00:05 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

An advert somewhere or someone's social something, and you get that little green monster come up of. Oh, they're doing what I want to be doing. I actually think it's really great to cling on to that, because then it's what you think again, we're going to dive deep into an entrepreneur's mind.

00:34 - Jess White (Host)

So, on this podcast, I interview move makers, innovators, industry leaders and business owners and entrepreneurs, and the idea is to get some tips and tricks and secrets and things to inspire you as a potential business owner. I assume you are anyway, but if not, no worries. Today we have got the amazing Claire Marshall. Claire is a Chief Marketing Officer and today I'm going to be interviewing her to draw out some tips and tricks and really to find out who is Claire. So welcome, Claire.

01:11 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Thank you, lovely to be here.

01:13 - Jess White (Host)

Thank you so much for being here. So tell me, what do you think makes an entrepreneurial mindset?

01:20 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

So I think what stands as opposed to entrepreneurs is this mindset of always trying to think of something different, always trying to come up with solutions or innovations or different ways of doing things. So it's really about thinking outside of the mould and I think that's an incredible skill to have. I think with it come a lot of challenges. Sometimes entrepreneurs can't switch that off and are always thinking that. I think sometimes entrepreneurs and I speak for myself in terms of the journey I've had and obviously many others I've spoken with can sometimes feel quite isolated in that journey and not necessarily feel that they're living what I sometimes refer to as the template life that perhaps others are. So it's this incredible balancing, I suppose, of having this brain that is always looking for different things and wanting to build and create, whilst also trying to obviously fit within a society as well, and the challenges that can kind of come with just being a little bit outside of the mould.

02:30 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, because actually all of that, when you've got an entrepreneurial mindset or brain, it can be maybe on the odd occasion a little bit overwhelming. So you've got all of these ideas all the time and you start doing so many things and then it's like well, For sure.

02:44 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I mean name one entrepreneur that doesn't have about 25 different urls that you've come up with and it's like this is going to be the next thing or that's going to be, and that you know shiny penny syndrome is is such a huge thing with just about everybody that I've worked with with myself, because your brain is always trying to think of different things, which is great, but the key really is on homing in on what does the focus need to be now and what is the one thing that I need to drive right now for success and being able to park or delegate the others.

03:25 - Jess White (Host)

A common element I find with business owners, particularly new business owners, and I know you like. You know you have all sorts of clients right, but you do quite like taking on new business.

03:30 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I love startups. I love growing businesses. I can definitely work with businesses at different stages, but that my passion is definitely there.

03:39 - Jess White (Host)

Snap! Same, but within Spark we have a lot of business owners and often new business owners, and a common issue I see a lot is imposter syndrome and that can be for somebody that's just started their business and then they realize of course they've got lots of competition out there now. I think competition is a good thing and if you flip it and use it to drive, you don't know an advert somewhere or someone's social something and you get that little green monster come up of oh, they're doing what I want to be doing.

04:32 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I actually think it's really great to cling on to that, because then it's when you think, okay, they're doing, that gives you that sign that it's what you want to be doing.

04:40

So I think it can actually be a really good thing and that competition, like you said as well, can be healthy, can be.

04:46

If they're doing that, you know that that can kind of push me to better myself, make you feel if you've got Imposter Syndrome, that that somebody else is doing it better than you that they're more worthy of it than you are, and and it can be very easy to get into a cycle of perfectionism um, I will do that when, I'll do that when I have the perfect brand, I'll do it when I have the perfect website, when I've done more training, when I have more experience.

05:23

And the reality is procrastinate, procrastinate, and and I've seen it on and I can speak from personal experience as well I, you know I have fallen into that trap and I sometimes do see myself falling into that trap. The difference is I can recognize it now when I'm getting into that and pull myself out of it. And it's really fundamental to have people around you that can also recognize that and help pull myself out of it. And it's really fundamental to have people around you that can also recognise that and help pull you out of it, because it's not one of these things that you can just fix overnight. You fix it with repeated action and with the right people around you.

05:56 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, and the more you do it, then the more comfortable you get and the more confident you become right.

06:02 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Absolutely, absolutely, and we've all been there. When you just suddenly start seeing other people you know doing things, you're like oh, I actually could have done that, um, but five years ago you held yourself back because you didn't think you could, so yeah, it's about taking that action so you, you support business owners.

06:19 - Jess White (Host)

Tell us about um I I know, for instance, you've been working for a huge name back in the past, marissa Peer, which is amazing, in fact. Let's start there. Would you mind telling us about yours? How did you end up working for Marissa Peer and what was the experience?

