EP 098 Terry Bower Co Founder and Story Strategist: The Art of Networking, Being Remembered and Your Elevator Pitch

Storytelling for business.

From launching managing and growing Sales & Marketing teams within Emerging Tech & the Live Events Industries,  Terry Bower has been writing & winning pitches and recrafting sales narratives for over 25 years.

Now, as Co Founder of Inside Stories, he & his Business Partner have successfully helped many organisations,  from Start-Ups & SMEs to Large Corporates across a variety of sectors. Recraft and reshape their narratives to win Investor Pitches, New Clients, Collaborations, Franchises, Recruitment of staff & Supplier Negotiations. 

Defining & describing what they do, why they do it and what will make their audience care. Creating  Business Stories that resonate in a way that’s Meaningful, Memorable & Moving.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrybower-insidestories/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:00

This episode was sponsored by Phoenix monitoring. If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a Fabry view. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays.

Yoyo: 0:46

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for protection officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make that positive difference where we can to our members mental health and well being. I'm delighted today to have a very nice guest, very nice man. His name is Terry Bauer and he's the co founder and business story strategist. What does that mean you're probably thinking? Well, he crafts meaningful and memorable and moving business stories. Terry, welcome to the Security Circle podcast. How you

Terry: 1:23

doing? Good morning. Yeah, not too bad. Thank you. And thanks for having me. It's a cliche, but thank you.

Yoyo: 1:28

It's super cool. It always bodes well that you're appreciative at the beginning. Let's see how appreciative you are at the end. I've got to, I've got to go straight in with this. What's a business story, Terry?

Terry: 1:39

A business story is something that correctly emotes what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, why you do it. To anybody and everybody you meet in the street, at a party, at a networking event, if you're talking to investors, collaborators, potential business partners, anywhere, anywhere that you would talk about what you do. And it's getting people to bind to that empathy and create that empathy about actually wanting to care and listen to. Anything that you have to say and care about it.

Yoyo: 2:12

Our LinkedIn community is quite a passionate one about networking. I mean, some of us, including myself, travel abroad to network. And I think that means you've got to kind of have a good elevator pitch planned, haven't you?

Terry: 2:27

Absolutely,

Yoyo: 2:28

Let's start with elevator pitches because there are so many people that get it wrong. What doesn't work well when you meet somebody? is that you find yourself talking for two, three, four, maybe even five minutes, and you still haven't figured out what they do. And knowing what you do and how you can align with, what, you both do is really critical with networking and making that early connection. What can we do to make our elevator pitch better and more effective, Terry?

Terry: 2:55

Well,, I completely agree with you. I've been to so many networking events here in the UK and abroad. Where you'll bump into somebody, they'll plonk a business card in your hand, and they will talk at you for about, well, as long as you let them. And at the end of it, you say, excuse me, very politely, what do you, what is it you do again? we try and describe it as, let's say you're at a party, and your friends, Your parents friends are there and your parents introduce you to their friends and they say hi this is Terry and they say oh hello Terry lovely to meet you. So what do you do? You have to be absolutely clear and concise that they get it straight away. Unless you're a solicitor or a doctor or something like that where they go oh yeah and people have a pre conceptual um, You know concepts of what you do and they roughly know but if it's something, you know, like a lot of the job roles nowadays there's a mentor or a Strategist or something you have to go into a little bit more detail But an elevator pitch is all about keeping it completely simple If you give people one clear concise thing to remember they'll remember it if you give them a mix a bunch of things They'll maybe remember maybe one or two if you're lucky so it's keeping very clear there's a common myth again about the, the elevator pitch. It's just a very polite corporate business way of asking permission to be able to talk a little bit further about what you do and why you do it. That's it. It's just, hello, how are you? So what do you do? I do this, and this is why I do it, full stop. Yep, I have to

Yoyo: 4:23

say, I've always found elevator pitches quite hard, because I've never been singularly into one thing. So I have to have several, and I have to work out very quickly, the person I'm talking to, is this somebody who's going to connect with me because of my normal paid profession? Or is this somebody who's going to, you know, be finely tuned into the thought leadership ideas I have and principles about my own personal development? Or is this somebody who's going to be so super smashing great that I'm going to want to talk to them and pitch my podcast because I'm going to think I want to hear more about you and I think my listeners will too. This is what I'm doing guys, everywhere I go, trying to find really good guests, hunting them out. Terry, I think a lot of people don't really understand what an elevator pitch is, and I learned what an elevator pitch is. It comes from the movie industry, doesn't it? It comes from When you jumped in a lift and you literally had 30 seconds or until the director jumped off the lift to be able to pitch him something about yourself before he got out the lift. Isn't that where the

Terry: 5:27

yeah, it's an old story from one of the, um, one of the heads at Condé Nast in the States. Um, you know, he famously only had 10, 15 seconds between floors to actually get in and for editors and writers to pitch their, you know, their wares to him. And, it was that time and that's where it came from. There is another story which, is about literally an elevator, the inventor of the elevator, who had a demonstration and he had a failsafe that it would actually fail during the demonstration. And that's the pitch. And it was on an elevator as it was going up. But I like to think of the Condé Nast story because that's more in the moment and the sort of business type. type scenario that you would find yourself in. we call them water cooler moments where you're with somebody for that very informal split second and you get invited to talk about things, those little snippets of gold that ordinarily you wouldn't get and you wouldn't get to talk about.

