[00:32] Darren Jamieson:
On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, it’s going to get very, very meta because I am speaking with Scott Gould, who is a keynote speaker and engagement consultant.
So I am going to be talking to Scott about engagement, and the word “engage” is going to come up quite a lot.
What does engagement mean to Scott? How can businesses use engagement within their business to better retain, attract and convert more of their clients?
So, let’s see how many times the word “engage” is used in the next hour.
You describe yourself as an engagement consultant. What exactly does engagement mean to you?
[01:10] Scott Gould:
It’s a great question.
[01:11] Darren Jamieson:
Oh, thanks, mate. I’m off to a winner. I like it.
[01:14] Scott Gould:
Yeah. I mean, you run Engage Web, right?
[01:17] Darren Jamieson:
That’s right.
[01:18] Scott Gould:
Loads of people work in engagement. Often, people can’t explain it.
I like to simply say engagement is when you and me becomes we.
[01:26] Darren Jamieson:
I like that. I like that.
[01:29] Scott Gould:
Put another way, it’s when we’re together.
When we’re you and me, we’re separate. When we’re we, we are together. We are engaged.
And there’s nothing wrong with being separate or unengaged, because we’re unengaged from the majority of things in the world. But where we need to be a we, or where there’s leverage and benefit to being a we, then we should be together.
That would lead to the next question: why bother with engagement?
Quite simply, we’re better together. We recognise, as a species, that we just work better together.
The clothes on my back, the coffee I made this morning, the technology we’re using to record this — none of this you and I made. We’re all standing on the backs of each other.
Engagement is what drives our species forward.
[02:21] Darren Jamieson:
When we created this company, we had a big, long session to work on the name Engage Web. There were loads of words that we came up with, but engage seemed to be the one for me.
If you’re going onto somebody’s website and it doesn’t engage you, you’re not going to buy from it. It’s not going to convert.
Since we called it Engage Web, I’ve seen a lot of businesses using the word engage — maybe not just in their name, but in their marketing. Engage seems to have become a big thing in the last 15 or 20 years.
How important do you think it is for businesses to do it?
And I almost want to wait to ask my second question, but I’m going to throw it in anyway: how many do you think are using it cynically because they just want to sell, and they’re kind of faking engagement?
[03:20] Scott Gould:
I’ve got no bones with someone who’s faking engagement, nor am I a grammar Nazi who requires that people use my correct language.
I think it’s useful to use the correct language when we’re trying to understand what we’re doing, when we’re trying to strategise, and when we’re looking at things academically.
But day to day, call it whatever you want and do whatever you want, as long as it works and as long as it’s ethical. I think we’re all good.
To your point specifically, it’s important for us to engage because engagement creates resilience.
Just in terms of us as business owners, the more that we engage with our clients, the more resilient those relationships are going to be. The less that we engage, the less resilient they might be.
Engagement denotes a sense of it being like a chain. It’s strong. The various links in the chain are held well together as opposed to being loose.
We can also think of how important it is for us to help our clients engage their customers.
You’re Engage Web, and you recognise the importance of a website needing to engage the visitor. We’ve got something there around holding their attention. We’ve got something, I presume, around going from holding their attention to actually getting action.
[04:40] Darren Jamieson:
Mhm.
[04:41] Scott Gould:
Because you can have a very attention-grabbing thing and then not have any action. That’s going to be a negative.
Ultimately, that action is turned into some sense of affection, some sense of ongoing relationship, bond, friendliness, loyalty, brand fandom, whatever it might be. Something that says, “I like you, and I want to buy from you again. I want to stay involved.”
It turns out it’s the same process for how we engage with anything.
It gets our attention — that’s engagement type one.
We have action — that would be engagement type two.
Finally, we have affection. We have a sense of bonding — that would be the third type of engagement.
[05:23] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[05:24] Scott Gould:
And there’s the whole package right there.
[05:26] Darren Jamieson:
The way it’s described in our industry — and I didn’t coin this, so I’m not going to take credit for it — would be attract, engage, convert, retain.
Most people in digital marketing understand the attract concept: you’ve got to get people to your website for it to work. That’s been understood for a long time. If you don’t get people there, it’s not going to work. If there are no eyeballs on it, no visitors, it’s never going to work.
The engage part is something many people don’t get. They just think getting people to the website is enough to make it work.
Then, as you said, the actual conversion — the call to action — that’s pretty critical as well, and a lot of people miss that.
Then there’s the retain afterwards. Once you’ve got a client, what do you do with them? How do you make sure they come back to you? How do you make sure they stay?
There are loads of stats thrown around that it’s three times, four times or five times more expensive to get a new client than it is to retain an existing client.
How does that fit in with what you’ve just said, from your perspective?
[06:29] Scott Gould:
Engagement is this massive topic.
We can think of engagement broadly as employee engagement: how do we engage those inside our organisations?
Those listening today may not realise there are loads of books, courses, programmes and research around how we engage internally.
Then we’ve got customer engagement, which is how we engage the customer. As you’ve described, part of it is around how we go from just getting their attention to getting action.
It seems to be a link in the chain, but a lot of people, when they talk about customer engagement, are not even thinking about the conversion. They’re thinking about the long-term, ongoing relationship.
If we think about companies like Disney, Apple or Google, they have such a massive portfolio that their job is to engage you in the suite of products they serve and to keep engaging you in their products and services over time.
Their idea of engagement is different again. They’re not thinking about a one-off conversion. That’s not what they’re thinking about here. This is a far longer play.