06:36 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

like, yeah, so that was actually off the back of LinkedIn, because my background is apart from my corporate career is as a trained clinical hypnotherapist and I then, through my experience of setting myself up in hypnotherapy, went straight into all of the weeds of everything to do with digital marketing and running online businesses.

06:57

So the two coupled together obviously came up on some kind of algorithm and the team at Marissa Peer found me and I joined their team to essentially help them to build a program so that her RTT therapists that were coming up with an incredible skill set would be able to launch themselves as business owners and actually make that impact and get out there and market themselves, because that was a missing link, which is often actually a missing link with new qualifications.

07:29

It's like what happens next. So that was such an incredible experience, and not only to work with such a vast and wide team of expert marketers and therapists and hypnotherapists and obviously Marissa and John themselves, but actually to be in charge of a team that built this program, launched the program and then actually helped the therapists with the day-in, day-out challenges. Going back to our conversation, much of them being in fact, I would probably say 80% or 90% of them actually being mindset challenges versus the actual sort of marketing um that they needed. So that was an incredible experience to be able to um to support that community and that that would have been working within a huge company.

08:14 - Jess White (Host)

I mean, Marissa Peer is kind of known worldwide, right? So how do you take that experience and then bring it into helping solve challenges for small business owners? Tell us a little bit about some of the wins that you've had with small business owners.

08:30 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I suppose how it relates is because, although I was working within a large company, in a large team, I was supporting also the end users, which were the therapists themselves, and because it's, just like we said at the beginning of this call, something I'm so passionate about, that I feel that there's so many people that are unhappy in their lives, that see that their day to day as as the most miserable part of our daily and weekly lives, that it just it makes me so sad to see so many people feeling that there aren't other options available and there aren't ways that that can change. And it's inspiring to have seen so many people within that community to actually, you know, start embracing those changes and start leaving their day jobs to be able to do what they wanted to do and make that impact. So it's something that I was really apart from. The entrepreneur in me was ready to obviously move on to something else. It's something that I then wanted to go and do to sort of help growing businesses and make the impact that way.

09:38

So then, what I started doing and many of the clients that I work with are in those growth stages, and many of them are within the personal development space as well, although I do work with a range of other clients as well but what I've taken from it is being able to balance understanding where a business owner is at, understanding where they want to get to and seeing all of the assets that they have from a marketing perspective, and just piecing it all together and creating a plan for them that is simple, that is clear, that is measurable, and then pulling all of the people in that need to be on board to make that happen. And when I see that machine start to get built and start to get tidied up and everything you know working together, it's just such an incredible feeling and the results can be just so, so dramatic in a reasonably short space of time. Um, that it's um, yes, it's really inspiring to be able to do that.

10:38 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, what are the biggest or the most common issues and problems that you see within businesses? When you go into a business, what do you find people really, really struggle with and what can you go in and help them with?

10:52 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

So there's a dual answer to that, because with everything, there's the actual marketing and then there's the business owner mindset, which the business owner mindset problems might not be the same at every stage of their journey, but they are there. So with more established businesses, the business owner might, for example, have got so far that they are reluctant to relinquish control and they become the blocker to their own business because they know full well all of the things that need to be done, but they want to have oversight of everything, and sometimes that can be a challenge to overcome of how can we actually release you from that so that you can just allow your team or other people?

11:38 - Jess White (Host)

They become control freaks, don't they and I get it.

11:42 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I totally get it, because you've built something up from the ground. It is like your baby, um. So to suddenly hand that over to somebody is really difficult and it takes a lot of trust and I don't expect anybody to hand it over. So it's really about working with, with managing it in a way that is comfortable and that is more of a transition as opposed to an overnight handover. But where that has and there's been numerous business owners where I have actually been able to get them to shift that mindset the results can be quite dramatic. So that's on the mindset level, which is huge.

12:19

And then on the marketing level, what I see is, as entrepreneurs, many of the businesses will have lots of moving parts.

12:30

So they'll have the socials, for example, they'll have the website, they'll have a funnel, they'll have the mailing list, all of these different things, but none of them are really speaking to each other in a way that syncs up.

