McLaren in meltdown, how AI can read your website aloud, and what Dominic Cummings tells us about...

Hi, thank you for tuning in. This is Jim James. I am your host on the Speak PR podcast. I'm an entrepreneur and the founder of Isos Public Relations, and on this podcast I like to share interesting tools and thoughts about how entrepreneurs can get their companies noticed. It's from my own experience of running an agency over 25 years. I've also set up companies including Morgan Cars in China, Awake Drinks, and have been awarded on a few occasions, including in China and Singapore, as Entrepreneur of the Year. So I wanted to share a couple of things as I've seen them in the last week. First of all, as we look at the papers, we see how Dominic Cummings in the UK has been caught on camera. Taking off to Durham. Now, the rights and wrongs of it are not for me to say, but what is interesting is how a number of people in the government, including the the professor who has been giving the research about lockdown, are not playing by the same rules. And whether you believe he should go or not isn't the point. The point is here from a PR point of view. That these are people who are giving us instructions and who are giving us supposedly the, uh, the credibility and the leadership as we face these trials together. And this is really a great example of how leadership is supposed to be done, or not done in the case of Dominic Cummings. It means as entrepreneurs and CEOs, we really have to We have to walk the talk. If we say that we're going to batten down the hatches, then we need to do that too. So I think we're getting a leadership lesson, or maybe a leadership lesson in how not to lead at the moment, from some people in authority. But it doesn't mean to say that we have to lead our own organizations that way. I noticed as well overnight that Hertz in America have filed for bankruptcy. And of course, in America, they can go to Chapter 11 and re-emerge without the same debt and problems that we face in, in, say, the UK. Now, what's interesting is Hertz are taking a preemptive move and are saying that they are still a business and will re-emerge after COVID. McLaren, uh, on the same day has launched a bid for £250 million as a loan So that they can restore their fortunes, and the Jaguar Land Rover Group have also now asked for a bond of a billion pounds. Meanwhile, in China, the demand for Tesla, the new Tesla 3 apparently is is phenomenal, and there are 200 people deep waiting to give their money across to buy electric cars. So what we're probably seeing is a fundamental shift in what businesses are appealing to consumers. And Elon Musk has been somebody who has led the company from the front. And in my view, one of the reasons that Tesla has been so popular is for the same reason that Apple have been so popular and were so popular when Steve Jobs was alive. Was about the vision, the central vision for the business and the, the goal that they've got, which is to make a difference. And, you know, Musk's view, of course, which is why he's also into solar power, it's his vision, his passion to make the world a better place that really resonates with customers who are paying a deposit for a vehicle that they haven't seen yet. So as entrepreneurs, we have the vision. And we communicate that. But what we see in people like Elon Musk, and we saw with Steve Jobs, is the delivery on a personal level of that vision as well. But we're also seeing now how companies are going to be either re-engineering themselves or possibly, or possibly dying. And as much as we love McLaren and have respect for them and all the work they've been doing. Maybe there's an era change, because if we look now at bike sales, Halfords, who have been a fairly sleepy, uh, high street retailer for a while, have had their shares go up by 80% in the last few days, funded and fueled by bike sales. And the bike sales in the UK are up 23%. Uh, in the last month as people are looking to get out and take, you know, take other paths. I personally bought a couple of bikes from Decathlon just before the lockdown because we'd been away and I needed to get bikes for the kids. But now it's becoming almost a month's wait time to buy bikes. So the companies that in the past may have been hidden are the companies that may be coming out from the shadows. And the question is, how can we as entrepreneurs take advantage of that and maybe pivot our existing businesses or re-emphasize the parts of the business that in the past may not have been winners? I think for Halfords, they are apparently the largest bike retailer in the UK, but I've always seen them as a spare parts and sort of car-focused shop. So we're seeing now that some of these brands like Halfords are going to emerge stronger with a new focus. And we're starting to see companies, some of these smaller secondhand bike companies, for example, hiring and running 3 shifts. So as entrepreneurs, we must always be flexible. And I've been looking in my own business as East West PR and how I can share the information that I have. And I've shared before about the Speak PR program, which is to storify, to personalize, to engage, to amplify, and to know. And I've been using that in my own, in my own practice. So I've been working this week on using the Zoho tool for automation. And I thought it may be just worth sharing that what we've been able to do just as a small team of, of really 2 of us, Rob and I, automating our, our PR. So it's from my dashboard that I have in front of me on my iPad, I can see that on our East West Public Relations Facebook page, we've got an audience of 1,200 people. We have an active audience of 105, and that's a 950% increase from last week. My engagement level according to Zoho is now 102, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's, it's a 5,000% increase. And the stories created, 122. That's an 838% Now, I'm not a, a maths person, but what I'm pleased about is that if I look at my Facebook and now my Twitter, I can see from just a small team spending a little bit of time every day, we're able to get our message out to a large number of people all over the world. In our Twitter, we have 632 as an audience. We have 4 who are actively following us now. That's a 300% increase. And engagement is also 4, that's 300%. So that's 4 people, may not sound a lot, but it sounds like 4 more than I had this time last week. And on LinkedIn, we have a LinkedIn company page, 616 audience. We have engagement of a 66% increase. We have 10 people engaging now. And we've created 4 stories there. So automation gives an opportunity for entrepreneurs like me and, and perhaps like you, or big companies too, to start to create the story, identify the who, make sure that person obviously is credible and is living the brand. And as I say in the Storify chapter on the video that I put out on our website last week at eastwestpr.com. Storify is about creating chapters, creating the narrative so that the founder of the business can start to articulate what they stand for and what they believe in. And as Paul Dunn says, so that they can fulfill the dreams and hopes of other businesses or other customers or consumers or stakeholders. So what I've been trying to work on this week is getting the, uh, the 5-stage methodology written up, which I've been doing. And then it occurred to me this morning that the big issue for all entrepreneurs, me included, is time. And it's all great having all these great stories and great methodologies, but most entrepreneurs— in fact, all entrepreneurs— have too many things to do because Actually, it's a never-ending story. There's always something to work on if you own the business. So I'm going to work towards making this Speak PR a program where it's 18 minutes every day, how entrepreneurs can get noticed. I think that if I can work on giving you and, uh, the, the community that I'm trying to speak to, which is entrepreneurs who are running businesses for themselves, an 18-minute tool, uh, and, and way of thinking every day. Just spend 18 minutes on building your communications. It's not even an hour, not even half an hour, less than that. And if with the time I've taken each day this week and the automation that I've put in place this week, I've been able to get the sort of uplift in engagement and awareness that I've been able to get this week. I think that's something that I can share with you that, that you can follow and as a methodology you can use, and that should help to add value to your business. Now, on our website at eastwestpr.com/speakpr, there are already the overview templates. One is the Story Planner, The other is the Mastermind Template, and the third is a Technology Applications Directory. So on that directory, or in that directory, you'll find over 100 applications that you can use now, many of them for free, to help to either create compelling content, to distribute compelling content, or to manage that content online. Now, I had spoken before about how many of the banks and the companies, if all the companies online, do not have a solution for the most vulnerable elements of their society. I'm going to try and play for you something that I, I found, and I'd like just to, to share this with you. And it's something that you could also then have on your website or even on your app. Let's see if this works. I'm now going to read to you, hopefully, or somebody is, my website. It's just loading. Okay, I'm going to choose an English voice and I'm going to choose Hazel.

