Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Podcast with Ian Anderson

Gray, helping you level up your impact, authority, and profits through

the power of confident live video.

Optimize your mindset and communication, and increase your

confidence in front of the camera.

Get confident with the tech and gear and get confident

with the content of marketing.

Together reaching

Live.

Hello, welcome to episode two four of the Confident Live Marketing Show.

My name's Ian Anderson Gray, and in this show we level up your confidence.

We get you to communicate much more effectively in front of the camera.

We, episode 204, I can't believe that we are moving forwards into the two

hundreds and we've been talking a lot about confidence stories in the

last few weeks, and that is, I think that's one of my passions, is to help

business owners, help entrepreneurs.

Get more confident because it's a difficult world that we live in.

It's becoming more and more difficult to create content to run our businesses.

Si since we've had the last few years at least.

In today's episode I'm very excited because I want to introduce to you a

new friend of mine Frank Pendergast, and he is a co-author of this book, the.

Most amazing marketing book ever to together with I think 35 authors.

I'm gonna check with Frank in a minute.

It's been an amazing pleasure to meet Frank.

And in today's episode we're gonna talk about his success story.

We're going to talk about his background, and we're gonna

talk about the book as well.

And then I'm gonna invite him back for another episode to talk a little

bit more about ai because Frank has been going into this journey of.

Amazing amazingness really with ai, and I wanna pick his brains on that.

Enough of me gibbering on.

Let's bring in Frank.

Frank is one half of husband and wife team, Frank and Marcy, an award-winning

digital marketing group who helps solopreneurs and small businesses

grow online and rise above the blah.

Frank is also the owner, the most talked about mustache in the marketing

world, and you can connect with him.

On LinkedIn and at www.frankandmarcy.com Welcome to the show.

Frank,

how are you doing?

I'm very good.

I'm very good.

Thanks, Ian.

Beautiful introduction.

Thank you very much.

And I normally, at this point I normally get, do the cheering sounds.

It's a little bit delayed, but look don't give a big head or anything.

But as a, as an actor, obviously that's, that makes all the difference the.

The applause the the cheering, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I, it does.

But I have to say I am a, I'm a big lover of screen acting over stage acting.

I have to admit, I have done a lot of stage acting.

But yeah, I actually love the screen where there's no applause.

That's interesting.

That's interesting cuz one of the things that I.

I have to admit, I do quite I do quite like the applause or I do quite like

harnessing off the energy in the room.

So I might actually come back to you on that because one of the things I've

talked a lot about on this show is how do we get across, how do we get

over that nervous energy or that, that nervousness that we have going live.

And often when you speak on stage, you can harness off the energy of the room.

Anyway, I'll, we can go back to that, but we.

We met not that long ago, really in the Rise community.

So this is Mark online community.

It's a Discord community.

And we got involved with this book, but I'd love to know how did you

first of all get involved in the Rise community and how did you get

involved with the book, which is.

This most amazing marketing book ever, which we've been talking

about on the show a few times.

Yeah.

The Rise Community was an interesting one because it was one of those things

where the universe just clearly wanted me to be in the Rise community and

connect with Mark Schaefer because I just reached a point online

where I came across Mark Schaefer.

I think the first time was on Alistair McDermott's podcast

which is a great podcast.

And I heard Mark Schaefer and I just thought, wow, this guy.

Is really interesting.

I'm loving everything he's saying.

And from that moment on, it was like Mark Shaffer was everywhere for me.

I was in a community called Espresso Plus with John Erian.

It turned out he was John Experian's mentor.

John Erian recommended one of his books to me.

Mark Masters was also in Espresso Plus, and he has a community called

You Are The Media, which I also joined.

He brought Mark Schaefer over to the UK for an event.

So I traveled over to the uk met Mark became part of the Rise community,

and yeah it was just like, it was just like it, Mark Schaefer was

everywhere, and I was like, okay, I clearly, I need to get involved here.

That's so funny.

We should, there should be a podcast on how people, how we've met Mark.

Because we've all got stories.

Yes.

I had a similar, I had a similar thing.

So I actually first met Mark about 10 years ago at a conference.

So somebody brought over Mark.

Brought Mark over.

