KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Content marketing isn’t an overnight success. However, it doesn’t have to take years like you’ve been told. It’s only long-term if your content is boring and you’re the same as everyone else.
- Sometimes, it isn’t enough to be yourself in content. It takes being different and standing out to make a difference and to grow.
- Consistency is key with marketing. Create an amazing idea and be consistent in always improving. However, don’t consistently do something that isn’t working. Be consistent with what IS working.
- Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great tool for marketing. Test the waters using your Instagram story or social media first to see how it’s received!
- What piece of content got the best reaction? Milk it. Use it again and create something new out of it!
- For bouncing ideas around as a solopreneur, find an accountability partner or get involved in a mastermind group.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
You have to be different. Don’t be afraid to break the mold and do things others won’t expect. There are so many marketing services out there, so it will take something new and unique to make it all work. The moment you stand out, the quicker you grow.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- Content marketing isn’t a long-term strategy – 12:13
- The remarkability trifle -14:44
- How to test your ideas with reaction spikes – 22:04
- All about Andrew and Pete’s very first event Atomicon 2019 – 45:52
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
- Andrew and Pete’s website
- Find Andrew and Pete on:Facebook
- Andrew and Pete TV
- Atomicon 2019
Transcript below
Hello and welcome to episode 31 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath Wearing. I am so glad to have you here with me today. I am now at the end of September, where we have focused the entire of September on interviews, on bringing you amazing guests. Today, to round off, I have not disappointed yet again. I have got a fantastic guest for you today. Now it's not to say that after this week, we're not doing guests anymore, that's not the case at all. We're going to mix things up. So there's going to be episodes with me that are solo episodes, and then we're going to have yet more amazing interviews. I still have some amazing people lined up coming soon. But I just wanted to really kickstart the interviews, as I had done none since starting the podcast. Hence, why I decided to dedicate an entire month just to giving you amazing guests.
Today, I've not got one, but two amazing guests. I am so privileged to not only have them as guests on the podcast because they're amazing marketers, but that I am lucky enough to have them as friends. So in today's podcast, I bring you Andrew and Pete. It's like I need to fanfare again, I want to do this on every single one. I am definitely going to have to get that kind of sound clip that plays when I mention someone's name. So if you haven't heard of Andrew and Pete, they are the funnel content marketing duo who help business and brands get faster results from their content. They have a weekly YouTube show, and they run one of the UK's leading content marketing membership communities called Atomic, where they bring people in every single month to teach their audience various different things to do with marketing and social media, and content.
I was lucky enough, not so long ago, to do a lesson for them all about webinars and converting people from an email to a sale. So that was great. So they provide some great content within their membership. They've also written two books, the Hippocampus, and Content Mavericks. They regularly keynote internationally at conferences around the world. They've spoken at Social Media Marketing World a number of times. I have to say, they are some of the most entertaining people you will see on a stage.
Whenever I see Andrew and Pete, I always, A, learn something from them, and B, am thoroughly entertained. So, today, you are up for a real treat, because this is going to be a fun podcast. I do feel, though, it needs to have a slight warning in place that there is a lot of laughing going on. So I apologise at times if it gets a bit silly. But I can assure you, they drop some amazing value bombs and you are going to get some great content from this podcast episode. They are the kings of content. So let me not take up any more time and go straight to the interview. Here's Andrew and Pete.
So I am super excited about today's podcast episode, and to introduce you to these amazing guys that I am very lucky to call my friends. So it gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome Andrew and Pete, yay. Thank you so much for coming on, guys. I am so please to have you on the podcast with me today. Thank you for saying yes.
Aw, it's our pleasure.
We would say yes to you any day of the week.
Aw, thanks guys.
I feel like there should be a pre warning, though, to anyone listening, that when Andrew and Teresa are in the same room, they laugh a hell of a lot. We just trigger each other off. I don't know what it is.
We love a laugh, don't we?
We love a laugh. It's good exercise.
Do you know what? I think it's a great way to be. I think if you can laugh at stuff, then life is just so much nicer, isn't it? And easier.
We should call each other every morning just to-
Just to like pump each other up, get each other kind of all siked for the day. The problem is, though, the other thing that we do is we get on a call, and we take forever, because we just can't stop laughing. So we are …
For this podcast interview, we've already taken half an hour. We've only just started recording.
Yeah, yeah. So I apologise now, that this is going to be … This is going to be great, these guys are fantastic. It's going to be fun. But we are going to laugh a lot, which hopefully you don't mind, because I quite like that.
I'm going to try not to.
Yes, should we try and be reasonable.
[inaudible 00:05:13].
Yeah, we ought to do five minutes.
I think Pete is going to keep us on chat.
Yes, absolutely. I think we need to be kept on chat.
This is the look.
Oh, that's a good look.
It's great for a podcast.
You have to screenshot that look, so that people can see. But yeah, Pete just gave me a nice sort of firm, teacher stare, eyebrows down, basically saying that is enough now, get on with the podcast.
Question one, please.
Let's talk about content.
So, let me start off, because I just have to let you guys talk, because honestly, we're just going to keep laughing. So let me start off, if my audience hasn't heard of you before, one, where have you been? Because Andrew and Pete are amazing. But tell me guys, who you are, how you got to be doing what you're doing now, which is mainly just laughing? But please share for our audience.
