MJTiff: Mark's Journey from Sole Trader to Plumbing Influencer & The Power Of Authenticity
In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mark, the owner of MJ Tiff Plumbing and Heating, who shared his remarkable journey from being a sole trader for over two decades to becoming a prominent influencer in the plumbing and heating industry. Mark discussed the challenges he faced during his transition to self-employment, including personal hardships and the initial struggles of building his brand through social media. He delved into his experiences with platforms like Instagram and YouTube, highlighting the importance of consistency, authenticity, and strategic content creation in growing his audience and monetizing his efforts. We explored the nuances of influencer marketing within the construction sector, the significance of genuine engagement over vanity metrics, and the evolving perception of tradespeople in society. Mark's insights into the construction community and the value of maintaining authentic relationships with brands, provided a refreshing perspective on the intersection of trade and digital marketing.
MJTiff's Socials
https://www.youtube.com/@MJTiffPlumbing
https://www.instagram.com/mjtiff_plumbingandheating
Dissident Links
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 Builder. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, welcome to the podcast, Mark. Before we get into today's
Speaker:sort of topics of like marketing and kind of your experience within
Speaker:working with brands and stuff like, can you tell us a bit about who you are
Speaker:So I'm Mark, owner of MJ Tiff Plumbing and
Speaker:Heating, just a sole trader, heating company that I've had,
Speaker:plumbing and heating company that I've had for, what must it be now?
Speaker:20, 20,
Speaker:Yeah, and that at that point then you can apply to be monetized and
Speaker:you'll begin earning a little bit. But to get to that point
Speaker:is a tough slog. You have to... You have to
Speaker:You have to hit certain, the algorithm, everyone
Speaker:says about the algorithms on YouTube, it's its
Speaker:own entity. But yeah, in essence, I got into YouTube then.
Speaker:But yeah, the last three years, getting into content
Speaker:creating, getting into the social media side, we
Speaker:started with Instagram. And it's sort of built from there, really.
Speaker:And what got you, what triggered the, I
Speaker:imagine you already had like personal social accounts and stuff, but what triggered the
Speaker:sort of the thought process? Or was it more of a gradual thing of
Speaker:just like, I'm going to start posting plumbing-related content
Speaker:So I have my personal private Instagram account I've
Speaker:had for 15 years or whatever it is. How long has Instagram been going?
Speaker:Because I was quite late to get in a personal
Speaker:one. I want to say 2011. Okay, yeah, so it's probably 2015-16
Speaker:I got onto Instagram, on my
Speaker:personal thing, family, kids, etc. And
Speaker:I was always sort of putting little bits of content, not
Speaker:content at the point, it was just pictures of jobs I was in, sending a
Speaker:bathroom for Mrs. Smith down the road, I put it on there. And
Speaker:that would, locally, because you always follow people, friends,
Speaker:family, you don't sort of follow people on a private one
Speaker:nationwide, worldwide. So I was getting a little bit of work from that.
Speaker:And then I'm one of these people that if I'm going to do something, I
Speaker:massively invest time into learning how to do that the
Speaker:best I can before I begin doing it. You got to nerd out.
Speaker:Yeah, properly nerd out, get as much stats, everything as
Speaker:I can get in, because I don't want to go in half-hearted. Some
Speaker:people, they like to learn along the way, I like to do
Speaker:it. So always being a massive car guy, I watched loads of car content
Speaker:on YouTube and that was, I enjoyed watching that. And
Speaker:then when I sort of thought, it's probably six months before I started YouTube, I'm
Speaker:thinking in my head, I could do a YouTube channel
Speaker:that's engaging as much as a car content is. Because
Speaker:at the time, there was YouTube plumbing content. But it was very,
Speaker:this is a 2769R valve that
Speaker:goes on there. Factual, massively factual. And
Speaker:there were four or five people doing it. And it was good. There was good
Speaker:content. And you'd always refer back to it. But I just thought I
Speaker:could bring something a little different. Because you don't want to always copy
Speaker:what everyone else is doing. So
Speaker:I was watching car content, and just the progression of
Speaker:a little bit of an intro, you know, a 60 second, 90 second
Speaker:intro, then a sort of a, how
Speaker:we call it, you know, when you get your logo
Speaker:come on, that, and then into the actual storytelling.
Speaker:And I thought I could bring that, plumbing wise, onto a
Speaker:YouTube channel. So I looked and had a bit of
Speaker:a play around with it and, and, and watched pod, listen to
Speaker:podcasts, watch stuff on YouTube about YouTube channels, listen
Speaker:to podcasts that people I followed had done about their journey into
Speaker:it. And that was massively good at taking in the information. So
Speaker:at this point I've gone, right, I know where I need to be at. I know your
Speaker:thumbnails are key. I know your titles are key. I know people
Speaker:say tags aren't key. But I always
Speaker:put tags in my videos. Some people go, we
Speaker:don't even bother. Even big creators in various other things. not
Speaker:worth it. All I, all I think is for five minutes putting those
Speaker:attacks in. YouTube have given you that box for a
Speaker:reason. Yeah, why not use it? So you use it. So I sort of bought
Speaker:that into it and I, what I bought in was a little teaser trailer at
Speaker:the start and I don't think anyone at the time was doing it, where it's a
Speaker:quick cut of about 30, 40
Speaker:seconds of what was going to be in that video and it would always end
Speaker:with something like going, oh shit, and fade to
Speaker:black. and so that 30
Speaker:seconds is key in any sort of content format, I think. The hook. The hook. So
Speaker:I brought that in and again played around with all
Speaker:my titles apart from probably 10 videos have
Speaker:got the red, I call it, I think the font is Capture.
Speaker:It's a Capture font, it's like a stamp, like
Speaker:an urban sort of thing, you know, you've got a certain font
Speaker:to that, it's like a stamp one. with the red outline
Speaker:and I read somewhere that that's like, uh, it draws
Speaker:people in having that. So I've always stuck with that. A
Speaker:lot of people change the colors up and whatnot. Stuck with that. Um, and
Speaker:then just started to put the content out and it began getting a
Speaker:little bit of track. Your mates will watch you or you'll watch it six
Speaker:times. So you've got six views just to make yourself feel better. And I
Speaker:read somewhere, I think it's on average, it took 12 to
Speaker:18 months for something like 95%
Speaker:of channels to become monetized. So that's a long slog when
Speaker:you're not earning anything back from it. But I was enjoying it.
Speaker:I liked the editing process. I think it took me 50 days to
Speaker:get monetized. So I hit them numbers in the first 50 days by
Speaker:doing your research, by going in the
Speaker:ground running. So then two or
Speaker:three months in, I was earning 40, 50
Speaker:quid a month or so. And I was like, hang on a minute, this is, I can
Speaker:pay that or I can pay that. And at the time I just bought a brand new
Speaker:van. And in my head, I thought, I leased the van. And
Speaker:the van was 240 quid a month to lease this van. And I thought, if
Speaker:ever I could get my channel to pay for my van, I've made
Speaker:it. I've got a free van then. And that was the
Speaker:sort of the driving force behind it. And it didn't take long to hit them figures,
Speaker:as people will know if they've done it. Consistency, every
Speaker:Wednesday, every Sunday, 6pm, 6pm. I
Speaker:think in the first two years, I missed one day
Speaker:of that content. And it just becomes synonymous
Speaker:with me, with the consistency. And those other plumbers out
Speaker:there at the time, you know, Pete, PB Plumber, he was putting a
Speaker:lot of content out. Then Pete, he'd drop off for a couple of months and
Speaker:then come back on. Because he was already established, so he
Speaker:already had these companies he was working with. So it was sort of in
Speaker:and out for him. Whereas I liked the,
Speaker:the, the putting them together and getting them out. And I quite liked the deadline
Speaker:date. You must get it with stuff that you do. I've got a, I
Speaker:remember going one day on a, cause I'd film
Speaker:it, edit it and get it out within two days. I remember a
Speaker:Wednesday morning, I've gone, shit, I've got no, I've got
Speaker:no Wednesday night content. And I'm like, I
Speaker:need to do something. Bearing in mind, I've got to do the work, do my
Speaker:job, because probably eating's my job, do my job, film
Speaker:it, get the job done without rushing the job, then edit
Speaker:this. It was quite early, though, so the edit was quite raw. Then
Speaker:upload it, because I do everything at the time just on my phone, filmed
Speaker:it on my phone, edited on my phone, and then get it
Speaker:out for this Wednesday night. Now, you know, or people
Speaker:listening and watching might not know, you begin uploading a
Speaker:video, it might take half an hour, an hour to upload 15
Speaker:minutes. But then after it's uploaded, it's then
Speaker:got to render and process. Do the HD version. Do the HD version.
Speaker:Then it might come back, you can't monetize this content or
Speaker:there's a copyright infringement on it because the painters have
Speaker:had the Radio 2 on in the background or something like that. So
Speaker:it was, it was then, he was up against it
Speaker:and I quite enjoyed that. So it began that whole
Speaker:thing of, keeping up with the consistency and with
Speaker:it being consistent, the numbers were going up, the money
Speaker:was earning was going up. And at
Speaker:that point I went, right, I need to pull out, just going back
Speaker:to the Instagram, I need to pull out of my personal Instagram and
Speaker:go at this with everything. Set my own company
Speaker:Instagram up to go with the YouTube channel that's now gaining traction and
Speaker:work it in tandem. And then At the time, TikTok was
Speaker:a thing and I didn't want to get into the whole TikTok thing. I still don't like
Speaker:it as a platform. And the same as
Speaker:Facebook. I don't like it as a platform, but speaking
Speaker:to various people, Facebook is the big one for the money now. There's
Speaker:big money in Facebook, yeah. I'm not massively
Speaker:in it for the money. um and you
Speaker:can't be in it for the money you need to to enjoy what you're doing but
Speaker:there does come that tipping point where you're going hang on i'm earning some
Speaker:good money with this but you've also got to do your day
Speaker:job because someone could flip that social media switch tomorrow yes
Speaker:everything goes off and i've still got to put an eating business you
Speaker:get shadow banned you don't know why yeah yeah we have this with brands
Speaker:People can, I don't condone this, I'm not even sure if
Speaker:I want to talk about this, but there's some shady stuff that
Speaker:you can do as a competitor to another brand to
Speaker:affect their socials. For instance, buying
Speaker:followers, but for another brand. So you're still
Speaker:loading the other brand with followers. Yeah, which gets them shadow banned, especially
Speaker:if you use a really unreputable company. We
Speaker:don't recommend ever doing this anyway. Don't
Speaker:ever buy followers. It's just a
Speaker:vanity metric. But yeah, there
Speaker:are ways that you can essentially affect another brand
Speaker:and their algorithm. Because Facebook and Instagram and stuff, they don't know
Speaker:that you've not bought those. They just see it as a red flag. They just
Speaker:have the money anyway. Exactly. So it's, yeah, there's loads
Speaker:of mad stuff that you can do, but obviously lots
Speaker:of terrible things that can happen to your social accounts. We had that recently
Speaker:where your account gets hacked. Yeah. Have you had your account
Speaker:hacked? We had a brand hacked. Yeah. We've had
Speaker:our stuff hacked as well. And
Speaker:it's not like really, you know, with hindsight you go,
Speaker:A lot of the time, you don't even know how it happened. It's usually user
Speaker:error. It's very rarely some clever stuff going on. It's just you just
Speaker:Well, I was at the Tool Rally a couple of months
Speaker:ago now. And Tom, he's got a
Speaker:gardening business. And he turned up at the Tool
Speaker:Theft Rally. And he'd
Speaker:had the worst weekend ever. His social media had been hacked. Now, Tom's got
Speaker:a massive 10,000 followers. But
Speaker:that's why he does a lot of his work and puts a lot of his content out
Speaker:on it. And a lot of companies know him for that. And
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's proper followers. Now, he had been
Speaker:hacked on the Friday, I think. And he said these hackers were coming to
Speaker:him saying, we want 10 grand to get your thing back. And
Speaker:he even said to me, at one point, I even thought about paying it because
Speaker:they can lose that account and what he earns through sponsorship and
Speaker:whatnot generates more than that. He
Speaker:said, so at one point I was like, should I just pay them that to get my
Speaker:account back? Because they give it back because those
Speaker:accounts now are becoming commodities, aren't they?
Speaker:Long story short, he got his account back and he said that Instagram had said to
Speaker:him, get a blue tick because it's double security
Speaker:on it. Now, I've always, I'm guilty for
Speaker:saying to people, oh, you're a blue tick ranker, what you got that for? Never
Speaker:wanted a blue tick. If there's a way of having a blue
Speaker:tick and getting the security, but not showing
Speaker:the blue tick, I'd have had it. After speaking with Tom that
Speaker:day, on that Monday, I went home that night, I think it's 12 quid a month, Got
Speaker:it. Yeah. And I've had people go, well, are you paying for that? I went, it's
Speaker:not that. Yeah. I used to think it was that, but actually
Speaker:speaking to someone that's Instagram has said, get that tick because
Speaker:it's a two phase security. Yes. I went home, got it. And
Speaker:you've just got that reassurance now that if something happens, Instagram
Speaker:have got you back. Cause I think you have to upload your, either your passport or
Speaker:Okay same yeah so yeah I've come away from that I've gone yeah I've
Speaker:now I'm now blue tick ranker. For us as content creators is
Speaker:it's it's like a it's like a portfolio
Speaker:to other companies they check you on them you
Speaker:know luckily I've got the YouTube side and that as well and But
Speaker:yeah, it is, it is something that people will go for
Speaker:because they know, like what I was saying with Tom, he was at one point thinking,
Speaker:should I just give him the money because it's worth more to me in the long run than starting
Speaker:It's almost like tool theft, but in the fact that with
Speaker:tool theft, and obviously that's a big hot topic at the moment, with tool theft, at
Speaker:the very least, you can buy some more tools. It's a
Speaker:horrible thing to think about. You can't buy 10,000 followers
Speaker:overnight. Some people can. Some people can, yeah, not genuine. So
Speaker:if your main source of income is content creation, ideally
Speaker:you'd probably be on the tools, you have like a side hustle or
Speaker:an actual trade. But if your main source
Speaker:of income is producing content to your big follower
Speaker:base that you've worked on for 10 years, 5 years or whatever, and then
Speaker:that gets pulled away, the brands aren't going to keep paying you. Not
Speaker:Well this is the whole thing with, I mean I know it's a massive sort of
Speaker:hot topic again with the whole boiling of followers now. We
Speaker:all know there's accounts out there with you'd
Speaker:sort of throwing yourself under the bus a little bit with what I'm about
Speaker:to say. Um, there's accounts out there with
Speaker:big high numbers, but
Speaker:it's probably not 90%. I think I put, when I was coming down
Speaker:here earlier, I said, I put an Instagram readout saying, um, who's going to
Speaker:touch on this. So say, let's say for instance, you've got 500,000 followers and 60% of those
Speaker:are bot accounts, fake followers. but
Speaker:a company sees your 500,000 followers, as
Speaker:that's your reach. Well, it's not. If that company needs to look at who
Speaker:the followers are, because you're either going to have authentic followers
Speaker:from the construction industry, or you're going to have random accounts with
Speaker:one comment, one post, and x amount more of followers
Speaker:that they've got, because they just bought accounts. But a company doesn't
Speaker:see that sometimes. They just see the big figure. They think if we throw
Speaker:money at that creator, or we give that creator
Speaker:a contract and deal, then he's going to get, or she's going
Speaker:You've got to do due diligence. What was
Speaker:it? Due diligence. Yeah, I really struggle
Speaker:with that. I literally came off a call earlier where I tried to say this,
Speaker:and so I was having a call with Emma who we
Speaker:both know and we were talking about this and the fact that there
Speaker:will still be brands out there with perhaps they haven't
Speaker:got a marketing team or the marketing team aren't that savvy when it comes to social media
Speaker:so they'll just see a big number and they'll say throw money at that person whereas
Speaker:someone in the know an agency or whoever we're not an
Speaker:influencer agency but we know enough to be able to when we're working with brands when
Speaker:we're selecting people to work with we can spot some
Speaker:red flags, i.e. huge following, really small engagement,
Speaker:or really low views, or spikes in
Speaker:views on a particular post. We think that's 100% been
Speaker:boosted or something like that. And we can see that with brands as well. Um,
Speaker:so yeah, but there will still be brands out there that aren't educated
Speaker:And that's where it's like, I often go through mine
Speaker:from now and again, and there's also a way you can do it now. I think
Speaker:if you click on followers, it tells you how many, uh,
Speaker:But I wouldn't want, I would rather lose, you know, two, three, 4000
Speaker:followers that aren't real followers. Because
Speaker:then when a company comes to me, I can say, I can put that content out
Speaker:and it will organically reach the market that
Speaker:you want it to. It's not going to reach these accounts that
Speaker:are in the middle of Antarctic or bloody middle of the desert or wherever, that
Speaker:are just bought accounts. Um, you know, companies,
Speaker:and that's why when a company comes to me to work with me or want to
Speaker:work with me, I'll say these are the actual viewer retention numbers.
