Commercialising Your Brand With Belinda Wall

Josh: The Daily Talk Show. It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 562.

Tommy: Belinda Wall, welcome back.

Belinda: Thanks, guys.

Tommy: I need an update because you were in the crowd at 500.

Belinda: I was, such a great night.

Tommy: I'm so glad.

Belinda: And I was a winner winner chicken dinner.

Tommy: So glad you won the pour over.

Belinda: Sorry, winner winner Nando's chicken dinner.

Tommy: Very good. Yeah, the Nando's there. How is it, the pour over?

Josh: It's called an AeroPress.

Tommy: AeroPress, yeah.

Josh: Is it a pour over?

Tommy: Nah, it's different.

Belinda: It's an AeroPress?

Tommy: Yeah. Looks like a big syringe.

Belinda: I'm going to be honest. Firstly, I was thrilled because I've never, I've never won something like that. That was amazing. Secondly, my partner Jordan was sitting next to me. He also won.

Josh: Did he? Oh, perfect.

Belinda: So he came home with a $50 Nando's voucher. Yeah, great.

Tommy: Amazing.

Belinda: Not sure if he's used it yet. Yeah. Anyway, have to quiz that one.

Josh: It's definitely a time of year, by the way, where vouchers— so Bree and I house sat for someone. They gave us a $200 Chin Chin voucher, which we have to use this year.

Belinda: We used one on Friday. We went to Marion. We had one from Christmas last year.

Josh: You got to get into it. But the other interesting thing on this point very quickly is new consumer rules.

Belinda: Oh, that's the legislation they have.

Tommy: So, what is it?

Josh: 3 years. So, if it's after, I think, November 1st, if you got your voucher after November 1st, retail shops and restaurants and things, unless they're like, there's a couple of caveats around if it's super discounted or things like that. They have to give you 3 years even if the expiry date has before that. Yeah, that's exciting.

Belinda: Good to know, everyone, this time of year, especially if you had that in. Don't panic.

Mason: You got to get—

Tommy: Yeah, well, I bought my brother a double pass to the movies, Gold Class, never used it, and that was too long ago. So I'm kind of over buying people anything to do with vouchers at all. I could actually see—

Belinda: I could see a an app or a business model in here whereby, you know, you get a voucher, you scan your voucher, and then it automatically gives you calendar reminders.

Josh: Oh, that's a good idea. Or maybe you could even do swapsies.

Tommy: So even though it's a bunch of—

Josh: Yeah, how about this?

Tommy: There is actually a bunch of these apps. Okay. A bunch of these businesses.

Belinda: We thought we were original.

Tommy: No, because it was like, I think it, yeah, it's exactly, I want to sell it off. If I've got $100, I'll sell it.

Mason: It's like scalping.

Tommy: Someone's got $50 for this and they get $100 of value.

Belinda: Really great.

Tommy: It makes sense.

Josh: And so the AeroPress.

Belinda: Okay, so I was— a warm night, remember, we're driving home. Great, great event, fabulous celebrations.

Tommy: I'm worried where this is going, to be honest.

Belinda: Yeah, I know. And we were driving home, it's quite a big box, the AeroPress was. So the conversation was, okay, firstly, we live in a townhouse, just my partner and I, and there's not much room. Okay. There's not much room to buy or start.

Josh: How big the fucking AeroPress is.

Tommy: No, it's not small.

Josh: Are you in the Detroit Garden?

Belinda: I'm revealing my Taipei-isms here. However, we both like coffee.

Mason: Sure.

Josh: You've already— We already have.

Belinda: We have not. Okay. We, we have a pod machine. We have a percolator. We have—

Josh: That's why you got no room.

Belinda: One of these.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: We've got one of those beautiful thermos ones that you can brew coffee and sit it in for a long time. It's like, anyway. And then we've got this other bubble percolator thing. How to describe it?

Tommy: It looks like a drip coffee. Is that for drip coffee?

Josh: Like the US style, like go to a diner type of thing.

Belinda: It's close to that. It looks like one of those hourglass timers.

Josh: What brand is it? Like a Breville or something? You don't know?

Belinda: No, definitely not Breville. It was given as a gift as well. Anyway, so we've got quite a lot of coffee apparatuses. So what are we gonna do with this AeroPress? When is it gonna get used? Camping, I think I mentioned that.

Tommy: You did.

Belinda: You did. Anyway, we decided this would be great for the beach house.

Josh: How highbrow does that sound? I said camping.

Belinda: And I'll put the over summer is in because it's coffee moment thing. It's like, okay, it's going to take a little bit longer.

Tommy: Of course.

Belinda: So, and not just for us because it's not our beach house. Let's be honest, it's a family beach house. So it's going to the beach this summer and it's going to be used for when people want to take a good hour to make their coffee, sit there, read the paper. So I'll do an Insta story, guys.

Tommy: Yeah, you go.

Belinda: At that moment.

Tommy: @ayush79, we appreciate it.

Belinda: That's a long answer.

Tommy: I'm glad it didn't get regifted.

Belinda: But the— definitely did not get regifted. We did discuss it. No, we didn't at all. The beautiful gold straws have not been used yet.

Mason: They're slurp.

Belinda: I think I'm—

Josh: Maybe give it to your niece.

Tommy: Oh, I'd be okay if you regifted the gold straw. Because I think it's spreading the message.

Belinda: I don't want to, but that's something that I'm like, they look great.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: And it has a little straw cleaner. I think there's about 3 different kind of straws in there.

Josh: The kids love them. Like it is a, it's a trendy thing to have.

Belinda: Really? Yeah. Okay.

Tommy: I'll tell you just quickly. When I was working at a radio station, I got, would you guys have used your straws? No, no, this is Melbourne.

Josh: Would you have used your straw yet?

Tommy: A gold straw?

Belinda: Like, is it a bad effort that I haven't used the straw?

Josh: I would find a reason. Yeah. I think I'd probably turn my coffee, like I'd probably put in my coffee cup. But the other thing too is We have tried the AeroPress. Okay.

Belinda: We have tried it, I'm just letting you know.

Josh: No, I think I saw you did an Insta storey on that, which I appreciate.

Belinda: I did, it was great.

Josh: But the problem I think with the straw, which my mum's a dental nurse and she gets really into these nuances, like when lemon water was the big thing Miranda Kerr was doing that, she's like, the acidity in your teeth.

Belinda: Apple cider vinegar.

Josh: All these things are rotting your teeth. I have a feeling metal straws, ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding, you're actually gonna potentially, can you look that up, 97?

Belinda: But then again, wouldn't she be happy that you're not putting the caffeine on your teeth?

Josh: I reckon, I reckon should say traditional plastic. I think Pauline's definitely like, drink from a cup. Anything on there, 97, about teeth and metal straws?

Tommy: I mean, just people hurting themselves. You can imagine. I mean, people probably choke on—

Belinda: Kids in the car.

Tommy: Yeah. Oh, stop running, running with a straw. Like Bodhi runs with a spoon in his mouth. I have to constantly tell him.

Belinda: You're not going to give Bodhi a gold-plated straw, are you?

Tommy: Well, he's not worth it. I don't think it's gold-plated. I think it's just gold in colour.

Josh: Anything from '97.

Mason: I mean, there's an anecdote from a bloke on Twitter who said he chipped his tooth from using a metal straw, about a third of his front tooth.

Tommy: Oh, that's expensive.

Belinda: Oh, I'm not prepared to take the risk.

Tommy: And I got given an expensive coffee machine at the radio station. The host of the show didn't want it. I was like, who wants this? And I just put my hand up, got it. It was $300 plus. I took it to Christmas and we were doing Bad Santa. This is a few years back.

Belinda: How fun.

Tommy: And I put it in and so everyone's fighting to get this thing.

Josh: It was only a $45 limit or something, wasn't it?

Belinda: What else was on the Bad Santa?

Tommy: Oh, I mean, you get like classic scratchies or like tickets, Tattslotto tickets. So it's like, what if you actually won a million bucks from Bad Santa? So I like the Tattslotto tickets. I don't want the other shit. But there's a lot of crap because it ends up being a $40 limit, $45 limit.

Belinda: I was having this conversation with my sisters the other day. Is it— there's nothing worse than those moments where you're walking through a shopping centre around Christmas time and you have that feeling of, oh my God, the clock's ticking. I don't know what to get. I've just got to get something. Yeah, that's awful feeling. It's just that— that's right. Just can't afford it. It's just gross. And you look around and you see everyone else just mindlessly going that'll do, that'll do.

Josh: Like, I do that on Amazon. I just, I do it all online. It's very much like, yeah, thinking about, okay, what is it?

Belinda: It's a semi-panic, gotta get it, $40 limit, that'll do. And you know what, if I don't get it right, they can take it back.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you're across branding and I want to get your thoughts on this. Chemist Warehouse recently did like a 30% off frenzy for Xmas.

Belinda: Yes.

Tommy: And they got like picture shitty plastic, black plastic bags, and they've put them up on and used tape.

Belinda: Oh, gaffer.

Tommy: It was like gaffer and it just looks so shit.

Josh: It looked like it was going into liquidation.

Tommy: Exactly. But I was thinking, I thought like, oh my God.

Belinda: Is that a tactic?

Tommy: I thought, is it a tactic? Because it makes you think sales, sales, sales. It's just crap. It's like, we need to get this sale going. Come in, guys. We're going to run out of stock. But I was thinking, do you think it's a play around? Yeah. Make it look shit on purpose to sort of the old school sale, like you're closing down that style.

Belinda: Oh my goodness.

Tommy: What do you reckon?

Belinda: It actually, it wouldn't surprise me. I would say that they have quite loose guidelines around their approach to discounting and pushing through stock. I was in Chemist Warehouse the other day and I did see, I mean, the volume of stock that they've got carrying at any one moment in time is massive. And they also love, they love, they love the tags. So everything looks like it's on sale.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah.

Belinda: I don't know. The garbage bag thing's pretty extreme.

