Podcast #3: Finding a Niche in a Crowded Market Place
Mel Bridge, owner and founder of GXY Search, a recruitment company for gen x and y’ers, talks to us about her niche and how she uses networking and relationship building to generate a solid client base.
Small Business Big Marketing Podcast
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Podcast Transcription
Ms Evancich: This is the Small Business Big Marketing show with Tim Reid and Luke Moulton. This show is lovingly put together for small business owners by small business owners to get practical ideas about attracting more customers more often. So, if you’re serious about building your business, strap in for the ride. Now, here’s your hosts, Tim and Luke.
Tim: And welcome back, Luke.
Luke: How are you, Tim?
Tim: Good, mate. How are you?
Luke: Very well thanks.
Tim: Listeners, welcome back to another episode of Small Business Big Marketing and as our lovely voiceover Erin suggests, this is a place for small business owners to come and get inspired or reinspired about their marketing.
Luke: That’s right. It’s all about improving what you’re doing when you’re marketing your small business and we hope we can help you out with that.
Tim: You said that very aggressively. Is there something you want to get out onto the table or you’re…
Luke: I’m just passionate about it, Tim, as you are.
Tim: You’re excited about who…who’s our guest?
Luke: We’re going to be talking to Melissa Bridge from GXY Search.
Tim: Lovely Mel.
Luke: GXY Search is a recruitment agency for Generation X and Ys and she specialises sort of in the sort of boutique, a bit of design…
Tim: Yeah, pretty niche.
Luke: ..fashion area. A bit niche.
Tim: A bit niche-y.
Luke: So we’re going to be talking to Mel.
Tim: And if you listen long enough, which we actually hope you listen for the entire duration of this program, but you’ll find out what she was wearing on her feet.
Luke: Yes. Or if you look at the website.
Tim: Oh, show notes.
Luke: Yes, correct.
Tim: Or they could go there now. Let’s go to Mel. You’re a small business owner.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: Of GXY Search.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: Recruitment company.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: Bricks and mortar. Have an office type stuff.
Mel: Yes. Yeah, we do.
Tim: Have an online presence.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: Very cool website.
Mel: Thank you.
Tim: No, that’s fine.
Mel: It’s been a little bit…it’s changing. We change it every 12 months.
Tim: Do you?
Mel: Yes. Just to be a bit fresh.
Tim: Is that a Gen Y thing or a Gen X thing?
Mel: I think that’s a Gen Y thing.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: I think we setup really to be a referral based business. I think for us top people refer top people again and then, you know, in the marketplace, Seek, you know, everybody was using Seek and that is…
Tim: Seek, for our overseas listeners, is an online recruitment company in Australia.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: I think they’re just in Australia, aren’t they? But they’re huge.
Luke: Yeah, similar…similar to…
Mel: No, they’re in the UK as well.
Tim: Okay.
Luke: Similar to Monster.
Tim: Like Monster, yep.
Mel: Yep. But they’re massive and they’re random. And so when you advertise on that site you never know what you’re going to get. Whereas we set up a business to be more niche so that we could select the people that actually came to our business and therefore instead of having, you know, thousands of people…
Tim: Hang on, I think business owners would love that. What’s the magic formula there, you select people to come to your business?
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: To give you money?
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Or to actually recruit?
Mel: So…so we headhunt people that are not looking for jobs.
Tim: Okay.
Mel: And those people then come onto our books and then those really talented people refer us people. And so therefore we have a really niche market of boutique candidates on our books where we would suggest they’re probably in the top 10% of what they do.
Tim: All right, we are going to stop Mel there for a minute with quite a sudden break, really, wasn’t it, Luke?
Luke: Yes, pretty soon into the piece.
Tim: Very very drastic. So we love what Mel was saying there because this notion of your perfect customer, the choosing and targeting your perfect customer. I came across a lady who the other day was just talking about how she has already got her perfect customer. And she described that person in quite a lot of detail, not just kind of like demographically, but what this person thinks and feels about her business and the problem that this lady is solving for her, for her customer, and to know what your perfect customer looks like is a really interesting concept, Luke, because it means that you can then go out and find the next one and the next one.
