61. A marketing pro who knows how to make content out of anything (f. Janet Murray)
Goodbye 2019 and hello 2020 content strategy! 👋 In this episode, Phil and Lauren chat with the oh-so-knowledgeable Janet Murray about all things content. A journalist turned full-time content coach, Janet knows how to create content out of just about anything. You’ll learn why Janet always starts her day putting herself first, tools to figure out your content angle, and other points of inspiration to rev up your 2020 content game plan.
Episode transcription
Phil
Hello. Hello. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is a podcast where we take lots of branding challenges, business challenges, and we unpack them to find a solution that's hopefully helpful to you. It's certainly helpful to the person that we talk to, but the whole goal is we get them on the phone, listen to them, work through it, and also you learn something in the process. Now, this episode, we always say it's exciting, but this one involves a celebrity. She's waiting in the wings.
Lauren
Phil, I was literally starstruck for this episode. I have such a girl crush on Janet. Well, I should probably say her full name, Janet Murray from the UK. She is so knowledgeable. She is such a hard worker. I find her so inspiring and there was a point in this conversation where you can hear me and my wheels and my brain turning, not wanting to make a fool out of myself and wanting to ask Janet the right questions because she's just so brilliant.
PhiL
It's a bit like being on the phone with Miranda Priestly like get your question, get what you need, get out. Cause this woman is busy and she's popular and you know what? She inspires a lot of people. I'm very proud and very fortunate to consider myself in Janet's community. So I've met a lot of people at her events. I've done many of her events, we've known each other for years. We met years ago, Janet and I came up with her book title when we sat and did a brand audit. Janet has very kindly referred to me as some of the most valuable business investment that she's made. I'm really super proud of how her, her brand has grown over the years and if anyone knows how to build community and how to create content out of anything, it is Janet Murray.
Lauren
It sure is. Well with Miranda priestly in mind, that's all. Let's get to the episode.
Phil
Let's do it. Here's our conversation with the one the only Janet Murray.
Phil
Alert, alert people. This is a very exciting moment, one that I've been very excited about for a long freaking time. Janet Murray, whose name is probably been mentioned on this podcast more than any other expert floating out there around the world. Janet is now on the phone with us. She is an expert and she's taking minutes out of her day to hang out with us. Janet, welcome to Brand Therapy.
Janet
Thank you for having me. That’s a very British thing to say isn’t it?
Lauren
It is, it's lovely. Everything British is lovely.
Phil
I’m learning these ways, so I know you very well. We joke around because we are like, you know, we pretend we're like work, um, husband and wife because you invite me to your events and we do cute things together and I always remind everyone else, I know Janet really well. Okay. We've known each other for a long time. I remember you just as you were like starting stuff, but Lauren you don't know Janet as well. Right? I'm realizing now, I don't know if you guys have ever talked.
Lauren
I don't think we have but it's so, I mean this is a real testament to how great you are online Janet, because I've heard your voice in your podcast and in your Instagram story videos. I've seen your newsletters, I see your posts on LinkedIn and it feels like I know you and I've spoken with you, but I actually haven't at all. This is so fascinating.
Janet
I feel like I've met you as well, but I wasn't sure if we had, cause it's like that, isn't it, when you're online?
Phil
Yes it is. It is. And actually this is funny because when I tell Lauren I'm having lunch with Janet, I'm catching up with Janet tonight we're going to go out for dinner or meeting briefly. Lauren always has a few questions. She keeps waiting in the wings. Like, can you ask Janet how to do this? Can you ask, can you get Janice perspective on this? So, so rather than me asking the first question, which I always do, Lauren, I'm going to give you the honors. You get honors with a, with a U… H. O. N. O. U. R. S. because we're in England. I'm going to give you the honors to ask Janet the first question.
Lauren
Great. Well first I'll shake off my American conforming with how we write things here and go back to my Canadian roots. But I am honored, Janet, with a U to ask you, you know, I think what we're most hoping to cover this call that most of our clients have struggles with is how to create content out of anything. You are the master and you're so great at pulling a thread. So for clients who have like writer's block, every time they sit down to write a newsletter, or think of a course or a blog post, what's your advice?
