Using stories and testimonials to bring your marketing to life with Miranda Birch

Welcome to today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast. I got together with Miranda Burch and we talked all about the importance of storytelling in your marketing and also the importance of great customer testimonials. This was one of those episodes where I could have spoken to her for another hour or so. So I'll definitely be getting her back for a future episode. But this one is packed with actionable items. So I, I know you're going to find it really useful and really insightful. And let's get on with today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.

Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta.

So on today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast, I am really excited to have Miranda Burch with me. Now, Miranda runs Miranda Birch Media and they help businesses tell their stories to better engage with their clients. Now, Miranda's and my paths have crossed many times in the past, so it's great to get to chat with you on the podcast today. So welcome, Miranda.

It's lovely to be here. Thank you.

And is there anything else you want to add about your backstory and what you do now? Because I'm sure the listeners would be interested in hearing more about that.

So I suppose my love of storytelling and it's through the spoken word really comes from working at the BBC for nearly 25 years in BBC radio. So everything I do and what I love is hearing people tell out loud how they got to be where they are and the challenges they've overcome. And in business terms, that means you're fleshing out your qualifications, your expertise, your knowledge, you know, those core skills that mean something because they demonstrate to your clients that you can actually do the job or the service that you're delivering. But alongside that, and this is where I think stories come into their own. If you're talking about why you want to do a good job for your clients, why you want to make a difference to them, why it matters to to you. And that may go back into your childhood or teenage years, well before you got your paper qualifications or your expertise that built your business. If you explore that in a storytelling way, actually what you're adding to the head bit of your qualifications is that heart. And that's often why clients warm to you as well as being convinced that you can do the job. They warm to you as a human being because you're expressing emotions about why that matters to them. So I've probably gone off piste, but that's what I love about stories and that thread that's gone through my career.

And I guess exactly the same applies to businesses telling stories when they're trying to engage with their audience. So I'm personally a real storyteller. You can do some analysis on your communication and processing of information style, and you can be a thinker, feeler or knower. And I'm predominantly a feeler. And feelers are definitely storytellers. So I totally believe in storytelling. But I'd be really interested to hear your perspective on the power of storytelling for agencies when they want to communicate with their audience, with their potential clients and their existing clients.

So I suppose it goes back to my first answer is that obviously you have to demonstrate to those clients that you are a good return on investment. And that comes with the fact that you can demonstrate whatever you're delivering to them may lead to an increase in productivity or save X amount of time or boost their profits, whatever it may be. That's part of it, but I think it's a cliche, isn't it? Business. In business, you do people, you do business with people. And I think particularly at the moment, during a global pandemic where companies are often measured by the yardstick of whether they behaved in a humane way, decently, that they haven't engaged in profiteering, that they've treated their suppliers and clients with respect, they may have offered help. That's the human side, isn't it? So in addition to proving that you can deliver something, if you can talk to your clients about the difference you made as a human being and why they look forward to working with you, why you made their day a little brighter, as well as helping them in that specific business way, as a human being, you made a difference, difference to them. And I think particularly at this moment, a lot of businesses are being measured up against that yardstick of humanity. And that's where if you can capture stories from your clients that tell the world that they were waking up at 4 o' clock in the morning, they couldn't sleep because they were so worried about X, Y or Z, and you came along and helped them. You know, it's that traditional fairy tale hero, heroine comes in, helps them, the client with a pain point, they come out feeling that they can survive what they're going through, then if your clients tell that story in a way that's emotional as well as factual, that does land emotionally with other potential clients who can relate to that person, they can see themselves in that person's shoes and therefore they can see you helping them in some way.

Isn't that so much more powerful than just having a sort of sales pitch that says, that says, you know, we, we do this and we do that and we can help you do this. I just feel like telling that story and painting a picture is so much more evocative. And like you say, other potential customers will hopefully relate to that story and the pain points that that client had. And before we jump into talking about client testimonials, because obviously that is a super important part and really what we want to talk about today, I'm just interested in your perspective on what makes a good story.