Luke: Indeed. I think it’s very important and if you can describe your perfect customer, then go and find a way of how to attract them.
Tim: So then the question is how do you find the perfect customer. Well if you’ve got one, maybe just write down what makes them the perfect customer and then think about well where do other people like that person…
Luke: Hang out.
Tim: Yeah, hang out. Exist.
Luke: And that’s what Mel’s done.
Tim: Yeah, she has. Back to Mel.
Luke: Back to Mel. So essentially you kind of act like a marketing business for people that are looking for employees instead of a recruitment agency. You’re sort of taking…really you’re trying to sell a, hopefully a potential candidate a new position.
Mel: Yeah. Well we’re moving in the next six months to setting up a career management centre where we’ll be kind of like what football managers are for players, where we’ll work exclusively with top candidates and help them with their careers in placing them. Because they say Gen Y in particular, 90% want to be headhunted. They don’t want to use random Seek.
Tim: The ego.
Mel: But it’s…yeah.
Tim: Ego, that’s good.
Mel: Yeah. So we want to accommodate…
Tim: Who’s your client? Is your client the employer or the head huntee?
Mel: Well our client is the employer, the potential employer.
Tim: They pay you.
Mel: Yeah, they pay the bills. But unless you have the best candidates in the market you won’t get paid because you can’t give them to the employer. So we realised really early on that we put a lot of time into our website and our other initiatives so that we could attract top candidates to the website and to our business. And then when you’ve got top people, people buy from you, you don’t have to sell to them. And I think we were all uncomfortable, I’m a HR practitioner and I’m not a marketing guru.
Tim: And stop it right there. Luke, what have we got to say about that?
Luke: Well Mel’s just suggested that she’s not a marketing guru. And we’re sort of going to take her to task on that. As a small business person you are by nature a marketer.
Tim: Yeah, I reckon.
Luke: Of some degree.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. By default you have to be. Because like, I mean, what’s a marketer? I mean, some of us have spent three years at uni studying marketing but that doesn’t necessarily make you more of a marketer than the person who’s just gone off, you know, the entrepreneur who’s gone off and started their own business. You’re responsible for your marketing, you know, and…
Luke: And you’re the…you’re the person that knows the most about your business.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: So you’re most qualified to market it.
Tim: And in terms of like, you know, definitions, I mean, there are books written on what is marketing. But some really basic definitions are like just lining all the ducks up in a row ready for the sale or getting things in position for the quickest way to a sale. You know, marketing can be the quickest way to a sale. Or another great definition I’ve heard is it’s problem solving. As marketers we are problem solvers. So you go well what problem does my potential customer have and how can I solve it.
Luke: Correct.
Tim: Did you like that?
Luke: I loved it actually.
Tim: Okay, well we’d better go back to Mel.
Luke: Go back to Mel.
Tim: Bye.
Mel: So what we really wanted to do was attract those top people to our business. We thought that was really critical. And then once we have great people, they’re easy to float to our organisations and nine out of ten times they’ll pick them up.
Tim: Float?
Mel: Float. Yeah, we call floating top candidates. We float them to an employer and the employer says, wow, are they interested in working with us? And we go, yes, they are.
Tim: Does the employer ring up and say can you float me a couple of top candidates or?
Mel: Sometimes they do but we…
Tim: Do they?
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Picking up your language. That’s cool.
Mel: Yeah, they do. They do.
Tim: Yeah. All right, Lukey, you’re guilty here. So for listeners who don’t know Luke or don’t know what Luke does, Luke’s background is, what would you call it, sort of…
Luke: Web design, web development.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, web development, IT, all that computery stuff, techo stuff.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And I think that kind of category is very guilty of having its own language. And Mel just then was talking about this whole concept of floating, you know, this…this kind of…it’s kind of an in-house tech word, a bit of shop talk. And I wonder whether we should as marketers avoid that at all costs and just talk normally. Sometimes I tell clients to write copy as if they’re writing to an eight year old.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: But as I was saying, you’re category, web development, you know, HTML and, you know.
Luke: And when I see and when I’m trying to explain something to a client or to my employer, I have to think that I’m explaining it to my mother. And that’s what I do.