Janet
I think people make a mistake when it comes to creating content for their business on Facebook or Instagram, LinkedIn, because they’re in business they feel they have to talk about business. Whereas I feel that the kind of conversations that you just have with your friends over Facebook messenger, the kind of things you talk about in the pub, it kind of just things that you'd like to chat about. I mean, I would say that your best social media content should actually be the kind of thing you would put on your own personal Facebook walls or your own personal account. But for example, as we're talking today, I have a viral post on LinkedIn that came from just a conversation that I saw on Facebook and this lady posted, something happened and she said something like, most men, want an ambitious woman until they get one, which is quite interesting in itself and it had lots of comments. But then this guy popped up and he said something like, well, you know ambitious women are just a real turn off to men because you know, they're just too masculine and men like feminine women and it's just a massive turnoff. So I took that quote and I took it over to LinkedIn and just thought, well this is a platform where people are interested in work, they are interested in how men and women are perceived at work in relation to career and work. I'm just going to run with this. So I just basically posted that I saw this guy put something on Facebook the other day and just used that quote that I just shared with you, what do you guys think? Like do you agree or disagree? Are ambitious women not attractive. So I just checked it before we came on here and It's got well over 200 comments and 25,000 views and it's just something that I saw that I thought was interesting and I knew people would want to talk about.
And I actually, I've come up with a system like six types of content that I think work really well on LinkedIn, actually on any platform, and that's an example of what I would call it a grenade. It is when you deliberately take something that you know, people who would have an opinion about, you know, they'll probably be divided about and you just kind of put it out there and let people have conversations. For me it's just like, what are your friends talking about? Or what are you chatting to people about on Facebook messenger? You know, just just kind of what's going on that people actually want to talk about. And I think people make the mistake of thinking it has to be all serious and business. Does that kinda make sense?
Phil
I think it makes perfect sense. I also think, I want to get your perspective on this, but people think that everything has to be completely original when actually what you post could be inspired by maybe something you saw somewhere else. And I'll give an example. Last week I was going through my Evernote, which was the platform I used ages ago to just organize my business, my life. And I'm trying to get back on there to actually create an archive, some kind of inventory of all the things I've done that I can search by keyword and repurpose content, which is obviously something we're going to talk about. But as I'm in there, I saw a screenshot of a status update that I liked from over a year ago in clickfunnels, the Facebook group. And I actually, I, Laura not even tell you this, the post that I did on Facebook last week that got 120 comments was not original.
It's not original. It's one that I saw in clickfunnels a year ago. And the question was, I rewrote it. I didn't plagiarize. I'm not a bad student. Hello. I rewrote it slightly, but the question was if you could give a 30 minute presentation with zero preparation, what would the topic be? I posted that. Yeah, right. So, and I thought, I actually didn't think that people were gonna respond to it and it got 120 comments and I did a Facebook live the next day about it. Challenging people to take what they told me they would do and go live with it.
Janet
Oh, I love it.
Phil
Oh, I'm so happy you like it. I was thinking about you while I was doing this. I'm like, I hope Janet's proud. Right. So it doesn't even have to be original. Maybe just be smart about what you consume online and think about how can I take this and twist it and make it my own and not overthink this.
Janet
Yeah. And to me it's just about starting the conversations. That's what you did there is you just started the conversation, didn't hear about something that you thought your audience would have something to say about it. And I think, I think people over complicate things. Any type of post doesn't have to be provocative. It can just simply be the conversation stuff. Like what are people talking about? I had a conversation with a client the other day when she was saying something about asking her husband whether it would be okay to do something. And I was chatting to my designer afterwards and she said that she had seen somebody else do a post about having to ask her husband's permission. And together we decided that would be a really interesting post. But again, it wasn't original. It was something that my designer had seen that someone else posted. And I think that's absolutely fine. Like if you could get a conversation going and you know, ideally it's something that it kind of linked to your business, then great.
