 My name is Terry Glover, I'm the founder of the Marketing Meetup which is a positively lovely community of some 35,000 marketers around the world united by a mission to educate, connect and bring people together with kindness. Every week we run free-to-access events both online and in person and it's a lot of fun. Thanks so much, Joe, it's such an honour to chat to you again. We've talked a few times this year and for anyone who hasn't met Joe, your life is about to be changed for the best, for the better. He's a remarkable fellow and has helped so many other people and just you know when you meet people in your life and you just have you go out feeling like the world is a good place. This is how I feel whenever I hopefully if you're ever listening on the podcast you get some of this through from from our chat but thank you so so much for joining us and yeah welcome. Thanks, we'll be right back at you by the way. You're a lovely people. I do think there's some good similarities between what we're trying to do with our company. I think sort of you know life and work is serious enough. It's nice to create something that helps people that is also done in a way that hopefully makes people smile and feel good about themselves and build people up rather than always ripping people down. 100% and like we're recording Lasting on a Friday as well so we're in real danger because like I think that fun element and enjoying things for having a bit of fun and looking after people might come out a little bit more than it usually does first thing on a Monday perhaps. Yeah definitely definitely. I've got some beers in the background if we get started. Why are they all empty Chris? They're not. I've got some cans of beer from canned. Quite cool. Anyway right sorry so Jay runs the marketing meetup which is this incredible thing and it started off I mean I don't know why I'm going to explain this actually sorry I should just ask you Jay how did this thing start off? It's been going for what six years now? Is that roughly it? That's right so the market started when I was a marketing manager working in a small company and I knew that I wanted to meet other marketers and learn about marketing so the natural solution for that would be go to a networking event but whenever I did and I walked into those rooms then you'd see people stood in those circular formations and try as I might it terrified me it was it was a scary experience and it was not only sort of having to break into those circles to say hello to people but when I did then often my experience was people would just be by my job title or the budget that I had and I know this because I also did it too you know when I worked at an agency side and I saw someone on the big client side I'd be like oh I really want to speak to you because you know you're you're important you know and it was rubbish so I started an event in in Cambridge it was designed to be a place where people come together to be welcomed in feel safe feel included and learn together and really that was it it was it was designed to be something on my doorstep where I could meet folks but as it happened 50 people came to the first event and then things started getting more and more busy over the course of time so fast forward four years and the marketing meetup had 13 locations across the UK and we just started to New York as well we were running 10 events per month 10 events sorry per year in each location so 140 events per year which was mad like because it was just this it was this hobby you know that sort of turned into something slightly bigger with lots and lots and lots of people and then COVID here and then so all of a sudden in the flick of a switch 140 events March 13th 2020 then we had to cancel them and we had to find somewhere else where the community could go to come together to learn to connect and do it all kindness and so we moved online and so since 13th March 2020 then then we've put together what I think is pretty much all the world's best webinar schedules anywhere I mean by definition that's world's best featuring everyone from the CMO of Nando's to the CMO of Manchester United to Mark Ritzen twice to Rory Sutherland twice and not only the big names but also the practitioners but far more importantly every week when we run these events you go into the chat feature of a marketing me to prevent and you find just the most lovely people who are coming together who are curious wanting to learn wanting to get better and find kinship with people who feel a little bit like them which are their experiences and so over these past two years then the community has grown from some 10 000 people to about 35 000 people and growing rapidly and we've also now reintroduced our in-person events so we're now running I think 10 locations across across the country as well as maintaining our webinar schedule as well which has been it's been ace and like I think like to cap off the story I think the thing that I'm proudest of is that like I still feel like that terrified 24 year old when I walk into a lot of events like if I go to other people's events it's not because they're bad it's just because I'm not playing on my field anymore you know but I know that I can walk into a Maximia event and the culture is such where people are genuinely there to look after each other and it feels welcoming and it feels great six years on I still think we're staying true to the values that we're set up in which is just amazing because it's good times I get to spend my time with nice people like you Chris which is good good for the soul yeah no no and need it in life um yeah I mean I was looking at some of the the talks you've had recently I mean it kind of goes across everything it's like you know how to tell stories on YouTube to you know how to do marketing that's not greenwashing to you know neurodivisities marketers and then I think you've even had one on on the sort of new um google search that's right ranking thing is it google analytics 4 or something that's right yeah I think it's coming up I