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Marketing and Books – Live Episode 9

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Content provided by Peter Sumpton. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Peter Sumpton or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

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Guest: Douglas Burdett Topic: Marketing Books

Discussion Points • Themes and main takeaways from 2020 • The book you’ve learnt the most from • The best marketing books to read right now • What to look out for in 2021 – books • Tips on reading, consuming and learning from books • Planning for 2021

Enjoy the Episode - Happy Marketing!

Website Thingy: www.marketingstudylab.co.uk The Professional Bit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersumpton/ Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingstudylab/ Tweet Tweet: https://twitter.com/cousinp81

Transcript (this transcript isn’t 100% accurate but provides a decent representation of the conversation – soz for any confusion)

Peter Sumpton Okay, there you go. We are live. Hello, Douglas. Welcome.

Douglas Burdett Hi. Good to be here. Fantastic. I've waited ages to get you on here because today, we're going to talk.

Peter Sumpton We're saying sorry.

Douglas Burdett I was on once before. Yes. So that's the marketing study lab podcast. So this is the live, so we stepped it up again for this one. Okay, okay. Oh, pressures on great.

Peter Sumpton No pressure at all. But I've been, I've been waiting ages for this one, because I decided for you to hop on this live at the end of the year, because of what you do for your labour of love, rather than your day job. And I think it's a really good way to summarise what's been happening throughout the year, in marketing and in and around the topic of marketing. So first and foremost, could you just give the listeners a brief intro to yourself and what you do?

Douglas Burdett Sure, so I live in Virginia, I have a small marketing agency, we like to work with manufacturers and industrial companies.

And in my free time, that's a joke. I do this marketing book podcast, which I've been doing for almost six years now. And each, it's the marketing book Podcast, where each Friday, I publish an interview with the author of a new marketing or sales book, and I read here I crossed the 300 episode number. So 300 books on the show. And or when I started the podcast, I was about 10 episodes in because I had read those books. And that's when I realised I was actually going to need to read each book

for each interview, so it was sort of like taking the wrong exit on the motorway or the realising, oh, well, okay, I guess I'm gonna read a book every week. But I do that, and it's been really good for me. And I've enjoyed it. I like learning. And I like helping people and I hear from it's in over 150 countries now. And I hear from people all around the world, pretty much every day, they they messaged me on LinkedIn, and, you know, tell me that they listen to the podcast, or find a particular book or interview helpful, or, more often than not, they asked me what, for book recommendations. So I don't want anyone not even Peter Sumpton to have to read 300 books to find the right one. So it's really only 30 seconds, I'm able to say, Oh, I know, just the book, you should read that particular challenge you're describing. So that's also for any of your viewers or listeners, please connect with me on LinkedIn. And I can provide any kind of recommendations to books or other resources that I know of, for whatever challenge folks are facing. The only thing I ask is include a message. I know that what you're up to, and you're not some spam bot. Yeah, yeah,

Peter Sumpton absolutely. that's a that's a given nowadays, isn't it? And we've all got to interact a little bit better than than just subscribe, connect, follow, or whatever we're doing in the world. Just as a side note, so you realise, but before we get into a few takeaways from 2020, and what to look forward to in 2021. So you realised a few episodes in that you'd have to read a book a week. For me? I've never been a strong reader. It's something that I'm not ashamed of. But I don't like the fact that I'm a strong reader. And I just I've never managed to get into books as such, you clearly liked or enjoyed reading, unless you wouldn't have started what you did. But did you? I mean, how do you how do you do that keep up that consistency of reading a book a week? Or is it just? Well, it just I find it quite an easy task.

Douglas Burdett Well, you build it into your routine, and it's only one book a week. Sometimes. It's one and so on. weekend mornings, I may spend a couple hours reading, which is not you know, it's not bad for me. And, and a couple mornings during the week, you know, before work, I will read the book, and then I just do the one interview a week and it's on Fridays. And it's a it's just, it's just kind of part of the routine. It's probably like a lot of people. A lot of your viewers might be people who exercise regularly, and I do that. But it's just something you build into your routine. And so I do that, but maybe I should explain a little bit more about what compels me from an emotional standpoint. Yeah, please. I came from this is the motivation for doing it. I don't do it for a living but I came from this advertising background, I worked at these enormous ad agencies back in the 30 years ago in New York. And then, when I started my own firm, almost 20 years ago, it was a real advertising focused firm. And advertising is a shadow of its former self, okay. And so I saw that things were starting to change, but I could see they were starting to change permanently. And I kind of felt like I was, I was too young to retire. And I was, you know, I didn't know what to do. So I, what I did was I went back to what I had done in grad school after I got out of the army, whereas I was just reading books about different career fields, and knocking around until I found something I liked. And an author of a friend of mine, recommended I go into advertising and I asked a professor in school, and she gave me a copy of Ogilvy on advertising. And this was in the 1980s. So I thought, I read that book. And it, it changed everything for me, I said, I want to do I'm excited about that. And that's how I went off in that direction. So what happened was when I still had advertising clients, but I was seeing all everything was starting to change. And I kind of went back to just throwing myself in the books hoping I would, you know, find something and I stumbled upon David meerman, Scott's book, the new rules of marketing and PR, first or second edition, it's now in its seventh edition. And, and I saw it, that's where it's going. I felt like I had another bite at the career Apple, it was in the right book at the right time can really transform things. The other issue is that I was as an ad guy, I was starting to have to bring website people to my meetings with clients. And clients were slowly starting to ask me about these. The Internet, and this this Google thing, and what was clearly a fad, social media. So I, I started to feel really irrelevant, like I was growing dinosaur scales, and I just hated that more than most people. So that's when I really threw myself into the books after, you know, picking up on David meerman Scott's. And I started to see how that could kind of fuel some hope and some, you know, new direction. And I was always listening to marketing podcasts. And I particularly enjoyed podcasts where they interviewed authors. So I guess, at some point, I said, I, I want to try this podcasting thing. And so I kind of started the podcast that I wanted to listen to, but it was this one episode of my adult, you know, my career working life, where I was really starting to feel irrelevant. And I didn't, and I really, really didn't like that. That's what kind of fuels my interest in, in reading. And like I said earlier, it's really a lot of fun to do it. When I hear from people who say, Hey, your your podcast is helped me get a new job, or it's helped me with ideas at work. And there's really nothing better than than helping, I mean, look what you do.

Peter Sumpton And well, thank you for that book. I mean, I got I got onto your podcast, through john experience said, check this podcast out. And, you know, listen, listen to the first one. And because it was about books, and I'm not a very strong leader, this is just music to my ears. You mean, I can listen to this author, talk about what's in his book without reading the book and get the number one points off it. This is fantastic. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. And, you know, I've been I've been a fan ever since. So it's more

Douglas Burdett now I'm gonna keep doing it.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yeah,

there's no, there's no getting off this wheel. But the thing that I really liked about what you were saying then, was the fact that you, you recognise the fact that things were changing, and you didn't have that skill set to cope with what was changing in the world. And a lot of people don't have that skill to, to want to change and to feel that, well, I don't know and understand this digital stuff, or this technology stuff or this iPhone thingy. I'll just ignore it and I'll try and curve my career around it and, and play on the I don't know card. And you know, it's cued us to you to, to recognise that and do something about it. I don't think a lot of people do.

