The 121 Podcast Ep6 Brett Stone | Three Bites

In Episode 6 of The 121 Podcast, host Shad Watson sits down with Brett Stone from Three Bites for a smart, engaging conversation that dives into the world of email marketing and beyond. Brett shares practical insights on how businesses can use email more effectively, along with his unique perspectives on marketing, AI, and building meaningful connections through BNI. With a calm, thoughtful approach and years of experience behind him, Brett brings a level of wisdom and clarity that makes this episode both insightful and genuinely valuable for anyone looking to improve their communication and marketing strategy.

Filmed at the Assertive Media Video Podcast Studio — available for hire, with every recording supported by a dedicated producer and consultant for a seamless, high-quality experience.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Hello and welcome to the one-to-one podcast. I'm Michelle Watson from Asserted Media. We have I was gonna say Aaron. Number Aaron, you're Brett. Yeah, just add Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Aaron's just over there.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Alright, we'll keep that. It's funny enough. Three bites. Brett Stonen, what is three bites? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

So uh it comes from the the old saying, uh two bites of the cherry, meaning you're getting two things instead of one or two things for the price of one. So when I was thinking about the name of my business, uh what I should call it, what I kept coming back to is well, what's the purpose of what I do? And the purpose of what I do is to help business owners get uh existing customers or past customers to buy multiple times from them, and by doing that, they're effectively getting two bites of the cherry. And then I thought, but what's better than getting two bytes? Well, that would be three bytes. So I thought three bytes was a great name.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

100% awesome. And so um what what essentially what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I sit at a keyboard most days and just do this, but um my my role is uh I guess um lots of different parts to it. So it could be um strategy, it could be the design side of things, it could be um technical information or changes. There's all kinds of parts to the role, and that's one of the things that I love about it, um, is that any one day can or any one client can present a different challenge or a different opportunity. And by working with no specific niche in terms of industry, it means that there are things that I can learn and develop um from working in different industries. I've worked with everybody from a funeral director to a bookbinder to an electrician, all sorts of different people, and you learn all kinds of different things, and as part of that, it gives me the opportunity to solve different problems in different ways, and it's just a great skill to have.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Maybe uh I know one of the electricians uh that uses you and you mentioned solving problems. Can you give me an example of a success for success story with the electrician that we we you both know?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, I mean, well, look, I mean I'm not sure if you know this one, but one that that stands out to me is fairly recent. So we sent an email for an electrician, I would say six months ago. And when that email went out, one of the design elements to it was a single image, and it was really important to me. It always is when there's a hero image that it really tells a story that somebody who doesn't read the email could look at the image and have an idea about what we're talking about or what the what they should be thinking about, most importantly. And in this particular email, there was uh it was about outdoor lighting, so sort of entertaining areas, alfrescoes, um uh decks, that sort of thing, or gardens. And so the email went out to um his clients, and one of those clients he hadn't spoken to for five years. That client reached out to him. Um, he went out to her house to do the quote, and he said to her at the end of the quote, you know, I haven't spoken to you for five years, we haven't heard from you for a while. What made you reach out to you? And she said, Well, I always read your emails, but the picture in this one made me think, Well, I could do that at my house. So I just called you, and that job for him was worth about seven and a half thousand dollars. So that would have paid for two years of email marketing for him.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Yeah. And talk to me about trust. There's something there's something that in that story, and I I'm guessing in a lot of the stories of your clients with the success of their the email marketing you provide, trust would be a part of it, I'd imagine.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah, and I think that's the the thing that I I really love about what I do, and uh really it's where the business started, is I love the idea that there are great local businesses. What I don't like is that people forget about them or that they don't know they exist, and they go to somebody much bigger or outside the area, that kind of thing, just because you know they saw an ad on TV or something like that. So for me, I love the idea that um I can help um through what I do with email and SMS, that we're speaking to people that know of this person. You know, we're not buying lists and sending them to randoms. These are people that have a connection to the business, and um as a result of that, we help those businesses to continue that relationship, to expand that relationship, um, to build trust, to give people ideas about different ways they can work with the business, um, different problems they solve. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

What are some of the things that your your customers may really appreciate about? Sorry, you probably call them clients, right? What your clients appreciate about what you provide for them?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