Okay, so me and Andrew, we've set up a business together and we met each other at university. We bonded over our friendship to one day rule the world and run a business together. When university was over, we had to make that decision of do we go into business together? Do we not? Do we just get a job like everyone else? What do we do? Andrew wanted to move all the way to the other side of the country to live in New Castle, which is just below the wall, hello Scotland, and any Americans there. He wanted to go and live with his girlfriend. I was like, oh my god, what do I do? Because I'm going to have to move out of my comfort zone, I've only ever lived with my parents and the university halls-
Which was like half an hour away from his parents.
Yeah, okay. My parents did everything for me. I had to move all the way to New Castle, to set up a business in a place where I knew absolutely nobody. We have no business contacts, we had no experience, we didn't really have a proper business at that point. We had no content, we had no social media presence. We thought, how the hell are we ever going to make this work? So we started doing all the regular things that everyone does. I made that decision, let's move to New Castle with Andrew. I decided to be that third wheel in the relationship. I didn't get the hint.
Yeah, his girlfriend was thinking, great, we'll get away from Pete now. Pete was like, no, no, I'll just come with you.
All the same house as well, it was tough.
I'll sleep on the end of the bed, it'll be fine.
Just a little.
So we did everything that we should do, and that's something that, a lot of people get into that stage where everyone is doing all the things they think they should be doing in the way that they should be doing it. We were [inaudible 00:08:08], we were doing email marketing, we were tweeting, we had a LinkedIn, we had a Facebook page. We were doing everything right-ish. But yet, we weren't seeing any results. Not any results, which meant nothing. It was really devastating. But we knew that it was a longterm strategy. So that's what we always tell you, right? It's a longterm strategy.
In this podcast today, I'm going to prove to you that it's not a longterm strategy. Well, it is, but you can get short term benefits too. We were doing this for so long, and nothing was happening. In fact, we got all of our results from networking, face to face business networking. We did that, because although we were the two youngest people in the room, like literally every time, we looked like we were 12. We would always go and do something daft, wouldn't we? We'd go and take indoor fireworks, [crosstalk 00:09:06]-
We threw chocolate across the room.
Once it landed down a woman's top, and a man went to grab it, and it got awkward. But it was hilarious.
That's a true story. I don't think she ever came back. It was like I was aiming, but I honestly wasn't. I was forgiven, because the guy that went down to get it, I feel like everyone thought, what in the world?
I think everybody does networking, especially when you're starting in a location. I have been to more networking things than I care to remember. I can only imagine how you two went down, because they're not that fun. You know? People aren't for like … Sometimes when people do do quirky things, it's a bit like, oh, cringe. But, I can only imagine that they must have thought, what the hell have we got here? When you two walked through the door dressed as [inaudible 00:10:00].
We made a name for ourselves quite fast.
Locally.
Locally, anyway. But still nothing was happening online. Like you said, you can imagine how people are reacting, because nobody does anything really different.
It did not go down well at BMI.
Probably one of the most serious ones I've ever been to.
Yeah, they did not want us to join, I don't think. Well, it kind of, the point there was it was working offline with networking, because we were completely ourselves, we did things completely differently. Looking at our online presence, it just didn't match up. It was just boring, it was blasé, it was the same as everyone else. That's when we though, right, we've kind of conquered New Castle, let's try to conquer the world, which was always the grand plan.
How do we take what's working offline and put it more online? So that's when we really started looking at our online content, thinking how do we make this more fun? How do we make it more sharable? How do we make it more us? It wasn't necessarily, I hate the overnight success kind of thing of it. But, relatively quickly, like six to 12 months, we were suddenly becoming more and more known. A lot more people knew about us, a lot more people were sharing our content. It felt like we had funds for the first time. We started getting us to speak at awesome events, even though people had never seen us speak. They had just kind of seen our online content, assumed we could speak, and booked us these huge events all over the world. That was over maybe 12 months.
Yeah. So like, I mean, in the first six months of, what was it? 2015? We achieved more in that first six months of the year than we had in the previous five months. We made more money, we got more speaking gigs, we got more …
Five years.
Sorry, yeah.
Take two.
That's quick.
Content marketing isn’t a long-term strategy
We did more in six months than we did in five, In five years. So when people say content marketing is a longterm strategy, it's a longterm strategy if your content is horrendously boring and you're not constantly improving, and you're not different from everyone else, and you're not making those fast improvements. So the moment you do it right, you do see immediate benefits. Our very first speaking gig was Social Media Marketing World.
What? No.
That was our first conference.
The world's largest social media …
That was our first conference, yeah.
For anybody who doesn't know Social Media Marketing World, it's a huge … It's probably, I think now, guys, it's the world's best social media conference, isn't it? It's a massive event. For someone like me, and for these guys, and anybody in our industry, that has got to be the highlight. It's got to be up there on the pinnacle of events to speak at. So that fact that that was your first event you spoke at, that is crazy.
We were crapping ourselves.
You were like, what if we're dreadful? No one's ever seen us speak before. We could be awful. But the funny thing was, all you said you did there was be yourself, you know. You had this fun personality offline, and for whatever reason, you weren't putting that online. The minute you did, the minute you were honest and said, actually, this is who we are, it made such a difference to your business.
