Interview Question: Have You Worked In A Service Job?
One of my go-to interview questions is have you ever worked in a service job?
I worked weekends at KFC and Wendy’s, when going through my A-Levels I used to sneak off and work 3-4 hour shifts to make money and move away from education which I was ultimately done with.
I actually really enjoyed the job and met some of my closest friends 25 years later, why?
You learn a lot skills, interpersonal skills, the importance of teamwork and comradery, how to read people’s body language & micro expressions, you learnt multi-tasking, how to handle busy periods and how to deal with “mistakes” (yours or the customers - they aren’t always right!), I learnt how to cook, prep and importantly clean and follow the high standards set by successful chains.
I went on to work in and run bars and put on club nights and all this has set me up in my career and is important muscle memory for me.
In almost every management role I have held, those who can handle pressure and excel in the quiet periods/poor performance periods and asked to step up are those from backgrounds in cafes, baristas, fast food (QSR) and bars.
Thinking about it, some of the best Brand & Product Marketers and Product leads I have had the pleasure of working with have also had strong backgrounds in QSR’s.
I was recommended this video this morning (thanks YouTube) and it reminded me of why so many great employees worked service jobs and if I had the choice I would always look to hire the right candidate with this style of background.
Watch out for how the English gentleman calls out that it is an experience from Arnaldo & at Grumpy Coffee and he leaves happy, although most do it organically the best Marketing team members provide brilliant experiences and are deliberate in doing so as they know it sticks in peoples mind and creates a long-standing relationship.
The Disney Dilemma Podcast - Land of the Giants
Its rare that I recommend more than one business podcast from one podcaster or network, with many being hit and miss or often they turn into case studies repackaged.
However, Land Of The Giants is one of the series of podcasts that is always worth listening to.
If you are a leader of a business, into the ops sides of companies or enjoy listening to how businesses have to balance cycles of hardship The Disney Dilemma is a brilliant listen.
It highlights why generational brands are important to us, passed down from parents and grandparents, recommended by our friends and why our kids and future generations love and will continue to love Disney. But behind the scenes it’s never easy, especially for the brand managers and highlighting why do the internal business leads have to tread so carefully and nurture the brand and not overly police it in today’s world.
I also highly recommend Ride of a lifetime by Bob Iger as a must read/listen for business leads.
Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this article, enjoy the following ↓
The Importance Of Audio In Your Marketing Mix
MSCHF CEO On How To Go Viral Podcast
Free Power Hour
For the past ten years, I have offered power hours, which is an hour with a person (usually a business leader or senior c-suiter), a company or an institution where I help and support.
I have ran power hours for:
Creators
CEOs and founders
Startups
Known Marketplaces
For SMBs
For leadership teams at a school
& for large businesses
Sometimes it is a sanity check, other times the time is used as a lunch and learn for their teams, others use it an AMA and then for some, it becomes a coaching session. It is more clinic (clinics are similar to office hours at a VC firm with their portfolio companies) than therapy but I’m always happy to support.
I am opening this up a little further to readers and visitors of my site and wider than I have before, so if you would like a power hour with me, please complete the form below or DM me on LinkedIn.
So get in touch and let me know how you’d like to collaborate and where you might need help, a sanity check or an AMA with your team/department.
Instagram Views Metrics
Social media metrics change, constantly, it can be the most hotly contested subject by creators, influencers and brands.
Instagram updated “creators” yesterday that they were shifting to views as their primary aka most important metric (the video below explains this).
Adam Mossari the Head of Instagram shared - ““Views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos and carousels.”
He also clearly references the top new important metrics
Views (Adam Mossari rightly points out there can be multiple views per piece of content, so keep this top of mind)
Sends per reach (how many people are sending your content via DM)
Reach
Core Takeaways To Consider As A Creator, Influencer Or Brand:
Views as standardised metrics are smart for Instagram but may be a little misleading for creators, it will be moving creators and brands to create more compelling (most likely video) content that is built less for public engagement but created for “sends”
Views (count) are a critical metric on Threads too - highly engaged views will likely come next, and high-value views will also be considered by Instagram in the near future (who viewed, from where, how long or how many times)
Engagement will always be important, however, engagement is lowering across the board, reactions have dropped because we live in a constant flow of content (which is too much for most of us) - engagement in public and private via sends will be critical in working out away from watch time what is
Finsta’s (private friend accounts) and sinsta’s (meme-created accounts) have sent content via DM for a long time, this will likely see many more of these accounts created - a core internal Instagram metric
Instagram have openly talked about its creation problem, but many aren’t creating (pareto law aka the 80/20 law is likely at play here - 80% viewers, 20% creators) this is a way to see curation and potentially create playlists
Brands and creators - When creating content what you are creating, why you are creating this piece of content, who will be consuming and how it will prompt a share (in DM) - this will lead to smaller accounts with more influence and reach
Follower counts will likely drop, many don’t need to follow creators and brands anymore and rely on other signals to power your FYP. Inbox shares and any comments connected to shares will enable Instagram to add more juice into certain videos, creators and the content they create
Context of the share will be important, understanding why the content was shared, how it was viewed, the reaction and interaction around that content will be critical for Instagram to improve their product and beat out competitors like TikTok.