The most common compliment I get is that they don't have to do anything. So I would say with more than 90% of my clients, I send them what I think is ready to go to their clients. I don't, I'm not interested in getting into a um back and forth of revisions and this part's not quite finished, but I want you to approve this part. That's not what I'm about. I I want to send them something that I think their clients are ready to see. So as a result of that, typically the email I get back from clients is done, send it, great as always, like that kind of stuff. And you know, you you see that often enough, and you think just it'd be nice to get some feedback, but that is the feedback. You know, the feedback is they don't need changes, they don't need a rewrite, they don't need a different image. They and it's fine if they do. I don't take those things personally because everything's not for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

But I do think that um having that um relationship with people where they like I've got some clients that have literally said, I don't want to review it anymore. You know, they've been clients for three, five years, and they're like, I literally I was talking to one of them maybe two or three months ago, and he off-handed just sort of laughed. There was another person with us, and he's like, I don't even read them anymore. And I'm like, What? And he's like, No, I trust what you do. Like, I I'm you know, I I don't need to read it. I'm like, should I just stop sending it to you then? And he's like, Yeah, just don't send it to me, just send it out. Okay, no worries. So I've got a couple of clients like that now that you know you build that trust over time. That um, and I suppose in the early days, I have haven't had somebody say it recently, but my process has remain the same, that I tend to be very well researched. I'm I'm speaking on behalf of another business, and as I pointed out before, it might be an electrician one day and a painter the next day, or you know, all kinds of different businesses. So it's really important that all of these emails and these communications don't just blur into each other. Yeah, that that um the character of the business and the um understanding of the topic that we're talking about. There's all kinds of things that I've learnt about now purely because I've had to do the research for the email.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Yeah, and I've seen you, I've seen you use AI as well. Yeah. You're very good at it. I learnt a few things every time I caught up. And uh yeah, my email, my AI topic uh list would be similar in length, I think, to yours. Yeah, and uh yeah, that's part of the research, right? Is is using those tools.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah, and I think it's twofold, like you were pointing out earlier today, you know, you use it regularly in terms of the example you gave was researching equipment. And even though you did all the right things, you didn't necessarily get the perfect outcome. And that I think that's a big part of what you have to do, you have to be um diligent around fact-checking.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

In these early stages, I think, you know, like we're still in the infancy of AI in terms of what we see it as right now. And I think you know, we'll probably be in the infancy for 10 or 15 years because it it's evolving and changing so quickly. Google's releasing new tools like once a week, once every three days at the moment. So I think um for most people it it's very difficult to keep a grasp on what they should and shouldn't do.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

And yeah, I probably spent a year and a half using ChatGPT and Google Gemini before deciding that Google is a better product for what I do.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

But, you know, there's lots of them out there.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Yeah. When a um when a client first comes to you, what problems do they have in their business that that you solve for them?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

I think um the I'll maybe it's I would say it's probably the an unspoken problem in that they know they want to grow their business, and that could be one more job a month, or it could be um two or three jobs a week. They will have varying degrees of what that looks like, and they often don't necessarily know how to communicate that, they just know that they'd like to be busier, or they've got capacity for more work, or they've improved their own processes and procedures, and as a result of that, they've now got five hours extra free a week that they didn't have before, and so they want to fill that with work. I think the the problem that business owners have that maybe they don't realize is that they're paying for work that could be coming from customers they already have. So in business, and we all we're all guilty of doing it, we're looking for that next thing, the next job, the next idea, the next client, next customer. And so I think we get in that mode, or it's really easy to get in that mode of like, where's the next job coming from?