Tommy: Yeah. They've taken it to the next level.

Josh: JB Hi-Fi does it. It feels like it appeals to the gronk because if you think about like it's, it's like EB Games. '97, I feel like you would have used EB Games back in the day.

Mason: Yeah, I loved EB Games.

Josh: What was one of the things about EB Games that you'd always notice?

Mason: All the stickers they've got, they've got all like the sort of like triangle-shaped sort of stickers and they stick them up at the front of the entrance when you walk in and it's like, you know, 20% off PS3 games or something like that. It's great.

Josh: JB is big for it as well. Like there's all the—

Belinda: Done it again.

Tommy: Yeah. Sales frenzy. Like, yeah, you're right. Like plastering it everywhere makes you— it builds like, I need to get a bit of that urgency.

Belinda: I think what I have noticed is that, you know, you don't even have to be around Boxing Day time. The pre-Christmas discounts and the offers and the sales, the volume of discounting and specials and sales that hit your inbox daily through every day of December is extreme. You almost feel— and I actually, and I have a birthday in December as well. So then you get all the whole you know, 10% off, $20 voucher, you got to use this before. And then I got— I get to a state where I'm like, am I missing out on opportunities here? You know, it really screws with your psychology and it really does push, push, push. But I feel like back in the day there used to be this whole anticipation around Boxing Day. Retailers and brands are just discounting all over the shop now.

Josh: Like the entire Christmas shopping period, Friday, it sort of starts at Black Friday and just sort of Yeah, like Black Friday is now an entire week.

Belinda: And also, what was the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Josh: Yeah, well, there was like, we were talking to our mate Rob from Quad Lock and they do, they do these phone cases and the amount of selling they do around that time. But they, they're so strategic around it where it's like it starts, I think, even before the Friday and they're sending, they have a huge they have a slightly high unsubscribe rate, but they're doing like they'll do 4 emails in that time and they actually still get on the Monday evening the final time people can get it. People are still buying product.

Belinda: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: It's huge when you're working it 2 times.

Mason: You—

Tommy: Yes.

Belinda: Fascinating. Yeah.

Tommy: In a meeting where you're with the marketing team, I mean, you were the marketing person, but with the wider team.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: Are you actually thinking ahead And going, how can we not manipulate, but like, what are the tactics here?

Belinda: Oh, absolutely.

Tommy: Convert to sales.

Belinda: It's interesting because when I was in that role, our head of e-coms, so this was, you know, 5 years ago, 5, 6 years ago, our head of, or, you know, 5 to 7 years ago when I was actually in amongst it, our head of e-coms had actually come, or he's a Californian, so he'd come from the States, and he was instrumental in kind of pushing for Black Friday discounts and Cyber Monday and so forth. And then at that point in time was very new in Australia. Everyone's like, what are you talking about, this Black Friday thing? Firstly, we weren't a discounting brand, so we always had to push, like put together a very strong case for discounting. And it was, it was very limited. But you do have to forward plan. So you sit down. It's not just a decision based on marketing. So you sit down with your planners and your forecasters you look at, okay, what stock levels do we have? What stock do we need to push through and get rid of in time, you know, ahead of summer? So it's, it's very much a roundtable conversation between marketing, e-comms, planning, you know, head of sales, etc. So it's, it's a highly strategic decision and you generally have to plan, you know, months out.

Tommy: Going from a business that doesn't discount to one that does. I mean, that seems like a big decision, big move.

Josh: Yeah, brand side especially.

Belinda: And we rarely did. So we always erred towards things like gift with purchase or more like setting up competition style incentives, more value add as a part of the strategy as opposed to, you know, discounting was very rare. We'd probably discount maybe once or twice a year.

Tommy: Is there any brand that doesn't discount these days?

Josh: I think like, oh yeah, yeah, like premium brands definitely wouldn't get like a Tiffany's discounting, like come in, 25% off.

Tommy: I met a bloke on the street, I bought my wife's ring and it was Tiffany's discount.

Josh: I'm joking, joking. There's like even Hey Tiger, Bree works as the marketing director there and there's their be gone, it's the gift with purchase stuff or bundles or, you know, for Christmas you could exactly.

Belinda: So you're incentivizing certain packages or bundles, and there's a way of doing it that's not discount focused.

Tommy: Is it a brand play for premium? Is that what the premium brands don't discount? Is that— yeah, is that what you think?

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: I mean, that's, that's the strategy. You don't want to cheapen, cheapen the value of the product that you're trying to push. So it is a— yeah, I mean, you don't, you're not, you're not competing on price. That's the whole idea of a premium brand or a high price point brand.

Josh: Yeah, Woolen Prince, like these merino t-shirts that I always wear, they never discount, but they do do the thing of like buy over $200 and get a free pair of socks. Yeah.

Belinda: And so yeah, it's an interesting, uh, which those socks probably just would have been made for that promotion. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think that's also so, you know, we would plan quite far in advance for certain promotions. For example, it might be The start of the new year is very big time for fitness industry, New Year's resolutions, etc., etc. So what product are we going to make to throw into the bundle? You know, was it a sweat towel? Was it a drink bottle or was it going to be limited edition or we're just going to use stock that's not moving, all that kind of stuff.

Tommy: I mean, a lot of this stuff's becoming more known to the consumer. Absolutely. But we still don't give a fuck.

Belinda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Now I get the socks.

Belinda: Yep.

Tommy: I got the socks.

Josh: Yeah. The thing is, we're like, I guess you're priming. There is a lot of retailers now that have primed their audience or their customer to only buy on sale. Yeah. So for instance, like my mum shops at Suzanne's and she will only ever— she's playing this game of when it's on discount and then every time she spends a certain amount, she gets like a $20 gift.

Belinda: Country Road have perfected that model with the whole spend and save. Yeah. And they reframed that entire sort of programme like a loyalty program. Yeah. So it was probably about 2 years ago now. I think they, they restructured it and it was blowing my mind when they did it because in terms of the back end of that, it just would have been a complete headfuck of a digital transformation. But most most leading retailers now have a loyalty programme in place that's quite evolved and completely, you know, beautifully marries in all their touchpoints. So, yeah, they have that spend and save model, but then it's also— it's kind of like a Qantas frequent flyer model as well. So you've got like a status. So it's a, you know, gold, silver, bronze or what have you, or platinum. And it tells you frequently, like what you're up to, or you only have to spend another $30 by this date to go on or to retain this status. They send you little perks now and then. So I think on, you know, on Sunday, speaking to birthday perks and so forth, I think it was Sunday morning, I'm like, oh, there's a spend and save ending tonight, plus I've got $30 birthday credit, really should get there. Oh God, no, hang on, it's like, I'm there. It was like, it was 5:45 on Sunday night. I'm like, surely I've got to get something. I've got to. And then also you leave. And I also felt a bit dirty when I left with two things, just going, do I actually need those things?

Tommy: Is it the shirt you're wearing?

Belinda: It's lovely.

Tommy: It's not.

Josh: It's very Country Road though. They do linen very well.

Tommy: Oh yeah.

Josh: Do they?

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah, I think they do linen.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. We've been working with Country Road on some shoots and we're in there and they've got some denim. You've been working on the sheets? We've been working with Country Road. Oh, yeah. I mean, they asked me, but I said no. I've got another.

Josh: We're more of a Rod and Gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Belinda: Brand.

Josh: Brand. Yeah. No, I was talking to my mum. She was saying, I think it's with Woolworths where when you're at the register, it will tell you, say you're putting through your purchase, it was either Coles or Woolies, but it will say, hey, you've got 75 points or something. And with those points, you can get 2 sets of like drinking glasses. And so you just tell them and then they bring it out or whatever.

Belinda: Which, but that's just, yeah, it's frustrating. It's just that feeding that incredible consumerism and just absolute superfluous amount of shit in this world, plastics and consumables and just FMCG.

Josh: Well, what about the whole little, what are those things called?

Tommy: The Gucci's?

Belinda: Gucci's.

Josh: What are like, it's so funny.

Tommy: I tell you what, they're just in my fucking car in the side bloody back.

Belinda: Do you know what it's equivalent to? As a consumer, wouldn't you just go, do you know what? I would prefer a plastic bag. I prefer 5% off my bill. I don't want similar situation. I think it was last week. I got my ding dong at the front door and I got my annual.

Josh: I thought ding dong was an ooshie. Did you think that?

Belinda: Annual hamper from my financial advisor.

Tommy: Oh really? I mean, you gotta have a financial advisor to get that.

Josh: We don't. Was it the beach house address?

Belinda: Oh yeah, this is it. They're not right for the business guys. It's not, it's not that indulgent. But it's funny because I had this conversation with a girlfriend 12 months ago who also runs a business and she goes, that's my worst time. I always look at it and think, I paid for that. I paid for that hamper. Like the laughs on them.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: Then I opened it up and it's always full of things that I can't eat. I've got a lot of intolerances. Champagne, don't drink that. But great for regifting. Champagne can go to a Christmas party. That one can There, yep. There's always a dukkah there.

Tommy: There was always a rub. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: You sprinkle it on eggs, you could put it on meat, lamb, like shredded lamb.

Tommy: Are you allergic to that? Because I wouldn't mind that.

Belinda: There's, you know, that it's, it's kind of like the promotional, um, value adds of the fitness world, but those tamper fillers— does anyone actually buy dukkah and rubs?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's a very— is it a sample thing? Do you think he's got a client Like, does the financial advisor have a client or something?

Belinda: That's— they were really great products. No, I think that someone just walked around Leo's and pulled them together.

Josh: Leo's? Leo's is good. That's high quality.

Belinda: Yeah. No, it was good stuff. It was great stuff.

Josh: What do you think of their orange juice?

Mason: No, it's so good.

Josh: Because 97 was in a sauna the other day and you were down at Q, then goes down to Leo's Q and has his OJ.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: Perfect afternoon.

Mason: It's the best orange juice you can get.