Lauren
Yeah, that raises a really good point. So a lot of our clients, it's interesting because they come to us and they know they need to be on social media, they know they need to have a newsletter, but they also struggle with kind of what's the point because it requires a lot of energy and time to make your social media successful. So for people who have trouble seeing what the value of a comment is or the value of a, like if it's not directly leading to business, what would you say to them?
Janet
Oh my God, I love this question. Well if you're not getting any direction on LinkedIn then is there any point in posting at all? And I pointed out that, when I scroll through my feed in the morning, what I generally see is latest coaches, consultants and experts, the kind of people I’d like to work with. Not those just posting stuff, articles that they've read, pictures of themselves doing stuff or their stupid quotes, motivational quotes or whatever. And no one ever, ever comments on anything that they say. No one. And I'm scrolling through, I'm trying to find like one comment and I found myself thinking, well why would you do that? Why would you just keep, it's almost like standing in a room, like going into a room as a load of people and just talking and noone is listening but you just keep doing it. And if you did that, people would probably think you're a bit weird but people are doing this on social media.
So the way I see it is, so say for example, I was looking for somebody to work with on something like, I don't know, videography or Facebook ads or whatever, or I might need help with even just, you know, write a business case for something, I'm going to check them out online. And if they were just like posting stuff into a void, I mean, I would kind of what I want to know more about them cause I won't say, you know, people do business with people. I want to find out more about the person. If they're not there, then I can't find out about that person.
I can't find any common ground do any present connections or anything that might make me feel that this person we could work together. But secondly, if he is constantly posting, never ever, ever. I just think, well that's probably quite boring. I don't mind because if, if, cause I had had this debate with somebody and they were saying, well, you know, you don't know what's happening behind the scenes. Maybe that person's getting loads of messages. And I'm like, seriously, if no one ever, ever thinks that anything they post is vaguely interesting enough to say something. Like somebody just says something at some point. Really that's just pumping out stuff, which is of no interest to anyone whatsoever.
So I think we forget that nowadays, like it or not, if people are interested in doing business with us, they're going to check us out online and they're going to see what we're posting, what we're talking about. So if we're not participating, then they can't get that kind of connection. They can’t have that moment, oh I'd really like to work a long side her because she likes clothes as well like me and I can see that, you know, she was kind of into fashion stuff and that was something we have in common.
I mean, Phil likes traveling, he likes like eating out. And you can't get that going if there's nothing that you can’t find that common ground. But if you're posting this into the space, I'm like, nobody's ever, ever responding to you. Then I just kinda think for me that lacks authority and that’s just pretty sad.
It's not like, you know, this person is an expert or they failed because everything they post, no one cares about. No one cares about them. No one cares about what they say. So I think it can really, really detract from your credibility. Let's face it, in most industries there's always choice isn’t there? If I want help with branding, you know there's Phil, I know Phil is the best, but there's other people out there. And if they're less suitable than Phil, if they're not having conversations, if they're not out there showing me what they're up to and give me a sense of who they are, I'm just going to move on and look for somebody else.
Phil
Yeah, I, I've never heard it framed in the context of authority, but how poignant is that? What an important reminder. You know, I, I love that perspective. You are everywhere online more so than anyone I know. How much time do you spend on social media per day? Kind of going back to Lauren's question of having those conversations, how much time do you spend on social media and how do you delegate some of this responsibility? Cause I think you are an absolute master at that.
Janet
So I think there are two things I'm really good at and one of them is creating content and getting people to engage with me. And the second thing is sales. You know, I'm selling on people, sending my programs and services and you know, my consulting or whatever. So I feel like they, the things that I should spend my time on compared to things I'm best at. So I delegate other things but I'm not good at and you know, and probably not a good use of my time. So I feel like probably a couple of hours a day or something. I mean I kind of make it my business in the morning to go around my social media networks and make sure that I‘ve posted something that's kind of relevant and timely. And for me I have a purpose. So I’m not posting for the sake of it, I'm usually leading people towards a particular program or event that I’m doing.