Douglas Burdett Yeah, there's a lot of people out there that are still the news release experts. That's like the HubSpot founder. He referred to marketers that didn't have a lot of skills as he called them press release hires, meaning that was all you had to do was he doesn't hire these kind of people, but it's sort of a, you know, fax marketing, fax advertising, you know? So it's a little thing.

Yeah, you could

you could buy some it was some service where it would basically send a fax out promoting like an ad but then I think at least the United States they cracked down on that so that they weren't clogging up fax machines, you know, Mark ruin everything.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Douglas Burdett All only takes a few, you know.

Peter Sumpton I mean, I remember seeing a fax machine fax coming through the only faxes that ever came through. Were adverts trying to sell toner for the faxes? And I just thought it's quite ironic, quite ironic that you're trying to sell toner for a fax machine that has got enough ink to print the fax. And if it didn't, then you wouldn't get the ad. I just thought that I like the irony behind that.

Douglas Burdett Yes, yes. I guess they're hoping that you'd be able to read some of it?

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. So that's a bit of background, which is all well and good. But what I'd like to do is focus on 2020, and your learnings from from the books that you've read, throughout this year, of which, Oh, actually, before we do that, take me through the, the gap in suppose it was a gap, the gap in the marketing book podcast where it was all with cocktails. And where did that come from?

Douglas Burdett Well,

it came from my muse.

Peter Sumpton Everybody knows your muse,

Douglas Burdett a shout out to my Scottish listeners. And actually, you know what? I know you people think I just drink all day here. I just got a bottle of wine from a past guest, Jim Stern, author of AI, but a book about marketing and artificial intelligence. But what happened was, I didn't have a gap. I continued to publish interviews with authors every Friday. But when the the lockdown started in March, I, I think I had the last operation in the United States, I had my shoulder repaired, and so that I can go back to playing for the New York Yankees. And it was a one of those rotator cuff things.

Peter Sumpton I think, the giants, sorry,

Douglas Burdett yes. So the, so I was at home, I had the thing, and I was at home anyway. But then we had an office and everyone left the office. Nobody wanted to come back. I think they were trying to get away from me, and I can't blame them. And then I started hearing from listeners, who were saying, gosh, I just got laid off what I need to reinvent myself I needed they were sharing with me, they were saying what can I do, and I was really happy to hear from them, despite the bad news so that I could maybe offer them some comfort or something, something to go do you know, to get back on the horse. And at the same time, my son who's a paramedic, he was out there on the front lines of all this. And I just thought, you know, there's some really brave people doing wonderful things. And I thought, what, what could I do? And I thought, you know, why don't I just have a pot of a daily episode, except on Fridays, where I would interview past guests who'd been on the show, and ask them what they thought about what was going on. Because everybody was kind of wondering trying to figure out what what the new normal is, what what they're what they're doing. So with a nod to Jerry Seinfeld, comedians in cars getting coffee, I started authors in quarantine getting cocktails. And so we would have the interview later in the day, you know, the cocktail hour, I don't want all your people thinking I drink this all day,

Peter Sumpton when we know this, this nine 9am till 10am thoughts that sacred?

Douglas Burdett Yeah, and it is after noon right now in the East Coast. So I guess I can glass there. But, um, so what happened was what was interesting to me is I said, Alright, I'm thinking about doing this. And I sent an email out to the over 200 authors that have been on the show in the past. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this just a daily show where I can reintroduce you to the audience and the listeners, and we can talk about what you're thinking what you're working on, you know, what do you think? And within one hour, over 100 authors responded and said, I'm in I'm in I'm not, I'm at home. I'm not travelling, I'm not speaking. And a probably statistically significant number said, Doug, I'm already drinking. I'll talk to you. So I launched it, and I got through 66 episodes. So that went from like the beginning of April, through the very beginning of July, and then my, my liver needed to rest. So no, but what I did was I would then publish on every day, except for Friday, didn't want to interrupt that cadence. And then I cut it back to Monday through Thursday. And I that's how I got through 66. And it was really great. And it was really particularly good for my family, because it meant that there was only An hour where they weren't having to talk to me, or listen to me, particularly my, my kids were now in their 20s, who were here, but then they've since moved on. And so it was it was really fun. And they even got some accolades from some top blogs, you know, saying, you know, this is a good thing to be listening to right now. And so I was again, very excited to see that people found found value in it. And it was really that that that's what that was authors and quarantine getting cocktails, and, but continued on with the regular scheduled programming.

Peter Sumpton Lovely. So can you can, he says maybe it's time to return to quarantine cocktails. So think you might have started a trend?

Douglas Burdett Oh, really? Oh, my goodness. So are there? People make King? Can we see what people are? messaging? Yes. Yeah, yeah,

Peter Sumpton we've got a couple of messages. Haven't got a huge audience. But those that do, I'll share anyway, see

Douglas Burdett it, I see it.

Peter Sumpton So James says he's not a strong reader also. And he's subscribed to the podcast already. So there you go. You've you've Oh,

Douglas Burdett that's a that's great. James. Um, you know, we can all learn in different ways. We're all different learners different ways. And honestly, the the I continue, it's great having the podcast because I know that people are expecting an episode once a week. So it's sort of like, Okay, well read the book. So I kind of like having a workout partner, all of my audiences, my workout partner can. Ola Meyer is a friend in St. Louis, longtime listener. And once we were at a conference in Boston, he actually bought me a couple of scotches, and I still remember that. And, yeah, you know, um, and actually, he, he's also an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis. And he had me Skype into his class, and I, a growing number of academics have me do that, where I'm, you know, they want me to have the students listen to the show. And then I Skype in and answer questions or, you know, do things like that. So if there's any academics out there, I just heard from one today at Hofstra, who said, Hey, you know, maybe you can come and talk to my class at the end of the semester or something like that. So I'm happy to help. And why, Peter, because I believe children are our future. And we should treat them well, and let them lead the way.

Peter Sumpton This is song in essence, I just can't wait to

Douglas Burdett show them all the beauty they possess inside. So there you are. I'm sorry, you have a very respectable audience. And here I am just cutting up. Sorry.

Peter Sumpton He's fine. He's, you know, it's like you say it's, it's way past 10am. So I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, okay,

let's let's, let's get to it, then with the time that we have left,

Douglas Burdett let's offer some value. Yeah, well,

Peter Sumpton why the hell no, no, I'm enjoying myself. So that's all that matters. Let's, let's, let's face it.

Douglas Burdett So

Peter Sumpton take us through some of the the main themes that you've seen, or the main takeaways that you've got from some of the books that you've read this year, then?