Then we’ve also got community engagement, which is where I came from. I used to be a church minister, so my thing was: how do I get people to be engaged in the community? How do we create a space where people contribute towards each other’s lives?
The definitions of engagement are massive and varying. We can think about this whole chain, but I always find it useful to come back to: how do humans relate to ideas, things or each other?
Any form of engagement is just scaling that to be bigger in volume, size or whatever it might be. Ultimately, it’s how a human builds a relationship with a thing, a person or an idea.
[08:19] Darren Jamieson:
It’s interesting that you mentioned being a church minister. That’s critical, because engagement is vital for churches. They bring people in, and the people come back. If they’re not engaged, then presumably they would go away, and some churches don’t survive as a result of that.
[08:38] Scott Gould:
Yeah. You’ve got the whole suite going on there.
Churches need to engage people in the existence of the church, which would be getting their attention. That would be their promotion or their marketing, whatever it might be.
For a church, that’s going to be done very relationally, although there might be adverts that they run. For a brand, it’s going to be different again.
There’s this first part of engagement, which is: how do I get them to the door?
Then we’ve got engagement as in: how do people actually become involved a little bit more?
I definitely found that if people came to our church, if they could be involved in volunteering in some way, they’d stick around.
Even if they were helping with laying out chairs, teas and coffees, or greeting visitors, the moment they became involved, their involvement created far greater engagement.
I also figured out I had one request to all my congregation, which was: if a newcomer comes, would at least two people say hello to them?
That meant if anyone new came along, at least two people would say hi.
We’re not going over the top with saying hello, but we’re also not completely ignoring them, because many people would go to a church and no one would ever say hello to them because they’re too embarrassed.
Either it’s too much or it’s too little, so I just said: can two people say hello to them?
We had this really great rate of retention. People came and they would generally come back because we very quickly made friends with them.
My goal — and I was a bit of a renegade, I think — wasn’t to convert them to a religion. My goal was to have a space of care for people, knowing that community spaces seem to be declining.
My goal was just: how can we be a space of care to people?
People generally like to engage with that, but we still had to make sure we got to know them.
This is the stuff that I now train organisations in: greeting people.
I work with teams and they’ll say, “No one’s engaging in my meeting.” I’ll ask, “Do you greet them at the beginning by name?” Generally, they don’t. They’re too busy to greet people by name.
Little things like this make a massive difference.
We see the way this is mirrored in marketing online because we know that when your name is mentioned, it stops you in your tracks. It feels more personal.
You can go over the top, but you can also massively underplay it. So there’s something around the right level of engagement. Not too much, not too little — the Goldilocks effect, whatever we want to call it.
Really simple stuff.
Taking it a bit further, we know that faces on a website help the website convert more.
[11:28] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[11:29] Scott Gould:
Because we have to recognise we’re running 100,000-year-old brain software with the latest hardware, but our software is ancient.
Things like saying someone’s name, shaking their hand, greeting them, looking people in the eyes — or digital versions of that — are what we as humans like.
Really, really simple.
[11:55] Darren Jamieson:
I love that analogy. I’ve never heard that before — the 100,000-year-old brain software. Of course, it makes perfect sense. It is, isn’t it?
[12:04] Scott Gould:
Yeah. I mean, even our hardware is 100,000 years old. It’s the environment that we’re in. It’s the ecosystem.
Psychologists understand that we live in a society that we’ve not evolved for.
One of the ways that I train people is we play a game called “10,000 BC”. We take any challenge that you’re facing and strip it back. What does it look like 10,000 years ago?
There was a film called 10,000 BC, so I show the poster and it’s got a big sabre-tooth tiger or whatever. I’m like, “Right, strip it back.”
People begin to talk about tribes, danger, food, procurement of resources and safety. You strip it back to what we as humans are.
We are still living with those core basic things. It’s just that it’s no longer the sabre-tooth tiger — it’s the bailiff come to collect the debt.
[12:49] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[12:50] Scott Gould:
But it’s the same mechanism.
We can use that to figure out how people are going to engage with a website.
There’s plenty of research. There’s a great book called The Media Equation. It’s 30 years old but still not understood by Reeves and Nass. They say that people engage with media naturally and socially.
In other words, people expect a computer to work something like a human.
I’m not saying that it should have a smiley face, although actually we recognise that pictures on a website do convert better.
[13:19] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[13:20] Scott Gould:
And I’m not saying we go crazy on skeuomorphism, but there is something around us expecting things to work in similar ways.
They did this great study called “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop”. They found that someone would be disparaging about their laptop if it was in a different room, but if it was in front of them, they’d speak more nicely about the laptop, which is a massively social human thing to do.
[13:45] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[13:46] Scott Gould:
Because we imbue it with life.
Digital devices are like that. Here’s my laptop. Even my phone — when this is in the other room and you can’t get it, people’s cortisol levels go up. They become more stressed.
Even though we know rationally it doesn’t make sense, subconsciously we love these things. We treat them as humans. We treat them as people in our lives.
Flipping heck, it’s just the way it goes.
[14:13] Darren Jamieson:
It’s like when I go with my girlfriend and her son, and he goes swimming. We have to go into the swimming pool and wait, and we’re just sat on the side.
But you’re not allowed to get your phone out in a swimming pool because it’s not just in case you’re taking photos of people — it’s totally banned.
You’re sat there going, “I can’t look at my phone, and I really want to look at my phone.” It doesn’t make sense because it’s only 40 minutes, but I’ve got that burning desire to get my phone out just to see if I’ve had a WhatsApp message or notifications.
