Ep. 23 | Pt 2 Strategy, Purpose, Data and Events Danielle Regan and Dave Hendy, Mace
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Marketing In Times of Recovery hosted by Ayo Abbas, a built environment marketing consultant and founder of Abbas Marketing.
It's part two of my interview with Danielle Regan and Dave Hendy from Mace. If you've not checked out part 1 make sure you do before hitting play here.
In our discussion, we talk about:
The process Mace took to set their new 2026 business strategy including how internal staff feedback led them to take the leap to be bolder in their strategic ambitions.
How website traffic grew 70% in the last year and what steps they're taking to drive traffic and the data they're using to drive their content strategy.
How they're navigating the hybrid event conundrum.
Rate and review us
Please rate and review us if you’re listening on Apple podcasts as it’s lovely to hear what you think plus it helps us to spread the word.
Resources
Abbas Marketing
Mace Group
This episode was recorded on July 01 2021.
Transcript.
Ayo Abbas 00:05
Hello, I'm your host Ayo Abbas, and welcome to the latest episode of Marketing In Times of Recovery. If you've not listened to part one of this interview with Danielle Regan and Dave Hendy from Mace, make sure you do before you listen to this one, which is part two. Anyway, here we go bye Moving on to your purpose. And I know you've recently this year, you've launched your purpose led strategy for your business strategy up to 2026. Tell us bit more about how that came about Danielle.
Danielle Regan 00:39
Yeah, sure. So this was part of the redefine stage of the journey really. So as I said earlier, there was a small group of visit started getting together every morning as a as of July really thinking about what's the future of the of the business look like. And we've been talking kind of pre lockdown about our purpose and becoming more of a purpose led organisations that was kind of on the on, certainly on Mark Reynolds, our CEOs mind to really do that reflection about, you know, why we exist to kind of beyond, you know, making a profit. And Mark's been really instrumental in driving the responsible business agenda and the carbon agenda, and Mace Foundation, our charity. So he, I think he really wanted to kind to formalise that in a way that linked in with the business strategy and the vision for the future. So yeah, we went on a, we went on a journey, and we and we tried really, really hard actually, to bring our colleagues on the journey as well. So we, we started looking at what our purpose is, as an organisation. And we did a lot of copy, we did a lot of engagement, a lot of workshops, a lot of sessions, where we got our sort of people to kind of feedback to us about why they work at Mace and what they see as the kind of potential for the organisation. And then from from that process, we actually changed the purpose, we started off with one, and people kind of told us it wasn't ambitious enough, and, and we listened and we changed it. And, and then where we ended up with a purpose, which is to redefine the boundaries of ambition. And three strategic priorities are the new business strategy, which is, you know, really focused on kind of six main growth sectors. And what is so, so fascinating about this actually, is I've been involved in three business strategies. Now, it must have been with the business for 13 years. And the least interesting thing about this business strategy are the numbers. You know, in fact, I think change is massive. And I actually would say, if you asked around the business now, I think people would remember the priorities are really landing, particularly our pursuit of sustainable world priority, because we committed to go net zero carbon last year, and we achieved that. And now we've committed to, you know, reduce our clients carbon by a million tonnes, and some, increased biodiversity net gain, and, you know, some really, really strong ambitious targets and our whole workforce has got behind them, but I would say most people, if you said to them, what's the financial, target for the, in the business strategy? I think most people would struggle to tell you that, whereas I think they would be able to tell you about the purpose and the priorities, which is, that change is phenomenal, you know, that, that is, you know, and makes me so happy. You know, it's great, because as well, the business is just, it's just matured so much. And that that sense of responsibility that the board has now and the want to do the right thing, you know, to the people, to the planet, you know, is genuine and they're putting their, you know, money where their mouth is with this stuff. And, and, you know, that's, that's just, it's just great. It's really, really great to see and, and also a bit of a gift from a marcomms point of view, because we've got some really fabulous themes to actually
