EP 120: We Fired 30 People and Nothing Changed

A growth lead at a fast-scaling startup admits the truth: his old company cut a 30-person marketing and sales team, and sales didn't change at all.

In this episode, Hector Hughes explains why a year of growth work, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and endless website testing achieved almost nothing, and how that failure led him to build Unplugged, a digital detox retreat business now serving thousands of guests across the UK and Spain. He breaks down why "tracking everything results in tracking nothing," why most companies never answer the one question that matters, and how stepping away from constant distraction became the foundation of his marketing philosophy.

You will learn how trackable tactics replace the harder work of positioning without anyone noticing, what happens to your mind and body after three days offline, and why authenticity beats competing on someone else's terms.

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Transcript

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Chris Norton 0:00

This week I'm joined by Hector Hughes, co-founder of Unplugged. They basically get you to lock your phone in a box and you spend three days entirely offline in a cabin. But this week isn't just about digital detoxing. Hector reckons his career has been a string of failures in roughly the right direction. He ran gross at a tech startup and says he could have done none of it and nothing would have changed. Busy fools, as we often say on this show. So grab a brew, leave your phone in the other room. If you can. And if you're brave enough, enjoy my chat with Hector News. Enjoy.

What Unplugged Actually Is

Chris Norton 0:42

Hector Hughes, welcome to the show.

Hector Hughes 0:44

Chris, a joy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Chris Norton 0:47

Well, yeah, but slightly slightly delayed. So we won't go into that marketing mistake. Um, but we're here now. So um for people who've not come across Unplugged before, do you want to give me the elevator pitch like in 30 seconds? What is it? Who's it for? And what does it cost to be a guest, basically?

Hector Hughes 1:03

For sure, for sure. So, really, our whole goal with Unplugged is can we actually get you to spend three days offline in nature? And we do this with digital detoxes at cabins in the countryside. So we have cabins all across the UK. People go for three nights, lock their phone in a box, we give them a map, a Nokia, and a Polaroid camera, and leave them to it. And who's it for? I mean, really anyone who wants a break from their phone and is maybe feeling a little overwhelmed. Uh, it's about 80% couples that that go and 20% individuals. Age range can be anything from 20 to 40s, probably. We do get some people older than that, but I would say that the the core is uh probably 25 to late 30s.

Phones And The Relationship Test

Chris Norton 1:43

Yeah, you told me something the first time we spoke, which was which made me laugh a little bit. Uh is that I mean, this is a statistic, it's like it really tests your relationship, you said. Because obviously we are all distracted, including, you know, whether you just and when you haven't got your phone or anything to distract you, you've got to actually talk to each other, right? Which is um, which is a unique experience. I don't think anyone's probably been fully unplugged for years, have they?

Hector Hughes 2:11

100%, yeah. Because what we don't realise is that even having a phone switched off reduces empathy between two people. So just having a phone switched off on the table, and you can imagine uh how much that's increased if you're sat scrolling next to each other through through TikTok. So I think phones, as well as lots of other things in our society, uh really we use them to numb us. We use them to not face what we're feeling, and quite often that can be with relationships as well. So often there can be fundamental questions uh to face in a relationship, and we can spend months or even years ignoring them, scrolling on our phones, continuing to numb ourselves in any way possible. And there's something very confronting about going and spending three days offline together because once you take the phone away, you take the distraction away and you've got to face up to whatever the truth could be. So it's largely incredibly bonding for couples, but uh but we we we've seen it on a number of occasions that actually it's been the catalyst to uh get a couple to realise that perhaps they're not they're not right for each other. And that's that's great as well. And I think it's these things are important to happen. But yeah, I I told you the story of a friend of mine who's just had his first child with his partner, and his previous relationship ended in an unplugged cabin when they just realized that they fundamentally do not want to be together.

Chris Norton 3:27

So the new strap line is uh unplugged, uh testing your relationship, I don't think 100%. Amazing. The the other part of your story that fascinates me. I mean, there's there's loads of different layers to this, um, is that you set this business up with another guy called Ben, right? Yeah. And the story is that you how long have you been working together?

Hector Hughes 3:49

Uh we so we we'd worked together for two years at a tech startup beforehand, uh, and then we've now been working together for six years since.

Chris Norton 3:57

Okay, and but the is it true that you've never met each other?