That’s addiction and dopamine and all of that stuff.
[14:49] Scott Gould:
Yeah, I mean, that’s part of it.
And of course, this device is filled with faces. All those notifications are going to be showing you faces. They’re also going to be showing you micro-animations.
Do you remember when phones were really basic, and then they began to adopt all these micro-animations?
The reason why micro-animations work in apps and on websites is because movement, to our 10,000, 100,000 or million-year-old brain, says that thing must be alive.
When something moves a little bit, you go, “Oh, that must be life.”
That’s why a TV with the volume off can’t remain unwatched, because your brain just naturally gets drawn to movement and also to the narrative, the story that’s going on.
If you want to get someone’s attention, you create a little bit of movement, and immediately we look at it. It gets attention. It might not get action, but it does get attention.
[15:37] Darren Jamieson:
Which is why on social media videos, a lot of influencers and salespeople — and people who are marketing and really good at it — right at the start of the video, they’ll do a pattern interrupt, which will create movement on the screen that you’re not expecting, so that it drags your attention to it.
Whereas if you’ve just got someone sat there talking, you’ll scroll past it.
[16:00] Scott Gould:
Yeah. They constantly do it. They show their face. They zoom in, zoom out. They chop in, chop out, which again is a pattern interrupt, as you’ve said.
I like to call it puncture the pattern. There’s a pattern — I’m going to puncture the pattern.
But then also they will use things where they completely follow the pattern, because you’ve just gone into auto mode.
Where you don’t want to puncture the pattern is subtitles. We completely follow the pattern. We just completely get it. We just read.
We naturally look at subtitle words, even when we don’t want to.
So you stick words on a video, and people immediately look at those words. It’s fascinating.
So much of this stuff is so basic.
There’s this thing called the Doherty Threshold. Three hundred milliseconds is the time that we expect something we interact with on a screen to respond to us. That’s the same amount of time that we expect it takes us to react, in human terms, to things.
If a website is slower than the Doherty Threshold, or if a Zoom call is slower, people begin to assume negative intent. They assume you’re being rude, you don’t care, or you’re not very competent.
Research demonstrates that if you keep having a lag on your Zoom call, people assume that you have a lower IQ.
[17:23] Darren Jamieson:
Really?
[17:24] Scott Gould:
Yeah. Part of it is because when we respond slowly to things — if I’m talking to you and you respond slowly to me — I’ll think, “Do you not understand me, or are you just being rude?”
We apply the same rule socially to media. Hence, when something begins to go slow, we think it’s rude.
Devices that begin to go slow, we begin to view them as aged members of society, and we begin to think, “Right, time to recycle them.”
[17:52] Darren Jamieson:
Even when it’s been proven that Apple admitted they did deliberately slow down phones to make you buy—
[17:59] Scott Gould:
Of course, of course, of course they did.
Slowing down something — you go, “Why can’t I handle it?” Because literally, our brains, when you go slow, think you’re being rude or incompetent.
So websites need to be fast because it demonstrates competence and care, which is really interesting. It’s just a thing that’s going on immediately.
Hence, all those micro-animations need to be speedy. It’s fascinating.
[18:28] Darren Jamieson:
Again, absolutely fascinating that this stuff happens the way it does.
I love what you said as well when you were talking about the church, and you mentioned how you get people more likely to stay if you give them a role, give them something to do, get them engaged with it.
I’m in a networking group — I don’t know if you’ve heard of it — called BNI, where we try to get people in the group to do things, to become a visitor host or to help set the room up. It gets them more involved with it.
It’s the same with businesses, which is probably what you help people with. If you’ve got employees in your business and they just turn up, do their job and then leave, they’re not engaged.
But if you empower them to take action, to become responsible for certain parts of the business, they’re going to be more engaged. They’re going to feel more ownership within it, and they’re going to stay longer if they do that.
So it’s about empowering people and giving them responsibility.
[19:15] Scott Gould:
Ownership is the word. You have ownership. You have skin in the game.
A little bit of this is going to reflect on you. You care about it.
There’s a concept known as the IKEA effect. Subconsciously, people value furniture they’ve made more than furniture they’ve bought but didn’t make.
Again, it’s subconscious. Rationally, I go, “Well, that’s rubbish.” But subconsciously, something you’ve actually put together with your own hands — because you’ve put effort in and you’ve customised it — you value more.
One of the really easy ways to engage someone in an initiative in your company is to involve them as opposed to tell them.
Obviously, this can be done badly, but again, there’s a good median of involvement.
Any parent knows this. You turn something into a game with your kid, you give them a role, and all of a sudden they’re loving it.
We can also do this with customers. We can even do this on a website.
One of the techniques we understand you use for onboarding with an app is you get people to customise the app slightly to themselves. Not so much that it creates friction, but just a little bit of customisation.
Now I’ve got skin in the game with this app. I’m less likely to delete it.
Obviously, we’ve got to get the right amount — not too little, not too much.
Even the act of visiting a website: if there can be some subtle customisation, such as filling in preferences or getting it to be just the way I like it, little things like that can help.
Even personality tests, quickly diagnosing things when you land on a website.
There’s a great thing called RightMessage — rightmessage.net, I think — by a guy called Brennan Dunn. What it does is it customises a website to the person who’s visiting it, which is really smart and kind of obvious.
Let’s say you’re selling websites, and someone comes to your website. Somehow, you’re able to pick up the signals that they’re into farming, so you put your farming case studies at the top of the page.