Josh: Well, they're very good at the smelling.

Belinda: As soon as you walk in, the smell. Great brand experience.

Tommy: Do you think these, like, these are all touch points from brands to try and bring value or make you think about them more? Like we're talking about the things we're on to.

Belinda: The Financial Guy is that deeper emotional connection. Yeah. And association when we're on to it.

Tommy: Like you're talking about the hamper, it's like, dude, save your cash. Like, I'd rather save money.

Josh: Yes.

Tommy: Yeah, but save your cash that you could have passed on to the customer. You could have kept. Or like, if you didn't get the hamper, what would you feel? Would you be pissed?

Josh: Or you wouldn't be?

Belinda: I didn't set up the expectation, so they did.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. But now that you do have the expectation—

Belinda: I won't lie, it was second week in December, I was like, it'll be due any day now. And then the doorbell rang and it was two lovely girls delivering Hambleton. I said, you guys doing the rounds with everyone today? Yep.

Tommy: Are they from the actual— Yep. Okay. I haven't outsourced it.

Belinda: But you know what, like when you're a consultant, you don't get a lot of Christmas party gifts. Yeah, yeah, you don't really get a Christmas party. It's lovely.

Josh: No, I think that there is something nice, there is something nice in that.

Belinda: I always love an unexpected gift.

Josh: Yeah, and I would like to— I think one of my brand values is generosity. Not very good, but then combine that with the admin involved in getting gifts, it's actually quite a bit of friction for me. Oh, definitely, because yeah, very generous, but don't get anything.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: And so I would like to in a future life or potentially sometime in the future, maybe it's when I get my virtual assistant. I don't know. It would be great. Yeah. What do you think about the virtual assistant, by the way?

Belinda: Do you know, I have— it's one of those things I have heard a lot about, like murmurs about virtual assistants, but again, don't know anyone that has used one.

Tommy: Exactly.

Josh: Have you had an assistant before? In my current business, in life, in like through your whole existence. Have you ever had someone that you would—

Belinda: No, I wouldn't call them an assistant. Someone that I managed.

Tommy: I would call him Jason.

Belinda: No, I'm going to say no. Yeah, not directly.

Josh: Because it would be nice.

Belinda: Like, because I would say in a— Yeah, his assistant. You are to even use that term anymore.

Tommy: Yeah, definitely. Personal assistant.

Belinda: Yeah, executive assistant. But no one's a secretary anymore.

Tommy: Ah, okay, you're right, because that's what got upgraded to personal assistants. Yeah, that makes sense.

Belinda: Reinvented themselves.

Tommy: Um, Jeff Jowett, who we've had on before, made a lot of money, lost it all. Uh, when he lost all his money, he didn't know how to pay his phone bill because he had so many people doing shit for him. So there is diminishing returns.

Belinda: Oh, they're outsourcing, over-engineered.

Tommy: Outsourcing the shit that you should actually know how to do.

Belinda: 100%. I'm quite an efficient person anyway. So I think there are— look, my work volume is not to the point yet where I need someone to just manage the inbox.

Josh: Better be the same.

Belinda: Plus, I don't know. I don't— I think when you, when you are a little bit Type A, maybe I enjoy that sort of stuff as well.

Josh: I enjoy it once I've done it. And I always have the moment of like, ah, why don't I do this more often?

Belinda: The admin stuff?

Josh: Yeah, like responding to emails or something, right?

Belinda: Do you like, you know, ticking off stuff?

Josh: Yeah, so I've started, I've got in my notes now like a to-do list. I've sort of been ticking off that. That sort of works well. Do you, what are the habits that you have created for yourself to make sure that you are being that type A person?

Tommy: And maybe specifically to 2019.

Josh: What did you do this year?

Belinda: Yeah, um, to make sure that I am being that person. Oh, there's a couple of— so, or it also, on the flip side, knowing that I am like that, sure, sometimes I can get buried in emails, for example, whereas I know that that's not really where I should be focusing my— because that's not work. Um, so if I know I need to focus on something, then I'll close the email browser, just make sure that I'm not on it. If I can see it and I can see something coming through, I find it very hard not to cheque it. Yeah, yeah. Or even respond to it right there in the moment. I can't really leave things.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: So I need to just not see it. So close the email browser off and just deep dive. Or quite often I'll print things off as opposed to working. If it's like a white paper or some research, or I'll print it off and just close the lid and actually physically remove myself from device and just get through it, get, get the old highlighter out.

Josh: Do you reckon you'll spend how long a day on email?

Belinda: Oh, it's really hard to calculate that, isn't it?

Josh: So it's not like you don't have— you don't sort of go into defined times where it's like between—

Belinda: no, I don't—

Josh: 11 AM and midday I'm getting back to my email and then I'm gonna do—

Belinda: no, I'm not, I'm not that diligent with batching. And plus, my day is often dictated by like clients' needs as well, or where my meetings sit. So any one day will be quite different from another.

Tommy: What do you think if you did do the batching thing? It sounds great in reality, but do you leave off a whole bunch of jobs?

Belinda: A lot of people do that, right? Like, so they say, okay, between, you know, No, a lot of people actually leave their emails to the end of the day. I've never been— I've never really batched.

Tommy: Do you think it would be beneficial? I've thought about doing it, but then it's like, would you be annoyed? Like, sorry, mate, can't touch it. But I'm doing it anyway.

Josh: But the thing is, I'm doing it anyway. But it's this unintentional, just like, fuck, haven't done email. Like, I don't live in email. I— when I was younger and I was freelancing, especially working just solo on my own. Yeah, it was always email, right? Because that was the only way that you're corresponding.

Belinda: Well, it's an important part of what I do. Yeah, absolutely. Because you have to just, you know, respond to clients and make sure you're on top of things. And also that's part of your brand is how quickly you can respond and resolve issues and consult and all that sort of stuff. Um, so I do spend quite a bit of time there, but I don't know how you could kind of— because it's always What's those micro things, right?

Josh: Yeah, well, because that's what I feel is like, um, yeah, sometimes I appreciate the short shot, like someone that's just sends a, yeah, sounds great or whatever.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: Whereas I think I over-engineer where I've like, if I've gotten a long email, I'm like, need to go through and do dot points. Yeah, yeah, I think that there is something in the quicker approach of just first thought go type of thing where I think my go-to is I read an email and then I'm like, this requires more than 30 seconds. Leave it for another time.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Then another email comes and that's the same thing.

Belinda: And so you're good at— so if you leave it for another time, do you, do you always go back to it?

Josh: Well, it's— I don't archive it, so I try and I live in a world that is— yeah. So it's— I live in an inbox zero world, but the inbox is never zero. But the thing is, so I can, like the other, like yesterday I got to an email that I, a chain that was like from September, which is pretty, like it's a long period of time. The funny thing is I'm like, sorry for the delay. And they're like, oh, we know it's a busy time of year. I'm like, this was from September. But yeah, I think there is, I definitely see that there, but there is a probably, it's hard because say with the Daily Talk Show, this is on that branding piece. We get a bunch of emails.

Belinda: Do you guys have separate inboxes for Daily Talk Show and Big Media?

Tommy: Hi@thedailytalkshow.com. Yeah, but that's where we—

Belinda: but one inbox.

Josh: Yeah, so they all sit within our— the context of our email clients. We see them as one.

Belinda: Yes.

Josh: And so there has been that conversation throughout the year of like, hey, do we— what are we doing with— yeah, what are we doing with email? Like, hi@thedailytalkshow, like I'm just going to start archiving them because I want to sort of keep things clean. Yeah, but it's also that thing of, um, so the brand— this is what we're trying to work out, I guess, from an internal communications point of view, the brand value of being great at comms and getting back to people. And I don't think that we've necessarily— our thoughts— normally what happens is if it's— if we're not sure if we're like trying to work it out, if it requires too much friction, it doesn't get dealt with, right? Because it's like, okay, we don't have anything that is actually of value for this person. But I think there is something in potentially getting good at— here's an— maybe not even a template, but here's a quick response that we can send so it's done and it feels— it's actually—

Belinda: well, it is a template, isn't it? It's, it's your default response for those sorts of scenarios or queries that don't fit. Yeah. Where you just go, okay, this is our, this is how we, because otherwise, I mean, that, that could potentially save you a couple of hours a week.

Josh: Well, also it's not even a couple of hours a week. I find with these things, it's the residual.

Belinda: It's the cognitive.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: It's a thing of like, oh, I've got that.

Belinda: Reduce the cognitive load. Yeah, for sure.

Tommy: On the other side, the benefit to the brand of a touchpoint, the person that never got back versus the person that just said, Hey, sorry, we're on a project and can't work on that for you, but any other time, love to speak to you.

Belinda: You know, again, back in Two Times U days, we used to have so many requests for sponsorship. You know, I'm doing this charity fun run, I'm climbing this mountain, I'm doing this, that, and the other. And you can't have a bespoke answer for every single person. To a degree, yes, you can tweak it. But there needs to be some sort of efficiency to your comms for sure.

Josh: I think there's definitely something in that. 2020, what are you trying to get better at?

Belinda: Um, so I, I've had the pleasure and the privilege of working with a coach for the first time in the last couple of months, and that's been really interesting. So he, um Clint Bizzle, um, former, former AFL player, now resilience leadership coach. And he is also trained in Enneagram personality profiling. I don't know if you guys have heard about Enneagram. So, um, up until this year, I've always kind of resisted the whole personality profiling thing quite, quite a lot. Have you guys done it?

Tommy: I've done it before. Yeah, I did it when I was doing the coaching.

Mason: Course.

Tommy: My wife has just done it and she's obsessed.

Belinda: What, what?

Tommy: I'll tell you, she just sent me her stuff. I'll just tell you the brand or whatever.

Josh: Mine was the D— what's the—

Belinda: like Myers-Briggs? Yeah. Okay.

Josh: So I did that when I was working at the fire brigade in the media department and I was like a trainee.

