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Verbatim text
Lee:: Hey, hey, before we start the show yet, that’s that kind of electric. And then the du du ju ju and all the really cool music stuff. Don’t forget, there are only five days left to get your ticket for agency transformation live. That’s five days. And tickets are going fast. So agencytransformation.live. If you want a discount by investing in yourself, then invest in yourself and listen to episode 200 and we’ll set you up with a £75 off coupon. So go ahead and check out episode 200. Now that kind of pitch thing is all over and done with. And cue all that really cool music stuff. Yay! Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today’s show we are talking with Chris Ducker. He will be our closing keynote at Agency Transformation, and he is sharing the story of his keynote, The Business of You. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Welcome to a conversation with me, Mr. Lee Jackson. And today it’s me, Mr. Chris Ducker How you doing, mate?
Chris Ducker:: I’m very good yourself.
Lee:: It was awful. That was the worst London accident.
Chris Ducker:: I ever shouldn’t do it again. Don’t do that again.
Lee:: Number one, I’ve offended my friend Chris, and I’ve also offended most of London, I humbly apologise.
Chris Ducker:: Nah, we’ll let you off. We’re nice like that.
Lee:: I can’t resist it when they have the Australians on the show as well. And we had a Brummie on the other day. I just couldn’t resist it, mate.
Chris Ducker:: I’m terrible with the Aussie accent. I’ve. I’ve deeply humiliated myself on more than one occasion with you. And now I just don’t do it anymore. Yeah, I just don’t do it.
Lee:: I’ve noticed with your accent and I’m kind of similar because we both talk to a lot of Americans. We both have these Americanisms that we don’t notice. And then other people point out, like you, like me, say progress instead of progress and all sorts of just little random Americanisms, I guess, as well, because you were over in the Philippines for so many years as well, so you were not kind of exposed as much to the UK accent anymore.
Chris Ducker:: Well, I mean, the thing, it’s not just that, it’s just that in the Philippines everything is so incredibly Americanised. Like they spell like the Americans, they, you know, use punctuation and grammar like the Americans in written English and all that sort of stuff. So it was just for me. It didn’t take long, though. Here was the thing, because also, as a foreigner living in the Philippines for as long as I did when I first went over there and I could see that they were having problems understanding things like can’t. And instead I switched to Kant and they, they they understood you immediately. At that point, it was mad. It was as if I was speaking bloody Swahili before. And so you, you just you just kind of make the tweaks to your own accent and then obviously it sticks with you for so long. Plus I did so much business with people and so much speaking over in the United States that it kind of just, um, stuck for a while. But now we’re back. You know, we’ve been back six months. Every now and then I’ve noticed that there are certain things that I used to say with quite an American twang to them that I’m no longer doing. So I think, give me another year and I’ll be a full blown Cambridgeshire.
Lee:: Hello? Yeah, there you go. Do you think I don’t even know what Cambridgeshire accent would be? By the way, I.
Chris Ducker:: Spent the entire weekend just to irritate my wife. I spent the entire weekend using the term one like one would like his lunch now. Just the entire weekend. It didn’t. Yeah. It didn’t.
Lee:: How’s your black eye doing?
Chris Ducker:: It’s, I stopped pretty quickly on Monday morning.
Lee:: Stop talking in third person for the for the entire day. I’d be irritating. Chris, thanks for coming on the show. I’m really excited. It’s just a few days now to our event agencytransformationlive. Yeah, and we wanted to finish with something really exciting, which is you doing your now very famous and in-demand keynote, The Business of You. So I would just love to find out from you, first of all, what that keynote is all about. And then maybe could you share a little bit of how that keynote has developed over time where the ideas came from, it and maybe what inspired it.