Someone else visits and you know they’re into sports, so you put the sports case studies at the top of the page.
One of the things they do is have a little survey that comes up. If it doesn’t know who you are, it pops up a little survey saying, “Delighted to meet you. Tell us a bit about yourself.”
People love it.
What’s really good about RightMessage is the survey is a pop-up in the bottom right or left-hand corner. It’s not a full-screen “I can’t do anything” thing. It’s not an annoying cookie consent thing.
It’s this little thing, and it’s done in a way that feels conversational.
Again, this mirrors human behaviour.
If I come up to you in the street and get right in your face, saying, “You cannot walk past me unless you answer these questions,” you’re like, “Get out of my way. You’re irritating me.”
But just to the side — “Hey, I’d love to hear a bit about you” — now that’s the right amount.
Again, a lot of these things are not too little, not too much. It’s the Goldilocks. It’s the nice middle ground.
[22:17] Darren Jamieson:
It’s funny you mention that. We’ve done stuff like that.
One of our web designers was investigating this about two years ago, and it was specifically with businesses that have a very different kind of client.
For example, an electrician might have residential clients, but they might also have commercial clients. There’s always that question of where to pitch my website.
I don’t want to put the residential clients off by making them think I’m too expensive or they’re too small for me. But I don’t want to put the commercial clients off by making them think that I just do stuff in people’s homes.
So the website was dynamically built to change the content based on what somebody had searched for or where they had come from.
If they’re looking for residential rewire, they come into a page on residential rewire. They then go to the homepage, and the homepage knows where they’ve come from and changes the content so that it’s predominantly about residential stuff, so they’re not put off by it.
So it doesn’t mean two different websites. It doesn’t mean two different pages. It’s just dynamic based on what the user is looking for, and the user has no idea that’s happened.
[23:23] Scott Gould:
Yeah, it’s fantastic.
It’s kind of obvious. In 2008, Seth Godin wrote the book Permission Marketing. It’s funny that such a simple idea is still hard.
He was saying the idea is someone gives you their permission that you might market to them in a timely, relevant manner.
Once they’ve given you some information about themselves, then yes, customise the website.
Someone who visits the first time might get something a little bit different to someone who visits later. This was back when the mechanism for this was cookies and so forth.
We now have so much to do this with, and yet still so little personalisation happens. It’s a shame. We miss out.
But we do this as humans.
You meet someone and they’re evidently a child. You talk to them in a younger manner. Someone appears to be more important; you might adapt your register accordingly.
This isn’t actually lying. It’s just emphasising the part of me that’s relevant for this moment — not denying the other parts, just putting forward the part that’s relevant.
Our communication should be the same. There’s an art to designing communications to be adaptive.
I like to use the analogy of an egg. If you crack a dozen eggs, they’re always going to have roughly the same size yolk. But it’s the egg white, the albumen, that changes or adapts, and you can customise it to how you like your eggs or whatever it might be.
The yolk is always the same.
So it’s this idea of: we want a consistent core. This is our core thing, but the outer can adapt.
You want your website to be able to adapt.
[24:56] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, definitely.
[24:58] Scott Gould:
You want to be able to create campaigns that adapt.
This is what we do with A/B testing. Consistent core, and then we’re just adapting. Is it A or B? We’re just seeing and adjusting.
This is what we do when we run campaigns: consistent core, but we’re adjusting the message to see how it might suit.
I think it’s a really simple concept, but definitely a very human thing to do.
[25:22] Darren Jamieson:
It’s a bit frustrating more people don’t do it, to be honest, because this kind of technology has existed for 25 years.
When I was building websites in the late ’90s and early 2000s, I had functions on them where you could choose the theme and the colour of the website yourself with a dropdown based on your preferences and what you liked.
As you said, it was cookie-based, so it remembered you. You’d go back to the website and it would put the same cookie on it.
When I worked at GAME in 2000, 2002, they had newsletters that were sent out. There’s no point sending out stuff about Xbox if you’re a PlayStation player.
You would be able to log in, subscribe to the newsletter and tick what consoles you had, what type of games you were into, and then the newsletter was written in a big content management system. It went out with different bits depending on what you’d actually selected.
So if you’re an Xbox player who’s into RPGs, you get that content in the newsletter. There’s no point sending you something about FIFA on the PlayStation because it wasn’t relevant.
All that functionality existed back then, but a lot of people aren’t using it now. They’re just shouting out the same message to everybody and, to bring it back to it, they’re not doing the engagement.
[26:32] Scott Gould:
Yeah, you’re right. They’re not engaging.
What does that tell us about engagement?
They’re not seeking the we. They’re going, “Me, and I hope you like it too.”
Sometimes you strike it. It lands, and you get a we.
But the better way for me to get a we is for me to go, “Hang on. Let me figure out what you like, and let’s find where we have common ground.”
We would call that product-market fit if we were in SaaS, right?
How do I find the thing that I can supply that you want, and it’s hand in glove, recognising I’ve got a lot of different gloves for a lot of different people with different sized hands, but I can adapt my message to fit all of them?
Yeah, you’re right. It’s work, isn’t it? It’s effort. It takes a bit of time.
I think also this is where you’re well positioned as Engage Web. It takes, I think, an external company to help people with engagement because we can’t see the wood for the trees.
[27:30] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, 100%.
[27:35] Scott Gould:
That saying, “You can’t read the label from inside the bottle,” is perhaps flawed, but it makes sense.