Tommy: Facet 5, Facet 5 testing. She's actually sent me her one and this woman who specialises in it, she's like, we should both do it. And then they sort of just Talk to us about—

Belinda: it was quite fascinating what we're doing. So I have resisted it a lot in my career and in my personal life in the past. I think because from a personal branding perspective, I've always been very wary about people holding on to narratives or, you know, it might be 5, 6, 7 years ago and you've been given some feedback by— it might be a manager, it might be a person in your life that told you that you were X and you've somehow hung on to that over the last however many years and sort of thought, well, that's not me because I am this, you know. And I think some, some people more than others can kind of end up prescribing to a certain narrative. I'm a bit wary. It's funny, I don't read horoscopes for the same reason. Because I feel like knowing me, I will just cling on to it. It's like, even though I don't really believe in, um, that kind of stuff, I feel like I know my personality would sort of hold on to things that I've read.

Josh: What about if the things that you read served you though?

Belinda: So that's something that I, through this process, um, so the Enneagram personality profiling, I think it comes out with 12 different models. So you take a 45 to 50 minute online survey and it's all— it's quite an interactive— how do you describe it when it sort of changes?

Josh: Choose your own adventure. It's a dynamic.

Belinda: It's dynamic. So in terms of the way it dishes up your questions, it does it live based on, you know, the answers that you're spitting in. So as on, on the back of, off the back of the answers that I gave through this process, a week later my report came back and it was like a 38 to 40 page document that really stepped you through everything from, you know, your strengths and weaknesses to like your defaults, how you manage other people, good other personalities within the spectrum that you complement, that complement your personality, that particular traits that might be challenging for you. And I, for the first time, I read this through in, in high detail and found it incredibly telling in terms of the why behind my behaviours and why I do things So I think for the first time I was really starting to question the motivations, like the deep motivations behind my defaults.

Josh: Did it feel like it, it could be less personal? Like you, you could read it and consume it because it was something you put in the input data. Yeah. And then it is sort of in a nonjudgmental way come out with, hey, this is the, this is because really you put, you inputted.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: The information and it's just come back with it rather than say the emotional stuff that comes with doing a 360 review where people are providing feedback.

Belinda: Like anecdotal?

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: Um, I didn't really think about it that, um, do you think you're good with feedback normally? Like if someone gives you feedback within the context of sort of, you know, work or Yeah, I think so.

Belinda: I mean, I always take it quite personally. I'm always, I'm always interested in, in feedback and I'm always interested in growing and learning. But I think what I've learned about myself over the last few months has been quite significant and the way in which small daily behaviours have changed my approach to work and my outputs as a result have been quite exponential.

Josh: What was the most telling thing?

Belinda: What, um, I'm— so my personality is by nature a real giver. Um, I like to give, give, give. And there was also, I think I started to question, oh, there's, um, a real insight around what, what is the motivation behind that giving? Is it actually because you're trying to value-add for other people, or is it more about what you're getting back yourself internally? And what also, what are the expectations that you're— you have as a result of that giving? Like, does it come with something? Um, and I'd never thought so deeply about what my expectations were as a result of giving. Um, and I do it a lot through— by nature of my work professionally, but also personally, um, because I enjoy it, you know. I enjoy giving things and going over and above. And so in terms of from a client and a business perspective is, um, being a lot more cognizant and wary about over-delivering all the time, because I think we can often live in that place, especially, you know, living a kind of consultant life, is making sure that you are showing that you're delivering good value.

Josh: It's a protective mechanism because like if I provide more value than I think I should be giving, yeah, then I can go to bed every night knowing that what I charge when I show up in the world, I'm all good.

Belinda: Yeah, because I think one of my deepest fears is I would hate for a client to feel like they haven't gotten good value or they've been shortchanged. Or so there's this constant, I'll just give a bit more, bit more, bit more. But how, how long do you keep doing that before it actually ends up ham— you're being hamstrung? And it can also compromise your earning capacity because you're giving too many hours. It can also burn you out. And also, and it just, you're looking for validation through that giving too much, I think. So just in terms of 2019, probably learning a lot more about truly how to work smarter rather than harder, I think.

Tommy: What does that look like for you?

Belinda: Um, being really measured about how much energy I put into my work often. Um, and also being— so we came up with this kind of the, the core takeaway for me was being a master of protecting the motherfucking asset, which is yourself, right? So especially as a, as a, yeah, as a consultant when you're running your own business, it— if you're not feeling great yourself or feeling depleted, ultimately that's going to manifest in your work and you're not going to be delivering the best work. So you have to self-care like a boss when you run your own business, basically, and you have to treat that as important as your client work. I know that sounds incredibly simple and, um, almost It just, it is probably one of the most powerful insights, I suppose. And it's, it's okay to say that, but to actually deliver on that insight is something quite different. So learning how to respect yourself as much as you respect the work and the clients, um, I mean, you guys would— do you struggle with that at all?

Tommy: Is it listening to your body? Is that what in essence it is.

Belinda: It's, it's not just you. Yeah, it's your, it's not just your body, it's your mind as well. As, um, so you have to create, create time for. So there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of, um, sort of discourse out there at the moment around, um, you know, professionals or executive as athlete as well. So in terms of high performance coaching in that E-suite, C-suite space is treating rest and recovery like you are an athlete. Because to build a sustainable career, truly sustainable one, and a sustainable life, we need to be taking out— taking care of ourselves and putting more rules in place, you know, around technology, around how many hours of sleep you're getting. You know, do you want to, you want to be going longer, stronger for longer, as opposed to just go, go, go right here, right now. Because if I'm burnt out, I don't have any sick leave. I don't have any, like, you know, I can't take sick leave or stress leave or whatever. So no one else is going to get the work done.

Tommy: But you have a hamper.

Belinda: Got the hamper.

Josh: Yeah, I think it's interesting because when you, especially being in the branding space, you have, as you sort of said with the email, your brand is that you get back to people, to people really quickly. Yeah. And so there's a part of me which my approach to email is self-preservation.

Mason: Yes.

Josh: And so like from a consistency, and that's why I always find Type A And that's an interesting thing because I think that in some areas I'm really Type A, but then—

Belinda: What sort of areas?

Josh: I think around consistency. So saying like, say with the— if I'm, if I know, if I've got an idea and I know that it's going to serve the future, I think I can put in effort for a long period of time. So like the idea of the daily talk show being you know, doing it 7 days and doing all that sort of thing. And that's, that's where I think that comes in. However, I also prioritise and drop everything else. So I've got that focus, potentially obsession, where I could obsess about something. Uh, but it's—

Belinda: yeah, do you think it's selective obsession though?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so there's, there's something— I think that there's probably So if I was good at email, what does it mean to be good at it?

Belinda: I was just going to say that. Yeah.

Josh: And so good at email is being quick at responding.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: Efficiency, timeliness.

Josh: Exactly.

Belinda: Personalization, resolution.

Josh: All of those things where I'm like, okay, so I go through moments where I like, where I say I want to be the best at email. Like, let's like, because the thing is that one of the strong values for me is communication and strong relationships. Yeah. However, the thing that I find is the email doesn't necessarily hold the deep relationships that I'm seeking. I think that like the common sort of idea that phones are bad or whatever, I think actually I reckon phone calls are the new in-person. Like I think that there's so much power in, okay, I've got I'm filling my favourites list on my iPhone of like, these are people who I'm going to speak to weekly. I'm just going to call them.

Belinda: That's an interesting one. Do you guys— because I think in today's day and age, you'd probably only have maybe a handful of people in your life who, you know, are— they're a, they're a caller, they're a phone person.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: Are you guys phone people, as in will call as opposed to text?

Tommy: I mean, I've got my, my best mates and some that I have always been callers with.

Belinda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: We used to just always catch up on the phone. He loves a good chat. I love a good chat. We just chat. It's just a couple of blokes chatting, having a little gossip.

Belinda: You still do it?

Tommy: Yeah. He lives down the coast now, so it's the only way we text every now and then. But I sometimes we just randomly chat. Yeah, but I appreciate it.

Mason: Yeah.

Belinda: So in terms of the brand, are you guys— it's an interesting—

Josh: we need to get good at email as a The Daily Talk Show operation. So for instance, like the calendar, like we've automated that where it's like sending a calendar request to someone, they get all the details. But the, the next level, I don't think it's necessarily me with the skill set that I have to do it, but I think that we need to be across every email and sending out just that systems and processes thing. Exactly. And so just especially with the more and more sort of PR opportunities that we get with brands and things like that. It sort of compounds.

Belinda: So what's going to be your vetting procedure? And yeah, what are all those kind of templates that you're going to have in place?

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: I mean, you could write that as your holiday work, Josh.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: Yeah. What's the list of templates?

Tommy: That's someone's job. Someone has to be on the receiving end of that.

Josh: Well, it's, I guess there's a, there's a, I guess we need to work out, okay, what's important.

Belinda: You could have the templates ready to go and then any of you could just use it. Do you know what I mean?

Josh: And so it shouldn't be hard. The hilarious thing about these things is they're, they're actually once they're ready and being implemented, they're not that difficult. It's just a very specific choice of this is, this is the rule. And so the thing is, if your rule is by 6 p.m. every evening, the inbox is empty. Yeah, that's like a very easy thing to make sure that like then it never becomes an issue.

Belinda: Yeah. So exactly. But it's, it's, it's an interesting test for your brand around what are, what is our rulebook? What does it look like?

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: So what does it mean? You know, what, what does efficient comms look like to you? Does it mean a 24-hour response rate? Does it mean 48-hour? Does it mean actually we're going to call everyone that comes on the show for a 15-minute briefing or What's the debrief look like? And when we send out, you know, the assets post-show, what's that email going to look like? And how can we formalise some of the stuff that we're kind of doing by nature now? Maybe not some of the stuff that we are and we're not. So good segue. Looking back on 2019 and you guys as a brand, what are some of the biggest learnings? Have you, have you had time to sort of take stock?