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

The truth is, most businesses, if you've been in business for a year or two, you've probably got a list, you will have a list of people. Um, and whether you think that's enough or not, enough people, is irrelevant because you're the only one that knows that. So you're the only one that knows you've got 10,000 people on your list or 57.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Because it doesn't matter. The people reading what you send them don't know that. They don't know how many others are on the list because if it's done properly, then it's personalized and it's addressed to them. So it feels individual to them, and that's what you want. You don't want them thinking I'm one of something that's a big machine.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Yeah. And so which businesses are the um which businesses are the worst culprits, I guess, of having giant databases where there's lots of potential for sales and upsells, but they don't utilize it.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I would say trade businesses mostly, and that's purely because like we're we're all good at different things, right? So I'm I'm good at email and SMS marketing, that's what I I'm good at. Great, if that's okay to say. Um you're great at what we're doing here, and Aaron's great at signage, but not everybody is good at everything, and that's not how it's meant to be. That's why Michael Jordan exists, so that we can all say somebody's the Michael Jordan of this. So you're the Michael Jordan of podcasting. So I think it it's really easy to get caught up in trying to do all the things in business, yeah. And if my dishwasher break down, I'm not even gonna attempt that. I will call a plumber. And that's what they're good at. I might be looking for a plumber that specifically does dishwasher repairs or you know, that kind of thing. But I'm not gonna trust that, you know, I'm not gonna ask um, you know, uh somebody who teaches people to ride motorbikes for a living to fix my dishwasher. That's not what's gonna happen. Yeah. Because it doesn't make sense. And so I I think in business it's the same thing. Like it sometimes it takes years for business owners, it certainly did me, um, it takes years to work out oh, these are things that I shouldn't be doing. You know, it might be their bookkeeping, it might be their marketing, it might be um their IT work, um HR, like interviewing, whatever it is like it sometimes it takes, you know, hiring the wrong person to realize I shouldn't be doing this, I should be getting a HR professional to do it, or you know, whatever it is. But and I think marketing is one of those things. There are elements that a business owner can be great at with marketing, though. So, like in this type of environment, interviewing Aaron and Aaron speaking about what he does for a living and what excites him about that and the problems that he solves, he's the best person to answer that question. He's the perfect person to have in this seat. Having his HR person sitting here talking about his business is the wrong person to have. Because unless it's about HR, we want to hear about the challenges Aaron's faced over the years of being in business. And um, I think that's the same with all different aspects of being in business.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

And you mentioned tradies, and tradies are probably the last of the of the business owners that have the time to spend doing email marketing. Like if I'm a business owner, how much time can I waste trying to learn the skill of email marketing and you know giving time to that, sacrificing time to that each month?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I I think the biggest part of that for anybody is the don't know what you don't know stuff. I think that's consistent everywhere. Um if you're going to spend I I think it's probably something I've spent a lot of time in the last 12 months reading and learning all sorts of different aspects of uh like human nature, why we do things, how we do them, that sort of stuff. And um I think there's all sorts of reasons why we do that, you know. It might be we need control, which is an illusion anyway, but you know, we we want that control over, or it might be to say, I did it, you know, the ego side of it, where and I think the sooner you kind of let go of those things, the better your business will be. Um, you have to focus, I th I think anyway, you have to focus on the stuff that you're good at. And if you're uh you know, an electrician or a plumber or um a cleaning business or anybody that's in a sort of trade or service business in particular, um and you're focusing on things that aren't adding to your skills or improving your skills or your you know your business, I I think that's uh a job for somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

So, you know, my bookkeeping, I mentioned before, I was I think I was three months into business when I handed my bookkeeping to Nova Business Services, and they've looked after my books ever since.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

And no reason to doubt that they're excellent at what they do because that's what they do. So I I can trust that they do a good job and all of that. And I think it's the same thing for me. If people are thinking about doing um email marketing, like I encourage people to give it a go, I also can think well. Look, I think some people want that though. You know, some people want that I want to give it a go first, I want to try it myself and see how far I can get. And the problem is, like, you know, a great example of that would um where that can go wrong for people is that probably two years ago now, Google and Yahoo got together and set a new standard for filtering out spam. And then a few months later, Outlook got on board as well and said, Okay, we'll follow the same thing. Now, I would hazard a guess that 90% or more than that of business owners don't know anything about that because it's not going to be on the news at night, and it's not particularly interesting unless you're in my industry.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Because when you're in email, deliverability is everything, making sure that an email that you send lands in the inbox, that's like the most important part of it.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And there's little settings and stuff that you need to add now. There's three particular settings. Um, and if I rattled those um letters, because that's all they are, just a series of letters to explain what different things are. Most people would just glaze over and and have no idea what I'm talking about. But those things could get people in trouble. It could result in their emails ending up in spam, getting blocked, not landing, and then the result of that is people feel like it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Yeah, so and it sounds like so for the business owner, whoops, for the business owner uh who who does put in the time to learn how to do it themselves, even if they do that, and even if they're only giving it eight hours a month or something, which is a lot, if you think about a business owner using that amount of time, even if they do that, they then need to be on the cutting edge and understand these new um changes that are that happen in the industry, and if they miss that, then there's a risk there, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, and it's not I I you know I don't want to be um you know doom and gloom and like scaring people and stuff, but you know, the the truth is, you know, you get in a um you can have a licensed, qualified, experienced electrician to install your down lights or your um you know your smart speakers in the house, or you can get Joe from two houses up who's had a crack at it himself at home. Which one of those is gonna go getting get a better outcome?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, or that guy on YouTube who keeps electrocuting himself.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Exactly. Yes, yes, which is great for our entertainment, but not good if you want to avoid a fire in your house.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah, exactly. So I think you know, like you don't want to get blacklisted on emails either.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