To a conference in Wales in Cardiff, and that's where I met him.

And he blew me away totally with it.

It's not just his knowledge, but also his generosity.

He's just such a generous person and very kind-hearted.

And so that's how I met him.

And yeah.

But 10 years later we've, we are both in the Rise community, which is.

I think what I love about it is the honesty that we have, but also the,

there's just so many smart people.

We have these really deep conversations.

So it's if you're into small talk you need to be prepared for

this because it's quite deep.

We go into lots of different areas like ai, the metaverse, the

future of marketing, but the book.

What was your, how did you get started?

What, what made you get involved with the book?

What was your story there?

I don't think so myself.

I work with my wife Marcy and we both joined Rise and I think

we were pretty new to Rise.

And the book came up as a project.

And we both just thought, wow.

This is an incredibly ambitious sounding project and it would be an

amazing thing to be involved with.

But I also think, we were quite new to Rise and we thought maybe

it's not, maybe we're too new to, to expect to be a part of this.

So we were taking a, maybe we should just wait and see approach and it was

It was oh God, my, my mind's gone blank.

It was John Taylor who reached out to us and said, you guys

need to be involved in this.

You need to put yourselves forward.

So I don't know if she read our minds or what happened.

But she was dead.

We put ourselves forward and we wrote the chapter on marketing research.

Yeah.

It's, and this is the cool thing about this book.

There are different chapters.

How many chapters are there?

It, 36.

Yeah, thir 34, sorry.

34 chapters from 36 authors.

Let's get it right because obviously you wrote this together with your wife,

Marcy, and there's just something for everyone in here, which is great and

okay, this, I know this sounds like an ad, but it is it's just been such

an exciting project to be a part of and I dunno about you, but I have had

books, collaborative books before.

I've read collaborative books and.

It can sometimes be a little bit disjointed.

Somehow this kind of all comes together.

There's just so much in, in there.

Which is great.

Totally,

totally agree.

And also, again, this probably sounds I can add, but I was just saying

someone the other day that like this book is so easy to promote because I

can put my hand on my heart and say, I got a lot out of reading this book.

And I can say that so easily because it's nothing to do with

me, it's all of the other authors.

And so yeah, it, it's an incredibly easy book to say to people,

yeah, you should get this book.

It's really good.

It's full of inspiration and ideas and just nuggets of gold.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so you wrote the chapter on you can't afford to ignore marketing research.

Tell us a little about what you do.

In your day job, and how that, how you came about to write the

chapter on marketing research.

Cuz it's a really interesting chapter.

I, it's not a subject that I know that much about.

And so I, I found it really fascinating to read.

So tell us a little bit more about what you do day to day.

And then I'm really interested to dig a little bit deeper and find out about.

Don't worry, we're not gonna go into your childhood, but I want to know a

little bit about your history and Sure.

I mentioned that you are, you're an actor as well.

That really fascinates me.

So anyway the, let's get, let's focusing and focus.

I need to focus.

So the book and the chapter and what you do.

We're, we're essentially digital marketers.

We help companies rise above the blast.

Yeah, one of the reasons that I mentioned the, mark Shaffer's content resonated

with us so much was that he has that human centered focus that we believe in.

And so we, a lot of what we do is really helping stories, or,

sorry, helping businesses to.

Bring their personal stories to bring themselves more to the forefront.

So if it's a company, a lot of the time we talk about it as helping them

to step out from behind the logo.

And if it's a solopreneur, it's just about helping them to bring themselves

more fully to their marketing really.

That's what we do.

A lot of our projects are based around content campaigns and we

also do help people optimize.

Sales pages as well.

Because we we want people to have the content that nurtures people, and then we

want them to actually arrive at a place where they are likely to take an action.

As for how we got to the marketing research chapter, that's a really

interesting question because us, we feel like, and we have.

Resist.

We have resisted marketing research ourselves.

We resisted it for a long time and we feel like a lot of small businesses resist it.

And when myself and Marcy started working together we were

originally doing we websites.

That was the mainstay of what we were doing.

And we noticed that nobody ever came to us with the foundational work

done to build an effective website.

So we built we created an onboarding process, and that onboarding process was

all really about building your brand.