With an unique ability to improve Threads and potentially improve WhatsApp products from this learning.
My long-term view is Instagram is pushing users to create private groups (as this was naturally happening by users, even before the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram - these are core reasons why Meta invested so heavily) and networks of sends.
Private becomes the default and the culture of these apps, an important however here is - Instagram can build their new private graph (working out who and how people are connected) to change content consumption habits away from one feed into an inbox of content curated by friends, family and creators (sorry brands it will be highly unlikely you are included in this).
Could 100 Gigs Be The Future For Artists?
Drake dropped 100 gigs late on Tuesday, dropping 100gb of content including three unreleased tracks and tens of videos and pictures.
Many artists are becoming disillusioned with the algorithmic filtering from social networks and a shift to entertainment-based feeds (thanks to TikTok’s re-engineering of the web).
This approach does not engage the causal followers and unless you are constantly following or have alerts switched on fans will miss any update from their artist of choice.
From an artist's POV: Why amass millions of followers and be restricted by the platform?
Go back straight to the fans…especially the superfans…
The Superfan Flywheel ↑ How the superfans increase reach and sales for their favourite influencers, celebrities and creators
What Drake (& his team) have done is smart, by offering a glimpse beyond the Instagram feed, releasing songs directly for free downloads is removing the friction of these platforms enabling to see where fans are based, what songs are downloaded and streamed, which videos and images are downloaded (for free) and what platforms are driving traffic and engagement with fans.
Although the popular platforms (Spotify, Instagram etc) offer a limited number of these features, it disconnects them from the fans and limits their chances to connect.
In the near future I suspect many artists with large teams will take an approach to this, likely pushing for mobile numbers to send important updates to (like a 1-2-1 service) and looking to sign up superfans with emails (to send newsletters, exclusives and website updates to).
Is this the future not exactly industry-wide but it does offer an opportunity for artists to move away from social platforms and reward their fans with great behind the scenes view and bonus tracks that could be working harder for them.
This is how the superfan ecosystem works and how smart artists like Drake can leverage this new model to make money and connect with their fans at a much deeper level
Update 10/08/2024: The delayed release of the tracks onto Soundcloud and other streaming sites also shows how smart they have been looking at the data and then releasing to make money via streaming. Well played Drake and the OVO team.
Does Your Business Need A Refresh, Reset, Reboot or Restart
Throughout my career I have found most businesses get to the point where they are in need of external help and cannot decide what their companies requires, I have broken them down into 4 areas:
1. A Refresh - this is what most businesses want but not what most need, a refresh can include a hiring (or a firing) or a change in a way they work cross-functionally. A refresh often works best within teams or departments where there has been no change or mass change. Many teams work best after a refresh as this creates more focus and less distractions.
2. A Reset - this is what most companies need, they require a fresh set of eyes and a driving force behind resetting the way the teams work together, how they approach their department plan or reset their company strategy. Resets help cross-functional teams to understand each other and the way they work differently.
3. A Reboot - a more deliberate look at the business and departments often leads to difficult conversations and assessing how the teams and their department leads perform and operate. A detailed audit will be needed to identify issues and then guide the internal leadership in improving and rebooting the business performance.
4. A Restart - the view seen as the most harsh but often is needed and needs to be driven by an independent consultant and advisor. What a restart takes a 6-8 week period of investigation, observation and honest feedback. Restarts take a number of bed in and then a quarter to two quarters to influence wider change. Restarts need to be fully brought in by the exec team, by department leads and senior members of the team to create a better, higher-performing environment.
The question to ask yourself now: What does your team, department and business need?
In H2 it is the time to take action and set yourselves up for success in late Q3 into Q4.
Premier League Shirt Sponsorship Problem?