You know, you don't want to have to change your domain name and all sorts of things because you you know and what's the point, like what's the point of even engaging in it if it's not something that you're passionate about? Like, why not give it to Brett Stone at Three Bytes, who is passionate about getting results with that? Um now one reason that people um I I'm guessing one reason that people may be hesitant is um is a price, it's the price. What kind of prices, and I might be a bit cheeky asking this question, but what kind of investment does it take? Um feel free to not answer that.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

No, no, no, it's fine. So I'm very transparent about my price, I've got fixed pricing for my services. So that um some things are really easy to price, and I know the amount of work is involved, and um and so you know that can be so for example you wanted to send a monthly email newsletter, um, I do everything. So everything from writing the copy or the the text that's in the email, coming out with the subject lines, the preview text, choosing the right image, um, everything. Everything you know, um updating the email list of people, so if you've got new ones or you want to remove some, all that sort of thing. Um it's a completely done for you service, so that's two ninety per month, including GST.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

And um if you want to do an email more frequently than that, so let's say you want to do two a month, you just double the price. So if you're doing two, then you you times it by two, but then there's a a ten percent discount overall added for each additional email. Right. That sounds very affordable. That's the idea. I'm not um I look, I'm very much about the idea that for me to build an empire, it's it's not going to be with two or three people. Um, I think that's a risky way to do things. And I also think that the most important part of working with local businesses is that it doesn't break their budget or prohibit them from doing other things like working with Aaron, like they shouldn't have to choose between sending a monthly email newsletter or putting up a new sign outside their factory that they just bought. That shouldn't be something they have to choose between.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

So for me, the idea behind my pricing is that it's enough for me and my business, and it's not too much for them. It seems like a reasonable amount of money to spend.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah. And so we talked about cost as a potential barrier. It sounds like you're on point with that. With uh what what are some of the other misconceptions that may hinder hinder potential customers from engaging in email marketing?

SPEAKER_01 23:58

I think you covered one of them before around, you know, like DIY, that I can do it myself. Um I I think sometimes people will say to me, I don't think my list's big enough. So, you know, I've had people that have got a list of 87 people say that, and I've had people with a list of three and a half thousand say that, and that's a very personal view because they look at that list and they think it's not that many. Um so I I think and how people perceive um receiving email too can be a sticking point. I went to um so MailChimp invited me this is probably 18 months, two years ago, um, their first sort of big conference uh in Sydney. So they invited myself and two other MailChimp partners to um support their customers throughout the day, they would have breaks at the conference, and then people would come out and they'd have questions, and they wanted them to come to people that knew what they were talking about, and so we were sitting in these booths waiting for people to come over, and we did it all day. We started at nine o'clock in the morning. I think the last person I saw was probably about quarter past seven that night, and it was fantastic, one of my favorite experiences. And the last two ladies that I spoke to were from um a charitable organization, and they said, Um, you know, uh we only send an email probably once every two or three months. And I said to them, you should probably look at sending something more frequent, once a month, once every three weeks, something like that. And the lady said, or one of the ladies said, uh, I don't like that, like I don't know, I don't like getting emails all the time from people.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

And I said, like, with all due respect, how you feel personally about email, you can't allow that to get in the way of your business prospering. So if I said to you, Shad, if we reached out to your customers once a month, every month for the next 12 months, do you think that your business would be better off as a result of that?

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

So it's a pretty easy answer, right? But for some reason, when it's presented a different way, as in if you have to spend five to eight hours a month working on an email to send your customers, have you got time for that?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

No.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

So that's how people feel about it. They feel the answer to whether or not they should be doing it should not be based on whether it takes too much time for them to do it or whether they think email is intrusive. It should be based on will my business benefit from from this. And um I think that applies to anything that you do in business. Once again, I had a software business, which is like my first business when I left the corporate world. And one of my roles in that was to do payroll and bass and all of that stuff. And when that business ended and I started a marketing business, I said, I will never do this stuff again. I hate it. It's not my specialty. I can do it, but it's out of necessity, not because I enjoy it or I'm particularly good at it. And I think that I think business owners are really good at two things. They're really good at delegating the right thing to the right person, and they're really good at holding on and doing stuff that they shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