You need someone else who doesn’t have the cognitive miasma. People are like, “But we could do it.”
Really, no. All of us are better at observing others than we are at observing ourselves. It’s called the Solomon paradox.
King Solomon was really wise on others’ affairs but really bad at managing his own. He was known as the wisest king, and yet he made the worst personal decisions possible, as it seems.
Again, that’s because when we’re so involved, we are over-involved. We’re so affected that we have all these biases, whereas someone external doesn’t.
So yes, you definitely want to work with an external CRM person. You definitely want to work with an external agency. They’re going to see things you just do not see anymore because your brain has trained itself not to see them. You’re too close to it.
[28:49] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, and the biases that kick in.
[28:52] Scott Gould:
You want both. I’m not saying you want to be completely outsourced. You want a nice mix of the two working together.
The outside keeps you fresh, and internally you build up your capabilities and so forth.
[29:03] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. It’s why even Richard Branson has a business coach.
[29:08] Scott Gould:
It’s why any professional sports person has a coach.
[29:14] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[29:15] Scott Gould:
Let’s not get us started on that, isn’t it?
So much of our work in businesses, we just have this arrogance of, “We can do it ourselves.”
And yet, if my plumbing goes — well, actually, I do my own plumbing.
[29:30] Darren Jamieson:
Bad example.
[29:31] Scott Gould:
Bad example, but come on. Let’s get the specialist in.
[29:37] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. I do come across a lot of people that try and do it themselves — whatever it is: marketing, web design, content. They try and do it themselves because they know best. They know their industry best, or they think they do.
But what I tend to find is that most people, particularly when it’s a very niche specialist industry, want to do it themselves because they know it best. They only know it from inside.
They don’t know what their audience is looking for, what their clients are looking for, what their target client is looking for.
You’ll see that a lot with websites, such as IT websites. They’ll use terminology that their clients don’t understand.
[30:13] Scott Gould:
Yeah.
[30:13] Darren Jamieson:
I was looking at one yesterday, which was a removal website. It was about heavy lifting, very heavy items down blocks of stairs, and it kept using this term “rams” all over the website.
I’m looking at it thinking, “What the hell does that mean?”
At no point have they explained that in their industry, that means something. They get it. Their target audience is someone who wants to move something.
I don’t understand heavy moving of machinery. I just have something that wants to be moved. So why are they prattling on about rams when nobody’s going to understand what it actually means?
[30:44] Scott Gould:
The curse of knowledge.
[30:46] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[30:47] Scott Gould:
I can’t imagine what it’s like to not know this.
A friend of mine did teacher training, and he said they taught them to count with letters.
A plus A is B. What’s B plus H?
[31:07] Darren Jamieson:
J. Oh, J. Right, J. Yeah.
[31:15] Scott Gould:
Yeah. So his whole thing was, we are so used to counting with numbers.
The way to remind ourselves what it’s like to learn numbers, and how hard it is for kids, is to add letters. You suddenly go, “Oh, flip.”
In the same way, we are so in it that we forget what it’s like to not do it.
Hence, you want the outside.
I think the nice mix is someone on the outside helping you build internal capability and keeping you fresh, and you retain both. Again, nice middle ground, nice medium of both elements coming together.
[31:54] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, that’s what I like.
There’s something else you mentioned about the church, which again I wanted to draw back to because I think that’s really important.
When you said when you get new people in, you make sure that at least two people say hello to them, and you bring that into business as well as greeting people.
Again, that’s something we try to do within our networking group, because there’s nothing worse than visiting somewhere for the first time. You don’t know anybody, and nobody speaks to you.
You come away thinking, “That’s really cliquey. It’s very impenetrable. I didn’t enjoy the experience. I don’t want to go back.”
Yet so often I see it where you’ll go somewhere and people will just ignore you. They’ll stand in their little groups because they all know each other and they’ll talk to each other. Somebody new, they’ll completely ignore.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why businesses don’t get a hold of that and why networking groups don’t get a hold of it.
[32:49] Scott Gould:
Often people do it because they don’t want to overload you. But in not wanting to overload you, we completely go under.
I always liked two because, from an engagement perspective, three is a great number.
If I meet you at a networking thing and I come over and say hello to you, you and I have a one-on-one conversation. I have to be completely focused on what you’re saying. You have to be completely focused on what I’m saying.
You add in a third person, and immediately I’m able to be 50% less focused because we’ve now got three ways of conversation. I can relax a little bit. Someone else can pick up the slack in the conversation and so forth.
It also means I’m twice as likely to find something in common because there are two of you, not just one.
So I really like the idea of a three-way conversation. It just takes the pressure off. While I’m speaking, two are listening. It’s a little bit more relaxed. Two can respond rather than one.
In the same way, if we’re talking about networking, a three-way thing is good.
I advocate in organisations — one-to-ones are good, and you should have one-to-ones certainly, but actually one-to-twos, little groups of three, are good too.
You may know at Oxbridge, Cambridge and Oxford, they teach tutorials with the professor and a group of two or three students. It’s a small, intimate group, but it’s more leverage than just one because we learn socially. We learn by connecting horizontally, not just upwards.
The more I’m able to have people who are peers that I’m able to talk with, the more I can internalise and learn this.
One of the things I do when I’m working with teams is I’m looking for the way people connect to each other, not to me — to each other.
What do they say to each other? I’m listening in the breaks. What are they saying to each other? Because that’s the gold. What they say to me is going to be filtered.