Hector Hughes 4:02

Where did you see that? I don't know.

Chris Norton 4:04

I thought I thought you'd never met each other. Is that not true? No, we're friends, we're friends. Oh, you've definitely you've definitely met each other. Okay, good.

Hector Hughes 4:11

There was a Reddit post when we launched where um someone put our website, uh it was on one of these things that takes the piss out of uh anything in the UK, and uh they said something like, Yeah, sure I'm gonna pay 400 pounds to go and stay in a shed owned by someone called Hector. And one of the comments on that thread was pretty sure Hector and Ben are the same person just with different haircuts.

Chris Norton 4:34

Right, okay. Maybe that's where the vicious rumour is coming from.

Hector Hughes 4:38

Yeah, no, I haven't heard that one before, but you never know what's been said

Why The Brand Is Hardcore Offline

Hector Hughes 4:41

out there.

Chris Norton 4:41

When did you know that had to be the core of the brand and not just a marketing line? That you you basically it's about being unplugged, which is I think very unique. It was very unique when you came up with it, but now there's it's a it's a growing category, this isn't it? Because people are are realizing the power of human-to-human sort of you know engagement.

Hector Hughes 5:00

Yeah, it's interesting. So what's interesting about the category is that uh there's using the taglines around it, and then there's actually being serious about it. So there's a lot of people who talk about being offline and digital detox, but then in reality, it's more of just a marketing message. And so I think what we've always done differently, and I think still to this day, is like we are dead serious that you're coming to get off your phone. Like that is the whole reason for being, and that's our whole focus as a company. So all the decisions we make on the marketing side of things, the product side of things, and to get people to come and do that. And that actually came before cabins. So read a book uh about six months before this all started called Digital Minimalism by a guy called Cal Newport, and it does what it says on the tin, basically suggested that perhaps life would be better if we spent a little less time online. Um, and so just got very enamoured with the idea from that, and then had this sign and retreat experience in September 2019, where basically Burn Howe got a bit sick of the life I was living. Very cliche, went to a uh Buddhist temple in the Himalayas, and the best thing about that, like you do, exactly. I I was I tell you what, I was so resistant to it because I was like, Oh, what would the guys at work think? Like, I'm not the kind of guy who who would go and do that. But eventually I just got over myself and went and did it. And uh the best thing about it is when you get there, they take your phone off you and spend 10 days completely cut off from the outside world, and that was so new to me because ever since I'd had a phone, which I'm sure would have been a long time by that point, I hadn't spent a day without it, let alone 10 days. Um, and so that was very confronting, like we were talking about earlier with couples, just stuff came up, like it it was the first time that I actually had to sit with myself for 10 days. So um that was uh yeah, that was a very formative experience. And then literally came a week after that, went back, had a drink with Ben. He's not the kind of guy you'd find at a silent retreat anytime soon. And we spoke about how there's a lot of stigma around retreats and meditation, and so much of the benefit is just getting people offline and into nature. So uh yeah, that's where it came

Getting Cut Off And Craving Quiet

Hector Hughes 6:56

from.