And I think sometimes those things can be really beneficial, but most of the time the thing that you're holding on to, whatever it is, somebody else should probably do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Because it frees you up to do the things that you're great at or that you really enjoy, or maybe you only work four days a week instead of five. Like I remember hearing about that years ago. That I think at the time, I think it was Norway, had moved basically entirely to a four-day work week.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Yeah. It was one of those countries.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

It's always one of those countries. Norway, Finland, Iceland, it's always one of those countries.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

And um they had moved to a four-day work week. And I said to my staff at the time, that's where we're going. In six months, I want us all to be working four days a week, eight hours a day, that's it. And that's where we ended up. And then COVID came and changed everything. So, you know, but I think you you have to have an idea about what you want to do, where you want to go, and spending time in things that aren't your where you do your best work?

SPEAKER_03 29:33

Yeah, I think that it can be a waste of time. Right. And so what can a business look forward to in terms of results from email marketing? How long does that take? Is it will it take you know three months to see some results from that? Or like, does it take that long to build trust with even an existing client that when they click on the email, they're going to get some value in terms of information, entertainment, uh, or a special offer or something like that, kind of what's that landscape look like?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I think a lot of that hinges on what the business owner's expectations are. So if as a marketer, if you don't know what they want to get out of it, whatever marketing activity a professional is undertaking for somebody else, it can be very difficult to make sure that you hit the mark. So I think understanding, you know, are they looking for sales? Are they looking for appointments? Are they looking for brand awareness? Are they looking just to stay in front of their customers? There's lots of reasons why they should should could be doing email marketing or SMS marketing. Um but uh I I think once you have a grasp on that, once you've had that sort of conversation, what are we hoping to achieve? Um, and you know, I've there are two clients that sort of sit in my mind right now, even just answering this question. One would be somebody who's looking specifically for business, um one or two good jobs from an email. And I would say that that business in the last 12 months, they've probably spent with me uh, you know, give or take maybe three and a half thousand, and they will have done in jobs from that they can attribute to the email somewhere between eighteen and twenty-seven thousand in work.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Then there are other clients that I have who do it in the same for the same reason that you know, Ford has a billboard and a radio ad and a magazine ad and the mere exposure effects ads, exactly, because they know that if they show up in enough places often enough that they can be part of the conversation. And that's what they're hoping for. They're hoping any anyone, I mean, you want the business, but that starts with a conversation. You know, you can't go from people not knowing who you are to buying a car, that takes trust. Um, you've got to have trust in the brand, you've got to have trust in the particular vehicle that's being advertised, that it solved your problems, you've got to have trust in the local dealership. You know, if you went there 10 years ago and they you felt like they were over-servicing or um, you know, overcharging, or they didn't get back to you, or those sort of things that you spoke to Aaron about as well, uh, what separates him from other people. Um, I think that's it's one of those things where you have to make sure that you're taking the appropriate steps to build trust if that's what you're trying to do. If you're talking to people that know who you are and they're familiar with your brand and they're familiar with what you do, those kind of people are looking for a better understanding of either how they can utilize what you do in a better or a different way, or they're potentially even looking for new ideas. So something that I talk to my clients about all the time is that when we send my approach, um, and I would say this is for I do this for probably 95% of my clients. We don't send emails about multiple things, that's not what we do. Um, we know in terms of like human nature, we know that when people are presented with any more than two or three options, they find it very difficult to make a decision. Yeah, in most cases, when it comes to things like emails or text messages or websites or that that kind of stuff, they will in fact say, I'll come back to that later. They're not coming back to it later. So um I think there's sometimes like this battle that a business owner, when they're doing it themselves, is trying to is fighting without knowing, they're fighting to pack as much into an email as possible because they're hoping that somebody that reads it sees one of the things and it resonates with them. But what they're not realizing is that they're building it for themselves and what they want. They're not building it for the people on the other side of it that actually read it, receive it.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

And they're the people that need to have the great experience. It needs to be easy to read. The images need to be clear and tell a story. Um, there's lots of, you know, headlines need to be seven words or less in most cases, like subject lines.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

There'd be a pretty in-depth science and psychology behind the wording, the images, the layout, the branding, how all of that works in order to drive someone from the subject line.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Yeah, I mean, we even know that the day that you send the email matters. You know, Tuesday to Thursday will typically yield anywhere up to about a 3% increase in open rate for the email, which is percentage of people that open the email, compared to Friday to Monday. And when you think about your own life, people getting stuff on Fridays, you know, they're thinking about the weekend. Yeah. And people that receive stuff on the weekend are busy, they're taking kids to basketball games, they're, you know, enjoying a beer with friends, they're not checking their emails as frequently, they're not as interested. And then on Monday, people are just trying to recover from what they didn't do on Friday.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