12:44

Hence Syncra, the agency that I've built off the back of the work that I'm doing. The agency that I've built off the back of the work that I'm doing because it's almost and it probably comes back to that person. Has this, that person, I need one of those, I need one of those, and they're all there, but they're not really operating properly and they're not really operating in a way that gives them the results. So they're frustrated because they feel they've made huge investments into marketing, because they have thought the problem is, I need one of all of these different things, but they haven't joined them all up so that they work efficiently and so that you're actually thinking about your end user, thinking about what the problem is. The result is that you want to get and make that all join up. And that's where I come in and take that bird's eye perspective.

13:29 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, because marketing is like the driving force behind a business, isn't it really? That's what should come first. Do you think well?

13:37 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I think it depends on the stage, because, and as we've progressed more with marketing, I think marketing is more and more, um, merged with sales, uh, and PR it. I don't think it's as separate as it perhaps used to be, but I think it's fundamental to understand what marketing is needed, depending on what your needs are for the business. So, for a startup to decide sometimes that they even want, you know, a website or a funnel, when they haven't even necessarily nailed their offer or got the first few sales in, not necessary. Let's, maybe. Let's maybe think about getting some business cards and meeting your local.

14:16 - Jess White (Host)

You know people around you isn't that procrastination when somebody's saying I I don't want to do it yet, because I want to get my website sorted and everything needs to be perfect?

14:26 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Yeah, it's procrastination, I think it's perfectionism, but I think it's also perhaps some of the dated thinking of I can't possibly be out there, expecting people to take me seriously as a business owner if I don't have xyz and so some of it is is about wanting to hide behind this, this perfect brand.

14:44

And oh my goodness, I have absolutely done this something.

14:47

The first um, the first business that I ran, when I, when I started my hypnotherapy helping kind of pregnancies and hypnobirthing, all of that I absolutely did all of that. I invested a lot into the brand. I had the most incredible brand and website and I started looking at funnels and then it just came to me that was like I don't, actually I haven't nailed the offer, this is all backwards. So the first thing that I will do with the business is really establish the stage they're at, establish what their medium-term goals are, and then what that can look like, sort of in terms of okay, what do you actually want to achieve in 12 months? And then, what are the systems you actually need, what is the marketing you actually need and how do we tie that into the results that you want? So I really, really make sure that it's tied into the results that ultimately for most businesses will be sales, although in many cases what business owners are looking for is also to remove themselves from that dependency in the business as well.

15:43 - Jess White (Host)

What about time management, Claire. That's quite a big topic and it's another one that I hear a lot of how to be productive and when you've got a to-do list that is just endless, you know, obviously you've got to prioritise, but what do you think about someone, particularly for entrepreneurs? They've just got so much to do and they're finding that they're working all of the time. Do you believe in the four-day week, for instance?

16:14 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I do believe in the four-day week. I think, as long as you whether you're an entrepreneur and you're thinking of yourself or whether you're thinking about your team I think results are the important thing and outcomes and working on an outcomes basis rather than an hours basis. I think you can have a team that works through 40 hours a week and you don't know how many of those hours are actually going to be productive, unless you're very, very clear in terms of what are we looking at. So I absolutely love having quarterly goals, because they feel a bit more achievable, because they're slightly shorter term, and then breaking those down into sprints, because that enables you to understand exactly what it is that you want to achieve. And if you know what you want to achieve and in what time space you want to achieve it, then you can think about the actions that are needed, and I think that can avoid time wasting and procrastination as well.

17:06 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, and stay focused right, because focus is important Absolutely.

17:10 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

And sharing those wins. You know, as you start to tick off those things, you know, we as humans, we love being able to check things off. Sometimes, if I have a to-do list, I will put things on them that I've already done, just so that I can put them on and then tick them off, because it makes me feel really good. I was like, yeah, I already did all those three things, but they're going on the list anyway. Anyway, because it gives us that boost. So actually just having a method for checking things off and celebrating when you've actually done things is helpful.

17:39 - Jess White (Host)

Now talk to me about shiny penny syndrome.

17:41 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Oh yes.

17:42 - Jess White (Host)

What is shiny penny syndrome? For a start, it's gosh.

17:47 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

It is seeing everything around you and thinking, yep, that's for me. And in the day I mean where we're at now, where it's just so easy to open your phone and scroll, you probably need to scroll for five seconds and you've already seen probably 12 different people giving you the winning strategy. That is going to literally, you know, change your life. That is going to literally, you know, change your life. So it's very, very easy to get caught up in that. And there are some really compelling things and the reality is that probably all of them are right and if you take one of them and apply them and just focus on them, they probably are the winning silver bullet, although I'm not necessarily sure I believe in one silver bullet.