Chris Norton 6:56

Well, and I ironically, one of the ways that I found you is that my wife is obsessed with all this sort of stuff. She's quite a spiritual individual. So she my wife is uh uh an orbit and garden designer, but on but she the other stuff she does is she works a lot with schools and and uh education, sort of local authorities and stuff, and she advises she designs outside inside, so she'll bring it's what we're called biophilic design. So you bring the outside inside and uh feng shui and all that sort of stuff. She's believes in all of these different things, and so she's desperately trying to get she goes on many a retreat to get away from you know the various bits and bobs. It it does fascinate me that it works, but I've had quite an experience myself recently um in that um I have been cut off. I got cut off, but I own a social VR and social media agency, and I've got a uh a VA, a virtual assistant who works for me from Philippines, and he did some stuff on an Instagram channel for me. And because I was logging in in the Philippines, it thought my account had been hacked. So I lost Facebook for the first time. I've had Facebook since it was called the Facebook uh back in the day, when it was like um like like all it was was a stat, there was no news feed, it was just a static connect to your friends, and you threw a sheep at each other. And very much like very much like what you you know, or you poked people. I don't know if you have for those of you the guests, uh those of the people that listen in that remember that. And um and it's oh my god, it was quite an experience. Like I've not I've literally got it back on two days ago, and it's rubbish for a start I've realized. I'd I missed not a lot of that from Facebook. The only thing I missed was um some things about some unfortunately, one of my friends died a couple of weeks uh just before it happened. So I found that quite stressful because I saw him die and then I've been to his funeral, but it a lot of the things were happening on Facebook, so it was a pretty uh uh that was the only thing, and then I've got back into it, and it's like that was the only thing really. Everything else is just rubbish channels that you're following, and um I actually found it, oh, I don't have to worry about that channel anymore, even though I run an agency built around bloody Meta, so that was a bit stressful because I need to uh we made to make sure my team was sorting out the invoicing and everything. Um, but I found it quite refreshing, and the other day, yesterday I had a chat with um because I don't know how I think you're a bit younger than me, but I had a chat with my team the other day, and my team are like 20-ish, 20, you know, 21. So and we were talking about mobile. The oh, that was it, because we bought a meal from the local pub and it was beeping until you know the the buzzers you get. I was like, oh, it's like a pager back in the days, and they're like, Rob, and I was like, Oh yeah, that's what we had in the bit in between where you went to meet people, you'd go and meet somebody and you go, uh you'd ring them up and you'd say, Oh, I'll meet you at so-and-so at seven. Then after that, there was a was like a period of like four or five years where you could send them a t a text if they had a pager, and some people had pagers because you could send a text, but it was a one-way text. So, and and I found that and we were to and they just could not get their head around that. So the the fact that no mobile phone, there'll be so many people listening to this thinking, I've never been

Day One Anxiety Then Real Calm

Chris Norton 10:00

unplugged. So, what's the what's the what's the number one revelation you get when you've you're you're fully un unplugged then? Do you think?

Hector Hughes 10:06

Yeah, well, I mean, um two big things. First of all, is just what it does to you, what it does to your mind and body. So it takes we we we fix it at three days. So the temptation is to allow people to come for one to two days, but we've been very firm around you have to come for at least three nights. And the reason behind that is it takes about a day for the mind to settle down. So for the first 24 hours, if anything, you feel a bit more anxious and uncomfortable because you feel like you've lost a limb. Because as you were saying, you're so used to everything is on our phone, right? And so so that there is a real discomfort around that. But then what happens is you start to get this deep sense of calm as the mind starts to settle down. Um, and so so we want to make the experience long enough so that you can actually spend some time enjoying that. And the crazy thing is that that is how we're built to operate. Like it feels almost alien and supernatural to have that feeling, but like that is what it feels like to actually be human rather than this low-level anxiety and overstimulation that we've just normalized. I mean, it it's crazy like how unsuited to the lifestyle we're living we are biologically. Like we're we're we're built to roam around in forests hunting and gathering and and you know, generally um socializing, and we're now living in these massive cities with millions of people uh living this very overstimulating life. If you think about what happens, for most of us, we check our phones first thing in the morning and and last thing at night and are basically on it non-stop in between. And what's happening when you're doing that is you're just being flooded with overstimulation and information, and we basically just spend our days in this dopamine-drained haze. And so what happens when you go offline and unplug is is that your body starts to return to its natural state, which is actually a good place to be, surprisingly. And the other big revelation is just how little the world misses you. It's always such an anticlimax turning your phone back on, and not even your mom got in touch because we we all have this narrative, and I still have it, even after I obviously do it a lot myself, and like I still have this narrative of oh my gosh, how's the world gonna last for three days without me? And it's just always wrong, and like everything's fine. And I think the realization there is that so much of what keeps us busy through the day is as a result of us being busy. So we have so many emails because we're always sending emails to people, and like there's just this like stuff just happens for stuff's sake. I think if we actually look at what happens in the day, like how much of it really needs to happen. And I'm a big believer that most work that happens is is a bit of a waste of time.