So, you know, the you've got to think um where people are going to be and when the best time is to send it. You know, sometimes for some people, some businesses, the best time to send is 7:30 at night when people have had dinner and they're sitting on the couch and they're kind of. You know, I heard it just on that point, I heard an interesting thing the other day that um a lady was saying that's in the um TV and film industry that TV shows are now being made, knowing that people are on their phone at the same time as watching TV. Yeah. So the effort that is put into how clever the writing is or how busy the visuals are, all of that is being, for lack of a better phrase, dumbed down because if it's too much to consume, or there's a chance they might lose the plot or lose the um an interesting key part of the story, people won't, you know, there's a really key, uh really big chance that that will happen because people are also on their phone at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

But if we understand that about them, then we also know that a good time to send an email about a sale on those shoes that you wanted is probably at 7.30 at night. Because there's a good chance that I'm gonna get you when you're relaxed, you're in the right frame of mind to consider those shoes. And if you got them for 10% cheaper than you were before, maybe that's just the right time to send it to you.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

But if I send it to you at two o'clock in the afternoon when you're at work or you're going to pick up kids from school or whatever it is, that's not the time I want you to be receiving that offer because you're not at a place to be able to consider it.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Whatever I'm putting in front of you, you have to be able to consider it when it arrives because that those seven words that can appear on a mobile screen, I need you to be able to read what that is and make an assessment from there.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Yeah, and that's not for the client to worry about, right? Because you've got the science behind that. Um, and I'd imagine that'd be quite depth, it'd probably go right down to kind of what the um what the offering is, what the brand is, who that specific, specific segment of the target or uh target audience it's being aimed at, um, and then the decisions around what goes into it, when it's released, uh, when it's sent out, and all of that, I'm guessing that would just be something that your clients would probably appreciate that they don't need to think about all those things, but all those things are being being considered.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yeah, absolutely. I had a client like that um towards the end of last year. They wanted to get an email out quickly, and I think we were talking about it on Thursday morning, and they said, Oh, can we send it out tomorrow? And I said to them, there's a public holiday on Monday. Let's not send it today or over the weekend or Monday. If you can wait until Wednesday or Thursday, you're gonna get a much better um level of interest in that email. Because let's be honest, people that come back from holidays, yeah, they're still thinking about I wish I'd had longer on that holiday, or um, they're trying to catch up. If we want this email to be properly considered on its merit and how valuable it is to the reader, we need to be considerate of when they're gonna be receiving it or when they should be receiving it so that they can um give it their their full attention.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yeah. So, Brett, you and I met in B I, and you've been in B I for quite a while, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, I think this year's nine years.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

In those nine years, it'd be great to get some insight from you actually as to um what you've learned about people, about businesses, and uh and and about getting the most out of B and I.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

I think the the lesson that I've probably learnt the most is that the difference between being the worst performing member in a chapter and being the the best performing member in a chapter is a very small amount of effort. I've been both at different times. My B and I story is pretty unusual in that usually when somebody is asked to leave or they leave on their own terms, it's unusual that people come back to BI if it's you know under bad circumstances. Basically, I joined BI when I was about three months in business. Um, I was very green, I didn't really know a lot about business, I didn't I didn't know much. My business experience up until that had been quite different in that I'd had a software startup before that for a couple of years, and so my experience was going to startup Victoria events, going to pitch nights, that sort of thing. And that was very much about where everybody in the room's selling and nobody's buying. Everybody's swapping business cards, but nobody intends on calling anybody.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Um, unless you hear a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Have you ever been to speed networking nights? I have, yes, yes. Like you might love them. People do love them. If they're if they're done poorly, it can be the most painful thing in experience.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

I did I did go to one uh at the Cranberne Chamber Chamber of Commerce, and I thought that was pretty good. That was really, really good. Um, that comes down to having a good host, having somebody who's not afraid to hold the reins and like really steer it. Like you've got to be firm with people in those environments because everybody's trying to get through all these different conversations, and you want to have conversations that matter, but yeah. But I think like the for from my experience, I I was really inexperienced in business when I joined B and I. I went to a meeting, I got invited along um by a friend's sister who was already part of the group. Um, I went along, I sat there, and in the first half an hour or so, I said, I get it, like I know why it works.