What we will say there is, though, because I feel like this phrase is bandied about a lot, like the be yourself and everything is going to be great. I'm going to actually challenge that and nix that and say-
Don't be yourself.
Because often times, like yes, we want you to be more of yourself, get yourself more, and that's what builds the trust in relationships. But for some people and for some businesses, that isn't enough. For some people, that isn't enough. In a lot of industries, especially the really saturated industries, it's not going to be enough. How many marketing podcasts are there?
Oh man.
How many marketing YouTube channels are there?
Yeah.
The remarkability trifle
Everyone is being themselves, but yet, why are none of them growing? Or why are you struggling to grow? Because everyone is doing it, right? So it takes more than just being yourself. It takes being different, it takes standing up. That's what's going to make it worth sharing, worth subscribing to, worth wanting to come back for more, worth telling people. That's the level that we want to get to. We almost see it as like three different levels. So we call this the remarkability trifle.
We've never talked about the trifle on a podcast before. So this is the first-
This is like an exclusive trifle talk. We haven't talked about trifle either. So this is a first for both of us.
I get Pete, like, are we actually talking about the trifle? We've never actually talked about the trifle before.
I mean, okay, to say this, as I'm saying it, I'm going to go with it anyway. Now, there's a trifle.
Now there's a trifle.
Have to tell you about the trifle now.
Okay, so the first layer of the trifle.
Well, the first layer of the trifle is ideation. So it's coming up with those ideas. So we've got 1,000 ways for you to come up with more creative ideas, and we'll go through those in a little bit. The second level of layer of the trifle is about getting validation. So if you went with yourself, how do you have the confidence to take forward those ideas? How many of you listen to this podcast, have thought of a really fun content idea, kind of giggled to yourself, gone, all that would be great, and then never done it? Right? You're too scared, you don't know how it's going to go, you're going to ruin this professional image that you've been trying to build up. So you might be a little bit scared.
So how are you going to get the confidence? Then if you're in a team or a bigger company, how are you going to convince your boss, your peers, that this is a good idea? Then if you're an agency, how are you going to convince your clients that this is something that you should do for them and it's going to work? Then the third layer, once you've tested that, once you've got that buy in, is about dependability. So one of the biggest problems we had was we really had a lot of different creative things going on. We were known to lots of different people for doing different things creatively. For some people, we were known as those guys that had the funny Twitter DM, to some people we were known as those guys that did that online conference once.
Or dressed as zombies, once.
It was always once. We always did a lot of crazy things, but just once. So it becomes-
Do you have a list, when you say once?
Oh, no. Once.
It was the face. I know, also, you can't see this, but his face when he said the word once, as well, was really good. He was really emphasising the once.
Oh god.
Oh no.
So you did it all once.
Yeah.
That was a good one.
You can't say, oh, you should go follow Andrew and Pete because they do this really cool, and then list the thing. You can't do that. So what we say is you need that five second story. What is that five second story? So for example, our YouTube channel, go check out Andrew and Pete's YouTube channel, they talk about marketing, but they do it in a really fun way. So there's lots of fun, and [inaudible 00:18:14]. Sent to Andrew and Pete's podcast, it's like a game show, where the guests have to drop value bombs to win points, and there's that overall winner.
So it's almost like two prong, right? So you need that kind of story that people can pass on. You need to know what that story is, and repeat it. Yeah? Welcome to our YouTube channel, where we make marketing unboring, or that kind of thing. Then you also need to be consistent. I think that's something that we got really serious about around the same time when we realised, you know what? We need to do this better online. It was just that consistency, like every single week, new piece of content, constantly reminding people. It's completely compounded as well. When you start getting consistent, every single piece of content adds to that in an almost exponential way.
So for example, if we release a video on YouTube every week … Go check out our YouTube channel by the way, Andrewandpete.tv. So let's say one of our videos gets one view, another gets ten views every week or every month. Over time, those ones and tens, they just keep adding up and adding up. I remember looking at our watch time, the very first, after about a year, our watch time was about 3,600 minutes watched on our channel. A year later, it was 130,000 minutes watched.
Oh my word.
The year after, it's going to be 10 times, 100 times on that.
People give up. They'll see the 3,000, think that's crap, and give up.
No, I couldn't agree more. We talk about it all the time. You've got to be consistent. I have said before on the podcast that I work with clients who are personal brands, and they'll come to me and sort of say, okay, we want to start this. They do it for a month, and then, oh, it's not working. It's like, no, you know, do it for 12 months, then tell me it's not working.
However, on that, you want to do something consistently … No, no, because this is a really big myth, I want to totally squish, right? You want to do something consistently that is getting a reaction consistently.
Yes, even if it's a small, a small one.
Yeah, because what a lot of people do, they'll either be on either scale of that. They won't keep it up even though they're getting a good reaction, or they'll not get a reaction, and they'll keep going because they've been told this myth that content marketing is a longterm strategy and that one day it's going to pay off.
