Liam Wood: The Power of Micro-Influencers in Construction Marketing
In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, Dan sits down with Liam Wood, better known as Liam the Plumber, to discuss his inspiring journey from full-time tradesman to becoming a prominent micro-influencer in the plumbing and construction space. Liam reflects on his evolution within the industry, sharing how his authentic passion for tools and brands, like fischer Fixings UK, Thomas Dudley, and STABILA, has allowed him to connect deeply with his audience.
The conversation dives into the importance of prioritising genuine engagement over follower counts, with Liam offering actionable insights on how tradespeople can build a loyal community by staying true to their values. They also explore the creative side of content creation in the construction industry, breaking down how social media can transform perceptions of trades and open doors to new opportunities.
Liam offers a behind-the-scenes look at navigating brand collaborations, balancing his hands-on work with his growing digital presence, and using authenticity to set himself apart in the world of influencer marketing. This episode is packed with valuable advice for anyone looking to amplify their voice while staying true to their craft.
Liam's links:
This podcast is produced by dissident creative agency, the original disrupters of construction marketing. This podcast is born out of our passion to create conversations that push boundaries as hard as our content!
If breaking rules and standing out is your thing, we want to hear from you...
Transcript
Hello and welcome to The Buildup. This is the podcast for marketing
Speaker:in the construction industry. I'm
Speaker:Dan, the creative director at Dissident. We've been working with construction brands for
Speaker:a number of years. It's an exciting and rapidly evolving industry, and
Speaker:that's why we created a podcast dedicated to the weird and wonderful world
Speaker:of construction marketing. I'll be speaking to leading brands, other agencies,
Speaker:creatives, influencers, and startups. This is the
Speaker:resource I wish we had when we first started out in the industry. Thank
Speaker:you for being here and welcome to The Buildup. Well,
Speaker:I'm here today with Liam, aka Liam the Plumber. First of
Speaker:No, mate. Pleasure's all mine. Thank you for having me today. And thank
Speaker:I love it in here. So we had you here on the Fisher podcast, right?
Speaker:Fisher podcast, and also Dudley Unplugged. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. As well, so that's it. So that's it. First episode of
Speaker:Dudley Unplugged with Pablo, and then
Speaker:the Fisher podcast with me, Kyle, Dave, and
Speaker:Yeah, there you go. So this is the hat trick on the Dissident podcast.
Speaker:So if you've seen Liam on podcasts before,
Speaker:it might look very similar to this, because it's the same studio, just with a different sign.
Speaker:Different sign every time, yeah. I've completed the
Speaker:trinity now of all three that have been here. So yeah, I love
Speaker:every time I come here, it's been amazing. And of course, the guys that are here, it's
Speaker:like a family away from home. Home away from home for me, because I live quite
Speaker:Well, so what, I mean, we can explain what we've been doing today because we've been filming content with you with
Speaker:one of our clients, Fisher Fixins, and just
Speaker:filming some sort of launch content for one of their new products, which
Speaker:we won't talk about on this. Exciting though. Yeah, really exciting, really fun shoot
Speaker:as well. And that was all in our studio. And that's
Speaker:that's kind of the theme of the topic of today essentially
Speaker:is, you know, marketing and construction. I've said
Speaker:it loads of times before, like this is the sort of year of
Speaker:the micro influencer. and I know you don't like being
Speaker:called a micro-influencer, but for the sake of all
Speaker:the marketers listening, it's just easier to call it that. I
Speaker:never know whether I'm being disrespectful by saying micro.
Speaker:No, no, no, no. Yeah, for the
Speaker:record, I'm 5'8". That's average. I think that... Yeah,
Speaker:I don't know. I think most of us prefer to be called content creators.
Speaker:However, I consider to be what Dissident do, I consider
Speaker:you to be content creators. We are micro-influencers
Speaker:or influencers depending on the following. I think micro-influencer starts
Speaker:at like a very low sort of 2 or 3K. But
Speaker:I don't mind being called it. It's easy to understand and you know what you know,
Speaker:kind of everyone outside listening and watching knows where
Speaker:I am on not the spectrum, but they know where I am on
Speaker:Yeah. What would you consider to be the number
Speaker:for the transitions from micro influencer to influencer, do you
Speaker:reckon? I'm always interested in that number. About 10K. About
Speaker:I would have said 80K. Would you? Personally, yeah. I
Speaker:mean, the numbers are probably different for the construction industry, but, you know,
Speaker:it's so easy to get 80K in other industries. Like,
Speaker:you can get really, I mean, especially in things like cosmetics and fashion and stuff like
Speaker:that, 80K is so easy to get to. Oh, easier than
Speaker:construction, for instance. Yeah. So, perhaps you should have, like, the term,
Speaker:I think so, and I think with, when I look at some of the guys in
Speaker:the construction industry, so for me specifically, the plumbing sort
Speaker:of community, you look at it and you go, 10K is
Speaker:a big, big number, you go, wow. But
Speaker:when you look at other people in other industries, it's yeah, like
Speaker:sort of 50, 60K is the minimum, and then you go on to like hundreds
Speaker:of thousands, and it's kind of the norm. The construction industry
Speaker:is quite a niche market where, People
Speaker:like seeing what you create, i.e.
Speaker:the job that you do. So if you're a carpenter, for example, it's quite satisfying
Speaker:to watch. I like watching other trades. But there's only so
Speaker:many times you want to see a plumber bend some pipework or solder something.
Speaker:Okay, it's satisfying to watch and it's cool to watch. It
Speaker:doesn't quite get the same reach as what some other industries
Speaker:do, so therefore your numbers are naturally a little bit lower. So
Speaker:I think, yeah, I think for construction, I think anything 10K above influence,
Speaker:I think anything 10K below, I think it's micro, I think.
Speaker:micro influencers and it's it's never been like a sort of like a bad
Speaker:term for me uh it's it's it's just it's just a way of differentiating two
Speaker:different types of uh creator and the micro influencer for
Speaker:me has always been somebody who's got a cult following so
Speaker:someone's got a really engaged but slightly smaller audience
Speaker:yeah who were, you know, like, essentially, like, they're, you know,
Speaker:like, real cool following, as opposed to somebody who's
Speaker:perhaps got, let's say, 100k. But
Speaker:as a result, like, not a lot of those guys are actually engaging with
Speaker:the content, not the engagements, everything, but I've
Speaker:always liked this kind of that, for me, it's always
Speaker:been the small, the smaller numbers. always feel like
Speaker:they've got more of an authentic audience towards that particular
Speaker:Yeah, so my following is quite, it's a very loyal
Speaker:following. There's a thing recently, specifically
Speaker:on Instagram, where you could go through your followers and
Speaker:it highlights followers for review. Out
Speaker:of the nearly 6,000 I've got, I had,
Speaker:I think it was nine that were flagged for review. And when
Speaker:you compare it to other accounts, for
Speaker:example, that have had hundreds and what have you, nine is
Speaker:pretty good. Nine sort of slipped through the net. So you just
Speaker:remove, for me, it's not about growing getting
Speaker:the most numbers, that's not what for me social media is. But
Speaker:for your following, I want my following to be the most loyal it
Speaker:possibly can be. And everyone follows me because it's because
Speaker:of me. And I get rid of the ones
Speaker:that were up for review have Yeah,
Speaker:gone. And they were literally just bot accounts that when you get
Speaker:follow, follow, follow, or someone's followed you, they're
Speaker:the ones that kind of slip through the net. You can't always keep track of every single person that comes
Speaker:through. So nine to slip through, I consider
Speaker:that really, really good, to be fair. But yeah, they've gone. But it's just
Speaker:about having that level of following and people like your
Speaker:We've skipped ahead a little bit, because for most of my audience, they're
Speaker:probably at this stage are like, this guy, yeah, if you're not in the
Speaker:industry, although to be fair, I imagine a good majority of the
Speaker:people listening will know your name, especially if they've got any
Speaker:interaction with dissident because every other
Speaker:Yeah, I'm always here, I'm always here. So yeah, we started, when
Speaker:did we start working together? We were trying to discuss this our
Speaker:fair, weren't we? It got me nearly three years ago, just under three years ago. I
Speaker:reckon so, yeah. Yeah, and ever since then it was dissident this,
Speaker:dissident that. And anything I do with Fisher as one of your clients, it
Speaker:doesn't always get tagged in it because it's it's not it's not
Speaker:just it's not Fisher as such creating the content it's this isn't
Speaker:that creates the fish the content for Fisher yes yeah
Speaker:absolutely so it's everyone gets everyone gets shared in it so yeah we've
Speaker:that's yeah if people don't know who or they think who is
Speaker:this guy I'm a plumber. Tell us the full story
Speaker:from start to finish like there's a brief overview. So yeah
Speaker:left school all that sort of stuff when it got into the plumbing trade as soon as I left
Speaker:school family for a tradesman fell
Speaker:into plumbing literally straight out of school loved it and then
Speaker:been working for a couple companies over the past 15, 16 years.
Speaker:And in the past sort of three, thought, you know what,
Speaker:I want to get into social media, try and sort of venture
Speaker:into that a little bit. What would I
Speaker:say is a hobby? I don't know. An interest. Yeah, it's
Speaker:something that was interesting, because you see other people do it, and you go, wow, that looks really cool,
Speaker:let's do all this stuff. So yeah, did all my plumber
Speaker:by trade, and I do social on the side. And
Speaker:naturally, with the socials on the side, companies will pick you up, and
Speaker:go, we really like your content, this, that, and the other. I did one video for
Speaker:Fisher. I wasn't asked to do it. I
Speaker:did a video on- I remember it well. Yeah, and it was a
Speaker:review I brought on, I brought some Fisher bits at a trade show, took them
Speaker:back home, did like a review on it, and ever since then, Julie
Speaker:contacted me and I've been doing bits and pieces with Fisher and Distant ever
Speaker:since. Still doing the plumbing on
Speaker:the side, so yeah, pretty much, 90% of
Speaker:my time is still on the tools. It's
Speaker:still your full-time job. It's still my full-time job. I still get paid to do that. And
Speaker:then the social media is just the extra little bit on the side that
Speaker:is just an interest of mine. And I just like creating content on
Speaker:my day and on things
Speaker:I do outside of the norm. So not everyone gets the opportunity to come
Speaker:and film content with companies and agencies, et cetera. So
Speaker:it's quite a cool thing to do and document. There
Speaker:are times when I can sit there of an evening, you
Speaker:know, nothing's on the TV, for example, and you're just flicking through socials,
Speaker:and you go, do you know what, I do this, I look through my profile, I go back to
Speaker:the very start, and I look at the things I've done, and I'm like,
Speaker:That's quite, that's a late at night activity, isn't it?
