Janice Porter: Music. Hello everyone, and welcome to this
week's episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is
David Saxby, a fellow Canuck. I love it, and he's got a
beautiful background on be which you can't see, but a beautiful
background behind him of the the Rockies. I'm thinking because
David lives in Calgary, Alberta, so it's very pretty to see that
scenery. Welcome to the show, David.
David Saxby: Good to see you. Janice, thank you for the
opportunity.
Janice Porter: Absolutely So. David calls himself an
unconventional thinker for unconventional times. I kind of
like that. Can you explain that?
David Saxby: Oh, I think that's been kind of my nature my entire
life, is that I'm usually contrary to what the mainstream
is. Even in business, I've done things that people in the same
industry didn't do or weren't doing, and I think it's just
part of the creative mind is to be able to think beyond the
standard sort of thought process of most people. Well,
Janice Porter: I interviewed a gentleman on my podcast a couple
of years ago named Bill Troy, and he I just re aired that
episode last month as one of my encore episodes, and he calls
himself a contrarian, yes,
David Saxby: very similar. Yeah, where the idea came from? Okay,
Janice Porter: okay, so, so, always thinking outside the box,
perhaps, right, okay, so as a creative person, okay, so you've
actually kind of been in both worlds. I mean, I see that you
you and from our conversations previous that you are in the
digital world very much. So a lot of your business is done
through digital platforms and so on. You've authored three books.
That's the creative side you, but you and your newest book is
coming out next spring, I think, called Ignite innovative
thinking. Is that correct? Yes, still on track to come out next
spring?
David Saxby: Yes, exactly. And it's that came from the concept
that I always sort of took creativity for granted, ooh,
because I grew up being a creative kid, and I was always
involved in art and music and all those sorts of things. So I
took it for granted. When I got into the ad industry, I started
to think, what happens if it stops what happens if one day I
just walk in the advertising agency? I got no ideas. I can't
figure anything out. And so I started to really study
creativity, the brain, how we think up ideas, how we can
execute ideas, and that sort of thing. And it, it helped me with
my business, because I started out in the creative side of the
advertising industry, and then I Yeah. Mad Men, exactly, yeah.
That's, that's more like a reality show for me. It's, I
watch it, they go, Oh my God, yes. That's the
Janice Porter: world was like, yeah. It was brilliant, though,
that show, it was, it is,
David Saxby: yeah. And you know, what's interesting is a lot of
the ads that they put together on that show as part of the
program were actual ad campaigns. And
Janice Porter: I think I read, I know we're going aside here, but
I love it, because Wasn't it a woman who was the actual I read
somewhere, maybe in Vanity Fair, that this woman who was that a
big wig in the ad industry, which, by the way, was unheard
of really right back in season, whatever. But she was
responsible for a lot of those big ads. I'm thinking in my
head, Alka Seltzer. I don't know why, but that might have been
one of them, plot, plot, because, yeah, there were some
others. And I think they, they, they the the base of Mad Men,
had some of those things in it. And, and the character, the
woman, character that Elizabeth Moss played, was based on this
woman. Yes, it was actually, I don't remember her name, but
David Saxby: do you she was? No, I don't remember her name
either. You
Janice Porter: know what I'm talking about. Then Absolutely.
Ah, okay, okay. I'm sorry I sidetracked, but that, yeah, so
So you so in your study of the industry and of creativity, you
probably came across all of this. And so you said that it
helps you with your business. But did it? Did your did it help
you stay on track creatively and not, you know, thinking like
feeling more confident that you weren't going to lose that.
Yeah,
David Saxby: and for me, it was like creativity when I was
growing up came pretty naturally, but I realized that
there are ways of prompting creativity. There's ways of
being able to. Feed creativity. And then as I got into business,
I started out on the creative side, like I mentioned, then I
moved into an ad agency, so you had to have both the creative
side, or the right brain thinking, along with the logical
linear side, which was being able to plan campaigns and
organize and all of that sort of thing. And then at that point, I
realized that there was a lot of creativity in the business of
advertising, but the challenge became, if it wasn't tied to
strategy, then it was just a great idea, but had no traction.