When we started to move away from websites, we realized that

onboarding process was actually vital to everything in marketing, but.

The one thing that was missing from it was marketing research.

We were doing all this internal work with people, working on their values

and working on who their ideal client was and what we were not doing at that

point was going out into the world and actually talking to their ideal clients

and saying why did you purchase from them?

Or why didn't you purchase from them?

Or, what was it that made you interested in the company or

the business in the first place?

And we just realized we, we had to add that into the mix and we did.

And it was just, it completely transformed the business from our perspective.

And so we wanted to share that with people.

We wanted to share with you.

You need to be doing market research.

If you really wanna transform your marketing and you really want to speak.

To the people that you want to engage.

Yeah it's so interesting.

I have done this a few times but I was really encouraged to do this a lot more

and I dunno why I don't do this more often, but I remember I was, I spoke to.

A previous client who worked with me, I was helping her with her live video and co

and podcasting, and I just gained so much insight just for asking her questions.

For example, why did you choose me?

What's different about me?

What attracted you to my services?

It was just really interesting cuz the answers she gave was, So

different to what I thought in my head, so that, yeah, ga gaining that

kind of insight is so important.

So you need to read the chapter Franco Marc's chapter on, on this.

It's not just about surveys and things like that, although that's part of

it, but it's a, capturing data and.

And and of course you can buy the book.

There's a Kendall book and you can also listen to Frank's Dlce tones

and his wife Massy on the audio book.

So anyway, I wanted to hear a little bit more about your background because

as Frank, I trained as a professional singer and then I've come, got, fallen

into the marketing world I say fallen into cuz it was not on my agenda.

I wonder with you, What happened, so I'd love to know your backstory of how you

got into acting and then how you then you haven't necessarily transitioned

cuz you still do acting, but I'd love to tell us a little bit about your

background there, cuz it's fascinating.

Yeah.

I'll try and keep it brief, but when I was a kid, all I wanted was to be an artist.

You would just always find me in a corner somewhere, scribbling with

crayons, drawing, and that was it.

I just wanted to be an artist.

Hated school.

Did the absolute minimum in school that I knew would get me into art college.

Went to art college and my brother said to me very wisely, brilliant.

You want to be an artist.

You're, you're really good at drawing.

You're very talented, but if you ever want to make money, Make

sure that you take any computer class that's going in art college.

And so this was, I don't even remember when it was, but it was back, what, the

early nineties, and the internet was just arriving in Ireland and computer

rooms were fairly new to art colleges.

But I took his advice, took every computer class that was going

And when I got outta college, my brother hired me as a web designer.

So the marketing and the digital world came first, but with a

kind of an artistic grounding.

And then from there I was working with my brother as a web designer ended up joining

the management team in that company.

We went and become directors of another company.

We founded a company, but somewhere along the way I was like, I found

myself in a kind of a, in a startup environment, in a cubicle environment,

working for a boss, nine to five.

And I just, I wasn't there very long.

When I looked around, I went, hang on.

Feel like I've taken the wrong turn.

I'm pretty sure I remember saying, I wanna be an artist.

And so I quit my job.

And I think.

I think people thought I was nuts at the time.

It was a great job, it was a great company, but I just knew it

just wasn't, it just wasn't me.

And so how I got into acting was my mom just rang me one day and said,

look, I know you're looking around for what it is you might want to do,

and there's an acting course on it.

The weekend it's acting for screen, and I think that you would really enjoy it.

So I did.

I went and I did it.

And somehow I, from a weekend learning how to act for screen, I walked out and walked

into a part in a theater production.

And from there I've I've acted I've acted and done worked in

the digital space ever since.

So interesting.

And it sounds like you, you've got a lot to, you've gotta

thank your family quite a lot.

You've got your mom, your brother, who've guided you along the way, and

that's one of the things Absolutely.

I think whether it's family or friends, having people around

you who are gonna encourage you, but also tell you the truth.

That's one of the things that I've really been thinking about.

So how does, like in your day-to-day work now, how does

the artistic and the acting side.

Help you in your business?

How does it help you?

And an interesting add-on question that, how does it potentially hinder you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's start with the hindrance.