Getting clients noticed since 1995. Let us help you to share your COVID-19 strategy. There is no time to lose to engage all stakeholders with our COVID-19 PR toolset. Call us today to get started. Subscribe to the Cognition News. Okay, this is where we used to say how well we've done since 1995 to get clients' Noticed using traditional and then digital means. Now that legacy is less important than our ability to innovate and help clients to address the threats to lives and business from COVID-19.

Okay, so that was Hazel on the talkify.net website. Obviously not 100% there, not quite as good as the WeRead from Tencent. She thinks that it's COVID minus 19. Of course it's not. And, um, but here we have an example of technology which is in this case for free, and you can upgrade to premium and you can get it to start to speak to your customers and your consumers or your staff if you like. And it means that they could be doing something already, for example driving, or engaging in something else and then listening. Or if it's for those people that are maybe visually impaired, you could be sharing information through your website or through an app, for example, or through a press release that already has embedded speaking in it. So the technology is available now for entrepreneurs, and I'm going to work to try and make these sort of daily podcasts to be showing you really how there's this convergence between communication, technology, and commerce, and that in 18 minutes a day or less, you could spend some time reaching out to those key audiences. And you can use the tools that I've got on eastwestpr.com/speakpr. And if you've got some more questions or any answers that you'd like to share about how you're doing this, please do send them to me Jim at eastwestpr.com. As we've seen from the fortunes of, of McLaren, of JLR, some traditional companies may or may not come back. Some like Hertz may be large enough, depending on their jurisdiction, to play, if you like, sustain their life for a bit longer by playing some legal and financial games. But, but it won't change the fundamental issue of whether people are traveling and renting cars anymore. Some people, the bike makers around the world, and I believe they're being shipped in from Turkey because the Far East is taking too long. And who knows, maybe we'll see a resurgence of the Raleigh brand, for those of you that remember that, the Raleigh brand, or some of the other great British brands coming back. And we may see a renaissance in making of of, of simple transport here. So in any change, there will be opportunities, and we're all as entrepreneurs having to pivot. I'm using technology myself with my, with my Mac and my Rode and my Logitech camera to try and create tools that I think you could use in your business day to day that would take you less than 20 minutes a day to get noticed for what you do. It's a Sunday. I won't keep you long. I really hope that this is giving you some food for thought and some inspiration and some motivation, because we're all running our own businesses because we wanted to solve a problem so that other people, our customers, our family, our future generations, and our friends can, can have a better life. That's why we are entrepreneurs and not taking salaries. So I wish you well. I hope this is good for you today, and thank you for listening. If you like it, please do respond, do give us a rating, and do share it with any other entrepreneurs that you think may find it of use. So with that, I say stay safe, stay profitable, and keep communicating.