Janice Porter: Example, well,
David Saxby: yeah, I'm just trying to think of one. The
challenge, being, in a lot of cases, is, is that businesses
came up with ideas that didn't gain traction. Actually, a good
example, I don't know if you're familiar with Quiznos. They were
a sandwich maker, yes, and they came up with an idea based on
the fact that they observed subway, right? And subway didn't
have ovens. So quiznus came along and said, Well, if we cook
the sandwiches, if we toast the sandwiches, people buy it
because they like warm meals, right? Great, creative idea,
right?
Janice Porter: Wasn't it? Wasn't it a Canadian company?
David Saxby: I don't recall. I think it is an American company
franchised in Canada, okay, but what was interesting about that
is they found a loophole that gave them a bit of traction in
the industry. The challenge with it is they hadn't thought the
strategy out very well, because all subway had to do was supply
all their franchisees with an oven, and kuznos was toast, no.
And, and so in that circumstance, then they realized
that, oh, they're not getting the traction they expected in
the marketplace, subway was still the number one franchise.
So then they came along with these really wacky ad campaigns
with his ugly looking character with a hat on. Oh, it. It was
actually very like looking at the characters going, Oh my God,
that's ugly, yeah. So, yeah. So anybody thinking about getting a
sandwich, all they could think of is this character, yeah. And,
and from there, they lost a lot of traction in the market. So
creative idea, you know, they found a loophole they could, you
know, saturate the market for what they were trying to do. But
they couldn't carry it out any further. And then they started
doing really crazy ad campaigns that, you know, were, were not
well thought up. Let's
Janice Porter: put it that way, right? And so it didn't. So they
died, basically, yeah, yeah.
David Saxby: Well, and one of the franchise when one of the
franchisers who owned several stores actually got so
frustrated with Quiznos and everything going on that he
committed suicide. Oh, dear, yeah, so I mean sad story, and,
you know, again, an example of creativity, but not being
carried through thinking strategy. They weren't thinking,
Okay, interesting anyway, so a little bit of a Segway, but
Janice Porter: that's interesting. So do you feel that
the work that you do in your company spark communications
allows you to create, to be still the creative?
David Saxby: Yeah, i i My focus is still coming up with
innovative ideas, and that's another thing. I talk more about
innovation than I do about creativity, because creativity
is a component of innovation, but innovation is creative plus
execution, okay for implementation.
Janice Porter: So tell, tell my audience a little bit about
Spark communications, because I have here in my notes that you
help businesses create a strategic advantage over your
their competitors by developing in innovative marketing
strategies which, which is basically what you just said,
and you have that that added advantage of having that
creative background, I think, when you're talking to business
owners about their marketing that a lot of marketers don't
have, if that makes sense, because they're not All ad
people. They're not all people who've created those kinds of
things. So tell me what your secret sauce is with with Spark
communications with your clients.
David Saxby: Well, I think, as I mentioned to you while ago, we
have a I have a formula that I kind of follow when it comes. To
working with clients, so that the first part of the formula is
strategy first, not tactics. And a lot of businesses make the
mistake is they go out and they do all these things, and then
they go, oh, that didn't work, or this worked and that didn't
work. So if you have the right strategy, the tactics fall into
place, and then the second part for a second. So
Janice Porter: I want to make sure I understand it, because I
know we're building up the word spark with the things that you
do. So the strategy, and I'm just going to pull it a little
bit for a second to relationships rule, okay, this,
I would think has, have you already got an idea, or are you
thinking first, okay, this is the type of business it is, and
so with it being, say, an online business or or a brick and
mortar business, the strategy will be different as to how we
promote this business, or how we market this business, absolutely
okay. So strategy first, we haven't come up with the ideas
yet for you
David Saxby: and the strategy, strategy actually comes from me,
observing the industry, looking at, you know, the trends going
on in the industry, the competitors that are in the
industry, and literally looking for gaps, okay, looking at what
the competitors are doing, and going, Okay, where is the gap?
Okay? And so when I find the gap, that becomes an opportunity
to strategically enter the industry. For the business, and
for a lot of businesses, they're commodities. You know, you look
at Pizza joints, every corner you look on in the city is a
pizza joint. So what makes one different from another one?