Douglas Burdett Well,

the, what I did was once the pandemic started, I changed up some of the books or looked at for particular books, I knew they were going to be really helpful right at that time. So there have been books about virtual selling, that was Episode 300. By Jeb blunt, fantastic book. There was a book called Can you hear me communications in a communicating in a virtual world, which was actually written two years ago. But once the pandemic happened, the author was on everyone's list. And that was a very interesting book. And there was a book by Rohit Bhargava about virtual work, which was very helpful. Let me see, I'm sorry, I don't wanna do injustice to his. It was called. I've got him here. The memory goes first, Peter. Let's see it was called virtual meetings. I'm sorry. It was called virtual meetings. terrific book. And then there was another book by David meerman. Scott called standout virtual events. So there were I was just trying to adjust it. The content two things that I wanted to learn more about and read about, and I know that the audience was was wrestling with. So those were some of the things that we you know, they were, I guess you could say that was what was unique about this year's books, is that that thread

Peter Sumpton and the virtual events conversation you had with David was interesting because I do a lot of a lot of workshops and a lot of online workshops and utilise a lot of tools that he was Talking about, but some of them, it's just a case of exploring whatever you're using or exploring a couple of different options. And they have loads of different things like breakout rooms, and just simple things that can enhance what you're doing. And if you're not that proficient in those types of things, it's easy to miss those.

Douglas Burdett It is one of the big. One of the many things I learned from his book was this notion of live events, which we all like, and I think are better are like theatre life, live theatre, virtual events are much more like television. So the mistake is in trying to turn our paradigm of a live event into this virtual event. And sort of like when television first came out, they put a TV camera in the radio studio, and you'd see people with a microphone and an orchestra and they would be reading scripts, they didn't quite understand the medium. Well, they were just taking what they had learned in an earlier medium, and we're trying to adjust it. And that's exactly what we've been doing. And some of the best virtual presenters are. Don't be surprised a lot of them are good YouTubers, because they understand that medium. And he talked about how just because somebody is a great speaker at a live event might mean that they're horrible and have not adjusted at all, to the virtual space, very different animals. Yeah,

Peter Sumpton it's definitely worth noting. And that's a really good analogy. They're taking it taking it way back. If there was if there was, I mean, you must have had a lot of different takeaways from from everything you've read. Is there anything that stands out is almost a Oh, yeah, I can do that. I can implement that, that that's that is absolutely golden. Is there anything this year that's stood out?

Douglas Burdett Well, every single book, I read something in it about, oh, we should do that. We should try that, you know, tweaks we can do for clients. But I'll tell you what this is from personal standpoint, it's, as you can imagine, I have a lot of just the ones I got this week. But there was a book that was on not too many weeks ago called the revenue growth engine. And from the standpoint of an agency guy that's trying to help clients, it really put together a lot of things that I had been struggling with, and it put it together in a way that I'm going to make making some changes to the what to how we help clients. Hmm. And specifically, one of the biggest problems I have, and apparently others do, too, is trying to get companies to figure out some kind of goal. Believe it or not, maybe my clients, but it's like, no, what are we trying to accomplish? And most companies, I'm speaking with a broad brush here, and maybe it's the smaller ones that I deal with, they just don't have any goal. And then sell more good or good? Or what's the other one that drives me nuts, we just need to get our name out there. No, you did that. You don't need to get your name out there, you need to get your name out there to the right people. And you don't have to do television advertising to do it. But I, if we can go to clients and say, Look, let's just talk about revenue. And as you know, I'm always talking about that on the podcast where marketers really need to get into the revenue camp. times we're working with companies who don't have marketing people, but still, it it, he put it together in a way that talked about how another thing that I'm always talking about was and I've had other books about this is if I had $1 to spend on marketing, I wouldn't spend a nickel on trying to get new customers until I had done everything I could to make sure I'm providing a good experience to my current customers and selling as much as I can to them. They want to buy more from you. They companies like you more than a lot of companies. Yeah. Where's like you more than a lot of companies think they do. And that's, that's that's a big one. Um, yes, this talks about getting that new customers, but it also weaves in very nicely. The idea of, you've got to structure your, your experience with your customers, you know, you need to do what was funny about the book was that there must be 15 books that talk about that a bit on the show that talk about very specific elements of this, but this, put it put it together so that that's one but there there are so many books where I it's just like I've spent a bunch of time with an author and not on the interview but just I absorbed so much so that that's an example of one I just thought that's I really liked that. And I'll give you an example. One of the questions I think you were going to ask was, what what are some really good marketing books to read? Hmm.

Peter Sumpton Can I can I answer that are absolutely yeah. No, you go for it.

Douglas Burdett The best marketing books to read right now, I think. Yeah. And one of them is the new rules of marketing and PR, but make sure to read the seventh edition. And it is fantastic. And that's one of the two books as I mentioned, the two books that had the biggest impact on my career are both guys named David, David Ogilvy. And David meerman. Scott, and I just, I'm such a fan of his he was the very first guest on the marketing book podcast. And he's now been on six times. So he's tied for first place. And trust me, those three authors, and they're in first place, they're very competitive authors. So I'm just saying no competition going on. But that is one that I just I recommend that every week to somebody who's saying, Hey, I'm, I've suddenly been thrust. I've been an engineer. And now I'm suddenly in charge of marketing. What am I supposed to do? I'll say read that. There's another book that is one of my all time favourites. And it's they asked you answered by Marcus Sheridan. I think that is one that is one of my favourite books. It's sort of like reading Darryl, Amy's book where it, it just put together so many things so well. And it made so much sense. And a lot of the things that are in, they ask you answer by Marcus shared, and I've seen why it works so well. And so I'm a real evangelist. And actually, I interviewed him a week ago about his book published the interview, on the visual sale all about using video for sales. excellent book. So that's another one. They ask you answer, but read the second edition. I've interviewed him about both the first and the second edition has 100 extra pages and a lot of that's about your website, and, and video. And there's another book that I wanted to suggest, by Grant leboff, who is a Brit. And his book is called myths of marketing. Yes. Don't know if you heard that interview yesterday. Yeah. Ah, that was one of the best interviews I've done. And I've interviewed. So these authors are just so great to interview. But now full disclosure. Now you're a Liverpool fan as as john experion. Who was Yes, cheer. And I tell you, I was a fan of John's but now I'm even a bigger fan. Now that I've read his book and had the chance to talk to him. But the the book was myths of marketing. And it was like 26 myths. And it was a great interview. And he had about 75 of these myths. But the thing about that book is that as a marketer, I had thought I was taking crazy pills dispelling all these myths that people have about marketing, and he put 26 of them in that book. And oh, Liverpool. He's a Watford fan. And as I understand it, they've been relegated. Yeah. Are you impressed with my knowledge of English? I

Peter Sumpton mean, never cease to amaze me tubeless To be fair, you just don't particularly with your your knowledge of all things English that you say they were, let's let's be at Watford here because Liverpool were unbeaten in the league. And it looked like they were going to go unbeaten until the played Watford and Watford beaten last season. So kudos to Watford for breaking that streak because yeah, he I could imagine that and we had an after the interview. We must have talked to her another hour about that. And I'm new to this EPL thing, but I just I'm fascinated. I

Douglas Burdett watched that Sunderland till I died, documentary and then I we can watch it on Saturday and Sunday mornings here in the US and it's just I don't know, it's really fascinating. And then I gotta be honest with you. I have a man crush on David meerman Scott and Marcus Sheridan. I also have a man crush on your Liverpool coach.

