Debunking Business Clichés

Welcome to Throb, The Reality of Business podcast. Real business chat from real people without the shiny veneer of gurus anywhere near it.

With your hosts Bertie Cordingly and Paul Chapman and maybe some guests along the route, we'll talk about our experiences of running business, helping others run a business and sharing real stories based on real experience.

Hello, Paul.

Hello, mate. How are you? Hello.

I'm amazingly well today. How are you? Show off. Yeah, mate, good.

Yeah, yeah, cracking on. Loads of stuff happening at the moment. Yeah, it is shining-ish after torrentialness of yesterday. But yeah, all good.

All good. So welcome to the Throb podcast. And today, Paul, what are we going to talk about?

Bertie, I'm delighted you asked. Today, we're going to talk cliches. Because as the Bee Gees once very wisely told us, it's only words. But the reality is, cliches, they are ten a penny when you run a business. You know, while most people will tell you that they don't listen to them, that's usually a lie. Maybe you should. Because whilst they are the low-hanging fruit of business advice, some of them may really have legs and will help you move the needle or some nonsense like that. But I think the reality is here is that a cliché will never gain any cliché-ness unless there is a nugget of truth behind it. And while most people will tell you, oh, no, don't listen to that. Oh, no, no, no, no, not in any part of that. Yeah, the reality is some of these things that the clichés cover actually deliver some really useful kind of back information. But as like anything else in business, it's about unpacking them. It's about trying to work out what it is. So as with anything, you and I have talked advice a lot on this kind of thing. You don't automatically discount anything, but you look for kind of what's behind it, really. So that for me is our topic today. And I believe you're bringing us some brand new tech.

Yes, we have our business cliché randomiser, which is going to be in play today. So I have preloaded some of the more common clichés, although missed out all the ones that you had squeezed into the introduction. I didn't even twig at first that you were just listing a load. I was like, oh, what's going off here?

It's almost like we planned this, isn't it?

It is, it is.

This is like cliché roulette we're going to play today.

Cliché roulette. So yes, I have loaded into business clichés and we shall unpick them and we'll talk about what we think of these clichés and should you listen to them or should you not?

Spin the wheel.

Okay, spin the wheel. I'm spinning the wheels. Are we ready?

Hustle. Is that a cliché?

Yeah, I think. We can hear. Yeah, I think there is a... There's two things at play for me here. I think we are in or... Yeah, we are in what I would describe as a bit of a hustle epidemic at the moment, whereas... I agree. Again, particularly social media, etc., etc. Everything has got to hustle. And again, it's really difficult for me because at one level, look, it's not the case. It is not the case. You know, this whole kind of just got to hustle it. But the other side of that is, and we've chatted about it before, running a business is bloody hard work and it needs hard work. And I still think there are a lot of people actually that come into business without expecting it to be hard work. I find that odd, really. But I suppose, I don't know. Do you know what? When I first started, I never envisioned it being as hard as it was. So I think, you know, whilst the whole kind of hustle as it is currently used is, I just think, an annoyance, a thing that's said by people, I think actually, for most of us, we should work harder. But I think, you know, particularly early stages, you need to work harder than you think to get a business to where you want it to be.

Yeah, we've spoke at length about the fact that business is a hard work. It's almost a trademark. Do you want to start a business? Yeah, it's going to be fucking hard work. But yeah, I think the word hustle, like I agree, it's you do have to hustle a lot in business. Where I don't like the word hustle used, and I think this probably goes for a lot of these cliches as we get into more detail, is where it's used without context. Almost used as an answer. So if someone's, I don't know, you could be talking to a business coach or taking some advice from a guru. It's like, my business isn't working very well. Hey, you need to hustle more, buddy. What the fuck does that mean? You're just not hustling enough. Okay, what does that mean? Just hustle. It's like, no, dickhead. So I think that's where I, you know, struggle with the hustle word. Yes, you know, that it's, you do need to work hard and you do need to think about doing different. I'm trying not to use cliches in this. I was going to say think outside the box, which I've already seen in the randomizer. But, you know, you do have, so I think hustle has to be like, it's, let's just say if you're doing outreach, right, on something like LinkedIn, like you have got to put a lot of time and effort and personalize the communications and do some research into who you're going to be talking to, to look for your ideal customer, et cetera, et cetera. That to me is hustling. If I was saying, look, I'm really struggling to reach my target, then I think the advice should be, well, have you tried LinkedIn? Yeah, I've tried sending out like loads of bot messages every day. I know what you've got to do is personalize them, research that person. Remember, you're actually talking to an individual rather than just sending out the same shit day after day. So it's a lot more hard work. It's a lot more, it's more time consuming. That to me is hustling. So I think someone, we could ask that same question and someone could say, just hustle more, buddy, whereas actually that isn't the answer that I need. So I think when it's given as a stock generic answer to a business problem, that frustrates the hell out of me rather than what people need is something really specific answer to a problem. And hustle is not the answer to a problem. It's more a description for the term of the amount of work and the way they have to think about it. Does that make sense, Paul?

Yeah, I think it's, you know, I'm on the ramp. I think so. This is all, yeah.

I think so. Close enough, mate. I'd stop listening. Well done, you.

Yeah, you can practice your question. Well done, I'll handle it from here. I think, you know, realistically, again, this is where the ramp comes in again. Part of the kind of the simplification of business, a commodification of business advice. Hustle is one of these words that has been created to make it sound like it's useful and important, but actually mean nothing. Because people don't like, you know, no one likes to take shit medicine. It's really interesting, actually, because I was watching something earlier on that was talking about, you know, tracking and ads and that sort of stuff and how kind of the reappropriation of the spend and that sort of thing. And they would talk about the fact that when you go to a website, they talk about putting, you know, are you OK if we drop a cookie on your site? And that's a lot nicer than saying what they actually mean is, are you right if we track all your movements via our site, which is the same thing. And that's this hustle thing. And people are happy to talk about cookies and that sort of thing, but they don't want to talk about trackers. I feel that's the same with hustlers. Oh, you've got to hustle, man. You've got to hustle, man. You know, no high Instagram guru is going to get followers by saying you need to work hard. You need to work hard. You need to work hard. Work long. Do the right stuff. It's just not sexy. It's interesting.

