What's next? This time it's my turn to be interviewed ...is this good PR?

As the world emerges from the shadows of a pandemic, we're all wondering what's next.

Has our experience in lockdown altered the future we expected, or has it simply accelerated ongoing change?

What's in store for us over the next few years?

Join me, Susie Golding, and me, Andrew Clark, in Singapore every week.

As we ask leaders across Asia working in marketing, communications, and lifestyle, One simple question.

What's next? We're back.

We are. We're back after what feels like a very long time. We'd like to say that we're sorry, but are we? Are we sorry, Andrew?

I don't think, I don't think you can be sorry when life gets in the way and you get busy. And, you know, we, I think that really this is all part of the learning process, isn't it? We've gone into this Um, as a bit of an experiment because we thought we had a lot of free time during our lockdown here in Singapore. But really, what's happened, Susie?

Well, I think we, I think we just remembered that we had actual jobs. Don't you think, Andrew? And, and I think both of us have seen, uh, luckily a bit of an uptick in new work and opportunities in the last few weeks. And that's sort of taken up quite a bit of our time and energy, I think.

That's exactly what's happened. I got really busy, you got really busy, and we ended up not having the time to even record a new episode. But what we've done now is to record a bunch of new episodes, and this is all part of the learning when you're making a podcast, isn't it?

Absolutely. But I, I think you're right. I think we've got some doozies lined up, haven't we, to put out over the next few weeks?

Some doozies.

Where did that come from?

Where did that word come from?

No.

So who have we got first in our next, uh, few episodes then, Andrew?

Well, today, Susie, we have Jim James, and Jim James is a dear old friend of mine. We've known each other for nigh on probably about 20 years now, and he runs a global PR firm from a shed in his back garden.

From a shed.

That's right.

Oh, that sounds intriguing. Look forward to hearing more about that.

I think we should just get into it.

Let's do it.

I'm sorry, it says a bad network, but I've got full signal.

Let's have a look.

According to mine.

Yeah, it says bad network, but you seem to be okay. Susie says very bad network.

Oh, does it? Oh, it's always crap in this house, honestly.

If only we could get paid for doing this.

Imagine that.

Okay, I've got a coffee.

Excellent.

The kids have got playdates. The playdates have just arrived.

So I understand that you're in your shed.

Well, I prefer to call it the TARDIS, really, for those of us that remember Doctor Who, the Time and Relative Dimension in Space. There's a lot that goes into this small, compact, and bijou eco-building out here. Yeah, but it's also the shed.

And the shed is in your garden at your house in Somerset?

Yes, correct. We're just outside here with the, uh, with the trees and the guinea pig and the dog.

Before we go any further, it's probably better for us to find out a little bit about who you are and what you do.

So I've been an entrepreneur since I was 27 and got on a plane and went to Singapore to start the PR firm EastWest. And then in 2006, I went to Beijing to start the agency. And while I was there, uh, bought a Morgan sports car, imported it, and Cut a long story short, became the importer for Morgan sports cars, where you and I crossed paths originally Singapore on an aeroplane actually going I think the Philippines back around 1998. And then in China, you and I crossed paths again because I started the British Business Awards in 2008. So I guess a decade later, and worked as the vice chair of the Chamber of Commerce. Kept the East West Public Relations Agency going, and then met my wife and we have 2 beautiful daughters who we brought back to England in 2019.

So, you've obviously done a huge amount of different things over the years and now you're back in the UK and obviously you would've been back for a while when COVID happened. How have you been spending your time during that period? I mean, Just for the benefit of our listeners who can't see where you are, as you mentioned, you're in your eco lodge, AKA shed, um, which is also a little bit like a, um, pandemic prepper sort of bunker.