Yoyo: 6:17

And I think a lot of people don't really understand either what their own USPs are. And I think it's really important, isn't it? Those unique selling points. I think anyone that's come from a remote modicum of sales and marketing and business development will get what USPs are. And they'll be on the phone talking about their own, companies, unique selling points and business offerings. But to do it personally, it's a bit like, you know, when you have to do your CV, you've got to kind of, it's something that a lot of people hate doing, isn't it? Cause they've got to kind of say good things about themselves. And they're like, Oh, everyone feels a little bit awkward. How would you encourage somebody to first of all, start, get that piece of pen out, piece of pen, get that piece of paper out or that iPad or the word document, whatever suits you, how would you get them in that mindset to try and think what their own USPs are to start building an elevator

Terry: 7:04

pitch? Firstly, I would say that I think the actual USP is a dying thing. It's because not many things, and not many people actually, yes, we are all unique in our own beautiful and wonderful way, but not many businesses or ideas are truly unique. Most things are an incarnation of something else. And not, I'm not saying standing on the shoulder of giants, but there's not many businesses that are truly, truly unique because we can't all reinvent the wheel as much as we try. We think of it more as an ESP. So it's an emotional selling proposition. So you're creating empathy with the person you're talking to, and it may not be the person that's going to, that's going to work with you, but at least they know. And they buy into what you're saying and they know what you're saying well enough to be able to talk to somebody else. We go to a lot of networking events and we bump into a lot of people and nine times out of ten, 9. 999 times out of ten, it's the person that they know who we end up working with. They would say, they would know what we do, they'd understand what we do, and they'd say, oh that's interesting, I was talking to somebody about you, I know what you do, all you need to speak to such and such. That's the way it worked. And that's the same with a USP or ESP. It's emoting your story and what you do and who you are as a person in a way that they would care about. And it all goes back to empathy. All goes back to that. It's a human conversation at the end of the day.

Yoyo: 8:30

I love it. ESP. I've never heard that before. That is brilliant. See,

Terry: 8:33

I don't know if we coined it, but it's an emotional selling proposition. Of course it is because people buy from people and it's a real bloody cliche, but it does work. You know, unless you're a buyer, for, let's say for a fish finger company and you have to buy X amount of fish fingers for X amount of, you know, X amount of pennies, you might go with the cheapest. But do you know what? You may have a relationship with the person on a social level, or you've spoken to them, or you're aware of how they work. And that's something that was

Yoyo: 9:00

I love the Fish Fingers, by the way. Fish Fingers rock. They do. I'm still into them now in my 20s. There's a lot of people, certainly I know listeners have their own businesses, they have their own consultancies or they set up their own limited companies. And for security professionals, certainly, which is broadly the market and a lot of. Conjoining peripheral, organizations and businesses and industries that they're not really brilliant at selling themselves. So what's your advice to that person? Who's very good at what they do, maybe very specialist, but when they go to networking events, it's still a bit awks because, when someone like a pal even comes up and tries to sell to you and you're like, Oh, this is like awks. I don't really want to be in this conversation. What's your recommendation to that person who doesn't find this easy?

Terry: 9:55

Well, I would say firstly, be authentic to yourself. You know, you do nine times out of 10 of your security person in that industry. And I've been to many, many security, um, um, exhibitions and events, et cetera. And there are a lot of people who do exactly the same job. And the reason you would pay more attention to somebody over somebody else. is, they actually live and breathe and you can see that they embody what they do. And by that, I mean, to stand out, we think you have to stand for something. And people see that. They know when they're talking to somebody that's genuine. For example, you could have ten security companies all in a row and you have to choose one. Now why would you specifically choose that one that you end up going with? It could be a number of reasons. It could be a personal reason, but if it, if you don't know them before, you don't know them from Adam, for example, and they all give you their pitches. There's something in what they say. It could be a tone of voice. It could be a word. It could be something that grabs you and it grabs that. It just stirs something in you and you feel like you have to, you want to talk to them more and, that's what we say. So to stand out, we think you have to, I think you have to stand for something and you have to actually prove that really when you talk to people. you know, there's a lot of companies who do the same as other companies, but there's that one thing and people would naturally gravitate towards and customers will naturally gravitate towards the businesses that align with their values and their beliefs. And at the end of the day, the job that they want them to do, because, that's what you want them there for. I

Yoyo: 11:27

find, producing a podcast and going to networking events is, is a little bit like having an ace up my sleeve because it means I can literally talk to anybody and view that room in such a different way that I wouldn't. If I was looking at prospects in that room for commercial reasons, which is massively a lot harder. So I'm wondering if it's a good idea that everybody has a kind of side hustle, even if it's their pro bono work so that they can use. that as their conversation starter and trying to tap into different, maybe non commercial elements, but being astute enough to know whether you're chatting to somebody that is not going to be a significant person to network with and finding that out quite quickly, just taking that pressure off you to not come across, too much as though you're prospecting them. Does that work?

