Interesting conversations with interesting people

Finally, Viv gives her advice for someone starting their career in the same space.

In this episode, Emma is joined by Jane Levin. Jane is a content specialist, researcher, copywriter, editor and producer with more than 20 years’ experience, who has built a successful career utilising both part-time and freelance work.

The desire (from employees) for part-time work seems ever more popular and as yet doesn’t seem to be reflected in the availability of part-time roles. So how do you set about achieving your goal of part-time?

Jane has worked in a freelance capacity, working directly for clients she reached out to herself and found what for many, is the holy grail, a permanent, part-time role. The main thing that stands out from our discussion, is that she had a strategy. She knew what she wanted to achieve and worked out the steps it would take to get there.

In our conversation, Jane shares how she did this and the strategy she employed. In simple terms, where am I, where do I want to get and what skills do I need to get me there? She talks through the steps she took to help answer each of those questions and how she proactively set about putting herself out there and making it happen.

If it’s something you’d like to achieve in your own career, we hope that hearing Jane's story and understanding the approach she took will give you some ideas and a strategy you can implement for yourself.

In this episode Emma is joined by Nevena Spirovska to talk about Communications and Advocacy in the public sector and what she’s learnt on her career journey to date.

We get insights into her time working in Politics, firstly as a Campaign Director for her candidate and subsequently as their Communications and strategy Manager. Her take on how she approached reactive and proactive comms, how much control you could have over the narrative and how she dealt with the occasional crisis situation she faced. 

We also talk about her time as the Public Affairs Manager for the Victorian County Court during the George Pell trial, and what she learnt from it. Nevena now spends her time working in the not for profit sector whilst also investing time in advocacy and volunteering.

We also talk more broadly about purpose based work and how other people might bring that sense of meaning into their own work or lives.

This was a fascinating conversation with someone who has packed an incredibly diverse range of experiences into their career thus far. 

A huge thank you to Nevena for taking the time to chat with me and share her experience.

Emma is joined by Customologist Mark James. Customology is a mix of technology, science, and marketing which enables businesses to create customers for life. With reference to 'the unspoken customer' report (see link below) what do your customers really think?

• We talk about the current 'trust crisis' that many brands are experiencing and what can be done to combat this. 
• How customers really feel about the number of emails they are receiving from brands, and how a lack of genuine personalisation (beyond just using your name) is impacting this. 
• How do customers feel about communications through other channels in comparison?
• How do customers actually think about value, and what are the elements which go into it?  
• The role of loyalty and paths to repurchasing.

This is such a rich topic, we could have spoken about it for hours! Hopefully, the points we chose will resonate and give you some ideas.

If you'd like to read the full report, it can be downloaded at:
https://www.customology.com.au/the-unspoken-customer-download/

In this episode, Emma is joined by Michelle Newell, storyteller, writer and workshop host.

Michelle started her career teaching English literature, before moving into the corporate world in communications roles and ultimately turning her passion for human-led content into her own business. (https://thestorytelling.biz/) 

Michelle starts by talking us through her own career history, perfectly demonstrating how important and impactful storytelling is. From here we talk through what a 'story' is and isn't and Michelle gives practical tips on how to craft your own story.

Michelle is passionate about the crucial role that storytelling plays in employee engagement and EVP more broadly. We talk through what EVP is and how using stories leads to much more meaningful content and engagement. Again, Michelle gives practical tips on how to go about this and the types of stories you can tell.

In a time when 'storytelling' has become a bit of a buzzword, it was great to get context and a more practical understanding of what it actually means, and how to do it in the most effective way.

A huge thank you to Michelle for sharing her time and experience. Enjoy! 

Emma is joined by Rachel whose career has covered senior leadership positions in both agencies and client side,  more recently with SaaS products in the digital/technology space.

The conversation starts off talking about leadership more broadly and then talks about leadership in Marketing more specifically.

• Did Rachel always set out to develop into leadership roles, and if so how did she do this?
• At the start of your career when you don't have as much experience, how do you take your development into your own hands?
• As a leader how do you raise the profile of marketing within the organisation and why is this important?
• Why do you think that historically we’ve seen so few Marketers go on to become CEO’s? Do you see this changing in the future?
• How do you continue to develop yourself, what tools do you use?

Rachel also talks about how she used to separate 'work me' from 'private me' and how becoming more authentically herself at work has benefitted her leadership skills.

We love talking about leadership on the podcast, and love hearing from different guests about how they have approached their own journeys. So thank you to Rachel for being open and honest and sharing her experiences with us.

We hope you enjoy the episode :) 

Emma is joined by Catherine Toms, who has spent over 20 years as a senior commercial digital & marketing leader – both agency and in-house. Working with some of the world’s biggest brands including Danone, BP, Tesco and Twitter to help them become more data-driven, customer-centric and digital-first.

Catherine now works to help up skill digital, marketing and sales teams and deliver tangible results as one of half of The Toms (https://www.thetoms.co/)

Asking if Marketers have a problem with Marketing themselves, may seem slightly counter-intuitive. But as Catherine discusses, the changing face of Marketing has led to a large number of businesses not actually understanding the breadth of what Marketing can now do. Marketing has never been more commercially focused, more aligned with business strategy and more of a revenue generator.

Catherine talks us through what can be done to help educate the wider business. How do you bring your Exec leaders along on that journey?  What part does the language you use play in this?

We also discuss if digital and the subsequent data it produces has actually been a double edged sword when it comes to more long term Marketing. Catherine also has some advice on how to combat this.

A thought-provoking, insightful and highly practical episode. A huge thank to Catherine for taking the time to come on the podcast and share her experience and advice.

 

In this episode, Emma is joined by Barbara Pesel, Managing Director of Pesel & Carr a strategic communications agency. https://www.peselandcarr.com.au/

With more than 30 years experience Barbara is a strategic communications expert whose bread and butter is designing effective communications programs and helping companies who are either predicting – or experiencing! – a communications crisis.

Barbara shares a wealth of knowledge during this conversation, starting with her approach to strategic communications and why communications professionals should always part be of the leadership team.

We talk in depth about crisis communication and reputation management, Barbara shares advice on how best to prepare, what to do, and what not to do, during a crisis event. We talk about some specific real world examples to give context to the theory, and Barbara shares her thoughts on where they went wrong.

I was also really interested to hear Barbara's thoughts on the rise of AI in communications, as someone who has built her career in the space, does she see a place for and value in AI?

A huge thank you to Barbara for sharing her knowledge and experience on the podcast, I think I could have talked to her all day!

I hope you enjoy the episode :) 

Emma is joined in this episode by Sean Withford who is the founder of Eloquent Digital Marketing Agency, and more recently the founder of Neuromarketing Labs.

Sean talks us through his career, including being one of the very early employees at LinkedIn and what drove him to start his own marketing agency, before we move on to talking about all things 'neuromarketing'.

What is neuromarketing, what problem does it solve, and how does it work? How is it different from market research and behavioural marketing?

Sean talks us through the different processes and applications, what they are measuring and how they can be used to inform decision making.  We also touch on the cost implications, what type of investment is required and what are the benefits.

Who is using neuromarketing, and what type of clients are seeing benefits from it?

A really 'interesting conversation' and a really interesting field!

If you'd like more information please feel free to reach out to Sean at Eloquent either via LinkedIn or https://www.eloquent.com.au/

So many people are currently talking about wanting to move into the ‘for purpose’ space, it’s probably the number one thing that people say when we ask them what they are looking for in their next role. So the timing of this episode is perfect.

Emma is joined by David Boyles a Marketer who started his career in Agency in London, before moving to Sydney and ultimately going client side.  For him moving to a ‘for purpose’ organisation was very important and we wanted to understand if it had lived up to the hype, and whether as a Marketer he approached the brand differently.

• We talk about David’s early career, and what working in an Agency taught him.
• His move to Sydney and looking for a purpose in his work
• Joining a start-up in the disability services space when they had only 30 employees.
• Growing and scaling with that business to over 400 employees and becoming Head of Brand.
• As a marketer how to approach a for-purpose brand, and more specifically a disability services brand.
• The role of profit in for purpose
• What are the challenges of working with a for-purpose brand and what did he learn along the way.

David is very insightful and open about his own career journey, and what he’s learned along the way.  He continues to work in the for purpose space, having moved to Melbourne and joined another disability services business. 

For all those thinking of wanting to find more purpose and meaning in their work, we hope this episode is helpful.