Ayo Abbas 03:56
talk about how to
Danielle Regan 03:57
Yeah, become famous for you know, when, and, and we've always sort of obviously had annual themes that we talk about, but now we've got four really strong pillars from an external comms point of view that Dave builds the thought leadership response around and, and that's great. And it's, you know, it's, and we've actually got an opinion and a point of view, and, you know, huge expertise in the business, which is great. You know, it's a real gift, both from an employee engagement perspective, and from an external comms perspective,
Dave Hendy 04:27
Just looking at everything Danielle just said, for me, something that really stands out is, you know, we set ourselves the challenge of going and setting a purpose and setting these priorities. And we came up with a set, you know, a senior leadership level that we took out of the business that weren't finished that were in draft, that we were confident enough to go and say: :"this is what we think we're doing. Come and let us know what you think" And we did. I think we we topped at about 2000 bits of feedback, we did workshops, we did facilitated sessions. We did surveys, you know, we got we got we It was probably the biggest piece of kind of in internal discussion and conversation we've had as a business, and we totally ripped them up, you know, and we, you know, we change them, we change the number we have we changed the wording, the purpose changed entirely. And actually, I think, you know, looking back, if you'd have, if you'd have asked me, pre-COVID, if we'd have had the confidence and the Board would have had the confidence to come out with something that important to 6000 people that wasn't finished yet, and ask them what they thought and change it. You know, I think a lot sometimes when people go out with stuff like that, for ideas and suggestions, they're kind of they know where they're going to end up, you know, it's not really a conversation, it's give us a stamp and tell us we're doing the right thing. And in this case, it was you know, what you're not. And we went back, and we changed it. And I think that's a really, you know, I think as a result, from conversations, I've had people, people buy into it a lot more because they know what it was before. And they know that they influenced it. And they know that as a result, you know, we just set the ambitions higher. People said, the initial one was, now I think, the people said, This isn't the company I think I worked for this isn't the company that built the Shard. This is this is ambition levels down here, we want to be up here. And that that gave us a mandate to go and change it and to go and push for something a bit bolder. And I you know, in that moment, we realised that we were able to get that level of boldness, and then we'd have to deliver everything, the comms campaign around it to make that real. That's really exciting. That's a hell of a mandate it's bit a bit unnerving. There was some time in January, where we were working pretty hard to make that a reality. But it has made a big impact. No, it's great that you kind of went it you consulted on that level. And you listened, which I think is the key thing, right? You've completely built your homepage I was looking at earlier around your business strategy, right? It's completely different than it was before, isn't it? So it's a lot more because I was looking, I was like, this isn't like a normal homepage. So kind of what was the thinking behind that? Dave? And I mean, it was it was it was a team effort, really, but I think what what it what it shows, you know that the launch of our Purpose priorities new business strategy was we wanted it to be seen as a fundamentally, you know, change making moment for the business. This wasn't the same business, that it was before we're doing something really different. And particularly those three core priorities. We think pursue a sustainable world, grow together, deliver distinctive value, that shaped everything we do. And so actually, we should use that as a mechanism to to promote ourselves and to share ourselves and to structure how we talk about ourselves. So purpose, front and centre. And who knows, you know, that will always be front and centre, will it always be quite so front and centre, of the promo on the website, maybe not, maybe as it becomes embedded it or it will shift. But those three priorities, absolutely say this is who we are. And this is what we're doing. And this is why either, you know, either you should come and work with us, or you should come and work for us or consider us for your project. And I think that's where that thinking is. And that's, you know, that gives us a reason to structure stuff in the way that we have and gave us a kind of a push to redesign the front of the website, which I don't think would have happened without the new strategy.