Terry: 12:21

Absolutely. Yes. And I would say that's the formula for It's not about selling to that person and it's not about them selling to you. It's about getting to know them. You know, it's nice just to start with the conversation with, Hi, how are you? You'd be amazed how many people just open up. But also it's about creating that connection. And that's most of the time you don't even talk about work. Sometimes it comes up at the end. But it's, it can be a conversation has nothing to do with what you do, but it's creating that personal empathy and that personal connection. And then you can build from there. It's a human conversation, but it's knowing how to talk to people, and not just to talk at them.

Yoyo: 13:04

I've had so many experiences and I know a lot of women would understand this as well because I've been to networking events where, or panels where we've just talked about how tough it is for women to network. Sometimes you're the only woman in the room, certainly historically over the last few decades in this industry, that's been the case. And then there's this case where, you know, maybe someone sounds a little too close to you, that happens a lot. And you don't really wanna be smelling someone's breath while they're talking to you. It's quite unpleasant. And then there's the whole kind of like, the person just talks and talks and talks and you find yourself listening, thinking, oh my God, how do I get out of this? So there's a lot of really bad networking etiquette. I think it's really important that people understand that, you know, there's, there's a cutoff point. And if you're dominating too much of the conversation, it, that self awareness needs to be there because I did a thing in, an event I went to, I won't say where it is because it's a really good event, but I did this thing where one day I did the whole normal introduction, did the elevator pitch, and then I just waited to see how long people would talk before they asked me anything about me. And if it's fair to say that dating goes the same way, Terry, I was listening to a radio station yesterday where they were talking about speed dating. And I'm thinking that's got to go well. You can't spend the whole, four minutes. Of a speed date talking about how someone could get a radio station on their digital radio which is what the joke was about. You're supposed to sort of talk about you, and then there were all these suggestions. What should people, you know, talk about on a speed dating thing? And it, I it is getting people thinking, isn't it? There's quite a similarity with speed dating and

Terry: 14:45

networking. Yeah, I've been to many speed networking events, funny enough, we work with a client who, who has, a sort of dating agency, but it's more of an introduction to friends and places. And, she didn't want to be seen as a, she's a female founder and she didn't want to be seen as, just that person that connects people together. So. We came up with the phrase, she's a social concierge, which means that she makes the introductions where it's appropriate and she knows who to speak to and she knows how to get the best out of people and put the right people together. And that's what she's gone from strength to strength, tailoring it to the securities industry. I mean, obviously, there's so many conversations that you can have, around things that aren't to do with it, but are to do with it. So you circle back. Because, you know, it affects everybody at the end of the day. And it's just like anything else we do in life, you know it, it, security is something that, that is paramount and it's something that we think about unconsciously even when we don't even realise it yet. And that's the type of thing that you have to remember when you're talking to anybody in that type of industry.

Yoyo: 15:47

Let's go to specifically business stories. Yeah. You've got somebody who's got their own business. Let's look at that person again, who's still struggling at networking events. They know now they've got to have a really good elevator pitch, and they know now they're going to connect their ESP. P and they're going to look at all of these ways to connect people without it coming across salesy. They're even going to potentially look at, you know, other things to talk about. So for example, you tend to discover, men who are in five a side soccer teams. They tend to sort of gravitate on that connection or golf or something like that, or even belonging to the same gym. And before you know it, it leads to other great business conversations, but now they want to kind of find their business story. What do you advise them?

Terry: 16:31

Well, it's not just in networking. It's if you're pitching to, potential investors. If you're talking to potential new customers. If you're speaking at an event. If you're speaking on a podcast. You're very kindly, you know, asked to appear on that. If you're out in the world and you bump into people, you know, impromptu, on an impromptu basis, because we all do, you know, those idyllic moments where you bump into somebody. And that's where you get the big bits of business sometimes. Because you don't know, you don't know where you're going to be able to use this scenario. Or if you're working with a website designer, a creative, for example, a graphic designer or a videographer, et cetera, anything to do with your business, It's being able to talk about it and convey what you do and why you do it in a way that people understand. And it's because to be very simple in a way that you would explain it to a child. In fact, if people get it, they want to know more. If they don't get it, that's when they start to switch off. And if they don't get it from the start, people are very inherently, I would say, not lazy, but people are very, very lazy to uncover things sometimes unless you're very curious, of a curious nature. Particularly sales people, not, no, I'm not disparaging any sales people out there, but sales people like to have things very easy and very, they don't like admin and they like it. If they explain something to them, they like to get it straight away. And that's where they'll, they'll tell your story onto others. And that's the other thing. So somebody gets it and they can tell somebody else that's the actual crux of the biscuit.