Chris Norton 13:46

I can do you know what? I completely agree with you. I think I think, yeah, it it there is I've I've got this issue, right? So every day I like they say you should get out into the into nature. So I just outside my window, yeah. I live on the I'm lucky enough to we moved six months ago, uh a year ago now, um, and we've got a woods at the end, and I take my dog out for a walk. But I take the dog out, but I I take a podcast and I listen to it. I'll look I'm obsessed with obviously I'm obsessed with podcasts. I'll I'll go out and I'll listen to, you know, I listen to marketing ones, I listen to I listen to you uh business ones, I listen to sports ones, anything to keep me distracted from actually being out. And I and and even though I've gone out and I'm getting sun sunlight and I'm getting out in the trees with the oxygen, it's very good for you. I'm still distracted. So actually, I'm thinking maybe I should go on a dog, which is terrifying. Go out for a dog walk, but don't take your bloody phone or your podcast, you like keep it up, but then I won't listen to any podcasts as much. So it's a yeah, it's it, it's a what and don't don't do that if you're listening to this podcast on a walk. Definitely stay plugged in and keep listening. Uh it's very good for you. Um yeah, you've got me in a conundrum there, because I do agree with you. When you go on a holiday and you sometimes I leave my mobile in the safe for a couple of days just to get over the fact, and you're right. Um, I've had I've had a couple of instances in my life where I've had to unplug from everything, running a business, I run, you know, I run prohibition and I run this podcast, and um I I am busy as hell all the time. Um, but really that's just your ego. Like, and and I I've had a couple of things where I've had to just go go not work, you know, uh not holiday related, and I've had to detach from it. And you're right, you come back a week and a half later and the world's still turning and nobody's really noticed that you've gone, and you suddenly realize how replaceable you are, don't you?

Hector Hughes 15:36

100%. But there's there's also something liberating about that as well, right? Because I think uh we almost become trapped by these lifestyles we live where we just feel the need to run ourselves into the ground. And uh yeah, we spend so little time in the present moment. What you're talking about there, listening to podcasts, I've definitely definitely been to that at various points as well. And and I think we spend all of our time either thinking about the past or worrying or thinking about the future, and so little time actually in the present moment, you know, like enjoying the dog walk, enjoying the yeah, that's actually what I do man yoga as well.

Will Ockenden 16:08

It's man yogurt, it's just blokes, right? Apart from the instructor, she's female, but it's really I went not I don't find it too scary because when you've got loads of ladies that are really good at it, and I'm yeah, like nearly 50. Um, and I I love the fact that you that's being present as well, like because blokes don't I don't know if it's the only time that we are present is when we're watching football, and even then we're not present, you know, or sport. You know, I don't I don't know if that to be present in the moment, like who you are in yoga or meditation or something which I do occasionally, I do think is everyone should give it a whirl, but then some people maybe it's just not for some people, some people don't want it and they want to be distracted, don't they?

Hector Hughes 16:50

Yeah, well, I think that's the problem. I think the problem is that we want to be distracted because it's harder to not be and and sit with whatever, sit with our feelings. Like I think that's other things we're another thing we're terrible at as men, which is just you know, sitting with feelings and and whatever comes up. And I think uh it's been really interesting for me starting this company and just going on a bit of a journey around that as well, of like actually learning to uh like feel what's going on in my body, which is a very novel concept because I spend many years just completely ignoring that, so it's yeah, it's it's it's it's very closely interlinked. Um, but I think it's very valuable because I think we like to suppress men, but also British men especially. You know, we like to bury things away and and and never touch them again.

Chris Norton 17:35

Yeah, that's true. So you went to the Himalayas, which fascinates me. It wasn't one of those gaffes where people don't speak to each other entirely, it wasn't a silent one, was it was it silent?

Hector Hughes 17:46

Silent, yeah, yeah.

Chris Norton 17:47

So you couldn't make a noise at all.

Hector Hughes 17:49

There was one hour a day when you there were some questions you had to talk about, um, but the rest of it was silent. And the the silence was a real gift. I thought it would be hard, but it wasn't at all. And it was um, yeah, it was and you realize how rare that is because again, I obviously we we don't really spend a day in silence, and there's something very weirdly bonding about being in silence with other people, so uh you expect it to be isolating, but it's actually the opposite. There's almost a shared, shared experience.

Chris Norton 18:16

Well, you're all sat there with you, so you sat with complete strangers in silence, so you don't know anything about them, yeah, but you're bonding with them because you're not speaking. That's how I mean that is something I haven't done.

Hector Hughes 18:30

Um and people surprise you, so you you you have in your head what someone's gonna sound like or be like, and then they open their mouth after 10 days and they're completely different. So that's always very interesting.