Speaker:YouTube, again, I've got, you know, 55, I think it's
Speaker:55, 60%
Speaker:viewer retention on my videos as a whole, as an average, whereas
Speaker:they say over 30% is really good on long form. So
Speaker:mine's quite high, Which goes to show, I've got,
Speaker:I think I've got coming up for 40,000 subscribers on YouTube, but
Speaker:all of those subscribers watch the content. I'd rather
Speaker:have that than 140,000 and my view rate
Speaker:be 10%. Because if you're doing your due
Speaker:diligence, if you're doing
Speaker:that, I can go. with, with a
Speaker:rate card and a screen grab of exactly what I can give
Speaker:that company. Whereas a lot of people, if they know their
Speaker:stuff, they'll look and go, Oh yeah, you've got all these numbers, but you're only getting 10%,
Speaker:No, and I think brands, either marketing teams
Speaker:or brands or agencies, are smart enough now
Speaker:as well. You'd think most of them are. The guys that
Speaker:we hang out with are, where they're reading into
Speaker:a lot of the other metrics as
Speaker:well. They're looking at how engaged the audience is, not just
Speaker:with numbers, but actual like, if they're just seeing emojis and stuff like
Speaker:that, okay, fair enough, that's cool. But you know, a lot of, what
Speaker:we look for is like cult followers. These are
Speaker:guys who are really invested in that particular individual and
Speaker:they really care about what they have to say. And also if that marries
Speaker:up with the fact that this person's super authentic and is
Speaker:actually quite picky, even better. That's perfect. The
Speaker:best people to influence me in
Speaker:my own gear buying journey are
Speaker:these guys that are like, no nonsense, kind of like, you
Speaker:can just tell straight away. They're not just like reviewing
Speaker:things and saying good things about products for the money. Or
Speaker:they'll be super genuine. Or they'll be like, I didn't even review that because it's
Speaker:garbage, and I don't want to say anything bad about it. This, however, is incredible. And
Speaker:I've been using it for x amount of time. No one's paying me to say it, whatever. Um,
Speaker:you know, you really got to like do a bit of research into that
Speaker:I get it. I get, um, probably four or five emails
Speaker:a week from random accounts. Um,
Speaker:and now, and again, you'll get something that I'll look at and I'll go, for instance,
Speaker:I had it the other week. um, a laser level. Now
Speaker:I work with a, I didn't work with them. I got
Speaker:given a laser level from a company years ago when I first got into it
Speaker:and just had that off them. And they said, could you promote that
Speaker:in a video? And I had it and promoted it. So anyway, these new
Speaker:ones come along now. They, they wrote to me, you know,
Speaker:we're willing to give you an item in return. Could you do a video on
Speaker:it? And what I always say, it's like a generic thing now, I'll
Speaker:say to a company, right, first off, I appreciate you emailing me.
Speaker:Thanks a lot. Thanks for taking your time. Then I'll go, right,
Speaker:what I want from you is send me that product for
Speaker:a month or six weeks. Let me use it and let me keep
Speaker:it at the end of it. Let me use it and let me see if
Speaker:it works for how I work. I said, because
Speaker:it might be great or it might be rubbish. and
Speaker:then I'll send that to them. They usually come back with, that's
Speaker:great, we'll get it sent out to you, what we want in return is this much,
Speaker:and I reiterate to them, look, as per
Speaker:the first email, send it out to me, by all means send it out
Speaker:to me, and if I think it's any good, and then I'll put, because what
Speaker:you don't want is you sending that out to me, thinking that's
Speaker:the payment, me reviewing it and going, it's
Speaker:actually, it's crap because you don't want me to put that out.
Speaker:Whereas if you're sending it me and this is what you want, and I think it's crap, I'll
Speaker:say it, send it out to me. Let me use it. If I think it's crap, I'll
Speaker:say to you, look, it's not for me. Move on. I
Speaker:said, but if I do like it, then we'll have a conversation because
Speaker:now you, now my following's grown. I
Speaker:will now have a conversation that, yeah, okay, if I like
Speaker:it and I want to work with you, I'll have that product. But then also I've
Speaker:got to take time out to make content for that. It's now. there's
Speaker:a cost involved in it. And I get it, right? I get
Speaker:people that are new into the social media stuff and YouTube
Speaker:channels and all that. Cause I did it when I was first started.
Speaker:Company will send you something for free. You'll get it. That's
Speaker:your payment of having this free item. And you're all excited and
Speaker:it's great. And I, I did, I sat there and I've done it and I got, I
Speaker:can't remember what it might be in that laser level. Got it for free. Brilliant. I've
Speaker:got this, this laser level now for free. I'll put it on my
Speaker:video going how great it is. As your journey progresses
Speaker:through, you realize that what
Speaker:you're saying people are then being influenced.
Speaker:I've got no problem with the influencer word. I know a lot of people don't
Speaker:Because it's synonymous with like sort of
Speaker:lifestyle accounts who are like promoting supplements
Speaker:that is poison and stuff like that kind of thing
Speaker:I mean I've got no problem with it but they'll then send that
Speaker:out and you know if I'm going to influence someone into it I
Speaker:want a monetary, you know, I want to be paid for
Speaker:the time that I'm putting in to promote that product. But you get
Speaker:that as you go along, you know, you get your free stuff and then you
Speaker:realize you're worth a little bit, or you'll speak to other people within
Speaker:the, I spoke to, there's a, there's a spark in Nick Bundy who's, who's,
Speaker:he's very open and Nick's been great in helping me early, early
Speaker:doors. You know, what, what should I be charging for this? I
Speaker:think I spoke to him at one point and he went, are you,
Speaker:are you earning money off that as well? And I went, well, no, I've got that product
Speaker:for free. No, it's like a rite of passage until
Speaker:you get to that point. And then you go, how much should I be charging?
Speaker:And he goes, look at your views, look at your authentic views. You
Speaker:should be about, let's say fragments, 400 quid to
Speaker:do a standalone video on that. Then as your views and
Speaker:your numbers, authentic numbers begin to grow, then,
Speaker:okay, it might be 800 pound, might be a thousand pound
Speaker:because you know, as a norm, if
Speaker:I do a 10 minute video on a laser level for
Speaker:my YouTube channel, is not going to get the numbers
Speaker:of a normal day in the life of video. So
Speaker:if I'm not earning X amount from that video, they need to subsidize that.
Speaker:But also by doing that standalone video, it
Speaker:can be detrimental to your algorithms. So what I'll say to
Speaker:a company now is, I'll give you 90 seconds
Speaker:within my video, but it's that money, because
Speaker:that hits more. It's a better performing video. It's a better performing video
Speaker:than having a standalone video that companies seem
Speaker:to want. Oh, we want a 10 minute review video on
Speaker:Yeah, if you're a standout tool reviewer, brilliant, but I
Speaker:could integrate that into organically into using
Speaker:it because we know
Speaker:who watches what, we know how YouTube give you that much data
Speaker:and analytics to see when people are watching. If
Speaker:I do a little bit in my video and it's me chatting in the van for two minutes, right,
Speaker:we've just been to Dan's house, we're going to Bob's house next, two minutes in
Speaker:the van, The viewer retention drops off. You see people
Speaker:drop off. So you need to, so I then know
Speaker:I need to say where I'm going next within putting
Speaker:the trap back on the sink. Yeah. Right. We get this back on and
Speaker:then we're going to go to Bob's down the road because they won't click off that.
Speaker:Yeah. And all YouTube want is people to stay on that platform. Yes. As
Speaker:long as you can. Absolutely. And that's the trick. That's where creating the
Speaker:That's a really clever strategy, actually. It's like, don't try
Speaker:and make a thing its own thing. Try
Speaker:and incorporate into the valuable content that you usually make. And I think
Speaker:it's going to seem certainly more authentic then. But also that
Speaker:it's actually in use. And there'll be clever people
Speaker:like The only person that sprung to mind
Speaker:then was Peter McKinnon, who most people on YouTube
Speaker:will know as that kind of photographer video guy. Really good, if you haven't checked his
Speaker:stuff out, I haven't looked at any in years to be fair, but he
Speaker:makes incredible sort of filmmaker, photographer type content,
Speaker:and he was really early doors on it. and so
Speaker:he there'll be a some sort of promotion of a particular product
Speaker:he'll squeeze that into an incredibly valuable video
Speaker:that i imagine the video was mainly the whole purpose was
Speaker:to talk about this product yeah but he's somehow he's organically done it yeah
Speaker:he's squeezed it into something that is actually more relevant to him which is I've been
Speaker:trying this new thing, check this out, the blah, blah, blah, really
Speaker:cinematic video. And it's been massively helped by this thing. And let me
Speaker:just do a quick two minutes on this. And then it goes back into the video. And then it
Speaker:may be like I mentioned it again at the end. And it seems more seamless
Speaker:and still part of some really valuable content that its audience
Speaker:is showing up for on a regular basis. On that note, though, how
Speaker:do you Do you have a particular strategy for,
Speaker:so you've got essentially three accounts, your main ones are Instagram
Speaker:Instagram and YouTube are the main ones. I've got TikTok. I've always struggled
Speaker:with TikTok because for a long, long time, probably
Speaker:only in the last three or four months, I began to read and
Speaker:reply to comments. Because I found TikTok to be so
Speaker:negative. You could put anything on TikTok and
Speaker:you'll get hammered for it. You know, I could pick that cup up and drink it.
Speaker:Some people go, wow, what the bloody hell are you using your right hand for? Use your left hand. And
Speaker:I'm just like, it's such a negative platform,
Speaker:you don't need that mentally. So I used
Speaker:to put stuff on and just leave it, never used to even look at
Speaker:the replies. I always used to say TikTok
Speaker:is like nursery school and like first
Speaker:school. Instagram was like your secondary
Speaker:school, your sixth form, because people enjoy the content more.
Speaker:They'll go, I really like that. Well, that's really good. You do get
Speaker:a few little negative comments, but as a whole, Instagram was very
Speaker:positive and the plumbing community on Instagram and
Speaker:the construction industry in general on Instagram is
Speaker:brilliant. There's a couple of little accounts and you know, you
Speaker:might not like them, they might not like you or whatever. But as
Speaker:a whole, the construction industry on Instagram is
Speaker:amazing. Yeah, if you're not on it, and you're thinking
Speaker:of going on it and putting your work out there, just to showcase your
Speaker:work, do it. It's lovely to see all these guys
Speaker:having each other's backs. Oh massively, you know, the community. I know full
Speaker:well, I could go anywhere in the country, say I was up north in
Speaker:the country and my van broke down, I could put on my Instagram, I'm
Speaker:in Norfolk here, is anyone out,
Speaker:can anyone help me? And there would be someone, because the reach in the in
Speaker:the construction industry, it's just really good. And there's
Speaker:a lot of people got your back, whereas TikTok just seems to be throwaway
Speaker:content. Everybody's got an opinion, or they just sit
Speaker:there and hammer the keys. And I never used to,
Speaker:I engage a little bit more now, but it's a short form
Speaker:content, same as on Facebook Shorts. and
Speaker:YouTube shorts, people can just
Speaker:throw comments on there for fun and they can be horrible comments. Whereas
Speaker:you find a long form stuff on YouTube, the comments on
Speaker:my YouTube videos are 99%
Speaker:brilliant, you get the odd one. But sometimes when you engage with these
Speaker:comments on YouTube that are quite negative, within five
Speaker:or six they're like, all right, okay, I understand where you're coming from. Or
Speaker:I'll go, right, I get what you mean now. Because I
Speaker:think often you'll read a comment and you'll read
Speaker:it in a negative, you're always on the defensive, because
Speaker:you're so used to getting hammered, nine times out of ten it's, oh
Speaker:love that video, whatever, but you'll get one comment and maybe doesn't mean it in
Speaker:a detrimental way, but you'll read it that way, so
Speaker:But some people are a bit sort of like, And
Speaker:dyslexic is not the right term, but they'll
Speaker:struggle a little bit with like how they communicate on text and
Speaker:Because you could type something and I could read it one way, you'd
Speaker:read it a different way, but you mean the same thing. But each way
Speaker:would be, one could be really negative way it's
Speaker:And you get that. And I think a lot of people, a lot
Speaker:of people are quick to just fire stuff out on their social media. But
Speaker:that's then trying to stay authentic to your
Speaker:views as well. I've got certain views. I do
Speaker:certain things one way on my channel. Another plumber would
Speaker:do it a different way. It doesn't mean we're right or wrong. As long as you're getting the same same
Speaker:thing at the end and it's up to regs and it's doing the job, then
Speaker:Yes, absolutely. I mean, this is the thing I've always liked about the
Speaker:construction industry. I've mentioned it lots of times in multiple different videos, but
Speaker:how creative the construction industry is for problem solving. There's
Speaker:no, there's not just one way of doing a certain
Speaker:thing. And there's lots of different ways of doing it. And some will be a
Speaker:little bit more cost effective. Some will be a little bit more time consuming. Some
Speaker:will be like, not as efficient. Some would be
Speaker:really efficient. There's loads of different ways of doing it. None of them are necessarily wrong. And
Speaker:a lot of time they get a similar outcome. But it's fascinating
Speaker:I think every tradesman is that practical. They will look
Speaker:at something and go, I can get over that by cutting that in half and doing that.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's a really creative trait, you know. It's the
Speaker:same with production, it's the same with photography or any kind of art. It's
Speaker:about, you know, having a problem or a thing that you want to
Speaker:achieve and then finding a way of achieving it in a way that suits
Speaker:you. Yeah. And the way that it gets, in your opinion, the
Speaker:best outcome. Yeah. The
Speaker:similarities are huge. I'm seeing that more and more in
Speaker:the industry as I you know, find all
Speaker:of these people really, really passionate about the job. I
Speaker:do think, I'm going to discuss this more in a future episode,
Speaker:how like the construction as a whole has got like a branding issue
Speaker:and it's sort of carried on over like the last generation.
