Paul: 0:29

Hello and welcome to another episode of MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers. This week I have the privilege of welcoming Jane Bayler to the show. Hi Jane, how are you?

Jane: 0:39

I'm great. Thank you. It's lovely to be here, Paul.

Paul: 0:42

Great to have you on the show. Thanks very much for coming along. For those of you watching at home, Jane is a brand marketer, consultant and founder of the Smart Connector, which I love. I have to say I love that because it is so much about the things that are missing in a lot of businesses. With over 15 years in media and entertainment, she's developed campaigns for major global brands like British Airways and Coca Cola. She wasn't Santa, so don't ask. Jane grew her brand identity business from 1 million to 6 million before selling it to Interpublic. And today she helps business owners and experts build successful brands. Through her consultancy program. Jane is also the author of the Smart Connector and hosts a top 2.5% global podcast by the same name. I'm in Awe, Jane. It's very well what, why class as digital celebrities on the show. It's truly an honor to have you on. Thanks. Thanks for coming along. Do you want it for the people at home? Do you wanna share a little bit of that amazing story that you've been through? You've got a lot of. Real context to add to the people that are listening at home.

Jane: 1:44

Oh, my God. Yeah. The story, it's been a long story, to be honest. Obviously, I've got a business story. I've got a personal story. I've got a journey in terms of my health and in terms of my personal development and all of those exciting things. I don't know, where would you like to start, Paul?

Paul: 2:03

Let's start with the brand identity business. You grew that from 1 million to 6 million and then sold it. Like that's a dream for a lot of the business owners that are listening to this show. Talk us through it. What, how did you manage to do that? I

Jane: 2:15

Yeah. So actually when I joined the business, it was an existing business that had been around for a few years, but it had really flatlined and I was brought in as managing director initially to work with the two partners who actually owned the business. So I didn't come in as a, I wasn't a founder of that business. So what had happened is they were both creatives and. They had both left the BBC. It was a moving image design business. That's what it was. So they had got quite a lot of work and a following wind, I think in the early days in terms of things like title sequences and a few commercials because there were graphic designers, there was a lot of typography involved and that type of thing. Things had gone quite well, but then I think what happened is the Markets started becoming very commoditized and a lot of new entrants were coming in. Everybody will be familiar with that if you're in creative services. And they started to struggle, but they managed to keep going because they had a very good reputation and so they were. Every year, probably a million pounds worth of business would walk through the door, which is obviously very nice by many people's standards, but they weren't really moving beyond that. And I think another reason for that was because they didn't really like each other very much. I think they were rivals really, and they both did the same thing. And of course, we all know that in business, Businesses are stronger when they have people who have complementary skill sets, as opposed to the same ones. And I think the fact that they both did the same thing meant that every time a really nice project walked through the door, they wanted the same thing. They wanted to, they both wanted to do it and they would argue about it. They would argue about which designers were going to be on their teams and they couldn't seem to agree about anything. And so when I came in, obviously everybody was telling me this. It was a bit like being in a family. A lot of people said this with the, where the two parents were heading towards divorce because they were just fighting all the time and people Being media, obviously it was all very dramatic. There was a lot of chair throwing and alcohol and all sorts of things that that only people that work in media really understand. Let's just say tempers get frayed. It's a bit like it's a bit like the kitchen of a kind of top hotel or something like that. You don't see what goes on behind the scenes. So essentially one of the partners ran off to the U S that was his solution. He got an offer from a rival business and the other partner was left to pick up the pieces. And at that point he said, I can't do it without you, Jane. And I knew he couldn't do it without me. So I said, okay I want to Be a shareholder. I was already earning pretty well, but I wasn't a shareholder in the business. And I said, I want to profit share and I've got some terms and conditions. I want you to stop taking everything out of the business and actually invest some of the profits in the business. And I won't ask for a really. Huge increase in my salary, but what I do want is a profit share and a decent one at that. And he agreed to all of those things. So I was actually in a pretty good position as long as the company was successful, which I suppose is fair enough. My performance and my let's just say my, my salary, my bonuses and ultimately, obviously the proceeds of the sale were all linked to how well the business did. So fair enough. That's what happens when we get to those kinds of positions. So rather than doing the little itty bitty title sequences, which every designer in London was fighting over because they were, exciting creative projects, I just said to them, look, where is the money in this industry? It's in the global corporate identities, television companies. You've done one of those projects, very old project and quite a long time ago, I said, we've just got to, we've just got to promote that and promote those capabilities and actually put ourselves in the running for those kinds of projects, so that was essentially a strategic decision. And I think the owner, he wasn't going to put up much resistance because he knew that everything that they'd done up until that point wasn't really working. So he's okay, let's give it a try. So it's okay. So the next thing that happened that has to happen is that we have to invest in the growth. You can't just expect this to be me sitting there making a few phone calls to people or going out and having a couple of meetings in London with people, which obviously is cheap and easy because we were in London. I said, we've got to go to these international conferences. We've got to be seen at the television festival in Cannes. We've got to be there and actually meet these television executives and do what. The much bigger companies in our industry do and. In order for that to happen, you're going to have to make some sacrifices in the short term. And in fact, we did also talk about whether we should seek investment to do this, because obviously that's one route to scaling very quickly, but he said, no, I want to bootstrap it, which I think was actually quite a sensible decision because it was doable. With a, as I said, a little bit of sacrifice. So essentially that was what we did. And there were other things like just some organizational stuff. There was too much pampering going on and too much pandering in a way. So particularly with the creatives, we had to be fair, obviously, and we had to be, Nice to them, but, we couldn't just give them a platform to do whatever the hell they wanted. These problem with these corporate identity projects is that they tended to be a little bit boring and repetitive for the designers. So essentially we said to them, cause the designers were most of the company, it was a design company, a design agency, so that there were more designers than any other type of employee, let's just say. So we said to them, or I said to them, because obviously I was managing the business that you can uncap your earnings. You can use our facilities. You can work evenings, weekends come here whenever you like, you can piggyback off our reputation, all of those things to do your own projects. So if you want to double your income, I don't mind. None of us minds. You do that. But what we do need to do, you to do in return is actually do this slightly boring and repetitive work that we throw at you during the day. And I think everybody in the end, they could see that's fair. And we were paying them very well, because obviously we were able to, because those projects were, they were quite lucrative. We just set the right things in place in order for, I suppose it's just like planting seeds really, isn't it? And then watering them in order for it all to happen, if that