If you're flogging at that horse, if you're literally … I've talked before about how much time and effort it takes just to put on the podcast. I know that you guys have a huge amount of time and effort putting in a YouTube video every single week. Not only coming up with the ideas, spending time recording it, then getting it edited, then getting the marketing together to promote it. It's a lot of work. Like you said, if you're getting nothing, then it would be a fool to do that for a very long time. But you've also got to know that if you start doing something, as long as you can see it building, then you can't say, A, I'm going to give it a month and then stop, or you can't then just one week, and don't get me wrong, I talk about you guys, but to consistently do the podcast every single week is hard work.
It is.
It's only through the whole thought that someone might think, where the hell is the podcast? If I don't do an episode. I want people to think that, because I want people to miss it if it wasn't here. So to consistently do it is tough. So like you said, don't be doing it if it's not doing anything.
How to test your ideas with reaction spikes
What we're looking for there is what we call reaction spikes.
Okay.
Okay, so this is a great way of testing your ideas as well. So for example, we did a keynote talk recently for Zerocon. There's like thousands of accountants there, it's like the biggest stage I've ever spoke at. You know what our topic was? Ready salted crisps. Now you might think, wow, you guys are mental. Why were you talking about crisps to accountants? Let me rewind a bit, right? So, a few months prior to this, in our office building, I was getting really frustrated, because every single week, there's this guy who put out a huge buffet for all of his staff. Every single week, we would go in after they'd all clear out and see what was left. So we'd always be able to get a few sandwiches, maybe some juice. They had these really nice [inaudible 00:23:10] onion sausages.
Oh, they were good.
But there was always this big bowl of crisps left, every week, week in, week out. A huge bowl of crisps. We thought to ourselves, why does the boss bother to buy these crisps? So I went on my Instagram story, and I did this whole rant about why this boss buys ready salted crisps, because it's the safe choice, right? Nobody is going to complain about having ready salted crisps. It's the average classic flavour of crisp.
It's the least offensive crisp.
It is. No one is going to complain. However, because it's the least offensive, it's no one's favourite. Right? No one is dying to eat ready salted crisps. If there was Worcestershire sauce there, or prawn cocktail, or cheese, I'd be all over that, that's my favourite flavour. So we said to ourselves, and on this Instagram story, if he bought a more [inaudible 00:24:10] flavour of crisps, let's say for example, marmite, it would all get eaten. 50% of the room wouldn't like them, and avoid them, but who cares? They're not getting eaten anyway. The other 50% of the room would love them and would be fighting over the scraps. Our message was, your brand should be more marmite. Don't have a ready salted brand.
So are you not afraid of, and I know, funnily enough, James [inaudible 00:24:39] talked about this, about the fact of, he felt he had to get more controversial, he had to say stuff that kind of divided people. I'm not saying like he suddenly came out with some horrendous stuff, he wasn't being divisive, it was just about that he had to just be a bit more stronger in his opinion. So do you ever worry that, like you said, people try to be professional, that's what you kind of baying for it. If you've come from … You guys and I have talked, right? You know I came from a corporate world.
So that was the main name. So maybe that's kind of what has made you so free when it comes to being yourselves, because you didn't go to that. But, do you not worry that you're going to upset people or people are going to think you're idiots? And you're not idiots, by the way. I think what you do is brilliant. But you are fun, and quirky, and different, and do things that other marketers would only look at and go, oh, that'd be hilarious, but never do it.
So this is … So yes, sometimes. But, we always kind of push through because we know it works. We know that we've had the emails that say, god, guys, that was cringe worthy, god, guys, can you not just get to the point? God, guys, I hate that. It's like, uh, right. Everyone of those, it probably stings more than a nice comment doesn't sting. But, you just have to kind of forget about that. But then the second point to that is we did it on our Instagram story first, the story about the crisps. The problem of … The great thing about an Instagram story is that it's gone in 24 hours, right? So we almost have our Instagram and our other social networks as almost testing ground for new ideas. We test the reaction there first. We're not going to go and do a full keynote presentation based on something that we aren't confident is going to land well. We're going back to the reaction spikes, when we had done that on the Instagram story, like, our engagement went through the roof compared to usual.
It was one of our most engaging ones. People like started making memes about me talking about crisps and sending them to me.
That is so cool.
It was just ridiculous.
So after the Instagram story, we then put it in a podcast episode, just as a segment, slightly bigger. But again, it did really well. After the podcast episode went out, we got sent 70 bags of ready salted crisps. That was insane. So then when it came to writing this keynote, and we were trying to think of a cool metaphor to get across our message, we already had one in the back that had already landed, that we already knew had gone really well. So when we delivered it, it went down an absolute storm. It's almost …
So this is the middle part of the trifle, this is that validation part, where it is about being a little bit risky, and about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone slightly. But if you can test it on smaller platforms, like an Instagram story, like your Facebook page, like a tweet where if it bombs, it doesn't matter all that much. People really thought what the hell guys, are you talking about? You're talking about crisps on your Instagram story. No one commented. It's like, well, there's plenty of things that people haven't commented on that we haven't come back to.
Do you know, that is such a good idea. I love the whole stepping it up. So if something … Like you said, it's super easy on an Instagram story to do something quick and simple. Then even if you do a post, it's a little bit more, but you see the kind of reaction you get. That is something that generally people should be doing, they should be looking at what they're posting and seeing what's getting a reaction, what's getting the interest. Like you said, you've just taken that from one step to another, to another, and then used that as a whole concept for a keynote.