Speaker:of, you know, these kind of like, there was this kind of thing that
Speaker:like, you know, builders and plumbers and tradespeople
Speaker:in general were considered to be on the whole a bit thick,
Speaker:We get it so much on the Trade Engine podcast, we'll
Speaker:ask someone, how did you get into the trade? 90% of them go,
Speaker:I didn't do well at school. Yeah. and it and
Speaker:it the construction industries I don't know if it's changed now
Speaker:but going through school it was either
Speaker:you are the university path for the educated lot if
Speaker:you like and if you weren't too clever schools would go oh you
Speaker:could be a bricklayer or a carpenter so there was that divide whereas
Speaker:now you are getting people um
Speaker:especially with the content I put out and people ask how much is that and
Speaker:some people are like that's more money than a doctor earns Well,
Speaker:I'm a skilled tradesman. A doctor hasn't got to put up
Speaker:with this, this, this, and this. You know, would you,
Speaker:and people are trying to barter you down on price, would you go
Speaker:to your dentist having a root canal and go, I'll tell you what, mate, I'll give you, it didn't take
Speaker:you that long, I'll give you 100 quid. It
Speaker:just seems to be that people have got an opinion on what a trade should
Speaker:earn. You know, why can't a plumber who's got 15, 20
Speaker:grams worth of tools and has trained for 10 years to
Speaker:be able to do that job in an hour. Okay. All right. We'll get
Speaker:someone in that takes a day to do it. Are you more happy with
Speaker:that? Well, you're still getting the same job done. He's
Speaker:Yeah. And they've failed that many times and lost money on
Speaker:jobs and all that kind of thing. And you're, you've, you're, you
Speaker:know, and now they've got to a point where they can do that really efficiently. They don't get
Speaker:But people begrudge giving, people begrudge
Speaker:giving trades people what they're
Speaker:worth. You wouldn't batter an eyelid at
Speaker:a lawyer charging you two, three, 400 pound an
Speaker:hour. If a plumber's charging you 60 quid an hour, because
Speaker:you've called him out at nine o'clock on a Friday night, and
Speaker:you've got water pissing through your ceiling, but you're still moaning, you
Speaker:know, yeah that's baffling they've saved your house yeah they've
Speaker:saved your house um you'd be good 400 quid or whatever yeah
Speaker:yeah you you'd be good to call out you know it's it's a
Speaker:weird thing but that was probably brought on a lot with the
Speaker:tv shows of of the past decade you know the rogue traders
Speaker:ones i've always watched them and gone Dave stitched that
Speaker:guy up. Yes, he hasn't fixed that problem,
Speaker:or he's fixed that problem. And then the guy's going,
Speaker:right, I fixed that, which was what they made, they made that issue. But
Speaker:he's also picked up on another problem that that the researchers
Speaker:didn't know about. And he's fixed that. He's
Speaker:not a rogue, he's been very good at his job. But
Speaker:that doesn't make great telly, does it? A plumber that's doing a
Speaker:really good job and he's charging accordingly doesn't make great telly. They're
Speaker:rather of the plumber that's ripped some woman off. Don't
Speaker:get me wrong, there are rogue people out there in every trade, every
Speaker:industry, every industry across the board. But,
Speaker:you know. You don't get, you don't get TV
Speaker:Yeah, and I think, you know, someone brought it
Speaker:up the other day, I can't remember who it was now. I wish I could give him a shout
Speaker:out. It was in a conversation, I don't think it was in a podcast. They
Speaker:said that back when, I'm 35, back when I was at school,
Speaker:Bricklaying and going into trades was like a punishment for the kids. The
Speaker:naughty kids that
Speaker:couldn't get on, I mean these days you'd probably be diagnosed with ADHD and
Speaker:there'd be more steps to try and help
Speaker:them in academia. Some people just aren't made for academia and
Speaker:that's fine. So they would have these like little programs that
Speaker:they'd put on where they'd go to like the local college and stuff. And of course the lecturers are
Speaker:dreading this because at least you're getting the dregs of the school coming in.
Speaker:Because they just didn't know what to do with these kids. And it was practically seen as a punishment. You'd
Speaker:seen them all kind of get on the bus. You'd think, there's the retards. You
Speaker:know what I mean? What a bad brand image. Because some of these
Speaker:guys, they were just genuine people that just couldn't get on with
Speaker:And they just didn't like being told by a
Speaker:teacher what to do. You know, they might be at home at night and the parents are
Speaker:just constantly telling them. They don't want to come to school and have that. So
Speaker:they'll rebel that little bit. But then, OK, we'll
Speaker:put you on the, you know, the retard bus. And can you say
Speaker:Put you on that bus. I think as long as we're not being
Speaker:derogatory against them, we're saying this was a bad thing to do.
Speaker:Yeah, it was. But you're right. And they were pushed off to, to
Speaker:take up a trade, I'll go and lay some bricks or dig some holes, become
Speaker:Because that was the last resort for this person, as opposed to like,
Speaker:this is a really clever person who can make a really good living in
Speaker:a trade. Not only are you clever with people, you're clever with maths
Speaker:and be a carpenter, be a surveyor or whatever. Um,
Speaker:and, uh, now it's, um, there's loads more courses and
Speaker:it's, it's better. I don't, I don't know the landscape of schools
Speaker:these days when it comes to trades, but college is definitely really,
Speaker:really good support system for really clever guys
Speaker:This is where businesses are picking up on this as well. When,
Speaker:when a company, you know, going back to the social media side, a company will
Speaker:see someone putting authentic content out.
Speaker:that is relatable and they'll go, we want to work with that.
Speaker:We want to work with that guy because the content he's putting out is
Speaker:like, my stuff is very much a day in the life of. So
Speaker:if a company reached out to me, you know, I do a lot of work with Thomas Dudley, they
Speaker:reach out to me and go, we want to work with you because you are doing what
Speaker:everybody does. We can incorporate our product into what you do a
Speaker:lot of the time. So when they approach me, you know, a massive company
Speaker:that has been synonymous with the trade for over 100
Speaker:years. When they reached out or there
Speaker:was something put in place where we went for a tour around the factory, and
Speaker:then off the back of that they liked the group that was there, we reached
Speaker:out and went, do you want to work with us? We've got some products coming
Speaker:out. And to be asked by a leading company
Speaker:in the industry that you've worked for for 20 odd years, to now advise
Speaker:them and guide them on products coming out, I was like, what? It
Speaker:was just amazing. And then off the back
Speaker:of that, I've now become a brand ambassador for them. and
Speaker:working with them is like, it's just like working with a family. And again,
Speaker:yeah, yeah, exactly. And they just treat you so well.
Speaker:But that's because they value the content
Speaker:I put out is authentic. It's me. And I
Speaker:and they respect that I wouldn't work with them if I didn't If
Speaker:I stepped away from working with them for whatever reason, the friendship
Speaker:is still there. I would still fit their
Speaker:products and do this, that, and the other. Whereas I do know there are people within
Speaker:the industry that if they're working with a brand and
Speaker:they're not ticking the right boxes for that brand, And
Speaker:they say, look, you know, thanks for working with us. We're going to part ways. There
Speaker:are people out there that will go, right, I get your, and they'll go to
Speaker:the competitor straight away. You're losing
Speaker:your self-worth, your dignity. You
Speaker:know, if that company, if Thomas Dudley let me go, I would not be jumping
Speaker:into bed with another company, you know, for the foreseeable future,
Speaker:because it's respect. And also,
Speaker:you're working with them and you, you want to create content
Speaker:for them. If, you know, we've, I've got a contract with them now where,
Speaker:you know, it's a very, very loose contract. And that's what I like, where
Speaker:you can, as long as you're doing a bit for them and
Speaker:got their best interest, it's brilliant. And that's the contract we've
Speaker:got with them and they leave you alone. Now, and again, they might go,
Speaker:right, we've got this new product. Can you, can you push it a little bit? And
Speaker:you do, but as a whole, they let leave you to it. But if
Speaker:you're not creating content at all for them, they're going to go, you're
Speaker:not doing a lot there. We'll let you go. We'll get this guy in because they
Speaker:monitor social media where they'll see this guy's up
Speaker:and coming. He's looks really good. He's what we'd want to work with.
Speaker:So they get him involved. And that's the game. You've got to stay
Speaker:relevant. When you begin getting these deals with companies, you've
Speaker:got to still respect what
Speaker:they're doing with you, still respect, have a mutual respect for them and create
Speaker:the content that they're asking for, but also remember that
Speaker:they... They wanted you on board with them. They
Speaker:see how authentic you were. And a lot of people, that line can
Speaker:get blurred because the number, there's big money thrown about
Speaker:and the kudos of doing this and that. You know, I've got
Speaker:companies that I work with now that I never thought I would. I've had
Speaker:companies approach me that I've gone, I appreciate it, but you
Speaker:know, big company. And I'm like, I don't use that product or
Speaker:I don't, that doesn't fit with what I do. So. Which adds to
Speaker:your authenticity. Again, it adds to it. And, and even when I
Speaker:see them people now, how are you You know, I've worked with a company and
Speaker:they come up to me eight, 10 months ago and went, look, Mark, you know,
Speaker:really appreciate what you've done. No falling out. We're going
Speaker:to go a different direction. I went, absolutely fine. I've got
Speaker:this and this going on anyway. So step to a
Speaker:mutual agreement. They said, look, we're going to go with someone else. Absolutely
Speaker:fine. They'd gone with someone else, but they still messaged me
Speaker:saying, do you mind just doing this little clip for us? Or
Speaker:do you know anything? Do you want anything? Never burn your
Speaker:Never burn your bridges, yeah. And I'm a nightmare for
Speaker:this. So I, because I've got, I
Speaker:don't know, not a temper, but I've got very little
Speaker:patience for people. And especially if
Speaker:they're doing a really shit job or whatever. So I'll
Speaker:say to the brands, if we're working with some
Speaker:creators or anything to do with a third party where
Speaker:we've been involved and they've not delivered and they've
Speaker:been a bit shit, I really want to tell them they've been
Speaker:a bit shit. And I want to tell the truth. I don't want to
Speaker:upset them, but I want to be like, you know it. Constructive feedback, isn't
Speaker:it? They know exactly why they're being dropped, 100%. And so I
Speaker:want to be able to say, these are the reasons why you've been dropped. And ultimately,
Speaker:it comes from the brand. But we're the ones
Speaker:that monitor everything that you do. You've not done a good job. We've told the brand. They've
Speaker:said, OK, get rid, because that money needs to
Speaker:be reallocated to elsewhere. Someone that's going to put the
Speaker:effort in. There's not an unending budget, you know, with
Speaker:a lot of these brands. And a lot of the time, the budget's surprisingly small. And
Speaker:so, but then I get, the brands are like, no,
Speaker:just call it a day, please. And
Speaker:so we'd love to work with you in the future. It's not the right time at the moment. Whereas I want to be like, you've been
Speaker:shit. You haven't done anything, man. Yeah, honestly. But
Speaker:that's where sometimes as well, It's a good job I'm not on that
Speaker:Yeah, but if a company comes to me and went, look, you haven't put the content out. You haven't
Speaker:put the content out, that's why we're letting you go. Yes. then you've
Speaker:only got yourself to blame. You can't piss... if you don't put
Speaker:the content out for a company that is...
Speaker:even if there's not a payment involved, if they're giving you free products or
Speaker:they've respected you and they've took you out on nights out and you're not doing
Speaker:anything for that company, don't get pissed off when they drop
Speaker:You'd be like a fair play. Unless you're massively thinking you're entitled to
Speaker:I'm so-and-so, I should get this, that, and the other, mate, have
Speaker:a word with yourself, because you're not doing what you
Speaker:should really be doing. But there are people out there that do that, and
Speaker:they get to see, it's obvious who they are on
Speaker:various platforms, because it stands out in absolute minor.
Speaker:I'll be walking around my marketing team
Speaker:and the creative team and I'm like, what have these guys been producing recently for
Speaker:this particular brand? And if it's not, I'm just like, fuck them
Speaker:There's always someone out there that will jump at the
Speaker:But it's that thing of like, I don't know whether it's like different rules for
Speaker:this industry, but I'm like, if that bloke's been working on your house for six
Speaker:months, and they did a bit of work for one month, and
Speaker:they did slightly less for the second month, and nothing for three, four, and
Speaker:five, and six, or whatever, but we've been paying them monthly every
Speaker:single time, you go, on the third month, you'll be like, what's
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that. But there are people out
Speaker:there, and there's also people out there that will, literally
Speaker:do the tiniest bit to justify that paycheck
Speaker:or that free product they're getting, or just
Speaker:to have the kudos of saying, I work with so and so. Never
Speaker:be, never be entitled to what, what you
Speaker:think you should be getting. Be respectful and, and
Speaker:look at the time when that brand or anyone offered you
Speaker:something, you was like, I've made it. This is brilliant. Feel
Speaker:about, feel like that about every deal you get. Cause
Speaker:I'm every company that comes to me and I'll sign a contract. Cause I
Speaker:think I work officially like pay contract
Speaker:wise with probably four companies. I'm
Speaker:quite synonymous with my Instagram stuff for discount codes.
Speaker:And people still get pissed off the fact that I'll offer a discount code. And
Speaker:I can't understand it. A company's valuing me to
Speaker:have the reach to give a discount code out. The company's earning
Speaker:money. I might have a kickback off it. Little Johnny's
Speaker:saving money. But there's still people that, oh,
Speaker:And I'm like, I'm helping you. Yeah. So this is, this is like affiliate
Speaker:marketing. Yeah. So yeah, the affiliate scheme. So essentially how
Speaker:that works is a brand sees that you've got enough, enough reach
Speaker:to be able to go, we're happy to set something up in our system in
Speaker:the backend so that you can have your own special discount code. And
Speaker:um here's the discount code and you can give that to those guys and anytime
Speaker:someone buys a product you get a little bit of a percentage of that product and
Speaker:um that's great for everybody wins everyone wins yeah that's what but
Speaker:i still get grief on youtube oh you're selling
Speaker:out all you're doing is pushing a discount code in each video and i'm like it's
Speaker:not each video it's like probably once a month or once every two i'm like
Speaker:hang on a minute you're saving money by me offering
Speaker:you this. And then on the flip side, you get so many people go,
Speaker:thanks for that. I've saved 30 quid on this bag or 30 quid
Speaker:on these lights. And I've supported you. And I've supported you. Everyone's winning.
Speaker:If anything, affiliate marketing is one of the purest forms
Speaker:of influencer marketing because you don't get paid unless someone buys that
Speaker:product. So, you know, essentially, it's
Speaker:rather than the worst flip side of that
Speaker:is someone marketing a product that they don't believe
Speaker:Yeah, that was the massive negative side, isn't it? And a lot of
Speaker:celebrities do that, don't they? Yeah. I think the classic
Speaker:one is, I don't know, for instance, say, let's say one
Speaker:footballer is sponsored by Adidas, and he's chilling Adidas,
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like, I don't know, is it? No,
Speaker:this isn't relevant, but it popped up in my feed again the other day, the Kim Kardashian like
Speaker:fake meat burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She had never
Speaker:But she's probably weighed in a million quid. Yeah. to do
Speaker:that. But then also on the other side of that, there's various companies
Speaker:that I've worked with over the years, or haven't even worked with them,
Speaker:that's the wrong way. There's one particular company, and
Speaker:I'm going to say who it is, because I think they're great. It's called the Plum Chum.