Tommy: And yeah, I think you need to do a whole bunch to work out where the focus should be. So the email thing is only because the show's got bigger. We've had more inbound.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: So until we work out that, you can, you could obsess over it before you get the inbound, which doesn't really give it the, the tangible feel of when you actually start having it come in. But yeah, 2019, it's just, it's been a year of learning for us, understanding what it actually means to build an audience. We've worked with so many brands catering to their audience or understanding what we should be creating for them to target a specific type of audience. But then there's, there's something in actually starting to have people listen and get a consistent group of people.

Belinda: Have you done my brain just pinged. Have you done a—

Tommy: Ding dong.

Belinda: Like a reflective, like a content analysis to look at? These are all the kinds of hosts that we've had and these are all the different industries that we've touched in the conversations.

Josh: Yeah, it's definitely— so that's where, like we were talking the other day about getting someone who's a data scientist who wants— because we've got like there's very few shows in the world that are doing that are doing audio, that are doing, like we transcribe through, you know, AI or whatever, all of the episodes. So we have, we can do things like, Mr. Nice7 can look up specific topics. You can see, you know, word clouds and all that sort of thing.

Belinda: Yeah, great.

Josh: Yeah, there's definitely, so for instance, one of them is like Sundays. So the thing that, so we have put our assumptions to the test. One of the assumptions that we had was around podcasts tend to get people on once they have a deep conversation and that's it. What happens if you're doing a show for 10 years and you have the same people on multiple times? What happens if it's not about Tommy or I and it's about everything else that's around it? So Scooter Derek being, you know, AU79 at the event he's got a, he's built, building a character within the community that we have, which then gives us more opportunities for creativity. So it means that if we are doing a live show, we can actually throw to him and people have buy-in. Got it. So there's, there's that side of things around the, the Sunday stuff and the data. What we are working towards is exporting out all of the data that we have over the past 2 years working out days. Let's work out what days are doing best.

Mason: Yep.

Josh: Working out. We can do stuff like the difference between a listener and a download so we can see, okay, the average listener is listening to 3 episodes a week or things like that. But yeah, we're constantly, I think.

Belinda: What about time of day?

Josh: Yeah. So time of day, it's hard because of like geography and people being different areas. 70% of our audience are Australian. And then 70% of that, 70% are based in Melbourne. So I think that it's fair to say that at the beginning we were sort of going for more of a global thing. We've actually probably narrowed in to let's nail what we can do in Melbourne and in Australia.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: And then the question is, what, what do you do with this data? So if we, we aren't the people that can understand this, or have the time to put in to really sort of spit out the other side the exact information. What do you do with it? And this is what someone said this to us before. Are you looking at all these things, drop-off rate? But there is an element of it's like, yes. So you, your assumption is if you listen to that and you act on the data, the feedback, it will in turn give you some other result.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: So it will increase listenership. That has to be the assumption based on someone encouraging you to look at the data, look at the data.

Josh: I think there's a difference though between looking at something at a weekly level and a yearly level, right?

Belinda: So I mean, the more data you have, the more powerful it is.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: But I think the tricky thing is when you're looking at data and you're doing content analysis, is it, is it the day of the podcast that worked? Was it the guest you had? Was it the time of day? Was it all the other stuff that was trending online at that point in time? Yeah.

Tommy: And the platform itself increasing. So that's what I—

Belinda: is it growing the category? You know, is it the fact that podcasts in general, it can just keep growing and growing, or is that—

Tommy: is it a sex tape Josh released?

Josh: There's definitely patterns, right? What?

Tommy: It's coming 2020.

Josh: 2020. No, there's definitely patterns, I think. And so like, I think that we can look at that. I think that I'm more definitely—

Belinda: so broad. Yeah. Okay. So broad themes or patterns or takeaways from 2019 in terms of the brand.

Josh: So like, I think, uh, the patterns. So what I love about what we do from a brand perspective is the guests are fairly broad, but they all have something in common. Like, I think there is a through line.

Belinda: So what is that commonality?

Josh: I think the commonality is a willingness to walk up here and come on the show. I think if you are willing to do that, you're already ticking some form of box, which is okay with ambiguity. Yeah, because it's not that 15 minutes. So by design, not having a 15-minute call beforehand.

Belinda: But I love that. That's like, that's almost like a value, right? Okay with ambiguity, like literally capturing that and formalising that and owning that.

Josh: Yeah. Like Ann Droul, who we had on, who we did the improv with where she was going back into her CNN days and doing all that sort of thing. Like to be able to enter it, you could have so many different news anchors.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: With completely different personalities, but people loved that episode and they really enjoyed what she brought to the table because she just had a few sets of values, which is just showing up, leaning in. Same with Michael Bungay Stanier. It's like we do coach live coaching with Harry. And so I think that that's the, the thread for everyone. But then it's also, it's about bringing in people who are very contrasting, you know, in sort of personalities. So you have people who are high performance business, uh, let's talk numbers, diversity in talent and diversity in storey and experience and so forth.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: And so that's another element of it. Um, then yeah, outside of that, I think it is the, like, what people like Mr. 97 brings, or what Harry brings, or what 3D Deal brings, or what what Queen Gronkh brings. Like all these different people who have become the show, I think is like in 2020, I think that's the exciting thing. It's like, you look at all the people that we've had involved in the show, these are all like new relationships. And so think about like where the power is in 12 months' time. What's your external, like, well, I guess you're in the community too. So there is that element, but what do you, what's your input?

Belinda: I think community is hugely important to you guys. I was reading an article, a— it was Harvard Business Review. Denise Yoon is the author. She, she writes one of some of the best brand articles and does a lot of research around branding. And she came up with— this is just this week— a 9-point model or a framework of 9 different types of brands and I was thinking about you guys when I was reading, and she sort of, I think the Nine were around, I'm not going to remember them all.

Josh: Can you bring it up, Seb?

Mason: What was her name again? Denise?

Belinda: Denise Yeon, I think.

Josh: It was Nine brand.

Belinda: It wasn't called that. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, you probably cheque out my activity, and then there would have been an article.

Mason: I think I found Denise.

Belinda: Oh, well done, Harvard, mate.

Tommy: He's good.

Belinda: Business Review, ping ping. Good people, um, surroundings. So some of them were—

Mason: so I'm going to say, um, like a disruptor, experience, brand, um, uh, disruptive, conscious, service, loving, innovative, value, performance, luxury, style, and experience.

Tommy: I counted, there was 9. I've got my fingers, got my fingers.

Belinda: So for me, experience was a big one for you guys. And then I think you've got a little bit of, a little bit of disruptor in there as well because you are a challenger brand in a way, I think. How would you identify with those?

Tommy: I like those.

Josh: Yeah.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: And the disruptor definitely, because I think like where we are obviously doing within the space of of new media, not really a— I think this is what we do.

Belinda: But you're not disrupting the category.

Josh: So we bring old and new together, right? And so by bringing both of them together, it's like the people who aren't meant to be behind the mic.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: So it's like within the podcast context, having Jason PJ, who are a breakfast radio show in Melbourne, and having so much fun with them.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: Or Ben Fordham in Sydney. These things this is where that contrast comes in.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: And so we are— I think that that's where it is. It's borrowing the old, like, because I guess that a disruptor could sometimes be seen as isolating themselves from what has been convention.

Belinda: Convention. Yeah.

Josh: And I think what we're trying to do is bring convention in because we understand that they've been doing heaps of things right.

Belinda: Yes.

Josh: But then once we have that convention, disrupts. Yeah, disrupted.

Belinda: Yeah. On the show, was there one in there, Miss 97, around, um, learning, like, ah, learning mindset? I think, or not even one of the types, but I think in terms of, um, defining— I think that's a big one for me in terms of you guys and your interest in ongoing learning and that growth mindset. And I mean, you, you're just sponges. You seem like there's that incredible curiosity all the time. Um, going back to what you were saying before, Josh, around kind of marrying old, old school and new school, or tradition with innovation, is, is almost creating regularly creating those friction points. And because I think that's where the magic happens, right? When you're kind of like, oh, well, this is, yeah, this is an interesting perspective and let's play with that. And this is the way it has been, has always generally been done. But we're going to try it this way and we're going to book some tickets to LA and just go throw ourselves in an environment and we'll work it out later.

Tommy: Unconventional structure. So We've had a bunch of people say, I liked the difference in the structure of that, whether it's no structure or structure. I mean, no structure becomes a thing that we do that then becomes the way we structure it.

Belinda: But the irony being that it is incredibly structured because it's that 7-day format and that you are showing up like there's the structure.

Josh: It's the silence strategy that we always talk about, which is like we're sort of— and that's why, like, I'm actually, I think, really good with feedback from people around understanding where we sit when people provide feedback. Like, say for instance, you know, going to family Christmas or whatever, and my auntie's like, oh yeah, you know, so-and-so doesn't listen because you swear. I'm like, that's okay. And so they're like, so their answer is don't swear.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: And my answer is it's like, it's not for them.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: And so, and the thing is you could easily say, you could definitely say, All right, Tommy and Josh, if you don't swear, you could gain 20% more people listening, right? But I think that within this space, within the disruption, I think we are being true versions of ourselves. And so maybe we'll swear less, maybe as individuals we'll grow, maybe by the time we're in our late 30s or whatever, things will change.

Belinda: But isn't that breadth rather than depth? Depth rather than breadth. Like it's, you're building a more sustainable, deep, rich, strong brand.

Josh: Well, because it's us and it's like, that's why we can have Ash Williams on the show and then we could have a serious executive.

Belinda: Yeah, you could do a million other things to get more likes. You know, it's like that. Any brand wanting the here and now quick wins as opposed to, well, yeah, we could do that, but doesn't mean that that's true to our brand and that's not going to be sustainable and that's not going to build a community that's going to stay with us for the next 5 to 10 years. And it's not going to differentiate ourselves. So one trip overseas per year, is that the commitment?