Janice Porter: Okay? And so that's where you start. Okay
with strategy. Okay, go ahead. So
David Saxby: then the second part is positioning. And so
there's an expression that came from the two fellows that first
came up with the concept of positioning recent trout. And
what they basically say is that it's not what you do to the
product or service. It's what you do in the mind of the
customer, sure, perception. It's the perception, exactly and
people, most of us, have preconceived notions of almost
everything in the world. Can I
Janice Porter: give you one that's on my mind right now,
that yeah, Rogers and Shaw joined forces? Yeah, so to
speak. Ever since Shaw has become Rogers. I have had the
worst time with them. I cannot get through. I have an hour and
a half to get on, to wait on the phone, to get a customer service
agent to help me with the bill that is wrong that I'm trying to
write because I'm being a good consumer, and I can't get
through to them, and I'm ready to just tear my hair out. So my
perception of this thing is so bad right now?
David Saxby: Yeah, well, here's an interesting story for letting
me vent. Here's an interesting story. Is before Shaw cable
became Shaw cable, they were a little company called capital
cable. They had eight stations in Western Canada, and I was
connected with them through a fellow I knew, through a
volunteer organization, and I became their first kind of
marketing consultant, yeah. So they were launching their
company and going public and becoming Shaw cable.
Janice Porter: Oh, you were with Shaw, that's right, I forgot,
yeah. So
David Saxby: when that happened, the first thing that they were
going to do is they were going to put together their annual
report and send it out to potential investors, okay? And
so I was put in touch with the accountant, and he said, Yeah,
we're just going to take the financial statement, we'll slap
a cover on it and stick it in an envelope and mail it out. And I
said, No, do not do that, right? And so we went through a
process, and I told them, you know, basically, I said to him,
what we need to do is we need to tell the story, and we need to
package the story in the way that's going to get these high
value investors intrigued and interested in investing in the
company. Oh, no, we're just going to send out financial
statements. I got a budget of $2,000 yeah. That include
Bailey, yeah, yeah. So that started out, and the first thing
that happened when we we built a proper Annual Report with a nice
cover on it and background story and so on, is that some of these
very high end investors, and we're talking, you know,
millions and millions of dollars very well. A few people wrote a
note back to Jim Shaw and said, fantastic. This is great.
Congratulations on the launch of your company. We look forward to
next year. And Jim and I had a conversation after that, and
every year after that, my would meet with the VP, and Jim would
pop into the meetings. And what are you planning for this year's
annual report? And so we grew the company literally by telling
the story of what was going on,
Janice Porter: so interesting that I would have to
David Saxby: vote today. That's so and this, this is even more
interesting is that back when all the specialty channels
launched, this is the late 80s, early 90s. The specialty
channels weren't getting enough traction in the market, and
there was a fear that they were all going to go broke. So the
CRTC, the regulating body, said to the cable companies, you have
to take on these companies and sell them to your subscribers.
So literally, they forced them to take over marketing,
especially companies. So we did a campaign for Shaw to launch
this. And basically what we did was what was called a negative
option campaign. And what that meant is, you got this package.
We're sending out information about these specialty channels.
If you're interested in having these specialty channels, you
don't need to do anything. I
Janice Porter: hated that negative campaign. You don't
want them cancel them. Yeah.
David Saxby: So anyway that that gained great traction, we had a
94% subscription rate by default. Rogers came along just
shortly after that with the same kind of campaign, and miserably
failed and had to restart their campaign. So
Janice Porter: what was the difference?
David Saxby: Just how they approached it, the message and
literally, how they strategized him. Okay, so we personalized.
And this is, this is really something was quite unheard of
at the time. And this is kind of when my my brain, went into the
innovative mode. Yes, was we personalized every single
person's letter. And in those days, in the early 80s, that was
almost impossible. We went to Canada Post and said, Here's
what we want to do. And they said, we don't think we could do
it. Mail Merge. Yes, exactly, yeah. And in those days, it was
done on a mainframe computer, I know. Oh my goodness. So we had
606 100 and some odd 1000 personalized letters went out.