Chris Ducker:: Yeah, I mean, it it it definitely has developed over a period of time, that’s for sure. It was first done under the term of the Business Review. Actually, the first time I ever performed it live was in 2012, in Las Vegas, when I was conference, a keynote in a conference over there. Um, and I mean, the the general premise of it hasn’t changed at all. It’s about learning how to build and market and grow a business based around you and your uniqueness and what makes you you. So your personality, your own personal experience, your opinions and all that sort of fun stuff. And obviously, out of this was born a few years after the first time I did it in 2015. Uh, Youprenuer. Yeah. And then obviously the European Academy, the, you know, summit rise of the opener of the book and everything I do now is, you know, unfocused, but the very, um, you know, the very core of, of it is the importance of engaging and embracing that uniqueness, the importance of originality, and how you can couple those things together to build worthy relationships that are around for a long, long time, both personal and business. And then obviously that how that mindset of what I call p to P or people to people can be so incredibly powerful for any business, particularly a business like, you know, your, your, your listeners, your, the people in your community, those agency owners and whatnot, they are the business. I mean, you know, people do business with them nine times out of ten because of the personal relationships that they build with them or because somebody has referred them to them or whatever the case may be, it’s very rare that they’ll do business with somebody because of a, a logo or brand colours or something like that. So I think for your audience, they’re going to eat this up because, uh, the takeaways are pretty hard core for them when it comes to learning how to do this for the long term.
Lee:: You’re completely right. I remember when we were considering selling our agency many, many years ago. We’d got to the point where we were just sick of it all. We were all hiding behind a logo and thinking, oh, we could just sell this business. Right now we have clients, we have turnover. But the more we looked at it, the more we realised what we work on and who our clients were. It was very clear to us that the clients were not working with the brand of our agency, but they were actually working with the different characters within our business. You know, I’d become this character who was very digitally savvy, and people would come to us for the event technology, and that would be through me. They wanted to work with Lee Jackson, and equally then it would be with my partner on the design, who I always term as the best designer in the world. And it became very apparent that we would never be able to sell. All we would be selling would be perhaps the business, and we would have to be employees, otherwise the business would never go anywhere anyway, you know, because like you said, people don’t necessarily buy from brands, they buy from you. One of the things that’s always encouraged me by what you talk about is you often hear people say, you need to have a niche, you need to have a target audience and focus on them, and that will help you stand out. And that’s true to a degree, but definitely what helps you stand out even further is putting yourself, isn’t it, front of centre as opposed to hey, we are Joe Bloggs Limited and we serve doctors and build them amazing websites. Take that up a level and then you’ll definitely stand out. Hey, my name is Jeff and I you know and you are front of centre. People recognise you, people are drawn to you, which is phenomenal. Do you mind just sharing us as well? Just a very quick sneak peek of of your back story of how you discovered that just as a reminder for people, because you’ve started several companies around the world and these are all brands in their own right, do you mind just sharing that little story just to kind of highlight this? You know why it’s important for Chris Ducker to be so visible?
Chris Ducker:: Totally. So I mean, you know, I’ve been an entrepreneur for 15, 15 years is a long time. And I mean, you know, you you get to learn certain lessons along the way. Um, and like, I said, I mean, you know, I’ve started, you know, five different businesses. One was a complete flop, one I sold, three is still in existence and still very much in my control. And, you know, retrospectively, it wasn’t really oh, look, I started blogging and podcasting in January 2010. So in regards to the online business space, I’m now referred to as a veteran by several. I’ve been introduced literally on shows and things like that recently as a a veteran podcast. I’m like, that’s mad because it’s been around for like 25 years in some form podcasting. But you know, nine years, I guess, is enough for you to be earning the term veteran. But there you go. But, you know, when I started out, I wasn’t aware of the power of the personal brand. I heard of it. I knew what it was all about. I had followed many personal brand, uh, mentors and entrepreneurs and people like Richard Branson and Zig Ziglar and people like that. But I was never really, you know, I never really kind of attached myself to that term, although from a very early age and in my career in, you know, late teens going into my early 20s, it was a very made very apparent to me by my mentors the importance of my reputation and how that would, you know, perceive me no matter where I would, where I would go. And so it wasn’t really until probably 2012, 2013, when I started doing this presentation, particularly where people