Speaker:Just like sort of going, Oh, you know, look at that two
Speaker:Yeah. But yeah, it's really cool. It's nice to reflect on and
Speaker:go, this is where all that's where it all started and what
Speaker:I'm doing now. But that's that's kind of the
Speaker:rough overview, so I'm a plumber by trade, then I
Speaker:Love it. Really, really cool. And I
Speaker:mean, I guess we'll come back, we'll circle back to
Speaker:the story of like that first interaction with those and Fisher
Speaker:Fixins and how that kind of relationship kind of
Speaker:started. But when
Speaker:you're wanting to work with a particular brand. Let's
Speaker:say I would love to be associated with this
Speaker:particular brand or I would like to get paid or
Speaker:I would like whatever, some kind of collaboration.
Speaker:Not what you get from it, but like the actual
Speaker:brand. So if I wanted to go and work with a particular brand, I
Speaker:believe there's a right way of going about doing it, first off.
Speaker:I wouldn't directly approach the brand. Hey, can
Speaker:I work with you? I believe you have to show support
Speaker:in the brand and the product, for example, or
Speaker:what they produce. show the support but show that loyalty as
Speaker:well. And I wouldn't
Speaker:expect to work with that brand with immediate effects. You
Speaker:have the engagement, share their content, show
Speaker:your passion for what they are, who they are. And
Speaker:then I've never pushed anything.
Speaker:If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. If nothing comes of it, there's
Speaker:your answer. I'm very lucky I get to work with three brands,
Speaker:all three of which I never approach, all three of which approached me
Speaker:or came by, well, Thomas Dudley came
Speaker:about from someone else's hard work behind the scenes
Speaker:that got lots of other people involved, close friends, that's a different story. But
Speaker:the other two have all been, they are all off, my
Speaker:own hard work, if that makes sense. You can get in with one company,
Speaker:for example, Thomas Dudley, and then you have to still put the
Speaker:work in for the content. But as for working, you
Speaker:know, with the other two, I never approached, they
Speaker:approached me. That's because I show support,
Speaker:So taking it a step back then, so these three brands, are we allowed to
Speaker:talk about those? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Fisher, Thomas Dudley,
Speaker:and I imagine Stabila. Stabila, yeah. But
Speaker:I think the point to take away from this is you were already a fan
Speaker:of their products ahead of time. You were already using their products
Speaker:and as a result of that they were appearing
Speaker:Naturally appearing in the content I was creating before anything
Speaker:even came about. My whole theory behind
Speaker:socials was I just liked to show off my day-to-day work
Speaker:that I'm doing. And yeah,
Speaker:show off the products, because they're cool products. For
Speaker:me, it wasn't about going after brand, after brand, after brand,
Speaker:That's not- And then all of a sudden you're affiliated with that brand. You know, it's just like, oh,
Speaker:and now I use this. These were things
Speaker:you were using on the reg over a long period of time.
Speaker:All the time, and I never pushed for them. I
Speaker:just tagged them, tagged them, tagged them, because I believe in the product. Then naturally
Speaker:things fell into place. The first one was with
Speaker:Fisher, which you touched on, and then the second
Speaker:one was Thomas Dudley, which was a game where someone set
Speaker:up like an initial meeting, if you will, and went, we want to do a factory tour. We
Speaker:did a factory tour with about 10 of us. And
Speaker:then it came about from that that all the content we were all producing at the time was really
Speaker:good, we'd like to come on board, okay, no problem. And we
Speaker:were already producing content already, but it
Speaker:just naturally fell into place. We never had to push for it. But
Speaker:sometimes you need that initial interaction, if that
Speaker:makes sense, just to kind of get wheels in motion. And then
Speaker:Stabila just came out of the blue. And again,
Speaker:took me by surprise. Really cool brand. Because
Speaker:initially you go, why me? Yeah. Bit
Speaker:like Fisher, like Thomas Dudley, why me? And then
Speaker:it's, again, my firm belief is I never approach people.
Speaker:Yeah. Well, the why me thing is quite an interesting topic
Speaker:because the, The
Speaker:thing that attracted us, and I say us, it's like Fisher,
Speaker:because we shoot pretty much all of Fisher's content,
Speaker:we run their socials and we manage
Speaker:their collaborations with influencers and sort
Speaker:of third parties and stuff like that. So we were heavily
Speaker:engaged in Fisher's socials because we're the ones creating
Speaker:the content for it, managing it, communicating with their audience and
Speaker:stuff like that. So essentially, you know, as
Speaker:for all intents and purposes, like we're an extension of Fisher fixings, as
Speaker:well as the other clients that we've, you know, that we've got, but in this circumstance, we've
Speaker:noticed, because we get tagged, we Fisher, get
Speaker:tagged in stuff, all the time, we see loads of content,
Speaker:we see loads of people reaching out to us and stuff like that. So we're kind of um
Speaker:numb to a lot of it uh and a lot of it looks the
Speaker:same a lot but it feels the same the thing that stood out to to us
Speaker:about uh you in particular was um the fact that it
Speaker:was for some whatever reason um it
Speaker:was different it stood out as being unique the interaction for
Speaker:um was was really unique and you weren't saying hey
Speaker:fisher like i've bought some of your products can i work with you it was
Speaker:very much a case of check it out guys i've just been to i think screwfix live
Speaker:It was Griffiths Life, yeah. You bought some stuff,
Speaker:hadn't you? Yeah, I bought an L-Box. You bought an
Speaker:L-Box? It wasn't full of the tray, no, so
Speaker:it was an empty L-Box. I wanted the L-Box, the empty L-Box, but
Speaker:I needed to get, to get the MTL box, I had to purchase, I think it
Speaker:was about 45, 50 quid. I was like a promotion.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, well, I've always used the Joy Powers anyway. And
Speaker:at the time I hadn't used the Joyetechs. Right. So I
Speaker:That was the love at first sight for the Joyetechs. I mean, this is going
Speaker:to get really nerdy about a particular product that no one's going to care about. But we
Speaker:I purchased these products, took them back
Speaker:home and I did a video in, I think I sat in the
Speaker:Yes yeah it was like a little like and you would sort of put it up on the
Speaker:side of the van and show people and stuff it was just a really interesting
Speaker:It was just a love for the product and yeah I never went hey
Speaker:I've brought all this stuff can I work with you? Then
Speaker:you contacted me out of the blue and it was we really really like this video can we
Speaker:have a chat and that's how things literally just evolved without me
Speaker:even knowing or me pushing it if that
Speaker:And so there was a couple of things that stood out to us was authenticity. You
Speaker:genuinely seemed incredibly excited about this particular product. You
Speaker:were just like, look at all this stuff I've got from the show. How cool
Speaker:is this? And these are products that we've just got lying
Speaker:abundantly in our offices and stuff like that. And you're looking at these, the
Speaker:GeoPowers going, these are the dogs. Like, I really love these. And check out these
Speaker:GeoPowers. Look how they work. You were like, I feel like you were showing the camera,
Speaker:like, check this out. You do this kind of stuff with them, I think. So I imagine
Speaker:Yeah, it was Dan C that gave me a bit of a demo on some of
Speaker:the bits. And again, it's just
Speaker:to love the product. I was just passionate about what I picked up, because
Speaker:I love the brand, love the product. but
Speaker:weirdly, as strange as it sounds, I wasn't looking to get anything out
Speaker:That's the thing. That
Speaker:was a part of a series of other stories or videos on
Speaker:your feed of your day-to-day happenings, what's going
Speaker:on. You happened to be at the show when you were really excited about it and you bought some cool
Speaker:stuff. I don't think Fisher was the only one that you were talking about, I
Speaker:can't remember. There might have been some other stories.
Speaker:Also, this is what I got and also this is what I got. I can't remember
Speaker:exactly, but I remember Aisha in the office, our social
Speaker:media manager. was like, look
Speaker:how cute this guy is. He really, really
Speaker:likes these products. And she sort of, it's quite rare for Aisha to
Speaker:call us all over to her computer to watch a video on social media.
Speaker:But that sort of flagged all of our attention. We were
Speaker:like, ah, this guy seems cool. I wonder what we can do with him. And we weren't, we
Speaker:were just in the infancy of starting to look at like third
Speaker:party collaborations with people. you know,
Speaker:other than just shooting the content as dissident and
Speaker:producing it for Fisher, we were looking at different ways of
Speaker:like, you know, sort of entering the market and different ways of you
Speaker:know, getting content for, especially for some of the new product launches and stuff. So
Speaker:it was, it was sort of came at the right time. And we had a project lined
Speaker:up that I was pushing for, which was the
Speaker:Behind the Trace series. I thought this guy would be perfect for
Speaker:this, first of all, because he obviously is really comfortable in front of camera, because you
Speaker:get some great accounts that
Speaker:are silent. So there's a lot of, like,
Speaker:sort of ASMR or there's some time lapse
Speaker:of buildings and stuff like that, but you sort of scroll through and you sort of think, this
Speaker:person doesn't talk on camera, which means that they're probably not comfortable talking
Speaker:on camera, which means that we can't quite often, we're more
Speaker:reluctant to bring them into the studio or get them on site if that's the
Speaker:case. It might not be the case, but we can't go
Speaker:to every account and go, hey, are you comfortable on camera? Like, show us
Speaker:a video. So it made our life a lot easier as
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think being
Speaker:comfortable in front of a camera, it aids you when it comes to
Speaker:days like today when we're shooting official
Speaker:content anyway. So naturally when I'm talking to a camera, it's like
Speaker:having a conversation right now, it doesn't phase you. But yeah,
Speaker:I think approaching a brand, I think there's
Speaker:different ways you can approach a brand to work with if that's the way you want to go.
Speaker:I just think there's a, I don't know, my way is the, not
Speaker:the silent way, but my way is just the way of going to show love
Speaker:and passion for the brand, support the brand. and
Speaker:what comes of it, what comes of it. If nothing happens, then... You're
Speaker:not expecting a return. Yeah, basically, yeah. But if it happens, great. If
Speaker:it happens, great, yeah. If it happens, put
Speaker:That's it. So, when it comes to actually creating content
Speaker:for... four brands. Let's say you've
Speaker:got your three headline brands
Speaker:that you work with Fisher, Thomas Dudley and Stabila. How
Speaker:do you approach actually creating content for those guys? Because I imagine not every job
Speaker:requires that particular thing. Although I imagine most of yours actually
Speaker:for these particular brands? Strangely enough, so day in, day
Speaker:out, if you think about the three, so Fisher make
Speaker:fixings, Stabila make spirit levels, measuring equipment specifically, and
Speaker:Thomas Dudley make components for not just toilets, but
Speaker:fittings as well, pipe fittings. What is it, 60,000 products, 6,000, something like
Speaker:that? Something like that, it's a lot. The book's about that thick. So
Speaker:day in, day out, you'll always see me using a Duro
Speaker:Power at one point, and then you'll see me using my levels at the same time,
Speaker:because things have got to be put on the wall level. Unless it's waste pipe,
Speaker:that's a different story. And then, Thomas Dudley products, no,
Speaker:because I do sort of little jobbing jobs, I'll
Speaker:always be repairing or replacing toilets, for
Speaker:example, so I'll always be using their products. They've kind of naturally fallen into place quite
Speaker:well. And as for content, I
Speaker:don't ever struggle. There are three brands
Speaker:that I can easily do something with, and
Speaker:everything I do with them can be different. The
Speaker:content I produce for Fisher is obviously different for someone like Studley. It's
Speaker:Is that a happy accident that you happen to work with three brands that you
Speaker:Although I suppose in some respects, it makes
Speaker:sense. If you're creating content, let's say not every day, but
Speaker:regularly about the stuff that you do on a daily basis, you're going to be featuring products that
Speaker:you use really regularly, right? Not something that's obscure that you use once
Speaker:There's no point in working or promoting a brand
Speaker:that you use once a month. how
Speaker:are they going to get their return out of that if they're going to be
Speaker:working with you? You're going to be doing one post or one video with
Speaker:them a month, and there's kind of
Speaker:no benefit. If it's something you use all the time, the people will know you for those three
Speaker:products. Like a lot of the time, people will know me as just Mr. Fisher.