18:25 - Jess White (Host)

We are smothered with them.

18:27 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

If you were looking at social media again, it's there's too much, there's too many and the problem is is adopting all of them and, as entrepreneurs, because we want to be innovative and we want to be doing the next best thing and the next new thing it's really easy to get caught up and bought up into all of these things and then have this graveyard of unfinished projects or unused urls, as I've said before. Um, that just doesn't really go anywhere. Um, so it's. I don't think you can necessarily always, if your mind is wide that way, avoid it, but you can try and manage it by maybe going. That's a great idea. Let me stick that on to.

19:06

I don't know whether you use pen and paper, whether you use an Asana board, whatever your systems are. Stick it into the back burner of this is a great idea, but it's not necessarily one I'll apply now. So you're feeling you're giving it, you know you're noting it down, but you're not necessarily taking action on it unless you know it's going to drive you to that next big goal, which is why I think that planning and goal setting can be really fundamental.

19:33 - Jess White (Host)

So listen, as a fractional CMO with an agency, when you go in and look at somebody's business, right what you know I suppose every business is different, but is there generally a little bit you go in and you look at their business and then you give them an action plan and sort of what's kind of usually the time frame and the process.

19:54 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Yeah. So what I always do is diagnose first. First, I start, obviously with a conversation just to get a feel of where they're at, and then start with an audit, because I don't think you can give a solution to something without a diagnosis as to what's going on. So the audit will look at absolutely everything that's going on in the business, but not just looking at their marketing assets, but actually really getting deep with the business owner in terms of what's going on within, what's going on with your team, if you have one.

20:22

Sometimes, as I said before, typically CMOs are obviously for bigger businesses, because I like to work with smaller ones as well. Some of them don't have a team and that's where the agency strand comes in, because I can then bring people in to do the delivery. But it's really getting a feel of where they're at and where they want to be and what they already have in place. So that's what the audit will do. As part of that, I typically will do an in-depth candidate journey, so looking at sort of you know, top to bottom funnel where everything's at and, very importantly, looking at their offers. So, especially if I'm working with entrepreneurs that perhaps have programs or want to start leveraging their time better by developing programs it's really thinking about. Okay, what does that look like? And let's piece it all together and get that bird's eye. I'll then look at what does that look like over 12 months and get agreements with the business owner in terms of, yeah, that feels like what I'd love to achieve in 12 months.

21:24

And then I start with a detailed quarterly plan in terms of what it looks like. Obviously, budgets vary, so according to the budget of the business owner, they might be able to get loads done in that quarter, or we might be able to just say, ok, we need to prioritise on less. And then what I do, if they have a team, is oversee the team and the work and the delivery. If they don't and this can be a crux for them it's great, you've given me all this inspiration, all these ideas. Who's going to deliver on all of it? And then that's why I've started to to bring in all of my my little black book of freelancers and small business owners to bring in, to basically marry them up, so that I can get people that are doing the delivery as well and, whilst I oversee that, so that I can make sure that that business owner is freeing up their time to spend on what they need to be spending their time on.

22:14 - Jess White (Host)

Because I personally think that building a team is one of the most important parts. I mean, there's a lot to building a business, but building a team is really important because if you get that wrong, it can totally trash the business. Really important because if you get that wrong it can totally trash the business. You can totally fail. So, stepping in and helping business owners find and make sure that or, if they have a team, make sure it's all working correctly there's a certain amount of time you need to really invest in your team members, I think, to get everything running smoothly so that what you were talking about earlier the business owner is able to step back from the business and they've got this amazing team that runs it for them, that's going to devalue their business quite significantly.

23:11 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

So having the ability to step back, to be able to go on holiday or take time off or do the business development or whatever it is they're doing, knowing that everything is functioning, is so fundamental.

23:23

But it's about building up to that point as well, and for the businesses that perhaps aren't yet in the position to be able to hire in, it can be really great for them to find the right freelancers to get them to that place so that they can get their marketing on point, get their sales on point, to then start thinking, okay, what are the first hiring opportunities that that we need to be thinking about and build it out that way, as opposed to thinking from the outset that you necessarily need to bring that that team in. Especially with the changes that are happening now with employment, I know there's a lot of business owners that are starting to become a little bit worried about hiring. I still think that having your own team is such a fundamental part of the business um, but if you want to de-risk it initially, a great way to do that is by using a kind of a model with freelancers for sure.