Just in its own right. It is about, and I'm gonna go back traditional storytelling here. It's about engaging the attention of your audience because they hear about a challenge that is affecting the central character of that story and they will often relate to that person. And that immediately sets up drama, doesn't it? You know, old fairy tales would not have been effective if Snow White had just met her lovely prince without a mother in law or any other nasty witch intervening. You know, we need that grist in the oyster. We need something that makes us think, oh, oh, that could be me or I'm glad that wasn't me. So it's the same with client testimonials and any other story. If you've got an element of drama, of challenge, which means the person involved has to overcome that challenge, people relate to that. Again, if it's all too smooth, it doesn't engage. But if it triggers something like, oh, okay, that's tough, then that's what engages you in the story. And if you can keep that engagement going by drilling down into the detail and I'm sure we'll come to that later. Getting into the nitty grittle visuals, sensory details, things that suddenly make that story 3D, then you keep the audience's attention and then hopefully you work towards a happy ending, a resolution which you can do in your client case studies. Of course, you know, it delivered X, Y and Z, but that all that's mirroring is the traditional storytelling technique of Snow White lived happily ever after with her prince or princess or whatever.

It may be very interesting and it's such a, it's such a good comparison, isn't it? I guess that's why those fairy stories make such gripping, gripping tales. And you know, when I, when I teach my clients around email marketing, I talk about those different types of email from your origin story from. I talk about a kind of email called the Hero's Journey and also a Kind of email called the Common Enemy. And I think you're alluding to all three of those in what you've just explained.

Yes.

So let's talk a bit about the importance of customer testimonials and what role they play in the sales process for agencies and then how do clients go about getting them and what's the best format to deliver them in?

So starting with where do they come in the sales process and why they're important, obviously you as an agency owner can on your website claim that you deliver the best quality service, that it's bespoke and it's delivered on time, etc. Etc. In the end, those are just claims, aren't they? And if I'm being harsh, they could be seen as empty claims if you don't actually deliver.

And cliches as well.

Yes. So how do you contest that? Well, if you get the stories of your ideal clients, and I do stress, try and get testimonials from your ideal clients in order to attract more of the same, they offer first and foremost evidence, don't they? Third party accounts that you are actually delivering, you are as good as you say you are. So that's one thing. The proof, the evidence, how you get them can be a source of pain. I think we've all been in the position where someone says, that was brilliant, thank you, and you go, good, I'll come back to that later, I'll ask them to write a testimonial and sometimes you can wait and then you nudge and the client feels guilty because they haven't got it done and they've got to write it and you nudge again and time goes by and you either don't get anything at all or the client writes you something, but somehow it doesn't match the enthusiasm of the comment they made to you over zoom or over phone. It's lost, it's lost the energy. And because they've written it, unless you love writing, my experience is people often censor themselves, make their comment very generic. So what you end up with is something that's quite standardized, lacks feeling, and actually just says that you're great and wonderful. And great and wonderful aren't bad as testimonials. But actually what you've got to do is drill down into, well, what did great and wonderful translate into for you as a client? Measurable benefits. And by that point you probably don't want to go back to your client and say, could you possibly, possibly rewrite that for me? You know, so those are some of the pain Points. And my feeling is the way to get around it. And obviously I'm biased because I had nearly a quarter of a century in the BBC and I work on the basis of interviews and spoken conversations. But I have done some research into this because I have been developing online course content for this. And what I discovered is actually, if you ask people if they could spare five minutes to have a quick chat, or if you could just switch on your phone to record them so they tell you more about the comment they just made for you, it's actually effortless, almost effortless, for them to have a quick chat with you, you prompting them with questions and them sharing their comments in a bit more depth that you record over zoom or on your phone. And that way they don't have to write anything, they don't have to feel guilty. And what you've captured is that energy and enthusiasm through their spoken word, because you've got it on Zoom or you've got it on your phone, and that translates into a much more authentic, another overused word. But it's coming. It's coming from their mouth, isn't it? Word of mouth definitely is best in that sense, in my view.

Yeah. And I think there's another really important advantage about that. And again, this is something I tell my clients all the time, and that is you're able to use the client's language and the client's words and not paraphrase it into your own language on your own words. And if the client's saying it, if the client's saying certain words about the pain that they were in, then, you know, other people who are just like that client, who are potential clients of yours, will also feel the same way. And so I think it's really important, like, if you're recording it, that you use their language and not your language.