Yoyo: 18:00

I was just writing down curiosity at the time you said it. And I think this is a key thing you've really tapped in here because I think, and I put it, I put down, I think I'm on my LinkedIn profile. I've got curiosity because I think, especially for career ambitious people for business ambitious people, entrepreneurs are very curious. it's about looking at that room as an opportunity and getting curious. Get a little bit nosy. Look at people. What's he do? I don't know what he does. And then it's about using your natural, you know, charm and charisma, I suppose, to get you over those awkward moments. But I think getting curious and finding out stuff, like set a mission for yourself to, like I've done this before, especially if I'm somewhere by myself and I don't really know everybody or know enough people to go and stay in a safe huddle somewhere, I'll just think, you know what? I'm going to pick five people instinctively that I think are the kind of people I want to talk to and I'm going to make it, make it my mission to go find out five separate little things about each of them and network and connect on LinkedIn. And sometimes it's just about baby steps like that. Before you know it, you're talking to the chief security officer for Porsche, Terry.

Terry: 19:11

Yeah, no, absolutely. I completely agree completely. Curiosity is the key to everything really, but it's getting people to be able to want to be curious about you. If they switch off in the first 10, 15 seconds, you know, you've lost them. I know they say, you know, you never get a second chance to make a first impression and that's a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true. But in a business story sense, that's what you've got to grab. You've got to grab them in that moment. And it can be something nonchalant. It can be something it's you, most of the people we work It's usually the thing that they gloss over when they talk to you. Oh, by the way, I've done this. We go, Oh, hang on a minute. Go back to that. What was that? Okay. And that's the thing that, Oh, how have you thought about leading with that? And you thought, and that's the thing that gets people's attention and it's not shock and awe. It's just something where they go, Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I'd like to know more. And you'd be surprised the amount of times that that happens. So what with businesses

Yoyo: 20:07

that need to potentially sort of solidify their narrative. So that means you go on a discovery exercise, right? So you get to the heart, you find out what the why, and I love that we talked about that earlier, by the way, because the why you do something is a key way to emotionally connect with somebody, isn't it?

Terry: 20:28

Absolutely. I mean, most people have seen the Simon Sinek video and follow him as I do, everybody's got to have a why. But people very rarely tell you how to do that. Most people's version of the why is a what. You know, for example, you'd say, why do you love what you do? Oh, we love our customers. Well, that's more of a what? We love customer service. That's more of a what? Why is that thing that gets you out of bed in the morning? That thing that you want to change the world by only you doing that thing. That's your why. And what you're going to do is convince people. And when I say convince, I don't mean trick, it's not a sales trick. People will want to buy in and be part of your journey. And that's why it is a why. They want to be part of your why and they'll align with that.

21:14

Phoenix Monitoring is an NSI gold approved alarm receiving center. Phoenix provides cross discipline monitoring services for CCTV, intruder, fire and lone worker, and vehicle tracking alarms. Since the beginning, Phoenix have been challenging perceptions and redefining the way monitoring services are delivered. Customer experience drives everything they do, so every client receives a tailored solution to meet individual requirements and risk, meaning Phoenix truly practice what they preach with their hashtag not a number ethos. Independent award winning and forward thinking. Phoenix is all about forging partnerships and delivering smart solution driven results. Its very foundations are built on collaboration and innovation. They hold a real understanding of the real world challenges faced by installers and end users and are on a mission to fix the industry's pain points one by one. And they're doing it with style. Contact Phoenix at phoenixmonitoring. com

Yoyo: 22:31

You know, a lot of people in security, certainly, I've been in this industry for a few decades now. A couple, maybe a couple more. and there's no doubt about it. Everyone in this industry seems to thrive on having purpose, right? It's not the sort of industry that attracts people that are repelled by purpose. So you have this core of purposefulness running through no matter what level, whether you're, you know, your own boss and whether you're the boss of hundreds, it's usually driven by purpose. So that's the why, isn't it? That's the why to tap into.

