Most solicitors, when I ask them, have they had to clear up the mess that another advisor has made?

They'll say, yes, they have.

They're doing the market a disservice.

If they're not putting themselves out there in the shop window, then people are making bad choices, instructing advisors that are not doing a particularly good job.

Why the hell do you do this?

Why are you hanging out around with lawyers, trying to help them?

It was a career mistake, but it's all ended up quite.

I quite enjoy what I do now.

What do you feel with the industry at the moment?

Being in most professional service firms, people don't really know the difference between marketing and business development, are waking up and realising they've got to take marketing and business development seriously.

And there's a bit more to it than stuffy networking events and annual golf days.

Arguably, I think the accountancy sector is probably five years ahead of law firms.

Certainly in terms of technology, it's ahead.

I don't think law firms are there.

We don't want to resent London.

With how I feel about it, that's the wrong thought process.

It's like, don't resent rich people.

We should be, you know, London, whether we like it or not, literally drags the country along a lot of the time.

At least let's have a level playing field.

Let's give people a chance.

Foreign.

Hi and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.

We're here to help the founders, entrepreneurs, business owners, anyone who wrestles with the job of being in charge.

And if you like what we do here, please rate and review us on Spotify and Apple and come say hi on YouTube if you fancy watching us in action.

Links are in the episode description or just search for wblondon, who sells more law than lawyers, can smell stilton at 20 paces and thinks most networking events should be nuked from orbit.

Definitely agree with that.

Meet Bernard Savage, ex PNG hotshot, former Chelsea hooligan merch man.

He said we actually got robbed by an entire coach of Everton fans once.

And now the blunt force behind size 10 and a half boots.

The agency teaching stiff collar professionals how to hustle without hating themselves.

Highlights you'll hear if you press play why being called Savage gets you free beers, raised eyebrows and might be the perfect name to start a new law firm called Slaughter, Savage and Cutter flogging plastic penance at Stamford bridge during the 80s bloodbath and what it taught him about biopsychology.

Why traditional breakfast and golf networking is dead.

How accountants are five years ahead of solicitors agree with that and the shocking reason most client listening programs are pure theater.

Bernard's rant on London snobbery, ghost town high streets and why the real deal flow lives in affluent pockets of Hull, Harrog, Newcastle needs checking out.

Ditch the grunt work, he says.

Schedule your LinkedIn posts at 7am Aim for five face to face coffees a week.

Two will matter, one will pay.

Check it out.

I am Andy Orey and today we are joined by Bernard Savage.

Excellent name, Bernard.

Bernard is a director of size 10 and a half boots, a business development agency helping professional service firms grow with confidence.

With a background spanning Procter and Gamble, shell ever sheds, Bernard brings decades of insight into what really drives client Bernard.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Andrew.

That's even more impressive than my write up and Perplexity AI, which I checked today, which is better than Chat GPT.

So if you're gonna do any research on me, go on.

Perplexity, not Chat gp.

Oh, to give a better answer.

Does it?

Yeah.

Kinder is it?

Or more essentially.

Very generous.

Very generous.

I.

I always wanted to start a law firm, you know, Slaughterer May.

I always thought Slaughter, but great name to get into your law firm.

Savage was the one.

I was just set, I was like, we need to find someone called Savage and Cutter or something, you know, am.

I allowed to swear on this podcast?

So five or six years ago I was, I was in, I got a late train living Nottingham, was getting a late train back from London and it was just before Christmas and I noticed there was a chap dressed even more sartorially brilliant than I am and I kind of clocked him and he clocked me and we ended up talking, we both had a couple of drinks and he said, oh, what's your name?

I said, my name's Bernard Savage.

He says, not your fucking stage name.

What's your name?

Yeah, it's a crackingly powerful name.

I always think of the Simpsons episode when he changes his names to Max Power, which he got off a hairdryer as he declares, I've never had much.

Use for hair dryers.

Oh man, you should see what happens to him in this episode.

His life changes.

Very nice.

Now we're gonna do a few short questions just to.

Just to warm us up a little bit more.

So these are just questions about you.

You should know the answer to them.

We call it a Quick fire round.

D's cueing some music.

What was your first job?

Ber?

Paperboy.

Oh, nice, Very good.

What was your worst job?

Selling merchandise at Chelsea Football Club during the hooligan hay day in the 80s.

As a non Chelsea fan, I don't.

Know anything about football, but my son has just decided he sports Chelsea at age five, which is really bothersome, I have to say.

We were actually robbed on one occasion by a coach lad of Everton fans.

But I'm not gonna make any references to Scousers.

There's much to say there.

Favorite subject at school?

English.

What's your special skill?

I can spot a Stoke on Trent accent from about half a mile away.

Is that where you're from?

No, no.

Random skill.

I love it.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Lorry driver.

Did you really?

Yeah, I think everyone wants to be a digger driver or a lorry driver.

Definitely it was to do with wanting to go north of England.

Got some attraction Stokes up there, isn't it?

Yeah.

Bali, North London.

I don't know why something went wrong in the mix.

It's not that far north north of England.

What did your parents want you to be?

Definitely not in sales, which of course is what I ended up doing.

Or probably a lorry driver.

Don't know.

Not worse jobs, I guess.

Do you know what they wanted you to be?

I don't know, just not in sales.

Not in sales.

What's your go to?

Karaoke song.

Blimey.

Going underground.

The Jam.

Oh, yeah.

Going underground.

Going underground.

And the boys?

Office dogs.

Business or bullshit?

This is a.

I don't want to sit on the fence, but I'm going to go business.

But only just depends on the dog.

Yeah, depends on the day.

Have you ever been fired?

Yes.

Next.

Oh, damn it.

Come on.

What's your vice?

Cheese.

There isn't.

I can never.

It pisses me off.

In posh restaurants you ask for the cheese plate and you get three puny little.

You could go first.

I just bring on a.

What's your favorite cheese?