This season’s sponsors are a telling state of the sponsorship market and who can afford to invest millions into sponsorship.
I am a big football fan (arsenal fan) and a student of business - the two worlds collated when looking through the premier league fantasy football app and then spotting the shirt sponsors… it was a little troubling. (Take a look through this season’s kits here)
We have moved away from the domination of crypto brands in the last few seasons and moved towards international gambling.
It’s a powerful trend as many of these sponsors have limited presence in England and are looking to leverage the reported global viewership of ~3.2bn.
Here are some of the main takeaways taking a look through:
11 (of 20) of the main sponsors of the premier league clubs are gambling sponsors (this is agreed to stop from the 2026/2027 season)
Crystal Palance’s sponsor Net88 is not active in the UK (is regulated) and their site doesn’t work
The price of these sponsorships every season is not cheap, the lowest is believed to be north £4m per year, whereas Snapdragon's sponsorship of Man Utd is reported to be £60m per year
Notts Forest's main sponsor is the sleeve of Crystal Palace and is an official brand partner of Chelsea - it also has received warnings from the UK Gambling Commission.
Everton's main sponsor stake also owns its sleeve sponsor kick (twitch’s rival)
Shirt manufacturers is an interesting story
Adidas x7 (11 in total in English pro football)
Umbro x4 (10 in total in English pro football)
Castore x1 *but has the sub-licence to Umbro UK (6 in total in English pro football)
Nike x4 (6 in total in English pro football)
Puma x2 (17 in total in English pro football)
Macron x1 (17 in total in English pro football)
Sudu x 1 (a brand new manufacturer - a company of ex-designers from many of the largest manufacturers)
So does this mean we have an issue with sponsorship in English pro football with large gambling issues across Britain? To me, yes, but would many other industries could afford to cover these costs?
£5m per year in sponsorship is a huge investment (ask struggling car brand Cazoo and other businesses what happened with their huge investment into sponsorship) and the ROI is often questioned at the sponsor’s brand level - the next industry might have to be equally questionable or we may have to see the costs be put back on the fan… and from my experience overseeing hundreds of professional and semi-professional teams needing bailing out by fans crowdfunding, football clubs will need to be saved by their superfans again.
If you enjoyed this article, enjoy the following ↓
My 6 Must Watch And Listens From The Last Week
Here are six incredible listens and watches to help you understand how decisions are made in large business and with elite professionals.
>> Etsy Scale & Ensuring Human+ (So human have to be behind AI product creations Creativity.
My main takeaway is being deliberate in your choices and ensuring you can build your marketplace with long term thinking in mind and adapt to tech changes.
>> Masters Of Scale - Kat Cole’s approach to leadership and why she joined AG1.
My main takeaway is Kat is very personable and extremely thoughtful and driven, if you want to be leading from the front you have to get deep under the skin and understand the true operating model.
>> YouTube creator sensation Cleo Abram on what made Nike almost ban record-breaking sneakers (hint there’s a flow chart and must be on general sale to be included in the Olympics
My main takeaway is tech is always going to help improve times of athletes but unless they are the elite level athletes its likely not going to win too many races and Olympic and governing bodies will review tech and innovation quickly (for safety and fair use).
>> Rory Sutherland delivers one of his best talks about making time to rethink the question and apply behaviour sciences to make better decisions .
My main takeaway is thinking about the question and what humans want will place us in front of creating better solutions, it’s then a choice (as I said in brand is in 2024/2025) not just optimising to the financial leader’s spreadsheet.
>> How 7-Eleven is repositioned itself and building a better shopping experience
My main takeaway is many can learn from building an experience from international stores and building more relevant shopping experiences.
>> Acquired’s long form interview with Howard Schultz on Starbucks history, strategic moves & why being wrong made Starbucks right
My main takeaway is even when you are a listed company with millions in sales even larger brands will treat you badly (Coca Cola in this instance) and their competitors will leap at the chance to collaborate. I have experienced this a number of times and it rarely ends badly…
Google’s Next Battle - AI, Gemini & Customer Happiness
Google’s Secret → Habitual Product, Slow AI Timing & Narrative Builds.
In Tuesday’s quarterly earnings call Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said:
“Gemini is making Google's own products better. All 6 of our products with more than 2B monthly users now use Gemini. This means that Google is the company that's truly bringing AI to everyone”.
This was a smart comms line.