Okay,
Janice Porter: so I'm going to come back to the Shaw Rogers
thing later. Yeah, strategy, positioning,
David Saxby: positioning, yeah. So positioning is, it's, it's
how we, in the mind of the customer, got them to buy into
the concept. And the billboard advertising we had, and the
other promotion we did, we had a picture of a silver platter, you
know, that they use for catering. And it said, think of
it as a smorgasbord. In other words, you've got all these
options. You don't have to eat everything at once.
Janice Porter: Okay, so perception was part of that
positioning we come to attracting attention? I think,
David Saxby: yeah, so an attracting attention is really
about, you know, what's your message? What's the media that
you transfer your message through? And it has to be a
place where your customers are. So the target market, and the
concept behind that is that the media will kind of pop up or
come up as you think of how you're going to communicate with
your customers, because nowadays we can research where people go
and find information, whether it's Google or they're going on
to paid ads or they're on TV or radio or print, or whatever
channel they're going through. So the the concept being, is
that once you've done that, then it's a matter of figuring out,
okay, how can we deliver a message effectively? So there's
a there's a rule in the billboard industry way back
when, and that was basically an effective billboard with six to
eight words and an image, that's all you had to work with. Now
that's a slide. Yes, exactly, yeah. So the medium changes, but
the message doesn't, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and then at that
point, it's a matter of moving to the next stage, which is the
resources. And what that simply means is that you've got only a
handful of resources. One is people, the other one was time,
and the third one is your media selection. So if you have the
people, you can do the work marketing wise, internally, but
they need to know what they're doing, and they need to
understand the whole concept of marketing. Uh. If you have the
time, you can hire a consultant, or you can hire a marketing firm
and pay them. But in a lot of cases, people do the opposite.
They figure, oh, we got lots of people. We have no clue what
we're doing, but we'll just use enough people to clobber the
internet with messages,
Janice Porter: yes, yes, okay, the last one, okay, yeah,
David Saxby: and that's about keeping the keeping your
competitive edge. What? What I mean by that is just simply
continuing to market. So some businesses are all year round.
Some businesses are seasonal, so you need to be able to continue
being competitive in the market by, you know, adjusting your
budget, adjusting your messaging, determining when the
biggest share of your market's available. So online as an
example. And if you look at LinkedIn, a lot of businesses
are online in the daytime, right? And, you know, generally,
Tuesday, Wednesdays are the best dates of the week to put
messages out on LinkedIn, right? Yeah. So the concept with that
is that, if you're doing marketing correctly, it's an
investment, well, incorrectly, it's a cost,
Janice Porter: Okay, fair enough. I do think, yeah, you're
talking about paid ads on LinkedIn, as opposed to posting
and things like that, right?
David Saxby: Oh, no, same, same thing. Okay,
Janice Porter: I think today, I really do think that there's
people online all the time, all around the world, so absolutely,
yeah, it really does depend on your audience, and whether it's
global or whether it's local, and so forth as well. Because I
think we get a bit too hung up on that myself, but maybe bigger
companies would have to pay more attention to that. I don't know.
Well,
David Saxby: yeah, and it's also, you know, what's your
industry doing? You take the construction industry, yeah,
what are they doing the warm season? They're going 24/7,
right? They're trying to make as much money and do as much work
as they can, right? So on the shoulder seasons, when they're
ramping up particularly, I mean, you look at Alberta in BC they
can pretty well work all year round. But in Alberta, there's
times of the year where deal with weather, yeah, so, so
that's kind of the formula that I I work to when I'm working
with clients. As I look at that formula and say, Okay, what's
going on in their industry? You know, what's their market doing?
Yeah, and then where do we go from here? Where do we find the
gap? And so
Janice Porter: do you think there's one or two common
mistakes that that people make in like, what you ask people
what their biggest problem might be, or their you know, did? Did
the same ones come up all the time?
