4 Key Takeaways from Word on the Street podcast

Written by Gracie Ford, Project Manager.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending an in-person live recording of Katie Street’s podcast Word on the Street with guest speakers Grace Andrews, Kate Munday and Mike Lander to Discover the Secrets to Winning More Clients, and here are my 4 key takeaways.

Know your audience and know where they are

Grace Andrews gave us some great tips on how to build your brand (personal or business) across social media channels: know your audience. 

For long-form content, it is harder to get recognised without your audience already being established. Build your engagement using short form content on the channels your audience are already interacting on. Consistent posts, building that brand recognition, will allow you to move across to longer form content, bringing your audience with you. When building your brand, focus on 2-3 platforms. 

Growing from other pre-existing audiences is a brilliant way to build your brand when starting out. Guesting on the podcasts or YouTube channels of people who have similar audiences is a great way to expose your business to those who are more likely to interact and connect with your brand.

Communication is key

Kate Munday said it herself - tweaking and building your speaking techniques builds effective communication and helps tell your story better. 

Position yourself with service in mind with your clients - what can you add? How can you help them? Kate made a great point: clients can tell the difference between receiving and taking. 

Another great tip from Kate: film yourself presenting from both the audience POV and your own POV. The audience POV will allow you to analyse how you present yourself and your brand. As Katie said, avoiding clunky jewellery if you’re doing a pitch is always a good shout if you know you tend to talk with your hands! Filming your POV will allow you to see how your points are being received - was that joke landing? Did any sections of the presentation run on slightly too long? This will give you an insight into what needs to be nutted out, and what is really working.

Perfect your relationship with procurement

Mike Lander’s background in procurement means he knows exactly what to do, and what not to do, to ensure you win that big deal with your new client.

If a deal is over £50k, bring in procurement from the beginning! This will avoid the last-minute hurdle after everyone has already signed off. Building that relationship and getting on the preferred sellers’ list from the start means your brand’s recognition reaches the teams who make the final call. 

So how do you build that relationship?

Most importantly, your relationship with procurement will be different to your relationship with your client contacts. Stop selling and start negotiating and come prepared! 80% of the value in negotiations is in the preparation. Start with your objectives, build out your timeline, know your variables and have a process. Once you have your relationship with procurement, you will have your relationship with your client!

Consistency and authenticity go hand in hand

Consistency is key to building your business, building your brand and gaining a loyal audience.

Don’t be afraid to experiment as long as it stays within your brand’s identity - traditional TV ads are around 30 seconds, even though studies prove that the biggest driver of ROI are videos 60s+. Evolving and investing in your business consistently will pay off in the long run.

Authenticity is the buzz-word for brands at the moment, but it’s proving to be less of a fad, and a real variable of whether a client will invest or not. Consistently building brand recognition will allow your clients to recognise you from the tone of voice on your posts, even without seeing a name or picture. So how do you engage effectively to build that recognition? Personalisation allows for connection: just look at how brands like Innocent Drinks, RyanAir and Duolingo have grown their brands by personalising and connecting with their audiences. Authenticity is an extension of your brand’s identity online. Engage with your audience as people by showing your people! 

Thank you again to Katie Street for hosting such a great podcast, if you would like to listen to the full episode, you can listen here.

If you’d like to find out more about who we are and what we do, check out The Diversity type project, our brand purpose, listen to our podcast and get a coffee on us here.