You know what's great? You might have this already. So people, if you've been posting a lot on social already, you'll be able to go and see what has actually got the biggest reaction. What a lot of people think is, that's got a great reaction, great, I've done that now. Where we say, if it gets a good reaction, take that as inspiration and milk it. Can you talk about it in another way? Can you translate that to another path, rather than thinking, that's done well, what's the next brand new thing I have to think of?
Yeah, like turn it into a podcast, turn it into a keynote. Do a guest pod for someone, do the negative effects of that thing. Do a guest interview. Just milk it, because you know it's going to get a good reaction. It's like, come up with an idea, test it with a … Use your testing ground, whatever that is. Measure for reaction spikes, and then scale it up. That's how you're going to get the buy in, because it comes with proof.
So okay, has there been an idea that you've been like, this is crazy, and have actually gone with it? What is the nuts thing, the most nuts thing that you guys have done, that most people would go, oh, that would be hilarious, and then obviously never do it in public? What was the one thing that you think you've done that has been crazy?
I thought you were going to ask me the thing that we've done, that we planned, and then didn't do, because that came to my head straight away.
Oh, okay, so yeah, tell me that one. But while you're telling me that, think about the other one.
So we once wrote a whole, back when Snapchat was way more popular, we once wrote a whole rap battle Facebook versus Snapchat.
Why didn't you go ahead with that? That's hilarious.
Well, I wrote the whole thing. It was, I thought it was the best. But, we just didn't find time. We wanted to … I'd become so big, it became a project rather than just a quick video to create, and we just never got around to doing it. Then Snapchat became less popular.
I think you need to pull that back out of the bag with a different platform, and be doing a rap battle. I want to see you in full, kind of maybe '80s rap look, like, them shiny shell suit, or something like those massive high tops.
You know, the funny thing is, that was maybe a year or two ago, when Snapchat was really contending Facebook, before Instagram stories killed it. Andrew still knows the words.
Oh, yeah.
No.
Well, most of them.
He said he would give a rendition right now.
You should, Andrew.
That's not happening.
How could you say that and not do it. We are literally on the edge of our seats wanting to hear a couple of lines from that rap.
I'm not drunk enough.
So the next podcast we're recording is at a club and … If you think this is bad enough, god help us then, that's all I can say.
I feel like we should do some kind of social engagement metric to hear some of the rap battle at some point.
I think we should. It should definitely be a poll, do people want to hear this?
If you are listening to this, and you want to hear that social media rap battle, then go and tweet us @AndrewandPete [inaudible 00:32:03], and copy in Teresa as well. If there is enough demand-
We will do it.
I'm sure Andrew will feel pressured enough.
I feel like if any [crosstalk 00:32:15] is listening that can help us make this sound semi good, as well-
And not overly cringe.
Then please get in touch, because we do not have the skills to do this.
I think you could do a whole production thing on this. You want someone who can beat box, you want someone who can mix it, and get some amazing DJs on it, I love it. I love it. That is it. Okay, what about something that you've done that you thought, this is crazy, but still done it and had a good reaction?
The GDPR video?
I was about to say, that is-
That's unfortunately-
I love that one.
Would be our best video so far.
Yeah.
Which was all about GDPR, which is like the worst subject in the world.
Yeah, and fairly dry.
But we just kind of took the P out of it, and we pretended that I had been put in prison for sending too many emails against GDPR policy.
The beginning of the video, started Andrew escaping the prison in a full police outfit, prison outfit.
Prison outfit.
That is one of my favourite videos that you've done, I have to say. It is hilarious.
I'm surprised we didn't get more heat for that. We have gotten a surprisingly low amount of, this is crap, guys, honestly.
Yeah, we actually got applauded more than anything, for making GDPR fun.
I thought we would get like one or two hate mail for that video. A few maybe serious, too serious people.
Like a couple of lawyers or something, just to scare you. What you've said is actually liable, we're going to actually arrest you. That would be the most funniest thing ever, like, in a not mean way, obviously. That's brilliant.
But we like to push the boundaries, and we always try to break as many rules as we possibly can. Like, our keynote at Social Day, we were told no by the venue for letting off a big indoor-
Firework?
It wasn't a firework. It was like a party topper confetti cannon.
Confetti cannon.
We were told we might set off the fire alarms. But we did it anyway, because we were last on.
If they did have to evacuate, it's fine, because you were going anyway.
Someone once told us the phrase it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.
Oh, you know what, I've heard this quite a lot recently, funnily enough. It kind of, yeah. I think the funny thing is there are so many people who are just not brave enough to do it. Like you said, I think in some cases, if you ask someone a question, they're going to say no. Whereas if you have to come back and go, oh, well, you probably shouldn't have done it, but you've done it anyways, so never mind. Okay, great. Obviously, you guys have always worked together. How long have you had your business now?
We have had our business now seven years, coming up. We have known each other 10 years this September. We're celebrating our … What's 10 years?
10 years knowing each other isn't a thing.
You're not technically married, in case anybody is wondering, they're not.
This is why we have to mention right at the beginning, that Andrew has a girlfriend.
So that people don't assume that you are a partner in more ways than one.
Pete gets it way worse than me though.
So, is it always good fun? Do you ever fall out?
