Here’s the full transcript of marketing speaker Grant LeBoff‘s chat with Jane Farnham of Great British Speakers:
00:00:08:15 – 00:00:15:43
Jane Farnham
Hi, I’m Jane Farnham with Great British Speakers. And I’m here today chatting to the marketing thought leader and marketing speaker Grant LeBoff. Grant, hello.
00:00:15:43 – 00:00:16:06
Grant LeBoff
Hi.
00:00:16:48 – 00:00:31:24
Jane Farnham
Thanks so much for joining us today. And by way of introduction, Grant’s is a proven marketing entrepreneur, bestselling author and a specialist in digital marketing. So firstly, Grant, perhaps tell us a little bit about your life prior to your current speaking career.
00:00:32:31 – 00:00:57:27
Grant LeBoff
Yes. So I actually studied behavioral psychology, which was a great intro into marketing, sort of happy accident. So that was great. And I had lots of senior salesman and marketing roles and I ended up starting my own agency in North London, which I built up and sold. And at the end of the time in the agency, I wrote my first book and that led into speaking and more books and doing what I’m doing today.
00:00:58:26 – 00:01:07:53
Jane Farnham
So what are you doing today? So you obviously had the experience, you started speaking. How did that beginning of your career evolve and how much speaking are you doing today?
00:01:08:47 – 00:01:34:31
Grant LeBoff
Yes, So it evolved when I was running the agency. Marketers love a good case study, so I got asked to go to marketing events and sort of talk about some of the work we were doing, and I realized I quite enjoyed it. And then I wrote my first book and it was published by Wiley, and it did better than I expected, and that led to invitations to conferences around the globe, and that led me onto my sort of speaking career and being asked to do it more and more.
00:01:34:31 – 00:02:00:19
Grant LeBoff
And then when I sold my agency, I had more time to devote to the speaking. So I spend about, about half my professional life now speaking and the other half of my life doing sort of high end strategic consultancies with businesses all around the world. 65% of my work is actually outside the UK. And, and that’s great for me because it gives me an opportunity to do the speaking, which I love.
00:02:00:36 – 00:02:04:13
Grant LeBoff
But also I’m still a practitioner, which keeps me relevant, I hope.
00:02:04:58 – 00:02:06:09
Jane Farnham
Keeping your finger on the pulse.
00:02:06:31 – 00:02:06:55
Grant LeBoff
Exactly.
00:02:07:21 – 00:02:18:25
Jane Farnham
Let’s talk about the dreaded C word, COVID, lockdowns, working from home. Very well-documented upheaval throughout the economy. How has it affected the world of marketing?
00:02:19:33 – 00:02:46:37
Grant LeBoff
Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I think with COVID, I always say to people, I’m not sure how much it changed anything, but it accelerated a lot. So trends that you saw happening anyway have suddenly accelerated. So, you know, in terms of digital adoption, it’s accelerated and it’s become the top of all businesses’ agendas because some of them got caught short realizing they perhaps weren’t where they needed to be.
00:02:47:24 – 00:03:22:06
Grant LeBoff
And it’s done some other things. One of the things I talk about is that it’s kind of expanded connectedness. And what I mean by that is you get people saying things like, Well, Zoom and teams is not as good as face to face. But actually, if you don’t think of it like that, if you think of teams and Zoom and these other technologies and platforms augmenting your face to face, in other words, you might go and see customers a certain number of times a year, but rather than have phone calls in between suddenly having Zoom calls or teams calls augments what you were doing already and actually allows you to deepen that idea of connectedness.
00:03:22:06 – 00:03:44:29
Grant LeBoff
And what that’s done is linked to something else, which it’s meant that the online world and again, this was a trend that we were seeing, but it’s accelerated profoundly because of COVID. The online world is becoming an area of more meaningful experiences. In other words, in the old days people say, Well, look at my website and, and then we’ll do the real business when we get together.
00:03:45:00 – 00:04:05:00
Grant LeBoff
But actually, now, if you don’t give people a reasonable experience online, whether it’s engaging with your website, the use of video and those things, you don’t get to the meeting. No, actually, it’s become much more important for people to try and give some, some level of experience of their organization before meetings occur.
00:04:05:34 – 00:04:27:01
Jane Farnham
Yeah, it seems to have become a lot more personable as well, hasn’t it. I mean, I’ve always, I remember one of the first bits of advice someone said to me was, you know, people buy into people. So, you know, if you are jumping on video calls, people get a sense of you far better than a phone call or an email. So at least during COVID, we were able to continue that and build, build relationships with clients.