And then I would probably do that in the morning and then maybe pop back up at lunch time. Then pop back later in the day. I’m quite disciplined about it. Before we got on this call, I had a spare 10 minutes, so I went back to my post and just responded to a few more comments cause if you think if people are commenting and having conversations with you, you owe it to them to kind of talk back to them and not ignore them. And I’ve got my team and they manage it. They manage my messages on my Facebook page, or sometimes on LinkedIn or Instagram. So they will help me out with that.
But pretty much it's quite important for me. People that outsource their social media is just kind of wasting their money if you want to because I felt like no one can ever do what you can do or say what you can say. So then are there other kinds of people out there that you can dedicate your social media to? Just never seen anyone managed to do it well. I've seen people manage to outsource parts of it. Like, you know if I shoot little videos it probably doesn't make sense to me to edit it and put captions when I can send that from the house. Or if I've got a podcast episode, I'm probably not going to make the podcast teasers, the little video file myself, get somebody else to do that.
But, but actually coming up with the idea and a conversations and liking the copy, I feel like that's my thing. And even if writing wasn't my thing, then I could jump on video and do it or I could tell somebody else what to buy it, but it would still be my thing. And I feel like if you want to have the authentic connection, then it's got to come from you. There's ways to reduce your time in there’s ways to make it easier. But see, I don't know whether you agree with this Phil. I feel like it has to be you and you know, you can't outsource all of that. And if you do it just doesn't work.
Lauren
I completely agree.
Phil
I love hearing that from you. And I have a hard time when I'm sitting here looking at my task list for the day and the 10 things I'm already late on, I have a hard time prioritizing myself over let's say a client project that's got a deadline in a few days. So to hear that from you, I need to think about that from that. Literally that soundbite because I often sweep my own stuff to the side and that has a really detrimental effect on it. When I look back on it, you know, I would say about a year and a half, I prioritize other things in my life and not my own brand and I kind of look back on it and went, what have I done? Or what have I not done? Where am I at? And I've kind of slowly been getting back into the game, jumping on live and spending time. It takes me forever to post on social media. So to hear from you like that should be something you prioritize if you are the brand, it's kind of therapeutic in a way.
Janet
Yeah. Well for me it's like brand first. It's my stuff first and I do client work in the afternoon. And so what works for me is that I don’t speak to anyone before midday, which makes me sound like a prima donna.
Lauren
No, I love that.
Phil:
Oh I love Janet. I could talk to her forever and I could learn a lot from her. We're going to keep learning from her, but let's pause for a moment. Pause.
Lauren
I guess we're just really inspired by Janet, but we have a whole bunch of content for you, listeners on our website.
Phil
So what about it. What do we have?
Lauren
Great. So first we've got our blog post of the week is how to make content out of anything. I'm not going to lie, most of the stuff in this post is straight from Janet's brilliant mouth, but you know, thanks Janet. Our readers are gonna love it. Next is our free download, which is our content repurposing workflow. So if you're someone who's strapped for time, who knows they need to publish a content calendar and can't stick with it and doesn't know where to begin, this download is for you. If you want to save time, if you want to be able to create lots of content out of one long form piece of content, this, I'm telling you, this download is something you can't miss.
Phil
This is a strategy we use. I believe Janet uses this as well. Gary V very famously uses this and now you will use it. I know it's an overwhelming topic. That's why we distilled it down to one page so that this is actionable. You're welcome.
Lauren
That's all I have to say. Can we get back to Janet now?
Phil:
Let's do it.
Lauren
I agree with you. I think that it is impossible, completely impossible to outsource social media and have it truly live up to its full potential. I really do. There's just nothing that can replicate the brand as coming from the person who is the brand itself. We've actually started discouraging clients from outsourcing content creation to us, just because it's so much more powerful to give people the tools where they can use social media on their own and become comfortable with it. So I'm definitely on the same page as you.