Tommy: Oh, I'd like more, to be honest.

Josh: I think probably two. I reckon every 6 months. But I mean, it depends. So what we discovered, so part of our learnings was the daily talk show is a beast. And it can take huge amounts of time. Even though we feel that we can show up and do it, there is the residual thing where it's like, say, uh, say with this one we're pre-recording it because, you know, um, we're going to take a small period of time between sort of Chrissy and, uh, you know, the 6th or whatever. Uh, so we're doing, you know, 3 in a day, you know, today, or there might be, um just the explaining to people or communicating what we do can be difficult.

Belinda: So good. So, so the deck you guys prepared before you went to LA.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: Did you find that quite a challenge in terms of— because that can be one of the most powerful ways to force you to define and capture your brand and the value of your brand.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: So tell me about that process.

Tommy: Well, I think if you say specifically to what Belinda is talking about is a deck or a proposal for sponsorship of the show while we're away. And so I take— if you take it one step back and look at the process of creating a deck or creating anything that communicates, formalize, formalize, communicates to you, it's like the biggest thing is just doing something.

Belinda: Yes.

Tommy: Like having AIDA or doing the process once doesn't even matter what it is. Because what I think the learning is, it just, it starts solidifying thinking and testing assumptions and working out what you think it is and what other people think it is.

Belinda: So you have to articulate it.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: You literally have to capture it. It forces that discipline of sort of saying, okay, well, why should anyone else care?

Mason: Yeah.

Belinda: You know, what, what do we have that is valuable and how can we, how can we target people? Who do we want to target? And I think you— it was interesting reading through it because I think there was some magic missing that is hard to capture unless you actually do a real— because it can take time. Quite often you have to do a full deep dive in terms of you know, what is our special sauce and what makes us, our brand different. And even talking about those regular friction points and what do we say before around the whole being okay with ambiguity and, you know, one day we might have, you know, Seth Godin, the next day we have Linda Wall. We're okay with all ends of the spectrum. But I think that is your magic, you know, and not being afraid to say this is who we are and we don't have all the answers just yet, but we're like this kind of wild work in progress and that's what makes us awesome.

Josh: Hard to put in a deck, I reckon. Like one of the things that part of it is—

Belinda: does it have to be a deck?

Josh: Yeah, well, I don't think so. Also, it's brand, right?

Belinda: So make freaking video. Yeah.

Josh: And so I think for us where it's at, like, because we like say we do our sort of pump up sort of pre-500 the video, and that does quite well in regards to people enjoy it. I think that one of the nuances is, uh, 2019, uh, was messy for us based on, uh, contrasting goals or objectives. And so not being able to align the thing that you're spending most of your time on with financial outcomes. And so you're running a business over here that's doing one thing.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: But you are putting huge amounts of brand equity into this thing. And so part of it, I think, is that what we were seeking within that document was tidy, right? We wanted a clear, easy answer that could communicate to people who don't necessarily know us, but they can see it and understand it. Yeah. I think what we learned through that process is, I mean, if we're, if we're asking of our guests to play in ambiguity, we need to be okay with ambiguity going forward. So it's not going to be tidy. So I think that's the first thing. But I guess one of the values we're looking at is, if you can even call it, I guess, outlook, is diversification of revenue. So looking at, so for instance, with that document that was really based on, the biggest problem with that document was we worked out how much money we need to make, and then we reverse engineered it into a document, which we've never done business like that before. It's always about like, what's the problem that the client has? How can, how can we solve it? We know that in the future, in 5 years' time, what the Daily Talk Show has in regards to community and all those, you know, media products will have the impact that we actually can give the proper amount of value. Yeah.

Belinda: So what are the proof points that you need to build up to get there?

Josh: I think that, well, the proof points are in the like performance marketing. So it's like, it's the basic, the basic thing of, and this is what our friends Shameless do really well. It's like advertise in our show, it costs X amount and you'll get X return. Here's a case study. I don't think that we're in a position yet to do that in a big way. And so what we're talking about is when we were looking at initially, it was like, okay, charging $1,000 an episode, right? Based on this is how much it costs to keep the lights on and do all that sort of stuff. The reality is that when you look at CPMs, if you actually look at it just very transactional, it's like, okay, we could, we could sell it for $120 or something an episode.

Belinda: So it's really interesting around, you know, in terms of, say, 2020 trends with Instagram, as we've seen, a lot of micro-influencers are having— I'm just— my brain's just spinning after you said this. Micro-influencers are having a greater, I guess, return value for brands than, say, the macro-influencers and the huge ones. So in a similar vein, it's like, well, how can we potentially work with micro advertisers?

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: And in order to literally build up our proof points to say, okay, well, let's just, let's just get this, get a, get a run on the board. And then so we have a case study in 12 months' time to say we worked with a sponsor that gave us $10.

Tommy: Yeah.

Belinda: And that's all they could afford. Now they're, now they are, you know, so you could literally just use it as an experiment to build a case study and build a narrative. To support your case. And it doesn't have to be huge dollars.

Josh: Well, that's it.

Belinda: It's about, yeah, okay, we played in this micro advertising space because we wanted to see where it went and where we could take a brand and what kind of storeys we could tell for them and audiences they could reach.

Tommy: When you don't understand how to do it, you— it's a natural thing to look to how other people are doing it, but then that isn't necessarily how you should do it.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: So then you have to then be up for getting stuff wrong. So if you try someone else's approach or an approach that is consistent to the landscape, advertising, CPM, cost per thousand listeners is X amount of dollars. It does.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: You've got to be okay with not having the answer or having a crack at it, like being totally wrong.

Belinda: And I think that's, that's a core takeaway for you guys to say, this is our approach and we've got to find advertisers, potential commercial partners that culturally are going to fit that model.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: That are really okay with ambiguity, that are willing to give this model a go and that can kind of get in the rumble with us. It's going to get a bit messy and let's just give it a crack.

Josh: Well, it's also like I think we've taken an all or nothing approach previously. And so there is the in-between. And so for instance, like say if average we need to make $30,000 a month just to sort of pay our salaries, do all that sort of thing, not paying ourselves ridiculous amounts, paying for the lease expenses, all that sort of thing. Traditionally what we've done is we've said, okay, let's, uh, uh, we might get 2 or 3 video jobs which pays for that per month. And so then that the extension was, okay, we, uh, we're missing opportunities based on spending so much energy on that that we haven't been able to give The Daily Talk Show, a red-hot crack in regards to making it financially.

Belinda: You know, there could be even other ways that you decide to shake up the model. So, you know, in terms of brand mashables, that's a way of calling them, or things that you want to own, you've built up this idea around Fat Fridays, right? So it's like, well, okay, well, how can we— maybe we want to sell a Fat Friday a month.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: And let's actually make that a thing?

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: And how do we then— what does that mean to sell a Fat Friday? Like, we're going to sell out? Well, it doesn't need to feel like you're selling out. It's just another— it's just a way of commercialising the brand. So one Friday a month, what— maybe it might be every Fat Friday, whoever wants to pay for it. Yeah. Let's build an experience and let's talk about it in a way that's kind of true and authentic and a little bit wild and a little bit kind of gronky, then who are the kinds of people that we might chase down for this whole idea of like a paid Fat Friday? Or maybe we take it to the streets or we do this or that or the other. So I think thinking outside the box can be whatever you want it to be.

Josh: What do you think, TJ, in regards to the fact— because that's something I think you've spoken a lot about before, what's the, what's the bit to get it for us to get it done, do you think? Or to try those types of things?

Tommy: I mean, the commercial viability of things, if it being called FAT is feedback I've received from people, not specifically the brand itself, but other people. Not to say, I reckon that's probably like a, I feel like potential.

Belinda: I think part of it too is called PHAT.

Tommy: Cool Friday.

Josh: Yeah, I don't think that potentially like rejection or what our, our—

Belinda: their brand wouldn't be afraid.

Tommy: Of course not. Right. And so you take that on and you go, is that correct? Well, I don't think so. I think anyone who has specific feedback about what's right or wrong isn't necessarily right or wrong. It's their perspective on something.

Josh: So yeah, that is— is that the stopper though? Do you think?

Tommy: No, not at all. But it's just a thought. And so yeah, I mean, I've thought it's definitely a winner in that respect.

Josh: And so if we were giving advice to people, because we see like— because that's a perfect example where there's a bunch of things that like knowing isn't doing. And I guess that's like most people's frustrations in life is like, we know we should be doing this or doing that.

Belinda: Back to my personality profile.

Josh: Yeah, but we're, but we're not doing it. And that's a great example for us. How do we, um what are the actions or what are the steps or how do you reconcile that? Oh yeah, we are doing it. So then we become sort of immune to the first no that we get. Because I think that we've given a lot of things a go, but it's normally we at the first hurdle or the first point of friction, we then think, fuck, maybe it's not right. Maybe this is the market. Maybe this is the market telling us we don't have the right thing. Which is funny because we don't do that with our content. With the show, we're very clear on this is the value we're going to bring.

Belinda: How do you— do you both have a shared kind of appetite for risk, or are you quite different on that front?

Tommy: Um, shared appetite for risk, I mean, it's— I think they're different. Yeah, just very much in the way we assess what even a risk is. And so Yeah, I mean, we've both taken big risks to do this, and whether one feels more anxious about that specific risk or not, I don't know. It's just been— it is what it is because we're on the same path.

Mason: So it's—

Tommy: you could say that you both then deal with the risk in your own way, whether it is registering or not.

Belinda: My role in terms of those decisions around, uh, I'm not sure if this is working, do we do we stay the course or do we opt out now?

Josh: My— I feel like the biggest risks is normally things that we're not doing versus things that we are doing.

Belinda: Okay.