24:11 - Jess White (Host)

Thanks, government for that. It's like, yeah, encourage people to take on, you know, to employ people, and then hit them with stuff that's going to make it really difficult.

24:20 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

It's like thanks very much it's making, especially for people, I guess, that are new to it and don't understand much about employment. It's quite a risk to take, so I can see that that's going to probably create a few challenges. Yeah.

24:34 - Jess White (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I mean as if navigating the way is not difficult enough but hey, let's go on to something more positive. Let's move away from politics.

Networking, let's talk about networking. Do you ever advise your business owners to go out and network and, if so, why? What are the benefits?

24:54 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Absolutely I mean networking. I think networking, if you hear it as an isolated word, can have this real corporate feel to it that can feel really scary and really I don't know, like you have to go into a room and sell yourself, and I think for many people that can be really daunting. I think to really think about networking differently can be really helpful, and it's by far just one of the best ways of growing a business. So networking can be about just thinking okay, who are the people that I need to have conversations with that can help me to collaborate to build my business with. All the people that I need to have conversations with that can help me to collaborate to build my business with. Or the people that I need to surround myself with, so that I'm surrounded by the people that are going to help me grow, because I think that's so fundamental.

25:41

If you're in the wrong group of people, it can really disable that journey and, equally, they can obviously help you build your business as well. And I think by just thinking of networking as having conversations with people that will support you, that will drag you out of the weeds, and you can do the same for them when you need to. They can celebrate you when you have your wins, and that they're not necessarily going to be your client. They might be, but you don't know who they might know or who they might know. And that's the great thing about networks is is that that word gets out and and it's so fundamental, I think, for for keeping your, your business owner mindset where it needs to be, but also for, obviously, the growth of your business as well, and and for potentially finding people to collaborate with.

26:30 - Jess White (Host)

I think it's so important who you surround yourself with, people that inspire you, people that you know. I think it's important to have certain people that are slightly higher level than you and will, you know, will give you some tips and advice and really help you get to where you want to be. Yeah, tell us about how you've ended up to where you are today. Who is Claire Marshall? What was your journey? Yeah, tell us.

27:01 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

So the journey, I don't think there's necessarily a starting point. I think if I, like I mentioned earlier, joining the dots backwards, if I think about my childhood, the Wales at school and all that, I think I always felt a little bit different, and I don't mean that in a good way, in the way that I felt I felt a bit of an outsider and that I wasn't necessarily following that same journey as everyone else and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't have this like laid out career path in front of me at any point. I kind of followed the journey. I went to university, worked in initially graduate recruitment and then kind of became more kind of within the leadership side of that, doing a lot of program development, management etc.

27:47

And then there was a point at which actually my niece was diagnosed with diabetes and I had a terrible phobia of blood and needles and anything like that. I had to leave the room every time this brave little six-year-old was doing her sugars. I had to leave the room and I thought, “I need to get this dealt with.” So I went and had some hypnotherapy and the results of that I always loved and had an intrigue in the mind and how it all works, but that, for me, cemented it. And had an intrigue in the mind and how it all works, but that, for me, cemented it. I was like, if I can suddenly do this test on myself and no longer faint or be sick just off the back of this session, imagine what else my mind is holding me back from, or imagine what else it can be capable of.

28:30 - Jess White (Host)

It's empowering, isn't it?

28:31 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I mean, it was just such a transformational experience for me that I then trained up over many years after that in clinical hypnotherapy and the journey of how that molded into marketing there was marketing involved in my previous role anyway was in wanting to set up a business for myself when my son was born.

28:58

To set up a business for myself when my son was born because, like many mothers, I just wanted to be able to have as much time with him, to have that time freedom to not be having because it's obviously pre-covid, and to having to be in the office and commute and all of those things.

29:09

So what I was doing was really investing into, to upskilling in how to set up online businesses, everything to do with online marketing and really got myself immersed in some incredible strategies that are happening online and it changes and evolves so quickly, and I slowly found myself helping business owners more with the marketing side of things rather than the hypnotherapy itself. So that's how the transition happened. Um, but what stayed with me from that is is the mindset and the subconscious and the being able to um, even though I won't necessarily go to my clients and say let's, let's go into hypnosis to deal with this, although maybe I will um, I could, could do, but I'm still able to identify through their behaviors where I can see blockers and find the right conversations to have with them to help them with their marketing.

