Why Every Business Owner and Entrepreneur Should Attend Networking Events with Biz Paul

Your Dream Business

English - December 17, 2018 00:32 - 45 minutes - 83.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTMarketing is changing all the time so it’s important to keep up. Attending industry events and networking opportunities is a great way to ensure you’re always up to date.It’s so important to be continuously learning. Whether it’s an online course, attending events or by following people who you feel you can learn from every day.People attend events for several different reasons. Whether it’s to learn something new, to make new connects or to network – there’s always someone who you’ll have something in common with.If you attend an event with a speaker that you want to learn more from, make the time to speak to them during the event. Even if you want to challenge something they’ve said, it’s important to have your say.Before an event, find out who the speakers are and connect with them on social media. Edit your profile before an event to include the event hashtag in your bio. That way, people can easily find you when they’re looking to see is attending!Try to attend all of the social events surrounding the events you are attending as it’s where people are more relaxed, and you can make the best connections.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Networking at events as a business or entrepreneur is vital to your business’ growth. It’s important to continue learning every day and learning from industry leaders is one of the best ways to do this.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIntroducing Paul – 05:06The Importance Of Attending Industry Events 13:00Why Do People Attend Events? 15:56How To Maximise An Event As An Attendee 28:16MarketEdLive 2019 37:00
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEBizPaul Twitter bizpaul.com MarketEdLive Tickets
Transcript below

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast. I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are you on this fine day? I hope things are going well for you and you're having a good day. This week I have been batch recording, and like I said to you before, I'm trying to do this more often so that I can get ahead and make sure that all the podcasts are recording in time, that I've done the interviews, that the team have been able to do all the stuff that they do, because as I've mentioned to you before, recording and producing a podcast is hard work. There's a lot of work that we need to do for it. So I want to make sure that I get ahead and get these episodes recorded for you.

I just have to say, I can't actually believe we're on episode 43. It seems to have gone so fast, and bearing in mind we've been doing it weekly, I can't believe we've been doing it for almost an entire year. I am loving the feedback. Thank you so much if you're listening, thank you so much for the people who reach out to me, I love hearing what you think, I love getting your responses, I love seeing you tag me in Insta Stories, and I love sharing those as well. So, if you are listening, then please do reach out and let me know. Let me share your posts on social media, because I love hearing from you, so thank you very much.

This week I've had the absolute pleasure to interview and present to you not only an amazing marketeer, but also a very good friend. This week I am interviewing the super lovely Paul Ince, otherwise known on social media as BizPaul. If you're in the UK and you follow football, you might know that there was a footballer called Paul Ince, and therefore, when he first started on social media he actually ended up having lots of people follow him or...

Anyway, I met Paul quite a few years ago at a marketing event, it was actually Social Day, and it was a conference that we both attended, we both sat next to each other on the same table, and since then have developed this lovely relationship and become first friends. You know what? One of the things I love about having friends with people that are in my industry or people that are doing the same sort of thing as I'm doing, is the fact that they know what you're going through. They know what troubles, and trials, and tribulations that you might have in your business. So just the other day, something was bothering me, I was letting something get to me, I was having a bit of a problem with something, and I had a call with Paul and we were able to talk it through because he understood exactly what I was talking about. Having that kind of relationship, having someone that you can do that with is great.

One of the things that actually Paul and I discussed before we started the podcast was that in America, when I go out there, everyone seems to be willing to share everything with you. There's no worry about a competitor. I think everybody has confidence in their own stuff, that they're not sat there thinking, "Well I can't possibly show this to this person, I can't possibly let them see what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, because they might steal it." There's not that at all, and actually it's such a lovely way to be.

Recently I was on a Zoom call with a lovely lady called Jen from America who does something very similar to what I do and she was sharing with me lots of her ideas, and thoughts, and processes, and it was brilliant. You know what? Neither one of us sat there thinking, "We can't tell you this because you're going to steal it." It was a really open and honest conversation which actually benefited us both. Which leads me nicely into the kind of premise of where today's interview's coming from.

Now, Paul and I talk lots about the event he does called MarketEd Live, and we talk lots about why, if you're in any business, in any industry, you should be attending or trying to attend events, why you should sit with like-minded people, why you should network with people in your industry. So that's what we talk about today, it was great fun to interview him. Also, at the end of the interview, there's an announcement which is a world exclusive ... Okay, I'm egging it up a little bit, granted, but it's not been put out here before, so I'm really excited to announce this on the podcast today. Make sure you listen to the end to hear what that is.

So, without further ado, here's the interview.

Introducing Paul

It gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome not only an amazing marketeer, but also my lovely friend, Paul Ince, to the podcast. Hello Paul.

Hello. Hello everyone.

That was a very excitable hello from me. How are you, Paul?