Chris Norton 18:43

Yeah, amazing, amazing. Okay, and so okay, so this show is about mistakes, and you've obviously created this unplug business because you had a moment of reflection. Is that where did you have a mistake that led to that point of reflection then in your previous career? Because I know you were you were very successful and you did, but then you've said that you weren't successful. So, do you want to just lead us into that?

Hector Hughes 19:06

Success is in the eye of the beholder. I almost see my whole career unplugged included as a string of failures in roughly the right direction. So, like it all always feels like a failure at the time. Um, but add them all up, and it looks uh, you know, not like a complete failure. So um I was I was a tech startup, me and my co-founder were the first two employees, and we grew very fast, opened internationally, so it was all very exciting, absolute shit show behind the scenes. Um, I did a number of roles I was starting the sales, then I ran product for a year, and then I ran growth for a year, and all of those I was so unbelievably unqualified. So, so yeah, I mean, I I think the a lot of inspiration from Unplugged came from that experience of running growth that last year because I was so ineffective at it. And if if I look back, what I was saying earlier around most work that happens is a waste of time, like that startup really uh crystallized that lesson for me because I look back at what I did that year, and I could have done I could have done none of it and and probably nothing would have changed. And actually, as the startup, we we went through a big restructuring um around the time I left and we got rid of a 10-person marketing team and most of the 20-person sales team, and nothing changed, the numbers didn't change at all, which is crazy, like the sales didn't change. So just shows that like whatever

Failures That Led To Unplugged

Hector Hughes 20:28

we were doing was just it was just work for work's sake.

Chris Norton 20:32

So that was very the term busy fools, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Hector Hughes 20:37

Um and the other the other big learning from that phase was like I I spent so much time in that head of growth role trying to do all the things that I thought you know we should be doing, like optimizing the website and doing SEO and all this all this shit. But like the big issue was much more fundamental, which was like as a company, we were trying to be everything to everyone. Uh, and so it was trying to push water up a hill, doing anything downstream of that. Like there was this fundamental issue that we needed to sort out. Uh, and I just spent all of my head, all of my time with my head buried in the sand, messing around with a few things. There's a great question, uh there's a great quote that uh it's better to have an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question. And I think we spend so much time focusing on the things we can track. So conversion rate optimization is a classic thing that we spent all this time trying to do these website tests and built this absolute Frankenstein of a website, uh, because it was quantifiable. And I could point to it at the end of the month and say, hey, we moved this conversion rate from here to here. But like the the much more murky question was like, what do we even stand for as a company and who are we trying to sell to? And that was a piece of work we just didn't do. So the the one of the big learnings from that was like what you are trying to sell is is so important, and actually the product um massively dictates how well you can market it. So all of the decisions we've made with unplugged obviously have this very mission-driven side to it, but it's also like everything we do, how do we do something that when you hear about it or see it or try it, instead of going away and telling two people, you go away and tell 20 people? Because if you can do that, it just adds this massive multiplier for everything you do, whether that's going viral on social media or generating word of mouth or whatever it is. So so I think we've always gone for this uh hype approach of just getting just doing something that that can be as talked about as possible. Um and and yeah, and I think I think a lot of that is just actually standing for something and being different and um yeah, just just doing something that you think should be done rather than like over trying to validate ideas. Like I I really don't I really can't get on board with this whole like idea validation thing where everyone testing on this idea. Someone said to us at the start of Unplugged, they said, uh, why are you why are you going and buying a cabin? Why don't you just put up a landing page and drive traffic to it and test if people actually want to lock away their phone or not? And the problem behind that is they would have probably said they didn't want to lock away their phone, but it's not the business we want to make, and it's not the change we want to make in the world. And I think that stubbornness uh can lead you to disaster, but also it can lead you to a much more unique uh outcome. And and fundamentally, uh from my side, I I just had no interest in competing. You know, I have no interest right now in if I wasn't doing on blog, going and doing an AI startup with with every other with all these geniuses from Stanford and getting into an arms race with them. Yeah. So the way to not compete is just to like do something that you very authentically believe in that that is that is different. As you said, like six years ago when we were doing this, like no one was really talking about this. Um, and so I think a lot of it is just like going with how you believe the world should be, and then hoping you're right, basically.