mean it it's just interesting it's like these are all kind of I guess these are all they'll all end up a lot being subjects that whether you're whether you're doing marketing for a fishing trip shop down the road or you know proctoring gamble you still kind of need to know these things and they benefit if you're doing it for the small people you need to know them even better than the the bigger ones because at least you know they'll have tons of support and lots of lots of budget to try and throw out things and you can try the multiple pronged approaches but if you're a smaller individual marketer I guess it's much much harder I mean we would you probably have the same thing growing your own business as well I guess absolutely I mean so I come from a world where so all of the market or both marketing positions I had so I did one in house for a conferencing company um so that was actually my grounding one a lot of sort of the learning and development that I did then a lot of the values that I learned the company was called business of software um and they put on great events and they had people like Rory come and speak on the regular and stuff like that so that's where I was exposed to um but that was a three person company and then I moved from business of software to uh an agency for genie goals which was um a slightly larger company in that you have sort of 30 people working in the agency but I was the only marketing person in that situation as well and I think that's a reality that most people forget when they come to speak about marketing certainly within certain circles is that as much as you know there's the the big budget campaigns for the Patagonia's the Nikes and whatever of the world reality is that sort of I don't know 70 percent of marketers are sat on an on an industrial estate by themselves having to convince you know Larry who lives down you know down in the department next door to try and get involved in a tiktok with them it's not the sort of it's not the the the high big budget stuff that's the reality for most marketers so I definitely empathize with those folks who sort of are by themselves or in the small team and they're having to convince people of the value of marketing or being passed down work and said can you make this a little bit more jazzy and so you know I think I do have a lot of empathy for folks who have to wear a lot of hats on the daily and sort of pick up a lot of different things which is you know I think if you attend a marketing meeting webinar each week then you're probably picking up a good mixture of strategic and tactical stuff that you can sort of take and apply the next day as well sort of be told how to think about things because I do think that's one of the most important things and I know that this is a lot about what you do as well it's not necessarily saying here's what to do is quite a lot about sort of saying here's how to think about it now go and apply it in your own context which is important yeah I think it's that it's it's sort of almost um I don't know whether this is right but we're having a conversation about this the other day about you know other other soft skills than new hard skills as though it's sort of yeah in the past you used to always have to work with your hands or you'd have to build something or maybe if it's a bit more recent it would be you know knowing how to use excel to create something or or using having to use photoshop or something like that but there's so many tools that you can use like if you if you're a marketer you had to do a lot of things you can go onto camber and you can find a great template for this and that I mean if you just fast-forward five years ago just you couldn't kind of do that and go back a little bit further it was even more impossible so I think it's sort of the the stuff that that you're talking about and I think we talk about as well which are these kind of the softer skills which I think is a terrible word for it um because they're not I think by calling them soft it appears that it sort of maybe feels like it's not as important as the hard skills but they're these kind of skills of problem solving of being able to think creatively but just becoming more and more important in in the world and and in particularly in the business world um if you want to adapt and survive I think that's the thing right you know so folks say marketing moves so fast and you could I'm sure finance people say that I'm sure operation you know yeah there'll be versions of that exist outside of the marketing sector right um but for the most part I think you're right you know these sort of core essential skills that you can develop and think about um we are spongy masses you know which don't do all that much so if you can pop and solve but equally if you can listen to people like Rory uh again it's the third name check on this one it must be the association of course um but uh you know if you can learn the fundamentals of of being a person in work then they really the the big changes don't feel quite as intimidating in a way you know and I think that's that's certainly what I like to focus on in terms of my development is what stays true you know rather than focus on what changes what stays true um I think that is a far more useful skill set in a way of course the stuff at the implementation age that you need to be kept up with but you know I think 90% of the game is what stays the same and that's also really fun to investigate as well I think Jack Bezos agrees with you that was his thing well and it was like his courage really so yeah it's not like uh what's gonna what's gonna be the same thing that people are always at he was saying people always and he can't see that in his lifetime anyone will ever want stuff not you know delivered slower like there's like there's always one stuff delivered as soon as possible when they buy it and they'll always want it to be as quick and efficient as it can be and so that's the thing that they focus on how they do it and the tools that they use vary with whatever