This statement was made for shareholders and investors to buy into their AI push and ignore the stories coming out of the internal team cultural battles and reduce the friction around Google’s less flashy approach to AI and right now a slight let-down in terms of features and improvements for paying customers.
What Google is doing well is pushing the narrative that their AI product is the first to be in consumers’ and corporate customer’s lives to send a shot across the bow to Apple (who were the first to embed this from their recent event with their Apple AI partnership approach). Android vs iOS is going to be a long battle especially in the next device to replace smartphones and in AI space, which might blend into one…
Google Wins Are Potentially Google’s Next Big Issue:
What many tend to miss is the incredible results (Alphabet reported $84.7bn in revenue with $24 Billion quarterly profit, from an incredibly strong Search (ads business) and Cloud revenues) Google and competitors can win have arguably declining products: Google’s example is their organic search product (their SERPs are an absolute mess right now) and increasing Google Workspace & Google Cloud pricing for no extra customer benefits, while benefiting from increased ad pricing and ad placements.
Battle 1 Alphabet’s share price dropped Wednesday reacting to the market news and slow adoption in AI, one major concern is failed cloud acquisitions in HubSpot and now Wiz.
But Time Is On Their Side: Google, Apple and Amazon’s secret is almost always timing, especially with AI and not rushing into AI - this is going to win the mass market for them while others rush, crash and burn.
Battle 2 Google’s Ask Fatigue & Friction: Google’s asks from customers will lead to ask fatigue and churn, asks will continue to increase, Google will continue to ask for more budget from advertisers with different targeting (soon to be less opaque) options, more company to upgrade users to Gemini AI and ask consumers to pay for more storage for Gmail use.
If you have ever worked inside of a big company or a listed company you have core workstreams (projects that take company-wide priority) and internal politically driven decisions that to the outside don’t make much sense. If your workstream (say organic search or improving Google Workspace features) doesn’t make the OKR sign off it won’t have any resource assigned or budget for quarters ahead.
Google’s next battle is how to improve their search results (away from optimising the number of ads) while facing competition from answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity and cramming in more ads at increasing prices to keep investors happy.
Here’s a good graphic via Reddit for Alphabet’s results last quarter - take a look at traffic acquisition costs $13.8b — paying for defaults on iPhones and Samsung devices is not cheap.
>> Are you a heavy Google Workspace user? Here are my favourite Google Workspace shortcuts and hacks to improve your productivity
Ask Fatigue Impact On Your Business
Ask Fatigue is when companies constantly ask for more from their customers without any value exchange.
Here are just a few requests I have had in my email inbox & SMS over the last week:
More orders
Spend more
Share more pics or videos with us (to include in our Marketing)
More reviews (asking for TrustPilot, Feefo and Google reviews)
More upgrades (upgrade to x package)
More UGC requests (for the brand to use in their advertising)
Spend more for free delivery (to increase their AOV)
Costs more for returning orders (which used to be free)
Costs for click and collect (the convenience of collecting isn’t genuinely a value exchange)
Increase your subscriptions
I am a commercially minded executive, I know first-hand and have felt the pressures companies are under to improve financial performance, however, always asking for more and creating an associated ask fatigue, your business is skating on thin ice especially when the cost of living is higher and the unlimited amount of competitors in your space.
Something I push in my consultancy and advisory roles is to reduce the ask fatigue from your customers and if you ask what is the value exchange you are going to provide? If you cannot provide any value exchange
If you would like to hear me discuss ask fatigue more, here are two resources:
Podcast Appearance: One more question
Conference Talk: Community as the next business moat
Netflix’s Culture & Cultural Importance
This Is Why The Podcast Format Is So Success & Why CEOs Will Want To Actively Seek Out Appearing On Episodes That Challenge Them
Anyone that knows me I love podcasts, I love pods on culture and when big company executives are more open about what is happening inside of the company. I highly recommend you listen to this podcast if you are a company exec or looking to take the next step up to the c-suite and how to handle questions (away from traditional media training).
Why Listen?
Greg Peters speaks on how they are thinking about their past to drive their future
How Co-CEOs can work together successfully and how Greg & Ted Sarandos make it work
How Netflix thinks about attention and being your canonical choice of media
The way he discusses their struggling gaming offering is brilliant listening
Why the culture has shifted and now a sports team analogy is most relevant
How ads are playing an essential part for Netflix’s long-term successes
Who their competitors are now (and their slow copying of features)
& The direction they are taking
If you enjoyed this post, you will enjoy my recent post the power of audio and the attention needed for each format