Speaker:That's what they, Freddie Fisher. That's what it reverted me
Speaker:as. But they know me for working with those three brands, because that's
Speaker:what I predominantly use all the time. So if that's what I use all
Speaker:the time, then that's surely what I'm going to promote and promote it
Speaker:in. Creating content, it's so easy. It's so easy.
Speaker:But there are confinements in and around creating content. while
Speaker:doing the job, and also trying to do sort of bits
Speaker:and pieces with social media. So every job you go into, you weigh it up.
Speaker:You go into Mrs. Jones' house, and she might be still overwatching
Speaker:you, so there's no way you're gonna get your phone out and start recording,
Speaker:and you get in, you do the job, move on,
Speaker:but you're still using the products, and you know you're not having to go back. as
Speaker:well, and you know, everything that, you know, that radiator
Speaker:you've just fitted is level, it's not coming
Speaker:off the wall, so you know you can get in and out, if that makes sense, but you can create
Speaker:easy content with that sort of stuff. You just judge it based
Speaker:Yeah do you ever get into a situation where
Speaker:you think this is perfect for social media but it's
Speaker:not the right time like as in like as in like the client's both breathing down
Speaker:Yeah all the time and there are some jobs you
Speaker:you I prepare for some jobs believe it or not so now I've got I can see my
Speaker:diary and I can see what's coming
Speaker:up and I can go, right, that's gonna be perfect. And
Speaker:I get my tripod out, I get my mic set out,
Speaker:I make sure the lens is clean on my phone. You basically do pre-production. Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, pretty much, a lot. And I go, right, when I get to this job, this is what I'm gonna
Speaker:do, this is how I'm gonna do it. And you get in and the customer sits in that kitchen
Speaker:having a conversation with you. So what
Speaker:you wanted to film, you could, but
Speaker:you weren't able to film it, kind of in sort of free pace, do
Speaker:whatever you need to do. Because customers sometimes
Speaker:aren't always aware that your phone is there on a tripod, so they might walk straight
Speaker:in front of it. And if you're doing an ASMR video, ASMR
Speaker:means it's dead silent apart from the noises that you're hearing, so that tip
Speaker:tap of like a hammer or water running, not
Speaker:the distinct conversation about the cake sale
Speaker:going on at the weekend. So yeah, it
Speaker:Yeah, I imagine it's got
Speaker:to be frustrating when you're in a situation where you think this is perfect for
Speaker:content creation, but I've got
Speaker:these restrictions, i.e. the clients behind me, I wonder
Speaker:how many people would just go, do you mind if I film some stuff? I imagine you
Speaker:Yeah, I'm a bit more reserved because I produce,
Speaker:I believe in producing quality over quantity. So
Speaker:at the time, if it doesn't feel right in filming it, I
Speaker:won't film it. If it's
Speaker:something I was hoping to film, but I don't get the chance to film
Speaker:it, then I make sure I've got
Speaker:something else that I can film, which normally works out anyway, because I
Speaker:do quite a lot of jobs during the day. I can only film something from that, but
Speaker:I still want to make sure it's as good a quality as what I was hoping
Speaker:to film. And ironically, the stuff that you think,
Speaker:the stuff that you film and you put out, you think, oh, it's gonna be really, really well,
Speaker:it often ends up not the case. The stuff that you, I
Speaker:don't say throw together, but the stuff you put together and
Speaker:you go, I don't know if this is gonna do that well. Yeah, and
Speaker:it does, unbelievable. So frustrating. Yeah,
Speaker:and there's no time or effort or planning gone into it at all, but it
Speaker:just hits the mark, it clicks. So it's just, it
Speaker:We come across this in our line of work where we'll produce
Speaker:a film, let's say it's $15,000 worth
Speaker:of budget for this particular film. It's one piece of content we're really excited about.
Speaker:It's gone through tons of planning. We've got third parties involved. We've got amazing
Speaker:locations and great models or whatever. Got
Speaker:some influencers involved. And we knock it out of the park. It's
Speaker:been a big edit. And you get the
Speaker:numbers. And you get the engagement. You get the watches, all
Speaker:that kind of thing. uh and it's a flop um
Speaker:and then or what you consider to be a flop most of the time it's like reasonable
Speaker:amount of numbers and then you produce a you know I
Speaker:remember distinctly we did a film where we filled um
Speaker:and I pinched the idea of one of my friends Martin Hobby who did a very similar thing with
Speaker:something else and it wasn't related to a brand he was just doing it as
Speaker:just a creative project and he filled a skull cake
Speaker:mold with expanding foam and made like a mold of
Speaker:it and then spray painted it and like decorated it and I thought this is brilliant for
Speaker:one of our clients who does expanding foam. So
Speaker:we did that and we wanted it to be like UGC content but highly produced, which
Speaker:is something that can become very popular now. So
Speaker:we filmed this and it was all
Speaker:very kind of like, I said to my team, don't put too much effort into this.
Speaker:everything shot portrait this is only going on socials just
Speaker:a quick filler post not a big deal I don't need
Speaker:to put loads of effort in and it's I think it's still to this day on
Speaker:our clients socials like one of the best performing organic posts
Speaker:and it was done with like no crew minimal effort you
Speaker:know it wasn't 15 grand's worth of production um
Speaker:and it's still the best and it's um it's great but super
Speaker:frustrating at the same time but that's just how social media works sometimes it works sometimes it
Speaker:doesn't But then also we try and always
Speaker:educate our clients or our colleagues that
Speaker:engagement doesn't mean that it didn't work. Just because
Speaker:you get a piece of content that's really well engaged doesn't mean you sold
Speaker:the product. And just because a piece of content on
Speaker:paper didn't look like it got the likes and engagement and comments and
Speaker:shares and stuff, doesn't mean that that didn't promote that product. I
Speaker:won't get into it too much, but there's pieces
Speaker:of content that don't require engagement. you know especially
Speaker:from the brands. Personal brand stuff
Speaker:like what you guys do is different. You're all about the engagement you
Speaker:know that's that's the thing that's sort of I imagine most
Speaker:of the time is what you're looking for is that to have interaction with your
Speaker:Yeah to some extent but also Yeah,
Speaker:I think it is there. I don't really look at the
Speaker:likes. I look at the comments is
Speaker:the one. But then if someone's engaging in
Speaker:your content, engage back in theirs. It's kind
Speaker:for a reason. It's about being social. A lot of people forget
Speaker:that. Yeah, that's it. But yeah,
Speaker:engagement is a big one. And I think I
Speaker:still believe that if you're someone like me, like a
Speaker:micro-influencer, or an influencer in general, or even
Speaker:a content creator, that you, I still believe that, okay,
Speaker:you're creating content, but I still believe that you have to create the content, not
Speaker:just for the brand or company that you're representing's benefit, but
Speaker:also your own benefit. So you can sit back and you can go, I'm happy with that.
Speaker:That's cool, I'm proud of that. I liked doing that.
Speaker:the number one fundamental key point. It's like the people
Speaker:who take pictures just for the sake of taking pictures. Just to
Speaker:put in an album that no one needs to look at. It's for your
Speaker:own enjoyment to go, look how clever I am, but it's just
Speaker:Yeah, and I kind of do the same with my social. So on my feed it's,
Speaker:yeah, okay, it's stuff that I do every day, stuff I do with the brand, but there's
Speaker:also personable stuff on there as well. A lot of my day's out doing this,
Speaker:this, and this. It just adds, Again, this goes back to
Speaker:that cult loyal following. It's people like someone that's
Speaker:relatable. And authentic. And authentic, yeah. So
Speaker:it's no good me putting up pictures of me doing photo shoots
Speaker:all the time or film shoots like we do today all the time because that's
Speaker:me a percentage of the time. I'm gonna work the other percentage,
Speaker:but there's also a small, minute percentage, believe it or not, where I do have a
Speaker:life outside of plumbing. So, you know, take pictures,
Speaker:for example, with me and my wife, or there's pictures
Speaker:up there of me at a recent track day, for example. It's something different,
Speaker:and people go, oh, he's not doing plumbing today, he's doing something quite cool,
Speaker:actually. And that gets people talking, people
Speaker:go, oh, you know, you're not all about, one
Speaker:thing. So you go from Liam the plumber to Liam the person? Yeah,
Speaker:but people like to engage with that. It's
Speaker:personable. You're not a celebrity at
Speaker:the end of the day, you're still that tradesman. In my case,
Speaker:you're still that tradesman. I still come from
Speaker:the same background as what most other people have, started
Speaker:off in pretty much the same way and I'm
Speaker:still a person at the end of
Speaker:I think this is one of the big things that I really want to lean into
Speaker:this episode is I'm a
Speaker:big proponent. I'm not even sure that's the right term. I don't know.
Speaker:For I'm a big advocate. Yeah, let's go for that. I'm a big advocate
Speaker:for the micro influencer for
Speaker:Brad for big brands. There's a number of reasons for that. I think
Speaker:these a lot of big accounts, not not casting
Speaker:this across all big accounts, some some of the really big accounts are still
Speaker:great. But a lot of them have kind of lost their
Speaker:authenticity, just as a result of being big. And as
Speaker:a result of the fact that they've got a lot of like
Speaker:It's necessary for them to create
Speaker:content for their paying brands on a regular basis.
Speaker:And the more brands they get, the more content they've got to create for those brands. So
Speaker:therefore, almost every piece of content is
Speaker:a paid promotion of some sort of brand
Speaker:or product. um which to
Speaker:the general audience can be a bit grating because you because eventually
Speaker:these guys are running out of opportunities to naturally
Speaker:create this kind of content that's authentic so they've got to fake it
Speaker:or they've got to find a way of producing it or
Speaker:they get you know they get burnt out and they're just like right we just need to find a
Speaker:day to film this who's got a space where we can just literally put some
Speaker:put some of our clients products in the shot, do some
Speaker:sort of quick install or whatever, and
Speaker:that ticks the box for that brand. And we'll put it
Speaker:on our socials, that way we can get paid. Whereas
Speaker:the micro-influencer, most of the time, isn't going to have that
Speaker:issue because they're still, for the most part, a full-time tradesperson.