Peter Sumpton Yagan, Gagan Klopp

Douglas Burdett Yeah, man, I could just watch that guy talk all day. I just he's really charismatic and he's not a bad looking guy. So I don't know. I'm sure I've alienated every other fan of every other team. But there you go.

Peter Sumpton See the thing The thing is that even even our you call them rivals if like even our rivals turn around and go Yeah, fair play to Juergen Klopp is frustratingly charismatic, which is just amazing. It's just brilliant to see it. Just going back to those myths. I listened to that episode and and it was so satisfying because it almost felt like I could put my soapbox away for the day, and let someone else just stand it and go. And another thing. And another thing, it was

Douglas Burdett like, it was like a support group reading that book. And it's like, I can't tell you how many of those I tried to explain to people. And it's just it makes my heart hurt. companies think some of these things about marketing, and I just thought it was a terrific book. And we should mention content DNA by john, Experian. And for variety of reasons. He's such a fantastic writer, and he's just as nice a guy is he is a great writer. I interviewed him the day after Liverpool clinched the championship. I think it was. And so of course, I had to say so john, are you tired? Have you been out all night setting cars on fire? He's not one of those fans.

Peter Sumpton He's one No, no, like theatre heat? Yes. Yeah, something like that. Okay, I'm really conscious of time. And we've run over a bit. But there's just one one other thing that I'm not so

Douglas Burdett just kidding.

Peter Sumpton There's just one other thing that I just want to cover. And that's just looking towards 2021. Because as any decent marketer should be planning for 2021 if not have their plans sorted by now. So what is 2021? Looking like? What's it? What's in store? Do you feel what should we be looking for? What? What should be on our on our radar?

Douglas Burdett Oh, I don't know, you know, it's this. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder will say, you know, a lot of things are going to change. But the reason they've been so successful is he focuses on the things that are never going to change. People want good prices, selection fast, you know, otherwise, the things change. So I would I know, this is a simple answer, but it's so difficult for companies to do. And that is to be interesting, rather than interrupt what people are interested in, because you really can't interrupt people very well anymore. And trust me as a former New York ad guy, we had a captive audience. We would buy a network television commercial, and stuff would start happening. Yeah, we start selling a lot more soap. So I think that the more that this is, the most successful companies, the most successful marketers are the ones that understand their customers best. And I know that's, I just see it in the in the in the real world, I see it with clients and all these books, it just talks about if you just understand your customers a little bit better, you're going to succeed, you have to be perfect, you have to be a little bit better than the others. And I was talking to a company this week, and they you know, they say, Yeah, we got a lot of content. I said, Well, you know, basically, it's all product information I said, and they said, Well, you know, in this virtual world, we're having trouble breaking through or running pay per click, that's not gonna do anything for us such and such. And I said, Well, you know, why don't you create content that's about your customers problems that are related to what your product will do, because they really don't, we don't really have much interest in anyone's product. In fact, David meerman Scott, he always says, No one cares about your product or service, except you talk about problems rather than products. And you'll start to start to break through. And that's, that's really simple advice. But it's, it seems to be the bane of my existence, in terms of trying to help companies be a bit more empathetic. And, you know, there's a variety of books I can suggest, and it's for the marketers out there, one of the most effective things you can do for your career is to become the expert at your company, on your customers, for more than the sales people. Go and spend time with your customers at least once a month, spend a day with your salespeople once a month, but go and understand your customers find out where the friction is in their life. What are their frustrations? What what are they What do they really want to achieve? You'll start to better understand how you and your products and services fit into the larger scheme of things in that customer's life. And it can it just helps dramatically.

Peter Sumpton I'm so I'm so glad you've done because you can ask a lot of people that question or you can read more importantly, read a lot of articles about what's hot in 2021 2022, the future of marketing and all that kind of stuff and the things that they talk about and the obvious so you know more progress. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's just, no, because 90% of the companies will be nowhere near using that type of stuff. They just won't at all. But what you've just had Harris, just just dial that notch up to, you know, that extra percent that 1% better and better and better, and improvements, small scale improvements. So I'm so glad you didn't go on some crazy, crazy route.

Douglas Burdett This is the year of mobile. AI, machine learning. Yeah, influencer marketing, all these things are really important things to know about one other little tip for marketers out there. Be careful what you say around civilians. And when I say civilians, I mean anyone at your company who doesn't work in the marketing department, I mean, your management, your sales people, any anybody else, please try to dial down the use of any marketing buzzwords. Don't go talking about buyer personas, don't talk about content, marketing, all these kinds of things. It's not helping you trust me when I tell you that talk about what they're interested in revenue growth, you know, attracting talent, keeping customers, you know, things like that. That's what they're more worried about. And the more that you talk about this marketing stuff, and I can, there's any number of books I can point you to In fact, there's a presentation I give that I update all the time about, like the five most important things. The five most important ideas, or the the five ideas that matter most from over 300 bucks or whatever those are, those are a couple of things that I that I offer up to these folks. And people seem to find it. helpful. So you know what, there was a I'm sorry, good.

Peter Sumpton So um, can just be more than the poverty planet become the customer centric revenue generator?

Douglas Burdett Yes. So it's so true. You know, he's he's making a joke about something always saying about, a lot of people perceive marketers as arts and crafts, party planners who work in the make it printing department. And if that upsets you, as a marketer, let it go. I mean, there are people who say bad things about Liverpool fans. But you know, that doesn't, you know, maybe maybe jonelle says someone's car and fire, but that doesn't really bother you. It's just the perception that people have out there. And if you understand that, that's what a lot of people think about you. I mean, doesn't mean they think you're a bad person as a marketer, but they're, they just don't understand what marketing does. They think it's promoting. But it's actually quite a bit more than that. So yeah, comment?

Peter Sumpton Absolutely. So just to, to wrap it up. One thing I want to say is that if you don't already, please subscribe to the podcast, obviously, but also follow Douglas on LinkedIn, purely for the comments. I can't remember the comment side jokes, I like to tell myself in the books he reads, because

Douglas Burdett I'm reading a book, as I'm reading a book. Because I was always the class clown, I'll sometimes see something and I'll write a joke in there. And I'll take a picture of it and put it on LinkedIn. It's called jokes. I tell myself while reading books. And if there's anyone out there that can connect with me on LinkedIn, include a message so I know you're not some spam bot. Not a femme bot, as Austin Powers would say. I'm happy to send your viewers a marketing book, podcast laptop sticker, and a couple of bookmarks anywhere in the world. I got the stamps.

Peter Sumpton Mine. I can see mine. They just they just over the just next to my whiteboard. Yeah, obviously these

Douglas Burdett next time you go back to a live event, please let me know. And I'll send you a stack of bookmarks.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yes. Brilliant.

Douglas Burdett I will flag for the for the Peter Sumpton. peeps.

Peter Sumpton Rock on. Yeah, absolutely. Really appreciate that. Douglas, I could honestly spend hours and hours talking to you about marketing and the books you've read and the knowledge you've gained. Really good. I enjoy all the time. And thank you so so much for joining me today. And any final words you'd like to say to anybody that's that's watching.

Douglas Burdett 2020 will be over soon. We all have the most boring year next year.

Peter Sumpton Love it. Okay. Lucas, thank you so much.