Which end of the spectrum are you generally smelly?

Harder.

No, I don't want fruit in it.

Take out the fruit.

No fruit.

But I just love cheese.

Brilliant.

I think that gives us an excellent sense of you.

A cheese eating.

Cheese eating.

Stoke on Trent spotting, lorry driver.

Brilliant.

So, yeah, okay, so you know, you do.

You do a range of things in sort of professional services.

I mean, when you say professional services, is this.

You know, some people don't even know what that is.

Is that everything?

Is that law, accounting, medicine?

I mean, what are we really talking about?

90% of the client base.

Law firms, barrister's chambers, accountants, a lot of patent and trademark attorney Practices very big in intellectual property to lesser degree architectural practices.

Lawyer.

Let's do.

It's always good fun to chat about professionals.

I mean, what's your experience with them?

I mean, my.

We, you know, my.

So my family are lawyers.

You know, we have a law firm.

I mean, and barristers, I guess a slightly different breed, but similar.

They're not brilliant at sales generally.

I mean, that's a dirty word.

Anyone?

Unfortunately not, or I wouldn't have a job.

Yeah.

Okay.

What do you feel with the industry at the moment?

Is it because it's slightly in crisis, isn't it, with AI and all of that?

I don't know about crisis.

I think professionals are waking up and realizing they've got to take marketing and business development seriously.

And there's a bit more to it than stuffy networking events and annual golf days.

Okay.

Arguably, I think the accountancy sector is probably five years ahead of law firms.

Certainly in terms of technology, it's ahead.

And I say that as a business owner myself.

In the 20 years we've been trading, I've had, I think I'm on my fourth account and I've seen over that time significant change in terms of technology and how that's impacted on relationships.

I don't think law firms are there.

Yeah, okay.

Well, it's always been.

Technology's always been part of the accounting industry.

I mean, you know, calculators, for starters.

I mean, you know, but it's always.

It's always sort of the nature of our businesses to include those sorts of things.

I mean, as a professional, I find the word sales pretty uncomfortable because selling suggests, I'm going to persuade you to buy something you don't necessarily need.

Whereas a professional's job is really, you know, you don't go to the doctors and they might have it in the dentist when they try and flog you some toothpaste or something.

But, you know, you don't go to the doctors and say, oh, would you like one of these as well?

Why don't you have one of these?

You know, it's.

You're there to solve problems.

You know, you're there to solve problems.

But yeah, throughout life, people are likely to need some kind of professional advice.

And one of the things I'll say to people to get them to think differently about selling is that most solicitors, when I ask them, have they had to clear up the mess that another advisor has made?

They'll say, yes, they have.

So arguably they do.

They're doing the market a disservice if they're not putting themselves out there in the shop window, then people are making bad choices, instructing advisors that are not doing a particularly good job.

Wait, wait, let me follow that through.

So they.

Everyone's had to clear up other people's messes.

I would say everybody makes mistakes, though.

Everybody makes mistakes.

Everybody needs professional advice at some point in time.

So if you're not putting yourself out there, then you are effectively not serving the community.

Because people are going to instruct advisors that might be more visible, that are not necessarily as good as you are.

Why the hell did you do this?

Why are you hanging out around with lawyers, trying to help them?

It was a career mistake, but it's all ended up quite.

I quite enjoy what I do now.

Okay, now in the last, in the last three weeks.

No, no, no.

But the career.

How was it a career mistake?

Because basically what happened was I'd followed a very different path.

So very traditional blue chip environment and in Procter and Gambles, in Shell senior sales and marketing roles ended up in a law firm by complete accident.

Now I have to be careful because obviously, presumably some people might listen to this.

So I have to be considered what I'm going to say next.

But in all honesty, I hadn't done my due diligence, ended up at Eversheds as a marketing director, not knowing the first thing about law firms.

I mean, Andrew, I'm not a detail person.

I'm big picture.

And most of the time that works out fine.

Possibly I should have done more due diligence when I joined Eversheds because I didn't know the first thing about partnership culture, law firms, how they worked.

And I thought naively at the time you could go and, and up to parlors and tell them, you don't do it like that, you do it like this.

Which of course is possibly not the best approach.

So Eversheds was a very, very steep learning curve.

I made myself a promise then.

I'm never going to work for anybody else ever again.

Now I think I had three children at the time.

I've got four now.

And I'm quite proud that 20 years on I'm still doing this.

Any town in England, not just Stoke on Trent, any place you like in the uk, they've got.

Most people go into it thinking it'll be quite easy.

It isn't, it's hard.

There aren't that many of us around today that were around 20 years ago.

So I think something must have gone right.

It was a bad career move but actually what I learned at Eversheds enabled me to set my business up and yeah, I do enjoy it most of the time.

I like a moan but I still enjoy.

I guess part of it is you've got, as you said, your experience at Ever Sheds.

You know, people are not familiar with the partnership model and you know, the fact it's a flat structure at the top.

I mean, I mean a lot of partnerships work as sort of, you know, kingdoms and fiefdoms of sort of, you know, you know, there's a partner and there's support around them.

I mean it's quite different between law and accounting.

Law tend to be much smaller teams, you know, sort of, you know, one person armies maybe with one or two people supporting them.

Even in the big firms, accountants tend to have quite large teams doing quite.

So there's a sort of difference.

But partnership is odd, I would say, if you're not used to it, very odd.

And solicitors and barristers are quite odd when you're not used to it either.

But I've always enjoyed been outside my comfort zone.

I get bored really easily, Andrew.

So the idea of doing something which is the same every day, which is quite predictable and I don't have to step outside my comfort zone, I find very unattractive.

So this works for me.

So you were saying most professionals just what, they just think they'll go to events.

I mean, to be honest, when you go to events there's too many professionals.

Absolutely, you know.

Absolutely.

It's one of the many things that make me angry.