Speaker:They're still on the trade, they're still on the tools all the time. They ain't got time to do
Speaker:that, first of all. but also because
Speaker:they're perhaps only working with two, like three brands like yourself, sometimes
Speaker:more, sometimes less, their feed isn't filled with
Speaker:paid sponsorship content that
Speaker:is being made just for the money. And that
Speaker:way I think their audiences are more engaged, they trust that
Speaker:particular account a lot more. And
Speaker:as a result, for the brand's perspective, Whenever
Speaker:you promote a particular product, your audience is
Speaker:of the understanding that he must really like this product because he doesn't
Speaker:work with a lot of brands. He's not just picking up brand
Speaker:deals left, right and center. He's obviously really keen
Speaker:on this particular brand. So that's massive
Speaker:for the brands to be able to for
Speaker:the audiences of their ambassadors to be really engaged
Speaker:with their opinion. So that's
Speaker:a huge benefit of having smaller accounts
Speaker:who represent your brand. And
Speaker:as a result, of course, if you've got a pot of money for
Speaker:content creators, having, in
Speaker:my opinion, six liams is better
Speaker:than having one mega liam or
Speaker:You get more bang for your buck but
Speaker:you also get people that believe in the
Speaker:product, in the brand. And it's more loyal. Like
Speaker:I say, I've done, I switch it up all the time. You
Speaker:know, there are pay promotions on there. That's because
Speaker:there has to be, because I'm in contract with three,
Speaker:so of course they expect a return. So
Speaker:I have to label that as that. There are some personal bits on there, which
Speaker:is the relatable side. There's also this stuff on there where I don't
Speaker:tag anyone. Because I
Speaker:did one recently where I just did an install of an
Speaker:outside tap. I didn't tag anyone in it, I just wanted it just to
Speaker:be about me doing the work and with a bit of music in the background. Back
Speaker:to basics, it's not about tagging absolutely everybody in
Speaker:it. You can visibly see what products I'm using. So
Speaker:use some Fisher stuff in there, but you can see it. It's just nice
Speaker:sometimes just to have that post where you're not trying to tag
Speaker:every single company you need to in it, if
Speaker:Yeah, either the ones that you're working with or the ones you want to work with. But
Speaker:again, I think that's quite nice because although it's
Speaker:great to see the post where it's just art,
Speaker:it's just creativity, it's just content, it's just construction. At
Speaker:the same time as well, you're not losing your, you know, if you always
Speaker:tagged the things that you love working with because you just want to support them as a
Speaker:brand, which is great, and all of a sudden you stop and
Speaker:only tag the people who would pay you, or there is some sort
Speaker:of an exchange, then
Speaker:that just seems weird and again inauthentic. Whereas
Speaker:if you're like, you know, mate, I've been using this same spanner forever,
Speaker:you know, and no one's getting any benefit from, you know, you're
Speaker:not benefiting from saying this span is amazing. We've
Speaker:been using these since I was an apprentice, never put a foot
Speaker:wrong. Again, it's more authentic. You're
Speaker:Please pay me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not everything needs to be
Speaker:tagged. Not everything needs to have a paid promotion
Speaker:to it as well. You can just create content just because
Speaker:it's cool content to make or it's made different. It's fun to make. It's
Speaker:quite enjoyable for me because I was able to just film it and go, everyone can
Speaker:see what I'm using. So I left the camera, I left my phone in the same place
Speaker:so you can visibly see what I'm doing. But it's kind of nice just to sort of see the
Speaker:transition from nothing that was there to then something that's working
Speaker:for the customer. You can see what
Speaker:brands, what products I'm using from those brands. but
Speaker:you don't need to always shout and rave about it because
Speaker:people can visibly see it. It's just
Speaker:nice to create something, a little video, a bit of music, someone
Speaker:I think social media and content creation for
Speaker:the construction industry works massively because I came to the conclusion about
Speaker:this probably about a year ago after having loads of conversations with
Speaker:people who work in construction, how creative they
Speaker:are. And it's not something the
Speaker:general public would often think about a
Speaker:builder, is the fact that they're really, really creative. Because you think of
Speaker:fancy art students, you know, and you think of hipsters and
Speaker:stuff like that you know. But the construction industry
Speaker:is incredibly creative because you know most of the time you are
Speaker:problem solving, creating things from scratch, you
Speaker:care if things look good most of the time. So
Speaker:all of those sort of elements make up creativity.
Speaker:And so, social media, from that point of view, just the act of
Speaker:making something and being pleased with it at the end is
Speaker:It's kind of natural to kind of all tradesmen, I think, anyway, that
Speaker:if you're a tradesman and you're on socials, your content, I think, is naturally
Speaker:creative anyway. Because, like I say,
Speaker:you have to be creative in your job. You have to get over problems, come
Speaker:up with different solutions. If you're a builder, for example, someone
Speaker:asks you to you know help design an extension how's it going to look well
Speaker:you've got to be the one not necessarily but an architect would do that etc but
Speaker:there's a builder you can go oh we can do this we can do this we can do this as
Speaker:you know it's all going through your brain so if you can do that um
Speaker:then you must be able to create videos of some description you
Speaker:know so it's naturally it's naturally going to fall into place yeah i think i
Speaker:for construction, people in construction to have
Speaker:another element of creativity other than what they're getting paid for, which is
Speaker:amazing. When it comes to brand, let's call
Speaker:them brand deals, okay, so you're working with a particular brand,
Speaker:they've approached you, you've approached them, however, you
Speaker:know, influencers and micro-influencers are
Speaker:going about it, typically what's you
Speaker:know what's the exchange um and you don't have to be specific
Speaker:to yeah for your own for the brands that you work with but
Speaker:what do you hear about and what you know and even your own experiences of like you know what's
Speaker:the the kind of we expect this amount of videos please make
Speaker:I think my
Speaker:circumstances could vary from one to another, definitely.
Speaker:I think everyone's more sort of personalized, tailored to you.
Speaker:I think it's based on your following. potentially,
Speaker:I don't should ever assume, I'm only guessing, I think it's probably based on
Speaker:your following. It's definitely a factor. Yeah, it's got to
Speaker:There's some incredible creators out there, you
Speaker:know, and people in construction and social media,
Speaker:I think, God, I'd love to work with you, but you have not got the following for me to be
Speaker:able to go to any of our brands and go, we need to pay this guy, or we need to
Speaker:give them stuff. Yeah. Which is, I
Speaker:I think, I definitely think the following is
Speaker:a factor. You're quite right in saying. I think they
Speaker:look at you is to go see how kind
Speaker:of authentic you are in the personal
Speaker:sort of side. Definitely for me, more so, I,
Speaker:like I say, the why me thing, and
Speaker:I know the guys from Fisher and Dudley have said it, and I'm pretty certain it's the same with Sabina, for
Speaker:example, but you look at, you
Speaker:look at the person, who they are, and actually, as you
Speaker:Really? I was like, he's actually like this. It's actually incredibly
Speaker:nice. But you, you know, I think if you, but
Speaker:Yeah, but if we go back to the
Speaker:exchange sort of argument, so the following
Speaker:makes a difference, but typically what do you see the
Speaker:exchange being between brands and creators?
Speaker:From what I hear, it's probably like, can you do this, can you do a certain amount
Speaker:of posts, a certain amount of stories, reels, whatever it
Speaker:is, that kind of thing, depending on the platform, of course. Maybe,
Speaker:I suppose, if you do stuff on YouTube, if you work with a
Speaker:sponsor on YouTube, you've probably got to mention that sponsor, I
Speaker:don't know. every video. I'm only assuming
Speaker:maybe every video for probably 30 seconds to a minute
Speaker:at some point in the video. I don't know, it could be more stringent than
Speaker:A lot of times they'll have their own rules and their own sort
Speaker:of specific guidelines and then you'll get the creators who
Speaker:It's kind of like a bit of clash. But then Yeah,
Speaker:I don't know. I think definitely the following is a
Speaker:big factor. I think once you've kind of
Speaker:got past that and you've obviously shown
Speaker:interest in the company, then they're going to start looking at who
Speaker:you are as a person, what sort of content you
Speaker:produce. I suppose if it's different from someone else's
Speaker:they've currently got on board, I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know really, lots of, there's so many different factors to it. It's weird because I
Speaker:don't, I know of lots, I know I'm very good mates with
Speaker:a lot of people in socials, on socials. but
Speaker:I don't know why, like the contracts, everyone, I can
Speaker:understand why everyone, the contracts people have, they keep them close to
Speaker:their chest. It's like, I can't, as
Speaker:you know, I can't talk about my contract, my contract specifically.
Speaker:I can only say from what I hear of
Speaker:others, which is, I think it
Speaker:just varies on many different things. I think naturally, I think, you
Speaker:know, I think companies' demands could be slightly different to
Speaker:what the content creator or influencers' demands are. You're
Speaker:naturally going to have a bit of backwards and forwards, maybe, about, oh, let's just chop
Speaker:and change this. It can vary. I
Speaker:But then what does the creator get from it,
Speaker:typically? I imagine it's a mix of monetary products.
Speaker:Yeah, so monetary products. your
Speaker:monetary products, you'll get the, say
Speaker:for example, when you do like a collaboration type thing,
Speaker:if you, you don't have to collaborate with that brand on every
Speaker:single post or reel you
Speaker:do, but when you do wanna collaborate
Speaker:with them, nine times out of 10, they'll review it
Speaker:and it'll get put on the feed as well. So you
Speaker:get a bit of clout from that. A bit of clout from that. And
Speaker:I think just being associated with the company as well, I think it's an honour. Whatever
Speaker:company you work with, it's an honour to work with that company. Because
Speaker:companies don't have to work with anyone. They
Speaker:choose to. If you're not on social media now, you
Speaker:need to be. That's where all brands and all companies are now is on socials.
Speaker:Yeah. I will say you are the anomaly of being like the least money grabbing
Speaker:influencer. I think I know. And I
Speaker:I don't care at all. So yeah, like
Speaker:at the moment, like, I'm actively being encouraged to
Speaker:put invoices in. you know, but I
Speaker:need to be self-employed in order to
Speaker:do that. Again,
Speaker:Do you think some of that's got to do with the fact that
Speaker:Yeah, partly, but also it's not a
Speaker:It wasn't a job, although would you be happy if it did become
Speaker:Yeah, you never rule it out. I'm not saying my content is
Speaker:better than other people's out there. There's people out there that produce, I
Speaker:look at something like, wow, that's cool. And
Speaker:then you talk to them and they go. No, no, no, it's not, it's not great. Your videos
Speaker:are sick, unreal. For me,
Speaker:yeah, money's like, I'm happy just, for
Speaker:me, it was all about making friends, gaining experiences. So
Speaker:I'm sitting here, that's a pinch me moment. I'm filming with
Speaker:Fisher, again, another pinch me moment. How cool is that? You
Speaker:get to meet people from Desdun, you know what I mean, who is quite famous. Yeah,
Speaker:people from Desdun, I get to go and do other things, you know, I get to
Speaker:work at three companies, What
Speaker:more does a man need? Ten grand. Ten grand a
Speaker:month. I just like
Speaker:filming the videos. I like putting the posts out there. I like
Speaker:meeting up with my friends. I've met on socials. I like meeting new people that
Speaker:I've met this year at a few of the shows. They're
Speaker:my reasons. They're the reasons why I got into it, not
Speaker:It's very nice. What I'm trying to get to is, especially for
Speaker:the brands who are listening, what can you be expected
Speaker:to be, if a content creator is saying, hey, I'm
Speaker:absolutely okay to deliver, X amount of pieces
Speaker:of content per month, that might be one reel, a couple of story posts, perhaps
Speaker:a collaboration, perhaps I'll come and film with your team
Speaker:like Dissident or something like that on a
Speaker:particular basis. What can the
Speaker:brands be expected to deliver? as an exchange
Speaker:of all of that content and stuff like that. I imagine for the most part you come across
Speaker:it's some sort of retained contract, so
Speaker:it's like a monthly fee every particular month,
Speaker:so you're essentially, a bit like how an agency works, we
Speaker:get a monthly reoccurring fee. for,
Speaker:you know, for the work that we produce. I imagine,
Speaker:would it be right in saying that especially smaller accounts early
Speaker:on, some of those guys might just be happy with like
Speaker:Yeah, products is always the first one. So upon some people, I
Speaker:was just happy with the products. Especially new launches, sexy new products.