That's absolutely right. And in fact, I did a case study with one of my clients and it was actually getting interviews from their clients. They're called Spike Insight, and they are really interesting and they deal with data all the time to enable the travel agencies that they work with to reach ideal clients. And they came to me, me saying, look, we love data, we're steeped in it, we are brilliant at it, and they are. But how much do we make of it when we're talking about it to the managing directors of travel companies? And of course, because I could interview two of their ideal clients and turn that into case studies, the collateral benefit was that I was able to write a new tagline for them, which was Absolutely. Spoken in the words of the managing directors and not. Not in their own minds. It wasn't jargonistic. It did mention the word data, but it was in the context of growing your business. So you're absolutely right. If you want to understand how to articulate the difference you make to your clients, ask your clients to express that themselves. It just makes so much difference. In fact, I've rewritten my own website on the basis of what clients have said to me. I don't talk about messaging documents anymore. I talk about nuggets and joining the dots. And it really does resonate with other clients when I do that.

Brilliant. Yeah. And when you're talking about testimonials, what do you feel like the best media or the best format for them is?

I work on the basis that if you're going to spend time on testimonials, maximize everything you do. So the brilliant thing about recording them on Zoom, for example, and I'm not in the pocket of zoom, but I'm using it because it seems to be quite a bit around at the moment, is that you can capture it on video and you have the audio and you can transcribe that into written content. So the format that you use probably depends on the audience that you most want to reach. So, as we know, people have different learning styles, different ways of communicating. So video is an obvious one. But I also feel that once you've extracted the video and transcribed it, you can then turn some of that testimonial, perhaps on an article for LinkedIn or some social media posts, you need to add subtitles to your video. So I think try and do it in a way that you can split it up into different media and you choose the one that you know is going to land with the audience that you need to reach. And obviously that's going to vary depending on what sort of agency you work with and who. Who you want to get to.

And I think you sort of started to answer this question, but let's say I've managed to get a video testimonial from one of my clients. What's the best way for me to maximize the value of that in terms of how I use it moving forward?

Yes. So you're right. I suppose I call it the virtuous circle of content, which is very cheesy, but essentially it's just trying to get you to think, all right, if you've got a video, then, and maybe you've only got five minutes with your client, maybe even two minutes, but if you can cut it and transcribe it and also use the audio. Obviously we're on a podcast. Maybe you can use part of that audio as a podcast as well. And then it is just divvying it out so that you've not only got it on your website and not just on the testimonial page of your website or the case study page. Make sure you extract maybe a sentence of a quote and put it on your homepage or your about page. I feel that everywhere on your website and in your email address. Good to have a testimonial at the bottom of that. So just think of different ways where you can place it. And then of course, you can just keep it repeating every few months on Twitter or LinkedIn. So it's just thinking of every outlet where your clients may be hanging out, including your email and every page on your website.

Yeah, it's fantastic. And what point do you feel like an agency should approach a customer to ask for a testimonial? What point in that lifecycle?

So this goes back to a really good interview, Rob, you did with Remini Armitage, brilliant human who also uses interviews with people. And she said something that really chimes with. What I feel is that if whether you're working with a client just as a one off or you anticipate having an ongoing relationship with that client, it's really good to set their expectations right from the start that you're expecting feedback from them, including testimonial material. And I think if you set that expectation up, that you're open to hear what they've got to say about what you're doing well and where you might be doing things differently. That also sets up the expectation because you can ask that permission that you ask them regularly if you're working with them over say several months, you can ask them at the beginning what brought them to you. So you get their pain points. And then maybe three months in you ask for some feedback, including what's working really well for them and why. And then when you get to the end of the project, you do a summary, but then you don't stop there. And actually I've just done that recently with Spike Insight, which is why they come to mind, as one of my clients is, I've come back to them after nine months just saying, how's it going and what have you learned and how are you applying what we've done? And if you do that, if you follow up maybe six months or nine months later, just to see how people are getting on, which you might be doing anyway during this rather surreal time, then it's again an opportunity to say, well, what have been the long term effects of what I've done with you? How has my product made a difference over this time? Because then you will have captured them at every milestone of their life cycle journey with them right at the start when they were feeling that pain, halfway through when they were already feeling the benefits. But they can also give you other feedback that could help you refine your product for other clients. You then at the end and then beyond the end because it's nice to keep in touch. And if they can give you a long term perspective of the difference you've made, not just then and then when you were working with them, but several months later, that adds to your testimonial which then you could perhaps create a follow up article from and it just goes on in a virtuous circle.