Douglas Burdett My pleasure. Thank you for kind words.

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Guest: Douglas Burdett Topic: Marketing Books

Discussion Points • Themes and main takeaways from 2020 • The book you’ve learnt the most from • The best marketing books to read right now • What to look out for in 2021 – books • Tips on reading, consuming and learning from books • Planning for 2021

Enjoy the Episode - Happy Marketing!

Website Thingy: www.marketingstudylab.co.uk The Professional Bit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersumpton/ Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingstudylab/ Tweet Tweet: https://twitter.com/cousinp81

Transcript (this transcript isn’t 100% accurate but provides a decent representation of the conversation – soz for any confusion)

Peter Sumpton Okay, there you go. We are live. Hello, Douglas. Welcome.

Douglas Burdett Hi. Good to be here. Fantastic. I've waited ages to get you on here because today, we're going to talk.

Peter Sumpton We're saying sorry.

Douglas Burdett I was on once before. Yes. So that's the marketing study lab podcast. So this is the live, so we stepped it up again for this one. Okay, okay. Oh, pressures on great.

Peter Sumpton No pressure at all. But I've been, I've been waiting ages for this one, because I decided for you to hop on this live at the end of the year, because of what you do for your labour of love, rather than your day job. And I think it's a really good way to summarise what's been happening throughout the year, in marketing and in and around the topic of marketing. So first and foremost, could you just give the listeners a brief intro to yourself and what you do?

Douglas Burdett Sure, so I live in Virginia, I have a small marketing agency, we like to work with manufacturers and industrial companies.

And in my free time, that's a joke. I do this marketing book podcast, which I've been doing for almost six years now. And each, it's the marketing book Podcast, where each Friday, I publish an interview with the author of a new marketing or sales book, and I read here I crossed the 300 episode number. So 300 books on the show. And or when I started the podcast, I was about 10 episodes in because I had read those books. And that's when I realised I was actually going to need to read each book

for each interview, so it was sort of like taking the wrong exit on the motorway or the realising, oh, well, okay, I guess I'm gonna read a book every week. But I do that, and it's been really good for me. And I've enjoyed it. I like learning. And I like helping people and I hear from it's in over 150 countries now. And I hear from people all around the world, pretty much every day, they they messaged me on LinkedIn, and, you know, tell me that they listen to the podcast, or find a particular book or interview helpful, or, more often than not, they asked me what, for book recommendations. So I don't want anyone not even Peter Sumpton to have to read 300 books to find the right one. So it's really only 30 seconds, I'm able to say, Oh, I know, just the book, you should read that particular challenge you're describing. So that's also for any of your viewers or listeners, please connect with me on LinkedIn. And I can provide any kind of recommendations to books or other resources that I know of, for whatever challenge folks are facing. The only thing I ask is include a message. I know that what you're up to, and you're not some spam bot. Yeah, yeah,

Peter Sumpton absolutely. that's a that's a given nowadays, isn't it? And we've all got to interact a little bit better than than just subscribe, connect, follow, or whatever we're doing in the world. Just as a side note, so you realise, but before we get into a few takeaways from 2020, and what to look forward to in 2021. So you realised a few episodes in that you'd have to read a book a week. For me? I've never been a strong reader. It's something that I'm not ashamed of. But I don't like the fact that I'm a strong reader. And I just I've never managed to get into books as such, you clearly liked or enjoyed reading, unless you wouldn't have started what you did. But did you? I mean, how do you how do you do that keep up that consistency of reading a book a week? Or is it just? Well, it just I find it quite an easy task.

Douglas Burdett Well, you build it into your routine, and it's only one book a week. Sometimes. It's one and so on. weekend mornings, I may spend a couple hours reading, which is not you know, it's not bad for me. And, and a couple mornings during the week, you know, before work, I will read the book, and then I just do the one interview a week and it's on Fridays. And it's a it's just, it's just kind of part of the routine. It's probably like a lot of people. A lot of your viewers might be people who exercise regularly, and I do that. But it's just something you build into your routine. And so I do that, but maybe I should explain a little bit more about what compels me from an emotional standpoint. Yeah, please. I came from this is the motivation for doing it. I don't do it for a living but I came from this advertising background, I worked at these enormous ad agencies back in the 30 years ago in New York. And then, when I started my own firm, almost 20 years ago, it was a real advertising focused firm. And advertising is a shadow of its former self, okay. And so I saw that things were starting to change, but I could see they were starting to change permanently. And I kind of felt like I was, I was too young to retire. And I was, you know, I didn't know what to do. So I, what I did was I went back to what I had done in grad school after I got out of the army, whereas I was just reading books about different career fields, and knocking around until I found something I liked. And an author of a friend of mine, recommended I go into advertising and I asked a professor in school, and she gave me a copy of Ogilvy on advertising. And this was in the 1980s. So I thought, I read that book. And it, it changed everything for me, I said, I want to do I'm excited about that. And that's how I went off in that direction. So what happened was when I still had advertising clients, but I was seeing all everything was starting to change. And I kind of went back to just throwing myself in the books hoping I would, you know, find something and I stumbled upon David meerman, Scott's book, the new rules of marketing and PR, first or second edition, it's now in its seventh edition. And, and I saw it, that's where it's going. I felt like I had another bite at the career Apple, it was in the right book at the right time can really transform things. The other issue is that I was as an ad guy, I was starting to have to bring website people to my meetings with clients. And clients were slowly starting to ask me about these. The Internet, and this this Google thing, and what was clearly a fad, social media. So I, I started to feel really irrelevant, like I was growing dinosaur scales, and I just hated that more than most people. So that's when I really threw myself into the books after, you know, picking up on David meerman Scott's. And I started to see how that could kind of fuel some hope and some, you know, new direction. And I was always listening to marketing podcasts. And I particularly enjoyed podcasts where they interviewed authors. So I guess, at some point, I said, I, I want to try this podcasting thing. And so I kind of started the podcast that I wanted to listen to, but it was this one episode of my adult, you know, my career working life, where I was really starting to feel irrelevant. And I didn't, and I really, really didn't like that. That's what kind of fuels my interest in, in reading. And like I said earlier, it's really a lot of fun to do it. When I hear from people who say, Hey, your your podcast is helped me get a new job, or it's helped me with ideas at work. And there's really nothing better than than helping, I mean, look what you do.

Peter Sumpton And well, thank you for that book. I mean, I got I got onto your podcast, through john experience said, check this podcast out. And, you know, listen, listen to the first one. And because it was about books, and I'm not a very strong leader, this is just music to my ears. You mean, I can listen to this author, talk about what's in his book without reading the book and get the number one points off it. This is fantastic. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. And, you know, I've been I've been a fan ever since. So it's more

Douglas Burdett now I'm gonna keep doing it.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yeah,

there's no, there's no getting off this wheel. But the thing that I really liked about what you were saying then, was the fact that you, you recognise the fact that things were changing, and you didn't have that skill set to cope with what was changing in the world. And a lot of people don't have that skill to, to want to change and to feel that, well, I don't know and understand this digital stuff, or this technology stuff or this iPhone thingy. I'll just ignore it and I'll try and curve my career around it and, and play on the I don't know card. And you know, it's cued us to you to, to recognise that and do something about it. I don't think a lot of people do.