Tim: Gee. Really?
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: So you have to go through what colour underwear you had on in the last few days and?
Luke: Let’s go back to Mel.
Tim: Oh, right.
Mel: Well we like to be an extension of their business.
Tim: Yeah.
Mel: And I think we select the clients as well. There’s some organisations that may not suit our profile. So I think we were kind of strategic saying, well who do we want to be associated with. Because we really wanted the top jobs or the coolest jobs and the coolest candidates. And that for us was attractive. Because we all wanted to have fun at work. So if we were going to, you know, if we wanted to work with a show we may think Fox’s morning program might be more interesting to work with if we were recruiting for them than, say, 101, Mix 101. That wouldn’t be attractive because it kind of wouldn’t be synergistic with our brand.
Luke: So you try to choose customers and candidates that fit with your brand?
Mel: Yeah, we do, yeah.
Tim: Very selective, isn’t it?
Mel: Yeah, we are.
Tim: But that’s okay, it’s a nice.
Mel: Yeah.
Luke: So, Mel, it sounds like you’ve…you put a lot of effort into your brand from, obviously from your website and by the sound…I’ve certainly been to the offices…
Tim: You can’t just base it on website…
Luke: No, I’ve been to Mel’s office and it reflects, I think it reflects her brand.
Tim: Does it? Is it as good as the website?
Luke: Better.
Mel: Thanks, Luke.
Luke: So how do you…
Mel: And we did have to do that with our marketing strategy, that people walk into our office and go, wow, this is different, you’ve got beanbags here, wow. We’ll take you out and invest time in going to a cafe and having a coffee. Most recruiters would have really grey offices and wear suits and we wear jeans. And I had a dog…
Tim: And crocodile boots.
Mel: Yeah, that’s right, yeah.
Tim: Mel’s wearing crocodile boots.
Mel: Actually they’re python skin, yeah, so not crocodile, they’re python.
Tim: Photo. Photo for the show notes.
Mel: Mmm, yeah, very nice they are.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: Mel, aside from your branding and your lovely office, how big an affect has networking played in attracting customers and candidates to your business?
Mel: Yeah, networking is the key for us. We don’t do print advertising. It’s all about networking. And for us it’s really important to be seen at the right social engagements, the right functions, so that we’re authentic. But I…because I think that’s differentiating us that we’re more authentic over other recruiters. You know, they say that they understand this industry but they don’t know the people in it, they don’t…they look different, they still wear suits, they’re still in a grey office.
Tim: And we’re just going to stop Mel there. Luke’s looking at me a bit funny like. This should be a vodcast I reckon sometimes the way you give me these looks. But the thing is authenticity is just everything. Like, okay, small businesses don’t have bit marketing budgets, right, some have none. So the harder you can work and the quicker you can get to a point of difference to separate you from the pack the better. And being authentic is I think a key way, strategy, of doing that. Because it means you can kind of like be yourself, you know.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Have a business, be yourself. She’s talking about all the head hunters in suits and grey offices and all that, well she’s gone, okay, I’m not one of them, I’m going to be who I am, I’m going to be authentic.
Luke: Living the brand and given that she started the business, she is the brand. And she’s out there showing that she is.
Tim: She’s living the dream
Luke: Correct.
Tim: So authenticity. I love that word, authenticity. I think it’s got nice syntax, Luke.
Luke: It’s very nice.
Tim: Thank you. Okay, so do you get it now?
Luke: I get it.
Tim: You sure?
Luke: I do.
Tim: Can we go back to Mel?
Luke: We sure can.
Tim: We don’t have to, we…okay. So when you’re out schmoozing at all the right functions…
Mel: Yes.
Tim: The Red Bull parties and the…
Mel: Yes.
Tim: I don’t know, what else is there? Is there some…is there a Facebook party or something? I don’t know. Gen X, I’m so Gen X.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: How do you, what’s your top three networking kind of…do you go out there and just hand all your cards out or do you kind of…
Mel: No, we don’t…
Tim: …work it much more sublimely?