technologies the tools are around but that's your guiding guiding light it's kind of that makes makes sense um so yeah I mean how how did you get the confidence to do this was this a transition or was this like you know spur of the moment typed out an email and said hey I'm gonna do a meet up do you want to come up and then you you said that you were you know not an extrovert uh that you're introverted and how did you how did you get to do that what was that journey what was the thought process yeah yeah well I mean like on the last question there on what was the thought process then I don't think there was too much of a thought process at all minus perhaps does this thing exist no uh okay I'll do it then like all like all great entrepreneurs maybe I think uh and I think that was the long and the short of it really in a way it was just like um I see a problem and there wasn't a solution so go and do it and I mean the way that you phrased the question at the moment at the beginning was like how did you get the confidence to do it which implies that I'm confident now which is funny because like a couple of days ago in fact I've had the experience twice recently where I've watched videos back and for myself that I've been taking in the past sort of six weeks and I'm sat there wriggling and jiggling and shuffling and and not very good with my words and all that sort of stuff so like it's it's a journey it's a it's a real place journey and at the beginning six years ago then I was just a little bit less file on that journey and so I probably had the confidence to put an event up on meetup uh but then when I saw 100 members there then I sort of had the next step of confidence to go oh well I better do something about this and then I had to stand at the front of a room and present it and then my feedback I got back at the beginning where people were like yeah you were clearly nervous but you know it's quite endearing and actually that was useful and not useful at all because then I thought I had to be the the nervous endearing guy so I really held on to that persona for much longer than I mean but I think all of it like I did I definitely like if there's new stuff I think this year I've been a lot better at approaching new stuff with more excitement than anxiety than I ever have been yeah but up until this year so we're speaking about a five year journey or we'll call it a 29 year journey then like I would have been just terrified by new things and change so I'd say confidence only comes through a series of of um doing the thing and then it becoming less scary um you also reference the new question about introversion there as well and so the way that I tend to think about it is really that all I've done and probably I don't know whether this is advice I don't think it is advice the best piece of advice is never to give advice that was that was from my dad but um all I've done is created a field that I feel comfortable playing on which means to say you know like I'm at the beginning of the marketing me so if I also I almost imagined it like a football field and I was just playing by myself I sort of had like this had a football and sort of like kicking it around by myself and now six years into the journey I've just got 35,000 mates who are who are happy to play that too but if I step off that field and I go into say you know you got you got your spaceship behind you you know so if I want you to to NASA and start trying to tell you I won't be able to do it I'd be exactly incompetent you know in that moment I'd be more introverted than ever and so all I've done really is recognizing myself that there's there's places where I can play strong and there's places where I can be useful and helpful and those are things like putting on a good event there are things like writing on LinkedIn writing full stop I think that was right and I think I'm okay for the speaking from time to time so those are those are those are my things that I can I can play happily with and therefore I do but yeah confidence is it's a it's a funny thing and so is introversion because I guess the last point on that introversion is that it's so situational you know and like you and I you know I felt like I was being a bit cheeky at the beginning conversation as they're like that but there's no way I'd be like that in a big group situation it's because I'm comfortable you know and I like being around you and this is this is my field you know this is my field that I'm playing on but get me get me somewhere else and might not be the same you know it makes sense I guess and also you can always tell very instinctively when someone's being genuine or not genuine so it makes sense that your initial feedback was you know they really enjoyed that finally there was someone who is standing up I think in the marketing world and in general it can be a bit sort of car salesman-y not that necessarily all car salesmen are horrible but yeah a bit kind of a bit too overconfident like this is how this is like yeah how come you don't know this look at all the amazing stuff that I've done um so I'm not surprised that the way that you've approached it has has been so successful it's just so nice to see and what I thought was very interesting as well was seeing that you actually have more marketers turn up than people in in advertising which is also fantastic because I think in advertising if you're in an agency um there's lots of marketing-y stuff going on your whole world is just marketing and advertising but if you're in the marketing department you're dealing with people who have nothing to do with marketing all the time and say you're sort of yeah I I mean you must have had some amazing conversations about that and and some bits of feedback from it I imagine it's interesting actually because I think you're the first to actually point out that distinction in a way um I can see how it happens and so yeah there's a great podcast that I listened to at the moment uh on the strategist showcase uh with a guy called Fergus Fergus I'm not gonna butcher his