I think the hindrance is maybe not the arti is it part of the artistic

side that makes me interested and curious about so many things?

So I can get distracted very easily.

I can go down rabbit holes on all kinds of things, but it works quite

well because then Marcy actually has a laser focus and pulls me back on

track or helps me to kinda harness that curiosity in the right places.

So I think that is possibly the hindrance is the yeah, the going

down too many rabbit holes.

And then how it helps.

There's actually, I think, a kind of an, a kind of an interesting story about that

where for a long time I was trying to keep the digital world and the acting world

like utterly separate, compartmentalized.

Didn't want people in the digital world to know I was an actor, didn't

want people in the acting world to know that I did digital marketing.

And to be honest, it was exhausting.

And I didn't even really know why, but I was doing a coaching session with a friend

of mine and he said, you've built a wall.

You've built this huge wall between the two worlds, and every time you do one job

or the other, you have to climb that wall.

And that's exhausting you.

So why don't you just tear that wall down?

And I.

I had never really thought about it, but I just, when he said it,

I just knew that he was right.

I just felt it.

I could feel that this wall was a hindrance.

And so I did, I worked at smashing it down and when I did,

I realized that I had been, I had compartmentalized them so much.

That I was completely and utterly failing to take the strengths from

either side of the wall and apply it and apply them to the other.

And once I smashed that wall down, I couldn't believe the, I could, it was

obvious to me that there was marketing stuff that I should have been doing as

an actor to put myself out there more.

But what I was really surprised at was the amount of things that tracked back from

the acting world to the digital marketing world and to the personal branding world.

I think I even mentioned earlier, I said that we help people to bring

themselves more fully to their marketing.

And that's actually, I've ripped that off from a very famous acting

teacher called Sanford Meisner.

And he said that acting was living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

And I think that personal branding and digital marketing should be

about living truthfully under digital circumstances essentially.

So there was just so many things that I started to see that tracked back.

Another one was the ideal clients or personas or dream client

profiles that we were helping clients put together as an actor.

It's, there's there's science behind how an actor creates a

truly compelling performance.

And it's to do with the, how they imagine this character in, a completely

different set of circumstances in these, under these imaginary circumstances.

They imagine the rich life of this character.

And what that does is it creates and I'm not gonna get the science right

or anything cause I'm not a science, but it creates like mirror neurons

that help them to empathize with this fictional character and therefore create

a performance that is much more human.

And so personas are a very divisive thing in the marketing world.

And people say these fictitious personas, they're useless.

They're just fiction, et cetera, et cetera.

To an extent, I agree that you have to do marketing research to back up any

assertions or assumptions that you make.

However, if you do fictional personas and you actually spend time.

Imagining the personas, imagining their rich life, imagining their experience of

your company, their wants, their needs.

That genuinely builds empathy and allows you to become a more empathetic

marketer, which I 100% believe in.

Yeah, so I so interesting to hear you say that and.

Going back to what you said before about, it's so funny.

You start with a hindrance, start with a negative.

It's such an artist mentality.

We always do that, don't we?

And I'm the same.

I think the whole rabbit holdings interesting because I think

it's, it can be both a hindrance, and I think you said this.

That, and at least you have Marcy to say Frank, come on, we

need to get on with this now.

But if I look back, if I look back at my successes, it's actually when

I did go down the rabbit hole, and I'm sure you would say the same,

with, we're gonna talk about AI in, in the the other episode, and I think

that's probably a rabbit hole for you.

And live video is a rabbit hole for me.

Social media tools and things like that was a rabbit hole for me.

So sometimes I think that can be our strategy.

But I want to I want to ask you about this because I had

the same, I had the same issue.

Who am I online?

Am I, Ian the professional singer?

Am I Ian the marketer?

Am I Ian?

The dads the wife.

I was about to say the wife, the husband, whatever I am, I would get confused.

So and I compartmentalize.

So I actually had two Twitter accounts.

I was a very early adopter with Twitter and I, my first one was Barone uk, singer.

And then I had my business one, and I kept them separate.

And it was exhausting, like you say.

So how who are you, Frank?

This sounds like a deep question, are you are an actor, you are an artist,

you are a marketer, you're a husband.

There's so many different aspects of you.