Chris Norton 23:58

But I mean, amazing. The fact that I mean, you're so you you are not lucky because you went through that horrible bit, but then to do what you're doing and have a passion for what you're doing, like I said to my wife, she did the same thing, she's she's she was our head of sales, she's very good at sales. Um, and but she loves doing the what the nature, the stuff that like the stuff that you're doing, you know, where you're in touch with yourself and and she likes helping people and being creative. Um and but I've always had a passion for what I do, which is marketing. Although, um, as I've got further up the C chain, I've stopped doing PR and marketing and ended up just doing running a bloody business and looking at financial charts, which is the same thing that you're talking about, like performance stuff. We class it as performance marketing, um, but um rather than brand marketing, which is what PR is, and this sort of stuff where you do an interview on here, and then someone someone hears you in three years' time on this podcast talking about it and books it. Where's the ROI and tracking URL from that? It that's just how it works. It's like it's not instant, it's not and there's like that non, there's the nebulous stuff you can't quite touch um that people seem to forget. And tracking everything results in tracking nothing as well. So, but yeah, you've got to get like you. I totally agree with what you were saying, like go with your heart, do something you believe in. Um, and if you're true to yourself and authentic, it's gonna it's gonna work overall. The other thing that I think is really interesting about what we're talking about here though, with Unplugged, is that everybody listens to our show, hi mum, uh, is basically that's two of our listeners, uh because we're still by some joking, just never listen to the show. Uh um, is that everybody's pretty much everybody in our industry, we all think we're creative, and actually, creativity, I've had some of my best campaign ideas back in the early 1990s. Uh some of my no jokes, but I think the first ideas that the best ideas I've had is when I am unplugged, so sat on the sun lounger, no phone, and just enjoying the weather, and suddenly an idea will pop into my head, similar, like if you're out and in nature or you're doing something, or people say when they're in the shower, they'll come up with an idea. Um, so and I do think that that the creativity thing comes from did you find yourself super creative when you were locked away for those 10 days in the Himalayas?

Hector Hughes 26:15

100%. I mean, the but the business basically came off the back of that. So that there's something around that. There's two our brain has two ways of thinking. There's something called focus thinking and something called diffuse thinking. Focus is if you imagine a spotlight, so when we're on our laptops working, like you're focused in on a problem. Um, and diffuse thinking is is what happens when you're not looking at anything in particular, and it's when the mind wanders. And actually, we are far more creative in that space because our brains, and I mean the human brains are obviously completely remarkable, and our brains will make these connections that we didn't even think was possible. So it's why when you go out for a long walk, we're in the shower, whatever it is, ideas actually have the space to form because again, the way we're living now is just so out of whack with how we are designed to live. So our brains are not designed to be distracted the whole time. Like they say, it takes about 15 minutes when you check your phone to regain your composure. For most of us, we don't go 15 minutes the whole day without checking our phone. So, what that basically means is that we're in a permanent state of distraction, which is absolutely wild. So there's this whole these whole systems um in our brain that that we're not even allowing uh happen. And I think those are where all the best ideas come from. So yeah, I mean, always if I go for an unplugged experience, I'll come back with ideas, energy, like everything like that. And um uh and yeah, so so massively, massively uh just sold on that idea. And I think again, it is as simple as

Creativity Needs Diffuse Thinking

Hector Hughes 27:47

going out for a walk and leaving your phone at home for an hour.

Chris Norton 27:50

I'm gonna do I'm gonna do that today. I'm gonna do that after this call. I'm gonna go out for my lunch walk and I'm gonna not have a not have a phone with me, I think.

Hector Hughes 27:57

100%, yeah. So I think the the temptation when, especially when there's something that's hard and we're struggling with and it's maybe causing us stress, like we feel the need. Like I've noticed this in myself, that when I'm stressed out about something, I'll I'll want to like busy myself with with doing work that kind of feels like I'm I'm helping the thing. So say it's raising money, I'll feel like I need to like spend extra time reaching out to investors, whatever. So we do these things that that soothe ourselves, you know, it might be like going and spending time on social media so that we can think about what we need to put or whatever it is. And actually, so often the the best thing to do is the opposite, which is to step away and just give ourselves the space. It's the hardest thing to do as well. It takes courage because it takes courage to to step away and and give ourselves that space. Um, because it feels like if we've got something unsolved, we almost like need to whip ourselves because of that insecurity of like I don't feel enough because I haven't solved this thing. So I need to busy myself and I need to be doing more so that I make myself feel like a nut. So I think it takes it takes courage to be able to say, hey, I'm gonna give myself the space. I don't need to solve this right now, I'm gonna go for a walk. And uh and yeah, in my experience, everything uh yeah, no, nothing is harder after a walk than than beforehand. So everything is um is a little clearer.