Douglas Burdett Yeah, there's a lot of people out there that are still the news release experts. That's like the HubSpot founder. He referred to marketers that didn't have a lot of skills as he called them press release hires, meaning that was all you had to do was he doesn't hire these kind of people, but it's sort of a, you know, fax marketing, fax advertising, you know? So it's a little thing.

Yeah, you could

you could buy some it was some service where it would basically send a fax out promoting like an ad but then I think at least the United States they cracked down on that so that they weren't clogging up fax machines, you know, Mark ruin everything.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Douglas Burdett All only takes a few, you know.

Peter Sumpton I mean, I remember seeing a fax machine fax coming through the only faxes that ever came through. Were adverts trying to sell toner for the faxes? And I just thought it's quite ironic, quite ironic that you're trying to sell toner for a fax machine that has got enough ink to print the fax. And if it didn't, then you wouldn't get the ad. I just thought that I like the irony behind that.

Douglas Burdett Yes, yes. I guess they're hoping that you'd be able to read some of it?

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. So that's a bit of background, which is all well and good. But what I'd like to do is focus on 2020, and your learnings from from the books that you've read, throughout this year, of which, Oh, actually, before we do that, take me through the, the gap in suppose it was a gap, the gap in the marketing book podcast where it was all with cocktails. And where did that come from?

Douglas Burdett Well,

it came from my muse.

Peter Sumpton Everybody knows your muse,

Douglas Burdett a shout out to my Scottish listeners. And actually, you know what? I know you people think I just drink all day here. I just got a bottle of wine from a past guest, Jim Stern, author of AI, but a book about marketing and artificial intelligence. But what happened was, I didn't have a gap. I continued to publish interviews with authors every Friday. But when the the lockdown started in March, I, I think I had the last operation in the United States, I had my shoulder repaired, and so that I can go back to playing for the New York Yankees. And it was a one of those rotator cuff things.

Peter Sumpton I think, the giants, sorry,

Douglas Burdett yes. So the, so I was at home, I had the thing, and I was at home anyway. But then we had an office and everyone left the office. Nobody wanted to come back. I think they were trying to get away from me, and I can't blame them. And then I started hearing from listeners, who were saying, gosh, I just got laid off what I need to reinvent myself I needed they were sharing with me, they were saying what can I do, and I was really happy to hear from them, despite the bad news so that I could maybe offer them some comfort or something, something to go do you know, to get back on the horse. And at the same time, my son who's a paramedic, he was out there on the front lines of all this. And I just thought, you know, there's some really brave people doing wonderful things. And I thought, what, what could I do? And I thought, you know, why don't I just have a pot of a daily episode, except on Fridays, where I would interview past guests who'd been on the show, and ask them what they thought about what was going on. Because everybody was kind of wondering trying to figure out what what the new normal is, what what they're what they're doing. So with a nod to Jerry Seinfeld, comedians in cars getting coffee, I started authors in quarantine getting cocktails. And so we would have the interview later in the day, you know, the cocktail hour, I don't want all your people thinking I drink this all day,

Peter Sumpton when we know this, this nine 9am till 10am thoughts that sacred?

Douglas Burdett Yeah, and it is after noon right now in the East Coast. So I guess I can glass there. But, um, so what happened was what was interesting to me is I said, Alright, I'm thinking about doing this. And I sent an email out to the over 200 authors that have been on the show in the past. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this just a daily show where I can reintroduce you to the audience and the listeners, and we can talk about what you're thinking what you're working on, you know, what do you think? And within one hour, over 100 authors responded and said, I'm in I'm in I'm not, I'm at home. I'm not travelling, I'm not speaking. And a probably statistically significant number said, Doug, I'm already drinking. I'll talk to you. So I launched it, and I got through 66 episodes. So that went from like the beginning of April, through the very beginning of July, and then my, my liver needed to rest. So no, but what I did was I would then publish on every day, except for Friday, didn't want to interrupt that cadence. And then I cut it back to Monday through Thursday. And I that's how I got through 66. And it was really great. And it was really particularly good for my family, because it meant that there was only An hour where they weren't having to talk to me, or listen to me, particularly my, my kids were now in their 20s, who were here, but then they've since moved on. And so it was it was really fun. And they even got some accolades from some top blogs, you know, saying, you know, this is a good thing to be listening to right now. And so I was again, very excited to see that people found found value in it. And it was really that that that's what that was authors and quarantine getting cocktails, and, but continued on with the regular scheduled programming.

Peter Sumpton Lovely. So can you can, he says maybe it's time to return to quarantine cocktails. So think you might have started a trend?

Douglas Burdett Oh, really? Oh, my goodness. So are there? People make King? Can we see what people are? messaging? Yes. Yeah, yeah,

Peter Sumpton we've got a couple of messages. Haven't got a huge audience. But those that do, I'll share anyway, see

Douglas Burdett it, I see it.

Peter Sumpton So James says he's not a strong reader also. And he's subscribed to the podcast already. So there you go. You've you've Oh,

Douglas Burdett that's a that's great. James. Um, you know, we can all learn in different ways. We're all different learners different ways. And honestly, the the I continue, it's great having the podcast because I know that people are expecting an episode once a week. So it's sort of like, Okay, well read the book. So I kind of like having a workout partner, all of my audiences, my workout partner can. Ola Meyer is a friend in St. Louis, longtime listener. And once we were at a conference in Boston, he actually bought me a couple of scotches, and I still remember that. And, yeah, you know, um, and actually, he, he's also an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis. And he had me Skype into his class, and I, a growing number of academics have me do that, where I'm, you know, they want me to have the students listen to the show. And then I Skype in and answer questions or, you know, do things like that. So if there's any academics out there, I just heard from one today at Hofstra, who said, Hey, you know, maybe you can come and talk to my class at the end of the semester or something like that. So I'm happy to help. And why, Peter, because I believe children are our future. And we should treat them well, and let them lead the way.

Peter Sumpton This is song in essence, I just can't wait to

Douglas Burdett show them all the beauty they possess inside. So there you are. I'm sorry, you have a very respectable audience. And here I am just cutting up. Sorry.

Peter Sumpton He's fine. He's, you know, it's like you say it's, it's way past 10am. So I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, okay,

let's let's, let's get to it, then with the time that we have left,

Douglas Burdett let's offer some value. Yeah, well,

Peter Sumpton why the hell no, no, I'm enjoying myself. So that's all that matters. Let's, let's, let's face it.

Douglas Burdett So

Peter Sumpton take us through some of the the main themes that you've seen, or the main takeaways that you've got from some of the books that you've read this year, then?