Speaker:It's a tiny little key, little thing that goes on your key ring, and
Speaker:it's got like 15 different applications. So there's a
Speaker:screwdriver on it, there's a rad key
Speaker:vent thing on it, and it just sits on your key. I haven't got my van keys
Speaker:on it. It sits on your keys, But it's made by a guy in a shed
Speaker:in, I don't even know where he lives, let's say Sheffield. That's
Speaker:probably completely wrong. Guy in a shed. He's made it from home.
Speaker:He's done it. on a Sunday or over the period
Speaker:of a few years, he's tried to push it and
Speaker:doesn't really know how to get it out. But it's a great little
Speaker:thing. And I'd seen it around for ages and
Speaker:a few people had posted pictures of it. And I
Speaker:think he reached out to me and went, all right, Mark, you know, love what you're doing. If
Speaker:we send you a couple of these out, would you mind doing some videos? I was like, of
Speaker:course, mate, send them out. Let me have a look. I've come out
Speaker:and I've gone, these really handy. I've got one of my van keyring, one
Speaker:in my van, one at home. because they're like a 15
Speaker:in one. They're like the Swiss Army knife. I love stuff like that.
Speaker:You know, it's not a hardcore tool, but it's handy. Yeah. Um,
Speaker:and I started pushing it a little bit and he messaged me and he went, Mark, he
Speaker:went, it's quite bad, not bad. He went, Mark, can you stop pushing
Speaker:it? Because we've sold out of all the stock and
Speaker:we can't make it quick enough. And
Speaker:he went, I'll let you know. Because this guy is making a shadow or
Speaker:He's got a 3D printer and it's fucking on fire or
Speaker:And I was like, not a problem, mate. And then I think he messaged me three or
Speaker:four months later and I said, you know, could you, could you give it a push again? Let us
Speaker:It's got eight out the back. Yeah. Could
Speaker:you, could you give it a push now? Let us know what you want. And I messaged
Speaker:him back and went, I don't want anything. I went, I
Speaker:just want to help you build that. If in five years time,
Speaker:you're a multi-million pound company. Yeah. Yeah. But
Speaker:that's what people don't see. They'll see me pushing it. I've always been paid
Speaker:by that company or that company. There's about five or six
Speaker:different companies that I've pushed and helped along the
Speaker:way, along my journey. that have helped me and I'm
Speaker:like, I don't want anything. I just, I like you. I like
Speaker:your company. Um, if all of a sudden you start turning
Speaker:over a load of money, we'll have a conversation. But to push that little
Speaker:tool for him and for him to sell out, just that
Speaker:one message from him made me go, good. I'm glad you sold
Speaker:But yeah, but it's that, it's that's the side where people don't
Speaker:understand. They think when you get to your YouTube channels going
Speaker:in your Instagram, they think you're just taking money constantly. And
Speaker:So the
Speaker:spectrum's not the right term, but there's certain companies you work
Speaker:with, and it's completely off your own back, and you just like working with them.
Speaker:There'll be companies that you work with that are on a more contractual basis. There's ones where
Speaker:there's an exchange of goods, an exchange of products. What
Speaker:does a typical conversation go like between
Speaker:you and a brand? And how does it start typically? Is it them contacting you
Speaker:Yeah, so I've never, categorically never, I've
Speaker:never approached a company to work with them. It's
Speaker:just not the way I go about it. If companies
Speaker:want to approach me, fine. Install
Speaker:a show that we had a couple of weeks ago. I might talk to a company and they might,
Speaker:and I might go, I'd love to work with you. And
Speaker:I wouldn't. I've not even got a media pack. I've categorically never
Speaker:approach the company that I can think of, you know, please, will
Speaker:you work? I'd love to work with you. I'd love to do it. It's
Speaker:not in my, it's not me. I couldn't do that. Yet
Speaker:when a company does come to me, it's, it
Speaker:makes you go that company, especially when it's a very well
Speaker:known or big or you go, shit, I
Speaker:want to work with you. They value me. Yeah. So the conversation from there
Speaker:is usually, For instance, I've worked with one the
Speaker:north of the country, a pump company, Salamander Pumps. I began working with them.
Speaker:But that was quite an organic thing. I did a video, bought
Speaker:the product, done the video, and tagged
Speaker:them in it. I paid for the product. Again, I didn't ask them
Speaker:for anything. I used the product. Tagged them in it, and the video hit really
Speaker:well. They then messaged me and said, could we link
Speaker:that video onto our website? I went,
Speaker:yeah, no problem. Thanks. And then I think a
Speaker:week after, I got an Instagram message
Speaker:from him. Thanks for that. It's going really well. We're having great feedback. If
Speaker:ever you need another pump, let us know and we'll send it
Speaker:out to you free of charge. So there was never a conversation me asking.
Speaker:They valued what I had done. I bought the one initially and
Speaker:done the job. And then it sort of
Speaker:stemmed from there. And then it was, um, just
Speaker:working with them and or i'll message i've got a guy there
Speaker:johnny you know i messaged johnny i've got this coming up soon i
Speaker:can make a video on it at this point i'm already working
Speaker:with them not in an official format but they said if you ever you need
Speaker:anything let us know yeah johnny i've got this job coming up um
Speaker:could i get a pump for this job yeah no problem mate send
Speaker:it out as long as you do a video on it because it was a
Speaker:bit from both ends. But then they come to me and was
Speaker:like, look, we love what you're doing with us. We love the brand. We
Speaker:love that you love the brand. Would you like to come up, have a
Speaker:tour of the factory? So you're organically building that
Speaker:How cool is it, as well, just a slight offshoot of
Speaker:that, how cool is it to see manufacturing in the UK? Love
Speaker:I'd love a factory to go, this is made in the UK. I love going around these
Speaker:factories. Unfortunately, now, again, with the reach, it
Speaker:opens doors to be able to do that. You know,
Speaker:can we come in and film this in the factory? And 90%
Speaker:of companies go, yeah, we'd love that. Because it's
Speaker:relatable. As soon as you see the behinds of
Speaker:this pump company, you're like, wow, it is a small operation,
Speaker:British, you know, British manufactured, all
Speaker:the people working that factory are local. I'm going to buy
Speaker:that pump because I like that, the backstory of it. And that's
Speaker:what I said to him, I'll come up, film, film a day with you. film
Speaker:some products, so you're just building that and then they come to
Speaker:me and go, Mark, we'd love to work for you for the next six months
Speaker:or 12 months. Then the conversation, right, okay.
Speaker:That's when I then sit down with them and go, okay, in an official format,
Speaker:this is the reach on average I can get through YouTube, Instagram,
Speaker:I can get X amount of eyes onto it, for that I
Speaker:would, you know, within... because you're now, with what
Speaker:I've done over the last few years, you've built a separate business. It's
Speaker:now a business format. As much as people say, It's
Speaker:not, you're earning money from Instagram, YouTube, you're
Speaker:getting products, you know, it's a business. Of
Speaker:I'm taking a day or two days off work to go up to this company. So
Speaker:I then say to them, right, this is what it is. X amount, either if
Speaker:you're on a retainer, X amount per month, or X amount per
Speaker:And they're typically higher as well, so the retainer's usually better valued, is
Speaker:Yeah, I think three companies I
Speaker:work with I'm on retainers with, and I
Speaker:Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's an easier, um, we, we- Everyone
Speaker:knows where everyone stands. Yeah. You know what you're doing next month, cashflow, all
Speaker:that kind of thing. So I'm like, well, we'll, you know, um, we'll, we'll, um,
Speaker:discount our rate ever so slightly for retainers because we know where we're at for
Speaker:And I like working with retainers because it builds, you
Speaker:can usually, because you're speaking to people more regularly.
Speaker:Yeah. you speak to Chloe in the office or Steve
Speaker:on the shop floor, it becomes really personable, I
Speaker:find. You're part of the team. Yeah. Whereas if you're doing a standalone video,
Speaker:I was saying to you, I won't name the company, but I've
Speaker:done a video for the build up to a show a couple of
Speaker:years ago. they were all over the content, we want you
Speaker:to work, invited up, this, that and the other, done a video for them. Soon
Speaker:as that went out, the door didn't shut, but it just dropped off
Speaker:a cliff. And I was like, hang on a minute, we've, we've worked
Speaker:really hard to get to this point, the momentum's building now,
Speaker:and it's dropped away. And then a year later, they come
Speaker:knocking again. And I'm like, Look, you know, if you want a standalone
Speaker:video now, if you'd have worked with me through the year, you'd
Speaker:have been a bit here. Whereas now for that, because I don't know if you're just going
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And it is one of those things like the, the project where it
Speaker:sometimes can get in work of the, in the way of the retainer works. So that
Speaker:it needs to be of a higher cost because you, and
Speaker:also there's, there's more stuff you've got to do with
Speaker:one office I think. You've got to plan them a bit more and stuff like that. Whereas if
Speaker:you know in the next month, you probably ought
Speaker:to film some kind of interesting content around a pump. You've
Speaker:got 31 days to figure that out, and
Speaker:Exactly. Whereas if someone says, Mark, we want some project work off you,
Speaker:um and it's got to be uh in the
Speaker:next two weeks with this particular pump you're scratching your head thinking how
Speaker:can I figure this one out yeah I mean I might not have wanted to
Speaker:do it there but I feel like I have to yeah I was going to take a day off work to
Speaker:make that content yeah and make it yeah make it and then I think sometimes
Speaker:it can feel a bit forced Yeah, and that's what you want to
Speaker:try to avoid, obviously. You're trying to make sure that you're going to put more
Speaker:effort in to make it not forced by, you
Speaker:know, trying to set something up that feels like it's more authentic. Or
Speaker:it is like, do me a favor, like, speaking,
Speaker:I don't know if this ever happens, but speaking to your mates in the industry and
Speaker:go, anybody doing a pump install in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, I've done
Speaker:I work the day for free because you can get the content on it. You can have the pump for
Speaker:free. I just need to make the content on it. because you need to hit their, their
Speaker:quota of what they want. Whereas like you say, a retainer, you know where you're at.
Speaker:Um, but yeah, I, I find the retainer and
Speaker:it's weird even having these conversations because three years ago I
Speaker:knew nothing of retainers, nothing of rates, nothing of the, you
Speaker:just sort of pick it up and genuine people, I
Speaker:will, I don't know everything about everything I've never
Speaker:said or do, but I know what works for me and I
Speaker:know you know, Liam, who you
Speaker:work with a lot and I'm very good friends with, he's come to me at
Speaker:some point and said, what should I be doing here? I went, I don't know everything, Liam,
Speaker:but my guidance as a mate to you would be
Speaker:ask for this or not ask
Speaker:for that, give them what you can, show them what you can
Speaker:give them, I can get X amount, a million eyes a
Speaker:month on that product for this much. So don't
Speaker:go in straight away with, I want this much for this. Say,
Speaker:I can give you this and it comes at that price.
Speaker:But it is, it's building it up. It all starts from the freebies
Speaker:that you get and they're brilliant and I'd never knock anyone
Speaker:for it. But if you're making content and you want
Speaker:to do it really well, there is that tipping point
Speaker:where you need to value, always, always
Speaker:value yourself because companies are asking you to promote that
Speaker:because, um, that
Speaker:There's a value to that. So get your free stuff, then
Speaker:get your free stuff for your money. Then start
Speaker:working towards your retainers, if you like. And if
Speaker:that's what you want to do, some people are happy with, getting
Speaker:a free level or a free blow lamp or a free bag.
Speaker:Yeah. Whatever. Each to their own. Yeah. But as I
Speaker:I think also, I think that there'll be certain accounts where they will, they
Speaker:will stay in a particular lane and not grow from there.
Speaker:And that's absolutely fine. They're doing little bits and bobs. They're not
Speaker:really like sort of in the, they're
Speaker:not looking to grow their audience that massively or that quickly.
Speaker:And they're just happy just bobbing along, doing minimal effort and getting the
Speaker:odd free product. That's brilliant. Brilliant for brands, brilliant for them. And
Speaker:then there'll be a certain point where you have to
Speaker:charge. Because you're putting that much effort into the content. You're putting that
Speaker:much effort into building your reach. You
Speaker:have to charge. Because I think this is misconception. I had this conversation with
Speaker:somebody on the industrial estate where we were at. An
Speaker:influencer agency has opened up around the
Speaker:corner from us. Great guys, really, really interesting stuff, work with some
Speaker:massive, massive names. They actually work
Speaker:more for the influencer than the brand, which is quite interesting. So they
Speaker:help them grow. Really, really cool guys. And
Speaker:he was saying, this particular guy, not from the agency, but
Speaker:just a guy on the industrial estate, was saying, I can't believe
Speaker:some of the costs that these guys charge, you
Speaker:know, for like a one fucking shitty video on
Speaker:a mobile phone. And I had to explain it to him,
Speaker:and I'm sure there's a better way of explaining this, but I say, look, the
Speaker:reason why they can charge so much for that one
Speaker:video is because they've had to work for free for
Speaker:years to build up an audience to make
Speaker:it so that when they post the shittiest looking mobile phone
Speaker:video of a product or something going out that gets in
Speaker:front of thousands if not millions of eyeballs which is really
Speaker:really beneficial to a brand. And if
Speaker:you think about the opposite way of it, which is a company like us, who've
Speaker:got no following at all, and we have
Speaker:to create a video and put all of that work in
Speaker:after the video, and also as part
Speaker:of the video to send to the brand so that the brand can then repopulate
Speaker:that. So we're working really hard on that one
Speaker:particular project, whereas an influencer with a decent following has had
Speaker:to work for years, up to get to 100,000, 500,000.
Speaker:Some people don't have to. Some of them can go viral like that.
Speaker:But they typically drop straight back down, I always find. I think
Speaker:it does take a while. But a lot of people, and you'll know
Speaker:this, a lot of the value is in all the work that you've done previously. A
Speaker:bit like what you said with the plumber that can get something done in an hour as opposed to
Speaker:a day. It's because they've had to work for cheap or for
Speaker:free or whatever. To learn it. For ages to learn
Speaker:it. I had that kind of completely
Speaker:irrelevant to this, but I remember someone telling me I was too expensive as a
Speaker:solo self-employed photographer
Speaker:back in the day. So how do you justify all of
Speaker:that cost? And so I put it into the
Speaker:framework of to get this studio and to get to the level that
Speaker:I'm at where I can do a one hour photo shoot and charge X amount of thousands
Speaker:of pounds or whatever it was. um uh
Speaker:i've had to be skint for years for years and
Speaker:years and years until i got good enough yeah and even when i was really good
Speaker:i was shit at marketing yeah so i had to be really really
Speaker:good to not a lot of people until i built up the
Speaker:marketing sort of platform and then uh and and that's how that's
Speaker:how skills work i'm afraid yeah is people valuing
Speaker:your your worth isn't it yeah yeah and the
Speaker:sort of quantify, I can give you this, this, this, and
Speaker:this for this much. That sort
Speaker:of makes me go, all right. Instead of going, I want this much
Speaker:to do this, this, and this. I always say, give them, tell
Speaker:them what you can give them before you'd say that
Speaker:that's that's that's my sort of thing. And I've always so even when I'm quite for
Speaker:a bathroom, I can give you that tile, I
Speaker:can give you that bath and give you the walk in shower. Yeah, but
Speaker:It's almost like gap selling. There's a term called gap selling. Have you heard of
Speaker:that? It's like a sales tool, similar
Speaker:kind of thing. Although it's essentially go, you're here now,
Speaker:you want to get to here, I've got the bit in the middle. that you want, which
Speaker:is the reach and the audience and the eyeballs and that kind of thing. So you're
Speaker:talking about getting to here. I can get you to that point. It's going to cost this much.