In the same way, that mechanism works really well on a website. If you go onto someone’s website and they tell you what other customers have said—
[34:58] Darren Jamieson:
Ah, I like that. That’s good.
[35:02] Scott Gould:
When we go to see films, they’ll have the reviews.
This is the concept of social proof. Again, it’s the recognition that we as humans are not solitary. We like there to be a few of us.
You know, two’s company, three’s a crowd. Actually, three is a great number.
[35:19] Darren Jamieson:
Three’s company.
[35:21] Scott Gould:
Three’s company. Four’s company. Two is a date.
[35:30] Darren Jamieson:
And actually, maybe I just need to soften it from being a date.
No, I get that. When I’m in a group of three, I’m usually the quietest, if you can believe such a thing, because I will relax. I will think, “Right, other people. I’m just going to listen now.”
And if I hear something I need to jump in on or suggest, then I will. But I’ll let you guys do the talking. So I do much prefer that.
[35:52] Scott Gould:
Even now on this podcast, if there was a third person, I’d be listening to what you say, what they say, and I’m a little bit like, “Ah, I don’t have to feel the pressure to speak up.”
But then when I have something interesting, I’m vibing off what you’ve been saying to each other.
Whereas this right now is a bit more intense, isn’t it? There’s a greater weight on me and you to come up with great stuff.
[36:16] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, it’s a challenge.
Do you know, this is something like the 218th podcast, I think. They’re not all interviews — some are solo podcasts — but it’s probably about 150 interviews, maybe more.
I do find them very tiring.
[36:33] Scott Gould:
Yeah.
[36:34] Darren Jamieson:
This is feeling like therapy now, like I’m confessing to you.
I do find them very tiring because I have to really concentrate on what the other person’s saying. I have to listen. If I’ve got a question that comes up from what you’re saying, I have to think about it.
I’m not making notes. I tell people I don’t have any questions in front of me. I genuinely don’t. I’m listening to what you’re saying, I’m remembering it, and I’m coming back with a question based on something you’ve said.
So I really have to focus. When the podcast episode is finished, I am drained.
[37:01] Scott Gould:
Yeah. Totally. You would be less drained if it was a small group, just because of the dispersal of the need for you to handle it all.
Again, that’s a thing around humans: we find comfort in that small group number. We’re able to rest. Each person doesn’t need to contribute as much for it to be sustained.
We rely more on synergy — engagement. You and me, a bunch of you and mes, create a really nice we.
But then, of course, it gets too big at the other end. There’s just a nice happy medium. For me, I like three to five.
Three to five for a group is lovely.
[37:44] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. I’ve done a couple of podcasts — I think it is two podcasts — where there have been two guests at the same time, and they have been much easier. Much, much easier.
[37:56] Scott Gould:
Yeah. Or you get that thing of there being a co-host — two hosts — and then they get the person on.
Obviously, some of it might be harder because of the individuals, but it’s interesting that you would reflect on that.
Again, how do we use that same thing for our marketing?
Certainly when it comes to LinkedIn, mentioning other people makes it less me talking to you. It’s more that there’s a we, there’s a few of us here.
If you were to invite someone to BNI, you’re not saying, “Come along to BNI, it’s me, Darren.” There’s a group of us.
A group denotes safety.
One of the things around how I get someone engaged is that you and me becoming a we is quite intense, but you lot and me coming together is a little bit less intense.
It’s like, let’s go from the singular to the plural.
So a we and a me is even easier. There’s a sense there of safety in numbers.
Hence, when someone goes on your website, the ability for them to recognise, “This is what others have said. This is what others have bought,” all of these things are good mechanisms.
McDonald’s: six billion hamburgers sold this week, or whatever it might be. That number just denotes a sense of, “Ah, not just me. There are others here.”
[39:11] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. It’s why — I’m sure it’s a common sales tactic — it’s something we do. I’m revealing information here. This is possibly jeopardous.
One of the things we’ll do in proposals or when we’re doing presentations to people is we will say, “Most clients go for this option,” because everybody wants to be most people.
I want to go with what most people choose. If most people have gone for that, that’s probably the right one for me.
If I said, “Very few people choose this one. This is the one hardly anyone picks,” you wouldn’t want to do it.
So, “Most people choose that,” which is what you said about McDonald’s. This many hamburgers sold. I want to be another one of those people because everyone else is doing it, then I should do it.
[39:57] Scott Gould:
Yeah. The saying with social proof is: to the degree that we are unsure, we rely on the actions of others.
When you’re at passport control, or you’re at a till, and there’s a long queue, and then there’s a cashier next to it but no one’s queueing there, everyone assumes, “Ah, well, there must be a reason why.”
Then someone goes, and then all the others go, “Oh, flipping heck,” and they’ll get across and it will even out.
The reason we don’t at first is because we’re unsure.
However, if I’m arriving in the UK, I’m totally going to go to the shortest line because I’m familiar in my own country, whereas I’m less familiar in another country.
So, the degree to which we are uncertain, we rely on others.
Yes, your leads are going to be uncertain, so knowing what the most popular option is will help.
However, a lead that knows you very well, or is very proficient in web marketing and all of this stuff, they’re going to want to know, “Okay, what’s your recommendation here? What’s the elite pathway?”
That “most people choose this” now becomes a negative, actually, because when you say that, it would denote sloppiness.
Again, the same tactic can be good in one situation and bad in another based upon the relationship.
If you think about your partner — you’ve mentioned your girlfriend — you’re not going to say, “Right, well, most people I date choose for me to take them here.” But that could work really well in a different scenario.