I'm really good thanks, Teresa. It's so wonderful to be on this great podcast which I've listened to right from the beginning and love listening to every week.

Aw, thank you. I said pretty much from the beginning, whether I said it to you I'm not entirely sure, but I did say to myself, if it wasn't to you, that I'm having you on. So it's so lovely to finally have you on. I was on your podcast for when you had that, because you did a season of it running up to your event, which we'll talk about. That was good fun. We were just laughing because when I went on Paul's podcast, he records his podcast and actually puts the video out there as well as audio recording. We recorded it and something happened, and the recording didn't happen. So we did an entire podcast and we had to do it again. We were real professionals and just literally, the minute we finished started again and did it again. It was hilarious. I've joked he's got to do this twice to get him back.

It was a great podcast. It was. It was. The fact that we did it all the way through when it wasn't recording ... it was my fault, it was a storage issue. You know, one of these things that you learn in doing a [crosstalk 00:06:38]

Yeah. You'll never do it again.

... storage. It was fine the second time around, it was better.

Yeah, it was. Actually you said that I had said some things in the second time that I hadn't said in the first. So yeah, it was meant to be, obviously someone in the universe somewhere went, "That isn't good enough, I know you can do better than that, I'm not going to record this." Anyway, that was just a bit of a giggle we were having.

I wanted to bring Paul on today because like I said, not only is he an awesome marketeer and social media person, he has also got this amazing event, which I just want to say to him and the world, if you have ever run an event or worked in events ... Now, I used to do work for Land Rover, and one of the things we did was loads of events, big events, it is one of the hardest things to do ever. Well, in marketing words, obviously there's jobs that are much harder than that. But in the marketing world it is super difficult to run and organise an event, and then on top of that, to actually sell tickets for that event, that's almost like another added pressure. So my hat goes off to anybody who runs an event, and manages an event, and makes these things happen. They're amazing when you go to them, but I don't know if you've ever been part of it, that you realise how much hard work goes into it.

So I'm so excited to have Paul on to talk about the event, but Paul first, in case my audience haven't heard of you, it'd be really great if you could just give us a bit of a backstory about who you are and how you got to do what you're doing.

Well, I'm Paul, but to be honest you might as well forget that because everybody calls me BizPaul. That's my Twitter username, that's where I am everywhere if you want to find me. Even my kids call me BizPaul.

Brilliant.

We're totally on brand in my house.

Love it.

So birthday cards, Christmas cards, just generally shouting at me from upstairs, "Hey BizPaul, where's my breakfast?" All of that happens. So I'm BizPaul, you can find me everywhere there. I run, as you said Teresa, MarketEd Live, which is our annual marketing event in Nottingham every Autumn. My business is called LikeMind Media, we're essentially a digital marketing agency, although I'm not a huge fan of that term, because really we just work closely with clients and help them meet their business objectives, and we just take their marketing tasks and do what needs to be done. I have been running that for nearly four years. Before that I had a big background in tech, so we do a lot of tech marketing actually.

I think that's an area where marketing, from what it was to what it is now, has changed phenomenally. Have I just said that right?

That's it, we'll go with it.

Yeah, who cares?

A lot.

Yeah, it's changed a lot. It's changed so much. Back in the day, well one, there wasn't even tech when I started marketing because people still hadn't jumped on the whole website thing, but I think now as marketeers we've had to change, we've had to become more technical, and actually a couple of weeks ago I had Brian Fanzo on who came from a tech background and therefore has now come into marketing. So it's interesting that people are coming in from that direction.

What I really want to know, I'm fascinated by, because obviously having the agency ... I do get what you mean, digital agency and kind of the connotations around that, but having the agency, what then made you think, "I know, I'm going to put on an event"? You're now wondering what made you think that, aren't you? You're like, "Why did I do that?"

Well sometimes yes. Sort of around the beginning of summer when there's a lull because people go on holiday, in terms of ticket sales. That's the moment when I always think, "Why am I doing this?" Happens every year. Essentially, I was having a drink with my good friend, Tim Elliott in a pub and we were just talking about-

Always the best decisions are made when you've had a drink.

Aren't they? Aren't they?

That's what I find.

So we'd had a couple of pints and we were talking about events that we go to, because we go to events, I go to a lot of events, I really feel passionately about education and getting as much education and keeping on top of all the changes, as you said, marketing changes a lot and very quickly, and if you don't keep up, you're in trouble really. We were talking about how we were having to travel. The area that we live in, the east Midlands of England, not a huge amount of stuff goes on. They have some great cities, but you have to travel. So Edinburgh, London, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in London. But London's expensive, and do you know what, we said there are lots of businesses in our region that all employ marketing people. There are lots of freelancers, lots of people like us. Why do we have to travel? Where is the gap? It's here, why don't we put on an event?