30:05 - Jess White (Host)

I think it's a really nice mix, Claire, and it makes you stand out and become a bit more niche, that you really understand how the mind works. You can really help business owners take the reins of their brains, I suppose, because running a business can be stressful, let's be honest. So having this nurturing, great person called Claire, helping them to guide them to where they need to be and to be the person that they need to be to achieve their goals, so I think that's a huge, huge win.

30:41 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Yeah, I hope so, and I do see it in some of the results that I see with my clients.

30:46

And, like I mentioned before, I love seeing the tangible results. Of course, when I see you know a ROAS that's just blown up or somebody's engagement goes up or the sales funnel starts to bring loads of sales in, or all of those results, they're incredible. But for me the really powerful ones are the ones where I see somebody say this has in some way actually changed my life, and I don't mean their entire life. But for somebody to say I've reduced my working hours by half, that's big. For somebody to say I can go on holiday and and not be anxious because I know the team have got it, that's great and that to me means that you're making an impact beyond their business, but actually helping that business owner to to get what I think most of us go in it for, which is to make an impact, to get results and to have to have freedom in our lives before we go, have you got a few top tips you could give to the listeners today?

31:41 - Jess White (Host)

In running a business, in controlling their mindset? What are your top tips to be winning in life?

31:47 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

I suppose it depends a little bit on the stage that they're at, but to try and think broadly, it really I think we've sort of covered them as opposed to summarise and the first one is is just to know where you're at and to focus on the lane that you're in and and it can be very easy to look at others and where they're at and what they're doing, how long they've been doing it, how old they are, all of those things and that that can that can that can really draw you back.

32:15

So, keep the blinkers on, look at the things you need to look at that inspire you and that challenge you and that motivate you.

32:21

But keep, keep the blinkers on and and stay focused to celebrate those wins we talked about and and, like I said, not just the tangible ones, but the intangible ones, because, as far as I'm concerned, as long as you are still getting up and doing something for your business, no matter how much you think you're failing, if you're getting up and still doing it, you're still in the game and the only time that you have failed is when you've quit. So as long as you're still in the game, you're still going. And finally, and the reason why I love Spark so much is surround yourself with the right people, and I think that's probably the most fundamental one, and that might not be your team, and I think it's a mixture of people that are a few steps ahead of you to inspire you, the ones that are a few steps behind you that you can inspire, because I think that is so motivating when you can just speak to somebody and say, God, I think I might have said something to them that was of value.

33:16

Yeah, and then they can potentially become your clients as well and then the ones that are in the same place as you, because they're the ones you can have the rants at, because they get the exact problems that you're going with, and sometimes you need to have that vent with somebody that absolutely gets it. Um, and you can only get that by having that community of people around you and understanding where you're at and knowing that whatever state you're at is okay, and knowing that some days you won't think it's okay. And when you have those days and I have those days all the time, the days where you're like, oh, why am I doing it? Let me just go on LinkedIn and find a job. Surely that's easier. It's okay to have those days as well, because tomorrow is a new day just going back to one of your points, they're celebrating wins.

33:59 - Jess White (Host)

You've just been in spark for a short amount of time. Do you find it quite nice when, on Friday, we all state our wins on the whatsapp group and it create I find it creates a really great atmosphere.

34:10 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

It's such an incredible vibe. Um, and, like I said, some of those wins. I love that. There's a mixture of those wins, like I mentioned before, so some of it will be somebody getting an award, somebody that I might know in this room that's just been nominated for two awards, for example. So those are incredible wins and I love the fact that everybody is celebrating that together. Versus somebody else's win might be my kids were sick and I just about managed to get my client work done and got through the week. So I think it's so important and I think, even if you're not because there might be because you're busy or because your head's in a different place you might not actually necessarily even get involved in sharing your own wins. Just reading those is so inspiring.

34:53 - Jess White (Host)

It trains your brain to focus on the positive in life Absolutely, and so does gratitude, similar sort of thing, so yeah, Absolutely, and what you focus on inevitably is what you attract, as we know.

35:04 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

So yeah, so important.

35:06 - Jess White (Host)

So, on that note, let's finish on the fact that we've had a brilliant interview. You've shared so much advice with our listeners and I think you're a beautiful, beautiful person. You've got a wealth of knowledge and you're really caring and quite unique with what you've got with the nlp and is it nlp?

35:25 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

You do hypnotherapy, sorry.

35:27 - Jess White (Host)

Hypnotherapy and marketing yes, um merging together, um, I just think you've got so much to offer. So thank you so much, Claire.

35:34 - Claire Marshall (Guest)

Thank you, Jess, lovely to be here.