Not just within the professional services but people typically, most solicitors and accountants have an incredibly narrow, limited view of business development and think it is about going to the same old events and then they moan about it and say that all they see is their competitors and it's really dull.

And women particularly are negative because they say they don't want to talk to white middle aged blokes about golf or something.

And my argument is, well, why go to it then?

And they'll say it's bd.

Yeah, but there's other ways of doing business development.

Doesn't have to be like that at all.

Who enjoys networking though?

I Mean, and who gets business out of them?

I have never gotten start any business out of networking.

Inverted commas in traditional networking in terms of events.

I've had one instruction in 30 years and this is going to sound like a joke, but I'm deadly serious.

The only instruction I ever got was to talk at a conference in Holland and they thought I was Dutch.

Now I was going to say, again, I can't say exactly what I'd like to say because it might not be deemed appropriate, but I'm not Dutch and so I had to turn down that instruction.

I, I mean, I would agree.

I'm not talking about ending up at the bar somewhere and you meet someone, that's great.

But going to an event where you're literally there to meet people.

I mean, the only thing it's good at is it's like practice for the most painful form of.

Yeah.

You know, meeting people and chatting to people.

I've had people walk off of me loads of events.

I mean, because I'm like, I can't do small talk.

So I start talking about something like outrageous and Pete, you know, so I, I've made a couple of friends over the years.

I would.

I don't go to network anymore.

But you know, when I used to go to in my TW and thirties, yeah.

You know, I upset ten people and find one person who think I was funny.

And then that would be.

But it's reframing networking for me because networking to me isn't about those events.

That's just one.

Why do we even do that?

Why?

Get.

Why?

Because.

Because people.

It's the same reason that people think you should have name badges.

Or the same reason that people hide behind lecterns when they're giving talks.

Or the same reason why people sponsor things.

Or the same reason.

There are so many conventions in business, particularly the professions.

People just do.

They make three mistakes.

One, they just do inertia.

Secondly, people just do what other firms are doing.

Don't think about it.

And thirdly, they react to things that come into their inbox.

So because most professionals know, they might not want to, but they know they should be doing some business development.

So when an email appears saying that there's an opportunity to have an exhibition stand at the, I don't know, Excel center, they go, oh, we'll do that.

Because that's, we.

It's like, well, no, you're just reacting to something.

Why don't you decide who you want your Client to be what success is for you and then find.

Think creatively about ways to build visibility to your target audience.

As ridiculous as it sounds, as a seasoned holder of Mansfield town for, what, 30, more than 30, 35 years, I actually facilitate a West Ham United business networking group.

I have no interest in West Ham, but I know a number of West Ham fans in the city who I get on with.

They don't know each other, so I.

We just meet up.

That's networking.

But it's not.

You won't.

You won't be able to Google it.

Isn't it funny?

We just keep doing these things and, yeah, if we sat down, I bet I've had this conversation, actually, about who's one who's got anything out of networking.

I mean, I remember joking with the band we used to have after, I don't know, 12 years of being together in this funk reggae band, you know, and.

And we were like, why are we doing this?

And we're like, oh, we did it to get women, I think.

And it's like, who's actually got laid?

Has anyone had any action?

And we were like, not a sausage.

Not a sausage inside.

No pun intended.

And then one person was like, hang on.

We had that groupie who wouldn't leave you alone.

Ben.

What happened with that?

And he was like, well, I didn't.

I ran away.

And we were like, oh, Ben.

That would have been it.

But it's a bit like that, you know, we haven't stepped back from it and had a conversation.

I mean, I'm just.

It's interesting.

We're talking at the moment about the young in the firm and, you know, we used to do it, and now they don't all drink, you know, used to go along and frankly, you can't network until you're pissed.

And it was just a sort of, well, free drinks, you know, I'm just gonna.

It's like a practice to get over my fear almost.

You know, it's just like, go in this room and just sort of practice talking about the firm or practice.

There is some value in that.

I mean, start of my career as a P and G, my client was the co op.

It was really unpleasant.

It was really hard to work in.

Really hard to be a friendly place.

No, no, no, take me.

Protra Gamble was fantastic.

Prochra Gamble wasn't a problem.

But when you used to try and sell in New Century House in Manchester in the early 90s to, you know, buyers who were tough.

Northern had seen Graduate After Graduate come off a production line they could hang on.

No, Co op is not owned by Procter and Gambler.

No, no, no.

So as the proctor got to sell products to get distribution in the co op stores of co op and the buyers were hard.

I mean buyers are horrible.

Really hard.

But those experiences are fantastic because that's how you learn.

Yeah, they're really, really hard.

I mean we've talked about this on this pod before.

If you've ever had the experience of Gandhi to try and sell something to a buyer who's just sitting there all day being shown stuff, it's a pretty degradating experience.

I mean it's funny that we don't just.

I'm just thinking about that network.

It's funny, we just don't say scrap it, don't bother about that.

I mean do you think a business can just say don't bother with networking, full stop, just scrap it?

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as that because I think for the reasons you've given, I think at the start when you're young and you're cutting your teeth, you do learn some skills.

We think we're not sure but like you say, it's almost tradition.

We don't know how else to teach them and get them out and about.

Isn't it?

You know, all Fiona's, irrespective of seniority should be educated in, in networking.

Doesn't have to look like that and never mind networking, that's just one part of business development.

There's umpteen ways of winning work, whether it's traditional networking or more creative networking.

Okay.

There's other ways of doing it.

Word of mouth ultimately in the professions.

You know, I've always said if you, if you want to find a good professional, you don't really go on Google.

You start ringing people who you trust, who would probably know someone and you look for those recommendations and that, that's key.

Then, then to your point, it's about visibility.

It's about they can remember you.

I think visibility is of paramount importance.

I put visibility ahead of marketing, business development.

If you are visible, if you hang about in the right places and you have impact in contacts and people remember you and you follow up, you listen attentively and follow up, you will get work.

Do you think the brand matters?