Mel: Yeah. Well because that’s in your face. And so the people that I want, I need to be discreet. Because they’re the best people in their field and therefore I need to chat to them. They don’t necessarily want to chat to me, because they’re happy in their job. So it needs to be discreet. And it may be that we’ll…most of the times I’ll be referred, someone will know someone. So we can start up a conversation which is a little bit more authentic. Because I’ll know someone that they know.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: Or will understand a topic that they’re into and so therefore, yeah, we don’t want to go to a party and leave 200 cards. We really just want to select if there’s one person there we need to speak to then…
Tim: One card.
Mel: One card. That’s it.
Luke: So it sounds like it’s a fairly slow and steady process. It’s I guess getting to know people, developing trust, revealing yourself slowly so that, you know, when something does come up that’s appropriate for them you can sort of slip it in their back pocket and say, hey, how about this?
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: She’s not a stripper. A slow revealing process, that when the time’s right you slip it in the back pocket. My God. Sammy, are we recording this?
Mel: Yeah, it is all about trust, yeah.
Tim: It is.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: It is.
Mel: Yeah. And people need…
Tim: Confidence.
Mel: And people need to know that if you’ve got the best jobs and that Mel will look after you…
Tim: Yeah.
Mel: …then, and I think very early on people applied to our online website and we made a decision that everybody that came to us in that manner that were referred to us, we see. We interview, we have a coffee, we meet them all. And I think other recruiters don’t. They don’t spend the time to do that. So we spend time…
Tim: Yep, a bit of a meat market.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah.
Mel: Yeah. And that’s not, you know, I wasn’t wanting to set up a recruitment agency to get involved in running a recruiter…you know, like a recruitment agency does in the…
Tim: Yeah. Point of difference.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: So you have…I was looking at your website this afternoon, I really was, and you’re on Facebook and there’s some…
Mel: Oh, yeah.
Tim: …beautiful people on your Facebook.
Mel: Right, yeah.
Tim: All these Gen Ys, very attractive, Luke, all the girls and the boys, all having fun.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: But social media, the tidal wave is upon us.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: Flicker, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, did I say Twitter? Blogging, you know, or podcasting.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: All that stuff.
Mel: Yes.
Tim: You’re just on Facebook. I would have thought…I did go to your website thinking I’m going to be, you know, see all the different links to all the social media and you said just as you were coming in that you only went on Twitter three days ago.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: So what’s going on there?
Mel: I didn’t quite understand how we could leverage and use Twitter for our business. And the last two weeks I went to see Jack Daly who’s a well known American speaker, two weeks ago, and he was on it. And I’m thinking, God, this guy’s 65 and he’s on Twitter.
Tim: Bless him.
Mel: And then there was another guy and then the L’Oreal fashion festival was on last week and I was there at a breakfast and Bernard Salt said, oh, I’m on Twitter. I’m like, oh. But a lot of the Gen Ys in my office, I said have I missed some technology and they said, no, no, no, you know, Twitter, it’s too hard to understand, too much information, it’s all overwhelming. And we couldn’t find anyone that could help us manage how we could use it. So, yeah, we…
Tim: Okay.
Mel: So now…
Tim: So are you on?
Mel: So we’re on. So we are on.
Tim: Are you committed or are you just like got your ID because you thought you’d better have it?
Mel: No, well I think we know how to use it now. It’s instant.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: So yes…so yesterday we said what is GXY doing, oh, actually we need a top designer for Sportsgirl.
Tim: See, all of a sudden the world opens up to you.
Mel: In a second.
Tim: Yeah.
Mel: Yeah, in one second.
Tim: Well that’s what the web does anyway. But Twitter will be brilliant for that where you…
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: …can start to, you know, develop a following and develop a like…I say to clients Tweet on brief. Like if you’re going to Tweet…like I Tweet marketing tips, you know.
Mel: Yeah, I noticed.
Tim: Thank you.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: And, you know, what’s my thing, @TimboReid, R-E-I-D.
Mel: Yes, Timbo.
Tim: So people can subscribe to that. But, yeah, like that’s…and I notice if I Tweet off brief like, you know, I’m going to have an ice cream down on the pier…
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: …I soon lose a few followers, because people don’t care. They’re following me for a reason.
Mel: Yeah. Which is what I thought it was about, I thought it was all this social.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Mel: And I thought, oh, there’s too much information, I can’t do it.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: There is that aspect though. I mean, you know, look at Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, they’re Twitterers.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: And that’s just, you know, about day to day stuff.
Tim: Yeah, that’s right.
Luke: But if you’re looking at it from the point of view of a small business, you need, as you said, Tim, you need to keep in mind your brief, what it is that you do, what it is that you’re good at and how can you add value for people.
Tim: Correct. Correct. And be single minded, you know. Know what you’re going to Tweet about and therefore you’re not always thinking, what am I going to Tweet about, but just add value to people’s lives in the category in which you operate I think is a really good thing to keep in mind.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: What about all the, like lots of social media, so you’re on Facebook and you seem to be kind of right into Facebook, there’s pages and pages of stuff like that.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: But is there a role for other social media? Do you blog?
Luke: How about LinkedIn, Mel?
Tim: Oh, yeah.
Luke: Do you use LinkedIn? That’s probably…
Tim: I love LinkedIn.
Mel: Oh, LinkedIn, yeah, we like LinkedIn.
Tim: Love it.
Luke: From a recruitment point of view I would have thought that would be great for keeping in touch with candidates throughout…over years even.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah, we do use LinkedIn. It’s far more formal than what we…it’s a formal process and there’s a lot more executives and a lot more people outside of the industry that we operate. And so sometimes we can get distracted on the LinkedIn. Because really at the end of the day if we go to a function that’s located in South Melbourne we might be able to find a specific person within a couple of hours. Sometimes you can get distracted on LinkedIn for a couple of days with the amount of information. Sometimes…
Tim: Yeah.
Mel: …a lot of information is overwhelming.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: And we’re a face to face business and that’s what I think do well and the team do well. The social media is really, you know, important for us to find those people, but you can’t beat the human contact. And I think that’s our differentiating point.
Tim: Yeah, too true.
Luke: I think it’s quite…it’s a fantastic thing, you know where to find your audience essentially. Like you know…
Tim: Parties.
Luke: Yeah. Essentially.
Tim: It’s good.
Luke: And I think with marketing that’s half the battle. Where…how do you get in touch with your audience and you’ve obviously nailed that.
Mel: Yeah. I mean, we’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to have the trust of those people to then refer us people. Really we’ve only had the website and Facebook for the last three years to actually market the business. Outside of that it’s been referrals.
Tim: Have you spent a dollar? Have you spent a dollar on marketing or it really is one of these business where you can like…like social media is free, how good’s that.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Got to pay for a website.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: Networking.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: Free.
Mel: Yep.
Tim: Free food, free beer.
Mel: Yep. There’s nothing (19:18) a free lunch.
Tim: Free lunch, yeah, that’s right.
Mel: (19:20) free lunch.
Tim: No such thing.
Mel: Yeah, that’s right.
Tim: So any paid marketing?
Mel: No.
Tim: Great.
Luke: Yellow Pages?
Mel: No. No. No, they keep ringing me, I go, why, I don’t even know how to use the Yellow Pages myself.
Tim: Yeah, please, please.
Mel: No.
Tim: So non Gen…what would that be, like Baby Boomers?
Mel: Yeah, who uses that?
Luke: No, I mean I think it’s really interesting how most people are dropping off Yellow Pages.
Mel: Yeah, but I don’t want those people. I don’t want those random people. It takes too much time. I want someone who is recommended to me by someone else. And therefore I know that that person is a good person and it’s a lot easier because I have clients that trust me implicitly to find them the right person. And therefore if I know where they’ve come from, then I feel a lot safer.
Luke: It’s essentially qualified leads.
Tim: Okay, we’re going to interrupt Mel there to make a last point probably, Luke, of this episode.
Luke: Yep, we’re going to jump in and just say something about qualified leads.
Tim: Qualified leads, yeah. It’s like as we were talking about before, the smarter you can get with your marketing and the more targeted and the more refined you can get your message, the more qualified leads you’re going to get and the less kickers of tyres that you will attract.
Luke: Exactly. And it kind of ties back to our first point about figuring what your perfect client is.
Tim: Yep. Yeah, it is.
Luke: And then finding how to get qualified leads.
Tim: I saw a great example the other day of a financial planning business who on their car had a phone number and it said call to find out more about this particular offer, or whatever it was. I called the number, being the marketing kind of, you know, nerd that I am, and it spent…it was a two minute answering machine voicemail type thing which actually went through the idea of this is what the offer is all about, it features these benefits and, you know, you’ll get this and it’ll cost this. If you’re still interesting, you know, hit one or hit hash or whatever you do and then you go through.
Luke: That’s pretty cool.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, well that’s what we’re talking about, it’s kind of like a practical example.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Which is what this show is about, Luke, don’t you forget that. Okay.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: But it’s like that is a really clever way of weeding out anyone, because at the end of that two minute spiel they’re either in or they’re out. And if they hit the hash button it means that they’re really interested.
Luke: I love it. I actually love it. That’s…for a small business that’s a ripper. Instead of people spending their time picking up the phone and answering call after call, they’re getting an answering machine to qualify their leads.
Tim: Correct. Which you could argue is impersonal but done well, well written script, read nicely, which this was, I think was a ripper.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: What do you do…because obviously, okay, so people are referring, you get a lot of word of mouth, a lot of referrals, do you do anything to reward referrals?
Mel: We used to.
Tim: Stopped?
Mel: When we first started we had a program and then a lot of clients got onto it where you give a thousand dollars to employees or people that refer you…
Tim: I was thinking more like a $20 iTune voucher.
Mel: Really?
Tim: But 1000 is good.
Mel: That was the sort of money that people were dealing with.
Tim: Wow.
Mel: And I think that for us we pick up the phone and say thanks very much.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: Really appreciate it. Next time you’re in the office, pop in, or next time we see them at a party or a function or an activity we’ll look after them or we might send them a card…
Tim: Yep.
Mel: …to thank them.
Tim: Yep.
Mel: So I think the monetary aspect, I think wasn’t as effective as actually just saying thank you.
Tim: Yeah, nothing quite beats an old look in the eye and saying thank you.
Mel: Yes.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: Luke, do you have anything more for Mel?
Luke: Yeah, probably one more. We ask all our guests, any particular inspiring books that you refer to, Mel?
Mel: Actually I don’t know the…it’s called “Funky Business” but I don’t know the authors, I can’t remember their names.
Tim: They’d be Gen Y.
Mel: I’m not good with detail.
Tim: They’d be Gen Y with a name like that.
Mel: No, I’m not sure they are.
Tim: Really?
Mel: I don’t know. There’s two like bald guys on the front and it’s red and grey and it’s called Funky Business and they talk about the trends of the world. And it’s a bit like The Tipping Point.
Luke: Okay, yeah, yep.
Mel: Have you read The Tipping Point?
Tim: Yep.
Luke: Yep.
Mel: It’s kind of a little bit like that. And they really talked about how people…the future is about tribes and that all these communities will become tribal and people only want to work in tribes and that tribe might be in Australia but it could be globally and I think that’s why when I set the business up, I thought well we’re going to be in a niche which is going to be tribal and these are, and I think after reading that book it kind of confirmed that we grew really quickly because we’d hooked into a tribe that no one else had hooked into and I think that’s…
Tim: It’s a good concept, isn’t it?
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Seth Godin has just written a book called “Tribes”.
Mel: Oh, really?
Tim: It’s a bit of a word at the moment in the marketing circles.
Mel: Is it?
Tim: Everything’s a tribe. This is a tribe.
Mel: Really?
Tim: Yeah, well our one listener out there, hello, hello, is forming our tribe.
Luke: Is it a fancy…
Tim: No, that’s not one, we’ve got two.
Luke: Is it a fancy name for a network?
Tim: Yep. Yeah, a group of people all with one kind of mission or, you know, belief, yeah. Tribe is better though.
Luke: Yeah, it is.
Tim: It’s a bit more raw.
Luke: Yeah.
Mel: Well they talk a lot about it. Good book.
Tim: Yeah, Funky Business.
Mel: Yeah.