00:04:27:37 – 00:04:51:30
Grant LeBoff
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things I often talk about is that, is that video really should be people’s weapon of choice. So I use that word on purpose, but people are scared of going on camera so they don’t do it. And I always say to people, if you think of, you know, a TV presenter unfortunately passes away and, you know, many, many hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of people are upset.
00:04:51:50 – 00:05:18:43
Grant LeBoff
But they never met them. But they’re in their living room sort of every week for years. And actually, again, you get to build relationships, it doesn’t replace the face to face or the zoom kind of conversations, no, but being able to build relationships at scale and build that familiarity and some credibility and some trust is really, really important. And I think more companies and individuals need to embrace video.
00:05:18:43 – 00:05:25:49
Grant LeBoff
And I know it’s scary for people to go on camera, but actually, you know, you can get familiar with it. And it’s, it’s an unbelievable tool for people.
00:05:26:24 – 00:06:10:12
Jane Farnham
I think it’s been really beneficial for some people who’ve never you know, I think it’s like a baby step into speaking to audiences as well. So when you are there, meeting people face to face. You’re that much more confident. So the last two years you’ve done it from the comfort of your own home. So, you know, I’ve seen a lot of people sort of flourish from their video experience and really, you know, really enjoy it. And now I know that you’re really well known for your informative blog, vlogs, should I say, and they cover market trends. One of our favorites is ‘Congratulations. You own a media company’. Now, just where is that watershed between conventional and the digital world? And are SMEs grabbing hold of the opportunities that digital provides?
00:06:11:27 – 00:06:33:30
Grant LeBoff
Yes, a great question. I think what’s happening and I think it’s a good thing is I think 20 years ago people thought in very binary terms, you know, there was the analog world and there was the digital world and they were kind of seen as very, very separate things almost. And now they are all kind of all augment, you know, sort of going into one, as it were.
00:06:33:42 – 00:06:56:47
Grant LeBoff
The lines are blurring and that’s much more natural because we’re in and out of these things all the time. You can be on your phone looking at Google Maps or using something and then, you know, talking to someone in the real world, as it were. And, and those things just interface all the time. So I think the more fluid that becomes and the more natural it becomes, the easier it is for businesses to grab the opportunities.
00:06:57:10 – 00:07:31:44
Grant LeBoff
I think SMEs are still struggling a little bit, getting the opportunities right because it’s just making sense of what digital allows them to do. And really essentially, and it’s interesting you brought that video up about congratulations, you own a media business because essentially what digital allows companies of all sizes to do is to gain the attention of an audience or a marketplace and then keep it and keep that front of mind awareness in a cost effective way because in the analog world you paid for eyeballs.
00:07:32:06 – 00:07:54:30
Grant LeBoff
So in other words, if you send out 100,000 direct mails, it’s going to cost you more than sending out 50,000 because you got to print 50,000 more, you’ve got to stamp 50,000 more. So you were paying for eyeballs. Whereas in the digital world you pay for the creation of the material, but not for the eyeballs. So it might cost you £200 for argument’s sake, to create a video, but it doesn’t actually matter whether that.
00:07:54:30 – 00:08:26:18
Grant LeBoff
Video’s then watched by five people or 5 million people. The cost is in the creation of the material and therefore you have an opportunity to engage an audience at scale. And that’s how media works. Media works, if it’s a newspaper group or a television organization or anything. A media works by building an audience and retaining it. And for the first time, businesses have an opportunity to not just transactional pay to grab someone’s attention, but to be able to grab a marketplaces attention, and then keep it in a cost effective way.
00:08:26:52 – 00:08:38:04
Grant LeBoff
And I think if organizations think of it in those terms and then how they build on that sort of foundation, then they really start to get the essence of what digital can do for them.
00:08:38:04 – 00:08:51:39
Jane Farnham
So during your speaking career, have you got any examples or a specific example where you spoke and then you feel that the organization moved forward with a step change into the digital world?
00:08:53:02 – 00:09:33:09
Grant LeBoff
Oh gosh, yeah. Thanks. Thankfully many examples. I mean, that that’s really one of the big kicks for me. It’s when you sit, stand in front of an audience and you’re working with them and you see the light bulbs going off behind people’s eyes and you see it register. And I’ve had lots of examples. In fact, I was I was speaking up in Lincolnshire earlier this week and early this week, someone came up to me and they first saw me speak when they just started their business and they and they said that having understood the role that digital plays, they started to use it in the way that I explained by media, by grabbing audience.
00:09:33:09 – 00:09:47:25
Grant LeBoff
And this gentleman that I was speaking to, I think he’s now five years into his business and he’s doing really, really well. And it was, it was kind of heart warming for him to come and seek me out at this event and say it’s because of you, it’s because of what you said. It was just the right time.