The, the link ladies, the whole bottle and thingy me Bob.

And I think brand helps in as much as when you turn up somewhere people have got some understanding of your reputation which might give you give you a one nil start.

I think in most professional service firms, people don't really know the difference between marketing and business development.

It all kind of blurs into one.

I think they are very different, but I don't think they are managed or really understood in most professional service firms, whether those are law firms or accountancy firms.

I guess a little bit like me as someone who spent time in the music industry and then ended up here helping with marketing is professional service firms are so I mean we said they're the lawyers might be behind the accountants in technology but I mean professional services are so far behind the music industry in terms of what marketing means.

Well, you mentioned going back to the sort of buyer experience I often use retail as an example.

Retailers on a Monday morning will know the sales performance of all their stockkeeping units over the weekend in every single branch up and down the country and then will make decisions informed upon what they've learned.

That doesn't happen in professional service firms.

No market share.

You know that these are dirty words to in the professions almost because really it's about commerciality.

That's the real.

It's not about sales and marketing.

What it's really about is to less degree accountancy firms, but definitely law firms.

A lot of people have got their heads in the sand and don't won't accept or recognize their businesses.

So you have to be commercial like, you know, you have to get paid for your services and you need to be paid.

Well, it's another dirty word if you say you're, you know, you try and be quite a commercial professional.

I mean some people find that quite an uncomfortable statement.

You know, it is changing, but I think people have been forced to change.

What's good look like then to you?

Good looks like embracing things from outside the industry.

Good looks like going into retail stores.

Good looks like listening to your clients.

I mean it makes me laugh that most professional service firms on their websites will talk about client listening.

Yet very few, or sorry, not very few, a significant number will have no formal approach to listen to their clients.

At best they might do a, you know, questionnaire after a transaction.

That's not listening.

That's why it's quite difficult that though that's a really interesting point.

The relationship with your client is quite precious.

They're quite busy.

You feel again it feels uncomfortable as a professional to sort of, you know, when you see a doctor again, you go and see a good doctor.

I think doctor's always a good prism to sort of consider this from.

You don't sort of the next day say well what did you think of Dr.

John?

Did you, did you think he did a good job?

You're like, well, I think, you know, that seems a bit like, is he a bit desperate for work or something?

This is where I've got quite a strong view on this.

I know with some certainty that if I initiate contact with my clients or people that I work within my sort of network and say, can I come and see you to have a chat, be really interested to pick your brain on something or get some feedback.

I know they're going to say yes.

However busy they are, they will say yes.

Why?

Presumably they like me at some level, but liking isn't enough.

They feel they're going to get some value from the conversation.

So it concerns me if a client of mine, a solicitor or an accountant says they can't approach their client to get feedback because they're a bit busy.

As far as I'm concerned, they don't have a relationship.

I bet you ring to do that.

I'm not sure if you get a yes by email, if you rang someone, people on the phone, I can imagine.

It'S knowing how to manage.

No, I would email, but I do it in a certain way.

Again, there's a whole.

Again, email is another sort of email etiquette.

There's ways of getting responses from emails and there's ways of not getting responses.

You know, the busy word's really important.

We sell time.

I mean that's the only commodity we have.

I know everyone else struggles with it and they sort of want a fixed price product.

I'm going to sound arrogant here, Andrew, but if, when I've decided who I want to get time with any level of seniority, I'm reasonably confident I'll get their time.

No, no, but the professional, the lot.

If you're saying that you're saying the lawyers and accountants should go spend time speaking to their clients about how happy they are or something.

I don't think they can afford not to because I think it's really naive for any business advisor to think that, to assume that because they're a good technical practitioner, even if they've delivered a good outcome on a particular case, matter, file, project, whatever, that they're going to be get repeat business.

I think that's naive and arrogant, personally.

Why?

Loads of reasons.

More so with lawyers than accountants.

People instruct lawyers when they're stressed.

They're stressed because they're selling a business, they're getting divorced, they're buying or selling property, whatever it is, they're stressed.

Now when people are stressed, they're not thinking straight, they're not rational, they don't do due diligence.

Due diligence only really works in the public sector or not for profit sector.

When it comes to private individuals and even in house counsel in companies, what happens is they've got a problem.

They go, oh shit, I've got to get a solicitor who's front of mind.

Who do I know, who do I like, who do I trust?

They get the contact.

Now they won't necessarily, if the previous contact with that solicitor was three years ago, even if they were brilliant, they won't necessarily remember them three years later because buyers are quite promiscuous in their behavior, frankly.

They will know more than one solicitor, probably more than one accountant.

I accept it's a little bit different with accounting.

Yeah, it makes a lot.

What you're saying makes more sense to me in the legal profession.

It's the way their business comes and go and they've got to stay in.

Contact and find out it's less relevant to accounting.

But even accounting, I've noticed a difference over 20 years.

So in the early days when I used to sell to people like you, Andrew, in accountancy practices it was much harder because they'd say, well most of our business is recurring.

We don't need any.

We know we don't need any.

What I hear now, and you will have probably a better hand on it than I've got.

But anecdotally my impression is that yes, a lot of work is recurring but it isn't to the same degree as it used to be.

People will switch advisors today.

Secondly, accountancy firms are restructuring as well and there's new market entrants.

The nature of, in terms of market consolidation has changed quite a bit.

Plus people won't necessarily carry all the regulators in one basket.

They might use one firm for audit, one for tax, one for, I don't know, payroll or whatever else.

So I think business development has to be taken more seriously for everybody, not just law firms.

And now a quick word from our sponsor.

Business Without Bullshit is brought to you by Ori Clark.

You can find us@ureclark.com Ori is spelled O U R Y Before we press on, just a quick reminder to come say hi on whatever social platform you like.

We're pretty much on all of them.

Just search for wblondon.

So instead of networking we, we look at, at ways of just sort of being there for the client, you know, is the professional Industry in the uk.