Chris Norton 29:16

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna take that uh I'm gonna take that tip. Um, I've got um so if I ask you uh something I wanted to say. So for the for the marketer listening to this who who cannot sell digital detox, what is the transferable principle from how you built your brands? You know, what what is the one thing that you you can advise them that how you built your brand that they could use themselves?

Hector Hughes 29:40

I think I I read it, I read a great uh book on once called uh On Writing Well, which is about writing well, and it's it's a memoir. And uh one of the chapters was called Amuse Yourself. And the basic premise behind that chapter was if you just try and amuse yourself, you're probably gonna amuse other people as well. And I think there's just a like we spend so much time thinking about from a marketing point of view what we should do, like what what what should you know what should we put out into the world and how should this brand look? And I think it's much better just to go from a more intrinsic place of like, what what would I love to see? Like, what do I think would be cool? What do I think would be interesting? Uh and I think it's just like really, really tapping into being authentically you, because I think the problem is that we see someone else succeed at something and we think uh we're gonna copy how they've done it. And of course, it's the context is different. Like you can take approaches, uh, but I think my my big learning here is just be to what I said earlier, which is don't compete. And actually, the best way to not compete is just to really be authentically yourself because no one can beat you at being you. And I think one thing that's worked really well with Unplugged that you touched on earlier is like it is such an embodiment of me and what I believe and the change I want to see in the world, and it just makes decision making from a marketing point of view very easy, it makes podcasts very easy because I can just go on a podcast and and just share about me and or like how I how I see the world and believe that I don't need to like come in with a script and and say like okay, these are the agenda items we need to get. And I think there's just a really nice alignment with that, and and and then no one else is is gonna compete at you with being you. So for me, it's digital detoxes at cabins for someone else, it's probably gonna be something else entirely different. But I feel like um yeah, we we have this uh almost this feeling like everyone else has got to figure it out and we need to be doing all this stuff, uh, and like actually I think sometimes it's just having the courage to back yourself.

Chris Norton 31:42

So something that I will say is I've and this is a bit of our dichotomy. You've got social media channels, and obviously you're not you're not supposed to be plugged into social media, but you your TikTok's really interesting. You've got like uh two, I think one of the channels has got 200 odd thousand um Instagram followers, yeah, Instagram, and then you've got quite a lot on TikTok as well. And I watched the the the pinned uh some of the I've seen quite a bit of the some of the views are amazing. So a couple of I mean, firstly, that's a dichotomy having to do social media for a brand that doesn't that it's encouraging people not to do it, but uh it's brilliant the fact that you give people a polarized uh camera and and everything. One question I've got is are you still if you're reading a book, do you think you're distracted? You know, like if you're if you you've got you've got that tape machine that you put in, you know, so for those of you that are over uh for those of you that are under 30, uh under 35, a tape was what we used to put into a tape machine, then press play to listen to music. Um do you do you um do you think you're still distracted by that? Um by music and books, or is is that still good because you detach from your your phone? For sure.

Hector Hughes 32:49

Well, I think I think that with both of those things, the marketing on social media and the as you say, distractions in the cabin, like it this is when there's a pragmatism that that meets reality that you need to have, because we could put our tin hats on and say we're not going to go on social media, but then we wouldn't get anyone to come and do this. Yeah. And for us, it's like the val we we hugely believe in the value of doing it. So you need to fish where the fish are and you need to go meet people where they are. And obviously, the people we want to come and do this and who we think it could benefit are the people who are spending time on social media. To be honest, if you're not spending any time on social media, then you don't need to vigilance