Phil
I'd rather people post less and post better than post more and post garbage. I think there's just so much noise that whatever you do put out there should be authentic. I hate that word, but it should be true from you and it should be how you feel. It should be your perspective, your opinion to kind of stay on people's radar. Right?
Janet
Yeah. And I think also you can recycle a lot. Like I recycle the same post across multiple platforms and sometimes even do it at the same time. Um, just with a little tweak. And I think sometimes people feel paranoid that someone might say, Oh,, I just read this post on Facebook. I just read it on Instagram. But actually it's fine because most of us find that we naturally attract different audiences on different platforms. So it's fine to mix it up. You can take a post that’s done well on Instagram and maybe post it on LinkedIn a few days later. Or put it on Facebook, you know? I don't think we constantly have to be creating new stuff all the time. And I'm always trying to I find content in things that I'm already doing. So you know, if I'm creating a course, is there a slide or something that I can take out of that or a handout I'm working on for a piece of content. It's about not constantly creating everything new. One of my best engaged posts ever was, I was sitting in the hairdressers having my hair done and there was a dog in the hairdressers and I was thinking I'm not a massive fan of dogs. So I’m in the hairdressers and the dog is running up and down the stairs.
I'm not sure if I like it, but I know some people love dogs. So my post was, dogs at the hairdressers, yes or no? How long did that take? It took me like 30 seconds or something. And by the time I came out of there, I had over a hundred comments. Some people will say, well, you know, how's that relevant to your business? So for me that really benefits my business because I'm making decisions.
For me it's like a marketing thing.It's a business development thing. It’s a branding thing and it's always that bringing it back to business. And recently I had a client reflect on it saying I can't think of any ideas what to post on my social media. I asked what do you do? I run a cat hotel. Oh my God, just let me get my hands on it. Because you know there’s going to be content coming out of your ears. Isn't that like, you know, just the things that they say work like where does the cat sleep? It just seems obvious.
So I understand from other people, it's almost like a mindset you have to get into. And once that kind of clicks, it's the content is just everywhere.
Phil
Yeah. I have a two part question for you on this exact topic. How do you quickly keep track of those ideas you get in the moment before you forget them? How do you do it? And then how do you repurpose content that you may have created a year or two ago? Do you use Evernote or do you use a particular software to put everything in and search by keyword? Or is it not even that complicated? Cause I'm even trying to figure that out for myself.
Janet
No, no, I just use notes on my phone. Probably not my strong point. I mean I’ve got a media diary and it helps with the content planning. But frankly, I'm quite spontaneous so I just have loads of stuff. If I get an idea and I see something, I'm literally just making notes on my phone and I use the search function on my note or on my Mac because they’re linked up. I'm sure somebody could come in and probably go through my notes on my phone.
Phil
God, it's so simple. Yeah, I thought that this is Wizard of Oz. I thought Janet had some complicated, incredible inventory system on the backend where it's like, Oh yeah, let's do search keyword content repurposing and it pulls up all the email blasts cause really truly all your emails and everything is so full of juicy goodness that actually because you've written it, you remember it. Right. So simple. So let's not overcomplicate this. I'm notorious for over complicating things. Right. Lauren, you're likely both.
Lauren:
We both are. I need a process and Phil needs I don't know what you need.
Phil
A kick in the ass to do things.
Janet
Yeah, there's probably a job there for someone to come and get into my notes. I found a loaded statement the other day from Content Live, the event that you spoke at and stuff like that. Oh I forgot about those speeches. I wonder what I could do with them and yeah, probably get somebody just to go through my phone and my notes and I can probably get a whole lot of other posts. But then I think part of what, you know, part of what makes it fun for me is the spontaneity and just having the idea and just running with it.
Lauren
I have one last question for you because I know you have to go. I'm so interested to know what caused you to reposition your brand to go from teaching people how to do their own PR to teaching people how to control their brand and content. Could you talk about that evolution a bit?