Terry: 23:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's also about how your audience will feel. We do, we do a little, a little thing as well. It's all about feel, think, know, and do. How you, whenever you're, it's almost like a sanity check thing whenever you're doing a, writing a document, or about to go to a networking, or speaking to people, all the things I said earlier. Feel, think, know, do. How do you want your audience to feel? What do you want them to think? What do you want them to know? What do you think they know? And what do you know? And ultimately, what do you want them to do? That's the thing. And it's not, it can be something simple as, Ask me for another conversation, have a one to one coffee, um, want a proposal for me for some business, et cetera, or, or sign up with me, you know, it could be as simple as that, but it's ultimately getting to that. It's being able to have that checklist to run off in your head every time you meet somebody. And that goes in with the meaningful, memorable, and moving. We like to go in acronym in threes and fours, maybe, as the most thing that we remember, because we remember things in threes as, you know, as a human being, we generally do. That's the thing that, that really comes in. Like,

Yoyo: 24:17

strong and stable, get Brexit done. I think you're absolutely right. I wonder why, those have three words. Anyway, there are other, strong messages from other political parties. What I was going to say, Terry, is think of an example, and you can anonymize this, of a kind of very sort of uninspired business in the sense of,, doing a great job, but there's nothing very dynamic about it. The individual that you were potentially supporting and how you changed that kind of cloudy, dark, foggy space into something really quite bright and dynamic.

Terry: 24:56

We worked with an accountancy firm, accountants, I hear probably most of your listeners switch up and go, it serves purpose and it's not just a thing that you need at one point of the year when you do your taxes. They had a really interesting point of view and they still do and they're thriving on it now. They,, wanted to. Not just work with people in terms of their numbers and, you know, and their VAT receipts, VAT receipts, et cetera. They wanted to, um, encourage companies to push further, by telling the story with the numbers. When I say in story with the numbers, I mean, an accountant actually sees a business from the most honest position anybody can ever see it., there's no smoke and mirrors of sales and marketing, etc. You know, yes with a but and a why, with a no, with a maybe. Not sales speak, it's all the bottom line. This worked, that didn't. And they realize that they're in a position to do that. And because of that, they started now to encourage. mentors to their clients as well. So therefore that encourages businesses who want to really thrive and grow with them. But another angle that came out of it was that, it was just after COVID and lockdowns and another angle that came out of it was that, and it's something that affected them as well. Businesses that had grown exponentially too quickly, and they found that either they couldn't afford to sustain it. Or they wanted it back to a manageable size and therefore they either had to make redundancies or encourage people to take, private consultancy contracts so they weren't actually on the books. Now there's a negative aspect in that where you would think, Oh, the business is scaling down, therefore they're doing badly, but they turned it around and there's, they found a whole new market for businesses who had to scale down. And in fact, it's like the analogy we use is like a fighter pilot. If you're a fighter pilot and you're putting. Five G's and you're going straight up towards the heavens, you've got to suck your body and you've got, you're the pressure pushing down on your chest and you make yourself into this tight, strong ball so you're ready to come out of it. And that's what it happens with the business. It contracts. but they found a whole new market in these businesses that, that had to contract. And that's what made them interesting. That's what made them different to other accountancy firms who, yes, working with people who would generally give them a shoebox full of receipts once a year. That's what set them apart. So they were standing for something that they believed in and that's why they stood out. So,

Yoyo: 27:24

this takes a very unique skillset, doesn't it? To sort of tap into,, the core blood of the business. And how do you leave them feeling, like what sort of response do they give you afterwards and how do they tell you about how you've helped them?

Terry: 27:39

We have a litmus test in, every client that we work with. There's always a moment during the day. It's a whole day process. We go through our six stages. It's almost like business, it's almost like therapy, some people say. Because if you run a business, it comes from a particular place and there's an emotion that goes with it. And although people say it's only business, you do take everything personally, because it's your business. It's your baby as it were. We always have a litmus test during the day where a client would suddenly go, that's it, you know what, that's the thing I wanted to say, that's the thing that I couldn't quite put my finger on, it was an itch that I wanted to scratch and I didn't know where to find it, I couldn't find it, and they do, and once they've done that. The shoulders drop, they relax and it just flows and you can literally see in their eyes, and then at the end of the process, we've never had a client come back and say ever, ever, this is not what we wanted because the difference with us is everything comes from the client. You know your business better than anybody else. But sometimes it's being able to emote it in a way that people understand and that's the key and that's the frustration. That's, yeah, essentially that's how it happens. it's the magic in the room. And it sounds like a, a real sort of cheesy, pretentious thing to say, but it does happen. There is a spark, and they go right, and their eyes light up and, people are just so grateful because it's like releasing that pressure.

Yoyo: 29:01

So what you're doing then really is you're tapping into the story that's inside them. And, that's takes a certain deal of curiosity as well. Good for you. Any other case studies that you think are particularly important to draw attention to bearing in mind, there could be people right now thinking I need to ring this guy.