Speaker:And it's because it's all of the stuff that I can deliver to get you here. So
Speaker:you want X amount of thousand eyeballs, extra eyeballs on
Speaker:your brand or product per month. I
Speaker:can deliver that in three videos and a couple of stories. I
Speaker:can show you the stats. That's what you want. And,
Speaker:and I can achieve that. And it's going to cost this much. It's a way
Speaker:easier way than saying, give me five grand and
Speaker:Yeah. Sometimes you got to figure it out after the point, but that's,
Speaker:that's where the skill and the creativity comes from. So, um, your, um,
Speaker:your typical process then. your typical process isn't
Speaker:necessarily, you like a brand, you reach out
Speaker:to them and you say, hey, I can do some work with you for X amount of money. It's
Speaker:sort of slowly building up a relationship and you're building up
Speaker:a sort of know, like, and trust from both sides. You're getting to
Speaker:know them, they're getting to know you. And eventually that might be
Speaker:a topic of conversation if it feels relevant. But even if it
Speaker:didn't end up being like that, it wasn't necessarily a strategy to
Speaker:to go to that route. It's just you were already creating content on
Speaker:And I think that's quite authentic is I've spoke to people who you
Speaker:know I'm fortunate to work with Unilite and Vito who
Speaker:are two really synonymous brands within the industry and they
Speaker:monitor accounts and they go that guy's putting a lot of content
Speaker:out with our products. Let's chuck him a few products as
Speaker:opposed to they've also shown me where people have gone, hi,
Speaker:I've got this many followers, can I have some free lights? Al will
Speaker:go, no mate. Whereas if they're just organically looking
Speaker:at it and go, he posts a lot of content, and it's good content, and
Speaker:let's chuck him some bits. And that's how they form, you know. There
Speaker:are various, there's probably two companies that I'd love to work with. I
Speaker:won't say who it is because I don't want to be that guy to put it out there, and
Speaker:Oh, I did it in the last episode. I shouted out Wira straight away.
Speaker:So, there are a couple of companies I love to work with and
Speaker:I'm sort of, I am putting
Speaker:bits out there to hopefully try and get them in, because I
Speaker:don't want to reproach them. Some people I've spoke to, even within
Speaker:marketing, have gone, Mark, if you want to work with them, reach out to
Speaker:them and go, I can offer you this, this and that. That's just, it's
Speaker:You've got to do what feels right. I mean, any,
Speaker:like, we could be really salesy. We could be cold calling brands
Speaker:left, right and center. And that might get us some, something just doesn't
Speaker:feel right. So you don't do it. Yes. Technically we could probably be
Speaker:a more successful business if we did that. It just doesn't feel right.
Speaker:It's all about, yeah, it's about your self-worth and your own
Speaker:personal respect. And for me, Fortunately, my,
Speaker:my main income is my power and heating company. This is, I always
Speaker:see this as I still get it now, imposter syndrome.
Speaker:You know, I host a podcast. I'm on a podcast here and
Speaker:I'm going to shows where companies are paying for me to be there,
Speaker:paying for your hotels. I'm like, who the fucking hell am I?
Speaker:Honestly, I still get it. And it's amazing and
Speaker:I love it. I was at Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend. It's
Speaker:a car, it's the biggest car show probably
Speaker:in the world now, since like the British motor show stopped. And so
Speaker:Goodwood Festival of Speed, huge motor shows, celebrities
Speaker:everywhere. I'm walking through the paddock, looking for
Speaker:Liam, funny enough, looking for Liam. This
Speaker:woman's run up by the side of me, excuse me, you, Mark,
Speaker:Tiff the Plumber on YouTube. And I'm like, yeah.
Speaker:And she went, oh, me and my husband watch all your stuff. And I'm like, I'm
Speaker:at Goodwood Festival of Speed, where they've just released the new
Speaker:Bugatti five million pound car. And
Speaker:some woman's dragged me and spotted me. I'm like, it's
Speaker:just mad. It's great. And I love speaking
Speaker:to people and I love their the people that follow me
Speaker:and comment on all my videos and, but I do still
Speaker:get that imposter syndrome. Like, walk into a room where I've seen
Speaker:people on social media going, oh, that's so and so, that's so and so. I'm
Speaker:like, yeah, and I'm like, what am I doing here? Even when our
Speaker:guests come on to the podcast, I'm like, can't believe, try and play
Speaker:it cool. Like, all right, mate. Yeah. But I'm like, shit, we've
Speaker:I've got Dan from Dissident. Oh my God. But
Speaker:it is, it's, it's a, And I think that keeps you quite humble with
Speaker:it as well. I think you're always going to get people go, he thinks he's fucking something
Speaker:else and whatever, mate. I've gone through my life.
Speaker:Everyone will have people that like you and don't like you. If you don't like me, I don't
Speaker:mind. I'm absolutely cool with that. But the people that I
Speaker:I think there's there's a I
Speaker:think I spoke about this on Liam's episode, which is the last one. I
Speaker:don't know whether they'll go out in that format, but when we spoke to
Speaker:Liam, there's something about you
Speaker:that will appeal to certain brands. And what I
Speaker:would consider to be most brands. And it's this, because
Speaker:there's the audience, but there's also the persona. It's
Speaker:important to own your brand. You know what I mean? I'll
Speaker:just start saying words and maybe you resonate with these
Speaker:maybe you don't but it's this kind of like no nonsense no
Speaker:kind of like wishy-washy frills marketing type
Speaker:approach to content which is feels again
Speaker:when you use the word authentic and genuine it's not salesy
Speaker:it's like but also at the same time even when you are promoting a product you're
Speaker:And that's what I wanted to build up is that trust that if I am promoting a
Speaker:product, it's because I believe in that product. And
Speaker:you can tell. Yeah. I think that's the thing. And, excuse
Speaker:me, there are people that will flit between products. One week
Speaker:they'll be going, this is great. The next week they'll be going, the rival
Speaker:company, this is great. I'm like, You've got no self worth. And
Speaker:within the industry, people see that. It's quite a mile away. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. I couldn't, if, let's say, I'm synonymous, I
Speaker:work with you, synonymously, everyone knows that. If Al,
Speaker:for whatever reason, I hope you don't, Al, but for whatever reason, let
Speaker:me go. And another light company approached me
Speaker:two months later, I wouldn't do it. Even if they went, we'll give you
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I spent years building up to be, people
Speaker:buy stuff, not all about buying stuff, but
Speaker:people will buy a product, if I say a product's good, because they believe
Speaker:that I wouldn't have a product that I don't believe
Speaker:in. Exactly. And that to me is, I'm not in it for, the
Speaker:money's great, and the perks you get with it are great, but
Speaker:it's not the be all and end all. I've got a plumbing
Speaker:and heating company, that's where my money is. You know, that is
Speaker:a bonus and I get to work with companies that I'm like, wow,
Speaker:Mate, I love going to the show. I'm not even a trades person. How cool are
Speaker:the shows? I love going to the shows and like speaking to people that I know off
Speaker:social media. I don't necessarily get recognized
Speaker:like you do from influencers and people from
Speaker:social media, but we get recognized by the brands. But it's like, what's
Speaker:his name in marketing, like literally stop me. It's just
Speaker:like, it's such and such from this brand. I'm like, shit, yeah, I was speaking to
Speaker:you on LinkedIn or whatever a while ago. I'm like, how the hell did
Speaker:you recognize me, you know, and my face? The
Speaker:dissident body probably helped. But also
Speaker:You work with certain people I've worked with you on stuff and Liam work
Speaker:if you're following Liam around filming him, people
Speaker:will know that's you because Liam's synonymous with working with you.
Speaker:So it then lifts your profile as
Speaker:well as Liam's and then you work with you know Thomas Dudley or
Speaker:Yes, a factor that I never thought about because
Speaker:we're brand side, we're always working with brands, we never get paid by
Speaker:influencers and people and that sort of thing. First of all it's not an
Speaker:area that we work in in general. We could happily
Speaker:shoot content for accounts, but it's
Speaker:overkill. Massive overkill for 10 grand for a
Speaker:production or something like that for like a one day would just be silly, I think.
Speaker:And the social media side of things, that's not
Speaker:our area. We know how to market businesses and brands, not people necessarily.
Speaker:And the personal brand stuff is always better coming from that person,
Speaker:I think. There'll be specialists in that area,
Speaker:but we're not them. We know how to market a product relatively well.
Speaker:So I didn't even factor this in, even though I'm a very, very
Speaker:talented and clever marketer. The
Speaker:creators are a link into the brands. Never
Speaker:thought about that until Liam introduced us to Thomas
Speaker:Dudley. And all of a sudden I'm like, because I was just
Speaker:kind of hanging out with people like that and speaking to him because he's a nice guy. And
Speaker:we work with him sometimes on productions and stuff like that. And
Speaker:now I'm like, this is a market. This is a full-on market. If I've got my
Speaker:mate Carl sort of
Speaker:giving us a good in for a particular brand or something
Speaker:like that, that's an incredible piece of marketing because recommendations are
Speaker:huge, aren't they? Especially if they're working with people like like if
Speaker:you've got an in with uh uh unionite for instance you know
Speaker:it's not a really good example they've got a great team behind them uh for the stuff that
Speaker:we do but let's say they didn't yeah you'd be like have you seen dissonance
Speaker:whatever you're gonna work with yeah you'd like you really like them um so
Speaker:you value the content creator that you're working with because he
Speaker:for other places for you to go. And if a company doesn't
Speaker:really know where they want to go with their look, their
Speaker:style, their content, and Liam says, I've
Speaker:worked with Dan and the Dissident team on here. This is their work. I
Speaker:can get you in with that. You love that. Liam loves that. The company
Speaker:loves that. It's all doors. It's networking, isn't it?
Speaker:And that's why when we go to Yes, we get paid
Speaker:to go to like install a show and the shows to be on stands
Speaker:with companies, but it's also being there and
Speaker:other companies seeing you there and going, he's willing to work. He
Speaker:could, he could do this for us. He could, you know, that show is, there's,
Speaker:there's people everywhere. It's basically like a, a
Speaker:plumber's week's holiday where we're all together. Everyone
Speaker:who we know on our social media, we're out drinking at night together and working
Speaker:with other brands together. That week is just amazing.
Speaker:I'll block book that week out now. My business is like,
Speaker:you're just on a jolly for the week. I went, yeah, but
Speaker:Long term, one day at the Installer Show, networking in
Speaker:a year's time will net you a serious amount of business. If you do it
Speaker:the right way. Yeah. Because it takes a long time to get in with brands. You
Speaker:know this. And your entry
Speaker:into brands is a little bit more know, like, and trust. It's
Speaker:a longer process to build up that relationship. But
Speaker:it's kind of the same for us, apart from we're not doing anything for free ever.
Speaker:Or do you know what I mean? We're not putting on a 10-gram
Speaker:production for free. Um, but, uh, we
Speaker:will, you know, start to have communications with marketing managers
Speaker:and brand managers and stuff, but it takes a year to get in there. It just does
Speaker:budgets, you know, all that kind of thing. Like, like when, as soon as they've got their year's budget
Speaker:for, cause we want. you know, we
Speaker:want 500 grand from a brand to do really cool work with them for a year, let's
Speaker:say. And so, like, very
Speaker:rarely do they go, cool, let's now, let's
Speaker:do that now. It'll take a year for them to go,
Speaker:okay, let's move into it. Yeah, well, we got to talk about what
Speaker:can we deliver for that? What kind of things that they need? Maybe you don't doesn't maybe
Speaker:doesn't need to be 500 grand. or whatever um to to produce all
Speaker:these assets for a year and we essentially become like an extension of their team
Speaker:for a year. It takes a long process to do that and then they've got to factor that into next
Speaker:year's budget. Maybe they haven't got that much budget because it's a bad year next
Speaker:year and what kind of thing. It's like Werner, we did some work with Werner recently
Speaker:and hopefully continuing to do that on the reg um
Speaker:and uh But I first started having conversation with
Speaker:Werner like three years ago, something like that, only just. It's a long game
Speaker:Whereas us, we can get in with a brand instantly. Yeah. Because
Speaker:they're like, they've, because it's there, bang, straight
Speaker:in front of you. We can create content. in a room with
Speaker:a phone, raw, done, and people
Speaker:But you might have been working, you might have had to work with that product for six months for them
Speaker:to take notice, like you said, like, you know, like, you know, they're monitoring that
Speaker:kind of stuff. They're being like, this is literally the first ever unilike post I've
Speaker:And there are people that will just, can I have this for
Speaker:free? Can I have that for free? And instantly you just scrape straight
Speaker:off. You're like, really? Don't, don't, do,
Speaker:let, let your pictures and your content do that asking for
Speaker:you, which is probably what I do in a way with mine. Um, but
Speaker:no, I'm just massively fortunate and, and love working with the brands that
Speaker:I do, but I'm very wary of, you've
Speaker:got to stay on the ball with them. Complete
Speaker:the, the, the quotas and the briefs that they've given you to
Speaker:do, because if you start sitting on your laurels and, and
Speaker:not doing what you should be doing, there's plenty more
Speaker:100%. So we, we talked a little bit about, um, like the, like
Speaker:some of the bad practices that perhaps, um, content creators and influencers can,
Speaker:can get themselves into. Let's talk about scenarios in which, um,
Speaker:you've been approached by brands or, or brands have like gone about things
Speaker:in kind of like a weird way for you. What, what, what
Speaker:So not, not, not so much in a weird way, but I've had brands come to me
Speaker:and offer You know. big amounts of money
Speaker:for products that are very good products and
Speaker:used within the industry. And there are various
Speaker:people, I won't name what the products are, but there are various people quite
Speaker:synonymous on Instagram and YouTube that
Speaker:do work with these companies. And they've approached me and
Speaker:give me a figure, you know, a very, very good figure. But
Speaker:I've gone back to them and gone, I don't use that
Speaker:product. It doesn't work with my business
Speaker:model, the way I work stuff. huge
Speaker:thank you for reaching out, but it's just not for me. Even though the
Speaker:monetary value is a lot, and most people... I
Speaker:do know there are, again, I'm not going to say it, I know there are
Speaker:people that use these two specific products,
Speaker:or they promote these two specific products,
Speaker:but don't use them, or they say, it's not
Speaker:for us. Obviously, I'm not going to say what product and who it is. But
Speaker:for me, I
Speaker:just couldn't promote a product that I wouldn't use or
Speaker:it just doesn't fit. It's just the way I am. Um, as
Speaker:much as money they want to throw at me to do it, it's, it's
Speaker:sometimes you've got to look at yourself and go, A, I think my audience would
Speaker:see through it. B, it's, it's just
Speaker:not for me. I'm not in it completely for the
Speaker:short term paycheck. I'd rather work with a company long
Speaker:term. um one that I want to work
Speaker:Let me give you a scenario then this is an interesting one this came up recently
Speaker:um let's say you have a
Speaker:brand comes up to you and it's a um Some
Speaker:kind of app. Some kind of
Speaker:app that maybe helps builders stay more
Speaker:organized and stuff like that. There's a load of these that are sort of knocking about. Let's
Speaker:say it's something that keeps hold of your... You
Speaker:can do your invoicing through it or something like that. Something like
Speaker:that. It's part of your thing. Everybody could kind of
Speaker:use it. but it's probably going to be beneficial but you haven't used
Speaker:it up until this brand new product that's just come
Speaker:out yeah brand new brand and they want you to do an I
Speaker:can add for them it's not going out on your socials and it's not it's
Speaker:not a relationship that you're sort of starting with these guys it's
Speaker:a one-off they just want to use your face they know you're good on camera they
Speaker:know you can speak well to your
Speaker:audience, they just want to borrow you for an ad and
Speaker:you've never used the product, you don't actually know nothing about it,
Speaker:you don't rate the product, it's brand new, you've never even played around
Speaker:with it, maybe you asked to play around with it before, is that something you
Speaker:I personally would want I
Speaker:want to, if it was something like that, I want a good amount of time to test
Speaker:it. Um, make sure it's legit, make sure it's legit. But
Speaker:if that was the art, the ad, I wouldn't, I wouldn't use
Speaker:that ad personally. So I. I
Speaker:wouldn't be comfortable in promoting it because I
Speaker:know I wouldn't use it. You've got to, you've got to think in,
Speaker:in, in two years time, someone says, Oh, I've
Speaker:seen you promote that. It's really shit. Or I've seen you promote
Speaker:I didn't think about that. So I, so I'm thinking about this from the point of view of, You
Speaker:don't need to know about this product. All you're doing is stating facts. You're
Speaker:not saying that you like it. You can stipulate, I'm
Speaker:going to have absolutely no opinions on
Speaker:this in this ad. I'm just there for the money. I'm going to show you how to
Speaker:use it. And that's it. I'm not saying it's good. I'm going to
Speaker:list off a load of features and benefits. you make the decision from
Speaker:here or something like that. I imagine there's like, there's like, it's yes
Speaker:I wouldn't do it because I think that is an
Speaker:Yeah, a guy would come in, say that as an advert that's going
Speaker:out while you're watching Emmerdale, the actor, he's an
Speaker:actor, he will, he's not there, He's
Speaker:just an actor. His face is not going to be
Speaker:synonymous with that product. It's just a throwaway thing. Whereas
Speaker:if I promote something like that, I'm still doing that job 10 years
Speaker:down the line and still hopefully working with brands 10 years down the line. A
Speaker:brand might go, well, you've done that. you
Speaker:It's a tough one, isn't it?