How do you make sense of that from a, maybe from a personal branding

point of view, coming onto the show, who are you coming on as?

Cuz it's quite a messy thing as human beings.

I and I'd love you to answer that maybe from a personal branding point of

view, because I know this is what you work with with individuals and brands

and businesses and things like that.

Yeah, that is a deep question.

Who am I coming on as?

And I think it goes back to what I was saying about bringing

yourself fully to your marketing.

So I'm coming on as me, and I'm bringing, I'm doing my best to

bring my whole self to this podcast.

And so I'm coming on as Frank digital marketer, artist, actor.

Now it's they're probably, so it's probably digital marketer, actor, artist

something like that in that order.

So most of what I do is digital marketing.

From a personal branding perspective, I believe that you have to, so

it's difficult certainly for.

My generation, it's difficult.

We're not, we didn't grow up with these tools.

We're not naturally used to being ourselves through digital media.

I think it'll be really interesting to see what younger generations feel

about this, because they've, they live on their phones from whenever

they're allowed to get a phone.

But.

From a personal branding perspective, it's all about learning how to, I

think, amplify the relevant attributes.

So I'm not one of those people who believes that it's 100% of yourself

all the time, because again, that would be exhausting and we don't,

it's not it's not realistic to share 100% of yourself all the time.

And I would, I'd almost relate it back to the acting again in terms of digital

marketing is about telling a story.

And so if if you watch a great film about somebody's life, it's

not their entire life, you can't possibly watch their entire life.

The director and the writer have to choose, what are the most relevant moments

to tell the story of this person's life?

How do we find a through line that we can give the audience that

gives a picture of the person, but isn't 100% them 100% of the time?

Because nobody wants to sit down in the cinema for a lifetime.

And so it's about, yeah, the relevant attributes and just amplifying those.

So for me, as I'm primarily a digital marketer.

I amplify that most.

I don't hide the fact I'm an actor.

I act a little bit less than I do digital marketing.

So it's not as big a piece of the pie.

And again, then the little rabbit holes I go down, they're the little, they're

just, they're barely noticeable in the pie

chart.

No that's really interesting.

And I, cuz I know that some of my viewers and listeners.

Do similar kind of things so that they've got their main focus, their job, but

they also have other things that they do.

As human beings these days, it's very rare that we just do one thing.

In your messaging on, say, for example, your website, how does

say the acting and the artist side of you, how do you convey that?

Do you just say, Frank, the digital marketer, or, how do you put the other

parts of you in, into the messaging?

It most, for me currently, it mostly comes out like in my ongoing content,

in my in my LinkedIn content primarily.

So I will frequently talk about, I'll talk about anything I'm exploring really.

And Right now on the website, we don't, we have a very minimal website, so we don't

even go into our, we don't even have an about page on our website at the moment.

It is we are building out our website, so there will be one, and when there

is one, again, I will make reference to different things that I do, but obviously

the digital marketing will be the primary.

The primary one.

But it's in my ongoing content where I will talk about, I'll talk about

Sanford Meisner, I'll talk about, I'll talk about the correlation between the

acting stuff and building a persona.

So it's really in the ongoing content that you really get a

sense of who I am more, yeah.

In a more rounded kind of way.

No, that makes sense.

And you, as you said, you can't like put everything.

All the time.

Like you can't just like string a big long list of things when you introduce yourself

to somebody, it just begets exhausting.

And I think

even on think, I have an acting website and like even on the acting website, I

make reference to the digital marketing.

And I just, I say on the acting website that like, For me, it's all about telling

stories, whether it's in performance, whether it's visual art, whether it's

whether it's telling stories for business.

It's really all about telling these very human

stories.

Yeah, no that's so interesting.

We're almost out of time, but I just wanted to ask you one more question

really, which is again, it's all about this on how we present ourselves online

and it's maybe more towards like how.

How transparent how honest, how vulnerable is, if that's the right word to use.

Should we be, we've talked about the honesty of who we are and

the fact that we may have lots of different characteristics or lots

of different types of jobs, but how.

When we're actually creating content, how honest and if the

word, the right word is vulnerable.

I dunno.

Cuz mark Schaeffer, I always remind.