We fight all the time when Pete doesn't realise that I'm always right.
Right, yeah.
When I married Mr. Right, I didn't know his first name was Always.
We've never had anything terrible, terrible. But we have learned to communicate a lot better with each other.
For example, we've done like those personality tests.
Like Myers-Briggs tests?
We did Disc. The person that did the Disc profiling with us said … Told us off for cheating and doing each other's.
No.
But we didn't. She just completely didn't see us in that way. But we do communicate very differently, don't we? Like, Pete is very detail orientated. I'm very much to the point. So we've learned to tell each other … Well, Pete's learned to tell me just the …
Yeah, the exact same summer.
Skip to the end, that sort of thing.
[crosstalk 00:36:55] all my ideas in a lot of detail, which is sometimes really infuriating.
‘Cause otherwise, he can go, cut this idea, blah, blah, blah, and then I don't get it, can't visualise it. Then, we kind of disagree on it. But then if he explains it more, then I can see it, and I'm like, that is actually a really good idea.
For someone who works on my own, could you … Do you split the work fairly? Is it really obvious that you know who does what? Or do you have to really think about dividing your time up and making it fair so that Pete isn't doing 10 hour days while Andrew is doing a four hour day?
We both work the same amount of hours, pretty much. A lot of … It's not necessarily a case of I do this, Pete does that. But there are some tasks where we just instinctively know who is better as that. So anything to do with numbers or accounts, that's a me job. That's why I make more money than Pete.
Yeah, you have double the salary than Pete, and he just doesn't realise. You gotta' look at those numbers, Pete.
How can you afford something from our [crosstalk 00:38:09].
But anything to do with making money, like sales calls, or sales emails, that's all Pete. He's a way better sales person than I am.
Yeah.
Like, do you … Is there any part of you, this could be really divisive now, that wants to work on your own?
No.
No.
Because there's so many time …
It's not a do I want to work on my own, but I'm just not brave enough to …
There's so many times where it's almost easy, but we complete each other on a skill's spectrum.
Aw.
So, when Andrew comes up with a terrible idea, I can make it good. Then, if I'm struggling with some maths, he can help me out. Then I can make the sale, then he can not forget about that person, because Andrew has got a really great memory. So, we totally complete each other in that sense. But, the thing is, what a lot of people say to us is, oh, it's all right for you two, because there's two of you. I don't agree with this. I find it a complete excuse, because a lot of the things we do, we have to do together, we have to make all the decisions together, we have to run things by each other, there's a longer decision time because there's two of us.
Quite frankly, there's not a lot of time saved because there's two of us. Even this podcast interview, we're doing it together, we do everything together on camera. So actually, we have the same time as most people, maybe a tiny bit more. But, we have to make double the income. Now, a lot of people in our industry don't even ever have another person that they employ. So, we've always had this underlying thing where, ah, we're not doing as well as so and so, and they're hiring VAs, and blah blah. Then we've come to realise, oh, actually, we're trying to pay for two people and they're not. It doesn't matter.
When we shared a badge, that was fine back then. But as soon as Pete moved out the bedroom, then-
You had to have a slightly …
But there are benefits. The benefits of two people is more ideas. More ideas and more confidence between us. But, if you are working by yourself, there is stuff that you can do. You can drive as many communities as you want to get more ideas. You can set up masterminds. We're always in a mastermind group, so we have people that just see things from a completely different point of view to us, to kind of help us push our business forward. So definitely get a mastermind set up, or even an accountability buddy or an accountability friend that you can just work with stuff on. It can get … We get that it can get lonely as a solopreneur. But find people, like the internet means we have the ability to [inaudible 00:41:20] these days. We're still so connected to so many people.
You're right.
The mastermind group, we just literally reached out to the people we thought would be cool to be in our mastermind group.
That's cool.
You don't have to necessarily pay to be in one, you can. But you literally just ask the people you want to be in a mastermind group. It's great for just running ideas past each … Because they'll tell you if it's a bad idea, or they'll tell you how to improve it, or they'll just warn you, why are you getting so distracted? Or yes, you should definitely do this, why haven't you thought about it sooner? So it gives you a lot of confidence and it helps you with those creative ideas.
Do you know, I hadn't even thought about the fact that you two always have to be together. Your brand is Andrew and Pete. So if I had paid to do a call with you guys to have your services and I only had one of you, then I would be a little bit like, oh, where's the other one? So you're right. It's really tricky. If you go speak, then again … In fact, I actually think having two of you on stage is much harder, because you've got to know exactly what each other is saying. When I go on stage and speak, I, obviously, have a guide of what I'm saying. But if I mess up, it's only me that knows, and I fix it. Whereas if you of you mess up, it absolutely messes up the other person. So you've got to be really good with your speaking.
That's so funny. We actually, like after every talk, we'll go like, you missed that word on slide five. He's like, yep. You really dubbed me in it and took my slide in slide 14.
Going back to our very first talk at Social Media Marketing-
I'm like, uh …
Not many people know this, but Pete mucked up the very first slide. I looked at him, I was like-
Not a very good start.
I looked up, there's like 500 people in the crowd, there's all of our friends, there's influences in the back that are like judging us, and seeing if we're a good speaker. My very first line set up Andrew's second punchline joke.