Speaker:I'll give you an example. So we had this with Kyle, recently Kyle Chance. Really,
Speaker:really nice guy. We'd worked on a shoot with our
Speaker:client. He was really good on camera. We interviewed him and he
Speaker:was really articulate. and
Speaker:we got approached by a brand that we've been speaking to, Totectors, who
Speaker:are, are you familiar with those guys? They make like cool, I got
Speaker:obsessed with them because they make the Air Force One
Speaker:profile trainer. They made it in white, they've just launched it
Speaker:and I saw it at a show, I was like that's incredible. Steel toe
Speaker:cap, all the right sort of accreditations and
Speaker:stuff like that. And I was like, I need to get myself a pair of those and they go, they're
Speaker:not launching yet, but you know, we'll see what, anyway, I got in touch with their marketing
Speaker:team and I was like, love the product. Um, and they said
Speaker:they wanted to work with us on some UGC content. And it was smart content, UGC
Speaker:user generated content. Um, so, uh, it's basically,
Speaker:uh, what we, what we. I'm sure there's a better term for this, but it's high
Speaker:production UGC content. So it's essentially, it's like a
Speaker:film that a user would make, a content creator, but
Speaker:Yeah, high production. Instantly,
Speaker:I thought, Carl's the right guy for this. He's kind of mixed. He
Speaker:does a lot of stuff, mixed trade, up and down ladders all the time. We
Speaker:could do this. And they wanted it to be this kind of like, almost like a YouTube studio
Speaker:type vibe, where he was like essentially like
Speaker:a YouTuber giving his review of a particular product. So this is the new product and
Speaker:stuff. So the problems that we had with that was, he'd
Speaker:never used this product before. And brand
Speaker:new product, of course, how could he have used it? And
Speaker:there was a couple of things, I'm like, I don't feel comfortable about this yet. It's
Speaker:a tentative yes, but I want to make sure that I'll film anything.
Speaker:Because you're not the face of it. No. You're the company behind
Speaker:Within reason, as long as it's not like, you know, it's
Speaker:made in some horrible scenarios and stuff like that. Some sweatshopping. Yeah,
Speaker:who knows? I mean, I didn't ask that far, to be fair. But
Speaker:yeah, so I wanted to make sure that Carl's okay with this. And we
Speaker:want to make sure that it's genuine, it's authentic. So
Speaker:the stipulations were, we wanted to make sure that he could get
Speaker:the boots in a really reasonable amount of time. But it was so
Speaker:close, because it's launch content. So they've only
Speaker:finished making the product, really. It's gone through the R&D and testing and
Speaker:stuff, but they've only really finished making the product. They could get the product to us on
Speaker:Tuesday when we were filming, like the week, the next week or
Speaker:something. So you had like a week to play around with these boots, which was,
Speaker:which was cool. So at least then he could have some like experience of
Speaker:it. And then we had to stipulate, right, okay, like, you
Speaker:can give us some features and benefits, but we can't really script
Speaker:this because it just doesn't feel right, it won't work for
Speaker:Carl. But also, we need to
Speaker:specify how long he's had, we want to make sure
Speaker:that the audience knows all the facts about
Speaker:this transaction. I've had these products for X amount
Speaker:of time, I've really enjoyed, and it just so happened he
Speaker:really liked the product. It was genuine. And
Speaker:that was the only way we could sort of get around that. But it
Speaker:was that we had to get around a few things before we
Speaker:could basically create a film that was him explaining
Speaker:a product, his limited experience of it, but also talking through
Speaker:the features and benefits. He does like the boots, you still see him in the boots and stuff
Speaker:like that. So you have to sort of caveat those
Speaker:kinds of things with like, first of all, is this right for me? But
Speaker:also, can we do this in an authentic way that is
Speaker:right for Carl, for our guy? And this time
Speaker:it was. So there's always, there's never like a, a
Speaker:No, because he might have tried them shoes or boots on and gone, I don't like
Speaker:He could have said no. We'd have got someone else to do it. Yeah. 100%. Because
Speaker:again, we don't care. Yeah. That's right. That's it. As the agency,
Speaker:We don't want to damage Karl though. Exactly that. As the agency, you're
Speaker:the faceless thing behind it, creating the content. We just
Speaker:film the stuff. Whereas the content creator, Karl there, and you know, if
Speaker:I work for a company, a brand like that, I've
Speaker:got to be happy with that product. If I'm not happy with that product,
Speaker:I'm not just going to be a cash cow for that product. If people
Speaker:do, you go and get your money. You go
Speaker:and find them. There's plenty out there. I'm not knocking them.
Speaker:They do their thing. They can live happy
Speaker:knowing they've done that. I personally- Yeah, probably loaded. Yeah, very, very, very
Speaker:rich. I personally can't because the money isn't
Speaker:the be all and end all. It's, I, I value
Speaker:my self-worth more than selling
Speaker:100%. I think, like you said, it's about
Speaker:leveraging that authenticity. Whenever you do something, you need to
Speaker:If I was an actor, a genuine stand-up actor, which I'm far
Speaker:from... I don't know, mate. I've seen the Big White's
Speaker:film. If that's what I did, mate, I would sell whatever.
Speaker:But I'm not. I'm a plumber. And,
Speaker:you know, within the industry there are a lot of people that will just
Speaker:go and do whatever and hats off to you if you get
Speaker:No. I'm trying to think about a couple of takeaways from
Speaker:today that I think people could latch on
Speaker:to. And I think the ones that I've sort of come towards
Speaker:I've been around your approach to brands and
Speaker:the fact that you take it like a sort of a
Speaker:steady and careful approach to how you interact
Speaker:with brands and how you exchange services essentially. And
Speaker:I think that's something that a lot of people can, especially
Speaker:Early on, yeah, early on, you can get overwhelmed with,
Speaker:as soon as you begin getting some traction, you can
Speaker:get overwhelmed with companies that will
Speaker:throw stuff at you because they, I think sometimes, I'm not knocking
Speaker:on, I think sometimes can look at, companies can look at someone
Speaker:coming into this space and go, that's an
Speaker:easy out for us, let's just chuck some products at him. If a company's got, say,
Speaker:500 quid's worth of products, their cost on that maybe, £150.
Speaker:So they're getting a load of exposure and an
Speaker:in with someone, early doors for not a lot of money, which
Speaker:is fine, do that. But as you progress and you build
Speaker:your following, your eyes, that company should
Speaker:also be progressing with you and then go, you know, we've worked
Speaker:with you early days, we're now willing to put
Speaker:a retainer in place or start paying, giving you
Speaker:products and paying for your time. Because I've
Speaker:had it before where, um, Gav, won't mind me saying it, a mate
Speaker:of mine, Gav Pablo on, on the socials. Love Pabs. He,
Speaker:um, he had a company come to him with a
Speaker:product and he said to me, Mark,
Speaker:have a look over that and see what you think. And I think it was something
Speaker:like, I know you won't mind me saying, I
Speaker:think it was 500 quid for two
Speaker:bits of content over six months. or
Speaker:four bits of content over six months, per month. Four total.
Speaker:Four bits of content per month over six months.
Speaker:500 quid a month or total? So 500 quid total. Shit.
Speaker:Yeah. 500 quid total for, I'm
Speaker:going to say two bits of content per month over six
Speaker:months. So in effect, 500 quid for 12 bits
Speaker:of content. Now, Gav's seen that
Speaker:500 quid and was like, that's 500 quid. And I've gone, yeah.
Speaker:I said, but break that down. Get your hourly rate out of that. Get
Speaker:your hourly rate. You weren't even earning minimum wage because 12 bits
Speaker:of content, even though it was for Instagram content.
Speaker:So it was quick and Gav can knock it out. But
Speaker:Those, you know, divide, I'm not, I'm shit with maths, divide 12 by
Speaker:500 quid, it's not a lot. You're rolling your eyes, you're
Speaker:Yeah, 40 quid. So each bit of content is 40 quid. If
Speaker:you spend two hours on that, your 40 quid's gone. You
Speaker:know, even as a call out as a plumber, you know, it might be 80 quid, so half
Speaker:an hour, let's say. that bit of content is going to, by the time you've
Speaker:thought of it, gone out your way, recorded it, come back, edited it
Speaker:together, then sat on the platform, let's say Instagram, knock
Speaker:that reel up, put your tags in, put your description in. You
Speaker:But sometimes they'll see that £500 and go, and
Speaker:they like the kudos of working with the company. You've
Speaker:got to do, again, due diligence. You've
Speaker:got to look at something and break it down because sometimes it
Speaker:won't even be worth the time doing it. But if you're starting out, it
Speaker:might be open a couple of doors for you. But I would say if
Speaker:you're, if you're established making content and
Speaker:working with brands, don't sell yourself short. A brand, wants
Speaker:to work with you because they like you and you like them and they
Speaker:respect and they trust the content you're going to put out.
Speaker:Yes. My old man used to say to me, God rest his soul,
Speaker:if you're good at something, never do it for free. No. And
Speaker:I completely agree. Some things, if
Speaker:you want to help, you can see the longer game where you want to help that person,
Speaker:or you just want to be nice, fine. But in business, if
Speaker:No. And I think the way that that
Speaker:scenario was structured. This, this company wants Gav to
Speaker:do a particular piece, an amount of pieces of content, which
Speaker:for 500 pounds, not a great budget, maybe it's a small business or
Speaker:not, whatever. Um, I think another
Speaker:way of sort of reframing that there's more to,
Speaker:uh, let's say not saying Gav's a smaller content creator
Speaker:or a smaller account, but perhaps someone who's just starting out is, If
Speaker:I was going to do that content anyway, because I really like the
Speaker:brand, but they're going to give me 500 quid, let's figure out a
Speaker:scenario where I can make some content for you, but let's not put it set
Speaker:in stone. You give me the 500 quid and I'll give you some content, but
Speaker:let's not make it so that like, I have to deliver two
Speaker:pieces of content every single month because it just might not fit. And you're
Speaker:not paying me enough to stick to a
Speaker:schedule here I'm afraid, sorry. That's x
Speaker:amount of Starbucks runs I'm afraid, it's not a lot. Um,
Speaker:uh, so, but, but at the same time, so as a small credit, you can go, well,
Speaker:let me get, let me push back on that. I'll, I'll take the 500 quid. I'll
Speaker:aim for two, two reels a month, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work because it's,
Speaker:it's, uh, we've got to make this work. And, you know, as
Speaker:a brand, 500 quid doesn't get you very, very far in anything. Um, some
Speaker:people, um, have a one hour consultation call
Speaker:and it'd be 1200 quid. Do you know what I mean? I had that for, software
Speaker:that I pay for already. Yeah, completely irrelevant.
Speaker:But I pay for this piece of software, which is project management for
Speaker:my whole team. And I wanted to figure out a better way of using
Speaker:it. It was 1200 quid for like, it was, I think it was three hours,
Speaker:right? I'm like, I'm already paying 150 quid
Speaker:You should be telling me how to do it in the first place. Absolutely
Speaker:nuts. You've been
Speaker:in the industry for three years. I think three
Speaker:years ago, the industry of the content creator in
Speaker:construction was still
Speaker:kind of in its infancy at that point. I think there was people hanging
Speaker:around and doing stuff before that. But I think it really blew
Speaker:up about three years ago. And it's continued to grow ever since.