SPEAKER_05 42:30

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, I can do this. I I would I would like to be part of it. So I joined that year. I would turn up late to meetings every now and again. I had a really small network. Um, so I get I didn't give a lot of referrals because I just I I felt I felt like I couldn't. And um at the end of the year, they basically said, thanks, but no thanks. Um maybe come back when you've got a bit more experience, that kind of thing. And so over the next, I would say six months or so, two members from that from that chapter, which is the same chapter I'm part of now, but two members, which was um Dennis Peterson from Peterson Power and Anton Molner from um IOA Building Inspections or In and Out, they um they would contact me uh every two or three weeks. When are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I would always say the same thing to them, you know, like I'll come back when I think that I can be a really valuable member to the others in the room.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

And so it probably took maybe eight months of being out of BI to feel like I had grown enough and I could contribute enough to other people that I could come back and be a valuable member. And a personal goal that I set for myself when I came back was to bring one visitor every week for the first year. Wow. I was able to do it for eight, eight or ten months. I can't remember. Wow. That's crazy. And it was literally like calling people from the phone number on their Ut, um, cold calling people from, you know, Google, whatever it was, whatever it took, you know, as soon as I made it part of my process in my business, was that was when I noticed a really significant difference. So I would say to new clients once they came on board, you know, part of my process is I introduce you to my business network. So I want you to put aside one morning in the next couple of weeks from uh 6.30 until 8.30, and I'll introduce you to now it would be 50 people, but back then it was like 25 or 30 other business owners, and they all do something different.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Um, I just want to introduce you to them.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

So that's clever, that's a great strategy.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Well, it worked really well. Um, but then I also think like just caring enough about the other people in the room that I would be willing to, you know, see a guy with a trailer that's got his phone number on it, on uh driving between home and the office, and just call the number and say, you know, you've got signage on your car. It's probably not as good as the stuff that Aaron does, but you've got signage on your car, you're obviously looking for business. Would you like me to introduce you to 30 local business owners that could potentially use your services or know somebody who could? I mean, who who would say no to that?

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Why would you say no to that if you're advertising on your car and you've got a business? Why would you say no to more business?

SPEAKER_03 45:42

So if I'm in B and I and I am struggling, and let's say I'm just outside the green, and the traffic light traffic lights, what's your advice to me?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Do one-to-ones. Find the person or the people in the room that are newest to B and I or that you haven't met with for a while, and I would say use the one-to-one planner. That's even if you don't use it in the meeting, go through the process of filling it out, writing down your goals, you the 10 clients that you dealt with most recently, um, and whether or not they were a good fit for you, these sorts of things. Because what that does for you is that you know, like the best way to use it is to do all of that and then send it to the person a couple of days before you're having the one-to-one. You know, that's like the you know, the perfect um way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

But not everybody is as organized as you are to have it.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

So sometimes sending it to people can have a positive effect, which is, oh, I should do this. Sometimes it puts like unnecessary pressure on them to go, oh, like, do I have to do this as well? And then them doing it is not they're not going to get the best out of it because they're doing it for the wrong reasons. They're doing it because they feel like they have to, because I sent it to them. So something that I've I've tried to do this year, well, the end of last year and early this year, is I updated it for me. I'm very clear about what my goals are, about you know, who my clients are and all that sort of thing, who makes the most money from what I do and all of that. And that can be something that we can talk about conversations like this or in ones-ones.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

But I think you you should you need to be really clear about, like with any marketing, and BI is marketing, you need to be really clear about what you want to get out of it and uh what you have to do to get the most out of it, to give yourself the best chance at success. Because you can turn up to B and I, but if you left your name tag in the car and you don't have a pen to write down everybody's referral requests, you you're doing yourself and everybody else in the room a disservice, and you're paying to be there.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Yeah, and even asking the question that I asked you. Like, go to some members who have been there for a long time or ones that have been there for a short time and doing it really well, who you respect, and ask that same question, how do I do this? Like, yeah, what tips can you give me? Now, we're gonna wrap it up soon. I've got a couple of I'm gonna end this the same way in a way that I ended with um with Aaron. I'm gonna ask you a deeper question and then we're gonna finish with a fun question. Okay. Um what what do you truly care about?