Speaker:Yeah, first to get that kind of thing. They're cool. I
Speaker:think most people are just happy with the product. Okay,
Speaker:yeah, some people will want the money as well as
Speaker:the product, so there is that. I
Speaker:think some people, if you attend shows, for example, not only
Speaker:will they expect money for, you know,
Speaker:the retainer you're talking about, yeah, they want product every quarter
Speaker:as well, for example, every half year, whatever it is. They'll also, if
Speaker:you go to a show, they'll also want to, hopefully, want to be
Speaker:on your stand at said show, helping to promote your
Speaker:It's massive, especially this year after the installer show of
Speaker:2024, the amount of people I know, I knew in the industry that
Speaker:were wearing a particular brand's t-shirt and stuff like that. Back
Speaker:in the day, maybe you, I mean, we were still getting like celebrities coming and
Speaker:doing like, you know, almost like essentially ribbon cutting events and stuff for
Speaker:the show, but that three or four years ago that was
Speaker:No it's not it wasn't it wasn't then as what it is now. It's cool
Speaker:to see though. Yeah it's cool everyone everyone that works a stand or
Speaker:has been or is an ambassador and has
Speaker:been asked to be on the stand, has earned that right to
Speaker:be there because they put the work in with said company. And
Speaker:then leading up to shows, you'll always promote the brand
Speaker:or the company, et cetera, that you're working with at said show. And then when you're on that
Speaker:stand, the company or the brand expects you
Speaker:to work your backside off from open
Speaker:Yeah. And what's, I mean, there's definitely less
Speaker:of an expectation for you compared to what
Speaker:you actually deliver, I think. I think you over deliver a lot on a
Speaker:But the thing is... It's almost a bit embarrassing how hard you work compared to the most of
Speaker:The thing is you've been invited onto the stand to be there
Speaker:for the day. I don't believe you should be there just sort
Speaker:of perusing. Just a pretty face. Just a pretty face. You have
Speaker:to get involved with the customer. Because at the end of the day, these are
Speaker:fellow tradesmen, tradeswomen, that come up to the stand
Speaker:and are seeing your videos and your content and going, are
Speaker:these the ones that you're using? So you've then got to stand there and go, yes,
Speaker:this is the stuff I'm using. Let me show you how it works. So I visibly,
Speaker:I physically draw people into the stand and I go,
Speaker:let me show you how it works. So you can see it in real life.
Speaker:And that's, for me, it's part of working the stand.
Speaker:It's part of wearing that t-shirt, that hoodie, whatever it is. Okay,
Speaker:you're not an employee of the company. But
Speaker:I do represent you represent the company, but I believe you have
Speaker:to be an employee of that company. I believe you have to treat that company as though
Speaker:So what I find interesting as well, about the dynamic
Speaker:of having people like yourself on a like a Fisher standard, Thomas Dudley
Speaker:standard, or whatever, is not always a lot of
Speaker:the time, but not always the sales representatives that
Speaker:are on those shows that are typically working for quite big accounts. Now,
Speaker:away from the show, these guys are working with your local builders, merchants, and
Speaker:stuff. So they have a lot of industry knowledge. But not
Speaker:all of them have been on the trade. So they've been given a sales presentation
Speaker:on a particular product, especially they haven't been in the trade for a while.
Speaker:So when a new product comes out, they'll be given a
Speaker:sales presentation, probably some demos. They'll probably get a little bit
Speaker:of time to have a play with the product. And that probably
Speaker:continues throughout the life cycle
Speaker:of that particular product until they become incredibly familiar
Speaker:with it. However, they're not the first people to
Speaker:get the product. You'll get a product way ahead of launch and
Speaker:get time to play with it. so that when people come to
Speaker:the show, you've got like two, three, four months of experience, sometimes
Speaker:six months of experience with this particular product that you can say I've been on, I've
Speaker:actually been working with this product. I know exactly how it works, when
Speaker:it works, when it doesn't, what's best for this particular thing.
Speaker:I think that's really cool about having people like yourself on
Speaker:the shows. is you are the actual trade representative
Speaker:of that particular brand as opposed to just the sales guys who perhaps haven't been
Speaker:in the, either have never been in the trade or haven't been in the trade for a very
Speaker:Companies like now to have, okay, so there
Speaker:are more and more reps coming through now that
Speaker:have been on the tools or have had some
Speaker:experience on the tools. Okay, you know,
Speaker:we come in as tradesmen, we deliver the sort of the tradey side of things.
Speaker:Yeah, we showcase it
Speaker:in our own kind of way. Whereas
Speaker:the guys, the reps, etc, for example, when
Speaker:you need them for that little bit of backup support, you might get like a real technical question
Speaker:you don't know the answer to, for example. Load tables and stuff like
Speaker:that. We're not technical guys. So, when you need
Speaker:that technical information, you've got the reps there behind you that have the
Speaker:technical answers and they are literally standing right next to you and they can help you out with
Speaker:that. So, you might not be there selling the product, but
Speaker:when someone asks you that awkward question of whatever
Speaker:it is, how much does this um
Speaker:Well yeah could you know I was I was putting in this particular radiator the
Speaker:day which is um 20 kilos do you reckon I could get away with that into straight
Speaker:into plasterboard you know that at that point you can go I've done
Speaker:that it's probably not recommended but I've done it
Speaker:I've done it yeah um and then you can call upon the reps
Speaker:Technically, these are the loads it
Speaker:can take, this is what we're working with, blah, blah, blah. So they can give you all the technical information that
Speaker:I might not necessarily know everything to. Because let's not forget, we
Speaker:use the product, but we're using it without thinking about
Speaker:the technical information sometimes. You
Speaker:use the product, you know it's tried, trusted, et cetera, but you forget the
Speaker:maximum load yeah that's pretty much it isn't it and then also
Speaker:with the caveat of not speaking for the brands at this point
Speaker:you know it'll hold more yeah yeah yeah wholeheartedly
Speaker:i mean there are some guys in the industry so like in the heating sector
Speaker:who um know the
Speaker:ins and outs of some of like heating products, you know, boilers, components,
Speaker:et cetera. They know everything. It's so
Speaker:geeky. I don't know if geeky is the right word. They
Speaker:know everything. I look up to those guys. You're heating engineers,
Speaker:et cetera, and you're doing socials as well, and you know every single
Speaker:number for this. You know absolutely everything. And
Speaker:that stuff's real in depth. You know, the stuff I work with, okay,
Speaker:it's technical, but it's not as technical as other
Speaker:sectors. You
Speaker:know, I think the three I work with, they're technical items, technical
Speaker:products and brands, but they're not as technical as some of the others, so I
Speaker:don't need to know every single in-depth thing.
Speaker:But you've got experience using them, which is huge
Speaker:for the show, so a big value add for working with them.
Speaker:ambassadors, excuse me, ambassadors. So,
Speaker:you know, massive value add for working with ambassadors is, you
Speaker:know, obviously the content that you guys create, and you're kind of putting out
Speaker:to your sort of call to audiences, but also the benefit
Speaker:of having you at things like shows, if that's available to
Speaker:be able to relate the products to the actual trade.
Speaker:And you know, they know that you're still working as a plumber so
Speaker:they'll say, well what's best for this? What's the best product for this? And
Speaker:they'll know that you'll have a bit more industry
Speaker:So I think that's definitely massive for for
Speaker:working especially with micro-influences. Are there any other advances
Speaker:that you can think of working with accounts
Speaker:that have got a more cult following, perhaps smaller numbers as opposed
Speaker:You'll always find, so with me for example, from
Speaker:personal experience, my cult following If
Speaker:they see me use it, if they see me using a
Speaker:Fisher, you know, a Fisher fix of any description, a Thomas Studley product or a
Speaker:Stabila level, or what you'll find is
Speaker:your cult following all of a sudden start to use those
Speaker:products and they start to tag those products and
Speaker:companies, which is amazing, it's what you want to see. What's the purpose of
Speaker:influencers basically, isn't it? From a brand's perspective. Which you
Speaker:forget, you go, I'm having an influence on these
Speaker:people. To buy a product. To buy a product or to believe in a product, and
Speaker:that makes me an influencer. that, yeah,
Speaker:it's surreal seeing that because I was at that
Speaker:point once where I was watching other people who I still look up
Speaker:to now, and there's so many people in the industry I look up to and I
Speaker:go, wow, your stuff is incredible, your work is amazing. And
Speaker:I still get influenced, I'm influenced by
Speaker:them, and yet I do my own thing and I influence others. How,
Speaker:again, pinch me moment, I don't know how, you know, why, why me?
Speaker:That's one benefit of having that cult following is they will
Speaker:follow you through absolutely everything and they will believe in everything that
Speaker:you're doing because they know it's genuine, they know it's authentic. When
Speaker:And they trust you because you've proven yourself to
Speaker:be trustworthy for a long period of time by not selling out to
Speaker:I'll always, you know, I'll always remain loyal
Speaker:to those that support me and the three that
Speaker:I work with have always supported me, they've always believed in me. So
Speaker:my cult following is naturally going to go, you know, we're going to follow Liam, we're going
Speaker:to believe in Liam, we're going to, you know, stay loyal to him because he's, you
Speaker:And also, like, I guess your audience knows
Speaker:that you where you, you know,
Speaker:any brand that you work with isn't someone that's just come out of the woodwork and
Speaker:you go, what the hell's this? And they go, we're going to give you
Speaker:some money to use this product. I imagine you're going to go, probably no. Like, maybe
Speaker:send me the product, I'll try it. But it's not just like, I've never
Speaker:I got offered an opportunity once to be
Speaker:part of a team that advertised or sold an
Speaker:app for software for a tradesman. Like a
Speaker:tradeify type thing or those kinds of things. Similar type of thing to that.