That's such great advice. So I think listeners, if you take one thing away from this podcast today, it's that you should all you should think about interviewing your clients at all the stages Miranda just said. Because I think a lot of the time people would imagine they would only do this at the end of a project in like a project wrap up discussion. But they're missing a number of things here. Now I I teach my clients to do what I call jobs to be done interviews. And this is interviewing their clients right when they onboard them to understand why they bought from you and what the pains that they were in and what transformation they were looking for by buying your product or service. So that's the beginning piece. But I also like the concept of reaching out to them sometime after the project's finished to really understand the impact of your intervention with them. Because that's what people are really buying, buying. And I think a lot of agencies and a lot of businesses full stop sell the wrong thing to their clients. They sell the bits and bytes of the service they do. What they don't sell is the outcomes of the work that they're going to do for the client and then the longer term impact of that intervention. So I love what you just said Miranda.

Good, good. And I suppose the other thing and this goes back to just generating as much content as possible. If you do go back to your clients in that way, often you don't just get extra quotes to add to your existing case studies, but when they have that longer term perspective it might enable you to write content around some of their pain points, more general content that you know will resonate really well with other Ideal clients like these, these ones you've just spoken to. Because what's at the root of what the article you're writing about? It might be about the fact that they need to save time or they need to speak in plain English, Whatever it is, you can generate articles, blog posts, social media posts, not just specific case studies, but just more general content if that's something that you want to do to build that marketing.

Exactly. And, you know, we all need to listen to our clients because again, as I tell my audience, your clients tell you what to write. I think one of the things that stops people, for example, writing a weekly email or a blog or whatever is the fact that they sit at their desk with some time allocated in the diary and they haven't got a clue what to write. But I always say to people, look, your clients tell you what to write. You need to always have a filter listening to your clients. And then if you're doing the sort of more formalized process of talking to them as you've just outlined, they're going to tell you what to write. So you're getting to use that awful American expression, a lot of bang for your buck here, because not only are you doing these testimonial interviews, but you're also getting lots of inspiration about content you could write that you know would appeal to that customer and therefore you will know, will appeal to other customers in your market, too.

Yeah.

Let me just ask you a couple of kind of don't questions about this. What's your view on people who get a client testimonial, but the client says, I don't want you to use my name?

Okay. And of course that will happen, won't it? Because funny enough, I've just written something around this for my email series. But yes, of course, some people who are seeking, maybe legal advice or health advice or job advice, they won't necessarily want you to publish their name in relation to the testimonial. And I think it is problematic that, because in an era of fake news and anonymous reviews, I've now got really suspicious if I just see a quote with a senior manager but no name beside it or no company name beside it. However, if you work in a sector where actually client confidentiality is really important, I suppose the best thing you can do is say, all right, I'm not going to publish your name, but can I just flesh out the story without publishing your name of your pain point? And here, that's where you're drilling down into a specific detail of why they came to you. And how you help them, even if you're not revealing who they are. If you can just get that narrative of they came to you because they knew they were wasting time, or they were really worried about their health, or they had a legal problem and as a result of working with you, they no longer had sleepless nights, they saved time with their colleagues. Whatever it is, if you can get some sort sort of narrative, even if it's not assigned to a specific individual, I guess that is better than nothing. Because in telling that story, at least other people could go, oh, yeah, I was in that place where I was really worried about my finances or that health issue was keeping me awake at night, then at least people can feel that emotion, even if they're still wondering, who is that person.

Yeah. And I guess in an ideal world you wouldn't use anonymous testimonials because you've built such an amazing relationship with your clients and you've sowed the seed early on that you want to do these interviews and these testimonials that hopefully you have enough clients willing to do it. That means that the client that doesn't want their name used, you don't have to use their testimonial.

No, that's true, but it is problematic because there's somebody in my network who helps people get new jobs and he says, actually it's really hard sometimes they don't want to publicize to their firm that they're looking for. So, you know, there are occasions where you have to accept that equally, I suppose what you could do is go back to that person if they finally get that new job, or they resolve the issue several months down the line, and then they may be happier to give you your name. So maybe that's another reason why you should revisit in case then they get to a situation where it's all resolved, it's part of ancient history, and now they're happy to name themselves in relation to it. That could be a solution.