Speaker:Do you ever think about what it's going to be like in
Speaker:It's climbing and growing at
Speaker:a massive rate. There's accounts out there. that
Speaker:are growing overnight tens, 20,000, 30,000
Speaker:subscribers overnight on YouTube, on Instagram,
Speaker:however they're doing it, whatever. So, so
Speaker:the, so the, the platforms are there that the, the eyes
Speaker:are on it. I think as a business within
Speaker:the construction industry now, the amount of content creators
Speaker:in it is, is a hub and we're very good and we
Speaker:enjoy doing it. And the, Everyone knows everyone
Speaker:who's making great content. If brands don't
Speaker:work with them, I think they're massively missing a trick. Yeah,
Speaker:I think they're scrambling at the moment. Yeah. If
Speaker:you're a brand within the construction industry that isn't working
Speaker:in some way, shape or form, be it your own social media or
Speaker:working with a content creator or a company like you who can
Speaker:put you in touch with people, I think you're going to get left behind pretty
Speaker:And all of a sudden your competitors are snatching you up with non-competes. Yeah,
Speaker:Yeah, I've got, you know, you work with a company that I
Speaker:work with a rival company to that. I wouldn't say rival, but
Speaker:I can't work with that company and I wouldn't want to because it's a conflict of
Speaker:interest. But I still know people in that company and
Speaker:I'll, how you doing? And, but,
Speaker:but content creators are being snapped up by companies. So
Speaker:You've got to get the money even for shows. Um,
Speaker:I'm booked up for next year's Installer Show by a
Speaker:company, an underfloor head company, Snug Underfloor, that I've worked with from
Speaker:pretty much the first few months of beginning
Speaker:to make content. And I stay really loyal to them
Speaker:and I've worked with them and I always say, and again
Speaker:it harps back to just the person that I am and the respect,
Speaker:they were there, they were one of the first companies I ever worked with
Speaker:and they were finding the feet, I was finding my
Speaker:feet. We got brought together through an agency as a
Speaker:one hit video forum, and then
Speaker:we built a rapport up off the back of that. They had no tie-in
Speaker:with them, they didn't have to stay with that company. Built a rapport up off that, worked
Speaker:with them at the very first Installer Show I'd done, and I always give
Speaker:I'm not a piece of meat, but first dibs on me. Because it's a
Speaker:respect thing. You know, I could go and earn maybe
Speaker:double what they're paying me, but they've been with
Speaker:me from day one. And I always say, Steve, if you want me
Speaker:But yeah, but that's how I've been brought up. And I can sleep
Speaker:well at night, knowing that I'm doing the right thing for me. Yeah.
Speaker:I've had other underfloor heating companies come to me and want to work with me.
Speaker:I'm like, again, always very, thanks
Speaker:very much for the offer. Really appreciate it. However, I currently work
Speaker:with, you know, so if they turn around to me and went, look, Mark,
Speaker:you know, we've worked with you for three years. We're going
Speaker:to try someone else. I would go brilliant, you
Speaker:know, fine. Go and work with them. No, you know, love
Speaker:working with you. Still friends. I'll come and see you if I can do anything for
Speaker:you. because you don't burn your bridges. Whereas,
Speaker:you know, I've touched on it earlier. Some people don't, they, they
Speaker:do what they do each their own. I can
Speaker:sleep well at night knowing I've got a great
Speaker:rapport with all the companies I work with and the ones that I want
Speaker:Fundamentally though, your thing is like you won't, as
Speaker:a rule, work with brands that you don't use and trust. So
Speaker:I don't know, I don't know why people do, because
Speaker:It is money, you know. And, you know,
Speaker:if a certain company comes to me with a million pound a year, then
Speaker:obviously it's not that we get anything like that, but, you
Speaker:know, a massively caricature version of it. There
Speaker:is a point I think with everyone where you go right okay, but
Speaker:that's never going to come my way and I
Speaker:respect myself too much and respect the companies that I've worked with over
Speaker:the years too much to shit on them if you like.
Speaker:It's the fundamentals of your kind of the way that your
Speaker:brand of content creation, which is, you know, you, you find a
Speaker:product, you like it, you use it, it's part of your job.
Speaker:And you really, you know, you enjoy using that product, it makes your job easier. So
Speaker:therefore, that that's how you start to work potentially work
Speaker:with that brand is because you've already been using it for ages. If you've been using snug
Speaker:underfloor heating for the last three years, And
Speaker:then all of a sudden, you go to a different brand. It
Speaker:wouldn't work like that, because even if you stopped using snug underfloor heating,
Speaker:you'd start using something else, start to enjoy it. And it'd
Speaker:be a long process, wouldn't it? It'd be weird for you to just jump straight into a
Speaker:thing that you've never used before, because chances are you're probably going to carry on using snug
Speaker:underfloor heating. The reasons why you're using the first place is decent, or
Speaker:And people would see fit. Wednesday, that
Speaker:was great. You know, two weeks later, this is great. Straight away, you're
Speaker:I think it's okay to like two products, but, you know, for different
Speaker:reasons. And, you know, you'll always get that kind of thing of, well, this is
Speaker:good for this reason, this is good for that reason. But especially in
Speaker:the trade, you have your go-tos, you've got your Thomas Dudley's, you know, regardless
Speaker:of, I mean, I love Thomas Dudley for the fact that they created that
Speaker:little Victoria valve adapter thing. Because they're making it
Speaker:easier uh this is completely off topic but
Speaker:um we're nerding out about Thomas Dudley the fact that they're
Speaker:making it easier for you to be loyal to Thomas Dudley yeah
Speaker:by giving you adapters to competitor brands yes to make
Speaker:you fit Thomas Dudley so good they're so clever and it's just so quick
Speaker:and yeah no and it's exciting when
Speaker:we i can talk about it now because obviously it's out but when we send
Speaker:the very first prototype to that and sign NDAs on it and We
Speaker:How are you not getting lawsuits? I
Speaker:Is that what it is? Yeah. I just looked at it and went, that's fucking
Speaker:It can, from what I gather, don't quote me on this, legal people,
Speaker:it's an adapter for multiple different things.
Speaker:other, other leading brands. Generic, whatever's.
Speaker:Yeah. No, you got, do you know what? And that's what I've learned as well, doing what
Speaker:I do. You've got to be so careful. not,
Speaker:you've got to be so careful in some things you say. Like
Speaker:when we was out there, in your sort of studio and
Speaker:that, there's products that I didn't, I
Speaker:didn't stand next to because I knew that photos of
Speaker:me might be taken. I didn't notice that. Yeah,
Speaker:you wouldn't have noticed that, but I've gone, I don't want to stand near that in
Speaker:case, not that it would ever be an issue, but in
Speaker:case of a photo goes out on your site of me stood next to that,
Speaker:it could be misconstrued. Yeah. Even to the point of
Speaker:we were filming at Installer
Speaker:Show, I was running, I was roving, like Anika Rice,
Speaker:It was great. And I loved that day, it was brilliant. was
Speaker:running around doing some bits and I followed a guy on to, I
Speaker:followed a guy to try and have a chat with him about just
Speaker:a giveaway. Mate, do you want a free t-shirt or whatever? And
Speaker:he was trying to get away from me. He didn't want to speak on
Speaker:camera or whatever, and he ran onto a stand of a
Speaker:Yeah, it was like Bass. Obviously, he didn't know that, but
Speaker:I've chased him, and I've seen him go on, I've gone, I've turned to Jack
Speaker:on the camera going, I can't go on there, or if I
Speaker:go on there, you can't film me on there. So I've literally
Speaker:stood off it and I've gone, mate, he didn't want, he didn't want to talk. I've gone,
Speaker:mate, come here. And he's like, no. And I, I went,
Speaker:mate, please just come here. And we come up, I've managed to get him off round the corner
Speaker:where this other brand isn't in shot. And we had a really good
Speaker:chat, a really good fun giveaway, great bit to camera.
Speaker:Um, But that's, again, that's
Speaker:where other people may not be bothered. They'd run onto
Speaker:whatever stand or have a picture with that
Speaker:in the background. I'm just very conscious. I
Speaker:massively appreciate companies that work with me, that
Speaker:pay me to work with them, that take the time out to allow me
Speaker:to work with them. So I don't want to disrespect them in any way,
Speaker:No, you just got to use your best judgment on that. Yeah. I
Speaker:think, I think it's okay to speak to these people. Like, you know, it's one of the things that I
Speaker:say regularly is like, I'll make connections with my,
Speaker:my clients, competitors all the time. Yeah. Because
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Massive. And I do, I speak to other companies and
Speaker:But, but I can't be seen to be promoting anything.
Speaker:Which is, I know the game. I always refer to it as a game because
Speaker:Do you know what? That sums it up. When people
Speaker:are going, oh, you're working with so-and-so, or you've
Speaker:said this about so-and-so, it's the fucking internet. It's the internet.
Speaker:It's not real life. It's, it's
Speaker:the game. Um, And
Speaker:yeah, when you can understand that and you can enjoy it
Speaker:then. There's a lad that works for a rival
Speaker:brand to Thomas Dudley. He's a
Speaker:great lad, a lad called Stan. Absolute guy.
Speaker:We have a load of banter to and from. He works with a rival
Speaker:plumbing valve company. And we just, we just take the
Speaker:piss out of each other. Because it's,
Speaker:do you know what I put it down to, and I've said brands should do
Speaker:this more, is the Audi Lidl thing on
Speaker:Twitter. How cool is that? It builds both
Speaker:the brands. It was over the Caterpillar, wasn't it? The
Speaker:But them two massive rival companies, but
Speaker:now they're they're just working
Speaker:together, taking the piss out of each other and collaborating
Speaker:I love that. And I do feel that when we moved into construction as
Speaker:an agency, I don't know,
Speaker:five years ago or something. Like, like was some of the first stuff that
Speaker:we shot for the construction industry. Brackets. Yeah. Very, very sexy.
Speaker:No, no. I mean, we still, we still shoot
Speaker:brackets on the regular. If you ever see our
Speaker:imagery of brackets, it'll blow your fucking mind. I love a good bracket
Speaker:shot. Hashtag
Speaker:bracket shot. It's not just any old bracket, facade
Speaker:brackets as well. The ones that you will literally never see. Stop it, Dan, stop
Speaker:it. But they've got the little thermal isolators, they're beautiful. So
Speaker:anyway, I was really surprised when I started working more
Speaker:with these brands, as in like getting more in depth with the owners and
Speaker:the marketers and all these kinds of things. How petty
Speaker:and... competitive
Speaker:they are. Like so, so competitive. So we would be
Speaker:filming, this is a classic example, we were filming something that this
Speaker:company had got. Brand new product, it
Speaker:was a thing that cut insulation boards.
Speaker:This is like a facade company. Brand new, it's just a fucking saw. It
Speaker:wasn't even a big deal, it was just a big saw. I don't know which,
Speaker:I think it was a horizontal saw. And
Speaker:this was what it did. It cut installation boards to size, ready
Speaker:to go into facade systems. And
Speaker:the guy was like, don't, with brand new products, it's
Speaker:amazing. Do not show that anywhere. I'm like, that's not how
Speaker:marketing works, my friend. You need to show the stuff that's good. The
Speaker:stuff that's good and that's going to make you a shitload of money, you need to show
Speaker:that stuff. Be proud of it. It's like, I
Speaker:don't want my competitors to see that we've got it, because then they'll get one. I'm
Speaker:like, I don't understand your reasoning behind that at all. Yes,
Speaker:fair enough, they could get it. But also, if your customers
Speaker:don't know that you have this, how can they buy the service? I
Speaker:don't get it. So it was competitive to the point where they were doing themselves harm.
Speaker:By not allowing it. Yeah. But I kind of understood it, because their competitors
Speaker:had more money. So what they would do is they'd go, if they've got them, we'll get two. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. We'll get three. And we'll get the better ones. We'll buy all this stuff. Yeah. So
Speaker:they can't. Yeah, yeah. Ours will be faster than we've got. But
Speaker:it was, yeah, I've always been surprised. Whereas the creative industries, apart
Speaker:from a few, there's some knobs. Like there'll be
Speaker:an agency that rocks up next door to us that does exactly the
Speaker:same thing that we do to exactly the same clientele. We'll be bestie mates
Speaker:with them forever. Right. and we'll be putting work each other's way
Speaker:and stuff like that. As a rule that's how the creative industry
Speaker:is because there's enough work to go around, there's enough customers to go around. I
Speaker:kind of understand it for the construction industry but also at the same time I don't like
Speaker:it. I don't like how competitive brands are. Who's a
Speaker:brand that you think are doing marketing
Speaker:Who's a brand that I think is doing really good marketing But
Speaker:No, no, just like stuffy sort of thing. Do you know what? They've got it.
Speaker:Well done, guys. They're doing a good job. Tough,
Speaker:I'm just thinking, because there's loads of brands that are doing great stuff. But
Speaker:I'm trying to think of a standout company that is
Speaker:absolutely smashing what
Speaker:See, this is my problem with this question. Have a think while
Speaker:I don't think there's that many brands that... They're all doing stuff well,
Speaker:but there's not one spearheading a
Speaker:Yeah, there'll be one brand that like does like funny little
Speaker:videos that are like Lawton Tubes, really good example of
Speaker:that. They've really put some effort in there. And
Speaker:that they've actually like for a
Speaker:copper company for the most part, I already know loads about law and tubes, that's
Speaker:No, Rob's a great guy and him and what Pete have
Speaker:done, they've got their eyes
Speaker:on, because like you say, it's just a company that supplies copper,
Speaker:but they've made it cool. Rob's putting effort
Speaker:in, the Installer Show stuff. And again, they had the,
Speaker:um, the boys from the office at Installer Show. So
Speaker:again, that's Pete. Pete's quite a creative guy. And I get on really
Speaker:well with Pete, contrary to what a lot of people think. I get
Speaker:on really well with Pete and, um, he
Speaker:bought the guys from the office in the, the, the, what do you call
Speaker:Lookalikes in the office. And the guys were brilliant. But
Speaker:they brought them to the Installer Show and there's a buzz around that stand. And
Speaker:Rob's a great guy. Yeah, what Rob's doing and Pete's doing with Lawton
Speaker:is very, very good. But as a standout company, I can't
Speaker:So yeah, this is my view of the landscape of
Speaker:brands in the construction industry. There's
Speaker:not anybody that's doing anything what I consider to be. really,
Speaker:I hate to use the word, the game changing. Yeah. Markets inside.
Speaker:They're all having, and this is kind of my view, is
Speaker:they're all a bit behind the sort of
Speaker:more, the modern sort of marketing methods and
Speaker:the stuff that's working currently. Especially when
Speaker:it comes to social media. There'll be some brands out there that do incredible email
Speaker:campaigns. They've got loads of great print advertising and stuff like that. Great.
Speaker:It's not my area, so I can't judge that. Um, but,
Speaker:uh, there's so much more up
Speaker:for grabs in the construction industry for influencers, for
Speaker:agencies, for marketers to make a huge difference. And
Speaker:it, the, the trajectories like that, because people are picking it
Speaker:up. But, um, so the reason why I said, um, uh, a
Speaker:brand that you don't work with, cause one that is doing it really well is Unilight. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. How, how has always. Like
Speaker:he's always said, and you know, I'm massively proud to work
Speaker:with Uni. I remember the conversation when I was asked to work
Speaker:with them and I was like, wow, that was, I think that was the first,
Speaker:I think that was the first paid sponsorship
Speaker:deal I got because Al wanted to sponsor my
Speaker:Unilike channel and sponsor and have
Speaker:Oh, so my YouTube channel. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to sponsor
Speaker:my YouTube channel and wanted to
Speaker:have me as a brand ambassador. And I remember just
Speaker:reading the text message from Al and it was like, wow. You know,
Speaker:that was like a pivotal moment in, going
Speaker:on. Not I've made it, but all of a sudden I'm getting the recognition
Speaker:that I've tried to get, but it wasn't all about that.
Speaker:But for a company that, because at the time a lot of
Speaker:people worked with them, you know, we had various influencers
Speaker:that worked with them that I looked up to and was like, wow, you know, they're doing it.