Oh, no.
I say hello, and I completely freeze, I have no idea what I'm supposed to say-
His line is literally saying our names. It wasn't a hard line.
Not really hard to forget, you know your own names. That's normally what I'm all right on. Occasionally you forget, but no, most of the time I'm pretty good at remembering my own name.
I looked over to Andrew, like, giving him the eyes, like, I'm screwed. I took a deep breath. He looked at me like, oh my god, you forgot. How dare you ruin this once in a lifetime experience, we'll never speak here again ever, you've ruined my life, I hate you.
All in milliseconds.
In a millisecond. Then I just took a breath and remembered my line. It went absolutely perfect.
No one noticed.
No one noticed.
They won't have. This is the thing only you guys know. Not that it's typical, because you are pitching each other up for your next bit. But actually, when you speak, I think you worry that you're going to mess up, or … But no one has a clue. You literally are the only person who knows exactly what you are going to say. If you didn't say it right, or you paused, or whatever, then it doesn't normally make any difference. So, this brings us really nicely onto the fact that for the first time ever, you are putting on your own event.
Yeah.
I think it's awesome.
And you're going to be there.
Yeah. Even more awesome. The Omni event that you've asked me to speak, which is so cool.
You were top of the list.
I'm so excited.
You were the short list.
You're thinking, oh my god, what if they heard my-
List list.
We couldn't get anybody else. We figured you'd probably be free. Thanks guys. So kind of you to think of me. No, honestly, this is going to be so cool.
So we tested you on our testing ground. You did a talk for our Atomic membership group.
I did, yeah.
All about Andrew and Pete’s very first event Atomicon 2019
It was one of the best talks we've ever had. So we obviously wanted you to speak on stage at Atomic Con, 2019. We're absolutely siked at that, absolutely siked. It's going to be really good, you're a great speaker.
It's going to be brilliant. So it's in March. What's the date of it again?
March the 8th. Yeah. I always want to say 9th, but it's not, it's the 8th. If you come on the 9th, it will be over.
We had a lovely time.
[crosstalk 00:46:09] a day late, did you hear about that?
No.
Turned up to the Sindolum Stadium of Light a day late, and no one was there.
Oh, no, and you missed the gig. Oh my god. Yeah, don't do that at your own event.
No, that wasn't us. That was just a guy in the news.
Oh, I thought it was you.
I would not be laughing about that if it was me.
That would be a very sad story. A very sad day.
I feel like you didn't have time to react to that.
I was like, oh, okay. I love it. So yeah, in March next year, you've got some amazing speakers. It's the first time you've put on an event in the UK. As you know, I've talked about before, and as I've talked about on this podcast, we go over to the states, because they do have amazing events. We do have some in the UK, which is cool, but actually, I think, and I've always thought, that there is a gap for an amazing social media marketing conference. I think you guys are going to plug that gap, which I'm really excited about.
Thank you. We are excited about that as well.
We are excited. When we first went to Social Media Marketing World, we were like so overwhelmed, like blown away about how good it was there. We just want to take some of those … We speak at a lot of events, and we want to take that experience and just make it happen. We've organised some of the mini events. We're all about the experience, and we've been at attendee events, we've been at speaker events. We've organised our own little stuff. So, kind of got a good mix. The ticket sales, already, they've been open for like two weeks. The ticket sales have just been phenomenal.
Yeah, at this point, we have 22, I think, left.
Okay, so by the time this podcast goes out, it's just going to be about another four weeks. The chances are there may or may not be tickets left, but I will link up to it in the show mates, so they can have a look. Hopefully, if there is tickets left, you really must come, because I think, like you said, when I first went to my first conference in the states, it blew me away. They do conferences like I have never been to before.
Yeah.
They are just so good. They're so slick, they're fun, and engaging, and interesting, and a little bit wacky. I was laughing with a friend about Social Media Marketing World, they have a high five guy. We laughed that in the UK, you should follow that with a hand sanitizer guy. High five, oh no, I need hand sanitizer. You know? It was just like, it's such good fun. I know you guys are going to bring some of that, not only good fun, but also amazing value that people are going to learn so much from them. So I'm so excited. So, just to finish off things, you guys have given me some great content ideas, and I love the stretch that you've gone through to get your content going. What's next? Like, I was going to ask your career highlights, but there's so much. I don't know if one thing stands out. Then what is to come? I've even written down, is there someone that you haven't worked with that you want to work with that's on your list? Tell me your thoughts.
You know what? Like, as easy as it sounds, almost every day now, something incredible is happening where if we had just said four years ago, even two years ago, I feel like we only really started our journey two years ago, two or three years ago, this was going to be happening. It would have blown our minds. Like, from growing our membership, to launching Atomic Con, to hitting 100,000 views, to getting some of the people that want to work with us now, it's incredible. We've been working with some Fortune 100 companies. Just all these things that are happening, and it's all because of content, all because of our content. The amount of people that reach out to us now. Our YouTube channel isn't even that big. You might look at it and go, meh, that's not impressive. But the reaction it gets, and the amount of business it gets us, it's incredible. We just can't wait for all of that to just keep going.
I think we've just got a lot better, we were terrible of this at the start, of living more in the moment. Like, when we were getting going with all this, we were just constantly kind of kicking ourself down, and constantly looking ahead at things we hadn't achieved yet.