And is there any other kind of quick sort of fire tips of do's and don'ts about getting interviewing and creating the testimonial? Any things you can think of?

Yes. So it is in relation to the specifics. So earlier on I said, okay, if someone says you're great and wonderful, that's okay. What you need to do is ask them, can you give me a specific example of where I have made most difference to you? Your life, your business, whatever it is. And better still, if you can again prepare them in their expectations over the time you're working with them to measure the difference you made so that if they can come back to you and say, do you know you've saved me half a part time job in time or whatever it is, if you can plant that seed. Now, some people are really good at statistics. I have interviewed people who at a glance can go, yep, we've gone from 30% customer feedback to 40% and we've saved X, Y and Z. That's great. But not everyone's like that. So if you can prepare the ground by saying, look, can you talk to your finance director or can you just assemble some figures or just keep track of, of what I might be doing that has given you measurable benefits and outcomes, so much the better. But at the very least, if you can get them to focus on one example of the difference that you've made so that then they flesh that out into a story, then you get beyond the great and the wonderful and you get into how Rob da Costa's greatness translated into XY benefits for me, my business. And that will make all the difference.

Brilliant. That's really good advice. Now, before we jumped on to start this recording, I was telling Miranda about the fact that I have been running some live webinar trainings in December, January and February, and they are peppered with short sort of 20 to 30 second client testimonials which really drill home the point that I was making that particular point in the webinar and I was telling Miranda how powerful that is. And then Miranda went on to tell me that she's just working on her online program. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how you're getting on with that and what the program's all about?

Yes. So I'm hitting my 10 years in business. So I realized I have 35 years of experience. And during the pandemic, what was clear to me is that I can convert that into online courses. So two courses that I am working on and fingers crossed, they are ready to go. As you listen to this at home are around testimonials. One is around attracting ideal clients through 10 minute testimonials. So that is really for people who may be juggling homeschooling their business, numerous roles within that business and want something that they can grab and go. They focus for 10 minutes with their clients, they get the examples they need and they're off. And they can post it really fast. So that is your. You don't have to think about this, but let's maximize what your clients are saying about you. The second course is for you if you want to understand in more detail what it takes in terms of an interviewer to get a really good client case study and story. And that may be because you want to develop the marketing side of your expertise. You may be in a bigger business or you're running your own business and you just want to get those stories in more depth. So that is a different offering, which is a slightly longer course, but it will have lots of resources that give you inspiration on how to capture those stories and convert them into. Into something that's going to land really powerfully with your next ideal clients. And there are two courses there really, because people were very kind, were my guinea pigs and looked at my minimum viable product, a course that I developed, I sent it out there and they came back. So I'm saying that because actually if you can get client feedback or just audience feedback at an early stage when you're developing something, that will mean that you offer something much better to your ideal clients further down the line before you put too much effort into it. So that's my learning. That's why it's taken me slightly longer, but is so precious at learning.

Well, I think, and I've learned this through doing it wrong myself a number of times, I think it's not just something that's good to do, it's something that's vital to do. Before you start investing any time developing anything, whether it's an online product, an offline product, a new service or whatever, you have to know that your market wants it. And you also have to know that you're hitting the pain points that they have so that you know when you actually invest all that time shooting the videos and buying the hosting software and all the rest of it, and then invest in your sales and marketing that you know people are going to want to buy. There is nothing worse and trust me, I've been there of coming up with an idea that you you absolutely sure your audience will want and then you launch it to crickets.

Yes.

If anybody's thinking about launching a new product or service or thinking about launching an online product, you have to validate your idea and test your idea and refine it on your market before you launch it. Otherwise you will waste a lot of time, energy and heartache.

Yes. And the brilliant thing about getting that is it will make you think of things you have not thought about because they are so obvious, they are staring you in your face. Which is the same when you get clients feeding back in their testimonials. They will shed light on aspects of your service that you take for granted and yet they value the most. So it is vital. And I'm smiling because I've been in that place too, Rob, about developing something which has landed with a big thump to a silent audience.