were coming to me and they started referring to me as a personal brand expert and what that meant, and the importance of building that brand effectively through content marketing. And in the 21st century, using rich media like podcasting, blogging, videos and all that kind of stuff. And when I when I started being referred to as that, I started looking into it more and more because obviously you want to make sure people are talking about you in the right way, right, for the right reasons. And I retrospectively looked back on all the things that I had done in that time since 2004, when I opened the doors to my first business. And you know what? It was bang on. True. Every deal I ever did, every client, every brought on board, every book that I had sold, everything that had happened up to that point. It was because of my reputation, and it was because of my personal brand and the power behind that personal brand. And more importantly, for me personally, it was the importance that I put on those relationships that I’d built all those years as well. Because everything I do, I do, as you know, would long term in mind. It’s not about making money in the next six months or 12 months. It’s about how I can, you know, make things different for people three years, five years out. And so it became really, really important to me to be referred to as a personal brand entrepreneur. We doubled down on Chris Dotcom, which is my personal brand domain name. We tweaked all of the wording and the changed everything and just rebrand it a little bit. And going into 2013, 2014, the first book deal came along. You know, it just it all kind of blew up the moment I engaged it and genuinely sort of embraced the idea of that personal brand kind of title man. Everything changed. Like I said, the book deal came along. Keynote requests, you know, for everywhere from Sydney to New Orleans and everywhere in between. It was insane. For a couple of years, it was the busiest time of my life. And then obviously, I took my foot off the gas a little bit and decided to, uh, you know, do a little less travelling and everything. But yeah, very clearly, being known as a personal brand is enough if you take it on board for you to start, um, embracing that and then obviously taking the opportunities as and when they come along as well.
Lee:: And there’s a couple of very good examples. I mean, for myself, uh, 3 or 4 years ago now, we launched this very podcast that mean you were having a conversation on and it’s because of this podcast that I’m able to be a friend, a friend with you. I’ve worked with with you. I’ve had you on the show. Um, equally, it’s grown my own personal brand, my Network massively to the extent that both my companies, that’s of an engine and a crown are consistently getting new leads, new opportunities, etc. because the brand of Lee Jackson is feeding people into those different buckets, as it were, either event organisers who are following me for the content I produce for those guys, or equally for agency owners who are listening to this show right now, who will go into that, uh, that basket, I guess, I guess you could say. But then again, if you look at, say, somebody like Pete Everett, who is a fellow, you know, who has launched his own podcast, I think just over a year ago, that’s again elevated his own personal brand, allowing him to not only sell his own courses in marketing to help his ideal audience, but equally to drive opportunities to his own agency as well, which is a separate entity to him. But he’s able to drive opportunities. And today we were able to send him an SEO lead, because Pete Everett was the one who came front of centre. Not for the life of me, couldn’t even remember the name of his agency. But I know Pete Everit is the marketing guru, and I’m going to go ahead and connect with him and pass that opportunity over to him. So it definitely works. So Chris, thank you so much for your time for for sharing a bit of an insight, folks. Don’t forget that you can actually listen to the previous episodes with Chris Ducker. Just go to agency trailblazer.com and type in Chris Ducker into the guest section of the podcast, and you will see all of Chris’s previous podcasts. I highly recommend you listen as well to Chris’s podcast over on Youprenuer.com. Consume his content, follow him on social media, etc. definitely follow in Instagram as well because he puts loads of really good stories out there and there’s many times you opportunities for you to ask Chris questions and he’ll respond via Instagram Stories. So definitely follow and interact with Chris there. He’s definitely a a proper personal brand who does have conversations with his followers. And that’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated about you, mate. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Can’t wait to see you at the event and it’s gonna be great.
Chris Ducker:: I can’t wait to to come along and meet all your people and try and try and change a few lives in the process.
Lee:: That’s what I’m hoping for. Have an awesome day, mate.
Chris Ducker:: You too.
Lee:: Cheerio. And that wraps up today’s show. If you are not part of our free Facebook group. Holy moly, I’m talking about something that’s free. Yes, indeed. Head on over to agency trailblazer.com/group and you can be a part of our vibrant Facebook group that’s agency trailblazer.com/group. Join over 2500 web designers, agency owners, WordPress enthusiasts and even the odd Joomla enthusiast in there as well. Why the heck not? Come on, join the party. Agency trailblazer.com/group. Oh, and if we don’t see you in there, we’ll certainly see you in the next episode.