David Saxby: I would say generally, yeah. I mean, first
one is they get the wrong target market and or a lot of
businesses. So you ask them, who's your target market? They
go, Oh, everybody, yeah. They have no, yeah, if you got lots
of money, it could be a roof, yeah, yeah. But that's, that is
big, okay, yeah. So that's, I think, a big one, the second one
is confusing messages and and I see this all the time. I work a
lot with professionals, and I see this all the time that they
talk from a technical perspective, or they talk from
industry speak, trying to reach their customers. And you know,
you look at computer technology, when computers became mainstream
and people were putting one in their house, you'd go to a
computer store or a computer sales person, they'd start
talking bits and bytes and RAM and ROM and yeah, all sorts of
technical terms, the customers going, Well, can I type on it?
Yeah, exactly. So that, I think the confusing message part is
the second 1/3, one is they've got a confusing brand. You know,
a lot of businesses use their own personal name when they
start up, you know, a name like Smith. Well, good luck with
marketing that, because there are hundreds of 1000s of Smiths
around the world, so the brand isn't attractive. It does not
have the right message. It doesn't match the thinking and
the mindset, the preconception of what a business should be.
They're not consistent. They don't have a process or a
system. So they're not doing it from a strategic point of view,
they're just throwing things out and seeing what sticks, and then
even more so with digital media and technology. Now they're
doing poor lead generation. They're not using like, you
know, you work on LinkedIn. They're not using the LinkedIn
system to be able to generate good. Eves are just fishing.
Janice Porter: Yeah, a lot. Okay, here's a question for you.
Many businesses focus on technology and automation in
their marketing. How do you balance the use of technology
with the need to build meaningful relationships with
customers?
David Saxby: Oh, yeah, that's an interesting one. I think the
first thought should always be, what's my customer thinking?
What's my customer doing? Where does my customer hang out? So
the relationship part comes from understanding the psychology of
the customer, understanding that sociology, that's how the group
thinks the the segment of the market, yeah, and and then
figuring out the demographics behind that market. And there's
an interesting book came out called pre suasion. I don't know
if you've ever read it, but titles cover, yeah, and it's all
about how we influence and persuade customers to buy. And
the first book that it's Robert chial, chill, chill Dini, I
think it is,
Janice Porter: oh, C, I a, l, yeah. You wrote
David Saxby: a book before that called influence, but what he
realized was that when it comes to relationships and working
with people and trying to give people to buy into a concept or
a marketing campaign or whatever it is, it all begins with
preparing the audience's mind to receive the message. So the the
challenge there is that there's so much clutter going on in our
heads that, you know, how do we cut through? How do we cut
through that clutter? So, it's about timing. It's about
creating associations with pre, pre seed or perceptions. It's
about framing the concept, the idea, it's about building trust
and connection.
Janice Porter: So do you think, though, that that's done better
today, online or in person or face, face to face? Well, face
to face, like even if it's like this, not just, not necessarily
in person, but telephone, I mean, that's it's an old
fashioned tool, but I think it's coming back.
David Saxby: Well, yeah, and there's in the sales process, or
in in selling, one of the things that's challenging for
salespeople is if they can't see the person. So on screen, we're
seeing about this much of us, so if they can't see the person,
they don't know how to read, how the customers understanding the
information. And so in language, using language, salespeople can
break through that lack of visual perception by
understanding the language of the people and what they're
saying and the gaps in in the messaging so and a lot of that
has to do with what's called neuro linguistic program
program, right? And so most sales people, they just, you
know, they hear something, they take it for granted, or they
take it literally. But in some cases, and if you're dealing
with different personality styles, what people say and what
people are actually thinking and doing are different perceptions,
different so in a relationship situation, the context is also a
factor. Yes, yes, right. So it's and, you know, we even when we
went from face to face selling to online doing zoom calls,
again, we don't know. All we could see is this much of a
person. We don't know what they're doing. They could be
sitting there in their underwear, and we have no clue,
but that's okay.
Janice Porter: Who cares? Yeah, exactly.
It's just, it's, how do you how are it's whether you have the
ability to relate through the screen. That's exactly it,
right? Yeah, and that has never bothered me, but I'm, always I
guess I'm of the generation that the first tool that I would ever
choose would be to pick up the phone, because that's how I grew
up. And I had a funny story my little granddaughter, who's
five, she called us the other night on FaceTime, or my my
daughter called on FaceTime, and my granddaughter wanted to talk,
but when we came and said, Hi, how are you, she had a play
phone up to her ear, and she said, Could you call me back?