Paul: 9:18

So I think, if I'm going to replay some of that in terms of what the SME business owners who are listening to this might take away from that is, Understand what it is that you need to do in order to grow and understand where those clients are, where you engage them. Is it on LinkedIn? Is it on WhatsApp? Is it at a conference? Is it an export? Or actually, are your clients not at any thought place? You've gotta think outside the box and do uncomfortable things sometimes in order to stretch the business and reach the heights. So I guess. Fast forward a little bit from where you were with that, you then created the smart connector. So do you want to talk us through that program and what that means for the businesses that you work with?

Jane: 9:59

Yeah, thank you, Paul. Yeah. So I think for me, there is nothing more important than connection. And I know that we've talked about this as well. And what does that actually mean? It's really the impact that you have on other people. And that always starts with the connection that you have with yourself. So you can't have a really strong impact on other people and actually influence them to not just do the things that. You want them to do, but also for them to be inspired and to become a better version of themselves, because it's all about just basically putting out good vibes into the world and making, doing your contribution in that respect. I'm very passionate about that. But as I said, it always starts with the connection you have with yourself and being very clear about your purpose and being very clear about your goals. And I think all of us see in business, one of the hardest things to resist is the lure of the shiny penny. And that. Tends to happen when we don't have clarity around what we need and want individually, as well as from our businesses. So I think today there are so many distractions and we do have to be very mindful that if we are going to have The impact both interpersonally and also in terms of how other people perceive us in, one to many communications like this, then it all stops and starts with us and the work that we do on ourselves. So for me, that's smart connection as opposed to just connection, because it makes connection smart, if that makes sense.

Paul: 11:41

So I guess, Jane, having worked with brands like British Airways and Coca Cola, to name a couple of those what are some of the key branding lessons that smaller businesses can take from your learnings where they can take that and implement that, today, tomorrow, next week, that work with their visibility and impact?

