Before lockdown this British Adman told me what we need to do now to make more sales and it doesn...

Hello and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. Now, I'm today going to go back through the archives, talking to Charlie Sampson, who's an old friend and a property guru out of Beijing, longtime head of Saatchi and Saatchi. And I'm doing that because the interview with Charles was actually my first season 1, episode 1, all the way back September 2019. But it's been one of the podcasts that's been most listened to. And I wanted to share that because Charlie makes a very, very good point. And I think that as we all get stuck in lockdown mode, certainly for me, I went back and listened to this. And I just want to share the essential truth that Charlie talks about. So check this out.

So I spent— just maybe start with a little bit of background on me. And although I'm based in China, I'm actually focused on UK property and I'm helping people who live in Beijing and Shanghai primarily to invest in UK property. I think we sort of got a little bit down the rabbit hole thinking about what's our social media strategy going to be, how can we build our brand? And we spent a lot of time looking at the design and the VI and the slogan and all that stuff is— it is important. I mean, definitely, from my background, I would say it's very important. But I think in hindsight, we probably spent a bit too much time debating that and finessing it.

What did it distract you from?

The most important thing you've got to do is get in front of people, physically in front of people, because that's the way you build relationships. And, you know, I think it wasn't until the second year that I fully realized this. And then what I did, my strategy now is I set up as many presentations as I can to people where I'm getting myself in front of groups, in front of individuals, and, you know, introducing myself, introducing my story, introducing how I can help them. And that I've found— it sounds an obvious thing now to be talking about it as well. Of course you need to get in front of people, you dummy. But, you know, what I, what I, what I, I think I, I didn't fully appreciate the power of that and the effectiveness of that, physically getting up, standing up, presenting. So that would probably be the biggest piece of advice I could give to anybody trying to start a business is get out of your office, get out of your home. Get out of your WeWork space, wherever you're basing yourself, and get in front of people either through networking events or just through, once you've identified your customer, just, you know, trying to meet with them.

So that's a great point that in this sort of day and age of online and social media, that actually people still buy people.

It's fundamental. And when you're starting a business, that is all they're buying, right? 'Cause I mean, you know, in my case, the Property IC, no one really knows who the Property IC is. That's the name of our company, but it's not like a— it's not a brand. It's not Sarchie and Sarchie, right? So they are buying you, they're buying, you know, what you— they're buying, you know, your credibility, your personality, your story, the service you can offer. That's what they're buying. And the only— what I found is, yes, but you can do, you know, posting on LinkedIn, and we do all that stuff. And we have our own You know, social media account, we put content into it. And that's all fine and good. But what really shifts the needle is meeting people, getting in front of people, presenting to people.

Now, I know getting in front of people, presenting to people is not easy right now, but it can be done through webinars, through websites like Swapcard, through Zoom. And if I'm anything to go by, after a while of sitting away from everybody, I think we all lose a little bit of self-confidence. So I was listening to Charlie Sampson and just reminding myself that going forward next week, I've got to push myself. And is there somebody, a group, a mastermind like John Lee Dumas talked about this week that you can join? Because as the lockdown goes on, we're going to start to lose contact with other people. Eventually we can lose our self-confidence and our motivation gets in a bit of a downward spiral. So taking those words from Charlie to heart, we've got to get out, got to get in front of people, no matter for how long or in what state, because we still need people to communicate with one another, because it's the ideas and the stimulation we get from one another that brings out the brilliance and the energy and will carry us through. So thanks so much for listening to this shortened episode of Speak PR, going back to episode 1 of over 250 episodes now that I have recorded in the last year. Hope you found this one of value, and if you have, please do subscribe. If you like the content, then you can come to eSourcePR.com, subscribe to our weekly newsletter. We're up to version 38 of that. So until we come together again, I wish you the best of health, a sustainable business, and that next week, if you're not doing it already, make sure you meet one person every day face-to-face online. Have a great weekend. Thank you.