Speaker:And I instantly went, I said no,
Speaker:because I work for a company, so I'm employed by
Speaker:Immediately inauthentic if you're doing like a self-employed tradesman
Speaker:Yeah, your integrity goes right downhill there. So
Speaker:that one I turned down because it's not
Speaker:relevant to me. There was another one with
Speaker:like a shoe company, like a boot company. Never
Speaker:heard of them before. And I
Speaker:thought, okay, well, I work with
Speaker:these three. My content, I don't really
Speaker:do work where based content. It's not my thing.
Speaker:And if I'm passionate about it,
Speaker:which I am with the three things I've got, then
Speaker:I find it hard to go, right, let's put some more focus and passion into
Speaker:something else. Something I'm not, I don't
Speaker:normally produce content on. So that
Speaker:one, I said, look, thank you, but I can't. I
Speaker:can't do you guys justice. And
Speaker:stay authentic. It's not
Speaker:fair on you, because you're gonna be sending stuff
Speaker:out to me, paying me, whatever you're gonna do, and I'm
Speaker:in it for the wrong reasons. So that one, they went, do you know what, fair enough,
Speaker:thank you for your honesty. I said, it's not a problem, but I hope you find someone
Speaker:that can do it for you. There's a couple of others
Speaker:on there that I go, Look, I just, I'm happy
Speaker:producing the content that I've got. I like to have
Speaker:a balance between work, socials, and again, having
Speaker:Being employed as well, you've got to crack on. It is limited, and
Speaker:I want to produce the best quality content I can for the
Speaker:companies that I work with. And I don't want
Speaker:to drag other companies along for the sake
Speaker:of a paycheck or product. That's not fair. That's
Speaker:not fair. They're taking their time out to message me. Great. I'm grateful
Speaker:for it, but it's not. I'm not going
Speaker:to sit and take the rise out of the company just
Speaker:On that theory though, out of interest, what boots do you
Speaker:use? Scruffs. If scruffs got in touch with you, would that be a different
Speaker:No. Even though I wear
Speaker:their boots, and I might occasionally, very, very rarely tag them
Speaker:in stuff, other people out there that work
Speaker:actively with Scruff, for example, more so than me, that's
Speaker:their thing, they're doing that. When
Speaker:Well, they're so cheap, aren't they, Scruffs? I love them, comfy. It's
Speaker:a different conversation in general, but I can't believe
Speaker:how cheap work wear is. There are
Speaker:some premium brands out there, but the guys who are wearing Scruffs day
Speaker:in, day out for like two years straight, and they bought them for 30 quid, and
Speaker:I just don't get it. I've got pairs of jeans that, I've got trainers that
Speaker:don't last six months that are 120 quid. You know what I mean? I keep
Speaker:buying them because I love them. And then you've got these tradies that
Speaker:are like, basically, they're never out of them. They barely
Speaker:wash them. They keep performing, and they were 40 quid for a
Speaker:It's insane. I know it's off topic, but mine are the same, in
Speaker:the sense that I love them, and they were 40 quid about two, no, about
Speaker:Still got them now. You won't find better value for
Speaker:I guarantee you. Yeah, definitely. But it's, you know, that
Speaker:for me, it's like going back to the thing of like, would I work with
Speaker:them? I mean, some other people are doing their thing. Just
Speaker:not for you. Yeah, workwear for me is a tricky one.
Speaker:You're not super passionate about what boots you wear or
Speaker:Not really. The thing is, I wear a
Speaker:workwear top, a company top. So it's, I
Speaker:can't advertise workwear when I wear a company t-shirt or
Speaker:jacket, et cetera. Okay, bottom half, we wear what we want. but
Speaker:I wear what's most comfortable, and like I say, trying to endorse it, et
Speaker:cetera. Other people are doing it, and they're doing a better job than me. They're
Speaker:So. that
Speaker:is a brand that you do wear and you wear on the reg, it's
Speaker:still got to fit the right criteria for it to be something that's
Speaker:Yeah, wholeheartedly. And like I say, if someone else is already creating content on
Speaker:it, and I think they're doing a much better job than
Speaker:me, then... What's the point? Again,
Speaker:I'm not rushing to grab
Speaker:sort of a paycheck and product for the
Speaker:sake of trying to grab something for free. You know,
Speaker:I work with Fisher for the obvious reasons, I work with Stabilo for the obvious reasons. They
Speaker:believe in me. Same with Thomas Dudley, you believe in me, that
Speaker:to me is what I'm about. Again, maybe I've
Speaker:got a completely different attitude to other people and everyone else might
Speaker:be, or some people might be going, oh, I want the money, I want the product. That's
Speaker:fine. If that's what-............................................................................................................................................................. companies
Speaker:have all had to start from somewhere. You know, everyone's
Speaker:had to start with nothing and work up to the top. So why, so
Speaker:why am I going to start taking the rise out of a company or
Speaker:I think, I think it's got to come down to that thing of
Speaker:like, am I going to do a good job? is my heart
Speaker:in it. And if you can't really, if you're
Speaker:in your head trying to picture the type of content that you'd make authentically about
Speaker:a pair of work trousers, And
Speaker:it doesn't feel right at the time, then it's having
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, exactly. For whatever reason. Yeah, and that's exactly my thought
Speaker:process. They're doing a much better job than me. I
Speaker:don't know if I can do as good a job as that. Maybe it's
Speaker:me not having any self-belief in my ability, potentially, but...
Speaker:I have respect for the guys and girls that are doing
Speaker:stuff with that company, so I'm not going to start treading on
Speaker:other people's toes. They've put
Speaker:It's an interesting thing. On that basis, do you see other creators making
Speaker:mistakes with, you know, when working with brands and what are
Speaker:the most common ones that you see of those, you know, these kind of inauthenticity and
Speaker:stuff like that. You don't have to name them obviously but,
Speaker:you know, what are the things that you see that go great on you or great on the community?
Speaker:I'm trying to
Speaker:think now, it's been a long day. I
Speaker:Are there certain things that you wouldn't do
Speaker:Do you know what? I've
Speaker:always been told this. I've been told this by two very good friends of mine, Pablo and
Speaker:Mark Tiff. Good guys. Very good guys. You
Speaker:Yeah, so I stick to my own path. Maybe
Speaker:that's why I work with the three companies that I do. They chose to
Speaker:work with me. I stick to my
Speaker:own path. I don't go get involved in other people's lanes. Go
Speaker:back to the workwear thing, like if someone else is already doing it, I'll
Speaker:leave it to it. I stick to my own thing. You
Speaker:hear bits and pieces, of course you
Speaker:do, but you go, do you know what, I continue doing my
Speaker:own thing. Do you know what I worry about the most is I worry that Am
Speaker:I doing a good enough job for the three companies that I work with? So rather
Speaker:than me focus my energy on other people, I focus my energy on me and
Speaker:go, is the content I'm putting out for Fisher still
Speaker:good? Is it still what Fisher are looking for? Is
Speaker:the latest product from Thomas Dudley, can
Speaker:I promote it in the way that they would want it to be promoted? I'm
Speaker:always worried about these little things, so rather than focus my energy on what
Speaker:other people might do and what you might hear, I just focus on
Speaker:my own, not my own lane, but I just focus on what I'm
Speaker:doing and I make sure that my loyal following
Speaker:go, you know, Liam's doing this, he's not
Speaker:getting involved, he's doing his own thing, let's just, and
Speaker:Yeah, it does make sense. I can tell you're completely skirting the question
Speaker:To throw shade on what other people are doing. I'll throw some shade though, because
Speaker:I don't care. I think there are
Speaker:definitely things that you
Speaker:come across, you hear about, or you see in social media when
Speaker:it comes to brands and influencers and that whole kind of exchange.
Speaker:The things that instantly Break
Speaker:authenticity is the consistent switching
Speaker:from brands of essentially the same thing. So
Speaker:when you see a person who really rates a particular brand
Speaker:because they like the quality, they like their customer service, they like the
Speaker:fact that they're made in the UK, whatever it is. Or they have all these sort of
Speaker:benefits to a particular brand that initially they'll be like, these
Speaker:are my guys. and then the week after, as
Speaker:soon as that brand deals over for whatever reason, they're switching
Speaker:over to the rival brand and you know well
Speaker:behind the scenes it's because they paid them more or whatever, that's the
Speaker:thing that will break authenticity straight away and that leads to
Speaker:this kind of like a bad taste in the audience's mouth,
Speaker:you know what I mean? Because essentially what's
Speaker:an influencer's, from a brand's perspective, what's an influencer's
Speaker:job is a person who is building brand awareness and
Speaker:potentially leading to sales for a particular product or brand. So
Speaker:if their audience all of a sudden doesn't really believe anything they say,
Speaker:they don't there's
Speaker:no truth in the brands that they endorse because you can
Speaker:tell they're just switching from one thing to the next. That's
Speaker:going to leave a sour taste in the audience and therefore it's not going to do its
Speaker:job of selling a particular product or marketing a
Speaker:particular product. So you see that more often with
Speaker:the bigger bigger influences, the bigger the bigger accounts.
Speaker:And that's something that really puts brands off 100%. And
Speaker:it puts the puts the audience off massively. So if you have this, again,
Speaker:we keep coming back to the word authenticity, some sort of brand loyalty. And
Speaker:you're not sort of like, essentially, just bending
Speaker:over for the next brand that waves some cash in
Speaker:front of you, that's going to lead a long way to brands
Speaker:taking notice, good brands taking notice. And
Speaker:if those brands align with your values and what you do and
Speaker:you actually genuinely like the product, then that's
Speaker:a really, really good thing. And also, there's another
Speaker:type of content which is really interesting that actually doesn't involve
Speaker:you having to know the brand a great deal or
Speaker:have used them in the past, and that's reviews. Have you
Speaker:ever done anything like that, where you've reviewed a particular product and it's
Speaker:Not from a brand perspective, but just like a view of it.
Speaker:I've done maybe a couple of bits. I wouldn't say
Speaker:review type stuff. I mean, if
Speaker:I was going to do a review on something, I wouldn't do a review based on
Speaker:something I've had for five minutes. You guys
Speaker:have had it for a little while. That would be more like an initial impression. Yeah, I've
Speaker:done stuff on initial impressions, definitely. I don't really
Speaker:do the review thing. Some people
Speaker:are better at doing the reviews than others, and
Speaker:I'm definitely someone that's not good at doing the reviews. I
Speaker:think doing reviews, for example, I think you have to always remain unbiased.