I'm on another call.
David Saxby: Yeah, that's funny. I
Janice Porter: was like, what could you call me? Back. I'm on
another call, and then I just saw a picture of her. She got
herself dressed, and she has her phone in her pocket.
David Saxby: Hilarious. Wow,
Janice Porter: yeah, so it Yeah. Anyway, I want to switch gears
for a second, because I feel that you are a a master speaker
in that you were one of the founding members of your chapter
of caps, which is the Canadian version of Canadian Association
of Professional speakers. And I am in awe of people who have
done a lot of speaking and have been part of that organization,
because it takes a lot to do the kind of you know, to get paid
for speaking and things like that. But are you still involved
with them at all?
David Saxby: Oh, very much. So yeah, I'm not on a board
anymore, right? I probably spent about eight years in my my
career as a board member in some level, okay, and became the
president. And, yeah, yeah.
Janice Porter: And so, how would that? How would you say that has
been beneficial in your career?
David Saxby: Oh, well, you know, it's interesting. I started out
having a pure public speaking.
Janice Porter: I was actually, Oh, you did okay.
David Saxby: Oh yeah, yeah. When I was growing up, I had two
thoughts about careers. One was advertising, yeah. The other one
was being a professional musician. Mm, hmm. So I was
literally going to music school, and I was I was signing up for
college to learn about the advertising business in the
industry, and I had a group of students I was teaching in
music. We went to a festival like the Kiwanis festival.
Janice Porter: What did you what instrument did you play?
David Saxby: Guitar? Okay. Anyway, the night before the the
competition, the band that I was training to perform the guitar
player phoned me up and said, we can't go. And I said, Why is
that our singers lost her voice, his voice, I should say. And I
said, Oh, well, that's going to be a problem. And they said, You
have to sing for us. Ah, and I had never sung in front of 650
people in my life, but they
Janice Porter: knew that you could sing like that was, that
was, no, they didn't. I mean,
David Saxby: I would sing, but it was just kind of in the
studio as we were teaching the kids. So the night before I went
home, memorized the lyrics. We went up to the event. It was up
in Edmonton. We got up on stage together and started singing. I
started singing and playing. They they were playing guitar. I
didn't play guitar for that, the power cut. All that was left was
my voice and a set of drums that we're doing back in the USSR by
the Beatles. When I walked off that stage and I said, Screw
this music business I can't do. It's way too stressful. Oh, my
goodness, would not get on a stage again. Then I got into
business, and I went, Okay every night before I have to do a
major presentation, I was talking to guys that were old
enough to be my dad or granddad, about parting with millions of
dollars of ad campaigns and I would be sweating bullets a
night before I'd show up and as best as I could present, and
most of the time it went well, but I said, Okay, I can't deal
with this. I I've got to learn how to do presentations. So I
joined a group called The JCS Junior Chamber of Commerce. They
had an eight week program, yeah, and I went through that program
and learned, you know, what it takes to put together
professional presentations. And what was interesting is, when I
first went in, I said, the guy leading the program, I said, I'm
just sitting at the back here taking notes. And of course,
who's the first guy he picked on? Yeah. And when we finished
the program, he said, I want you to lead the next one. And I
looked at him, I said, No, I got my notes. I'm good. I'm out of
here. He said, No, I'd like you to leave the next one. I said,
No, we're not doing it. And he said, How about you and I lead
it together? So I said, Okay, well, yeah, we can do that. So
we led the program together. The next year he came back and he
said, I'd like you to lead the next program. Interesting. And I
said, we already had that conversation. Yeah, I got my
notes. I tried it once I'm out of here, I'm good. And he says,
Well, no, you have to. I mean, I have to. And he said, you're the
only guy that knows the program I'm leaving the country. And
that was my introduction to speaking. So I did training for
volunteers and and through the through the group. And then I
got people asking me, would you come out and do a presentation
for our business or not for profit organization? And started
to do that. And. Then the next thing, one day, I woke up, just
shortly after I had the marketing the advertising agency
went, you know, I could probably get some clients if I went out
and did presentations, right? So started doing that, and, of
course, attracting clients. And that's how I built the marketing
firm. Sure,
Janice Porter: interesting and and, of course, you're, you are
a doer, obviously, because once you got involved, then you had
to get involved, right? Like, yeah, that was interesting. Um,
no, it's fascinating. I, I've dabbled a little bit early on in
Toastmasters, and I have experienced a little bit of caps
in Vancouver. They have a pretty strong group here, but yeah, and
I have spoken on big on bigger stages, but I never had any
training. And so I think the piece that's missing for me is
how to tell a story properly, and that I know is is so
important in speaking on stage. So
David Saxby: story is a big part of it. And actually, you know,
flipping back to the whole aspect of marketing and
advertising is used to be, if you had a catchy slogan and a
brand, you could get traction in the market. People buy your
product or service. But now it's more about telling the brand
story. Yeah, you know Simon cynics, yeah. Why? Why? He's all
about why are you in business? Why are you doing what you do?