Janet
Oh yes, definitely. For those of you that don't know my background, I spent 18 years working at newspapers like The Guardian and I realized something quite early on and that was that people were terrible at pitching into the press. So they would write the thread for a press release it and pitches, whatever. And I kinda thought, you know, I didn't make very much money as a journalist but I could make money teaching people how to pitch to the press. So I started doing that and I started this blog and that turned into a podcast. And I started realizing that if I was writing a blog and a podcast and even to get people to consume it, I started learning about traffic and SEO and social media marketing. So it all kind of came from there. And then I made the decision to kind of, it sort of cut ties with journalism and, well not completely, but I kind of decided to focus on helping people with that.
That was really interesting. What happened was that I thought I could almost feel a little bit disillusioned for what I was doing. The thing about press coverage is that, I mean it can be great. It's great for both authority and your credibility and if I go to your website, anything featured on these amazing like publications, then that's great. But even when I was speaking, it was always, it wasn't always that. Sometimes it's a struggle to find people who could actually give me figures on the bottom line. I was featured in this publication and as a result, I got this many more clients and this many more sales. So there are people that really want to learn a bit about that. Like I kind of thought to feel like I don't know how effective this actually is. And when it came to my own content, I knew that, you know, I've been featured all over the place in papers, radio and TV, the thing that has been most effective for me is I did my own content.
And you know, we don’t have to sit around and wait to be picked anymore by the likes of the BBC or we can be out there creating our own content. We can create our own viral content and if you're lucky then the lists will come find us because what we're doing is interesting. And I kind of started to think maybe we've got this whole thing the wrong way round. And also when I was helping clients, I could help clients get into Vogue or The Guardian or BBC or CNN or whatever. But then they'd be like, why? I've done that. And they're still struggling to make money. And I knew that actually things like blogging and social media marketing, and for me the key thing is email marketing for me is how you actually make money in your business. So I started to kind of help clients, you know, if I can help them the best, but actually we need to have your content more broadly because in your email list you need to be doing social media.
And I gradually, I just found that like I started helping people with press and then one day I was actually only a tiny amount of what I do is helping people with press. But people see me as a PR lady and they say, oh, if you want to talk to somebody about PR, you go to,Janet Murray. And I just got to the point where I would say, this isn’t actually what I do. And I remember I used to have a Facebook group, I had 13,000 members in it and I went into the group one night and I said, look guys, like things are going to have to change because basically that's my other tip about getting engagement is sharing your journey with your audience. I get them involved every step of the way. I said, look guys, I think things are gonna change because even though this is what I'm known for, it's not actually what I help people with day to day.
And I just, it just feels wrong to me. And everyone was saying you're mad, you know, if you leave this niche behind, you know, like people know you for this, you know, you won't have any clients or business. But I knew I was right and I knew that the direction I was going for was right. So I just basically just kind of stopped in the PR thing and I started talking about, I mean now I'd say probably what I specialize in is more kind of content, content marketing and I just leave hunted and I just got on with it. And I had all this, my brand before was called soulful PR. And as a result, I think I did attract some people that probably weren't my right clients. I attracted people that were kind of like a bit kind of woo woo for me.
And a bit kind of airy fairy that went red, black and that she would and I just, I just rebranded it and said this is what I do now and that was it. And you know, I was not surprised to see that nobody really cared that much or would bother. They just carried on following me and what was daring and now and again I get people still referring to me as a PR lady and I had to kind of like, I actually have moved on a little bit but, but um, yeah, I just, I just kinda went with it because in my gut I knew that was the right thing to do.
Lauren
I'm just wondering, has it made a difference? Has it helped your business?
Janet
Oh my God. Yeah. I mean I'd say my turnover has increased quite significantly and I just feel better about it because I feel lucky that I can actually help people get results. So with the press and PR thing, I always felt like, yeah, I’ve done that for that person but has it actually really made a difference in their business on their bottom line. But if I can do things like that, they're actually going to have an impact on the bottom line of somebody's business if I can show them you know for example, I did like a Facebook page engagement challenge and I'm taking people who are getting like no engagement whatsoever on their Facebook page from you know, suddenly getting like, you know, 10, 20 comments there.