Danielle Regan 07:54
And we and we also what's quite interesting about the purpose and priorities launch is it gave us the opportunity as well to relook at the brand, and kind of refresh the brand, because I think that, you know, it all kind of comes back to this benchmarking everything about are we being as ambitious as we could be here. I think that's the sort of that's the sort of fundamental of the purpose really, you know, we've always been a business kind of pursued a better way and looked for a better way of doing things and doing things other say can't be done. So the purpose is built on our legacy. But it's looking to the future rather than more than anything else. And it's kind of taking it broader than just kind of doing things on a project level. That other said, couldn't be done. Yeah. And I think that we then looked at our brand and thought, actually, we, you know, this could be more ambitious, this could be updated and refreshed and kind of reenergised. So that was another really nice thing about kind of doing the purpose stuff is it sort of gave us permission to really reflect on our brand. And as a result, we've updated our kind of messaging, our tone of voice, our look and feel the whole sort of visual identity. And, and that's now been reflected, reflected in our new office environments. All of our offices have being updated with that refresh branding, across all of our assets, really, so. Yeah. And the website, you know, because we do a lot more, we drive a lot more people to the website now. So we've had something like a 70% uplift in visitors this year, compared to the same period last year. And, you know, and actually, international visitors as well, we've seen a huge increase in visitors from the US, for example, and huge increase in visitors to sort of responsible business pages and sustainability pages and looking at those search terms and look at what people kind of coming to us for is really interesting. And in light of the new strategy. I feel like we are more people are coming to us for things like sustainability and, you know, advice on reducing carbon, because we are hopefully being seen as more of a kind of leader in in areas. Yeah.
Ayo Abbas 10:00
And I guess, I mean, how do you kind of feedback to the business on the importance of the website? I mean, do they come to you now? It's what that you know, we want to be on it What's going on there? Or? Or how is all of that now? We're kind of working on a practical day to day, though.
Dave Hendy 10:13
Why it's more of a question for Danielle? Really
Danielle Regan 10:18
Yeah, it's interesting. We're just about to upgrade to, to the to the cloud and upgrade to the latest Sitecore? Which, I've got no idea what number Sitecore is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But which is going to be interesting, because that's going to allow a lot more sort of personalisation. Which is going to be great. But already, you know, the website, but I think mainly, the Perspective section is the bit that's really sort of quite, we change that every few days, we produce kind of new thought leadership content, And that keeps it really fresh and up to date. And our business partners work really closely with their business units on kind of, you know, what's going on in their sectors, what's going on in their industries, what are the kind of key themes and, and we produce a lot of sort of thought leadership that goes on our website, on a sort of weekly, weekly basis. And then we do a lot of really targeted campaigns, driving people to that to that content, as well. And then we do you know, then we've got a Power BI dashboard, that kind of all of our marketing data kind of gets sucked into, that we can look up by client who by campaign or by individual, or, you know, so, so yeah, and then the business partners work with the business to sort of say, right, do we need to do any follow up? And, you know, what conversations Do we need to have on the back of this? And, you know, what's performing? Well, what isn't performing? Well, you know, and so, you know, we're certainly getting a lot more sort of, I would say, more targeted with a lot of our content on the website, from a business partner point of view. So we've got our kind of four main themes from a corporate perspective, which we talk a lot about, and then really quite targeted from, from the sector point of view. And then we're also now utilising a lot more sort of digital advertising, digital marketing, techniques and tactics as well to sort of drive traffic to the website. So you know, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, Google ads, all sorts of sponsored content, you know, PPC, etc. So, you know, yeah, so there's a lot going on to try and drive traffic. Let's drive traffic, you know, generate awareness, but also opposition, clearly to capture leads and intel as well. So, yeah, a lot, a lot going on in that space at the moment.
Ayo Abbas 12:39
So did you move a lot of your physical events spend on that onto the digital platform? Was it a kind of, like a switch like that, or I guess in the past year? Is that? Is that what you've done? Or would that have happened anyway? In terms of the digital?