last name but like great great podcast and it's funny because you go in and you listen to it and like I'm massively overexposed in marketing theory you know so I can keep up but like Fergus is asking like really interesting deep questions about marketing strategy and implementation that is just like it's amazing and it's assumed knowledge and it's off the bat and like the guests are keeping up with them and they're bouncing back and forward and like it's so interesting but the context is that when we go into the marketing meetup then then you're right you know these marketers are coming from all kinds of levels and all kinds of situations and the conversations that we're having is how can we convince the boss that spending an extra 20k on a on a bit of marketing budget you know will be a valuable thing to do uh you know how can I convince people of the value of marketing you know it's all of these conversations where people aren't already bought in and so that's a lot of where we spend our time is is having these conversations about like the value of marketing and you know where I should prioritize and I think it goes back to that word that you used a little bit earlier about confidence because I think there's a lot of marketers who have their confidence consistently undermined just having to prove the value of marketing it's not the dream thing and that may or may not be an advertising slash marketing distinction but I do think it's something that does exist in certainly within the community that that I serve you know so yeah it makes a lot of sense I mean what are some of the you've spoken to so many amazing people like are there what are there any sort of uh I guess uh I was going to say favorites but I know that's the right the right word because I'm sure they're all your favorites because they're all amazing um are there any standout recently that sort of off top of your head that you were like yeah that was uh that was really amazing and I've started so you know I've become a real sort of storytelling person in a way you know I just like how people present you know because of course um as I say I'm massively overexposed to a lot of this theory now so I'm not saying I know it all because I definitely don't but I may have seen the version of it before and so I'm really sort of gorging out at the moment on great presenters and so there's been a few so the one that you referenced at the beginning about Google Analytics 4 there's this lady called Mary Urusu and she's a professor over in a Kansas College in America Mary is gifted with clarity she is generous but like every word is precise and to help the people she is helping like so she went through the Google Analytics 4 thing and she did a live demo which was just mad but I'd never do a live demo because like it would definitely go wrong but she I think that was like 500 people on the call or something like that she did like 500 people through like setting up their Google Analytics 4 account just like that it was just so natural it was an incredible thing to observe um so Mary Urusu is a gifted communicator in clarity um and I think there's a lot that anyone could watch from just sort of observing her in action the next one is a guy called Max Hopkinson who also happens to be one of my greatest friends in the world and I think what Max did particularly well in his presentation so Max was speaking about public speaking and his journey right and he started his presentation by uh sharing a personal story about having panic attacks when he went to go and give some uh public presentations and he shared his journey about who got a little bit better a little bit better a little bit better and then crashed again and did really what really badly again and then got a little bit better and etc and then in the rest of his presentation he kept going back to that story it was like a comedic callback you know where they do a joke at the beginning and then come back at the end and like it was just genius because like it grounded the talk so so well and like a personal story and a bit of vulnerability but then also the lessons learned and like Max's talk was like a quintessential like here is how you should present uh type of thing because it was just it was just really really good um the last one I'll sort of share with you was actually the following week with a girl called Ellie Meddleton who spoke on neurodiversity now Ellie is the one I've learned a bunch from uh just through following her LinkedIn but again Ellie opened up with a really personal story and then went into seven tips that were just like bam bam bam bam on how to be uh how to consider neurodiversity as a marketer again it was just I reckon to sort of see how like it was it wasn't in the same way Max called back she actually shared the story at the beginning and then she just went through the tips but like because it had that grounding in humanity in authenticity like everything flew afterwards and people are like just relating so much in the chat future and so yeah I mean I have a bunch of interesting conversations but actually how those conversations take place is the most interesting thing at the moment and I think the common themes are pretty much always a sense of authenticity humanity and vulnerability in it so yeah that's where I'm at yeah I know it's well I'm yeah storytelling I think of a skill it's just it's so underrated like I think it's sort of one of those things that should be in all schools like maybe that's the first thing you learn when you go to a business this is how to tell our story like this is how to tell a story full stop yeah there's a story in everything the last webinar that we did of last season was how to do social media in quote unquote boring companies and like so it was the webinar which had the most signups that we've ever had for a webinar which is crazy given the speakers we've had but I think the title was one that resonated for the community but the the I'm going to give away the talk here but essentially it was there is no such thing as a