If I can actually do that stuff, it's measurable and people can see the impact on their business. They can see the bottom line, they can see people actually reaching out. So I'm wanting to work with them, I'm going to feel a lot better about what I'm doing because the press side of things, in a way it feels a bit like it's kind of vanity. It's really nice to be featured in vacations and programs but when it comes to making money, I'd say that the marketing side of things is a lot more effective and so I feel better about what I’m doing. I think that comes across. Um, I feel like, um, the content that's, that's for me, I think as well. I don’t think journalisms obsolete anymore. Not important. And the traditional media isn't important, but I think when you can just get out your mobile phone and we can just kind of, you know, get on WordPress and create a blog and you can actually have an impact for your own content. You don't need to be picked, I feel like it's less important than it was before. And I'd rather be helping people create content that's actually going to have an impact on the bottom of their business than just kind of making them feel good.
Phil
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I think it's a really brave thing to make such a pivot, especially when you've got things like Facebook groups with over 10,000 people. Right? Like it's brave and people are going to moan and complain as they do. But like in your heart of hearts, you know what you need to do and you kind of listened to your gut, you take the leap. And I'm thrilled that that has actually also shown itself in the growth of your business. Cause I think that if anything should reaffirm that that was the right move even when it felt like people were disagreeing. Right?
Janet
And I shut that group down. I just shut the group down. Even though I had 13 and a half thousand people in it. But it wasn't serving me anymore because you know, I started it off as a way to kind of build relationships with prospective clients. And I spent a year, you know, really trying to improve the engagement in there and it just wasn't generating leads.Um, sometimes and you have to be, especially if you have a strong personal brand, you have to be willing to take some flack sometimes. But I think that was totally the right thing to do.
Phil
Beautiful. Well you have to go to run club tonight, don't you? I know this from social media.
Janet
Yeah, it’s my running club.
Phil
Yes and so I'm acting like I knew that, but actually Lauren knew that. Who knows you even less than I do.
Lauren
Janet's gonna run a club. Let's make sure to wrap on time.
Janet
I love it that you call it run club.
Phil
Thank you Janet for we know how valuable your minutes are. So the fact that you spent them with us on Brand Therapy is really appreciated and really fun to hear the insights of how things have evolved and things that are working. Because I think back to when you and I met 2015 baby woo. We sat in those big hotel armchairs after we met at a conference. You came up with your book title and we talked about like all these fine, you're right.
Actually you said it out loud, you said it out loud and I said, that's your book title. You're like, so many of you are. I was like, no, that's soulful. It needs to like, you know, you said you're like, well this person's press release was breaking my heart. I'm like, hello book title you said. So it's just, it's kind of fun, right to like be in touch and just figure out how all of this is working in evolving because it does feel a bit lonely at times. Like we're kind of in it and it's like I have to make decisions. Some people might like it because they trust me, but other people are going to complain, but you gotta push forward. You’ve got to keep moving the needle. So it's really cool to look back on all of that.
Janet
Yeah, no, definitely. It's been a big old ride Phil and it's been good to have you on the journey..
Phil
I love it. Well, we have many more journeys to come, go put on your trainers and get to work and thank you, Janet, again for hanging out with us on Brand Therapy.
Janet
Thanks for having me.
Phil
So wow, Janet just messaged me right now on messenger saying hope that was okay and I immediately.
Lauren
Was it okay? Janet, Janet, you, you perfectionist. It was wonderful.
Phil
I immediately asked her the question that you had just asked me in between recording. What is her Myers Briggs? So I just asked her. She says the the FJ one I think the rare one. What does that mean?
Lauren
Well, was she the INFJ?
Phil
Well, we don't know. She just says the FJ.
Lauren
Well, but there are two other, there are two letters before it.
Phil
I don't know what's the rare one?