Speaker:You have to be able to say the good and the bad points. For
Speaker:me, I just look for good in everything. That's my
Speaker:I'm actually saying that maybe in the opposite way. I genuinely
Speaker:think if I was an influencer, if I was of
Speaker:that mind, I would be the worst kind
Speaker:of influencer. I'd be the most money-grabbing, turncoat-ish
Speaker:influencer everywhere. The opposite to me. I
Speaker:can find fault in almost everything. I'm
Speaker:quite cynical. But also, if someone was paying me, I would
Speaker:find a lot of good about a particular product, I reckon. I would be
Speaker:completely biased. it's
Speaker:good that I'm not in that industry 100% but actually I can, it
Speaker:helps, things like that definitely help me as a marketer and
Speaker:as a creative to find the best things in a particular product and highlight
Speaker:Maybe that's where I'm getting that from. Yeah you're
Speaker:not going to look for the negatives are you, you're always going to look for the positives and to be fair
Speaker:like the The positives, I always
Speaker:try and look for everything good. It's very rare that you'll find anything
Speaker:bad in a product. You
Speaker:know, me and Pablo spoke about this before, there are certain things
Speaker:you can get off certain online retailers that are not good. That's
Speaker:a guess I've given. We've said this before, but
Speaker:then we try and look for good in absolutely everything. So
Speaker:everything's got a purpose. Yeah, my excuse at the time was, well,
Speaker:you know, budget comes into it. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker:that's the good thing. You've got to look at it. There's something there for everybody. Yeah, game
Speaker:reviews, I think some people are better off doing them than me.
Speaker:It's not my... it's not my niche.
Speaker:Who's a good reviewer these days? Can you name anybody? Pablo used
Speaker:to be a good one when he used to do them. He used to do a 90 second review
Speaker:and that review, they went down a treat. Pablo
Speaker:Plumkabot by the way to check out on Instagram. He
Speaker:Mark Tiff does the odd review, but I think mainly for his, again, Mark
Speaker:Tiff, someone's probably worth mentioning as a really good advocate
Speaker:Yeah, Mark's a good one. Yeah, he's done reviews
Speaker:Yeah, typically for Mark's brands, but then there's
Speaker:a few, I'm trying to remember names. There's a few others that I
Speaker:see on Instagram that I follow that do do the reviews. Luke's
Speaker:a good one, a guy called Luke the Plumber, he's a good one for reviews. Is he a
Speaker:relation to you? Is he your brother? He's just
Speaker:a close friend. He does reviews. Macaulay
Speaker:from Smartpipe, he does reviews. These guys might get sent a
Speaker:product from a company and they'll do a review on it. And
Speaker:it's always a fair review. It's always a fair review. Yeah,
Speaker:not affiliated with them. They do some good reviews. That's
Speaker:The reason why I ask this is we did a shoot recently with our
Speaker:mutual friend Carl Shantz, who's a
Speaker:carpenter, so he's ticking a couple of boxes there. A handsome guy.
Speaker:More tattoos than me. More tattoos, yeah.
Speaker:So we had a thing come in for a
Speaker:boot brand, like a high-end boot brand. I won't name, I don't know why,
Speaker:I'm not I don't think it's an issue to name them, they're all over our socials
Speaker:but for some reason I'm not going to. So
Speaker:we had this kind of commission to do some UGC, some
Speaker:high production UGC content which we sort of talked about a little bit earlier on in the podcast and
Speaker:it was to promote this particular boot and this
Speaker:particular piece of content was purely for paid
Speaker:activation on social media so this was going to be an ad. This isn't
Speaker:going to be an organic piece of content. Or if it is, it's going to be a
Speaker:different version of what we were creating. So the
Speaker:rules were strict on this piece of content. It was an influencer
Speaker:talking about a particular product and
Speaker:raving about how good it is, ticking off a
Speaker:few key points. It had to be a very short video. It had to be really well produced. It
Speaker:had to look incredible. It had to have that dissident look about it. So
Speaker:there's a couple of moral issues with creating pieces
Speaker:of content like this that we have to try and navigate, which
Speaker:is it's a brand new product. No one's used it. How are you going to
Speaker:review something that doesn't exist yet, as far as I'm
Speaker:concerned, in the marketplace? How
Speaker:do we say the right things without being misleading
Speaker:about the fact that we don't really have a great deal
Speaker:of experience with this product? And
Speaker:there was a few sort of moral issues that I was like, I'm not quite sure about this. Let
Speaker:me go back to the client. Because I didn't feel particularly comfortable
Speaker:about lying. I didn't feel comfortable about coercing
Speaker:an influencer to lie. with the promise of
Speaker:cash. Now, I don't think I would have done that anyway, but I wanted
Speaker:to get this out of the way before we even had that conversation. And
Speaker:it all came down to that amazing word, authenticity. So
Speaker:we came back to the client and we said, how
Speaker:quickly can you get this product to our guy? Because
Speaker:we desperately need him to actually have used the product on
Speaker:site for a period of time, at the very least to give his first impressions.
Speaker:The second thing was, does this need to be scripted? Because
Speaker:we don't feel super, super confident having Carl
Speaker:read off a script saying things that perhaps he doesn't
Speaker:believe. And also, can we be authentic about
Speaker:the amount of time and can we have a little bit more freedom about
Speaker:what we can say about this product based on Carl's specific
Speaker:experience? And it was a yes to all of these
Speaker:things. So that was great. cool,
Speaker:we can work with you. So that was
Speaker:how we navigated this kind of thing of review a product that
Speaker:you've not really had much use with to give
Speaker:your first impressions about a product that you've had a limited amount of
Speaker:use with and only talk about the things that you
Speaker:have physically experienced. Naturally, we
Speaker:didn't talk about any of the bad stuff. Carl didn't mention any bad stuff.
Speaker:You can find, again, you can find bad in everything. You could, well, I'd like at least one
Speaker:You know, there's always going to be something that you can change about a particular product. He
Speaker:didn't have a bad word to say about it, which was nice. It helped. But
Speaker:also, we were able to be really authentic about the
Speaker:fact that I've had these boots for a little bit of time now. This
Speaker:has been my genuine experience. I went for walks with the dogs. Like,
Speaker:I was, you know, sort of ankle deep in a huge puddle,
Speaker:and everything was fine. and how cool
Speaker:do they look. And you can spout out a load of key
Speaker:features and benefits, which is, you're not
Speaker:saying this is what I like about it, it's like it's got this, it's got this particular
Speaker:thing. So that's like facts. It's
Speaker:an interesting kind of way of getting into the market as an influencer, and I'm just saying
Speaker:that for the benefit of the brands that might be
Speaker:listening. Um, when it comes to these kinds of things, authenticity
Speaker:again is key. And I think if you can kind of like broach that
Speaker:with the, you know, if you're doing, if you wanted to get a load of content right
Speaker:at the start of a launch, when you've, you know, the brands barely had the product in
Speaker:their hands, let alone anybody from the general public be
Speaker:authentic about that. and tell the truth for
Speaker:a particularly long time. I'm going to keep it, I'm keeping these boots. I might
Speaker:I think that's authentic right? 100% authenticity is
Speaker:key and yeah
Speaker:it's one of my one of my core values is staying authentic,
Speaker:not just to me, but to the brands that I work with. I believe
Speaker:that's how I've been brought up as well. You just be, you know.
Speaker:Yeah, morals, yeah, it is. You know, not
Speaker:lying, I'm taking the mic. You know, you do things the right
Speaker:way. Everyone wants different things in life, everyone
Speaker:wants to go about doing things in a different way. So that's, yeah,
Speaker:We're going to have to close this off. It's been a really good talk with
Speaker:you. Is that all your questions? No, I've got about 24 more, but I'm
Speaker:just aware of how long we've been in here for. And
Speaker:you've got to get back down to East Sussex, is it? West Sussex, even
Speaker:worse. West. But
Speaker:no, we got that far, roughly
Speaker:We've got all these ones. But a lot of these were sort of like caveats
Speaker:that were not that necessary. So these were like personal
Speaker:branding and growth questions. Like, if we had time, we might do a little bit of this and
Speaker:stuff like that. I want to finish
Speaker:off with maybe two questions. So if you had,
Speaker:advice, if you could give any advice to smaller
Speaker:accounts looking to work with medium
Speaker:to big brands. What would you do personally if you were back
Speaker:I would show my support for that brand, show your
Speaker:passion, enthusiasm and love for the product. If
Speaker:you like it, of course. Don't go faking
Speaker:it. Actually like what they've got to offer. Have some experience
Speaker:naturally. Have some experience, yeah. Get to
Speaker:know the people within that company or brand,
Speaker:i.e. get to know the person that runs the social media account. You
Speaker:know, try and sort of use the product in a real
Speaker:world scenario. Don't set it up as such in like
Speaker:a studio. I know we're in a studio here, but as a micro-influencer or
Speaker:someone just starting out, use it out in the real world. Showcase
Speaker:it. That's how I started. And that's how
Speaker:I'm in the position I'm in now. And also, remain
Speaker:true to yourself. Just be you. You don't need
Speaker:to change. You
Speaker:don't need to change who you are for the sake of putting your face or
Speaker:your voice to a camera. Just keep
Speaker:it as you. Don't go trying to be someone different.
Speaker:There's no need to be. There's no need to be. That's
Speaker:why when I think a lot of people meet me, they go, oh, you're actually as nice
Speaker:as you actually are in real life. It's true, it's
Speaker:true. I don't change. That's my advice.
Speaker:Can we flip that on its head and what advice would you give to brands looking
Speaker:Everyone has their own style of content, so
Speaker:look at what content is best going to
Speaker:help you as a brand push forward. As
Speaker:opposed to trying to change that. Yeah, don't as
Speaker:a brand, don't try not to ask people to change their
Speaker:style of content. Yes, okay,
Speaker:going forward, you might be able to dictate when you want content and that kind of
Speaker:thing, the amount of content, etc. But don't
Speaker:try to change someone's style. And manipulate the
Speaker:outcome. Yes. And When
Speaker:you look at someone to start with and
Speaker:you wonder if they're any good, remember, never judge a book
Speaker:by its cover. So, okay, you might see
Speaker:an influencer, for example, that's you
Speaker:know, is, you know, does lots of videos, they might not have
Speaker:any pictures, for example, they're all about the videos. They
Speaker:might want to do the pictures, but they might not have experience
Speaker:or confidence in doing that. Yet maybe if you were to work with them,
Speaker:and you go, we just want you to take some pictures of it, we're not fast on
Speaker:where the pictures are taken, not fussed on how the pictures look. We
Speaker:just want pictures that you could bring someone out of their comfort zone.
Speaker:You could give someone that little bit of self-belief. It's- It
Speaker:doesn't grow with the influence. Yeah, help. Yeah, you grow with them
Speaker:and they'll grow with you. And I think Remember
Speaker:that influencers will always
Speaker:look to try and compete with, not compete with others, but
Speaker:look to try and go, I'm gonna use this trending audio, I'm gonna use
Speaker:this trend of video. Remember when they
Speaker:do that, accept that, okay,
Speaker:you might be hearing that song about 300 times in one day, but
Speaker:remember they're doing it to not just remain relevant,
Speaker:but also to help their content grow. In turn, your product is featuring
Speaker:in that content as well. But this
Speaker:goes back to the influencer. Don't be afraid of not using trending
Speaker:audio and trending styles of content. Again,
Speaker:remain true to yourself. Vary it up. I vary it up.