boring company there is always something that is interesting to someone that is useful to someone that is entertaining to someone you just got to find it you know and and and that's that story telling right yeah it's great it's really really cool yeah I mean it reminded me of that sort of was it John Hegety when he was trying to find interesting stories about Audi I think it was and he sort of went over to the places where they make the cars and just he was looking at the posters that the people had up on the walls and there were a whole load of like sort of slogans that people had written up and someone had written up that sort of I'm going to butcher this terribly but it was what is it how the Wurstbrunn the technique or something anyone German is listening to this I apologize I'm not associating myself with this analogy yeah he was saying that he asked you know what it meant it was sort of all about moving innovation through technology and moving forwards and all that sort of stuff and that you know it was how he found that interesting story which then became fundamental to the to the brand there's I think yeah you're right it's like sort of looking deeper and and yeah it's fascinating anyway sorry but the other thing I was going to ask which you mentioned actually a little bit earlier you were saying oh I really enjoyed you know writing on LinkedIn and and just posting stuff up on there and I I mean I'd imagine that must be a really good place for you and I think with something we're being bad at and we're trying to get much better at to grow your businesses on LinkedIn so it's kind of where where a lot of these people sit and where they're looking for advice and it is a work platform and yeah I mean what when you're how do you how do you discipline yourself to write that is that does it just come naturally like oh I've got so many things in my head I'm just going to write this down there we go brilliant drop drop the mic and go and have a cup of tea or it's a muscle really right I'm six years into the sort of building that muscle so quite sadly you can experience the thing and you can think oh there's an update in that you know and that becomes quite naturally I mean if I was going to recommend someone to get into a flow of things then the first thing I'd recommend is that they start by commenting you know just get used to writing on the platform because I think there's pressure much in the same way as networking where people say feel the pressure to look smart you know actually the same applies on LinkedIn you can ask questions and you can comment on content as always you've been produced you don't have to be the content producer so once you've done that then you feel a bit more comfortable on the platform and you can sort of say yeah you know that's that's you know that's where I'm feeling comfortable now can I stretch it can I post you know can I do something myself and it may be that you're influenced by someone else who has posted something and you want to provide an opinion or it may be that you've seen something in your own life and you like yeah you know actually I want to share this I think the difficulty with LinkedIn for me at least there's someone who spends way too much time on it is that there's certain tropes now that exist on there and actually if you sort of recognize and see those tropes enough on the regular then it's quite hard to write something without sort of falling into the trap of being a douchey LinkedIn post and say at that stage then then you're buggered because you question everything but I think when you start and you just got to get help there you got to do it but I struggle with it slightly because I think the people who are encouraging you to post on LinkedIn every day of the week are also probably LinkedIn coaches you know they're probably marketers who have a vested interest in in making the LinkedIn platform more busy I do think it's an amazing opportunity to be surrounded by professionals to be having conversations with them but I don't think it's a be all end all in business I don't think any social media is I think you have to figure out what works for you and so really I think one of the mindsets that is most useful for LinkedIn is do I want to post and if you actually do want to post then do it but if you don't don't feel like you're forced to because actually you know what it's it's not that it's not all that none of it is you know there are plenty of ways to grow a business and you know that is one of them but there are many many more oh sorry what what have been that for I mean for you what have been the most what have been the most kind of stand out things that you've done in your business to to grow are there some things that you do where you you know every now and then you just do something and you get these massive peaks or is it more just a you know steady and showing up kind of rinsed the way so I remember reading I think you said like Sean Paul is it is that the rapper like gave you a shout out and that that was like I mean that must have been pretty huge that was funny yeah that was one of my funniest moments that I could meet up um we just paid him on cameo so that was said that specifically happens like um you're right at the beginning and you know when people are doing like all of those um we're there for you adverts and stuff like that and and like they all look the same and sounded the same well that was in that moment we I think we paid $80 something crazy and just got Sean called to say to the marketer me at a community we're there for you you know and it was wicked it was so good and like I'm not going to have a response like that from people who said yeah the best email I've ever received and all that stuff so um I mean there's a few things that we've done for the marketer me up so as a marketer I can't help but think of it in sort of a way of this consideration that is you know etc right but I mean the most significant and useful way that we've grown the community is through word of mouth um because you know we get a