

for me if you want to get a flavor for how I would help or the businesses or the clients best place to come and look is my LinkedIn profile Rick because I live and breathe what I tell the people so there's no fancy website there's no SEO there's no pay per click. I have a LinkedIn page and I have a landing page and and that is it. And it works and it works cross industry which is this beautiful thing is doesn't matter which industry you're in really like I just love helping people. What

Rick Denton: 39:47

love the simplicity of that listeners. You know the drill, it's in the show notes, scroll down, click that link, you'll get to Paul's LinkedIn address. You'll get to his page and you'll get exposure to all of what he has to say Paul really did enjoy it. Thanks so much. For the conversation today, I'm glad that you took a little bit time of your afternoon, early evening there over in the UK while I'm enjoying my morning here in the US. It's been a brilliant conversation, Paul, thank you for being on CX passport.

Paul Banks: 40:13

Thank you. It's a genuine privilege to be on the show. I've looked forward to being on the podcast for a long time now.

Rick Denton: 40:23

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.