Yeah, yeah. Wondering why you haven't got it type of thing.
We still do that to a degree. But we've gotten a lot better at actually celebrating what we have Achieved. Instead of vision boards, we got rid of all of our vision boards, and now we've created victory boards, right? So now we've got three in our office now of all the things we have achieved. Just looking at that is … Even if we had started this years ago … Well, some of these are, some of these we look at them now, and it's like, whoa, to us that was a victory back then. Now it doesn't seem like a victory. But back then, it felt amazing to have achieved that.
I love that. I love that idea.
So now it's like, we don't look at our vision board and think of all the things we haven't done yet. We think of all the things we have done. That makes us feel good and want to continue and do even better.
Like looking up at this victory board right now, the very first thing on there is getting ourselves to Social Media Marketing World 2015. That, to us, was just an impossible thing.
Was that when you visited and didn't speak? Or was that the first year you spoke?
No, that was visiting and not speaking. Even just going to that conference was such a big achievement for us.
We [inaudible 00:52:25] in the marketing world. We didn't really have any money coming in. We were like, we heard about this even six weeks before. We thought, oh my god, it's going to cost us like three grand for the tickets, 'cause there's two of us. It costs a hell of a lot to go to conferences. Plus flights on top of that, plus accommodation on top of that, plus time out of our business. It's in six weeks for god's sake. How the hell are we going to make this happen? So that night, reservedly, we just kind of went home and thought, oh, maybe in a few year's time. But I couldn't sleep that night. I was like, we need to get there. So I stayed up all night, trying to think of all the ways we could make the money, and save money, and get there. We just did it. 18 months after that, we were invited to speak.
That is crazy. Do you know, I love that you've got that. Even though you have now got bigger victories, knowing and understanding that, because I did exactly the same thing. I found Social Media Marketing World, I remember sitting there with some people I shared an office with at the time, and I said, I need to go to this event, and I couldn't afford it. Like you said, these events are expensive, they take a lot of time out of the business, the flights are expensive.
So, all that together, I just thought, I'm not in a position at this point. So for me, one of my first victories was exactly the same thing. The fact that I was going. Also, what that meant to me in the UK. How many people are investing that much time and money into themselves to go to a conference like that? Then like you said, there's, you have to kind of look at all those wins, no matter how small they are. Even some of the people I've had on the podcast, the places I've been able to speak, or the relationships I've built up.
You've got to look at each one of them and go, that is awesome. It's moving in the right direction. You guys have done it so quick, or it appears to be quick, I think, because you guys stand out in so many ways. There are a lot of people that are more the average type of speaker or person in this industry, and you guys completely throw that mould out the window and bring in your own mould. I think that has had to have had something to do with your speed of your success, because you stand out, because you're Andrew and Pete, for starters. How you come across content wise, the things you do. So for me, I think, your success has been amazing and so quick.
We're super impatient, you know? For the first five years in business, we literally didn't get anywhere. We were making hardly any money at all. We don't even know how we survived.
We don't know how we survived.
Then it was, it was just like a switch. Like, we're fed up. This is like why we stressed this point about standing out, because the moment you stand out, the quicker you grow, it's the quickest way to grow. If people literally think you're so amazing, that you stand out, and get shared, it's the quickest way to grow. So we want that to be heard by everyone, because people think we've had this massive overnight success and surge, and to be fair, it's true. But, it just took us like five years to learn.
To work out what you were doing as in how you-
Explain that now, since it's quite past, just take that advice and just run with it, because you will grow faster.
That is so cool. Guys, thank you so very much for being on the podcast, and for being my friends, because honestly-
It's been our pleasure.
I love spending time with you guys. I've said before, that I am not the most crazy creative idea person, and you guys just … Whenever I talk to you, we always come up with these nuts ideas that I would never think of on my own. But something about you kind of makes me think about these crazy ideas, and I love it. I'm going to obviously put links in the show next to all of your stuff, and go and check out their things, because they really are, not just entertaining, but the content … It's kind of like you guys, you went to university, went straight into this. Yet, there are people who have done marketing for a very long time who can't come up with the stuff that you come up with, who do not give the value that you guys give. So all kudos to you, because it really is fantastic stuff.
Thank you.
So thank you so much guys. Like I said, I will link up to all the stuff, please go and check them out.
I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. I don't think I have laughed so much on a podcast ever. To be honest, after we stopped recording, we still talked for about another 45 minutes. We are terrible. We love catching up. But those guys really are, not only the best fun, which I'm sure you could hear from the nonstop laughing in the podcast, but they do have amazing content and tell you the most amazing things to do with your business. So if you want to know more about Andrew and Pete, head over to Andrewandpete.com, also don't forget to check out their YouTube channel where they bring out a weekly video that is basically, like they said, stopping marketing being boring. So they will add some great value over there as well.
Now next week, I'm back to a solo episode again. Perhaps a little bit more serious than this week. But it has been so much fun doing these interviews. As I said, I have got some more amazing interviews to come, which we're going to mix up between solo episodes and make sure that you're getting great content and tips, and tools, and tactics to use in your business in order to make your marketing and social media better. I can't wait to see you again next time. Until then, have a wonderful week.