Danielle Regan 12:54
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we predominantly, we've done a lot of virtual events, I think we did something like 150 virtual events last year. They were predominantly internal, as Dave said, that real drive to keep the business engaged and updated, and knowledge share, and you know, all around our purpose and priorities. But then external as well. We didn't invest in an event platform. And I know, some organisations have invested in I think it's On24 and other platforms, you know, but we didn't we use the Microsoft, either live events or Teams or we've used Zoom. Because predominantly, the external events have been kind of, I guess, roundtables. More intimate client events we've got one today with, with Ed Gillespie, who's the Futurenauts who works with john Richardson, all about kind of, on the back of London Climate Action Week. So you know, you might have kind of 40 clients sort of dial-in
Ayo Abbas 13:56
so it's more focused, rather than a big mass
Danielle Regan 13:58
more focused. Yeah. And we've we've done more for our kind of strategic clients. So that's a community. So we've got a kind of about 50 strategic clients that we've got really long standing relationships with. And, you know, part of our approach during COVID, as well was about really trying to how can we support that client base. And Dave launched a thought leadership series, which was to sort of really kind of support our clients, through those kind of challenging times. And then we did events as well. And that was really trying to bring that community together, and what can we learn from each other? So we did a piece of research quite early doors where we sat down and spoke to our strategic clients about the kind of impact of COVID on their business in the short term, what they thought the long term looked like, where were their challenges, what opportunities did they see and then then we tried to kind of aggregate that data and share that amongst, obviously not citing any names or organisation but just show just trying to show we're just knowledge share, because that's what a lot of our clients asked us for, you know, they want to know how others. other organisations All right, well, how other sector's are handling things and, and we really tried to be that facilitator of that, that that knowledge share in those lessons, those lessons learned. And yeah, so from an event point of view, a lot of it, it's about bringing that community of strategic clients together and helping them, you know, not just hear from others, but hear from each other, and, you know, tackle some of those big problems that they're all facing, you know, so today's on climate change is, you know, is exactly that, you know, what's, what's this client doing? What's that client doing? How can we kind of help each other with these sort of shared challenges.
Dave Hendy 15:34
And, and I think a lot of a lot of the value areas is, you know, it was, it feels a long time ago now. But actually, we mentioned earlier, before we started talking about Zoom, fatigue but it set in pretty quickly last year. Everybody, a lot of organisations, understandably switched to a strategy of these kind of loads of really big audience one too many, come and come and join a, you know, an audience of 200, as we sit and tell you about what we think COVID is going to do to x industry, and, actually, the the thing is, is that the real you have, you have to show real value, you had to get, you know, to really make an impact. And to get somebody to remember, you know, you're not having them around your office for breakfast, or a pain au chocolate, or a cup of coffee and an interesting conversation, they're just sat on their desk. So you've got to show them something interesting. And actually, I think the smaller model, the strategic client network, which Daniel launched last year, actually, you know, it's all about senior access. It's all about having a really high level conversation with a really high quality guest, you actually get to be involved and engaged. And it's not, you're not just being taught that, I think was was so much more impactful than some of the more generic kind of turn up and listen to somebody talk about the future of the workplace with 250 people on the call who all come from different places, none of whom really get a chance to be involved or engaged in a conversation.
Ayo Abbas 16:48
Yeah, no, I think I think you're right, smaller, definitely.
Danielle Regan 16:51
And I think as well, it's about finding your where you can really add value, because let's be honest, none of us really know what is really new, but COVID is how we navigate this new world, but actually, there are some areas of expertise that we really do have where we can really add value. So it was it was about, you know, that balance of kind of not jumping on that kind of COVID thought leadership bandwagon and really trying to pick the topic where we could really help our clients. So whether that was around returning to full productivity on site, whether it was around a safe return to the office, because of our FM kind of capability, or, you know, it was just trying to find where we can really add value to our clients and partners.