Douglas Burdett Well,

the, what I did was once the pandemic started, I changed up some of the books or looked at for particular books, I knew they were going to be really helpful right at that time. So there have been books about virtual selling, that was Episode 300. By Jeb blunt, fantastic book. There was a book called Can you hear me communications in a communicating in a virtual world, which was actually written two years ago. But once the pandemic happened, the author was on everyone's list. And that was a very interesting book. And there was a book by Rohit Bhargava about virtual work, which was very helpful. Let me see, I'm sorry, I don't wanna do injustice to his. It was called. I've got him here. The memory goes first, Peter. Let's see it was called virtual meetings. I'm sorry. It was called virtual meetings. terrific book. And then there was another book by David meerman. Scott called standout virtual events. So there were I was just trying to adjust it. The content two things that I wanted to learn more about and read about, and I know that the audience was was wrestling with. So those were some of the things that we you know, they were, I guess you could say that was what was unique about this year's books, is that that thread

Peter Sumpton and the virtual events conversation you had with David was interesting because I do a lot of a lot of workshops and a lot of online workshops and utilise a lot of tools that he was Talking about, but some of them, it's just a case of exploring whatever you're using or exploring a couple of different options. And they have loads of different things like breakout rooms, and just simple things that can enhance what you're doing. And if you're not that proficient in those types of things, it's easy to miss those.

Douglas Burdett It is one of the big. One of the many things I learned from his book was this notion of live events, which we all like, and I think are better are like theatre life, live theatre, virtual events are much more like television. So the mistake is in trying to turn our paradigm of a live event into this virtual event. And sort of like when television first came out, they put a TV camera in the radio studio, and you'd see people with a microphone and an orchestra and they would be reading scripts, they didn't quite understand the medium. Well, they were just taking what they had learned in an earlier medium, and we're trying to adjust it. And that's exactly what we've been doing. And some of the best virtual presenters are. Don't be surprised a lot of them are good YouTubers, because they understand that medium. And he talked about how just because somebody is a great speaker at a live event might mean that they're horrible and have not adjusted at all, to the virtual space, very different animals. Yeah,

Peter Sumpton it's definitely worth noting. And that's a really good analogy. They're taking it taking it way back. If there was if there was, I mean, you must have had a lot of different takeaways from from everything you've read. Is there anything that stands out is almost a Oh, yeah, I can do that. I can implement that, that that's that is absolutely golden. Is there anything this year that's stood out?

Douglas Burdett Well, every single book, I read something in it about, oh, we should do that. We should try that, you know, tweaks we can do for clients. But I'll tell you what this is from personal standpoint, it's, as you can imagine, I have a lot of just the ones I got this week. But there was a book that was on not too many weeks ago called the revenue growth engine. And from the standpoint of an agency guy that's trying to help clients, it really put together a lot of things that I had been struggling with, and it put it together in a way that I'm going to make making some changes to the what to how we help clients. Hmm. And specifically, one of the biggest problems I have, and apparently others do, too, is trying to get companies to figure out some kind of goal. Believe it or not, maybe my clients, but it's like, no, what are we trying to accomplish? And most companies, I'm speaking with a broad brush here, and maybe it's the smaller ones that I deal with, they just don't have any goal. And then sell more good or good? Or what's the other one that drives me nuts, we just need to get our name out there. No, you did that. You don't need to get your name out there, you need to get your name out there to the right people. And you don't have to do television advertising to do it. But I, if we can go to clients and say, Look, let's just talk about revenue. And as you know, I'm always talking about that on the podcast where marketers really need to get into the revenue camp. times we're working with companies who don't have marketing people, but still, it it, he put it together in a way that talked about how another thing that I'm always talking about was and I've had other books about this is if I had $1 to spend on marketing, I wouldn't spend a nickel on trying to get new customers until I had done everything I could to make sure I'm providing a good experience to my current customers and selling as much as I can to them. They want to buy more from you. They companies like you more than a lot of companies. Yeah. Where's like you more than a lot of companies think they do. And that's, that's that's a big one. Um, yes, this talks about getting that new customers, but it also weaves in very nicely. The idea of, you've got to structure your, your experience with your customers, you know, you need to do what was funny about the book was that there must be 15 books that talk about that a bit on the show that talk about very specific elements of this, but this, put it put it together so that that's one but there there are so many books where I it's just like I've spent a bunch of time with an author and not on the interview but just I absorbed so much so that that's an example of one I just thought that's I really liked that. And I'll give you an example. One of the questions I think you were going to ask was, what what are some really good marketing books to read? Hmm.

Peter Sumpton Can I can I answer that are absolutely yeah. No, you go for it.

Douglas Burdett The best marketing books to read right now, I think. Yeah. And one of them is the new rules of marketing and PR, but make sure to read the seventh edition. And it is fantastic. And that's one of the two books as I mentioned, the two books that had the biggest impact on my career are both guys named David, David Ogilvy. And David meerman. Scott, and I just, I'm such a fan of his he was the very first guest on the marketing book podcast. And he's now been on six times. So he's tied for first place. And trust me, those three authors, and they're in first place, they're very competitive authors. So I'm just saying no competition going on. But that is one that I just I recommend that every week to somebody who's saying, Hey, I'm, I've suddenly been thrust. I've been an engineer. And now I'm suddenly in charge of marketing. What am I supposed to do? I'll say read that. There's another book that is one of my all time favourites. And it's they asked you answered by Marcus Sheridan. I think that is one that is one of my favourite books. It's sort of like reading Darryl, Amy's book where it, it just put together so many things so well. And it made so much sense. And a lot of the things that are in, they ask you answer by Marcus shared, and I've seen why it works so well. And so I'm a real evangelist. And actually, I interviewed him a week ago about his book published the interview, on the visual sale all about using video for sales. excellent book. So that's another one. They ask you answer, but read the second edition. I've interviewed him about both the first and the second edition has 100 extra pages and a lot of that's about your website, and, and video. And there's another book that I wanted to suggest, by Grant leboff, who is a Brit. And his book is called myths of marketing. Yes. Don't know if you heard that interview yesterday. Yeah. Ah, that was one of the best interviews I've done. And I've interviewed. So these authors are just so great to interview. But now full disclosure. Now you're a Liverpool fan as as john experion. Who was Yes, cheer. And I tell you, I was a fan of John's but now I'm even a bigger fan. Now that I've read his book and had the chance to talk to him. But the the book was myths of marketing. And it was like 26 myths. And it was a great interview. And he had about 75 of these myths. But the thing about that book is that as a marketer, I had thought I was taking crazy pills dispelling all these myths that people have about marketing, and he put 26 of them in that book. And oh, Liverpool. He's a Watford fan. And as I understand it, they've been relegated. Yeah. Are you impressed with my knowledge of English? I

Peter Sumpton mean, never cease to amaze me tubeless To be fair, you just don't particularly with your your knowledge of all things English that you say they were, let's let's be at Watford here because Liverpool were unbeaten in the league. And it looked like they were going to go unbeaten until the played Watford and Watford beaten last season. So kudos to Watford for breaking that streak because yeah, he I could imagine that and we had an after the interview. We must have talked to her another hour about that. And I'm new to this EPL thing, but I just I'm fascinated. I

Douglas Burdett watched that Sunderland till I died, documentary and then I we can watch it on Saturday and Sunday mornings here in the US and it's just I don't know, it's really fascinating. And then I gotta be honest with you. I have a man crush on David meerman Scott and Marcus Sheridan. I also have a man crush on your Liverpool coach.

Peter Sumpton Yagan, Gagan Klopp

Douglas Burdett Yeah, man, I could just watch that guy talk all day. I just he's really charismatic and he's not a bad looking guy. So I don't know. I'm sure I've alienated every other fan of every other team. But there you go.