bunch of lovely people or where do you find more lovely people probably their friends and so that's that's where we started out um but word of mouth doesn't happen without you prompting it in some way so I mean having an excellent product you know our webinars are events they're excellent products people want to come along you know people want to get involved so so that's certainly one of them but there is also about creating moments actually sorry let me backtrack a little bit there on the excellent product thing um have an excellent product get people along but then ask them uh to share and to bring the people along so right I've noticed that with the master meter if like we say we have a webinar and it said thanks for being here full stop you know people don't tend to share it but if you say thanks for being here and by the way would you mind sharing this with someone who is near and close to you it's amazing how that prompts even though it's seemingly obvious uh actually genuinely does get results so yeah the first thing I'd say is you know sort of prompt prompt word of mouth the second thing is make word of mouth things things that are worthy of word of mouth so examples like the Sean pool thing um which you know are these little bumps in engagement uh the third thing is that you know I don't think we can be ashamed of this because it's true uh but build off other people's audiences and so um we've had the likes of Mark Ritson speak a couple of times and every time then there's a little bit of a bump in engagement um and a little bump in in a in sign up for a newsletter so build off other people's audiences by collaborating with them in a very meaningful way that adds value to everyone involved but then when we sort of move into the more consideration based stuff I think there's also a lot to be said for like have a place for this stuff to go so for example you are generating a bunch of word of mouth well that's great but people are going to forget tomorrow if they haven't got a way to go and so for us the newsletter it's been insanely useful um and in many many ways um so the first way is on the very day-to-day level helps sabotage the events you get people along yeah it's a retention thing it's a awareness thing uh it's a bit of a consideration thing we get people coming on to the events and and that's great um but then also it helps us protect the growth of the business to a certain extent and I'll give the example that when COVID hit then we had like 12 000 people in meetup.com that all of a sudden we couldn't access we had 2 000 people on our newsletter and so all of a sudden you know the only the only useful resource that we had to sort of communicate with our community and say look we're here for was the newsletter had that not resisted you know we wouldn't be still here from this chat and so um in terms of growing the business it's really really important to do the awareness stuff so I didn't even mention the likes linked in and stuff like that I just didn't even mention events but I have somewhere for that to go as well somewhere that you can protect that isn't going to be beholden to algorithms because um that's a dangerous place to be in what what's the I mean you you don't need to ask this if you don't want to feel like roughly like where do you get money from to do this or is this just like something that you just love doing and it's just you know you're you're that amazing it's just you can live off uh the events are sponsored so um we have a series of incredible sponsors who sponsor either the live events um on or sorry the live events but either the digital events or the in-person events that's our prime source of revenue right now uh we're listening by the way email joe immediately start giving him some money so he's actually I'm in a really nice place to be in at the moment which is the first time in a couple years we've actually got a sponsor slot available so like that's that's crazy so I'll call you after this yeah so it's good um so so yeah the events are sponsored which actually I think if you get some really great sponsorship relationships most of our sponsors have stayed in for like the past five years which has been amazing and growing with us um but I think they do that because they kind of get it you know that they get that sponsorship it's probably in a way in this load activity and right and so therefore you know that's that's how they're judged success so that's been wonderful uh we also have things like our jobs board so I mean I think the thing about all of this is that I'm not a material person at all really so the goal is not a mad profit the goal is just impact and so something that I see that's wrong with the employment industry right now is that people don't let salaries and their jobs uh I think it's crazy I think it's crazy on both the behalf of the potential employee because they don't get the information they need to apply but I think it's a waste of time for the employer because they get a bunch of relevant applications from people who aren't and are getting the information they need and so with our jobs board we said we're only less jobs where the salary is listed and that's probably a terrible commercial decision but it brings in a little bit of money every month but I'm able to sort of scream and shout about these wonderful companies who I feel are doing things the right way uh so that's another place the third place are the jobs from all over the world or are they just sort of mostly UK based primarily UK at the moment um right but you know there's no reason why it should be that way other than sort of about 75 to 83 percent of our audience our community are based in the UK presently um but that does some 17 percent sort of distribute throughout the rest of the world so um so yeah there's the community is large and distributed for sure yeah and then the other one that we're doing at the moment is is our subscription platform uh TMN plus with sort of the next level of available content which is a little bit more is shorter it's