All that we really had to do we thought, was we had to convince speakers who have never heard of us to come to an event that they've never heard of that doesn't really exist at this point, and then convince people to travel to an area where they've never been, to also come and hear people who maybe they've never heard of or maybe they have heard of, where we've not even booked them as yet. I mean, how hard can it be? At the time after a couple of pints, think, you know, it's easy. That was the reason why we did it, because we just thought there's a gap there. We wanted to create something that was very specific towards marketing education. The whole purpose is to get people taking something away, where they feel they've learnt something and can actually apply it when they get back to the office the following day. So inspiration is good, but practicalities are important as well.

The Importance Of Attending Industry Events

I love that, and I think I've said before on the podcast, people know that my background's marketing and my degree's in marketing, but I will happily and honestly sit here and tell you that the stuff I learnt then, although I learnt some great foundational stuff, is not what I'm doing today. For me to be at the level I am today is down to the fact that I continuously learn. I'm always doing an online course, or an online programme. I'm going to events all the time. I'm following other people who do what we do, who write podcasts, and blogs, and whatever it might be, do videos. For me, that's how I feel, and I know you're the same, how I feel I can be at the level I am right now, because I do that continuously ongoing training and learning. I think to come at it from that point of view is such a great way, because actually the marketers in our industry, and social media, and the world how it is now and how technology is changing how we're marketing, we've got to keep up to date.

I know you and I, last year we were in San Diego together and we went to Social Media Marketing World, which was cool. It was the first time you'd been, wasn't it?

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:14:09]

It's an amazing event. So that's held in San Diego in March. We're both going again this year. I am still holding out that maybe they might ask me to speak, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Come on Social Media Examiner, do it.

[crosstalk 00:14:25]

Let's get Teresa on the stage.

Either way, I'm going to be there because it's an amazing event. We see the importance of going to those events and sitting and listening to different people. Often though, sometimes you think to yourself, "Oh, I do know a lot about that." But inevitably, no matter what event I go to, even if it's one or two things in an entire talk, I think, "That was worth coming for." They always give you something that you think, "Ah, I didn't think to do it that way," or that's a different angle, or just gives you a different take.

Obviously we were at MarketEd Live this year, back in September. God, is it September it was in, yeah?

Yes, yeah. It was September.

[crosstalk 00:15:07] I lose track of time. It was a great day, we had great fun. For you, tell people the structure, how the day went, and some of the speakers that you had there and some of the key takeaways.

Well I just want to pick up on just something that you said about Social Media Marketing World actually, and you're right, it was my first time and it was great to be there, it was great to see you. I remember that we sat next to each other in one of the keynotes. We were just saying how good is it to be here, and what an investment it is, particularly when you're halfway around the world, [crosstalk 00:15:44]

Financial and time.

Why Do People Attend Events?

... and to actually go out there, it costs a lot of money. It's important for us, we were saying, to talk to our clients about the investment that we're making in our education by going to something like that. But there's a couple of reasons I think that people go to events, or certainly why I go to an event anyway. One is the actual learning, so what is it that people are talking about, what can I learn there? When I was at Social Media Marketing World, I picked all the tracks and all the sessions where I felt I was going to learn something new, where the gaps in my knowledge was. The thing that has always surprised me about events is the community around the event. So the people that are there, the connections that you make. My primary purpose to be honest was about networking. That's actually part of the story of MarketEd Live and how we set that up and how we choose who to speak, and what they should be talking about.

The sort of structured of MarketEd Live is that, it's fairly straightforward. We have sessions, we only have one room, but the one room thing is really important to us because we want everybody, including the speakers, to be together.

I think so, I like that.

[crosstalk 00:16:57] have a green room or a separate area for speakers. I don't want them coming in, doing their thing, and then going away, because yes, people there will learn from their sessions, but they will also learn a massive amount by going and talking to them and challenging them. I think one of the emails that we sent out to our attendees said, make sure you challenge the speakers after you've heard what they have to say. Because you might not have that experience or you might have done something differently, and I think we should always challenge each other because that's how you share experiences and how you get better at what it is you do.

Sessions, we choose a different series of topics. We try and cover lots of different marketing disciplines. So email marketing, or chat box, or websites, community, content, social media, there's lots in marketing to talk about. There's actually too much to talk about in one day, so we have to be picky.

Totally, yeah.

So we didn't cover everything this year, and we didn't cover everything last year, and we won't cover everything in 2019, but we'll try and find out what people want and factor that into the agenda.

You had some great speakers this year, and for me, one of the speakers that I actually have reused what he said so many times since then, was Chris Marr. He did a great talk on how to be, or how you should be the Wikipedia of your industry.

Love that.

I loved that, because basically what he was saying, it was such a great case study he gave, and it was...

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