Josh: So I think that that's where I always am placed. So it's very rare, even like the amount of people that would say, I have— have you thought about not doing weekends and just doing 5 days again? And I'm pretty clear on why we're doing it, what the vision is in regards to the touch points.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: That's where things like, where things do stretch is it's like we're testing it and saying, okay, well, like if, if we're asking on Instagram and there's only 10% of people who listen every single episode and the main majority put sort of at the slider of that sort of 5 to 6 episodes, what is it? What's the audience telling us? What do they need? What do they want? How do we serve them? And so from a risk point of view, that's what I think about is like, okay, the risk of not doing a wrap-up show or the risk of not doing this or not doing that. The, I think that's because it's cemented on that idea of Parkinson's law that you fill the time that you have allocated to it. And so for most, like I think Mr. 97's a great example of this. He's been able to think about like 6 months ago, your thoughts around social media and what you could do versus like, you know, we would go days where we wouldn't post and now 97's doing, you know, 6 posts a day and being consistent and keeping that all up. So I believe that if you get the right processes in place, you can make it happen.

Belinda: It's a lesson in showing up, right? Like you've just got to— and social's really like that. I think on most platforms it's just the more you you put out there, the more you're going to get back. Yeah. Um, interesting trends around Instagram for 2020 is this shift towards longer captions. And so a lot more people, I think, will— we're going to see is shifting away from the whole picture first, content second thing. Um, I've, I've already noticed, I don't know if you guys have, a lot the length of posts are getting a lot longer.

Josh: Definitely.

Belinda: Yeah. And a little bit more considered. So I think that will actually separate a lot of the wheat from the chaff in terms of who has, especially for influencers, who— or it might even create another layer of work there for copywriters and content developers, but who can really produce creative, considered content that is more than just a, a beautiful photo and how you're going to tell your brand storey and how you're going to have that consistency in messaging and so forth. I think that that'll be really interesting.

Josh: The words are powerful too, like our most best performing posts are text.

Mason: Yeah.

Belinda: People are reading that. Yeah, absolutely.

Josh: And so I think that you can get a message quickly, you know, you can communicate something very quickly. Yeah. But also to the point of the caption being able to say, okay, here's the photo and then giving it the context. That's like if we're in this world of sort of people enjoying the in-joke and the meta-ness of what we're doing, then being able to compare and contrast those two things and maybe being a bit ironic or a little bit sort of playing into the form format.

Belinda: I think that's it. Um, it's, you know, hats off to you guys. I think people really want to be part of this thing that you're building, so they want to know the backstory. And I think that if you're going to test, you know, how much they want in, you could really go deep with that.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: Um, and I think that's, that's one of the, the greatest strengths of the brand that you're building is this kind of the community side of things, and, um, it is one that is quite deep and rich and people really want in. So the more and more you give them in terms of, um, the juice and the narrative, and, um, I think people just keep eating it up.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Can you look up the definition of a cult? Because that's sounding pretty culty to me, and I'm loving it.

Josh: Absolutely loving it.

Belinda: Gronkh calls. Hey, have you noticed Seth Godin coming next year?

Mason: Yes.

Josh: Yeah, it's very exciting.

Belinda: I'm going to try and get him on the show.

Josh: It would be great.

Tommy: Imagine Seth in the middle here.

Josh: Well, it would be a highlight.

Belinda: So I do work with Karen Beattie, who heads up the Growth Faculty, who's bringing them out.

Josh: Did they bring out Simon Sinek as well?

Belinda: They certainly are. Yeah.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: Pretty amazing. So the Growth Faculty—

Belinda: Let's try to pull it off.

Tommy: Yeah, that'd be great.

Josh: So what's that? What is the Growth Faculty? Because I've seen them pop up a bit.

Tommy: So like Success Resources?

Belinda: They are an events and content platform, so they're event producers and they bring out the best thought leaders in the world to, to Australia, but also New Zealand. They've just launched in Singapore, so they had the Obamas, both the Obamas speaking there over the weekend.

Josh: Do you know what the business model is? The business model?

Belinda: It's subscription. Okay, and it's largely, uh, B2B, so they've got a lot of corporates that subscribe to their content. They have exclusive content that comes through, and they also have things like, um, so if you, if you're a member, you'll get new books delivered. So it's a lot of, yeah, education, high learning.

Josh: Um, is it a loss leader, the, uh, all these guests, do you think? Like, is a loss leader like a, um like they're not making any cash from it, but it's a brand builder. Like, I wonder about those from the event production side of things.

Belinda: No, I think they've found their profitability. Yeah. Um, their model for profitability. Um, I think you're always going to— some— I'm not going to speak.

Josh: I don't know directly because I always want it because my thought is, okay, if you spend $800,000, it's expensive.

Belinda: Like, producing events is freaking expensive.

Josh: But the thing is, I guess if it's like brands spend a lot of money on marketing. And so if that's the marketing exercise, that's why I think is interesting is it's like, what is the business behind that? Because you think about even, you know, the big companies of the world, the Microsoft, Google, or whatever, of their business, obviously. Um, creates good hype though. Oh, but it's good eyeballs.

Belinda: Yeah, I mean, they, they, they've brought out phenomenal people to Australia. Hillary Clinton, Brené Brown, obviously Simon Sinek. I think Seth Godin, last time he was here was 6 years ago.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: He came for Business Chicks, I think it was.

Tommy: Was he?

Josh: He was there.

Belinda: Seth Godin?

Josh: Yeah. I think that was like, but yeah, I'm pretty sure. I remember, I just remember you having a big—

Tommy: I loved Seth Godin.

Josh: Yeah, I loved Seth Godin. He had a big—

Belinda: Sethy.

Josh: Yeah, he had like a big lapel mic. I just remember saying that on the podcast.

Belinda: But if you bronx, don't get him on the show. I'm very disappointed.

Josh: Yeah, we'll just—

Belinda: Really disappointed.

Josh: In a van, just rock up.

Belinda: I think he's in Melbourne, Mr. 97, in May, maybe.

Josh: Yeah, he's in May.

Tommy: If you can do it once, you can do it again, Josh.

Josh: What? Getting on the show?

Belinda: How long will it have been since you spoke to him?

Tommy: 190 was the last episode we had. So yeah, 3— yeah, over a year ago.

Josh: Yeah. So over time, that would be— it would be getting the 600s in May.

Belinda: So.

Tommy: A year and a bit, a year and a half.

Belinda: Wow.

Josh: So that would be—

Tommy: that's exciting.

Josh: So the, um, like on, on the brand stuff, what is your, your focus of 2020 if you were to describe what you do and who you are and what you— I guess when we define a brand, I think Seth says it's like, you know, what people say when you're not in the room. And I guess that's a reflection of your actions and the things that you do every day. What do you think?

Belinda: What do you want? Do you know one of the biggest takeaways that I have had. I've just finished reading actually Michelle Obama's book Becoming. Have you either of you guys?

Josh: No.

Belinda: I would highly recommend it. It's a brilliant read. And I've now dog-eared my copy because there's lots of great quotes in there. But one of them was if you— and this was, you know, in the scheme of her learnings through campaign trails and so forth. And it was the insight around if you don't take hold of your brand and your identity, then basically the public, the voting public was going to create an identity for you, like they're going to fill that void. And they are going to create one that is more often than not a negative one in that sense. But I think the insight there and personal brand, and I think a lot of people looking at my 2020, I think it's going to involve a lot more work around personal branding and executive coaching around that personal branding piece. And a lot more people are wanting to take control and form a strategy for themselves, whether it be on LinkedIn or online or offline, is that if you're not taking control and ownership of your profile and your brand, then the world is going to create one for you because it already exists.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So if people aren't willing to— because you can think, oh, look, I know, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I'll just work. I'll just do the work.

Belinda: But then your brand is there. Like whether you like it or not.

Tommy: So you may as well take control of it.

Josh: I find it interesting with doing something like the Daily Talk Show. What do you think it does to Tommy and my personal brand?

Belinda: I've often thought about that too.

Tommy: What do you think?

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: What are we thinking?

Josh: What do you get from us?

Belinda: Well, no, I think the question is, what do you want to be known for? And what do you want to be known as? Is it, is it the big media company? Is it the daily talk show? Is it a producer that works across both of those things? Is it something bigger? And that the daily talk show is just the thing that you're delivering now?

Tommy: I mean, I think I used to think about that stuff myself more as an individual solo operator. And then you kind of have to try and put in the— it requires the effort to sort of like almost push that to the side and focus on this new collective thing, bringing your own spin or your— what you can to it. Josh bringing what he can do it. Mr. Nicev's coming in later. And then you see how when you don't work on the personal brand of yourself within the duo, it can get lost a bit because you're now focusing on this collective thing. But you can't disregard the energy it takes to form some new thing collectively.

Belinda: I think, um, you'd be surprised there, because I work with a lot of executives who are in a similar situation whereby they have lots of chapters in their lives, but they may be at a point where they've spent, say, the last 10 to 15 years on what feels like to be, say, a hamster wheel, just doing this thing that they're doing, maybe building a business or working their way up a corporate ladder or what have you, and they've sort of lost, um, lost that time or that discipline of that self-reflection and working out, okay, where do I actually fit in this? What's my role? They've just been on a delivery. Um, so a lot of what I do is actually unpacking the common thread and their personal narrative and going back to, okay, so what are all the things in your career that like, what is the red thread behind it? And even though you may have had different chapters, like you may have been a personal trainer, you might be a host of the daily talk show, you might be a producer for the big media company. Like, what is the actual thing that ties that all together? And that, that is the Tommy Jacket. Basically, it doesn't matter what your thing is that you're delivering right here, right now. That's just today's kind of the current manifestation of what your, your sort of higher purpose or your brand is.

Josh: Is it counterintuitive, or, uh, like, I guess, say for instance, you talk about big media company or the Daily Talk Show, I almost feel from a personal brand perspective maybe slightly detached from those things. So like, obviously, like, the Daily Talk Show, yes, because it's that external thing. But when I think about personal brand, I sort of go into Tommy is the guy that, or Josh is the guy that, rather than— but maybe I'm giving it too much nuance versus what the general public sees. So we're with ourselves, you know, every day as individuals, and so we can create this nuanced approach, whereas it's always funny when you see someone and they like what they pick out, it's like, oh, the Daily Chook, like you do this or you do that.