Terry: 29:21

Well we worked with a very successful female entrepreneur. Who's successful in her own right. She has a brilliant retail business as well as property empire. I'd like to say now, but she wants to try and give something back to young girls who wants to become entrepreneurs and didn't want to be, to, to be oppressed by, but it still goes on, you know. I have a daughter of 18. And, I wanted her to be inspired by stories like this. And for example, if you're in a room with a room full of blokes and you are all talking about, I've got this car and I bought that and I've got this house. It's accepted. You go, well done, blah, blah, blah. Pat on the back, if a woman does it, the automatic thing in the room that I find a lot of the time is she's a social climber, she's a gold digger, she's inherited it, or whatever. So this particular entrepreneur. Wanted to go and talk to young girls at schools and colleges and universities, et cetera, and businesses as well about. The fact that it's okay to be successful and it's okay to talk about it and it's okay to strike your peacock feathers and, it's okay to go for it. That was a real mindset change, in terms of how you would think of a normal traditional entrepreneur. Somebody who owns a number of businesses, they're concentrated on making money and furthering their business. But this lady wanted to give something back and she found it difficult to. To talk about how she was relating her business and her social life as in her personal life, what led her to that story, just to emote them, how to get that out in a way that it's just to unpick her brain, really. And it's a complete brain dump for the day and it got very, very emotional, which is something that we didn't think would happen when we started this business, it does get really emotional sometimes, because people come from sometimes a really dark place or other places and, it's such an achievement to be able to release this pressure of that's what it is. I'm going to go and tell people. And the one thing everybody says at the end of the session is, right, I'm going to go and tell the world. Who do I talk to next? And that's where we get to make referrals to website designers and videographers and all sorts of other sort of people. And that's the beauty of it. And that's like the next day we have to lie down in a dark room because it does get, it is very, you know, we're not breaking rocks for a living, but it is very, It's very emotionally draining, but it's satisfying. You know, how many other people can say they go to work and apart from you because you get to talk to interesting people, but you know, you got to work in your apps. We're like the night before we work with a new client. It's, it's like a kid on Christmas Eve. Yeah. it's crazy. And the other amazing thing about this, which we never thought is we don't have to know anything about the business. We could bump into somebody at the street. At a bus stop, we could work with them for that day, and we would be able to unpick everything. That's the beauty of what's, and that's what sets us apart from other sort of branding and PR agencies, I guess, and marketing agencies. That was a shameless pitch, but that was something that's really honest, and it's something that we found that only we've been able to offer, and it's bizarre. Absolutely bizarre.

Yoyo: 32:15

Honest to God, I'm literally stuck for words. I think what you've just said is phenomenal. And you're right, there's a certain conditioning of thinking when you see successful women and the kind of, the, even the unconscious bias is, how many children does she have, has she had to juggle her career with? raising a family and does she have a husband to support her as well, but you don't have those same thoughts or inclinations when a man is taking center stage, for example, you don't think, Oh, how's he had to juggle his family life, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I, you picked up a really good point there. Are there other gender gaps that you think are worth mentioning? Certainly for anyone who's sitting in a minority group.

Terry: 32:57

We work with such a diverse range of people. I think sometimes maybe ethnicity is a thing, but again, the people that we meet have overcome those things. They've had to overcome those things in their own personal way, and they've already done that before they come to us. So, we just enable them to be able to share their story and talk to others about it, to inspire others. And also as a by product of that, they end up making a pile load of money at the end of the day, because organically, people want to be part of what they do. They want to climb aboard that train that they're on and be part of their journey. That's at the end of the day, you know, people will only work with you if they want to further their business and I get that and that's why we set up because we're not charity as much as we love doing what we do, you know, like any other business. We've got to pay the bills, etc. But it's really satisfying to know that they're doing it in a way that. You know, that means something to somebody and other people get what they do. And they go, I really get what you do. And I like what you do. And I want to be part of that. I think you can help me with my business. And it pays it forward. It's a nice by product. To your

Yoyo: 34:03

point earlier about, how it's an emotive process. You've only got to think about Dragon's Den, haven't you? To see how that can be very emotive and the what and the why behind, you know, how those entrepreneurs. find themselves standing in front of, you know, five, sometimes now six dragons. And the most compelling stories are not just the sound business plans. They're the ones that have a real core, a real emotive journey and real purpose, aren't they?

Terry: 34:33

Absolutely. And it's not just. The business that the person is pitching to them. It could be something that they see in them that they think, do you know what? I think the business that you're doing at the moment is not that investible, but I like you as a per, as a person, and I think you've got what it takes. So I'm gonna take you and I'm gonna help you maybe tweak it slightly, you'll do something else. They're the real powerful stories as well, because that shows that the, that there's something inside that person that they've managed to get across to the dragons. In a way that they can understand, they empathize with, and they want to help, and they want to know more, and they think it's, there's something. at the end of the day, financially beneficial for doing it. You know, that's part of the reason that they go there, but it's that person. Nine times out of 10, an entrepreneur will, an investor, an angel investor, for example, will invest in a business because they think they've got some, they can drive and help and push forward. It may not be the business that they've got at the moment. That's the beauty of it. That's the magic. That's the thing that you have to. That you have to unlock, that's the genie in the bottle moment.