Do you think it's going to shrink over the coming years?

You know, do you think things like AI and stuff is going to, you know, it's mad when you look it up.

I looked it up not long ago.

I don't think we realize how big the professional service industry in this country is.

Every single of the big four accounting, I thought one of them was American.

Maybe it is, but all four are headquartered in London.

I mean that's mad.

E and Y, PwC, I want to say Procter and Gambler, I can't even think.

Deloitte and the other one, you know, they're all headquartered in London.

We have an enormous professional service business.

I mean all of them are 50 billion, you know, size firms.

We've got some of the biggest law firms in the, in the world.

Although a lot of law, law is bigger in America, I would say.

But you know, I don't think people probably can be a bit flippant about the service economy, but I don't think they appreciate how big professional services is in this country.

So you know, whether it be AI or otherwise, whether, you know, whether it's Brexit and you know, other things, you know.

But is your sense with industry that it is, it is shrinking or it's going to.

No, I don't think it is shrinking.

It's changing.

I don't think it's shrinking.

And you know, before AI, we, we've had a succession of technological changes or, you know, or, or, or you know, deregulate in law we had the deregulation, alternative business structures and people like Richard Susskind at the time saying the death of law firms.

Well actually revenue's gone up year on year.

I don't think people should be worried about AI.

I think they should be embracing technology, but they should be getting rid of all the grunt work and the low value stuff and actually spending more time with clients because there are things that computers can't do.

And to be clear, I'm not a ludder, I'm in my own business using AI increasingly.

I think it's brilliant because it's given me more time to spend with clients and that can't be replicated by AI.

If people value the relationship, that's the key thing.

And that again, the reason that I get people's time, I'm assuming is because they value the relationship.

Yeah, I mean I found actually I'm using Fixer, which is a London product which sorts your emails out.

Now I used to finish, you know, meetings at 6 and have, you know, probably every day a couple of hundred emails and I'd spend you know, a couple of hours going through them getting stuff done and you know, trying to have a reminder list.

But you know, now that's just taking out all the crap.

I mean I don't know what happens to people trying to market towards me.

They disappear.

Notifications, oh, I can or can't join meetings, like I care.

Do you know what I mean?

It's all that noise and I'm left, I go back to my desk, I'll see what it is today and it'll be like 20 these actually 20 emails for you and here's 40 or 50 which could be for you.

You'll see seed and that I have to say is, you know, dropped.

It just reduces your stress because you're just, there's something about that big number.

So there we go.

I'm getting time back now.

What do I do with my time?

You're right, I can actually see or speak to my clients more, you know, actually talk to them And I think so much of the relationship is often with professionals is it's a sort lot of it's therapy almost a lot of it's they just need to talk.

I, I, I might get paid on paper.

My terms of reference might say come up with a strategic marketing plan or I don't know, roll out this training program or do some one on one coaching.

The truth is the reality, a significant amount of my time, more so with more senior fee earners.

It ain't to do with marketing and bd, that's that that kind of gets me in the door.

And we cover all manner of topics.

All manner of topics.

And do you find you tend to get the call when they're worrying about business?

It varies certainly I find within the built environment.

So where I've got clients, albeit small number of clients that are architectural practices or engineering consultants, anyone that works with real estate, they want to speak to you when there's a downturn, it's too late by then because you've got to be doing again.

This business development isn't a tap you can just turn on.

I would argue it's a process.

You've got to be in business development all the time.

I know I do.

However busy I am with client work, I always make time for business development.

It's like never say no, isn't it?

Well, because things will change.

You know, I've had and I think that's this is not unique to my business at all.

I've had situations Where a client's merged or been taken over and I've lost my contact because they've gone the other side.

People leave organizations, things run their course, things change, different strategies.

Credit crunches.

Covid this, that and the other things change.

Nothing's forever.

What do you think of LinkedIn?

Right, so let me ask a question directly, but there's a bigger thing here.

So I'm a fan of LinkedIn, but there are some caveats.

I get a lot of negativity about LinkedIn from professionals because they'll be.

Yeah, lots.

Because they'll say, oh, it's just recruitment consultants, it's people showing off lots of rubbish.

All of that is true, but that's missing the point.

That's like saying PowerPoint's rubbish because death by PowerPoint, because people don't use it properly and just put loads of bullet points.

There's Nothing wrong with PowerPoint, there's nothing wrong with LinkedIn, there's nothing wrong with ChatGPT.

They're all tools and it's knowing how to use them properly.

So I'm a big fan of LinkedIn and I think one of the things about LinkedIn is particularly good just from practicalities and visibility.

You can have your full day, nine to five in meetings and if LinkedIn's working for you behind the scenes, building your visibility because you schedule posts ahead of the work.

I.

I write most of my content at the weekend and that sounds really dull, but it takes me like 60 minutes to just schedule four or five posts.

Normally I schedule them to go 7 o' clock in the morning because you.

Can schedule in LinkedIn now, can't you?

Don't need a tool to do it.

Yeah, just a chance.

Geez, seven o' clock in the morning, really?

Normally I go for.

I experiment a little bit because I.

Guess professionals tend to be up early.

Yeah, I play around with it, but generally speaking, I'll go for seven o' clock in the morning and then one Sunday evening, six o' clock or seven in the evening.

Isn't that sad?

People looking up LinkedIn?

It's a bit sad, but it works.

And again, because you get that instant feedback and engagement, you can tinker.

So I'm a big fan of LinkedIn and the fact that most of it is rubbish is happy days because.

Because those people that do know what they're doing will get better results.

Well, if it's about visibility, surely it's golden because I find when I bother to post, you know, and I have to post about various things, I can't you know, I'm supposed to share something today, whatever, but when I meet people who I know, they're like, oh, I saw you did this, this and this, you know, and I'm like, I'm amazed.

I'm like, oh, right.

Did you.

Okay, that's good, I guess.

Thanks.