00:09:47:38 – 00:09:56:45
Grant LeBoff
Because you caught me right at the beginning of my sort of business journey. And I saw what you said and it really worked. So that’s a lovely example. But thankfully there’s many because that’s, that’s really the kick.
00:09:57:49 – 00:10:10:35
Jane Farnham
So there’s obviously lots of key takeaways from your talks now. So obviously you talk to lots of smaller organisations about digital, but such is your reputation Grant that you have been invited to speak at some pretty big ones too, haven’t you?
00:10:11:20 – 00:10:45:37
Grant LeBoff
Oh yes. Gosh, I’ve talked to some really big organizations. I was, Microsoft and Bank of New York and many, many others. But yeah, some really big organizations. And that’s also interesting because it’s a different dynamic, but, you know, really useful for organizations. And sometimes, you know, bigger organizations can be if they’re not careful, quite inward looking, you know, because there’s so much within their own organization versus an employee.
00:10:45:38 – 00:10:54:21
Grant LeBoff
So to be able to go in there as an outsider and I mix things up sometimes and make people think in a different way or help them think in a different way is, is really rewarding.
00:10:55:21 – 00:11:02:18
Jane Farnham
So moving on to say the next 2 to 5 years, what trends do you see developing now? Give us a heads up.
00:11:03:10 – 00:11:26:47
Grant LeBoff
Gosh, I think, I think the, the maturing of digital, it becomes more experiential and more emotional. I think digital has been quite clinical up to now. You know, people put their, the facts and figures on the websites and I think creating more experiences. I think that’s one area. I think the use of technology to meet the demand of immediacy.
00:11:27:36 – 00:11:47:54
Grant LeBoff
So, you know, it’s just not acceptable anymore that you go onto a website and have an inquiry and don’t hear anything for 72 hours. You know, people want. So using things like live chat, using things like chat bots, which of course are driven by AI, basic AI, but they weren’t really, really well just to answer frequently asked questions and those kind of things like that.
00:11:47:54 – 00:12:10:21
Grant LeBoff
So I think, and all of those things. So sometimes people think of things like chatbots, like they take away the human element, but actually it’s not the way to think about it because what you get to do is you get to augment people’s experiences. It doesn’t mean you won’t have a conversation with them. But the problem is, if someone goes onto your website at 2:00 in the morning, you might be fast asleep, but they don’t get instant answers.
00:12:10:21 – 00:12:31:42
Grant LeBoff
They’ll go somewhere else. And so it’s about meeting the demand for immediacy, deepening this idea of connectedness, creating more experiences for people so it becomes more emotional being able to take some of those offline things and creating those online which technologies are allowing us to do. So. I think the future is quite exciting and interesting.
00:12:32:29 – 00:13:11:13
Jane Farnham
And I can certainly vouch for live chat. I fought it at every step of the way, being my age, I was like, No, I don’t want it, I don’t want it. And we’ve added it to our website. And literally within an hour we had interaction with our first clients. So, you know, I think your age, your experiences, you’ve got to put those to one side and what you think is right. Because the generation who are coming through and wanting quick reactions, you know, are completely different to us. So yeah I absolutely believe in that, just got to maybe step up our own life experiences sometimes. And finally, Grant, just tell me what gives you the biggest buzz about speaking?
00:13:12:37 – 00:13:33:45
Grant LeBoff
The biggest buzz about speaking is really demystifying the complex and making it simple for people because actually these things aren’t that complicated, but we get so much noise coming at us about the importance of social media in the performance of digital and brand and, and all of these things. And sometimes people find it hard to make sense of them.
00:13:33:45 – 00:13:52:12
Grant LeBoff
They’re not quite sure. I know I’ve got to be doing some of this stuff, but how do I do it and how I make it effective? And when you go and speak in front of an audience of all different sizes and people afterwards, they get it and they can go off and do something about it. And it’s, you know, supporting that business and helping them become more effective and more profitable.
00:13:52:35 – 00:14:04:40
Grant LeBoff
That’s really the kick. You know, ultimately it’s about helping people and that’s just demystifying what’s going on because that’s my job and just making it elegantly simple so people can go off and do something about it.
00:14:05:31 – 00:14:10:35
Jane Farnham
I obviously have a passion for it. Thank you so much. It’s been action. Brilliant chatting to you.
00:14:11:04 – 00:14:12:10
Grant LeBoff
Thank you for having me. Thank you.
00:14:12:57 – 00:14:26:07
Jane Farnham
You’re welcome. Now, if you’d like to book marketing speaker Grant and get some key takeaways about the digital world, then simply contact myself or Steve at Great British Speakers on 01753439289 or you can email bookings at bookings@greatbritishtalent.com.
Grant LeBoff, marketing speaker and expert at Great British Speakers