Speaker:But yeah, Al's always said, it's just a light. You've
Speaker:got to try and make that light cool. And the way he's worked it
Speaker:and got it out there, everyone wants it. Everyone wants to
Speaker:have one. Everyone takes pictures when they have them. And that
Speaker:I like them because they mix, and I am biased to this, because this
Speaker:is kind of the method that I would use. He's mixing creative
Speaker:visual campaigns, great social media content, and
Speaker:boots on the ground content creators. And there's a nice balance
Speaker:between that. Yeah, and also he's trying stuff. Trying
Speaker:new stuff, you know? And I think that's... And
Speaker:three lights in my van that I've been field testing now
Speaker:for six months and constantly feeding back to them. Does
Speaker:that work? Does that, is that magnet powerful enough
Speaker:to do that? Is that light bright enough? Is the battery charging? And
Speaker:that's what he does. And that's why I like the fact that they're
Speaker:field tested. He might've invested hundred
Speaker:grand into tooling or whatever for that light, and between the
Speaker:six of us or seven of us that work with him as ambassadors and
Speaker:work with the company, if we turn around and go, oh shit it
Speaker:don't work, he'd listen, he wouldn't just throw it out for the sake of
Speaker:it. And that's, and again that's, it's a
Speaker:massive proud moment on reflection of that
Speaker:a company respects and takes in
Speaker:what you're saying to them. Cause yeah, it's just a light, but every trades
Speaker:person uses a light. Yeah. Especially when the
Speaker:And it's nice to have a cool light, you know, they look awesome. Like we've got, we've got
Speaker:some new light stuff, um, in the, in the studio, uh, there was,
Speaker:very kindly donated to me when I was on the podcast. But I've
Speaker:been obsessed with their products for ages. And they're so cool.
Speaker:Just really nice to have hanging around. And I think we used them on a shoot
Speaker:the other day, like as actual light for moving around a
Speaker:product and stuff. But obviously, I didn't say Um,
Speaker:like I wanted to use the example of, of Unite. We've got
Speaker:some brands that we think are doing exactly the right stuff because we're, we're working with
Speaker:them and they gave us enough money to do all the cool stuff that we want to. But I'm not going
Speaker:to mention those because that'd be crass. But yeah, really, really cool brand. But
Speaker:it's nice to see those guys paving the way of, um, of I
Speaker:think what is, is, is what should be done in the, in the industry.
Speaker:And that's what, that's what, um, uh, creates success. They've got a great podcast.
Speaker:They're doing great content. They've got great brand ambassadors. And
Speaker:And of course, the consistency results in a really great... Yeah,
Speaker:the team behind Unionite and the team behind the podcast that
Speaker:I'm again, massively fortunate to now co-host
Speaker:The, the feel at the UniLite HQ as a building is,
Speaker:is cool. As a standalone building, it's cool. When you go in and,
Speaker:and I'm fortunate now to, to class them as really good friends of mine. And
Speaker:I was a really good mate of mine. You're just part
Speaker:of the team. I can walk in and if I've
Speaker:got editing to do on a video or stuff, I can go in and sit
Speaker:down and work from there. I can, I'm
Speaker:now fortunate to be able to go, I want so-and-so on the podcast. You
Speaker:Or get Dan on again. Get Dan on again. Give him some air time.
Speaker:But it is having that creative, not
Speaker:control, creative... Flexibility. Flexibility
Speaker:to go, I want to get this guy, can we get this guy on? Or like now we've just
Speaker:had the lads from Super Trowel on who are building
Speaker:the biggest and best bricklaying competition in
Speaker:the UK and Europe. The podcast went out last night.
Speaker:As an event, you've got
Speaker:to build a wall within an hour with X amount of bricks, and
Speaker:it's who can lay the most bricks. But the boys have got walk-on
Speaker:music, they've got indoor firers, they've got DJs playing, they've got
Speaker:stands. And to be able to get them on and give them the exposure,
Speaker:and then turn to Al and go, that podcast was
Speaker:amazing what they're doing is amazing can we take that podcast
Speaker:to their event for two days to
Speaker:film content to interview the the guys on the ground who
Speaker:are taking part in the competition how can we do that? And
Speaker:for him to sign that off for four of us to go down to
Speaker:stop down overnight, you know, it's a big investment from the Trey
Speaker:Legends company and from Unilight and from Al to
Speaker:trust us that it's going to work. Of me
Speaker:going, can we do that? That's like, you're
Speaker:giving me the reins as such. Yeah. And
Speaker:yeah, just hosting the podcast is amazing. But again, it's
Speaker:come from three years ago when
Speaker:I've sat and watched six months worth of content of car content and
Speaker:gone, I reckon I could make a YouTube channel out of this. Because that's what opened
Speaker:the door was the YouTube channel. And that is my main
Speaker:platform and the people I've met
Speaker:along the way, the friendships I've made along the way for just
Speaker:creating content and using social media.
Speaker:Social media is amazing. There's a percentage, 0.0%
Speaker:of it that's shit. But the whole, you
Speaker:know, what it opens up is unreal, you
Speaker:know, to the point of, yeah, it's
Speaker:um it's like a it's like a weird video game isn't it you just like
Speaker:how the hell did it end up here yeah i'm sat at what time are we on quarter
Speaker:past seven on a monday night chat i could chat sit
Speaker:chatting here for hours you know even the the editor he's yeah because the
Speaker:engineer's gone he's gone yeah he's just basically gone press them buttons
Speaker:when you're done that's because i'm going whereas me and you were like let's
Speaker:just crack on we could we we could talk another hour but what i've got
Speaker:one last question um uh but before i ask that question is there
Speaker:anything that you feel like you want to talk about that you've, that
Speaker:I haven't asked about, do you think? Anything, any little extra
Speaker:little, little piece or a nugget before,
Speaker:Not, not really, no. Hats off, just hats
Speaker:off to everyone who creates content, be
Speaker:it short form content, long form content, you
Speaker:if you've done whatever you've done to get views and take
Speaker:all of that out of it because at the end of the day we're all
Speaker:creating content we're all enjoying creating that content we we're
Speaker:earning a few quid from it we're meeting people along the
Speaker:way we are building friendships and
Speaker:everyone's doing what they enjoy doing. Social
Speaker:media can be a horrible place, trolls on there can be horrible and
Speaker:you know we've all had it, we've all had it and
Speaker:if it hasn't affected you in any way then I think you're probably
Speaker:lying because I've had a comment before
Speaker:that's sort of stuck in my head and rattled around for a few days and I'm you
Speaker:know, it does play on you. But as a whole, everyone
Speaker:who makes content hats off to you keep doing it. It's amazing. Everyone
Speaker:who's thinking of doing it, do it, give it a go. Everyone says,
Speaker:I don't think I don't like my voice on camera. I don't like talking to
Speaker:myself. It's weird. It's strange to start with. But It's,
Speaker:I find it quite therapeutic sitting and editing an
Speaker:hour's worth of footage. I was editing a video this morning that's, in
Speaker:fact, it went out six o'clock tonight. What time are we on? Quarter past seven. Quarter
Speaker:past seven. So I had a video drop at six o'clock tonight, completely forgotten till
Speaker:now. So if I, what I tend to do is if a video goes out
Speaker:on YouTube, it's gone out on a Monday night tonight, because last
Speaker:night was the football. Again, you've got to, look
Speaker:at the way the content is, and if
Speaker:there's a major event going on, if it's a bank holiday Monday, don't
Speaker:put content out on a Sunday. No one will watch it. So
Speaker:like last night England were playing, so I didn't put last night's content out,
Speaker:put it out tonight. Yeah, that would be... Yeah, because no one would watch it. So
Speaker:it's gone out tonight. And what I usually do for the first hour, I'll sit there and
Speaker:reply to everyone that that messages and there'll be people on there I
Speaker:know for a for a fact there's a guy called Wayne he will have
Speaker:commented on there usually puts his hands up like this. I
Speaker:sit there for an hour and and reply back to it because giving back
Speaker:to those people that invested in the content I make is
Speaker:is is quite interesting and never take
Speaker:that for granted always sort of you know
Speaker:interact with them they're the people that have got you to where you are so
Speaker:always have a chat with them and you know, take time to reply
Speaker:But yeah, thrown on my engagement. You didn't need it, mate. It's got
Speaker:like a ton of likes and comments already. Perfect. There
Speaker:you go. Done really, really well. Um, yeah.
Speaker:Uh, massive, uh, the network of, of
Speaker:creators and trades people in on social media
Speaker:is insane. And what a lovely, what a lovely place to be for everybody involved.
Speaker:Not just the creators, but the brands, the agencies. and
Speaker:all that kind of good stuff. If you were to give any advice to
Speaker:somebody, literally grassroots, they're like, right, I've got
Speaker:a trade, I'm having a good time. I like the idea of
Speaker:creating some sort of content platform for what
Speaker:um what would be like your first like most valuable piece
Speaker:of advice you could give if you're thinking of doing it
Speaker:do it if i that's so cliche though
Speaker:if i'd known what it would have if i'd known three years ago where
Speaker:i'm now i would have started three years earlier yes um if
Speaker:you think if you're happy enough to put your content out there and yet and
Speaker:yet and you're happy enough to possibly speak on
Speaker:camera. But let's go content wise first. Get an
Speaker:Instagram account specific for your company, be it plumber,
Speaker:electrician, carpenter, whatever. Put some pictures
Speaker:of your work on. It might take
Speaker:a while to build up people liking it and all that sort of stuff because people
Speaker:have got to find your page and your content. But Do it,
Speaker:be proud of what you're creating and you're doing for
Speaker:people. Then if you're half interested in
Speaker:making real short form content or
Speaker:even long form content, YouTube content is great. Um,
Speaker:there's no right or wrong way of doing it. And
Speaker:if you enjoy doing it, why not? The life's too short to
Speaker:not do stuff that you enjoy. I find it. I
Speaker:find it really enjoyable making content. Sometimes I struggle
Speaker:thinking of stuff to do, but all of a sudden your
Speaker:brain will blow up with, I could do this, this, this, this, and this. I've got
Speaker:ideas in my head that I've had for six months that I haven't got round to
Speaker:filming yet. Did you sort of document them? I've literally got a
Speaker:whiteboard at home I've written loads of ideas down on. And
Speaker:loads of them I've done, loads of them I still need to do. But
Speaker:yeah, just do it. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah.
Speaker:What's the absolute worst that can happen is no one will watch
Speaker:it or view it. But you've got an online portfolio of
Speaker:work then. Yes. Use it as a storage space if you want to, which is
Speaker:what, ironically, YouTube started out as, was just storage. Yeah.
Speaker:It's a bit like Vimeo or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Um, so
Speaker:even if you just put content on there to show a customer, this
Speaker:is what I can do. That's the absolute worst that
Speaker:can happen because it's all backed up there. The best that can happen
Speaker:is you could earn a fortune from content
Speaker:you've put out, open doors, host podcasts, go to shows,
Speaker:meet people, and better your better,
Speaker:better your trade, better your, because what I have found is
Speaker:because I'm filming content, it's made me be, not
Speaker:that I wasn't conscious of my work anyway, but be that, do
Speaker:it that little bit better. You know, I'm not, my
Speaker:content, I show it when it goes right, when it goes wrong. when
Speaker:I've drilled through pipes, I've caused leaks in houses, but I've
Speaker:also done loads of great work as well. But
Speaker:I think it can make you in general more passionate about the
Speaker:Before I started it, I was very, I'm going to work. Now I'm like,
Speaker:do that yeah yeah and you take a little bit more pride in what you do
Speaker:i've always found that when you film stuff when you create content on
Speaker:a particular thing it's like teaching something all of a sudden you become more
Speaker:obsessed with that particular thing yeah yeah i've had you know i i
Speaker:when i first worked in in the industry when i didn't when i wasn't self-employed i hated
Speaker:my job i thought it was crap thought i'm the the grass is gonna be greener in
Speaker:fashion or whatever um and then when i became self-employed and
Speaker:i started to like I started to feel like I could make a
Speaker:difference. This is great. I'm a
Speaker:proper nerd for this. I love it. It's amazing. The
Speaker:hunger comes back. Yeah. yeah yeah and you just you
Speaker:know i'm to this day i reckon 10 years of
Speaker:watching youtube at night i will always click onto something that's production related
Speaker:yeah and enjoy it from my creators that i've watched for
Speaker:a decade yeah they're all like you're still learning stuff
Speaker:you go tonight and watch some content of what you do and
Speaker:you pick something up oh i could shoot that way
Speaker:no one stops learning. I've put stuff out before on my YouTube channel
Speaker:and I've had guys on there that are retired and they've gone, bloody
Speaker:hell, Mark, 50, 60
Speaker:years in the game and I didn't realize you could do that. And I
Speaker:went, you know, everyone's learning, I don't know
Speaker:That was my missus, she seems to know everything. But no, no
Speaker:one knows everything about everything and if you think you do then
Speaker:there's something wrong because we're all learning. We can all
Speaker:better what we do. And we can all, we
Speaker:can all better ourselves in exactly
Speaker:That's a beautiful way to end the podcast. So
Speaker:last bit of advice, if you're thinking about doing it, get it
Speaker:done. Break through that barrier. And if
Speaker:I was to give advice brand side, which I think is quite a nice thing
Speaker:to do from both sides, if you have,
Speaker:if you have a mind to create content that is face
Speaker:facing, you know, with your voice, you know, actual kind of like bringing your
Speaker:personality into the, into the film, you're way
Speaker:more likely to get to get picked up by a brand, just stats wise,
Speaker:we can see, we see great, great accounts
Speaker:that are faceless that have got great reach and we just a
Speaker:lot of the time we just we need a personality because we need them to we
Speaker:need that for the brand yeah you need worth knowing to be sort of
Speaker:relatable don't you need to that's that guy or that's that
Speaker:girl to some extent yeah it doesn't always have to be the case but certainly for
Speaker:brand ambassadors and things like that people who you want to get on the books
Speaker:on the reg um having an actual personality
Speaker:on camera at all times is massively beneficial to
Speaker:get in notice but also as a production company that
Speaker:looks after construction brands as well or a social media agency,
Speaker:we're looking, we personally are looking for people who are going
Speaker:to be good on camera because we're wanting to film with them. So
Speaker:that plays a huge part in our sort of
Speaker:selection process of going Can we put some money towards these
Speaker:guys because he looks great. And also I
Speaker:guess a little caveat to that is we pretty much only ever
Speaker:look at the people who are engaging with our brands accounts. So
Speaker:we're not looking to find typically the
Speaker:biggest accounts
Speaker:that, you know, like influencer accounts that don't engage with our products. We're
Speaker:only looking for the interaction. It's just easier. I don't want
Speaker:to have to look. We're
Speaker:looking at the DMs going, yeah, they look cool. Thanks
Speaker:I really enjoyed that, mate. And I hope he's just
Speaker:given people a bit of an overview on what the
Speaker:ins and outs and the bits of social media that people, a lot of people
Speaker:don't like talking about. And I
Speaker:haven't gone to upset anyone or thrown
Speaker:anyone under the bus or anything like that, but you know, I'll
Speaker:I don't know everything about it. What I've
Speaker:said is my view. Yeah. I could, you
Speaker:know, stand behind that, what I've said. Someone, I'm sure... Don't backtrack
Speaker:now, Mark. I'm sure someone in the comments will go, he's full of shit, he doesn't
Speaker:Works for me, Dan. This is the beautiful thing, it's your
Speaker:flavour of social media. And we have got other
Speaker:people coming on that have got a very different flavour of social media. And
Speaker:it's working for them. Great. And then some of them, like,
Speaker:you just sort of think, you know, what a massive sellout,