Dave Hendy 17:31
And not just add to the hurricane of noise but I have to admit, but I I think internally though, there's a really interesting thing where we're actually you know, we did we did low volume, high target, high-value external engagement. And actually, internally, we did high volume loads, loads of virtual events. And that is about keeping that culture people aren't seeing everybody every day, you do need to have repeated touchpoints outside of people's immediate team. So they get to know what's going on, they get to, you know, they get all that face time. And actually, what's interesting is a challenge now, is that one of the things that came out that we used to do a session, I presume we did it when you were at Mace Ayo called Breakfast with the Board where we'd get 20 people in a room with our chief exec nice breakfast, bacon sandwiches come and have a chat, and we moved that virtual. And moving average is one of the best things you've ever done. Because suddenly, it wasn't just people that could get to London at 830 on a Tuesday morning. The leftovers so
Ayo Abbas 18:36
The sausage sandwiches so good.
Dave Hendy 18:39
We can carry down a tray of sausage sandwich it often is butactually doing it virtually you know, suddenly you having our chief executive, our CFO in a room with people from 14 different countries. And people who are working most of those different capacities not a couple of conversations with people in our you know, we've got a very small office in Singapore, for example. And one of the team obsessed. And I've never really felt like part of the wider Mace Group until now. But now now I've got the same access that somebody in London does. Now I'm on equal terms and I get to go to the events just the same as they do. And I get to turn up to everything. And actually, there's some there's a really big challenge. I think I don't think many people have got their head around yet in big corporates about how you unpick that. Because actually, as you vibrate, you've got you know, the hybrid experience can't just be a camera in the back of the room that somebody can dial into anymore, because they want to be a participant, they want to be able to ask questions, they want to be able to engage the speakers, they're not just passively there, whereas people in HQ are a different status. And actually, that's, you know, I haven't yet seen an event platform or internal tech that really delivers that properly. And I think there's a little way to go. As we get back to our new ways of working about how you might
Ayo Abbas 19:42
think you've hit on the big gap. I think that's the thing is that hybrid technology and making that experience work for both parties. I think that's the big gap. You're right. There is nothing that covers that at the moment. And I think Yeah, to actually make it feel that you know, you're both you're both as valued. That's hard.
Danielle Regan 19:59
The only And it's interesting, I always think about football match from a hybrid point of view, because you get a very different experience watching it on TV than you do in the stadium. But actually, it's an equally entertaining, maybe it's not as atmospheric. But you get the you get the pundits, and you get the sort of visuals on the screen, and you get the kind of commentary and you get, which obviously, you don't get in the stadium. But effectively, you kind of run it. And if you think about that an event perspective, you haven't run into. Yeah, two events in in in tandem, we've got our first proper hybrid event in September, where we bring in all of our leadership together, for the first time will be well, touch wood. And, you know, we're really sort of looking at that at the moment thinking, Well, you know, you've got to run two events here you can't just as Dave says, stick a camera in the back of a room, and they'd like a microphone, you
Ayo Abbas 20:51
might hear them you might not Yeah,
Danielle Regan 20:52
yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's really interesting, isn't it? It's another interesting challenge, isn't it? You know, but yeah, if you've got any advice on that one,
Ayo Abbas 21:01
I just think there's gonna be some prop tech companies out there who come up with this stuff, who are going to make or event you know, what I mean? Because there isn't anything. And I think it's how do you get, like you say, how do you create those two different types of experiences, so you both feel valued and, and get the same type, you know, come away feeling that, you know, I was really there.