Lauren
I think INFJ is more rare than ESFJ or ENFJ or ISFJ.
Phil
They all sound the same to me. Anytime someone asks me this question I say ask Lauren.
Lauren
INFJ are very rare, very rare. They are not an idol dreamer, but capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact. They see helping others as their purpose in life and their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people don't need to be rescued at all. I mean that's Janet as an INFJ that's Janet.
Phil
I could have had that conversation for four hours with her and still not be through my list of questions cause it's really amazing what she's built, how she's repositioned herself as she said, like really evolved from press, which is arguably superficial and I agree with it. It's a nice part of our brand, but it's not all of it. I'll never forget the first time I had a client and they were super focused on press, hired a PR company, paid just an obscene amount of money, got about 10 placements throughout the year. Only one of them returned on the investment. One in 10 actually led to sales and the sales didn't cover the cost of the placement, not even close.
So I think to pivot to something, you know, just listening to where you're needed, what you're good at. Janet said right off the top of this conversation, here's what I'm good at, right? I'm good at making content. And I'm good at making sales, so that's what she spends her time tuning. Social media, no writing. It's so cool that she can repurpose content, which is something I've been thinking a lot about learning about and she's able to do that because she knows what she wrote so it's really without over complicating things, which I tend to do. You do that less I do that more. I overcomplicate things but really you can make content out of anything. Thank you for teaching us that Janet.
Lauren
I mean she just has a really assuring way of making you feel like you can post anything. I think a lot of people are concerned about posting and being on brand or off brand or whatever and to Janet it doesn't really matter if you're having the conversation with a friend, you are the brand, therefore it should be shared with others. That's sort of at least what I took away from it.
Phil
It's just kind of as simple as thinking what am I already doing? How am I spending my day from the minute I wake up, what am I doing? How can that be interesting? How can there be something you notice? Right? I feel like we said this before because we have, but how do you take inventory of that moment, get it down. I use this app called, I always forget the name of it. I just…Brain Toss, like to quickly acquire that. I noticed, forgot it an hour ago. Quick, quickly acquire, quickly acquire that idea, write it down. Janet writes something in her notes like hello, simple, right? Whatever system works for you. Find content out of things you're already doing.
Lauren
Yeah and I think also at least something that helps me when we're creating content for our clients or at least coming up with ideas is okay, so you've got your initial idea. Like the thing you want to say, like how to make photography easy. I think the key, at least what I see Janet do is she doesn't just leave her content at that. She'll ask a further question, a deeper question on the same topic and then use that to drive a new post.
Phil
And I think like don't overthink it. So like what's on brand, what's off brand? Give it a little bit of consideration. But like at the end of the day, even regardless of your overarching brand, which we people pay us a lot of money, help them figure out like you're the common thread, right? So even if it's not on brand to post something, if it's interesting, if it will garner a reaction for better for worse, it means that you're staying on that person's radar. So for example, Janet known as the PR lady, right? And now it's more content, like people still followed her journey. Even with that pivot for every one person that dropped off like a hundred people or more continued, not because of the brand or the way it's positioned, but because of Janet.
The humanizing element I think is important to note.
Lauren
Definitely.
Phil
If you enjoyed this episode with Janet, if you took the time to listen, you need to tell us we work very hard on this podcast and we want to know that you're listening. #brandtherapy. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
And I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil
And by the way, if you enjoyed it, you could let us know by leaving a five star review in the iTunes store, which helps other people discover this podcast. We appreciate it. Did you know that the iTunes store, the podcast store is different for every country. So someone leaves a review in the US it doesn't count if someone's logged into the UK store. Did you know that?
Lauren
I did know that, but maybe our listeners didn’t.
Phil
So every little effort for you to take two seconds, do it right now. Um, we really appreciate it. Well thank you for a great conversation Janet we could have you on again talking about something brand new like email marketing. We should do that. But thank you. In the meantime, we really appreciate it and we appreciate you hanging out with us for a few minutes right here on Brand Therapy. We will see you next time.
Lauren
Bye.