Well, on that, one of the things that I find most interesting is that the people that say that to me are people who don't engage on LinkedIn.

So which proves to me that it's this.

The value is not the silent majority.

Yeah, it's about that.

It's people who didn't.

I was like, well, I don't remember you, like, doing anything.

I mean, I wouldn't notice if someone liked.

But you didn't comment, like, all right, you know, you're just flicking through it.

The silent majority is massive.

What do you think's in the professions?

How long have we got you?

Can you.

I mean, we probably need to split them up, but yeah.

Well, where do we start?

I think start on a positive.

I think one of the positives post Covid is people are more honest with one another.

I have noticed generally, generally in life, like pre.

Pre Covid, if you said to somebody has business, everyone would say the same thing, everything's brilliant.

Oh, everything's fantastic.

Whereas I think now people are a bit more authentic than they were.

It's all relative.

I just don't like anything that's false or fake or insincere or contrived.

Over the 20 years of trading, I've noticed there's a pattern in sense of where ten and a half's been more successful.

We've done disproportionate amount of work in the north of England, the Midlands, the north of England, more Irish people.

Why?

People are more straight talking.

Yeah, yeah.

And I know that's a generalization, but I'm sorry, that's my experience.

Well, I have to say it's a breath of fresh air up north.

I mean, a lot of the time anyway, I just had the worst experience trying to buy something all around London and then I ended up up, you know, ringing up someplace near Hull and had this amazing experience and so charming and you know, I mean, I got again, you know, got.

Yeah, that's a great example.

Sample of 1.

But you feel it, you know, I spent a lot of my life in Newcastle, you know, you, you.

I've lived in.

I've lived in Newcastle.

Love the jordy, you know, you go up north and they've got it right on their sort of you know, attitude towards life.

I mean, you know, there is unfortunately Southeast become.

It's a bit too know.

Yeah.

Is it money?

You know, money makes people serious.

You know, I used to live in South Ken and I, I there were, you know, we've a family had a house there or flat.

A flat, whatever.

But yeah, Christ, the people were just.

Everyone's got money and locks and can't talk to anyone and you know, you go to.

Everyone's got an attitude and a chip on their shoulder and they're worried that you're going to rob them.

I mean, I look like a crazy 20 year old.

Which probably didn't help but like, you know, it's something about that.

I mean, on the money thing, you know, again, this is another sort of misconception.

In the Southeast there are.

There is quite a lot of wealth in pocket, albeit in pockets in the north.

I mean, you mentioned Hull Beverly is a very affluent area up there.

Newcastle, I've lived in Gosford which is a very nice area.

Gosford's where my old golf is.

Very nice area.

You know the, the Northwest you got Cheshire I've worked in, in Middlesburgh.

Now Middlesbrough itself I wouldn't exactly describe as affluent, but within five miles of Middlesbrough you've got places like Yarm in North Yorkshire, which is beautiful and so on.

And there's a lot of ignorance down here about the north.

And that's fine by me because a lot of my work is I network under the radar.

So I will go to places and it's gonna sound ridiculous, but any town in England that's got a football team.

My marketing strategy certainly was any town in England that's got a football team will have three half decent law firms.

So I go and talk to them.

So I've done work in places like Blackburn, Middlesborough, even southeast Colchester.

Where are you from?

You're North Londoner.

Do they not quite slightly be like what's this Londoner up trying to.

Trying to tell us?

I've lived.

I've spent more time living in the Midlands and North.

I live in N.

I've lived in Leeds, I've lived in Harrogate, I've lived in Newcastle, I've even lived in bloody Barrow, in Furness.

London's.

I mean, we have to be real about it.

It's an international city now.

Its culture is international.

It's got more in common with New York and Singapore than it does with Barnsley or whatever.

You know, that's one of the big differences.

And I think, I think the culture of Britishness when.

And it's proper.

And I, I don't mean to call London is not proper British but you know, if you've got a population that less than 50 were born in Britain.

Yeah.

Which is where we are I think with London, you know, you're, you're sort of the odd one out, you know, so fundamental humor in Britain and the way we like properly pull each other leg and the way we're quite straight talking and you know that, that London is moving in a different rate with a different culture.

I always use the same, you know, you see these little examples like you know, when you say cheers.

People in London say you should look in each other's eyes and you're like that is not British, that is some ger.

Australian thing.

You know, we adopt these sort of.

Well, once you have culture small thing you end up in a sort of.

Well, what's the middle ground?

And the middle ground is.

Well, probably less humorous in a little way.

You know, I mean to try and I suppose be a bit more balanced.

If I looked at a different way my bread and butter clients tend to be I suppose sort of medium sized practices.

Whereas in London for as you explained, it tends to be where the heavyweight law firms are.

Some and I have worked with some of the big guys in London, the DLA Pipers and Clyde and Co.

I've worked with those firms but they're not my target audience.

The other thing that's interesting, and this isn't a reference to either of those firms by the way, it is not necessarily the case that the bigger firms are doing the more interesting stuff or.

A more sophisticated struggle to innovate once you've been.

They struggle to innovate and there are some high caliber people in some of the firms that are perhaps less familiar or a bit under the radar are.

What are you buying in London?

I, I think London is a talent pool, I think.

But to your point, there's talent everywhere, you know.

Well, I mean without getting into the politics too, which I don't think this is the place but I think that's one of the other things that has definitely changed in the last five years, never mind 20 years or 10 and a half.

The fact that you know, a lot of educated people in the north are coming to London because they just aren't the same opportunities.

I mean my daughter as just one case in point is a solicitor here in the city at Boodle Hatfield Field.

But why?

Because there aren't the same opportunities in Nottingham.

No.

And that's a lot of The US firms pulling, pulling money in here and stuff.

Not just the U, I mean the U.

Just the city firms, full stop.

Yeah, US firms, but UK firms as well.

Well, I guess you wanna back to the basic people thing, zoom and all of that.