Tim: Cool, okay. Thank you, Mel, for coming in.
Mel: Thanks for having me.
Tim: Really good.
Luke: Thanks again to Mel. I certainly enjoyed that. What about you, Tim?
Tim: I did, I did. And we now know what she had on her feet, Luke.
Luke: Indeed. Some lovely crocodile boots.
Tim: Straight to the show notes all our male listeners. And maybe some female listeners too. And maybe some crocodiles. But I don’t…we wouldn’t have crocodiles listening.
Luke: No. There was a few points to take away from that conversation. Tim, what did you find…
Tim: Look, authenticity, I think key. Small business owners, hello, hello, listen, authenticity very very important. And I think the notion of identifying and chasing down, not to the point of stalking, but definitely chasing down your perfect customer would…
Luke: Don’t stalk.
Tim: No, no, no. We don’t promote stalking here. And even if…like if a stalker came to this show and said I want to sponsor you, I’d…we would…
Luke: No.
Tim: No.
Luke: No.
Tim: So it’s like about authenticity and it’s about identifying and chasing down a perfect customer. What did you like?
Luke: The perfect customer was definitely one for me. And…
Tim: That’s two votes to the perfect customer.
Luke: Tell you what, as an action point, everyone who’s listening to this, go away now and write down who your perfect customer is. It’s an action point.
Tim: That is a lecture, Luke.
Luke: Go and do it.
Tim: We said we wouldn’t lecture. Part of our authenticity is that we’re not university lecturers.
Luke: Sorry, I’ll rephrase that. I encourage you to go and…
Tim: Oh, that’s nice, yeah.
Luke: …to go and write down…
Tim: Yep, okay.
Luke: …what your perfect customer is.
Tim: So once again thanks, Mel. And, listeners, we’ve had a lot of questions come in and those questions come in to…how do they questions us?
Luke: They can write to us, email it to us at questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.
Tim: Nice, yeah. And we had Beryl from Upper (26:24) West email us earlier this week wanting to know which one of us was the taller.
Luke: It’s definitely me.
Tim: It goes without saying it’s me. But seriously the question that we did get was about social media and this is a question we actually got sent in asking which social mediums should we choose and this was Emma from Box Hill, Luke, and she said there’s Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and, you know, all these, MySpace, Facebook things and which one as a small business owner should I embark on. And that’s a question I hear a lot. And what’s your kind of response to that?
Luke: I think once again it goes back to your market and back to the niche that you’re in. I would say if you’re trying to market to a younger audience definitely go with Facebook and MySpace, both of them.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: If you have an older audience you should definitely be on LinkedIn and you should consider Twittering depending upon what the product or service that you’re promoting.
Tim: Yeah. And Emma also makes the comment that is it a time kind of…how much time do you need. And I think that’s really important in choosing social media. Because it is…can be quite labour intensive. So you’ve got to choose those ones where if you want…if you’re happy to write lots of articles, then blog. If you just want to do short stuff, then maybe Twitter. But LinkedIn I think as a small business owner is an obvious one to start with.
Luke: Sure.
Tim: Because it’s just a great way of building an online network. So, Emma, thank you very much for your email and I wish we said…could say there’s a prize coming out to you, but there’s not really, is there? We might have to work on that.
Luke: Maybe we can send her…
Tim: Well…
Luke: …send her the book, Tim.
Tim: We could send her the book. We will. And our book can be found at SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com. Our book is called Cha-Ching! and it’s the sweet sweet sound of small business marketing that works. A long tagline but I think we’ll finish it up now. Luke, lovely.
Luke: Thanks, Tim.
Tim: Thank you. Listeners, thank you and we’ll see you next show with a, I reckon a really quite exciting interview.
Luke: Indeed. There’s much more to come.
Tim: Bye.
Ms Evancich: You’ve just come that little bit closer to getting your business booming thanks to the Small Business Big Marketing show with Tim Reid and Luke Moulton. Please keep in mind that the information, opinions and ideas expressed in this show are those of the hosts and interviewees and theirs alone and they don’t necessarily reflect those of their past, current or future employers.
Lovingly transcribed by The Transcription People
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