Tommy: I was just thinking it, it all comes back to someone reflecting on the doing aspect of your past or present. So you're the guy that is always bloody talking, podcasting, you know, it's like it's because we do that.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so I, when I think about past, it's, and maybe things that are missing, it's the doing that I was doing back then that isn't in the now.

Josh: So what aren't you doing?

Tommy: I don't know. I'm just reflecting on it, but I'm just like, if someone says, oh, you're the guy that— they're actually speaking to something that you do.

Mason: Yeah.

Tommy: And so if the person on the hamster wheel for 15 years is actually just— they're actually been doing a whole bunch of stuff, but it might not necessarily connect to the thing that they've wanted to do, wanted to be seen as, wanted to be known as.

Josh: Maybe it's the one-dimensional doing that can also be the issue. So for instance, like the Daily Talk Show, even though there's nuance within the show, it is one-dimensional or whatever. So for me, like saying yes to doing emceeing of a charity gig or things like that is my way of being more than a podcaster or that sort of thing, and more a facilitator.

Belinda: Well, exactly. So for example, your thing might be more around sharing storeys and building experiences between people or building community between people. And you do that through the videos that you produce, you, and edit. You do that through the daily talk show. You do that through emceeing. It's kind of galvanising human storeys and experiences into things that are shareable and enjoyable and challenging and You know, so it's almost—

Josh: so how do you get to that? So that there is sort of like a second thought to the first thought of we're logos or whatever, like at the Daily Talk Show, big media company, Josh works on those sorts of things. What do you need to do, do you think, to become that? So how do you go from being the brand person, say if you work within an organization, say, uh, you're the CEO of a company. Firefox. Yeah, Firefox. And you go from being the CEO of Firefox to the, the person who is at the cutting edge of web security and privacy, but also is building like a platform that's open source, right? Like, I wonder, how do you get— how do you bring the public into the nuance of your personal brand?

Belinda: So I think that comes down to not being afraid to share your whole self no matter what you're doing. So yes, right now you're doing the Daily Talk Show, or you're in— that's one of your most public touchpoints, so to speak. But you also have a million other things going on in your lives. But quite often people feel like the only thing that they can share publicly is what you're doing on the daily talk show because I'm that guy. Well, that's not necessarily true. Like, think about what are the bigger things that you're doing? You know, what are you doing on the weekend to satiate your curiosity for X? Or you're also really nerdy around technology and Is the podcast—

Josh: I mean, because podcast is another beast where it's almost like— so take like the CEO example versus a podcast. The podcast is two personal brands.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: Having friction and then bringing other person, like talking at a very sort of like brandy sort of transactional level potentially. But you've got Tommy's personal brand.

Belinda: Yes.

Josh: Josh's personal brand. And so, and then you've got Belinda's personal brand. And so when Belinda comes in, she is going to bring her perspective and experiences, and then it's our job to interact with that. And so potentially when it's just us as individuals, if we, if something, if we're talking about something, if we're talking about cheese subscriptions, right, you know, monthly subscriptions. Yeah, and so the thing is Do you get to— Jesus, do you get to a point where you know what I'm— what I would be thinking in this moment and what Tommy's thinking? Like, I guess that's personal brand in some ways, which is like throw something at— like, so when a guest— if we have a guest that comes in and you hear the guest say something, I guess we want to get to a point where people say, well, we'll think Tommy's going to ask this right now, and then it it happens.

Belinda: I think, well, that comes down to your character and your reputation for, say, you know, we were reflecting before about Ash Williams episode and I said, oh, you just didn't let him go, Josh. You just kept challenging him with that question and you were quite dogged in your approach. And that, that is something people would remember you for in terms of your character. Yeah.

Tommy: You can't help but do anything else.

Belinda: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah. So it's real brand.

Belinda: That's, but that's your strong, that's your thing.

Josh: Yeah, you know, so that's like shtick in some— well, no, that's you, dude. So how do we work out, like, how do we— because that's almost like heightened versions potentially, which comes out through a show. I know this is very nuanced, but it's just funny.

Belinda: No, so it's, it's similar to, um, again, something I always challenge people with is when they're thinking about their own brands is it matters not just what you are doing but how you are doing it. And why you were doing it. So tell me about your character, like give me a taste and an insight into your character.

Josh: So then intentionality within what we say, like I find that interesting. So you using the Ash Williams example, what intention did you think that I was bringing to that? Like what was I, what was the personality or value set that I was bringing to that conversation, do you think?

Belinda: I think you were— well, I don't know, but you were genuinely curious to know the answer. And so you have a dogmatic approach to really unlocking the storey behind your guests' experiences. So that speaks to your character. And your incessant curiosity, whereas Tommy's a bit more sit back, have a giggle, and watch this all play out.

Tommy: Yeah, um, I had a moment in that where I was like, uh, Josh, um, understands that Ash possesses the answer, so he wants him to deliver it. I know you've got this in you. Ash is over here going, no, fuck it. And then I think if you were to, if you're gonna not respect but empathise with how he feels in that moment, so you're up against— not that you're not being empathetic for him not wanting to fucking go there or answer it, he doesn't have it, he's like, can't be bothered. But then you're also going, you're better than this, buddy. And so then those two things are clashing, which is a weird thing.

Belinda: Was it within you, or do you ever think from the listener's perspective, like, consciously, as in, like, they're going to want to know I'm, I think I'm also projecting back our guest's approach potentially.

Josh: So I know Ash is unapologetically him. He says outrageous things.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: And so I think it would have been a disservice to not, to not do the exact same back. So if we're going to give a platform to someone where it's like we're going to get into the nitty-gritty, he's going to ask 97 if you had sex and you're not afraid to challenge for the story. But I guess that's based on on values, if we had someone for the very first time who is, you know, very sort of, um, that isn't one of their brand values or whatever, potentially I wouldn't go there. So it's interesting, like, I think that— I think the other thing too, from— you are very inquisitive, like, so I guess like part of it, like using Ash's example, there's definitely part of him which is— so he's talking— what I enjoy is paradox or contradictions and stuff like that.

Belinda: Friction points. Friction points.

Josh: Yeah. And so there's a guy who is currently on a podcast network.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: Who is saying that in 2020 he's going to own all of his content. And so the big question is, does that mean you're leaving the network? Which you'd think the answer— you'd say the answer is yes.

Belinda: Yeah.

Josh: But, and so the funny thing is, if the listener is thinking that, if they're like, if they're geeking out and being like, I wonder what that means for that thing. It gives the opportunity potentially of having some fun in it because there's, um, he's never going— Ash is never going to say anything that he doesn't want to say. He didn't share that episode, so obviously we hit some sort of nerve.

Tommy: I'll text him.

Josh: Yeah, but I know I'll text him now.

Tommy: Yeah, you've got it. Mason's got his number.

Josh: Um, yeah, but have you ever thought about doing a podcast?

Belinda: Ash, I'm sorry.

Josh: Do you think that you would ever do a podcast? Is that within your scope of interest?

Belinda: I'm doing one right now.

Josh: As in, like, you're hosting one?

Belinda: Yeah, I love a good chat. I love a good chat.

Josh: Yeah.

Belinda: In fact, I, um, I took my sisters away. We went away last weekend to Daylesford, and, um, which was super lovely, but one of my, one of my favourite things in the world is sit down and I think one of, one of my sisters is more a deep talker than a deep thinker. And deep talker. Because we're having this chat around who's, who's a caller and who's a texter and all this sort of stuff and good quality banter. Great banter. But I'm one of those people that I love to sit around and have a coffee and just talk about the world.

Josh: Yeah, definitely.

Belinda: I love a conversation. Yeah. Will I ever produce my own podcast? I'm not going to say no.

Josh: Just come on here.

Belinda: Regular chats. Yeah, regular chats with the Gronks.

Tommy: What's your go-to form of creation or putting something out into the world? A medium like—

Belinda: I love writing, love copywriting. I actually, I do like Instagram for that. I feel like it it, it challenges me. I like challenging myself with it to go, how, how can I share something that I've learned in a way that is different? And how can I marry a great image with an insight? I like the creativity of that. And I love— I mean, by nature of branding, I love— and, and copywriting, I love translating insights from a really juicy workshop into a narrative, a brand narrative that really, um, or a set of values that really sticks and has teeth for an organization. Coming up with a brand narrative is, or brand manifesto is, is really quite— it's challenging, but it's also really creatively rewarding, especially when the client's like, oh my God, wow, you know, like that really— we've never been able to articulate that before. And now it makes us feel really valuable and special because that is us and we're not afraid to own that now. So I do love doing that.

Josh: Yeah, I just want to say thank you from our end because behind the scenes you've been very supportive in like some of the best guests we've had on this year has been thanks to you connecting the dots.

Belinda: I love it.

Tommy: Very, you're very generous. I hope, um, 2020 is not about giving less because you give us a lot and we really appreciate it. So if you're cutting out your giving, go cut someone else out.

Josh: From a takeout?

Belinda: Well, I just want to say thanks for the Aeropress and the gold-plated straw.

Josh: Look, it was a, it was just, it was a raffle based on chance and you won it, so I'd love to take credit for that.

Belinda: Let's just hope I don't come on next year with a chipped tooth.

Josh: Exactly.

Belinda: A gold-plated tooth.

Josh: That would actually be a fun— there's definitely some merch in that. Anyway, it's The Daily Talk Show. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com. Is the email address. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and we've got Dr. Jason Fox, who's going to be talking all about choosing one word for the year instead of—

Belinda: Gronk it up.

Josh: Yeah, instead of doing a goal, just a single word.

Belinda: Amazing.

Josh: And potentially he might be dressed as a wizard. Yeah, stay tuned for that. See you guys.

Tommy: See you guys. Bye.