Danielle Regan 21:19
And, and it's really important, at the moment, because we're trying to embed this new, new, the interesting thing about strategy and purpose is it's not just that launch done, you know, actually, the hard work is in now is embedding this stuff and actually getting people to really stand behind it, and, but most importantly, for me to see their role in it. So, you know, we're doing all sorts of things internally at the moment to try and help that embedment and support, make sure that everything that we do ladders back to that kind of purpose. So whether it's, you know, operationally, you know, things like our recruitment process, or our appraisal process, or, you know, how we sort of reward and recognise colleagues or, you know, all that kind of how we embed it into the project processes, you know, there's all that kind of kind of processy stuff and laddering the purpose back of laddering everything back to the purpose, but also the sort of another really important one for me is helping individuals see their role and delivering the purpose. So we're doing some find your why series at the moment as well, which is kind of helping people to uncover their personal purpose, but then also see their make that connection, that kind of golden thread between the Mace purpose and their own purpose and how I fit into it. Yeah, where you fit into it, yeah, and how you can kind of bring some of your passions from your private life into into the, into the workplace, because there's so many things that we're trying to achieve as a business at the moment that we're being super ambitious about. And I feel like it's kind of do something for everyone, you know, whereas some organisation's purpose is very clear, you know, if you're a Patagonia it's all about sustainability. And, and that's great, if you're like a massive sustainability kind of champion Mace's purpose is slightly is not a specific, but that's done on purpose. Because actually, we want it to, we want everyone to think about where and how they're ambitious and apply that in their, in their role at work. So whether it's that they're really passionate about, you know, creating a great culture, whether it's that they're passionate about sustainability, or diversity, inclusion, or innovation and technology, or creating safe spaces, you know, it was, you know, part of our enabled network, because our disability network are really looking at how you create safe spaces, physical safe spaces for people through the design process, you know, that is all kind of sits under our purpose, because it's about, you know, being as ambitious as possible in everything that we in everything that we do. So yeah, for, for roles that embedment is really, really important. So kind of, you know, getting our leaders on board with that first and foremost is super, super important. So the last thing you want to do is kind of create that, you know, us and them in the room sort of environment where if you're in the room, you know, an event you sort of really get it and if you're not you just think ugh nah.,
Ayo Abbas 24:09
yeah. And that's the thing is now I think, yeah, events are gonna have to change and but it's quite an exciting time, I think because I think Yeah, because the kind of interactive element the you know, the virtual element actually getting that done, it means you're gonna get a lot more bang for your buck from your events, overall, and value from them but but you're right to get them right in the first place. Hybrid is is gonna take a lot of work. And,
Dave Hendy 24:31
and I think, I think the problem is, is the one thing that's really hard to do is that networking piece, yeah. And that post event or you know, post event drink or pre-event coffee, you know, we've we've tried as I'm sure a lot of people have kind of can you make that work on a virtual event and stick people in rooms afterwards and it's just, it just doesn't like it's just not, you know, you might you might get a slightly interesting conversation out of it. If you're not you don't feel comfortable. You You're not having a nice time you're not sat there, you know, drinking warm white wine and having an interesting chat with somebody you never would have talked to before you just sat there trying to work out what to say to a face on screen that you've never met before, and it just doesn't. So I think there is, you know, finding that finding, what is the benefit you give virtual people that replaces that networking, networking, because that doesn't work is just an industry wide collective challenge. But as soon as anybody works out, and smashes it immediately is copying what they're doing. Because it's such a difficult thing.
Danielle Regan 25:29
advice to your listeners don't host really awkward virtual networking session. And if we tried it,
Ayo Abbas 25:38
But I think, I think she tried it. I know, it's kind of funny, because I did a couple of presenting things. And like, at the end of the year, one of them was for RIBA. And I remember like, afterwards, I thought it was such a huge comedown because normally I've just presented for an hour, normally, I'd be talking to somebody going and watched, you know, afterwards. But then it's like, I just switched off my camera. And then people like,
Dave Hendy 26:04
but I think that lack of feedback thing is a really big issue as well, because now we do these big set pieces with our leadership to our all staff and actually not having that audience. They're not how, you know, suddenly the only feedback route you get you get your survey, you get, you know, the live questions that come in, but but all of that stuff gives Pete you know, it's not the same as the TVs at being able to sit in a room afterwards and have a drink with people and judge how it went down. And what, what, what didn't. And actually that kind of self limiting thing, I think is leaders are more rely on them, people realise they need to be able to do the big speech, and then they need to be able to go and talk to 15 people and understand. And if you don't have that you can't just speak into a void. Actually, I think that one of the you know, one of the things of hybrid is, is just getting that audience feedback loop there. Again, just getting that that crowd of faces, and that that ability to play off people's energy and you know, do all that stuff actually improves both hybrid and virtual so it's quite complicated.