Remind being reminded of, he said to me, you would not want.

A brain, you're about to have brain surgery.

You wouldn't want your brain surgeon to be vulnerable about,

they've had a bit of a bad day.

You don't wanna hear that, do you?

So when and when.

Isn't it a good idea to talk about maybe the struggles?

I like to talk about that on this show.

I like to talk about the downs as well as the ups, and we have

covered that little bit today.

So what's your view on that?

I think that it's a very tricky question and I think that it's a very It every,

everyone has to figure out their level of vulnerability individually.

I think, I think Mark makes a really good point and I think, I can see people, I

see people on LinkedIn, for example, who are really vulnerable and share their

struggles to the extent that it feels like they're just always struggling.

And I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

And I don't know, is it, trendy to be vulnerable?

Is it that vulnerability gets more engagement?

I'm not sure, but if you're building a personal brand and it's about

your business, Then I would go back again to the relevant attributes.

So I think it is highly relevant to come across as human.

It's very, it's really important to come across as human.

So you need to be in some way open.

You need to let people in a little bit, but at the same time, what you're

trying to do is build a business.

So it's much, again, it's much more relevant to share.

The more business, the more business pertinent things.

So you need to get the you need to get the vulnerable slice of

the pie in proportion, I think.

But that's going to be different for everybody.

So it's a very tricky question.

I I'm quite a private person, so I try to be open and human, but I don't share,

I don't share very personal struggles or anything like that on social media.

I think everyone has to figure it out for themselves.

For themselves and figure out where their comfort level is and figure

out what's best for the business.

Yeah.

Sorry to ask you these horrible, deep questions, Frank, but you

did agree to come on the show.

It's the last time you'll never come on again.

It's fascinating.

It's and I think you're right.

Everyone has a different, you have to feel comfortable with this.

I think what somebody said to me,

Yeah, I wish I could say there was a, I wish I could say there was a formula that

I had figured out or no, but unfortunately I just don't think there is one.

No, and the tricky bit is what you just alluded to there, I think, where

you have to be comfortable with it.

But then you also, at the same time, for a lot of people starting out with personal

branding, none of it feels comfortable.

So then, how do you gauge that?

Okay, I'm uncomfortable with this because I'm putting myself out

there versus, oh, I'm uncomfortable with this because I'm oversharing.

It's very tricky.

And I think, sometimes that's why it is actually very useful to have somebody

help you with your personal branding, especially if you're new to it.

Absolutely.

I think we know somebody who can help.

So do get in touch with Frank and Marcy to help you with this.

And it is a difficult thing to, to navigate.

I, somebody recommended something, somebody very wise said to me, don't

share if you're, if you are currently struggling, but you can share afterwards.

Once you've got through it, you can share the struggles that you had it.

And it should always be to help people.

And I'm quite an empathetic person, so I do tend to share my struggles.

But I want to do that in a way that is, the aim of that is to help

people and for other bit to, for.

I want to understand the struggles that other people are going through.

And I said, look I've been through that too.

I can help you through that.

So you, but you have to be, you have to be comfortable.

Anyway we are out of time because I do we, we will have you back to talk about ai.

What's the, how's the best?

Where's the best place to connect with you?

Are you across all the socials?

Are you dancing on TikTok or No?

Are you just on LinkedIn and tell

us.

LinkedIn went all in on LinkedIn a couple of years ago.

So right now LinkedIn's absolutely the best place to connect.

I love it there.

I love the conversations.

I love connecting with people, so Absolutely.

Yeah, connect with me.

Send me a message.

Love to connect.

And then of course the website is franken marcy.com.

Awesome.

If you go to Frank and marcy.com, you can connect with Fran and Marcy on LinkedIn.

The links are in the bottom.

Thanks, Frank.

Can't wait to have you back on the show to talk about ai.

That's gonna be absolutely awesome.

Thanks a million.

Ian, this has been brilliant.

That's been awesome.

Thank you so much for watching, and until next time, I encourage you to level

up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live video.

See you soon.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to the Confident Live Marketing podcast with Ian Anderson Gray,

make sure you subscribe at iag.me/podcast.

So you can continue to level up your impact, authority, and profits

through the power of live video.