Yeah. I mean, I suppose for those people sort of visualizing what the TARDIS looks like, if you, if you think of, um, the most beautiful countryside that you could imagine and a, and a magnificent wooden cabin. With deer running around. That's where it ends because I'm in a very small garden shed. But I think that part of the joy of COVID is that it's created an opportunity to start from scratch again. And so in a funny way, this little shed is my sort of metaphor for rebuilding my life because what's happening is that by Moving from Beijing, where we had a three-story house and two cars and and all the infrastructure, I've moved back here to the UK and moved back down to the essentials. Really, you know, a desk chair and invested in a computer and microphone and camera so I can connect the world. But I've been able to use the time to. Really reinvent and restructure what I'm doing. I've been able to focus on, on a couple of things really, Susie. One is that I've working on what I call the Speak PR program. So this is 25 years of experience, both as an entrepreneur running agencies in Singapore, China, India, and the UK. So I've had a global network of agencies and still do. But I've worked with a lot of clients that I can now build that methodology and offer that to entrepreneurs. So Speak PR is a podcast that I operate 6 days a week, and on that I share tools and technologies and tips for business owners on how they can get noticed. And that's sort of part of how to give back during COVID I've also built some tools that are online available at eastwestpr.com on the Speak PR. And we have there a 5-stage methodology, which is storify, personalize, engage, amplify, and know. And there are tools. There's a message home. There's a storage planner. I say storage planner, a story planner. I guess you could do storage if you wanted to, but story planner, that may be something we all need if we're clearing out and moving into sheds. But so it's a story planner. And also we've got a technology application directory, which is over 100 applications that business owners and entrepreneurs can use for free to create stories, to engage audiences, to amplify their message, and to measure the performance. And the second part has been the building of the agency as an employee-free agency, what I call the virtual agency. So we are everywhere virtually. And what I've done there, Susie, is to recognize that when I ran an agency with offices in Singapore, China, India, and the UK, I spent as much time looking after the people as I did after the clients. And you know, you can say that because that's just the honest truth. The bigger the agency gets, the less time you get to do what you started off doing well in the first place, which is giving strategy and counseling to clients. And what I decided to do a number of years ago in Beijing was to really make the agency what I call knowledge-driven, geography-independent. And the extension of that is that rather than hiring consultants and trying to engage them on the work, I'll only hire people that want to do the work and they do it under their own account. So in the same way that Uber and Airbnb have built hugely valuable businesses by focusing on the client need, but letting the service provider turn up to work, but they're motivated as a self-employed person. They're not motivated with the incentive of, I'm given an office, I'm given a laptop, I'm given a brand, I'm given 20 days holiday, and if I don't like it, I can get a better job somewhere else. More like a movie production. We work with the client on the, on the work, on the strategy that needs to be done and the need, and we provide the legal infrastructure and the business platform using Zoho for knowledge management. But then we bring together specialists, best, the best of whoever it needs to be. So instead of now trying to hire and recruit and do all those things with an LLC, we've changed the model. We've just found people that are really good and said, Here's the client need, here's the simple financial agreement, and let's make it a deliverables-based agreement.

It's very interesting, Jim, you talking about this new model of agency, because I think, I mean, we all work on the agency side, and this COVID experience is showing that that is the model of the future. You know, particularly big agency models, they're broken and have been broken for a long time. And I think This notion of bringing together teams of specialists to work for a client is definitely the way that things are going. I see it in my own agency network, and clearly what you were doing was way ahead of your time, really, than, you know, it's taking the other agencies to actually see the light.

There's 2 things that I hear you are as an agency now. The first thing you are is lean. Because it's basically you in your shed.

Yeah, it doesn't get much leaner than that really, right?

Exactly. With a small, as you say, like, kind of almost like no employee team around the world. And the other thing that it sounds like you are as well, which is really important at this time during COVID is nimble, where you're able to change quickly and adapt to the needs of your clients or a landscape changing around you.

So, Andrew, I just think that what's happening is that technology is kind of creeping into everything we do, whether it's going for a run and having how many steps you wanted to accomplish on that, on that run, to your delivery from food. And as companies, we're having to get much better at delivering to objectives that our clients give us. So I think the clients are becoming much more results-based, and the payments are becoming much more results-based as a result. We're all now trying to find seams, if you like, you know, in the bedrock, which are going to be wealthy for us. So core competence at East West PR is this idea of international communications for business-to-business clients. What it means is that we're all going to do more with less. And I think that if we do that, then we will liberate time because we'll stop doing things that we were doing before that weren't productive. Right, we'll start to focus. Like, because I'm not managing 30 people, I'm managing just as much revenue, by the way, as I did with 30 people, but I'm not managing the people. So by— so I'm liberating lots of time to spend more time, for example, with my children and, and getting healthy. I think if we do it right, it means that we can, we can, we can make less impact on the planet, we can be less wasteful. But we can also create surpluses of time and energy that's fundamentally a positive output, not a negative one.

Absolutely. I agree. We've, we've covered so much ground, Jim, so many interesting thought-provoking things for Andrew and I and our listeners to, to ruminate over. So thank you very much for that.

It's almost, it acts almost like a survival guide to this brave new world that we're experiencing. But let's, let's, let's move to something a little bit more lighthearted. Jim, what are you reading? And what are you listening to? And what are you watching?

Okay. So listening to, I have to say, I, I subscribe to the Apple Music. And I love that because it's got the you might like this. So it's coming up with, I'm cooking mac and cheese to tunes like Spandau Ballet. Visage from Ultravox.

Oh, amazing. You're talking my language now, Jim. Talking my language.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and the Buggles, you know, just came up.

The Buggles.

Video killed the radio. So, so yeah, I am completely going back in time. Uh, what's cool is that my children listen to some of these songs that have been remixed and they're going, that's a nice tune. I'm going, I used to listen to that. So, um, listening-wise, I have to say I'm using Apple Music to, to do sort of a, a medley. Across some of the best decades of the '70s and '80s and '90s.

Were you a new romantic?

Yeah, but I didn't do the flock of seagulls here. I didn't, I didn't do that. I have to say that for reading, I'm a little bit dull because I, I can only manage about 3 pages at night before I fall asleep. So I'm not a great reader in the evenings, but I'm reading, um, a book by Park Howell, um, called Brand Bewitchery. And the it's the business's story, and he was a guest on the Speak PR podcast.

That's right. I heard that. He was fascinating.

Very cool, right? So Park Howell and the Brand Bewitchery book. I'm reading that because it's a wonderful blend of you know how stories are made in Hollywood and how we can build a narrative ourselves. So I have to confess with. Time's so limited. I I tend to you know sort of read things I think would be be useful and interesting as well. This is going to sound really dull, but the only thing I'm watching is the clock. I mean, I know that's how isn't that terrible? It's not because I bill clients by the hour. It's just that I don't find really anything on TV adding any value, to be honest. If I've got the spare time. I'd love to have a workout, take the dog for a walk, you know, hang out with the girls. Um, yeah, so I really, you know, I really don't spend time. Uh, why? That's terrible, isn't it? But I, yeah, you can lose an hour, right? And at the end you just think, what, what was the value in that?

You know?

So yeah, so yes, I, I'm, I know it's terrible. I don't mean to insult anyone that's watching. Uh, programs. Um, but yeah, no, I, I can't even think of a thing. I mean, we've watched, um, Hotel Transylvania. I mean, what if we watch things, we watch things together with the kids. I've watched all sorts of girls dancing movies, you know. Um, but yeah, no, I'm— it's a horrible answer, this one, but I just haven't. I either watched with— watch with the girls just to be with them, or I, I just don't Spend the time doing it. I know it's a terrible answer. Sorry.

I think that's a great answer because it's interesting. Most of the people that we've had on the podcast so far—

Yeah, what do they say?

The watch— well, the watch thing is really interesting because it, it's, it's an activity that's either really personal or it's an activity that's shared. And the way that you're talking about watching is shared— watching stuff on telly or watching videos or whatever, or films— is something that's shared with your daughters. And you do it as a family. Yes. And people are a bit like that. It's either something that's shared, it's something that they watch with their— like the first podcast that we did with Kath, Kath was talking very much about like it was an activity that she shares with her husband. They were watching shows together. Yeah. And then other people, it's like it's a real personal, like almost guilty pleasure to watch. Like, right. Interesting. Yeah. Watch stuff like for me, like watching is something— I mean, it's a very personal thing for me. Like we watch stuff as a family, but Like most of the shows that I watch, my wife wouldn't have an interest in at all.

Me too. Me too. Yeah.

And Andrew, can I just say that it's wonderful working with you, but having Suzie on is like having a Chanel model. It is like being on, on a sort of video call with a Chanel model. Suzie there, you know.

Oh, I knew there was something I liked about you, Jim.

You know, Suzie, Chanel KOL, you know, um, on the mic. You know, also, also, also with Andrew and Jim.

That's like taking high fashion and going, let's just add a little bit of corporate speak to it.

If not, you need one. The KOL who looks like she's from Chanel. She's Susie. That rhymes as well.

That's what's really scary.

It rhymes. I love it.

Well, that was really interesting, wasn't it?

Yeah, fascinating and all from a shed.

I think the thing about Jim that I'm constantly amazed by is he has this amazing articulate ability to talk and explain things in very charismatic ways. But I think most of all what's amazing is his sort of this whole idea of the virtualization of organizations, and he's running, you know, this sort of zero-employee global PR company with clients all over the world and a business model to match that is really transparent and allows people You know, to come in as specialists and do their work. It's really, really cool. And it's— there's so much, I think, to learn in that in terms of certainly the way that we run our business. I'm sure it's the same for you, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, he's obviously way ahead of his time. And what we're seeing now over the last few months is so many companies, particularly if you work in services, which both of us do and he does, you know, if you're offering a service, Now having to think about how you make that fully digital. And also, you know, individuals are starting to think about, you know, am I happy with doing 9 to 5? Am I happy with being in an office all the time? And I think we'll see more and more people, some through necessity sadly, but quite a lot through choice, you know, choosing or adapting the way they work to fit in with a model that's a bit more like Jim's, where they're sort of experts for hire when somebody needs them, you know.

Absolutely.

So he, um, he had some interesting, uh, music choices, didn't he? So I, I, I was very, uh, pleased to hear that he's a fan of Flock of Seagulls. Um, but I ask you this, Andrew. Jim is— I'm sure he won't mind us saying— he is a follicly challenged man.

He is.

Can you imagine Jim with a, um, you know, '80s new romantic Flock of Seagulls haircut?

You know, the thing is, is that If I hadn't seen his face and I was just to listen to him, which I'm positive actually our listener is in a situation of right now, has listened to this episode and hasn't seen his face, I'm sure our listener is thinking of a dashingly handsome man with a massive quiff.

Oh, I do hope so. And I, you know, maybe, maybe I've, I've destroyed that illusion a So sorry, listeners, if I've messed with the image that you had of Jim James in your mind.

So who've we got next week, Susie?

Next week we've got another, another good friend of yours, Andrew. I can see a pattern here.

We've got Unmesh Parthasarathy on, and he's going to tell us all about what he does. And I think the best way to describe him is as a change architect. Oh, but you'll have to wait until next week. next week to find out what that means.

Well, that makes me want to know more.

See you next week.

See you next week.

You've been listening to me, Andrew, and me, Susie, and our lovely guest on What's Next, the podcast which asks just that.

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