Marketing Without Competing Or Pretending

Hector Hughes 33:25

to come and stay at one of our cadets, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so so I think I think I think that's that one, which is like an i it it there's a sense that two things can be true at the same time, and so we can both believe that people's lives would be better if they spent less time on social media and believe that social media is the best way for us to get that message out. Like both of those things can be true. Uh, and I think the other thing on the distractions is it's uh, you know, if if people went and just raw dogged the experience and they just spent 72 hours staring at a wall, yes, there would be less distractions. I'm sure it'd be quite a profound experience, but it would also be very uncomfortable. And I think like that's not where people are. I've done quite a lot of retreat, so I'm not sure I would do that. Um, there are definitely some some nutters out there that would do it, but like again, we are looking to we're looking to help people like get away from the uh the immediate distraction. And so I think there's a bit of a meeting people where they are, and actually I think it works. So you can overanalyse this until the the cows come home. Some people are like, well, there's a knock here in there, so is that a screen? And like, should that really be allowed? And it's like having done this ourselves and having had uh 15,000 guests come through now, like profound things happen when they do this, and actually having a book in there, having some books in there, having some music to listen to seems to enhance the experience. It doesn't seem to make them come out as overstimulated as when they come in, because you are, if you think about what's actually happening when you're spending an hour on your phone versus reading a book, reading a book, you're sitting with one thing or something with one story. And that there's something very I actually think reading is a hugely underrated thing because it has an amazing effect on us, the the act of just sitting with a book and it it requires this concentration and and really immerses you in this story. So I think it's a very calming, it's a very calming thing to do. Scrolling through social media or WhatsApp or whatever, opposite effect, you know. If you're if you're scrolling through Instagram and you're getting WhatsApps coming through, and like that is just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, being pulled in a hundred different directions. So if we can use things like reading and tape players to help people get off social media for three days and their phones for three days, like that is a a trade we definitely want to be making. Because I think that the key thing is like it is really hard to get people to spend three days offline, and so we want to make it as easy for them as possible.

Chris Norton 35:55

And you've got so for those of you that haven't found that haven't want to find your place, you've got London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, Brighton, Swansea, so Wales, the New Forest, Bath, you've got everywhere. So how do people how do people get to to book on? Do you just come to the website?

Hector Hughes 36:14

Yeah, so all through our website, it's unplugged.rest. Uh, you can get in touch with the team there if you want specific recommendations. But yeah, good coverage across the UK. We've actually got three cabins in Spain as well, north of Barcelona, um, and definitely want to keep rolling out soon. If you don't fill up for a cabin stay now, but just want some tips on maybe taking baby steps, and it might just be leaving a phone at home when you go for a dog walk or something like that, then get in touch. We can always help with that as well. Um, and yeah, but that's what I would say is like if you can come and stay in a cabin for three days, great. Like, we really had amazing feedback from that experience. But sometimes it is it it definitely helps just to spend an hour off your phone, and you don't need to pay for that, you don't need to do anything, like just leave your phone at home and go for a walk, and chances are you'll feel better.

Chris Norton 37:01

Yeah, it's interesting what you were saying about the um the books thing because I remember when uh the Kindle came out and they were saying the deaf of the book and bookshops and Waterstones, there was loads of PR all about that, and I thought, I'm I was I'm in your camp. I was like, no, I don't think so. I think people like to put down devices, they like to have a tactile element of a book, and they like the imagination that comes from a book that you can't get, you know, the way that you the way that you're focused and you create things in your mind. I think that is the thing that won't ever be lost. I just think that it's thousands, it's from millennia that we've had it. And I think, yeah, we'll have different devices and different things, but I still think that we like to

Books, Music And Booking A Cabin

Chris Norton 37:37

we like to have that and that tactile part of it. Uh I've got a question for you, Hector. So the final question we ask everybody is you've been on the show now, you've told us your uh what mistake you've made, and you've told us a little bit about yourself. So if you were us, who's the next person that you'd invite on the show and why?

Hector Hughes 37:56

Uh good question. I think I'll go for Kit Gammell, founder of Surreal. If you come across them, Surreal Company.

Chris Norton 38:03

Yeah, amazing.

Hector Hughes 38:04

Yeah, they uh he's a lovely, lovely guy, and they there are a few companies who I think really managed to create something unique for a marketing side of things, and they're especially their LinkedIn strategy, really did that. So I think yeah, what's wonderful about them and him is they just don't take themselves too seriously, and they've done that at now a massive scale. So um, yeah, I think I think you'd be a great guest.