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Um I want everyone to be good. You know, like whether it's the client that I'm working with, I want them to get a good outcome. Whether it's you know, my family, um are they good? Like are they healthy, are they enjoying their life? The whole enjoying maybe it's like uh you know, me seeing 50 off in 18 months or so and thinking I I want to be good, everybody should be good. Um so like I've got three goals for this year, and they're like um one of the probably um one of my favor well my favorite goal out of all of them is that um this time next year um to be paying for a family holiday for everybody for somewhere. So whether that's two or three weeks, you know, in Italy or whether that's two or three weeks in the Gold Coast or whatever it is, that's a really important goal to me because I want everyone in the family to have that time where they don't have to think about things too much, where they can unwind, they can relax. Because I know as a creative person that I do my best work sometimes in the shower. You know, when I've got that time to think, when I've when I don't have the pressures of deadlines or competing projects or that sort of thing, when I have the space to really think about things, that's when I can be really clear, really intentional, um, really focused. And I want that for everybody, um, not just for me, because I know how how good it feels for me. I want everybody to feel that good.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Yeah. Awesome. And uh last question, uh a special skill that you might have. Actually, Aaron hinted to me what it might be. Uh apparently you can rap.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Um geez, that's that's really appreciate that, Aaron.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

Um actually I made it up, it wasn't Aaron. I just heard it somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Uh yeah, it's oh look, um whether I can or not is is up to other people to decide. Um, I in my younger days, I was uh I was in a hip-hop group, yeah, and I did um probably 50% of the producing, like the music, and um uh probably about the same uh of writing the lyrics. Yeah, do you remember any of those performed? Do you remember any of this? Um you know where this is going. Yeah, like I'm just trying to think about whether or not I can say it. Um I was at a different time in my life then. Uh I what I will say is that um the two guys that um in particular the the two guys that um we had the most, I would say the most fun and the most success with, um, Noel and and Jolly, those two guys and I, we had some incredible times. Like we experienced all kinds of things. One of my favorite things that we did, um so this is back in the MySpace days. The good old days, and and it's probably like as a quick side step, it's probably where I I started my marketing journey. Yeah, because my role in the group was very much like a manager. I was the one that kind of stepped forward to say, let's do this, let's do that, yeah, and then try to make it happen. And so I connected with these guys called Hip Hop TV, which were based in Sydney, and they had a channel a little bit like channel 31 in um here in Victoria, yeah, and they had a community channel in um Sydney, and they would interview artists and um get them to perform live and all that sort of stuff. And I thought, man, like if we could get on there, that'd be so good.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

And so I kept talking to the guy, his name was Fady. So I kept talking to Fady about whether or not we'd get a chance to go, whether we negotiate yes, yes, yes, some point, some point. And then he called me one day and said, Um, we had Denny Hines booked, and she's cancelled, and it's for I think it was Thursday, I spoke to him, and he said, Um, we were meant to be recording it Saturday. If you can get here on Saturday, you you can have her spot. And so I rounded up the other two guys and we spoke about it, and then I think I had to borrow some money to pay for tickets, and uh, we stayed at like an F1 hotel, which was like $79 a night or something like that. But the coolest part of all of it was that when we turned up to the hotel, there were like fans there that had waited, it weren't like a thousand, there was like three or four or something that were there, but they they were there specifically because of how much they loved our music, yeah. And that was like we like, you know, I can only imagine what it's like for somebody like Drake, right? Where he's like he gets that in thousands at every place that he goes, but like for us, that was like amazing. We had these people, and all they cared about was um our music and how much they loved it, and um, yeah, and look, we did some cool stuff along the way. So you performed there and yeah, so we we went and did the interview um the next day. So we we arrived on Friday. Um, we stayed overnight, we did the interview Saturday, and then we flew back Saturday night.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

And it was a bit of a whirlwind, but um, yeah, just the you know, one of the great stories of of that time.

SPEAKER_03 55:07

Is there music videos on YouTube where people can find don't worry about going to three bytes.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's there's still stuff on YouTube. What's the band called again? Uh triple threat crew. Triple threat. Yeah. All right. There's obviously a three looking that up a three theme in my life that I hadn't established until this point. Yes. Triple threat crew, three bytes. Yes, yes. There's a continuous one. Definitely looking that one up. Yeah, no, it was great, great times. Absolutely. Like um, anybody that's done anything creative, like just for the sake of doing it, um they'll tell you how how much fun it is. Yeah. Um chasing something.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Yeah, it's great. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being my whatever number it is guest on number three, we'll call it no. Um uh on the one-to-one podcast. It's been great, always insightful talking to you. Appreciate it. And uh, yeah, um, goodbye, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Thank you.