You know, I've been in the online world for about seven years and it's only been really in the last couple of years that I have started, I think, starting to nail it and starting to get more traction. So it's very easy to waste a lot of time and follow shiny and go, you know, shiny new objects and get nowhere. So. And of course, this ties back to the whole talking to your customers and the testimonials and listening to what they want because they tell you directly or indirectly, they tell you what they need. And if you can identify the pain points and make sure that you produce a product, or an online product in this case, that actually addresses those pain points and takes them on a journey from being in pain to not being in pain, then you're going to be onto a winner.

Yep, absolutely.

I wrote. I will put a link to this in the show notes. Actually, I. A few years ago I wrote a blog post called are you selling painkillers or vitamin pills? And it was all about this really. And it's basically saying that if someone's got a headache and you could sell them either a painkiller to get rid of their headache or a vitamin pill that you know will be really healthy for them and maybe in the future it might stop them getting a headache, then which of those two is the customer going to buy? And the reality is that when I've got a really bad headache, I'm going to buy a painkiller. And yet too many businesses try to sell vitamin pills to their audience. That is something that they know would be good for them, but it isn't one of the top three pains that keeps them awake at night. So I'll put a link in the show notes to that. And how have you found getting the course ready and shooting the videos and structuring it and all that stuff?

At one level, yes. Deep breath, Miranda. At one level, I've really enjoyed it because it's drawn on some skills that I've just left aside, like actually speaking into the camera, but trying to do that alongside working with existing clients and doing my normal everyday marketing, which is my Pick my brain email series, that is problematic. So I engage a virtual assistant who cracks the whip and make sure I get get on with it. She's lovely. She's doing me a big favor. But you do, you do need someone who will just galvanize you to keep, keep focus. So it has taken much longer than I anticipated. But now that I've talked about it with you, I really have got to get it done and finished and published, haven't I? So there we are.

There's nothing like creating some accountability and some deadline. So you've committed to it now. I think actually there's another really good point that you just alluded to and I can certainly relate to this and that is, I know it's a different topic, but people should get in front of cameras. You know, we're all having to do it every day now because we're sitting on zoom. But people, there's nothing better than people being able to hear and see you. It's much more sort of multi dimensional than just the written word, which of course is important. And the more you get in front of the camera, you're going to know this because of your background. But for me, I go back and watch some of my early training courses that I developed on my online content and I'm standing there going, hello, I'm going to talk about niching today and really lacking personality because I'm so focused on thinking about the content. And I hope to think now that I'm much better at that because I've just practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced it. And I think everybody should be doing that whether you're fearful about it or not. Just remember someone very wise said this, that when you're shooting videos, it's not about what you think about yourself or how you think you look. It's about what your audience thinks.

And you've just raised an important point in relation to actually the testimonials you've got from clients on your webinars. But just if you want them on video, what will put them at ease? As if you're on the other end prompting them with those questions because it will make all the difference. There'll be an energy because they'll know that they are talking to you, even if it feels a bit odd when you're asking them to tell you about yourself. Sometimes it can feel uncomfortable, you know, feel a bit coy, but do it anyway because prompting them with questions, making it conversational means that they will be more at their ease and they won't fall into that understandable space where they're looking at the unblinking lens of their laptop, feeling very iffy if you're there at the other end as Their client prompting them to give you their testimonial does make all the difference. And I've done it on behalf of clients and for myself. It really does make a difference. Turning it into a conversation.

Great piece of advice. And that's fortunately exactly what I do. I have a set of questions that I want to ask and I basically ask my client the question, they answer it, and then when I'm editing it, I just edit me out. And so it just. And the other thing, the other good thing about that is it ensures that your client doesn't go off at some random tangent that becomes very difficult to edit out and isn't actually useful for the testimonial. So great piece of advice there.

And that's something actionable because I know you like practical advice that actually I could say to you, the listener, the next time you're on a zoom call with a client, why don't you, at the end of the call say, can you tell me what was the most useful thing we shared during that call or what we've shared during the last few months? Just do it as a tester. Ask them that one question and I guarantee you will come away with an insight about yourself that will boost your wellbeing, but also a testimonial quote. And it will only have taken you two minutes. So there you are. That's my challenge. If I've got to get my course ready, that's my challenge for you.