I think going back to that word context, which I use a lot. I've mentioned before, I used to do door to door sales. I used to sell like cable services, so cable TV, phone and internet. That's the word I was looking for. I'm like, what was that other thing that we use all the time? Yeah. Yeah. Used to sell the internet. Like that could be the advice. You've got to hustle more and stuff. Like if people weren't making the sales, whereas actually translate. What does that mean? It just means that I had to knock on more doors, essentially. And the reason I was really good at sales, because I did work long hours and I put the hours in. If I needed three sales a day, I knew I needed to be out from morning to late at night. There was no physical way it was going to happen without putting in those hours. I had to go out and knock on those doors. And then I'd have people saying to me, oh, I've had a shit day. Yeah. Cause you've been sat in your car all day, mate. Cause it's raining. Like just get a fucking umbrella and go out. That is hustling to me.

Yeah.

But that's a very specific advice. The guy that was sat in the car, if he was saying, I don't really know what to do. It's just go and hustle more, mate. So what does that mean? It's like, what that means is get out of your car, put on a Cagoule and go and knock on some fucking doors. Yeah. And because you need to speak to people to make sales. So I think you've got to essentially take someone saying to you hustle. What does that mean? If you don't have the privilege of having that direct advice from a mentor or whatever, I think, okay, what does hustle mean for me? What's going to make the boat go faster, Ascension? We've spoke about that before. Well, yeah, I need to speak to some more people. And you can translate that advice and distill it. But just, yeah, I'm hustling. I'm like, I'm rustling papers around on my desk and filling around my website. That's not hustling. That's just wasting time, essentially, isn't it?

The problem is, as soon as these words become cool to use, they're almost no longer useful. And I think that's the big issue with hustle. But spin the wheel.

I'm enjoying this. Check another one out. Spinning, I'm spinning, I'm spinning.

Disrupt. Did we get that? Yes. Disrupt.

Where do you want to start?

Disrupt.

So this is a, yeah, this is a big one, isn't it? Because you hear this often. You've got to disrupt the market, I suppose, in the context I'm thinking of. What about you? Where do you, what does disrupt bring up for?

Yeah, it's a similar line. It's just become a cool word. And it's become, I think, you know, there are two things that kind of, you know, my kind of thoughts on this is that, firstly, no, you do not have to disrupt a market. You don't have to disrupt anything. Doing things the way they've all been done is absolutely fine. You know, but there are certainly riches outside of that. And I think where I get concerned with disrupt is that people often tend to think of this has to be a massive change. It's got to be a seismic shift into a different thing where it doesn't be. Actually, disruption in kind of the actual kind of practical kind of day-to-day sense of business is, is anything, charging something a bit differently, having better customer service. We've even seen products that are different color be considered a disruptor. You know, you think about fridges, you know, for years and years, white goods, hence the name were white goods, and somebody disrupted it with color. Now, that's, you know, that is a disruption. That is a thing. But I think it is, so I think the first point for me is that it doesn't have to be a change. If it is a change, it doesn't have to be a seismic change. So people that want to do something, it is, you know, this whole thing is look for a way, if the industry needs it, look for a way to do something differently. You know, here are brilliant examples. You look at, you know, I'm sure it's been before, Dollar Shave Club. If people don't know Dollar Shave Club, it's really interesting. And what I like most about Dollar Shave Club is that the concept was came, you know, people that don't know Dollar Shave Club, it was a dollar a month will send a razor to your door kind of thing. Go and Google it. It is a real kind of thing there. What I find most interesting about this is that the disruption had happened before. So there's a company called Raswar. I might be making that up. Like Raswar had come up with the, you know, monthly shave packaging well in advance of Dollar Shave Club, but they did it badly or not as well, let's say. So, you know, again, that's the thing. I think this is also that thing you see with disrupt is that if you're going to disrupt it, you can't half do it. You've got to make it really different. Although is that then going back on my kind of conversation, it doesn't need to be a huge thing. I don't know.

No, I think, I don't think it's going, I think you're right. If you take those two examples, it's Dollar Shave, their whole ethos is like we're fighting against like high priced razor refills. When you think of that business model for razors, and it's the same with printer cartridges. If you think about the inkjet, bubblejet printers that you would get, you'd pay 30 quid for one of those in the upstairs fund section of Tesco. And then you pay equally, which had enough ink to print out half a CV in it. And then you would pay the same money again to get those high priced replacement cartridges. And I think it's the same thing for razors, right? You know, you get your razor with a blade for fiver, but then it's like a fiver for blade after that. And their whole thing was disrupting that market essentially. But as you say, someone else had already done it, but they just came in and marketed it a little bit better and actually got that message across. So it's not, it's, they didn't come like, and when you think about Gillette and things, their way of combating the razor market is just to keep adding more blades, isn't it? And then like lubricating strips and we'll put a blade on the back and there's a ball shaving blade. And God knows what else is coming next. Toothbrushes, putting the thing on the back to brush your fucking tongue. And what's all that about? It's like, why do we need to brush our tongues all of a sudden? You don't need that little, those little bubbles on the back. So you don't have to come up with anything crazy to disrupt. And I think that's how I think of that word. I think that when that word is used, and I think where a lot of these words are used, it almost makes you feel a little bit inferior that you're not hustling 24-7 or you're not disrupting the market because actually what you're doing is very similar or the same as somebody else.

You could say, I'm not getting enough leads at networking meetings. Well, you need to go and disrupt it a little bit. You could use that very loosely in that context. Now, if someone said that to me, I would instantly think, how do I go and disrupt a networking meeting full of 200 people? I could run in there naked and that's going to cause a commotion, right? You know, that's the sort of thing that I would think of. I've got to do something big and bold. Whereas actually doing something differently, when you look around there, you look into a room, you think 200 people all know what they're doing. Whereas actually nobody's got a fucking clue what they're doing. Everyone's feeling the same. Everyone's feeling nervous about stuff. Just going in there and having a normal conversation, just introducing yourself, asking them their name, how they've got here and, you know, are they parked? Just those normal things is enough to disrupt a conversation and actually start a meaningful conversation. And people forget those little things. You don't have to do anything fucking crazy to go and disrupt something. And I think that's what you were saying and that's what I agreed with. And that's what I was just trying to reiterate in my little rant there. I think so. About running into a meeting naked.

Mate, I'd love to see that. I would love to see that. Of course you would. From the back. Again. If I'm honest.

No one needs to see that. Like every bad 80s movie, slow-mo, yeah, horror. You can actually come in.

Well, I've used Gillette's arse-shaving razor blade. So it's even better from the back. Is that a thing? It's silky smooth. I don't know. If Gillette, if you're listening, that's your next marketing thing. An arse-shaving one on the back.

Good.

I'm pleased we've covered that. I think the interesting thing, because I think we're broadly aligned on this, is that disruption is a good thing. But in the context of it doesn't have to be what it's become to be, like this huge, massive change. It is this, you know, look for a way to do it differently. And I'm massively behind this because looking for a way to do something differently, which doesn't necessarily have to be disruptive, but doing something differently. Because, you know, as ever with this, kind of the single most critical, vital first part of anything in business, looking out like a sales thing, is awareness. You have to get someone's attention. And that is all disruption is. A different way of doing it. Showing people something different, whether that's how it's done, how it's charged for. You know, everything is out there. Are you just charging 500 quid for something that is normally a tenner is disruptive enough? Obviously, you know, whereas others haven't. You have to follow up on that. And that's something, but that's the same as anything. And I think this is the key bit. I think disruption is a good thing, but it's a good thing in the fact that you see it. It is about getting attention. Because without attention, you can't get people to engage. You can't get people to engage. You can't get them to buy your stuff. And, you know, that's the thing we're in this for. So I think, yeah, I like a bit of disrupt. I think it's been used badly to a point that it's become a thing that it's not. But I think all of us should be spending good amounts of time, not necessarily doing, but certainly thinking about how can I do what it is I do, this industry does differently so I can get the attention of the people that want to consume this thing in a way that they're not currently able to do.

Yes, I agree. Fantastic. Well, I think we've covered it.

That almost sounded like advice. It did.

Yeah, maybe you should stop offering handjobs for a fiver or doing them for Capri Suns or whatever it is. Maybe charge a little bit more, maybe 500 quid. That could be a thing. Because anyway, I'll cut that bit out.

The outtake. Handjobs for Capri Suns. Yeah.

I'd love to get a crate of Capri Suns if you need it, mate. The outtake.

If you're listening outside the UK, Capri Sun is a little bit like a box drink, but it's in a little pouch that you drink through a straw. Generally, orange or other flavours are available. Anyway, moving on.

That's disruption.

That's disruption. Okay. Are we ready for the randomiser? Comfort zone. Oh, comfort zone.

Okay.

Get out of your comfort zone. What do you think? I like that again. And I think it's the same as all the... I like this and I do use it a lot. But I think it's one of those things that, again, needs explaining to some people. Like, you can say to some people, you get out of your comfort zone and they'll take that and figure out what that means. But I don't think it's generally explained to a lot of people. And I think a lot of the time with these cliches, people use them, but then can't back it up. I'm not necessarily calling out any particular guru or anything, but it's like the same thing. Get out of your comfort zone. Okay. What exactly are you talking about here? And yeah, the way that I interpret it is this. So let's see if you're going to the gym, then if you're going to the gym and not putting your muscles under any sort of stress, then they're not going to break down and they're going to rebuild stronger. So it's got to be... It's got to be uncomfortable. It's got to hurt. You've got to have the doms the next day, especially when you first start to make any sort of progress. And I think it's the same for people in business. A lot of the time we forget that we... Especially when you're starting out and you've got to wear loads of different hats and you've got to do loads of different things. So I've always been reasonably comfortable with sales, for example, but a lot of people aren't. So you could take somebody that's just launching their business and they'll spend a long time filling with a website or maybe doing training to learn a new skill, but not doing the difficult stuff, as in difficult for them. The stuff that's a little bit uncomfortable and maybe trying to find some customers. So it's stepping out of the bit that they're finding comfortable and doing the things that actually they need to do. Because all the training in the world and all the accreditations mean fuck all if you've got no one to sell to. I haven't got letters after my name or went to university and all that other sort of stuff. And a lot of people hide behind those things. Not everybody, but a lot of people hide behind those things and then are still in the same position, but just with a lot more debts because they've done things that's comfortable. They haven't thought about the things that's actually going to need, they need to do to accelerate either their own career or their own business, their own lifestyle, whatever. So I think for me, that's like, I do use that term when I'm working with clients, but then I try and follow it up with specifically what that would mean. Is that making any sense to you at all, Paul? And do you agree? And if you don't, let's hear it.

Yes, yes, it makes sense. Do I agree?

Yes and no, which again is a shit cliche or whatever it is in itself. I think, yes, it's really good to push yourself. Yes, I think that is a really important part of life. I think it's certainly an important part of kind of business ownership. It's an important part of work. You know, that betterment of yourself, if that's the right phrase, or your push. I think that it is a good thing for the soul. I think it's a good thing there. It's certainly a good thing for kind of business ownership. And I think that's really important. But I think the other side of this kind of thing that needs to be taken is, you know, this is a bit like multitasking for me, because people say, oh yeah, you've got to be a really good multitasker. Now, for me, multitasking is just a way to get more things wrong quicker. Yes. You know, I'm not good at it. I'm not good at a lot of things. You know, I am much better. Do something, finish it, move it on. Do something, finish it, move it on. And again, yeah, multitasking maybe should have made it onto our wheel of fortune here, because that, again, it's one of the things that we've got to multitask. Actually, no, it's just an exciting opportunity to fuck more things up quickly. And I think there is part of that in comfort zone, because yes, you should push yourself, but there is also the reality of the situation that you're never going to be good at that. You know, and I can think of a lot of people that are brilliant technicians. They are simply never going to be good at selling. And at some level, and it's maybe defeatist, but at some level you think, look, the honesty to recognise that, recognise it's a problem, and find a solution, is not there. And I've known some really, one guy in particular I can think of, he's done really well, but at the start, he was like, look, I know I need to be the salesman here. And he went out, and he was just bad at it. And that's just how it was. And he got a bit better, but realistically, he was never the right person to sell it, because he didn't really like people. He wasn't very good with people. He wasn't like the most offensive man in the room, but it wasn't his natural space. And the reality was, he was the wrong guy to do that. It still needed doing. And actually, no amount of him getting out of that comfort zone and into somewhere where he was genuinely very uncomfortable was going to make a difference. And part of it reminds me, I think we've talked before, the one thing that Gary Keller, Jay Pappasad, is it? And it talks about what is the one thing that you should be doing in your business, the thing that you're best at, the thing that you can do with all your skills that pushes your business forwards. And I think this is where, for me, the comfort zone is saying, yes, it is. It's good to push. But also, I think it's good to have that dose of reality. And this is tricky, because you don't want to let people off the hook. You don't want to let yourself off the hook. You're going, oh, well, I'm not really good at that. And this is down into that deep honesty of business ownership, if you're telling yourself a line, if you're taking the piss out yourself. But there are multiple times situations where actually you putting yourself out of your comfort zone may well be the wrong thing for the business. Discuss.

Discuss, yeah. I think you've got some really valid points there. I think maybe we're not a million, and we don't have to agree on this, and that's it. The listeners can decide who they think is right, which is clearly me.

Really? Yeah, I think what's interesting about that, I think your example, that is someone that has clearly done something outside of their comfort zone, which I think was the right thing for him to do. Because I think you can't just say to somebody, you are never going to be good at selling. However, if somebody is taking that step to go out and sell, and I believe, and of course, there are always some examples, but in general, that if you believe in what you're doing, and you've got a good product or service, you will naturally sell it anyway. Now, of course, that's easy if it's something small that you really believe in. If you're selling like 100 grand consulting services, then it's a very different kettle of fish. But I think there's a point when you're trying anything, if that particular thing isn't working, to actually then say, this isn't working, how can I improve this? And in that example, the way to do it was probably to actually find someone that was really good at that. So for example, like for me, like I can spend a lot of time designing and doing things visually. That isn't my, you know, sweet spot. It's not the thing that I particularly enjoy doing. I can do it to a reasonable level. But if there was anything that needed anything really professionally designed, I'd have to outsource that. And then how much time outside of my comfort zone I'm going to spend in there, it's just it doesn't interest me. So I'm not going to get any better. So I think still, I think the fact that he's pushed himself to try it was the right thing to do. But equally, there's always a point where you need to stop. And that's like flogging a dead horse, which isn't in the randomizer, which should have been the same thing. There's a point, isn't it? Where you're where you're, you've just continued doing things and expect things to be different, but you're just doing the same thing. Yeah, I get that. Equally, I do believe that you have to step back, examine what you're working on, say to yourself, am I just doing the things that I find comfortable? Because it's nice and warm in my office, and I enjoy tinkering with my website. I think you've got to do the difficult stuff. But equally, if that difficult stuff isn't working out, the same with anything, you stop and then you look to change it. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. And I think it's, as hence we have these conversations, you examine the reality of your particular situation. And I know, the people that make it, they know when they're lying to themselves. They know when they're turning the line to others. And it's for all of us to look inside and decide what our comfort zone actually is, what exit from that area is beneficial to the business, and which actually is probably not the right thing, at which point you end up in a new discomfort zone where you pay to employ someone. And that may even be that kind of that extension of it. Yeah, it's a good one, mate. I like that. There's many. It is.

I'll just end the subject just for another minute or so. There's many things. Let's just say you've got somebody who's really amazing at, I don't know, baking cakes or making soaps or something that's really creative. They're making all of this amazing stuff. And if they want to sell it, there comes a point then where either they need to be speaking to different suppliers or maybe actually talking about their creations on social media. Those things are difficult to do. But it has to be done. And I think in the first instance, try doing it yourself. If you're the one that's actually putting the time in, film some videos, if you're making all this stuff or baking, so people are like, fucking hell, this stuff's amazing. That's really uncomfortable. And the stuff that you enjoy doing is making soaps or baking cakes or doing whatever. So I think that's what it means. It doesn't have to be anything really dramatic. And it's not about going so far out that you're going to drown. It's just about just doing those extra things that just maybe is the extra couple of reps at the gym where it is a little bit more difficult than just stopping at 10. It's just pushing yourself. It's just making yourself feel uncomfortable a little bit because, yeah, I do believe that is where the magic happens.

And it is really interesting. We chatted in one of our previous podders. I imagine anybody calls them podders. But we do. And it's sticking. Yeah. Right then.

So on that, should we jump into another randomiser? Yeah. Spin the wheel. Let's spin the wheel. We need some spinning wheel.

Fail fast. Fail fast. Yes. Fail fast. Yeah. Big fan of that. Go on then. Jump. Jump in.

I bet this isn't a cliche, but try stuff. Yeah. You talk a lot about this. Try stuff and try and break it as quick as you can. You know, do. Yeah. Yeah. There's loads, you know, particularly in marketing, that kind of stuff. There are loads of things that you can do and find out almost immediately if the concept that you are trying to prove works or not. You know, there's really simple things. And I think that is, that's a really important thing to do to try and make something fail. Let's say you're going to put an advert out to see if people are looking at it. Like, whatever you can do in that advert to make it as engageable as possible. So if you, I don't know, if you're going to kind of run a competition or whatever, do it in that advert. Make the prize as big as you can. Make it as obvious as possible. Give it the best chance of working slash and not as quickly as possible. And, you know, because you want, it's really important to find out. And again, you know, the reality is, everybody knows this, 80, 20, the vast majority of stuff I do doesn't work. And stuff that I did last year that I know for a fact works may not work this year. And that's just it. And I think we've spoken about it before that you need to get very comfortable with failure. You need to, we almost need to find a different word for failure because it has kind of so many bad connotations. But I think it is, it is such an important thing in business is to find what's working and crucially what isn't because unless your first name is Shake and you're sat in an enormous kind of pile of cash, you are going to burn through cash unless you try and break it as quickly as you can. And I think, you know, that's, whether that's a cliche or not, I am, I'm a massive fan of that. Do that all day long.

Yeah, I, I am as well. It's just something I speak about very often.

Yeah.

I speak about failing fast and you're right. Like we are not comfortable with that word failure, even to the point where, even if we're running something as an experiment, even when it fails. So I'll speak to someone like, they'll say, what do you think of this? Okay, let's try it. Let's figure out how we can test that really efficiently without spending too much time, effort and energy without building it. Let's see how I can test it. And people will test it and then it will fail. And they'll be really disappointed that it's failed. It's like, but you've just like, we've just saved us. Yes, that particular thing has failed, but as you say, 80% of the stuff really, as a rule, should be failing. Otherwise you're not innovating enough, right? I remember watching on Instagram and, and the timing of it was terrible. So I follow SpaceX on Instagram and I think they had just launched, I think it was their first commercial, not commercial trip, sorry. I think the first NASA sponsored or whatever trip and they'd taken some people up to the space station. I believe, I can't remember exactly what happened. And this was a couple of years ago. That was like a big news publicity thing. A few days later, they posted on their Instagram, but so terrible timing, admittedly, a picture of a rocket exploding, right? And everyone was, was going mad about this rocket exploding and stuff and how it was a waste and things like that. But they'd posted that to highlight the thing that it's the context there was the reason they'd got to the point they had today is because they'd had lots of rockets that had exploded. And that test was deemed a success, even though the rocket has exploded and they weren't necessarily seeing if that rocket could get all the way to space. They were testing the launch mechanism and the landing pad or whatever. And all those tests were successful. So it's the fact that it exploded halfway up was deemed as a failure. And people were like saying all the things if the failure was bad, but it's not the failure is good. Things have to go wrong for you to get things right. Otherwise, you don't learn from it. And yeah, we have to start embracing failure so much more and get comfortable with it. It's very difficult when it's yourself. Maybe the things that you're actually testing is maybe creating some videos of yourself or doing a podcast, for example, and putting yourself out there. Because it's a very personal thing. If we start getting loads of negative comments from this stuff or the podcast or people like it shit while you dickheads even doing this, we tried it and we thought it would work. But it hasn't. We won't do it anymore then. Well, not if just one or two people do it, but yeah, in general. But what's the alternative to that? Actually, we think in our heads, oh, well, people won't like it. They won't enjoy listening to this. So we won't do it at all. You don't know unless you try. Just because it's you and your own personal brand out there doesn't make the failure any bigger. You've just got to get over the ego side of things. It's go hard or go home. And if it fucks up, it fucks up. Don't give it any more thought. Take the learnings from it and do something else. If you're not testing and it's not failing, then you're not learning, essentially. And it's just fucking boring. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I think part of my general rant against the world today, there is a real short-termism in business. People just expect results because of all the kind of shit we're fed on social because of all the, you know, because the volume of it we spoke about before. People are, there's a real kind of short-termism of thinking. And there's a real naivety, I think, in business. And I think particularly when we took a, you know, because often when things fail, it's marketing, advertising, salesy, it's that kind of thing. Although in truth, it's in every aspect. And I think there was a real naivety that people think it's, you know, well, I'm doing this just for the end. And people think the short-termism, I just want it to work. And I think what people forget is actually kind of failure is brilliant because it shows you it. I always think about like, you know, dragging a comb through some spaghetti. It starts to show you where you are, what works, what doesn't, what happens, what's next. And it shows you those hotspots. And gone are the days where everything works. And there was, you know, there was some glorious years not so long ago where actually you just did stuff and it was great. You thought about it, you learned, you did stuff and there will be some results. It's not there now. And, you know, so I spend so much of my time, both my own business and with my clients, I'm looking for the hotspots. I want to try and find the bits that don't work. Because we have such multifaceted marketing now. So it's not like, you know, I will write a letter. Someone will send me lots of money. It's a real shame. That's very rare now. You know? And I think this is where that naivety comes in. And I can think a long time ago, I don't know. I don't know. It feels like five years ago. It doesn't matter. We did work with an accountant and we wrote what can only be described as an absolutely exceptionally good letter. And 80% of the people that received this letter went to the webpage. Nuts. Absolutely nuts. And from there, a grand total of 0% went forwards and never didn't go to buy the thing, which is irritating. And it is probably seen by most as a failure. But actually, that was awesome. Because I've got this thing now that works. And crucially, I know exactly the bit that's not working. Yeah.

You've solved the acquisition problem, essentially. You've managed to acquire customers. The fact then that they didn't convert is an entirely separate problem altogether. So, you know, either you've got a mismatch between what you were offering to versus what people then thought they were buying. Or maybe it was a pricing issue. Maybe the fucking website didn't work. It could have been any of those things. And the fact that they didn't buy should not in any way be deemed as a failure because you've learned like an 80% conversion rate on a mail shot is unheard of. To the point that I think you're lying. Probably.

It was really well targeted. We knew, you know, we'd done all that pre-work. And, you know, I'm probably making the figures up. But it was, I don't know, 81%, 75%. It doesn't matter. But it was enough to the fact that you're like, this definitely works. Now, as a campaigner as a whole, I was like, that's not worked. You're like, well, no, you're missing the point. And I think there are too many business owners, too many people in general, I think, that actually just think it's a black and white start to finish thing, start to finish. And that it was a few years ago. It isn't now. You know, now we are in a world where it's, we just test stuff. And marketing is only ever a series of tests. And you keep testing because you keep working to the next bit, next bit, next bit. And it's brilliant when you find a, you find a, your hotspot. And again, with this accountant, we did it. When you go and look at the site, you think that makes complete sense. That's why that's, well, let's do that again. And we sent it again. And I don't think the engagement rate was quite as high because we picked like the hottest people first time around. But let's just say, yeah, let's just say it dropped down to half. About 40% of the people then go into that page and you start to see the conversions coming through or whether that's to the next bit of the buy. And I think this is why, you know, I suppose the key bit that we talk about, I guess, it's not just that failure. It's making sure you can fail as quickly as you possibly can. So you can analyze the results. You can interrogate what's actually happening and make the next step. And so, yeah, I'm a massive fan of speedy failure.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The quicker you fail, the quicker you learn. Okay. We like that. Shall we go to the randomizer then again? Yes. The randomizer. Let's do it. Let's go. Let's go to the randomizer. Let's see what we've got this time. Are we ready?

Thinking outside the box.

Thinking outside the box. It's just high tech.

Thinking outside the box. Thinking outside the box. Yeah.

Good, bad, indifferent. Where do you sit?

I get the phrase. I know what it means. And I've used it. And I'm not. I've probably used it. And I'll probably still use it again. But I think it's overused. And I think sometimes, and it's the same, they can always be used as like a sort of stick to beat someone or make them feel inadequate. If you were saying to me, oh, my marketing's not working as well. It's like, well, you need to think a bit outside the box more, Paul. And then just walk off. Just throw that in. It's like, what? Which is the same point I'm making for all of these things.

Yes.

It's where it works is there's more ways to skin a cat than probably what we often think. If we're stuck on one particular, maybe someone's been marketing their business solely through Instagram. Maybe new features come out on Instagram and they're not taking advantage of those. Engagement drop, sales drop, et cetera. Maybe they've never really thought about using another channel. Maybe they've made the assumption that possibly LinkedIn is not the right channel for marketing their particular product. Whereas because they've not tried it, they don't know. In that example, thinking outside the box could simply mean trying another social media channel for the stuff that you're doing. Repurposing some of your content on something different. Trying a different media. Yeah, I think with any of these things, I think it's more the specific examples people are looking for. I think just saying to somebody, why don't you think outside the box doesn't mean anything? It's almost like it's, I don't think it adds any value. I don't think it helps anyone in any way. In the same way that like telling someone in the middle of an argument to calm down is never going to tell them. Like, you know, it's never one's, oh, of course, Paul. Yes, I'll calm down because you've told me to calm down. It's just going to make me all whammed up, isn't it?

Yeah.

I think outside the box can suddenly be, it can just make you feel a little bit inadequate for not thinking outside the box. Whereas what does that mean? It's just one of those management terms that we need to think outside the box more team.

Okay.

What box are we thinking in? What's the problem? We just think outside the box. Let's have a bit of blue sky thinking. Oh, fuck off. Like you've got no fucking ideas for one. And now you're telling me to think outside the box. You don't even know what the fucking box is. All right.

So, yeah. Sorry. Okay. Calm down. Yeah. And I think you can get rid of most of that phrase for me and just distill it down to think. You and I have had this conversation. One of my biggest bugbears in business is that people don't spend any time thinking. And the reality is that pretty much any trouble, any situation, any challenge, anything you give yourself disappears if you spend five minutes thinking. And this is where, again, surround yourself with people. You know, I talk about my old boss a lot. He was really good at this. He would just, if there was a challenge that we needed to think about, we needed to need to fixing or overcoming or whatever. He would call his kind of his sort of inner circle of us on a four or five us down for 10 minutes. And we put some real kind of thoughts about it. And I think it's inside the box, outside the box. It doesn't matter what to me. This is just you need to spend some time thinking about a different way of doing it. That's what they're saying here, because, you know, no one's going to use this phrase if the thing that they're doing is working brilliantly. And this is, you know, because and again, it comes with connotations. Thinking outside the box suddenly means it's got to be crazy. It's got to be wacky. It's got to be different. It's got to be that. That's that may be the answer. The key bit is thinking, you know, if your social media is not cutting through, what else could you do about that? What are the other options? Who are the people? And it's only when you start to do this stuff, you think, well, actually, yeah, I can think of a think of a kind of a haulage firm from ages ago. I should put on that longer. Anyway, they were banging away on Twitter, banging away and banging away and chucking email newsletters out. And this is a real situation of you need to think a bit because as it turns out, there are only about 270 odd people in the country that they could work with. They had the names and addresses of all those people. But they were so conditioned to we use social media. We use digital media. This is let's think outside of that particular situation. What else could we do? You could call them. Well, no one likes a cold call. Excellent point. What could we do to stop that call being cold? I don't know. What if we sent them something? Oh, that's interesting. What if you sent them a chocolate bar? Whatever it is. And again, you know, and again, there's loads of different routes. It just takes that thought. And again, this is, I think, is a really important one that has been diluted by overuse.

Yeah.

I think it is so important for people to spend. And do you know what? Realistically, people get concerned when I tell them they need to think more because they're like, oh, I've got to carve some time. Literally 10 minutes on an issue makes everything 36.4% easier. And that's science. I haven't made those numbers up. That's absolute science. And it's not in the box. I've done the research. Yeah, you are quite a scientist, mate. But it is. It's just so important for kind of anybody listening to this. You've got the challenges. Don't need to think outside the box. You don't need to disrupt anything. You don't do any things. You just need to think. What else could you do? And again, the best thing you can do, as we've said before, is run it by other people. Call a friend. Call a business owner. Call someone that you know and say, look, this is what's going on. What do you think? And get some more input in it. Again, good phrase. Knackered by people. Idiots using it. Yeah.

That's the thing with any of these. They are overused. And yeah, they're just dropped into conversation willy-nilly. And I think people use them to almost make themselves sound intelligent. You know, almost like you have the answer for them. So if someone's stuck, it's, well, Paul, clearly you're not thinking outside the box enough on this one. And walk away, mic drop. In that thing, it's, oh shit, you know, that guy is a guru. He knows what he's talking about. I need to be thinking more outside the box. Whereas actually, that's the same thing that you would just say to everybody. And all of these, I think that's the thing with these cliches. They're almost interchangeable, right? In that that same thing could be said and mic dropped and walk off with, and just almost leaving you feeling adequate. But it's not adding any value. It's not giving you anything. You just need to move the needle more, Paul, essentially. That's what you need to do.

That's the interesting thing about cliches, is while the concept behind them is often sound, usually the person saying them is not. If someone is having to use a cliche, it probably means they haven't got the depth of knowledge to solve the problem that you've spoken to about it. That's almost certainly the case with these.