[41:32] Darren Jamieson:
It definitely would not work well with her. I can tell you that now. She would not go for that.
Jeez, I’m just thinking of her response now. She’s Ukrainian. It would not go well.
One thing I wanted to pick up on as well that you mentioned about visitors, introducing them to people and speaking to them.
One thing we do with visitors to our networking group is that we don’t want to leave them alone.
If someone is speaking to a visitor and they’ve come for the first time, they’ve never been before, someone will talk to them. We drill it into all of the members: don’t just talk to them and then walk off and leave them on their own. Introduce them to someone else.
[42:18] Scott Gould:
We call it pass the parcel.
[42:21] Darren Jamieson:
Pass the parcel is a great name.
Don’t try and sell to them about what you do, as you were saying. It’s not me, me.
Ask them about themselves. Ask them what they do, who they would like to speak to, who would be a good contact for them, and then introduce them to that person.
Give them a good experience of being there. That’s what we try to do.
[42:42] Scott Gould:
You mentioned some good things there.
We could call what you’re describing social threading. You’re weaving together a thread.
This is a classic one. Someone comes in and you talk to them. You go, “I’m going to go and get some breakfast now, but let me introduce you to so-and-so before I do,” or whatever it might be.
Really simple.
I would also say that it’s not all about them. Actually, the best way to engage someone is to find out what you and them have in common.
If I was at your networking group and you were the visitor, I wouldn’t be going, “Who are you looking to meet today? Let me find someone.” I’d actually look to build the common ground.
“So tell me about what you do. Oh yeah, I’ve done something like that too.”
I would look to build the common ground, because common ground is what engages us.
Common ground is where we already are a we. Then, all of a sudden, we get engaged by virtue of what we have in common.
That’s what we do. We engage over we.
If I can demonstrate we are already a we in a number of areas, instant engagement kicks in.
We all know what this is like when you meet someone and you go, “Oh, I do that too.” All of a sudden, you feel it click. The you and the me clicks. We become a we, and now we’re a little bubble.
The analogy I use for this is: you’re walking down a street in a foreign country and you hear someone speak English. What do you do?
[44:06] Darren Jamieson:
Well, I run away personally, but I know most people do.
[44:10] Scott Gould:
That’s fantastic.
[44:12] Darren Jamieson:
I don’t want to, particularly if it’s a cockney.
[44:17] Scott Gould:
“Oh, let’s go and get some fish and chips.”
Actually, I’d love a cockney. It’s more Brits abroad, the lairy type. Notwithstanding Brits abroad, what most people do is their head will crane to go, “Oh, who said that?”
It’s an involuntary response. Commonality is so powerful.
Hence, again, the website that adjusts itself to the search terms is just demonstrating commonality quicker.
Again, a very human thing that we can achieve digitally. Really simple.
[44:56] Darren Jamieson:
There is a fantastic clip on social media — it goes around TikTok every now and then — with Henry Cavill, who was Superman.
Henry Cavill, if you don’t know, is a massive nerd. He builds his own computers. He plays Dungeons and Dragons.
[45:14] Scott Gould:
Warhammer.
[45:15] Darren Jamieson:
Warhammer, yes. Well, he’s making a Warhammer TV series or film now.
There’s a clip where he’s talking about Warhammer, and there are two actresses in the shot and they’re bemused by all of this. The host is on the verge of taking the piss out of him for Warhammer.
Then one of the other guests says, “Oh, you play Warhammer? What army are you running right now?”
He starts describing the army, and then there’s almost an unspoken connection. They don’t even finish sentences. It’s like, “Oh, I’m running—” “Shall we?” “Yes. Yeah, let’s do that.”
It’s how quickly they connect just because they’re both into Warhammer, which you wouldn’t normally get when you’re on a chat show with other actors or music.
[45:56] Scott Gould:
Yeah. The more that the commonality happens within an uncommon space or an unexpected space, the more it connects us.
Again, to the degree to which we are uncertain, we follow the actions of others. The degree to which commonality is unexpected, it becomes more potent.
If I’m walking down the street in Djibouti—
[46:20] Darren Jamieson:
Where’s Djibouti?
[46:21] Scott Gould:
It’s a country in Africa.
And then someone says to me, “Oh yeah, hello, Scott,” that’s an incredible degree of commonality.
I travel a lot, particularly in Eastern Europe, it seems. I’ll be in cities that no Brit, I can imagine, has a reason to be there. Then you hear a British voice and you’re like, “Oh my goodness, why are you here?”
You just can’t help but ask, “Why are you here?”
Again, the degree to which the commonality is unexpected, it becomes all the more potent.
Imagine it 10,000 BC: I’m a tribe and I meet someone who is in my tribe, even though I’m miles away from my tribe. I immediately feel safe.
It’s just what it does.
Really simple mechanisms. How can we then apply that to our website?
Even the saying, “You’re in the right place. If you’re looking for X, you’re in the right place.”
[47:15] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[47:16] Scott Gould:
“Oh, I am looking for X. Oh, I’m glad I’m in the right place.”
Really simple language formulations.
I’m a bit of an Apple fanboy, although they certainly have lost a lot of their polish in recent years, but I’ve always appreciated the way they have used human things in their marketing.
When you update the new version of iOS, it will say hello.
[47:40] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[47:41] Scott Gould:
That’s been a long-standing Mac thing.
The examples they use have always been friendly, human, everyday examples. They try to use everyday stuff.