Ayo Abbas 27:01
Yeah, so, so complicated. It's one of those things. I'm like, I'm gonna figure out how to do this. Because you're right, it's Yeah, online is great, in many ways. But yeah, that is the one thing where I was like, just feels weird. Anyway, so moving on from events, I'm going to go on to my final question. So what one tip would you give to a business leader about kind of how to take their business forward in the coming year, as we had, I guess, more into recovery as we are going for at the moment? I'm gonna kick that one off with you, Dave?
Dave Hendy 27:28
I, I it's an interesting question. I think, from what, from what we've seen, and I know, we've spoken a lot about purpose and openness and transparency. But I think that one of the things, you know, we did we had to make some difficult decisions to business last year. And now we're making some really positive and proactive and energised decisions about what the future looks like. One of the reasons we've been able to do both those things really effectively as I think and I would think this because I've had columns that I have an ownership of it, but I think we have kept people engaged. And we have kept people on our side and kind of with us as we've gone through this by being sincere by being authentic by being transparent by having a person at the top who is prepared to go out in front of an audience and take loads of questions and talk about why he's doing something and admit mistakes. And I think that kind of sincerity, which is kind of tied to being a purpose of business, I think is really key. And I think, as you know, one of the things Danielle, so kind of COVID is fast forwarded everything. And I think that's really true. One of the things I think is particularly fast forwarded is people's need to kind of have that sincerity and authenticity from their leadership in a business. And I think that if you can do that, well, and do it believably people will, people will follow you, and they will take your ambitions on board, and they'll go out and they'll do really challenging things, or they'll let you know, and if you can't do it, and everything falls flat, and nobody believes what you're saying, then it'll just fall apart. So I think that that for me is you know, sincerity is absolutely key and that sense of authenticity.
Ayo Abbas 28:57
Fantastic sincerity and authenticity. I can't even say it anyway. What's your one tip? I guess, you know,
Danielle Regan 29:06
I think as the market starts to sort of move into recovery, I think that the war for talent is going to get even tougher. And I think, you know, now, if organisations haven't done this, sort of, during COVID of that, I think, you know, really starting to do a bit of soul searching. And for us it was starting with the why, you know, people don't buy what you do they buy, why you buy why you do it, and I whole Simon Sinek famous, famous quote, and that's equally true for employees as well, you know, employees, these days want to work for a purpose driven business, they won't work for a responsible business. So I think, you know, do taking the time to really think about your why. And, and so I think that's one thing and then after, you know, after that, I think from a marketing point of view, I think, you know, look, look at your data. I think focus is really key if you know if you've got a relatively small marcomms team You need to understand where my comms effort is, is most effective, and there's no excuse anymore, that everything now is digital and you can get, you know, data at the touch of a button. So, you know, really, you know, use that interrogate it use that to sort of formulate your kind of decision making and your strategies going forward.
Ayo Abbas 30:19
Thank you both for your tips and for coming onto the show. And we are done.
Danielle Regan 30:23
Thanks for having us.
Dave Hendy 30:24
Thank you. That was really fun.
Ayo Abbas 30:31
Thanks so much for listening to the latest episode of Marketing in Times of Recovery, and I'm your host Ayo Abbas. If you want to find out more about the Bi-weekly show do check out the show notes which will give you more information about who the guests are and all the things we've covered. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on an episode. Until next time, bye.