You tend to find professionals who are near you geographically.

And I think, you know, the power, you know, the scale of the southeast economy is enormous relative to rest of the country.

It's about the largest cities.

London, what's the next largest city?

Well, it's somewhere between Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow.

People actually slightly argue the toss, but the, the size difference is astronomical.

And I think there's some stat that in America between the size of London and those three cities, they've got natural.

30 that's been manufactured by governments who don't give it.

Who've.

It's not quite as true as that.

It's a combination of things.

It's a combination of factors.

There is some natural thing to it.

The weather's a bit better, they've got this big river to trade on.

You know, people tend to sort of gravitate towards the bit of the country like that.

It's very historical.

But where you're right is when they go to do investment projects.

Crossrail is a good example.

If you said, oh, I'm going to spend 50 billion building this railway up in Owl.

How much money are we going to make?

Well, a couple of billion or.

Well, it would cost us five and we might over 10 years make that back.

You do it in London, you say you're going to add Crossrail.

It's like that'll be worth 200 billion to the economy, whatever the numbers are.

So the point is you keep doubling down.

So.

But it's been going on.

I mean, we've lucky to have Martin Wolf come about this.

What I hadn't understood is how long this has been the case.

Hundreds of years.

The southeast of England has been some of the richest areas of Europe and the rest of the country's been some of the poorest.

And it keeps getting worse.

So they're trying to shift it, but it's not.

I don't.

I mean, I slightly hold back from saying, oh, this is just the government.

People come to London too.

When you're, you know, you're traveling.

Kids want to be in the big city.

We don't have another one.

We don't have another.

Where's the big lights?

You know, where's the.

I'm 22 years old and I want to be in New York.

It's like, well, you can go to London in your Europe.

I mean where else do you go in Europe?

You know you, you feel it's, it's.

Driven by governmentally I think I mean if you mentioned Hull before just using hull as an example when you go to these big cities Hull, Liverpool, Newcastle.

I know familiar close to all these places you look at the architecture, you can see the history.

Even places deprived like Stoke on Trent actually was relatively wealthy you know during the potteries in.

In pot when the potteries were here.

We just haven't invested in places.

True this of course I'm not point.

I'm saying it's not one, not one.

Dimensional Newcastle is up there with anything in London as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, yeah it's great but that's, that's.

I'm not denying that.

I think, I think, I think the.

These are beautiful amazing cities.

I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But you're not, they're not apples from apples.

You're comparing a city that might be 100,000, 300,000 with something which is a mega city and this has been a problem in the country for a long time and there's just a different scale of what happens there.

And then.

Yeah they need to invest more in the north but let's flip it around.

Are you going to turn Edinburgh into London?

It's not going to happen.

So think people in Edinburgh would want it to be.

You pick a town, you wouldn't be able to fit it.

You know I mean there's just with the, the reality is that Germany is a city country or there's lots of countries which have lots of cities.

You know and then, and there's.

And there's some upside.

I mean having everything in one place, it keeps doubling down.

It's like so you know I deal with companies coming in internationally and why do they come to London?

It's like well I need to be dealing with where all the big boys are and they all come to London because they can go and see the MP at lunch and then they can you know have breakfast with the.

You know it's all there.

It's, it's like a, it's just like it keeps getting worse and, and there doesn't seem to be any real way.

Yeah we leveling up.

We could spend more.

We could try and get those cities going a bit more but you know I don't think they're ever going to become London at the same time and they, and they wouldn't want to as you say I can see I'm hitting a nerve.

As in, like, like you're pissed off with it.

I am, I am, actually.

I say as a London, I just, I think I say something quite provocative now.

I don't, I don't think there are many politicians in this country who've seen as much of the country as I have.

And that sounds a big thing to say.

Well, that's the standard thing now.

You can fly to Spain or America cheaper than you can get up north, so people don't bother.

You know, I just think it, I.

Think it's quite sad.

I had a theory which was like, why don't we move like Radio 4 to Edinburgh?

You know, why don't we?

You know, you just start spreading these things out, out, but then, then you lose the golden jewel of London.

I mean, London, we don't want to resent London.

Was how I feel about it, that's the wrong thought process.

It's like, don't resent rich people.

You know, we should be, you know, London, whether we like it or not, literally drags the country along a lot of the time.

But, you know, at least let's have a level playing field.

Let's give people a chance.

How do we do that?

What are we doing that we're, we're getting wrong there?

Well, I mean, basics, like high streets.

I mean, you go high streets in the provinces now, now it's, they're like.

Ghost towns, but they're ghost towns kind of everywhere.

Even if you go southeast out, you know, London's been bit invigorated, but I mean, Christ, Oxford street was full of sweet shops as far as I could work out.

I mean, the high street, you know, when people are like, we got to save the high street.

I'm like, I mean, no, you gotta, you know, you got to come up with a different way of approaching retail, isn't it?

You know, I, I don't think that for young people growing up that live outside London, their only opportunity, if, you know, if they have an education, they want a good job, that they have to come to London, I think that's wrong.

What's your biggest cock up, do you think?

What's your biggest failure and work and what did it teach you?

I don't know about biggest cock up, but I can remember in the early days of ten and a half going to pitch to a small law firm somewhere in Norwich.

I think it was, it was in Norwich.

I think it was Norwich.

And I remember at the time I was very proud because I was doing a Lot of work with Adelshaw Goddard, the soldier solicitors.

So I thought, obviously that's going to help my case if I talk about the brilliant work I'm doing at Adelshaw Goddard and had all the partners in the boardroom.

And halfway through my presentation, one of the partners, senior partner, put his hand up like this and said, bernard, we've heard a lot about Adelshaw Godarden.

They're a great law firm.

And, you know, credit to you that clearly you must be doing some good stuff.

But.

We want to know what you've done in Saxmundam, Lowestoft, Hun Stanton, King's Lynn.