Yeah, and I think back to when I've used these things recently, thinking outside the box. It's almost, I apologise for using it first, whether that's the right or the wrong way to do it. But it's almost like, I hate to use the phrase, think outside the box. However, what I mean is, and then almost give that specific example. We're only looking at one channel here. Let's look at all different channels. Yeah, and just try and distill it into something that's a bit more actionable. And I think that's the point with these. They're not really actionable. They make great social media content. Hustle more. Think outside the box. Fail fast. But there is no, there's no context, generally. Okay, let's go back to the randomiser. I'll be honest with you. I'll be honest with you. Not really a cliche, is it?

We can clear this one up pretty quickly. Unequivocally, if somebody says, I'll be honest with you, it means they're lying.

Yeah, the next phrase out of their mouth is, I'll be honest with you, is utter bullshit, essentially, isn't it? Yeah. That's essentially what it is. It's almost, it's just setting that up. It always reminds me of when people say, I'm not a, insert phrase, but. I'm not a racist. Then, instantly, there is going to be an absolute cork of a racist comment coming out of their mouth. Instantly, I'm not sexist. Women, it's like, no, no, no, shut up. It's, yeah, it's that thing. And I think it's the same with, I'll be honest with you. Yeah, it's just bollocks coming.

It's like when someone says to you, with all due respect, it means they think you're a dickhead. Yeah.

With all due respect, Paul, let's slip in another. Oh. Pivot. Pivot. Pivot. Pivot. Paul, you need to pivot, mate. You need to pivot. You need to pivot.

Yeah, pivot. It's one of those things that's just, you know, it's got all sorts of connotations. I think in the simplest term, business is very rarely linear. It's very rarely start to finish, A to B, direct route. And there are a series of twists and turns where you may well have to do different things with your business. There are, you know, there are a series of things that actually, there is plenty of time when actually, and I think we spoke about this before, the thing that you are doing is not the thing that's going to get you where you need to get to. And at that point, I'm sure that's where the clichéists come in and say, look, you know, you're going to pivot your business to do something different. And that's fair enough. I think it's, I have no issues with a pivot. A lot of people have had to pivot this year, not to change what they do this year. I think too often, you know, gurus cry, oh, you've got to pivot, you've got to pivot, or actually you don't. You just need to do what you do differently. And I think there is a demarcation between those two things. But I think, yeah, it's like anything. If you are running your business consciously, there will, for the majority of people, be occasions where they need to do something very different, either because it's not fulfilling them. They're not enjoying it. It isn't hitting the spot. It's not, and it's probably never, ever going to get them to where they want to get to. And at which point it's important not to hold on too tight and look at something else. And when, particularly over these last kind of year or so, when people have talked to me about it, look, Paul, should I be doing, you know, should I pivot? The answer is, well, look, we don't know. Let's find out. Let's work it through. But whatever we think about, we want to squeeze whatever current existing assets in whatever form that is into the next thing. Whatever we own, whatever we've got in terms of kind of data there, that should be part of that pivot. It doesn't have to be exactly this. I could very easily, I'm going to put myself on the spot here, go from marketing consultancy to, I don't know, copywriting. I've got people in my world that are interested in marketing. They want, you know, no one is interested in marketing unless they want their business to grow, unless they want to get more customers. So if for whatever reason the marketing world has to stop and I had to do something else, I'm unlikely to jump into farming. I could go and be like a copywriter because actually copywriting, it's all part of the same kind of business growth thing. And I think that's where I get a bit concerned where people say, well, you've got to pivot. Too many people seem to think they've got to throw bathwater out with baby, start again. Sometimes they do. More often than not, I don't think it's the right call.

Yeah, I think it's often something you can look back at retrospectively and think, oh, actually, I pivoted there rather than consciously making a big change. I think it's, I think if something's not working, it needs to be changed. And sometimes those changes can be small incremental changes in a business. Sometimes they can be bigger changes, either based on assumptions that you've got and you need to test them, or based on actual sort of customer data. So as an example, let's say that this podcast becomes amazing and everyone's like, wow, like these. It becomes? Yeah, which of course is going to happen. We build up a huge following and the celebrities or whatever, or maybe people are really impressed by the audio quality, which is very not going to happen, of our podcasts. And it may be then that we get contacted by people to help produce their podcasts, or maybe become podcast producers. I think for us, that might be, if those things were to happen, there could be natural different directions which our business would take, which at the time would probably feel quite natural and organic, because we'd be following what the customers wanted or following what, you know, doing what we did best in that context. I think then looking back, you could probably say, well, actually, we pivoted from recording a podcast to producing podcasts, being TV hosts, whatever. But at the time, it's not necessarily something that you consciously, yeah, you did consciously do it, but it's not as big, it's not something I don't think you can, you can just throw in. Again, you need to pivot. What exactly does that mean? Going back to Fill My Belly as an example, which was an online takeaway service, you know, which sold to Just Eat. So basically, Just Eat Now is, you know, what Fill My Belly was back then. But interestingly, like when I first launched the idea back in 2006, the idea was slightly different. In that, the idea was that you would know fillmybelly.com as the ordering platform, and you could get on there pizza, Indian, whatever, Chinese foods. But we weren't necessarily going to list what takeaway it was coming from. It was, it wanted to be a one-stop shop for all of the takeaway food. So that's how the site was initially built. But after nine months, it became very clear that people wanted to know where their food was coming from, and actually were suggesting restaurants that we may or may not have been working with, but people didn't know because they were just ordering Chinese, pizza, Indian. So we made that change. It didn't feel like that big a change at the time. It was just an incremental change to customer feedback, even though we had to go back. But looking back, it was quite a big pivot. It was quite a big change to the business. And that's what I mean. You can pivot, but it's not necessarily something that I didn't think at the time, shit, this isn't working. It's a pivot. Actually, customers do need to know this. So actually, we'll start listing customer names, and we'll change the contracts for the takeaways, et cetera. I think that's what I'm trying to get at. It doesn't have to be as dramatic. And I don't think anyone can say to you, you need to pivot. With all what's happened with the virus over the last year or so, people have pivoted. But it was actually, at the time, they probably didn't see it as a pivot. They probably just thought, well, I need to move my physical fitness classes to online. I need to now not go and meet people for a coffee. Do it over Zoom. Didn't see it as a massive pivot, but with hindsight, it probably was. And I think that's where it's something that you can overthink. And if something's not working, you think, shit, I need to pivot. Whereas the answer's probably in front of you anyway.