Yeah, why do you sell what you sell? And it's telling the story
of how that came about, or why your business does what it does.
Mm, hmm, yeah,
Janice Porter: yeah. Times have changed, but we also have a lot
more competition. There's a lot more information thrown at us
daily as well, and all this stuff. So we have to, we have to
be, I think, stand out from the crowd, being sincere and being
caring. I really think that that, that, to me, is the major
difference. I had it. I'm not going to go into it. I'll tell
you another time, but I customer service, for me is so vital, and
when I come across customer service that isn't they don't
care, it drives me insane. We just had a 10 day vacation. We
stayed at this really cool boutique hotel in North
Hollywood. And yes, it's a really cool hotel. And every
person that I came across there that worked at that hotel was so
good they'd step out of the way if you were going to the
elevator. They wouldn't get on with their big carts with you.
They'd always wait. They'd say, how are you? They'd be it was
all every single person was. Was that's what you want. You want
that feeling absolutely that you're being cared for. Anyway,
we talk for hours, and I have to wrap this up, because time is of
the essence. Here, fabulous to speak to you today. You have a
free ebook. I understand that people can access, and I need to
make sure I have the link so I can put it in the show notes.
You want to tell us about it?
David Saxby: Sure? Yeah. The the ebook is really an overview of
the things that I do marketing wise. It's called spark
innovative marketing, yeah, and so it's it basically
encapsulates a lot of the things that need to be done in the
process of of developing marketing strategy and then
carrying it through. And I think the big thing, if I was to leave
people with anything, is that marketing is a process. It's not
an event. Most people think, Oh, I did, did something. It's done
like in Yeah, early on. So it is a process. And in that book, I
talk about some of the different ways that you know you can be
effective at marketing and advertising and all of the
different aspects of marketing. And I think the second thing, in
conjunction with that is that marketing and sales need to work
together. I don't know how many businesses I go into, the
marketing departments one end of the hallway, the sales
departments at the other, and they pass each other in the
hallway and don't even talk to each other,
Janice Porter: and some people who think they're both the same.
So have another conversation about that. Another day. I'll
bring you back, because I think that's very important. Yeah,
yeah, they
David Saxby: cross over the words marketing and sales and
branding and throw them all into a mix and understand any of
them.
Janice Porter: Yeah, exactly so. And you definitely have the
background, have the experience, have the wisdom to help people
who are in business today. I know that from talking to you, I
know that from looking at your work, and I also feel the the
caring that you have for what you do, the passion for what you
what you do, and and I'm sure you've helped a lot of people
along the way. So. That that will speak to that.
David Saxby: I'm hoping so, yeah, I've, I've made some plans
fairly rich. Let's put it that way.
Janice Porter: Yeah, okay, so they can find you at Spark
communications.com, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
and your email, if I may, put in the show notes as well, if
people are for sure, yeah, okay. And your free ebook is on your
website, on a specific yes
David Saxby: it is, yeah. And I think I sent you the link as
well in your
Janice Porter: well, I'll double check with you after for sure.
Yeah. Well, thank you, David. Thank you for being here, thank
you for sharing and thank you to my audience again for being
here. Remember to stay connected and be remembered.
David Saxby: Thanks. Jess, you're welcome.