Speaker:Again, that's how I'm in the position I'm in now. Every video doesn't
Speaker:have trending audio to it. You might see one or two here and there, but
Speaker:it's authentic. It's me. I'm not trying
Speaker:to keep up with the Joneses, as the saying goes. I'm
Speaker:Do you know what? I think sometimes that's one of the worst things you can do is try and
Speaker:keep up with the Joneses. I
Speaker:mean, you'll probably see this just as much as brands, but brands definitely see
Speaker:it because you look through the DMs or
Speaker:the tags on, let's say, Instagram, and
Speaker:you think, Jesus, every single one of these looks the same. Like, they
Speaker:just go into this sea of sameness and
Speaker:monotony from all these different accounts, and it's just, like,
Speaker:not interesting at all. And then every now and again an account
Speaker:will come out of the woodwork that really grabs your attention. It might be their visuals, it
Speaker:might be their approach, it might be their uniqueness.
Speaker:Whatever it is that makes you stop and sort of like take
Speaker:a second look and go, that's interesting. And I'll bring
Speaker:it back to a couple of guys that we've worked with in the past. I mean, name
Speaker:dropping, mainly Fisher guys at this stage. Dave
Speaker:White, DW Plumby, very, very unique
Speaker:approach to content. The Admiral, yeah, yeah. Very much, I
Speaker:mean, you'd explain here, it's like sort of like sort
Speaker:of abstract comedy almost, isn't it? It's very funny.
Speaker:Most of the time it's not even putting the product
Speaker:in a particularly good light, but it's brilliant. So who cares? He's
Speaker:so funny and authentic and such a genuine nice guy and self-deprecating,
Speaker:really, really interesting, really stands out, really appeals to...
Speaker:our client Fisher, or us, and then Fisher, as
Speaker:being unique. But then also, you can be, you can not have a hook. You
Speaker:know, Dave's got a hook, he's funny. He does these little skits and
Speaker:little, almost like improvs that
Speaker:are really, really funny, and collaborates with other people and stuff. We've
Speaker:got people like yourself, really authentic, and genuinely
Speaker:enthusiastic about a particular product or a particular job or whatever, and
Speaker:that's really cool. You've got people like, Mark
Speaker:Tiff that we mentioned earlier who he's
Speaker:really appealing to me
Speaker:as a representative of a construction brand because
Speaker:he looks like the most authentic genuine We've
Speaker:said authentic so many times, I have to
Speaker:get a little counter on YouTube. Because
Speaker:he works with quite a few brands, he runs
Speaker:a podcast for a brand. And
Speaker:he's got his own socials, he's got a
Speaker:YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. Is he
Speaker:on TikTok? I think he has got TikTok, but
Speaker:I don't think he uses it. He's too old. He's too old for TikTok. No,
Speaker:I don't know. I'm not sure he knows how to use it. He's
Speaker:a good mate of mine, he's a very, very close mate of mine, very, very close mate. We don't
Speaker:consider ourselves mates, we consider ourselves brothers, we're that close. But
Speaker:The reason why I like him is because he looks like,
Speaker:there's something about the way he approaches content
Speaker:that doesn't feel salesy, that doesn't feel inauthentic, even
Speaker:though he does work with a lot of brands, he's still very much a
Speaker:plumber. When I look
Speaker:at him and his work and stuff, I think, I trust him. If
Speaker:he's using a product, I know it's good. Because
Speaker:he's just so trustworthy. And I think it's all down to the
Speaker:fact that he still is a jobbing plumber. He's
Speaker:not a full-time social media guy. But
Speaker:he's really very much just himself. in
Speaker:the stuff that he does. And again, it all comes down to that kind of authenticity. But
Speaker:yeah, he's somebody who's really appealing to me as someone who represents a
Speaker:brand because if I'm looking for the antidote of
Speaker:the influencer that's jumping from brand
Speaker:to brand, doing kind of fake shoots, being
Speaker:silly and jumping on trends, I look at Mark Tiff and I go, that's the complete opposite. I
Speaker:want some of that. It's really refreshing to me. They're
Speaker:guys that are really good to look out for. some
Speaker:good takeaways for influencers to get in with brands. Some
Speaker:good takeaways from brands to get in with influencers. I
Speaker:mean the landscape of construction marketing that
Speaker:I'm sort of seeing for 2024 and leading into
Speaker:2025 is the micro-influencer. It's the year of.
Speaker:You're seeing this trend and I see so many brands
Speaker:approaching us purely for the fact that we've got a
Speaker:good network of accounts that we work with.
Speaker:And I think it's the
Speaker:day of the huge accounts is gone.
Speaker:It's going, I think. I think it's all about these smaller accounts with
Speaker:cult followings and people that they trust. And loyal followings. And
Speaker:yeah, loyal followings and less
Speaker:money grabby, less sellouty, you know
Speaker:what I mean? And I think audiences are crying out for
Speaker:that and therefore the brands are trying to jump on that. So eventually that'll go
Speaker:because then they'll have so many brands that they'll work with but if they're like yourself and
Speaker:are picky, I think that's a
Speaker:more sustainable way of doing things. So I think
Speaker:my recommendation would be for brands
Speaker:in construction, especially in manufacturing, is consider working
Speaker:with accounts. Consider having a team that can manage
Speaker:those accounts. You don't have to necessarily go to an influencer agency. We're
Speaker:not an influencer agency. We don't get anything from working with influencers.
Speaker:We don't get a commission every time we book a brand deal. I
Speaker:do know some guys that do that and they do good work. It's
Speaker:been really insightful to
Speaker:hear about your story as an influencer and your approach.
Speaker:I'd be really interested to speak to somebody who's less nice, more
Speaker:financially focused, and it'd be nice to
Speaker:hear their spin on it. I'm
Speaker:going to ask you two more questions before you go. Is there
Speaker:What do you think? I don't think so. I think it
Speaker:kind of covered most things. I just say it
Speaker:from my perspective in the sense that yes,
Speaker:I work with the three I work with. I work with them three because I've
Speaker:worked hard. working
Speaker:with those three or get into that point of working those three without even knowing
Speaker:I was doing it, if that makes sense. I
Speaker:wouldn't take it, I'll never take it for granted. I'll
Speaker:always remain loyal. And
Speaker:like I say, I Yeah, if you're looking
Speaker:to work with a company, then I think you go about it
Speaker:the right way. There is a right and a wrong way of
Speaker:doing it. I never approached the three
Speaker:I work with. I just did things just
Speaker:like a natural progression and that's landed me where I am.
Speaker:Other than that, I think that's
Speaker:pretty much it. You can get anything out of life, as long as you put your mind
Speaker:to it, as long as you work for it, no one's ever going to hand it
Speaker:to you. If
Speaker:you want it that bad and you want the money
Speaker:out of it, then that's fine. Everyone has
Speaker:their own different reasons for wanting to do things. If that's
Speaker:what you wanna do, crack on. Mine was just
Speaker:simply about the... make some friends, quite
Speaker:a lot to be fair, meet new people that
Speaker:I've often aspired to on socials, see
Speaker:different parts of the country. I haven't gone across the world yet to
Speaker:go and do stuff. I mean, we'll get there one day, but
Speaker:you never know. I've gone and done this, this, and
Speaker:this, which are once in a lifetime opportunities. I get to do some cool stuff like
Speaker:today that we've done with Fisher. I
Speaker:get to see some new products, what more? That's
Speaker:it for me. That's it. Everyone's got their own goal, their
Speaker:own motivation. I always believe that if you stick to
Speaker:your own lane and your own goal, you'll
Speaker:Last question. If you could add one more brand to that
Speaker:list of three, who would you like that to be? It
Speaker:Who do I do stuff with? Oh,
Speaker:do you know what? There's so many brands I do, not
Speaker:work with, but so many tall brands, for example, I do stuff with at
Speaker:Do you know what? Like your spanners and your screwdrivers and all that
Speaker:I've always wanted to work with Wera. Yeah,
Speaker:probably Wera. I mean, I
Speaker:do like some of the NERAD
Speaker:stuff. I used to know the marketing manager for
Speaker:Yeah, NERAD. Something
Speaker:like that. But yeah, again, I
Speaker:never expected to work with anyone. So
Speaker:having to work with three as a bonus, I wouldn't want
Speaker:You're so full of shit, Liam. Just
Speaker:Come on. Jesus Christ. A cool brand. Probably,
Speaker:Unilite are cool,
Speaker:yeah. And I can see your train of thought here. These are the brands
Speaker:that you know that you can shoot content with on a regular basis. Every day of the week.
Speaker:Yeah, that's my thought process. Every day of the
Speaker:week, that would kind of be where I'm at. Again, my
Speaker:van, for example, is racked out with Bot Smart Van. You
Speaker:could say that as well. It'd be pretty cool. Yeah, it'd be pretty cool, something different. things
Speaker:happen for a reason, don't they? So if there's something coming about, there may
Speaker:be, but. But one of them. One of them, one of them.
Speaker:But I love the three that I've got, and
Speaker:Might be Wera. Wera
Speaker:are halfway there. It's a dissident, I would say. So
Speaker:they've got their German, because they're very typical of the kind of clients that we work with,
Speaker:German brand, that are trying
Speaker:to make cool content in Germany, but it
Speaker:doesn't translate well. It probably works really well in the German market and
Speaker:perhaps some other kind of Europe markets, but in the UK we've
Speaker:got a certain aesthetic, a certain visual, a certain... sense
Speaker:of humor, whatever. It just doesn't
Speaker:translate from a lot of German marketing. So
Speaker:what they try and make is like gritty, dark
Speaker:content just looks like a little bit more towards naff over
Speaker:here. And that's the kind of thing that I'm like, well, it's
Speaker:like halfway there. It's nearly cool. But
Speaker:what it needs is dissident. I think. It needs dissonance
Speaker:because they're so aligned with our aesthetic. It
Speaker:just needs us to take it to
Speaker:the next step. And that's very typical of, you know, like even we
Speaker:work with a lot of clients where they can get
Speaker:all their marketing material from head office in Germany where they spend millions of pounds on
Speaker:all this stuff but it doesn't work over here so we might as well start from scratch, do
Speaker:it properly. There'll be certain things like white
Speaker:background, cut out images that we're not bothered about making. We do do that,
Speaker:but I'd rather make the sexy stuff. Wera would
Speaker:be the one for me. I could do crazy stuff
Speaker:with Wera products. Yeah, they'd be the
Speaker:one. Wera, I've asked. They're not interested
Speaker:at all. I keep pestering the marketing manager,
Speaker:he's not interested. But I'll keep saying it
Speaker:until they get interested. Where, please? Keep
Speaker:pushing. Just send me and Liam some products and we'll see what we can do, maybe. We'll
Speaker:do something. Thanks, mate. Should we do a little dab? Ready?
Speaker:Yes, that was neat. Thank you so much
Speaker:for being on the podcast. I hope that was vaguely insightful
Speaker:for brands and other influencers and other creatives. Thank you
Speaker:very much. Thank you. We'd like to get you on here again with perhaps
Speaker:I'm trying to think who. Pabst. We'll get Pabst on. Yeah, Pabst will say
Speaker:it as it is. He would just say it as it is. And even Mark, to be fair as well.
Speaker:To be fair. To me, the nicey-nicey one. We'll do it. Anyway, thank