Great. That's such a good piece of advice. So, guys, everybody should be doing this. It's not that difficult to do and it's probably going to give you your most powerful marketing content. So, Miranda, the final question before we wrap up that I ask all of my guests is if you could go back in time and give your younger self just starting out in business one piece of advice. What would it be?

This is a topic that I know you deal with in your very good email series about over delivering. So it may have been my background, but when I left the BBC, I happened to be working at the network BBC Radio 4, which was very rigorous in its standards in terms of if you wrote script or if you wrote a trail that the continuity announcer would read out, everything had to be perfect. There, I've said it. That word, perfect. Of course it wasn't. But I am a recovering perfectionist. I can spend ages on doing things. And what I've learned and what I wish I'd known at the time when I started in business is that perfection is illusory. You can spend hours tweaking dotting, I's crossing, T's trying to make it perfect. But actually, as far as your client is concerned and as far as your deadlines are concerned, good enough really is good enough. And it hit me once when often to do interviews, I will do research interviews with clients. And it really struck me recently I've done research interviews, interviews with clients which aren't meant to be broadcast at all because for me, they weren't perfect. You know, they were just research. And do you know what they've done? They've actually published extracts of them which fill me at first with horror and then with delight. Because I thought, yes, they're maximizing the editorial value of everything I've done. And even though they were only meant to be researched, they're now out there, which is proof that actually, even if you're doing something in rough, if you're putting your expertise and your knowledge down on paper or on video or whatever, actually probably is good enough. And perfection can waste you time, it can delay deadlines, and in the end it's just a source of frustration. So please, if you're building a business around expertise and knowledge, the chances are you already have a head start, you already are meeting standards that will satisfy your clients. So please is don't strive for perfection. I'm laughing because, you know, it's still learning for me. But yes, that's what I say.

I love that. I don't think we've had that as a piece of advice before. And it is such a good piece of advice because I think a lot of the stuff suffer from that perfectionism. And you have to. It's also one of the things that stop a lot of owner managers of agencies delegating because they think their team won't do it as well as them, where in fact they're asking the wrong question. It's, is it? Well, is it good enough? Which is the kind of point you're making. Not is it the same way as I would do it. I think the other point about that, when we play it back to the video testimonials, is sometimes having something that's a bit more rough and ready and a bit more human actually engages with people more than that super highly edited, highly produced video. And of course we need both of those. But I sometimes think seeing something that's a bit more authentic makes you relate to that person a bit more.

Yes. In that case, perfection is irrelevant anyway. But you're absolutely right, the number of times people have said, oh, I don't want to go on video. My hair's wrong. I've got, you know, a button missing from my shirt. It doesn't matter because if you are genuinely enthusiastic, you know how infectious enthusiasm is, then everything else disappears, you know, into the background. It doesn't matter.

Good.

Okay. So now, Miranda, if people wanted to find out more about you and more about the courses and so on, what would be the best way for them to reach you?

I think the best way, and I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know if you take the challenge as well and you can keep me accountable, is probably via LinkedIn. Miranda Burch, Miranda Burch Media on LinkedIn, I sort of do need to mention this because there is another Miranda Birch out there who also writes, but she writes about very different things. I like you to dominate your niche. She actually writes about dominance and submission and she has nothing to do with Miranda Birch Media. And I have to mention this because people often refer me and then they come across about the other Miranda Birch and they can't quite believe that I have a suite of books on Amazon that deal with a subject that actually has nothing to do with me. So I just feel I need to make that point. It's Miranda BURCH Media and LinkedIn probably is the best way to contact me. And you can find out more about me on my website as well.

Brilliant. We'll put all the links in the show note. And I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today. It was such a fascinating insights into this and I hope that the listeners will take loads of really good actions away from today's episode. So thanks for joining us.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Rob.

Okay, so hopefully you agree that was a really action packed episode with some really good takeaways. I learned some stuff. I think a really key takeaway for me was to ensure that you talk to your customers at the beginning, the middle, the end and in the long term to understand why they buy from you, the results they got in the short term and then also the impact that it had in their business in the long term. So that's a great learning for me. And I'm sure you had some other great learnings as well. So as ever, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you have hit the subscribe button, share it with your colleagues. And of course I'd love you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts as well. But otherwise have a great rest of the week, a restful weekend and I will see you next week for the next episode episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast.