E030 - Joseph Kennedy from Content Pathway

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So, Joseph, thank you very much for joining the Green Element Podcast. I am really interested to hear more about, A, what it is that you do, because it's quite a unique field that you're in, and to understand more on what has driven you towards where you are. And I think our listeners will be Maybe jealous, maybe a bit of jealousy, a bit of wanting to have what you have and how to live the way that you live, because you hear about people like yourself that are able to live anywhere and to run a business from basically across the world. So welcome to the show and thank you.

Well, thank you very much for having me, Will. It's really a pleasure to be here. So I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I'm the founder of Content Pathway, which is the UK's first and only dedicated environmental content marketing agency. We're doing strategy, consultation, and implementation for a wide range of environmental businesses. Think of things like international scrap dealers, renewable energy companies, you know, we've got waste management companies, we've got electric car companies. It's that sort of thing. It's the whole environmental industry needs communication reform. Can you give some examples of what it is that you do on that? Okay, so a company will come to us and they'll say, we're not really getting much traffic. We don't know how to talk to our audience. You know, the business side is going well, communications is not. The main problem, the common denominator that all of my clients say is that we work with a general marketing agency who don't understand what we do. So I'm trying to bridge that gap. I understand what they do and can communicate it.

Hmm.

That's the end goal, is to create a bridge and open a discussion and dialogue between environmental companies and both environmentally conscious people and people who could become environmentally conscious and make decisions based on that.

Right.

Okay.

Okay. So I'm just trying to bring it into context. Does that help with the SEO? Does that help with the conversion as well? Because I know that that's something that we're looking at with Green Elements. You know, we have an awful lot of people coming to our website, and it's the converting from people coming to the website and out. So you're making the content more attractive to the reader.

SEO is obviously a huge part of it. You know, you have to hit the right keywords because you need your traffic from search engines. I like to think that blogs such as 5 Reasons Why and 7 Steps to Doing This, they're great actionable content. But a lot of people, they want, they want to be spoken to directly and be given an idea that they can then nurture and think about. And I think there's a lot of content in the industry that doesn't help with that. So in a sense, that's like leadership, thought leadership and authority building. It's positioning your business as a spokesperson for the environment. And that's a great way to keep a loyal audience because they want to come back and learn, you know, what else can I think about the environment? You know, what else is there to discuss? Of course, SEO is huge. It's, you know, the foundation of it all. You know, you start with your keywords and then you build relevant, interesting, informative, and thought-provoking content around those terms.

I think that's it, isn't it? It's exactly what you've just said. And something that I've always— I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not a techie. I'm not someone that understands the way that Google works. But the one thing I've learned is from listening to people is every single iteration that it seems that Google does, it's actually in the best interest of the person that's reading or going on the website. From my point of view, okay, I get that people get annoyed. Oh, look, change this, change that. But it does seem that actually you don't need to have to pay loads of money. They're not expecting you to pay lots of money. So you can do that route. But actually, if you're doing what you're doing and actually writing the right stuff that people want to read, then you're going to be doing it anyway.

Well, I'm a firm believer that organic always wins in the end. Yeah, it may take a bit longer and it needs a bit more creativity and collaboration, but in the end, you know, you look at the most successful media platforms out there You know, they were built on organic principles. I think what's going on right now in terms of content with Google is, yeah, they really want high-quality content. And on any one topic, there could be 1,000 articles on the same thing from 1,000 different websites. They're looking for the ones that are most creative, most unique. most relevant, answer the most questions, provide the most, you know, ideas and facts and statistics, and really put the reader in a position that when they finish that article, they have a well-rounded, comprehensive understanding of the topic.

Yeah, brilliant. So what got you into What got you into this? How did you, you know, have you always been a journalist? Have you always been a writer? Have you, you know what?

Well, I started in journalism. I interned at the BBC.

Right.

And during that time, the phone hacking scandal, News of the World, happened. It was a kind of a bad start, a rocky start, because immediately I was plunged into a position where journalists were enemy number one. And it was people around me saying, oh, so what are you doing nowadays? I'm a journalist. It was uncomfortable. And then, you know, about a year later, you had the Jimmy Savile BBC scandal.

Right.

And it just got worse. And I kind of, I didn't want to become cynical and jaded as a result of it all. And I knew I wasn't particularly passionate about what I was writing about. Local news, you know, politics, it wasn't that interesting to me. I felt like I was just covering the bad stuff and it wasn't very enjoyable. And I wanted to be on the right side of history in a sense.

Mm-hmm.

I wanted to talk about progress, innovation, technology, you know, the good that people are doing, the businesses who set up to benefit people, planet, you know, this kind of stuff. So I knew I had to make a shift. You know, it took time, but eventually I found a job working in marketing for an environmental company. And that was really the start of things. That was 2014. And it was a remote job, and I've been remote ever since.

Yeah, I'll get on to that a bit later. But have you always been interested in the environmental side then? I mean, has that been a common thread, or is it something that's— was there a tipping point for you, or what, how, or was it just you fell into it and went, well, actually, you know what, this is actually quite interesting? I can't understand this.

It was an interest before, and I think they hired me because of that, that I had some, you know, experience. You know, my family, my mum, she's really eco-friendly, recycling, compassionate about animals. My sister, she's vegan for years, vegetarian almost her whole life. My dad's got solar panels. He used to have an electric car. I'm from a little village where people have mini wind turbines, there's solar panels everywhere. It's, you know, it's pretty eco-friendly place. And I spent my childhood working at the country park. So, you know, I've always been around nature. There's a reservoir next to where I grew up. I spent a lot of time outdoors really appreciating, you know, clean nature. You know, when I moved to the city at 18, it was a shock. You know, I did. I did wonder, like, wow, you know, these concrete jungles, they're, they're not looking so healthy. You know, this is, this is something— it really was a shock to me.

Hmm.

So yeah, I've maintained an interest. I've always, I've always thought that, you know, people can, can fix the damage we've done. We've just really got to invest ourselves, like time, energy, finances. So yeah, I follow the news when it came to things like Elon Musk doing crazy stuff and, you know, the government building offshore wind farms. I've always thought it was fantastic.

It must be really— to do what you're doing, you must end up actually learning about— since, you know, you're already interested in the subject, actually getting paid to learn more. It's kind of like a dream job for many people, isn't it?

I tell people this all the time. It's like, there's the thing in my life that I love the most is this, and the fact that I get paid to literally sit at my laptop reading about it, writing about it, researching it, working with some of the industry's finest entrepreneurs and experts and researchers. It's, it's really amazing. And, you know, having the remote freedom as well, it is a dream come true.

So where are you at the moment?

I'm in Brno in the Czech Republic. I'm here for one more week, then short break in the UK, and then I'm heading on a 1-month backpacking trip around the Balkans.

And will you be able to work while you're backpacking around?

Yeah, completely. Yeah, I've, I've been working, well, 4 and a half years remotely, and I think never really been in a place where I absolutely can't work. The way my work is set up with writing is if, if I know I'm going to be without internet access for a couple of days, I can set up all my offline documents so that I can do a lot of work offline, and I can use my, my mobile phone as a personal hotspot if I need to. And there have been times in certain countries where Wi-Fi is really bad but mobile data is good, so I buy a SIM card and then use my phone as my internet source.

Right, brilliant, brilliant. And do you find that has sometimes hinders you, or do you think actually it makes no difference where I am? It really is just business as usual, whatever.

Time zones make a difference.

Right.

You know, when I was in Asia, I was 6 hours ahead of the UK and all my customers, which meant, you know, I was working in the evenings when I didn't really want to be working in the evenings. But other than that, it is pretty much business as usual. Internet is the one big factor. If the speeds are slow, it slows me down. If the speeds are fast, it speeds me up. But if there's no internet, it is a tricky one. I think location-wise, I never meet my clients face to face.

Right.

There isn't much of a need because of Skype and Zoom and WhatsApp. Yeah, it hasn't, hasn't been a need.

Yeah, I can understand that. That's brilliant. I wish we could get to a place where we can— I mean, we're in a way, but we've got— we're visiting sites anyway, so we're never going to be getting to a complete stop. But I do, I do sometimes wonder if we could have our initial meetings like this, and rather than traveling around the country meeting people. But then, I don't know, we've— I guess I'm kind of speaking out loud. I guess we're more face-to-face anyway, so therefore it makes much more sense. But I love that remote working idea. It's awesome.

I'm a real advocate for the future of remote work. I've encouraged quite a few friends and colleagues to to try it, you know, give it a go. And I've got friends now, like, um, when I started this lifestyle, I was the only guy in my group who even conceived it, you know, the other guys didn't really understand. And now I think there's 4 or 5 guys from my group of friends who are doing the same. They're off in Bali and Malaysia, you know, and people are looking for their space in the digital world. Yeah, there's some people who are trying to convince their boss to let them go remotely, but I think a lot of people are going, well, I can do graphic design, I can build websites, you know, I'll nurture that skill, I'll get clients, you know, and it will give me the freedom I desire.

So going back to your clients, are there any companies you think we could learn from And I know you've talked about Daniel O'Connor and Warpit and Enviro Waste. I mean, are there any— is there anything that you can think of from, say, those guys or any other that would be interesting to hear about?

Yeah, okay, well, I'd like to talk about Daniel from Warpit. He is a real reuse champion. I mean, he's incredible. His He's built the Warpit software, which has loads of the UK's universities, councils. It's got businesses, hospitals. It's hundreds of users, thousands of users, hundreds of organizations. And the work that they're doing, saving millions of pounds worth of assets from going into skips and landfills every year. He built a platform something like eBay. but for organizations to reuse items internally and with partners. And when I started writing for him, it was— the content marketing was in its infancy. And he had just some fantastic ideas. He wanted a big output, and he wanted case studies. He wanted interviews. He wanted to— create guides on all the features. He wanted to create tours around this software. He really had such a comprehensive idea. And I think there's something we can learn from that, is that he, in one side, he put himself in the shoes of the user.

Hmm.

Pretty much went through and found every question, every problem that may arise. And we've worked for nearly 2 years to try and answer all of that. And on the other side, he's really data intensive and he analyzes, you know, the traffic and conversions. And one thing he noticed was how many people were leaving the software. And so he worked incredibly hard the last couple of years on customer retention and his techniques are really incredible. Work with those, work with the customers you have who need the most help and really guide them in the right direction. And we're on about 300 pieces of content in nearly 2 years. And so the output is huge and we've done 20,000-word reports for customers. We've done massive downloadable content packs. Resources of all kinds, you name it, in the reuse world. I don't see anyone better. And, you know, that for the circular economy, it's huge.

Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I bet. And you mentioned EnviroWaste in East London as well.

Yeah, I've been working with EnviroWaste for almost a year now. Really wonderful family business in East London. I think they're around Leyton area. It's a young owner, James Rubin, lovely, lovely chap, early 30s. Enviro Waste, it's environmental services, commercial, construction, domestic. It's data shredding, house clearances, skip hire, that sort of stuff. When I started working with them, their content marketing they'd done in the past just hadn't worked.

Hmm.

Just simply hadn't worked. So I looked at their history of content and I saw straight away why it hadn't worked was it was irrelevant. It was, you know, one of their keywords would be plastic waste. So the previous writer had been writing articles about ocean plastic waste. Trying to touch the plastic waste keyword. And I mean, that's not going to work. So we went in and we said, you know, what are the pain points of your customers? What are they talking about? That was the first thing is what are your customers talking about? What are they asking you about when they call your account managers? What are their questions? And we based the initial content around that. And it was fears around GDPR. It was about incineration. It was about the China plastic ban. That's probably been the biggest thing in the plastic recycling waste management industry this year is that China's not taking so much plastic, almost none. I think it's 98%—

Yeah.

Sorry, can I just shut my window? Of course, as this call goes on, the waste management municipal truck comes to take my bottles away.

This is real life. Funnily enough, I couldn't hear that. So you were talking— just talking about the the Enviro-Waste and—

They wanted thought leadership. That was, that was the goal. It was, let's position ourselves as the voice of the industry, as, you know, a real opinionated authority, but with the right opinions. And it worked. You know, the traffic, the growth of traffic, we're talking You know, a couple of thousand percent growth since January.

Yeah, it really— it basically— what everything you've said is, as an environmental company, or as a company— in fact, this is pertinent to any company really, let's face it. It just so happens we're talking in sustainability. The two of us, but as you have a clear message on how to help your future and current clients and users of your websites and make sure that it's pertinent to what it is that they want.

Yeah, I mean, the overriding factor of writing environmental content is it's appealing to heads and hearts. You know, if you're trying to sell— okay, I'm looking, there's my iron, right? It's here. So if you're trying to sell an iron for ironing clothes, it needs to sell to the head. Yeah, it needs to sell to its, you know, it heats up quickly, it stores water, it, you know, irons your clothes better than any other iron. There's not really an emotional side to it. But when it comes to environmental content, It really does have to have that emotional effect. You have to say to people, if we don't do this, things are going to get worse.

Yeah.

If we do do this, things are going to get better. Right. So you have to kind of open them up with, you know, the dangers, the fears, the anxieties, not in a harsh way and never pointing the finger, you know. I would never write a piece of content that says, you drive a car, you are the problem, your daily pollution levels are awful, you should feel guilty about it. I would never do that. And I don't feel that way. You know, that's just life. We have to pollute normally. You know, you can almost not avoid it.

Hmm.

So it's appealing to the better nature and appealing to their logical systems and creating action. actionable content that's based on data, on research, on the facts, you know, the hard evidence.

And it's clearly not just you that works on and in your organisation. Where else do people work? I mean, are you all as remote as each other?

Yeah, I've got a really great team. We're all remote. I have a business partner, he's called Charlie. Essentially, Charlie used to be a client of mine. He was head of marketing for a customer. And this is when I was living in Morocco. And he said, how do you, how do you even begin to run a business while living in Morocco? So I told him and planted this seed in his mind. 6 months later, he left that job and started his own agency. And he had a firm idea of what he wanted to do. No, I think the reason he'd procured me in the first place is that he was lacking my skills. And then I've always kind of not been so strong on his side, like email campaigns, pay-per-click adverts, social media. I don't touch those so much. So we made a natural synergy and now we can offer the full package, which works really well. Charlie, from the Isle of Wight, but he's based in Barcelona.

Right.

I've got a content writer who I outsource to sometimes. She's British. She's British Kiwi, but she's now based in Bali.

Right.

My programmer, we were friends at university. We traveled Asia together. Now he's based in London. And I've got a web designer also from university who's been traveling around the UK in the north, you know, who moves around. And, you know, the team works really well. You know, we all get along well. And it's very nice because everyone's a freelancer. No one's employed. And this system is so favorable to this remote work lifestyle.

Mm-hmm.

Is that, you know, I'm not responsible for giving them a full-time income. and, you know, full workload. I'm just responsible, you know, for bringing them onto projects when they're needed, for being a good guide and mentor and ensuring that the work gets done well. I think it works well for them because they also have the freedom to build something tangible for themselves, to build their own reputations and portfolios without being dependent on me. You know, it's nice. you know, they can see that I'm independent and hungry for this, and they can learn from that. And I'm completely willing to share anything I pick up, any knowledge and, and, you know, progress.

I think that's key, isn't it? It's, um, it's that— I mean, you're talking about trust here, and you're talking about, um, helping people understand that it's not all about trying to get as much out of them as possible, and you're actually verging on the whole—

I wouldn't—

I don't want to say B Corp, but more, um, I would say true sustainability within an organization, actually. I mean, there's not much point in asking you about environmental management, um, because you're, you, you know, you're not even traveling to To organizations, you know, everything you're doing is completely remote. I mean, I would struggle to work out how to get you to be more environmental. Maybe looking at your IT hardware and the way you're running your website. And yeah, and actually that could be a way. There's Tom Greenwood from Wholegrain Digital They have a free software. And actually, you should probably look at their software. It analyzes your website and tells you how green your website is. It's a free software that's on their website.

Awesome. Yeah, I thought about changing to a hosting company that uses renewable energy. But I'm tied into a contract at the moment.

There's always Leap down in Cornwall. They have that— they— their servers are all— they're a fellow B Corp.

Okay. Oh yeah, that would be good. Well, yeah, you're saying about, you know, encouraging others to try this lifestyle. Actually, you know, as well as Charlie, both Danny and Will were, you know, employed when I started doing this, and I put the seed of doubt into their minds that they could also do it, you know, and have helped them at any stage to make it a reality. And so it's quite nice. Also, Abby, my content writer, you know, she was a lawyer and her boy— her husband, sorry, he has a remote business. And so she came to me and she said, look, I really want to have remote work too, so that while we travel together, I'm not bored. So I helped her find her passion, her space. And she's an ethical content writer now. And she's doing well. It's fantastic. You know, vegan beauty care, you know, cruelty-free products, fair trade, this kind of stuff.

Right.

I helped her find her space and nurture that skill, that hunger, and teach her about how remote work functions. You know, so I've done that for the whole team. I'm really, you know, it's very rewarding, and I'm happy with all of their work. You know, their work's incredible, but I'm happy that they're happy.

Brilliant. Well, you need to have conversations about turning you into a B Corp.

I need to read more about it.

That was more tongue-in-cheek, but I'm just listening to you and the language you're using.

I think when the marketing agency or, you know, when Content Pathway grows bigger, it's certainly something I need to look into is accreditations and, you know, these kind of cool like B Corp and, you know, other green certificates and groups and memberships.

Definitely.

Well, that actually tying into that, I'm leaving Brno. I've been here for a year. I'm moving to Spain in January to Valencia, and Charlie is gonna move too, and we're gonna put ourselves in the same place for the first time.

Oh, brilliant.

Actually really try and grow this into, you know, something much bigger.

Great, great. Well, good luck with that.

Thank you.

Is there a place that we can find out more information about who you are and where you are?

Yeah, my website is www.cpath.co.uk. That's the letter C, P-A-T-H. I'm very active on LinkedIn. You may have seen recently I'm doing a series of interviews, which I hope to be a long-term series with people around the environmental circular economy sustainability space. I also have a Facebook page. It's Joseph— it's, sorry, facebook.com/josephenedycp. Cool.

Well, we'll be putting all of this on our show notes as well so that people can actually click on them and make sure that they've got the right links. On that note, I think I've got a few people in mind that we could potentially get you to interview on that subject as well. So I will definitely be telling you about them. But thank you very much. Thanks for your time today.

Thank you very much, Will.

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