Peter Sumpton See the thing The thing is that even even our you call them rivals if like even our rivals turn around and go Yeah, fair play to Juergen Klopp is frustratingly charismatic, which is just amazing. It's just brilliant to see it. Just going back to those myths. I listened to that episode and and it was so satisfying because it almost felt like I could put my soapbox away for the day, and let someone else just stand it and go. And another thing. And another thing, it was

Douglas Burdett like, it was like a support group reading that book. And it's like, I can't tell you how many of those I tried to explain to people. And it's just it makes my heart hurt. companies think some of these things about marketing, and I just thought it was a terrific book. And we should mention content DNA by john, Experian. And for variety of reasons. He's such a fantastic writer, and he's just as nice a guy is he is a great writer. I interviewed him the day after Liverpool clinched the championship. I think it was. And so of course, I had to say so john, are you tired? Have you been out all night setting cars on fire? He's not one of those fans.

Peter Sumpton He's one No, no, like theatre heat? Yes. Yeah, something like that. Okay, I'm really conscious of time. And we've run over a bit. But there's just one one other thing that I'm not so

Douglas Burdett just kidding.

Peter Sumpton There's just one other thing that I just want to cover. And that's just looking towards 2021. Because as any decent marketer should be planning for 2021 if not have their plans sorted by now. So what is 2021? Looking like? What's it? What's in store? Do you feel what should we be looking for? What? What should be on our on our radar?

Douglas Burdett Oh, I don't know, you know, it's this. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder will say, you know, a lot of things are going to change. But the reason they've been so successful is he focuses on the things that are never going to change. People want good prices, selection fast, you know, otherwise, the things change. So I would I know, this is a simple answer, but it's so difficult for companies to do. And that is to be interesting, rather than interrupt what people are interested in, because you really can't interrupt people very well anymore. And trust me as a former New York ad guy, we had a captive audience. We would buy a network television commercial, and stuff would start happening. Yeah, we start selling a lot more soap. So I think that the more that this is, the most successful companies, the most successful marketers are the ones that understand their customers best. And I know that's, I just see it in the in the in the real world, I see it with clients and all these books, it just talks about if you just understand your customers a little bit better, you're going to succeed, you have to be perfect, you have to be a little bit better than the others. And I was talking to a company this week, and they you know, they say, Yeah, we got a lot of content. I said, Well, you know, basically, it's all product information I said, and they said, Well, you know, in this virtual world, we're having trouble breaking through or running pay per click, that's not gonna do anything for us such and such. And I said, Well, you know, why don't you create content that's about your customers problems that are related to what your product will do, because they really don't, we don't really have much interest in anyone's product. In fact, David meerman Scott, he always says, No one cares about your product or service, except you talk about problems rather than products. And you'll start to start to break through. And that's, that's really simple advice. But it's, it seems to be the bane of my existence, in terms of trying to help companies be a bit more empathetic. And, you know, there's a variety of books I can suggest, and it's for the marketers out there, one of the most effective things you can do for your career is to become the expert at your company, on your customers, for more than the sales people. Go and spend time with your customers at least once a month, spend a day with your salespeople once a month, but go and understand your customers find out where the friction is in their life. What are their frustrations? What what are they What do they really want to achieve? You'll start to better understand how you and your products and services fit into the larger scheme of things in that customer's life. And it can it just helps dramatically.

Peter Sumpton I'm so I'm so glad you've done because you can ask a lot of people that question or you can read more importantly, read a lot of articles about what's hot in 2021 2022, the future of marketing and all that kind of stuff and the things that they talk about and the obvious so you know more progress. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's just, no, because 90% of the companies will be nowhere near using that type of stuff. They just won't at all. But what you've just had Harris, just just dial that notch up to, you know, that extra percent that 1% better and better and better, and improvements, small scale improvements. So I'm so glad you didn't go on some crazy, crazy route.

Douglas Burdett This is the year of mobile. AI, machine learning. Yeah, influencer marketing, all these things are really important things to know about one other little tip for marketers out there. Be careful what you say around civilians. And when I say civilians, I mean anyone at your company who doesn't work in the marketing department, I mean, your management, your sales people, any anybody else, please try to dial down the use of any marketing buzzwords. Don't go talking about buyer personas, don't talk about content, marketing, all these kinds of things. It's not helping you trust me when I tell you that talk about what they're interested in revenue growth, you know, attracting talent, keeping customers, you know, things like that. That's what they're more worried about. And the more that you talk about this marketing stuff, and I can, there's any number of books I can point you to In fact, there's a presentation I give that I update all the time about, like the five most important things. The five most important ideas, or the the five ideas that matter most from over 300 bucks or whatever those are, those are a couple of things that I that I offer up to these folks. And people seem to find it. helpful. So you know what, there was a I'm sorry, good.

Peter Sumpton So um, can just be more than the poverty planet become the customer centric revenue generator?

Douglas Burdett Yes. So it's so true. You know, he's he's making a joke about something always saying about, a lot of people perceive marketers as arts and crafts, party planners who work in the make it printing department. And if that upsets you, as a marketer, let it go. I mean, there are people who say bad things about Liverpool fans. But you know, that doesn't, you know, maybe maybe jonelle says someone's car and fire, but that doesn't really bother you. It's just the perception that people have out there. And if you understand that, that's what a lot of people think about you. I mean, doesn't mean they think you're a bad person as a marketer, but they're, they just don't understand what marketing does. They think it's promoting. But it's actually quite a bit more than that. So yeah, comment?

Peter Sumpton Absolutely. So just to, to wrap it up. One thing I want to say is that if you don't already, please subscribe to the podcast, obviously, but also follow Douglas on LinkedIn, purely for the comments. I can't remember the comment side jokes, I like to tell myself in the books he reads, because

Douglas Burdett I'm reading a book, as I'm reading a book. Because I was always the class clown, I'll sometimes see something and I'll write a joke in there. And I'll take a picture of it and put it on LinkedIn. It's called jokes. I tell myself while reading books. And if there's anyone out there that can connect with me on LinkedIn, include a message so I know you're not some spam bot. Not a femme bot, as Austin Powers would say. I'm happy to send your viewers a marketing book, podcast laptop sticker, and a couple of bookmarks anywhere in the world. I got the stamps.

Peter Sumpton Mine. I can see mine. They just they just over the just next to my whiteboard. Yeah, obviously these

Douglas Burdett next time you go back to a live event, please let me know. And I'll send you a stack of bookmarks.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, yes. Brilliant.

Douglas Burdett I will flag for the for the Peter Sumpton. peeps.

Peter Sumpton Rock on. Yeah, absolutely. Really appreciate that. Douglas, I could honestly spend hours and hours talking to you about marketing and the books you've read and the knowledge you've gained. Really good. I enjoy all the time. And thank you so so much for joining me today. And any final words you'd like to say to anybody that's that's watching.

Douglas Burdett 2020 will be over soon. We all have the most boring year next year.

Peter Sumpton Love it. Okay. Lucas, thank you so much.

Douglas Burdett My pleasure. Thank you for kind words.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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