Yoyo: 35:34

There's something to be said about entrepreneurialism and certainly I know that there's a number of different sort of interpretations that can be fairly subjective around what we think entrepreneurialism is. But I see it as being somebody who's just incredibly determined and set and can see a pathway to all of the steps that they want to take. There's somebody that is driven by success or how they subjectively. Identify success, which may not always be money oriented. Sometimes it can be something else, but they have this unwavering ability to be kind of rocked off their boat. They're like, okay, I'm going to get some windy days. And then sometimes we're going to have to hold on to the side. And sometimes it's going to rain really hard and the waves are going to be really high, but I'm pointing my bow in the right direction. And that's the best way I can describe it. You must meet quite a lot. What are the endearing characteristics that you find when you're dealing with entrepreneurs?

Terry: 36:28

I think the number one factor is they're fearless. You know, they're not afraid to fail, and you know, they're not afraid to fail in a respect where they would lose their house and they would live in a car for a few months or a year. We've met people like that. But yeah, I think it's fearlessness, but it's also, having that feeling that you don't want to reach,, a later stage in your life and think of, I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd tried that. You know, it, that's the other thing. And it's also, as you quite rightly said earlier, it's a drive to. to get people to, to share what you do with the world. But one thing that we like to say to ask people is, what would you like to be famous for? What would you like to be remembered for? And it's not just the job that you do, but it's how you make people feel when they buy or when they work with you or when they do something that, that, that involves you. And that's I think, the key that, that a lot of entrepreneurs have, and they don't realize you don't have to be genius. Most of the most successful entrepreneurs, you know, have either had had trouble at school, left school early, didn't have any qualifications. There's got to be something in that, you know. But they learned and they strived after that. That's the fearlessness, that's the thing.

Yoyo: 37:32

When I'm mentoring other people, and I choose to mentor at the stage of women only, for obvious reasons, One of the most common messages I give to them is, look, bad stuff's going to happen. Expect it to happen, be prepared for it to happen, have a plan for when that happens, have a plan for you when that happens. How am I going to deal with if this happens, if that happens, if this happens, all the things that could rock my boat, what am I going to do when this happens? And if it happens, and it's not about negatively manifesting, it's about preparedness. And I think. I think I encourage everybody to positively manifest as well, certainly within their own career path. Where do you imagine yourself being and what,, who do you idolize? Who is it that you've really especially have time for in business? Who do you want to emanate? And what kind of values do you want to mirror? But I think preparing people. To be uncomfortable is key. And I came about this when I learned that younger generations in particular, and there are a number of reasons why they are maybe less resilient and maybe sometimes more resilient than we were, but they're not so used to being uncomfortable and being comfortable, being uncomfortable. I certainly think that our generation has raised these. the preceding generation, the next generation, trying to not have them be as uncomfortable as we have been in the past, for example. even when it comes down to parenting, and behaving yourself in the supermarket, otherwise your mom's going to pull your pants down, spank you in front of everybody. Like we knew that was never going to happen, but we don't say those sorts of things now. I think there's lots of really good reasons, certainly with parenting to get people to have uncomfortable conversations and get used to being uncomfortable. And I think you tapped into that when you talked about entrepreneurs, not being afraid of failing. And I think we should encourage all of our young professionals to just become more comfortable being uncomfortable. I noticed whenever I started a new job, my brain was more active. I was more open to learning. I felt my brain was more effective and efficient. And it was because my brain was open to all of the new things I was going to learn. And then I realized being outside your comfort zone, which is always when you're in a new job, this is when imposter syndrome can be very high. It's understanding the difference between imposter syndrome and being out of your comfort zone, two separate things, but very closely connected and in a part. And I think., when you're out your comfort zone, your brain is the most responsive, your body's the most responsive, you're open, you're finally tuned in, you're listening and hearing better than if you'd been plateauing in the same job where it does nothing ever challenge you every day. And that's the message I give to young people as well. Just enjoy being out of your comfort zone. Enjoy not knowing everything. Enjoy being curious. Enjoy asking questions because I'll be honest with you, it's always done. really well by me, even through tough times., there's people I've worked with in the past, people who know me know who they are. I just, I just, I just think, you know, I want to go back to that person who was an arsehole in my career and say, thank you so much for being an arsehole. Because if you weren't an arsehole, I might well be in those trenches with you right now. And that is not the right place for me to be. This is the right place for me to be. And I think we have to look back, don't we? And think about all of those. Incidents that have carved and shaped our lives and led us to where we are today. And I think you do the same for businesses,