Because we're a law firm in Norfolk, we ain't competing with Adelshaw Goddard.

And that was a light bulb moment.

But it's something you often look back, it isn't about what you're necessarily proud of, it's about what are the relevant reference points to whoever you're talking to.

And that's something I consider quite a lot now when I'm talking to somebody.

What are the relevant reference points?

Yeah, yeah, it's so true.

Well, I mean, we're almost back on our previous topic, aren't we, that there's this sort of understanding the locality and the, the culture of, you know, different parts of England and what, what, what's important to them.

Yes, it's not making assumptions.

We're all guilty, all of us, including me, of.

We go into meetings, we go into situations with preconceived ideas based upon our paradigms, our assumptions, our previous experiences.

I had an experience recently, I won't say the name of the firm where I'd been instructed to roll out a training program.

And we just went into, had this meeting, like, scope out some of the details, what the different modules were going to look like.

And I asked a question, which I thought, I asked the question because I thought it's the right question to ask, but I kind of assumed I knew what the answer was, which was a mistake.

So the question I asked was, you know, what are the learning outcomes that you're looking for from his programs?

So I'm kind of assuming they're going to talk about winning new clients, getting people, you know, getting people out and about being more visible in the market.

It wasn't that at all.

The answer was we had some feedback during a staff consultation.

The people aren't getting any non technical skills development training and this is part of that.

Now.

It's not a big thing, but it does actually have quite a significant impact on.

On what the course looks like and how it's gonna work.

And it's just that thing about people making assumptions and going back even further.

Right at the start of my career, I can remember a difficult situation at Procter and Gamble where we're trying to get distribution for some products.

And I remember going for a beer with one of the buyers and he said, you just don't get it, do you?

He says, you come in here with your fancy charts and all your data telling us we need to stock this, that and the other.

Do you know how I get rewarded?

Do you know how I get remunerated?

I said, no.

He said, look, it's really simple.

The size of the bung I get from suppliers will dictate what I get paid.

So I don't give a toss how many bottles of ferry liquid I'm going to sell.

I'll stick anything on that display end if it's going to, if you're going to give me a check to put it on the display end.

And again, it's all about, know your clients, don't make assumptions.

And I think those are the mistakes I've made over the years is just putting to one side what you think and actually engaging with people and listening and finding out out what's important to them because it isn't always what you think.

Actually, things like ChatGPT can be quite helpful with that.

Their lack of sort of.

You can, you can ask them questions like that, can't you?

Rather than sort of trying to write down what you think's important.

You know what's important to a law firm in Norfolk.

You can go and read all the press.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And again with AI specifically it is about.

I think that's the big thing I'm learning as I'm experimenting with AI.

It's the quality of the prompts.

It's the little, the more information you give it, the better the quality of the answer.

Yeah, long, longer prompts.

Longer prompts.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Best piece of advice.

Don't take yourself too seriously, I think.

Yeah, yeah, don't take yourself too seriously.

Especially in the law world, just anywhere particularly.

I think it's particularly pertinent to more high achieving individuals who have defined their.

Define themselves by, by qualifications and awards and, I don't know, jobs.

Just lighten up a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And any top tips I guess for.

Well, maybe what are your top tips for professionals then?

Work out, work out who your audience is clearly.

And find other ways to get to them.

For sure.

I think be the best version of your authentic self.

People talk about authenticity a lot, but it's about being authentic to yourself and accepting that if you are authentic to yourself, you've got to get your head around the fact that not everybody's going to buy that.

And that's okay.

And that's where I've got to.

But it's taken me a long time.

To get hard to be authentic about yourself.

It's a journey for us all to really work out who the hell we are.

Because we're all sort of copycats of each other.

Yeah.

When there's several parts to it.

There's that part around understanding yourself, but there's also the accepting that when you do do that, some people might not buy you because they don't like.

Like you for whatever reason.

And we get so effective by negative feedback.

Don't we get so effective by sort of thinking we need to change ourselves when actually, you know, just be yourself and bugger the haters, you know.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I suppose what else would I say is follow the process.

I think if you.

Rather than getting fixated on achieving X, it's just follow the steps, follow the process.

And it also helps you manage strength, stress.

You know, over the years, as a father of four children, I'm the.

I'm the breadwinner.

I have to deliver the way.

One of the ways I manage stress is rather than thinking about the end goal is I just focus on, right, how many coffees do I need to have this week?

If I have five coffees this week, two of those will be worthwhile.

One of the two, I'll end up with a project.

That's it.

Oh, coffees with other people.

Coffee's with other people, not just how much coffee.

Well, then I limit myself to three.

I can't have more than three.

Or I say start and Brilliant.

So if people want to find out more, mate, where.

Where do they find you?

Ten and a half boots.

Why ten and a half boots?

What's that?

The story goes, but outside of work, my big passion is Mansfield town Football Club.

24th of May, 87, they won a penalty shootout at Wembley.

Goalkeeper dives the wrong way.

He's interviewed after the game.

He says, who needs hands when you got size 10 and a halfs like me?

And it is relevant to the business for several reasons.

The first thing is, even if you detest football, football, you'll probably know that you're supposed to keep the ball out the net and people typically keep the ball out the net with their hands.

This goalkeeper saved the day with his feet.

Ten and a half's not particularly big.

Though, but he saved the day.

He got the right outcome.

So to me, the business is all about results and it is about challenging conventions, like going to stuffy networking events, and it's about thinking more creatively and again, going back to the point about authenticity.

You know, Mansfield Town is.

It's been my life.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, very good.

No, and I love your passion for the north, so, you know, I just think it's a really complex problem.

It's not.

It's not easily solvable, I wouldn't say brilliant.

Thank you, Bernard.

Great.

Thank you.

That has been this week's episode of Business Out.

Thank you, D.

Thank you.

Thank you, Romeo Somewhere.

We'll be back next Wednesday.

Until then, it's ciao.

Sam.