curated and two-base content so um but actually if I'm being really honest right now then if I was going to have my money I put into 42 courses right now rather than TMN plus uh because we're in the process of developing it and making it better so we're recording in 2022 uh in 2023 second half then uh I'll uh I'll uh yeah I might swap your subscription or just buy another one yeah exactly I'd say investment the other thing Joe is that like I know that we want to try and do something together anyway so we'll we'll figure it out um it'd be amazing I think there's there's such a massive overlap between what we're trying to do anyway um so yeah if anyone yeah watch this space we'll figure it out yeah it's it's incredible and there and the the courses that you've got on the marketing meetup plus the subscription based things there um practical uh short videos and sort of how to do particular things so it could be pitching copywriting um yeah the the practical sort of skills precisely that marvelous um that'd be great and uh and if anyone's meeting what you need to do by the way to to go to any of these things is just the marketing meetup.com that's right and then you'll find uh all of the uh all the amazing things that we've been talking about once you put the link as well um I mean I guess that that leads quite nicely on to where where is this going is so is the what are the things what are your sort of yeah your hopes and dreams for the for the future for this it's a big question we might up until maybe three months ago I wouldn't have had an answer because I was just enjoying every day as it came and genuinely enjoying it and I still am but I think the mindset shift that I've been through recently is I want to have an impact and if you have impact then it's good to grow that impact and sort of help more people and if if that's true then you need something worth growing uh and and something that you can make an impact with I think for the first time also the marketing meetup is starting to develop a bit of an opinion on things um and so something I'm quite keen on on sort of exploring is how we can influence businesses to really start thinking about the triple bottom line a lot more and and sort of think about people, planet and profit not just profit and really that comes from the mindset that um marketing is a set of activities that is presently directed primarily in the direction of commercial benefit but actually it is also just a set of activities can you use the same skills and mindsets to sell an idea or sell a concept or or change the world you know in a positive way for the people that live in it and the planet that we live on and so you know that opinion exists but it's not the only thing we'll be doing we'll also be um creating what I think will be one of the world's greatest sort of learning platforms for people to uh learn about marketing and the underpinning principles of marketing the things that stay true 90 percent of the time um that they can take throughout their career and so you know I've got I've got big aspirations for this thing that I think is really aimed at people in in stages of marketing transformation so larger organizations probably who have uh the full range of uh junior, mid and senior marketers in the teams and the the training programs that we're developing are going to be ones that sort of take people through all of that journey but also in a way which is curated meaningful and brings together the best talent from around the world um it sounds like I'm using a lot of hyperbole but I just believe in it I think it's going to be um and so you know this is my focus for the next sort of year is really bringing together these people um you know and creating something that has meaning um and potentially impact and uh yeah that's that's where we are but big things in the meantime you know like on the day-to-day level it's all just done with the mindset of just want to help people just want to yeah but you know life's too short to be doing stuff that isn't meaningful so that's that's where I'm focusing yeah well you're doing a ridiculously incredible job and I have no doubt you're uh you're going to succeed and it'll carry on growing and be incredible I mean you must be you must be pretty um you know sleep well at night with the with the comments that you get from from the people you join your meetups I mean I've seen some of them every now and then hear people talking about it it's always in a super positive light so congratulations on being you and all you do and I mean how many people are in your team? I must be growing I'm imagining now but it's just me full-time and then we've got Elle we work part-time we've got James who's one of our directors who does a day a week and then we've got small army of freelancers nice well bravo to all them too absolutely it's always a team effort and to the community I think that's a final final point yeah I'm probably trying to close it down there but um you see it was an exciting co-creation you know like the community has decided to respond in this way and that's really you know the most important thing but the community is not about me it's not about the team and it's not about whatever it's about what we decide to create together and we've just happened to decide to create this thing which is pretty wicked so I can take a little bit credit but really I'm just a spokesperson for a whole bunch of people well done I mean I think you're a superhero and I'm sure all your community does too and well deserved and well learned um I'll stop flattering you though and let you get back to your weekend but but yeah but thank you so so much for joining and I I can't wait to continue chatting and I will be sure to share share this with some more of our friends I'm looking forward to help to publicize what you're doing with with our our community and I've also while we've been talking I've been taking mental notes and some physical notes of people think GCT for more that's awesome meal size as well yeah thank you thank you cheers cheers