Terry: 41:01

don't you? Absolutely. My business partner, Gareth, is, he's brilliant at being that devil's advocate. we make sort of two parts of the same person, I guess. Gareth walks into a room and he lights it up. He literally lights it up. Why isn't he here? He'll get to do the next one. He's a rainbow full of knowledge and passion, etc. I'm the sort of dark, broody one that sits and goes, what about that? And Gareth's very good at being a devil's advocate. he comes across as being very open and light and breezy, but he's absolutely sharp as a button. And we will be riffing, the way that we work is, It's a conversation, but it's structured during the day. And we have certain touch points that we like to set. We'll be talking, riffing, and chatting, whatever, and he'll go, Hang on a minute. Go back to that. What about that? And they'll go back to that. Then we'll talk about it, and we'll talk about it a bit more. And I go, What about, no. And he's really good at unpicking. Almost like a serial killer profiler, he's one of those, he's got one of those minds. I'm a little bit more visceral and I have to, I learn in a different way. I have to picture things and I have to use analogies, which works well for my learning. But that works very well with the clients because they get to, between us, they get a whole package. But Gareth's very good at that. I'm making people feel. Delivering bad news with a smile, I guess you would put it, making people feel uncomfortable, but in a good way, to put them at ease with being uncomfortable. That's where the stuff comes out, the real gold, that you can, and they can use. That's the thing they end up using, nine times out of ten, that's the headline.

Yoyo: 42:30

We all know that as Professionals who are on a career track, it's worth investing in yourself, professionally, i. e. with career coaching, having that professional company, manage your CV, and maybe there's companies now, they manage your LinkedIn profiles as if you want me to connect you with anybody, there's some great companies I can connect you to. just revamping you professionally. I've never done it personally, but I know there's great companies out there that will literally look at your professional branding. Then you've got, beyond the sort of professional coaching, you've got the business, what you're offering is kind of business coaching and business development and business profiling and business imagery and business story, business narrative. I think you have to invest sometimes. don't you? How would you describe the rewards in the sense of, okay, it's like, I remember saying to somebody once, listen, to have a company revamp your CV, revamp your LinkedIn profiles, about 600, 700 quid. Is it worth it? is it worth it to you? Then do it. And then what are the outcomes of that? How proud are you of how smart that looks? If it's not something that you're really very good at doing. think about having that same attitude with your business as well. Like what kind of business like yours, Terry do to help somebody like that? Who's just on that verge thinking, I probably could do with that. I'm just not sure. Is it going to be value for money? what am I going to get to my money? how could you convince someone to say, just explore the idea.

Terry: 43:56

Well, firstly, it's, you have to look at it as an investment in yourself and your business. It's it's not just, we're going to pay this amount, do this and that's it. You know, like so many things in life that we find, but what they get out of it is a veritable pick and mix of narrative that's come out of them. Everything comes out of them. 99. 9 percent of it comes out of them. We steer them in the right direction to get to that purpose, but they would essentially get, and what we call it's a story Bible. It's, it's a pick and mix. It's. I would say between sort of 80 and 100 pages, it's a digital document of narrative. It's all structured, every verb, every sentence, every phrase, every euphemism, every Everything they use, every acronym, but it's all rationalized and explained as something that they can recall at a moment's notice, or they can cut and paste it into documents. For example, if they're going to a networking event, they will use a bit of this and a bit of that. If they were going to meet a new employer, they would talk about this, but it wouldn't be the thing that they would talk about actually from their CV. Because if you're an employer, you can sit there and you can read their CV and you can see what they've done. But it's knowing the story behind that, why they did that and what got them to that. Most of the time, a good interviewer would just put the CV aside and say, tell me about yourself. That happened!

Yoyo: 45:16

Yeah, that and I was really chuffed as well. It's actually for the job I'm in now and I remember someone saying to me, and I really respected him from the outset. He said to me, tell me a bit about you. And I kind of did that whole, Oh my God, that is such an open question. Where do you want to begin? Sort of thing. And then the response I got was, well, listen, I've got your CV. I've read it. I like it. I like everything that's on it, but I want to know who Yolanda is. And I thought, wow, now you've asked the right question. Well, once upon a time there was no, I'm just kidding, but you know that I love that approach and, oh my gosh, we can talk about interviewing to the cows kind of home, Terry, Terry Bauer, you can be found at www. insightstories. guru. We'll put all of your connecting information and hashtags and social media. On the bio that will be linked to this podcast. And I think all we can say really to listener is discover the uniqueness in you and your business. Get in touch with Terry, have a chat, maybe find out if there's something that you could do for each other. Terry, thank you so much for being on the security circle

Terry: 46:23

podcast. Well, thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would actually. Oh,

Yoyo: 46:29

that's just me. That's not podcasting. That's just me. All right. Thank you. Listener. Thank you for your company.