Yeah, I think the interesting thing that I think ties all these cliches together is the lack of drama for them all, isn't it? And I think all of them come with that drama connotation, whether you hustle and think outside the box. And I think actually the reality is it's like all of this stuff. What's the thing behind it? What's the thought? What's the thing? And this is why I think it was useful for us to talk about today, because they all play their part. They are that, use the cliche, they are that low-hanging fruit, but they are valid because they've entered the vernacular. So there is something behind it. And I think, you know, for me, the best advice to people is, again, looking at it's the concept behind it, knowing that, as we said earlier on, the people that deliver them are rarely the ones you should be listening to anyway. But everybody has their cliches. You know, go and find the people that you really respect. Go and find the people that have really smashing it out of the park in their industry and other industry. And kind of anyone here. And I get, oh, you know, I'm a big fan of looking at anybody successful. You know, whether I learn loads from successful sports stars as a business owner. So I think, go and look at all of these and go and work out what their cliches are. And again, it's what Mike Mays said. Daley Thompson, he would go out. And for those that don't know, Daley Thompson was a decathlete from late 80s. You know, he would go out.

I just remember from the computer games, you just had to hit the keys.

I don't remember that at all. Do you not remember that?

Daley, I can't say the word. Daley Thompson's decathlon. He just used to hit X and V or something to make him run faster. No?

It's a visual thing. You can't see it. I don't want to hit the keyboard because it might do something. I'll go and check that out.

Daley Thompson, he would go and... What are you doing? I was doing that.

That's what you had to do. I see. You got it. And he ran. And then you had to hit spacebar to make him jump over the hurdles. There's going to be some people listening to this.

Brilliant.

Saying, I fucking remember that game.

If you do me a favour and just comment wherever you see this, I'd love to know if this is real or just one of Bertie's things.

Google it. Daley Thompson's decathlon. It was a ZX Spectrum game.

Good. No? No? Okay.

But Daley Thompson, he was... Again, this is one of the most long-winding stories that we've ever had. But my understanding was that he would go out training on Christmas Day because he knew his competitors weren't. Now, that there, it's got all sorts. That has got, you know, comfort zone in it. That's got hustle in it. That's got kind of thinking outside the box. That's got disrupt or people don't train on Christmas Day. Well, I do. And I think this is the thing. I think, you know, my advice for everybody on this is that don't discount it, but go and look for the people that are doing really good stuff. And go and hunt out whatever the phrase is. Go and hunt out their cliches. Go and see what it is that they're doing. What are the rules that they live by? What are the things that they do? Because in there, there will be some un-clicheable cliches that will actually really help you see what it is that they're doing. And as we always say with this kind of thing, you then look at that and think, what's my version of... What's my version of Daley Thompson's going out on Christmas Day? And it may be, well, I'm always the last person to leave a networking room. Whereas everyone else gets in, mooches, has a bottle of... Has a little glass of champers and gets off again. That may not be it. And I don't know. This is for you, legendary listeners, to work out what it is. But I think for me, don't discount information. But as ever, careful who you listen to. And best of all, go and find it. Go and search out your own. Go and find the concept behind it and work out how you can apply them. Yeah.

And I think that's really good advice, Paul. And I think, yeah, just something that you just made me think of then, I think, which sort of sums it up for me. I think a lot of these things you can look back with and almost use them for retrospective analysis. As in, I did this. That was actually outside of my comfort zone. We did this as a business. That was really thinking outside the box because no one else in our industry was doing it. And I think to use it in that thing and almost because you're using something specific and then saying, you know, how it then applied to said cliche, I think is really useful. I think that can give you reassurance that you are doing these things. I think given as just blanket advice without context and preloaded with judgment. If someone's business isn't as successful as someone else's, you're saying to them, you need to hustle a bit more. There's, you know, that means nothing to start with. But also it's like judging them that saying they're not hustling hard enough. You don't know. So I think when you're reading something on social media that's saying hustle, think outside the box, work harder, not smarter, whatever, you have to really distill what that means for you. And is it relevant for right now? Like I did a talk recently on working harder, not smarter, but was trying to give specific examples on how you could do that. Not just saying to people, you need to work harder, not smarter, as in this is what it means. Are you spending a lot of the time sifting through emails and putting emails into little folds and things? You might be working all day doing that, but it's not working smart, is it? Automate that process. Spend your time doing something else. So that's good. I think we've exhausted that topic. Well, the randomizers, she's gone to sleep now. Battery's dead. Yeah, thanks, mate. That's good.

Yeah, it's interesting. All this stuff, it never really gets talked about. But it's, you know, there is so much out there that can help business owners. It's just hard to cut through the crap. And hopefully today this will help people cut through the crap. As you were finishing off there, I'm thinking, well, actually, you almost feel like putting a challenge out. I'd love for people to go down the list of cliches that we've done and do something with it. Get out of their comfort zone if there are any other. Hustle. Do four extra calls than you're anticipating. Try and fail faster. And I think, you know, there's plenty there. But I think, you know, as we've said, I'm adding for an item here. Go and find someone that is doing well. Work out what their cliches are. Work out how you can start creating some of your own. Yeah. Excellent. Fantastic.

Well, Paul, it has been a pleasure yet again to speak to you today. Of course it has. Why wouldn't it be? It has.

Marvellous. Brilliant.

Well, mate, I've enjoyed that. We'll see you again next week.

Yes, we'll see you for another episode of The Throb. I'm going to learn to roll my R's.

Throb. Throb. Throb. Throb. Throb. The Throb. Maybe that's it. The Throb podcast next week. Thank you very much.

We'll be back next week for another edition of The Throb podcast.

If you want to find out more, you can find me at paulchapmanuk.com.

And you can find me, Bertie, at bertiecord.co.uk. Thanks again. See you next week.