Jane: 11:57

Yeah, great question, Paul. So I think branding in itself is the same, it's the same principles, whether you apply it to a huge global brand like Coca Cola or a tiny little one man business, essentially, it's really about managing perception. And obviously, the simpler that perception is, The easier and the more inspiring as well, the easier it is to have that impact and to build a brand. So I think a lot of it is to do with distilling your message to market, your value proposition, everything down into some very simple sticky words and phrases. And when you think about some of the taglines of the greatest brands in the world, they immediately. conjure up a feeling a spirit, if you like. So you think about Nike and just do it. You think about De Beers and Diamonds Are Forever, L'Oreal, You're Worth It. They're obviously all linked to different buyer personas and also, Different markets and so there's a lot of a lot of sort of similarities in terms of the approach, but obviously the implementation and the way that they put that message out is going to be different. So essentially brand is really just the foundational bedrock really of anything that is expressed or done through the marketing communication strategy. And in that way, It's great really, because the principles are the same, whether it's a huge global brand or a tiny little local business.

Paul: 13:35

I always find brand and messaging quite interesting, right? Because there are people out there like yourself who seem to make it seem very easy to do. And I've spoken with people who can do it on the fly, right? Like I've got a good friend of mine who was the face of Hasbro games for many years, and he often gets businesses and startups to pitch to him for 10, 15 minutes even. And at the end of it, he will boil down what they've said into one sentence. And he just makes it so easy and yet I've, sat there and tried to do this for my own business and it's super, super hard because you want to convey everything all at once. So your message about simplicity really hits home for me. And I guess the other solution is obviously if you're struggling to come up with that yourself, then seek external support, right?

Jane: 14:21

Yeah, it's, it is, I think a combination of let's just say a bit of talent and also obviously experience as with everything, the more. It's that kind of a hundred hour rule in the first instance, if you want to achieve competence at anything, if you do it for a hundred hours, then you're going to be a lot better than most people. If you do it for 10, 000 hours, then you really are a master as we all know. So I think it's very much the tip of the iceberg brand strategy and particularly the art of coming up with really powerful taglines or value propositions or whatever, actually just being able to encapsulate the meaning or the value of a brand in a simple phrase or sentence is a lot of people think, Oh, that's easy because they don't actually see it. Everything that goes on under the water is just like the tip of the iceberg. So it's very much like that. And those people, they will never value, let's just say brand strategy. They will think that it is simple because it appears simple to them. And, those people are just they're just not marketers and they'll never get marketing and. The ones that do, they realize that there is a lot of work that goes into this. There is a lot of experience and there is also, a certain amount of talent, really.

Paul: 15:44

Yeah, I often hear the marketing department described to as the colouring in team, but there's a hell of a lot more to it than that when you actually look under the hood and try to understand all the competencies that they're, that they cover. One of the things that I'm quite curious about, Jane, is, misconceptions around brand and marketing. You must see so many businesses making a lot of the same mistakes. So what are the top misconceptions that you see and then what would you advise them to do to rethink that approach?

Jane: 16:10

Yes, of course. I think marketing is basically encompasses everything that a business does in order to. Really make sales. So it underpins the sales activities. And so it can be very tactical and it can be strategic, but it's everything. Really a marketing strategy is what a business does in order to in order to be effective in its market. Whereas branding is if you like a sort of, not just a subsection of marketing, but it's also, as I said the foundation of. Everything that goes after. So it is really the thing that needs to be addressed. First of all because it's going to give you the frameworks and the ideas and the concepts that are then going to be rolled out through any marketing communications campaign to give it consistency and power. So that's why it really matters to not just pay lip service to brand. And, brand's not just about pretty pictures. It is. about that consistent impression that is also relevant, differentiated, and places you right at the heart of what your ideal customers are really looking for. So if you just go out there with tactics, then you're going to lose because you're, you will just, Come across as being unclear, all over the place trying this, trying that. It's no good really. Brand strategy is where it all starts.

Paul: 18:06

It sounds like there's a lot of that brand strategy and marketing that's derived from having a very clear and concise understanding of the ideal customer in the first place. Not just who you might've originally thought that customer was, but who they actually are.

Jane: 18:19

Yeah, that's a very insightful comment, Paul. And it absolutely is. I'm working with quite a few businesses at the moment on their brand strategy. And I say to them, It always starts with the buyer persona and sometimes it's very rare for it to be one buyer persona. What might happen is you might end up with a dominant buyer persona, but when it really comes down to it, you do have to consider segmentation. Because on the whole, there will be, particularly in B2B, there will be influencers and decision makers, for example, and even that is not it's not clear cut, there will be influencers who are also decision makers and decision makers who are also influencers. It's just I suppose one way of looking at it. So for example, with an insurance SaaS business that I was working with recently when we really drilled into it, we found that there were two, predominant types. One was the underwriters and one was the actor is, and they were actually very different in terms of their outlook, their priorities, their concerns, everything like that. And within those groups, there were probably about four different subtypes. So once we profiled all of them, we then found that there were two really dominant one of them was on the actual actuarial side. And the other one was the other type. So as I said, it's definitely worth drilling down into. Into, okay, so who is your product really for and who are those, the people that are sitting on the fringes and are we perhaps ignoring them when in fact they are ideal by a persona or is the person who we really want to sell to. Maybe they've been there all the time, but we've been diluting our message and trying to appeal to all these other people who actually aren't really that important. So all of these things matter and it just takes time to really to drill down on that and just get that clarity.

Paul: 20:19

And I think that's the challenge for a lot of businesses, right? Is we need to get going. We need to make some revenue. We need to expand our revenue. We need to grow our revenue. We've got pressure from investors, pressure internally, stakeholders. Etc. And so quite a lot of the time what I see is that the pressure leads to guesswork, which leads to failed marketing attempts, which leads to marketing being viewed as ineffective, when actually it's the internal challenges that have caused that to be the case. And actually marketing was there going all along going no, you need to, we need to do more work on understanding this a bit better before we go forward. And everybody else rolling their eyes at marketing.

Jane: 20:59

Oh yeah you do get that definitely, but I think also you made an important point. For example, if a business is a fast growth business, let's say they're funded or maybe they're going for funding and people are mindful that at some point down the line there's going to be an exit. There tends to be that kind of go rush let's, get the growth going at all costs. And of course. That's going to be a reality, but what happens with fast growth businesses is that things change a lot and they change very fast and who you might think your ideal buyer persona is on day one, by the time you get to day 60. And particularly if you've actually got a campaign running, you might change your mind a little bit. And I think that's the dynamic nature of business growth. So it's it's hard because you have to balance it. Obviously on the one hand, you have to have this kind of North Star, which is this ultimate outcome. And this is the place we want to get to, and this is who we want to serve. But along the way, what tends to happen is that we start off serving everyone. And then once we've started serving everyone, because we're just grateful for the revenue in the early days, we have a bit of a shakeout and we realized, these are the people that actually I don't want to serve. And these are the people that I really do want to focus on or the businesses I really want to focus on. So that is a natural part of our evolution as business owners. And I think that we just need to be mindful that. If we are working with a brand strategy, we do have to visit it as well as the business strategy. Relatively frequently and update it because things don't stay the same. It would be very comforting to think that there's all that certainty and we only have to do this exercise once every 10 years. It's not gonna, it's not gonna get you the results that you want if you don't revisit it.

Paul: 22:59

So then that leads nicely into one of the two questions I ask all of our guests. And I'm going to ask you to get your soap box out a little bit, Jane, because I want to know what's one marketing strategy that you consider may be outdated or maybe never worked in the first place that you just, you, if you could wear the magic wand, what would business owners just stop doing tomorrow?

Jane: 23:18

Yeah that's really great because honestly, I believe that every marketing tactic or strategy is, it works. So I don't believe that there's anything out there that people are doing that doesn't work. I think there are things that people are doing that doesn't work for them because they haven't achieved mastery or they're not working with people who are masters in that particular tactic or strategy. However, I do think that. I do sometimes meet people who are doing a lot of cold calling. And I think that is something that is very difficult. It's very difficult to rely on the hat. Let's just say 15 years ago before people Had mobile phones that they kept on mute all the time. Then people would see a strange or random number and they'd pick up. But on the whole, these days, unfortunately, everybody has got wise to it. And I'm not saying that that cold calling doesn't work, but. It would be unwise, I think, to rely on it exclusively because consumers they get wise, don't they? Just door to door sales.

Paul: 24:29

Audience, the less likely they are to pick up as well. I've got a very good friend of mine who I would see as a master of his trade, right? And he spent years learning how to cold call. He's learns all the time. He's always researching. He's always, and he's in the thick of it and he's always cold call and he loves it. And he's very good at it. But the outcome of that is. To your point exactly, I see a lot of smaller businesses trying to do this themselves internally. And the truth of the matter is, as with a lot of marketing strategies you need to have somebody who knows what they're doing to put an effective plan in place. And with cold call and more than anything else, you probably need an expensive resource to make those cold calls for you, which most small businesses can't afford. So they outsource it to somewhere cheaper, who does a really bad job and ruins your brand reputation in the marketplace. So yes, I wholeheartedly agree with that one. Done badly.

Jane: 25:20

So such an important point because I think obviously a lot of people are aware now that there are really marketing is very much a global business. There are people all over the world who are working on, Working on businesses, say here in the UK or in the US or whatever. And that's great because it means that your budget can go a lot further and you can access expertise from parts of the world where the cost of living is a lot cheaper. You can support families really in, in those parts of the world, which is actually really nice. I love the fact that I'm doing that personally, but. When it comes to something that is really critical wanting to get a return on investment, you will always get better results if you work with people who are experts in that area. And otherwise, it is so easy just to Try and cut corners and then you'll just end up with something that doesn't work, loses your money. You don't get an ROI. You end up very disappointed and feeling as though, okay, it just doesn't work. And that is the reason it doesn't work as we both of us have agreed is because you're just not working with people who are skilled enough because every single thing that you do, even, cold calling door to door sales or any tactic works. Otherwise people wouldn't do it.

Paul: 26:38

Amazing. And then to flip that on its head, what's one tactic or strategy that you wish businesses would look to adopt more often? What do you think is underrated in the marketplace that few businesses are trying that they could really gravitate themselves towards?

Jane: 26:52

Yeah, so I think the power of content is amazing these days, particularly video content, YouTube podcasting, what we're doing here, making short form clips, reels, all of that type of thing. So powerful. This is very much the way that the marketplace is going, the online marketplace very video based. So I'm a huge fan of video content. I don't do nearly enough of it myself. And I also think they're always going to be a place for quality content. I'm just about to publish my next book. I think there are people say, Oh, nobody reads books anymore. No, people are reading books. I'm a massive reader of books. I've always been given like my five star award by Kindle. Yeah some people don't read books, some people just watch videos some people prefer audio content, and I think the businesses that win are those that understand that people have different learning styles. Some people have very short attention spans, they love short form video. Some people just love nothing better than to, you Get buried in a book for an hour. Some people just love to go for a walk or maybe go for a run or go to the gym or get into the car and listen to a podcast. And if you can multi purpose content to appeal to those different learning styles, then I think it definitely increases your chances of winning.

Paul: 28:16

I'm smiling because I feel like you took the words out of my mouth. I love that, Jane. Thank you very much for that. That's brilliant. It's a, it's nice to feel validated from the outside sometimes, cause I feel like I preach this every week in this series. So thank you very much for that. Jane it's been a genuine pleasure having you on the show. If people are listening along and they want to find out a bit more about the Smart Connector program or you particularly, how can they reach you? What's the best way to contact you?

Jane: 28:43

I'm on LinkedIn most days. I would say that is probably my strongest platform. And also you can email me on Jane@Janebaylor.com or you can go to my website on www Jane baylor.com. Or you could listen to my podcast, which is The Smart Connector. I'd love to hear from you and thank you so much, Paul, for inviting me on the show. It's been such a pleasure. I've really enjoyed talking to you.

Paul: 29:07

No problem at all. I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes for anybody who wants to find out more. And most importantly, thank you at home for listening or watching along. Really appreciate your support as ever. And if you have any questions or queries, please do reach out and chat with us. We are both quite active on LinkedIn. More than happy to field people's questions. Bye bye. See you next week.

Jane: 29:28

Bye bye.