Do you remember their “Get a Mac” adverts? “Hi, I’m a Mac. I’m a PC.” They personified them.
[47:58] Darren Jamieson:
David Mitchell and Justin—
[48:01] Scott Gould:
Oh yeah, they did the UK version.
[48:03] Darren Jamieson:
David Mitchell did the UK version.
[48:05] Scott Gould:
Yeah, the American version was Justin Long.
Again, it’s just really humanising it.
[48:13] Darren Jamieson:
He’s a real nerd, yeah.
[48:15] Scott Gould:
I need to check them again, actually. Thank you for reminding me of the UK ones.
Again, the fact that they did UK ones is another layer. The American ones wouldn’t have landed as well if they’d done that here.
[48:27] Darren Jamieson:
Well, they landed, but they landed in a different way. In a British way, that helped them expand in the British market.
[48:35] Scott Gould:
Yeah, really good.
In fact, just yesterday an article came out from Esquire with Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, talking about how important engagement is to him.
He was saying it’s really about not just telling them, but going and understanding the cultures of the nations where you’re selling and doing business.
[48:51] Darren Jamieson:
Even Apple is a perfect example of engaging and speaking to the customer about what they actually want.
The iPod came out around the same time as — I think it was Microsoft or Samsung — Zune had an MP3—
[49:06] Scott Gould:
Microsoft Zune came later, but at the time there were a few other MP3 players.
[49:10] Darren Jamieson:
They were ugly things.
[49:12] Scott Gould:
Yeah, but they were all on about the gigabytes, the storage capacity and what it was, whereas the iPod was “10,000 songs in your pocket.”
[49:20] Darren Jamieson:
Amazing line. It was such a good line.
Again, it got right to the thing of don’t sell the feature, sell the benefit.
[49:29] Scott Gould:
Yeah. I do a lot of training with this in engagement.
Even today, I sent a proposal to a client, and with the outcomes, one of them was: “You will be less worried.”
[49:41] Darren Jamieson:
Nice.
[49:42] Scott Gould:
So yes, better staff retention, improved profits and, critically, less worry.
You say better performance and that looks good. This project isn’t really being done for prestige. One of the fundamental things is they’re worried about staff retention.
This will just reduce your worry.
[50:07] Darren Jamieson:
Ultimately, that’s what I’m buying here: less worry. That is what people want.
It’s like with us. We don’t talk about websites because businesses don’t want a website. They want what comes from it. They want the sales. They want the enquiries. They want the business. They want the new clients. That’s what they want.
[50:24] Scott Gould:
Yeah.
[50:25] Darren Jamieson:
So the line I use is, “We don’t build websites, we build businesses.”
[50:29] Scott Gould:
Yeah. A frightfully simple concept that even 20 years ago people were saying this, and 10 years ago particularly they were really emphasising this: you’re not selling a website, you’re selling a business outcome.
But you’re right, it still hasn’t caught on.
Again, the reason why it doesn’t is because we’re there talking about rams, or whatever it was with the removal company — which I still don’t know what that is.
[50:52] Darren Jamieson:
Still don’t know what it is.
[50:53] Scott Gould:
And we’re there talking about the stuff that we care about because we’re too deep in it. We need the fresh eyes.
We’re now back where we started, aren’t we? We talk about when you and me becomes a we.
[51:05] Scott Gould:
We’re so in me, we don’t even know what you is anymore.
And then the way that we try to engage is we go, “Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.”
“Why don’t you care about me?”
“Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.”
And then we think we need to shout louder. We do what Brits do: if they don’t understand you, speak slower and louder.
[51:25] Darren Jamieson:
“Mon Rodney. Mon. Do you sell voulez-vous beer? Cules beer. Merci buckets.”
[51:36] Scott Gould:
Yeah. And that’s what we do, because we’re so wrapped up in our own bottle. Actually, you’ve got to get out.
I stopped being a church minister 11 years ago and, flipping heck, I understood church far better no longer being in it, being my job.
[51:53] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, because my job—
[51:55] Scott Gould:
Yeah. My job was to lead a church.
It took me getting out of a church and having a non-religious job that made me realise what real life is really like.
[52:04] Darren Jamieson:
Oh, that’s an interesting comment.
[52:06] Scott Gould:
Oh yeah. Definitely, definitely.
Being a full-time church minister, you’re high on your own supply. You’re so in it that you don’t see the wood for the trees anymore.
[52:18] Darren Jamieson:
Does that mean if you went back, you’d be a lot better at it?
[52:22] Scott Gould:
I hope I would be better at it.
But I might be better at it in a way that doesn’t fulfil the metrics that are important.
So maybe I wouldn’t be worried about how many people came along and all of that stuff, or how many people got baptised. Maybe I’d be thinking about different stuff.
But yeah, I wouldn’t be thinking it was as important as I thought it was. That’s for sure.
[52:53] Darren Jamieson:
One thing I wanted to ask you is that you do keynote talks.
[52:58] Scott Gould:
I do. Yeah.
[52:59] Darren Jamieson:
I was wondering, what sort of locations do you do those at, what kind of stages and audiences, and how do you get those?
[53:07] Scott Gould:
I’ve been public speaking for a long time and, obviously, I was a church minister, so I’ve been public speaking for 25 years. I have a lot of experience.
I’ve spoken on almost every continent except Antarctica.
[53:23] Darren Jamieson:
I was thinking Antarctica might be the one.
[53:26] Scott Gould:
I came close. I had a trip on a boat and I was kind of off the shore of New Zealand, but it wasn’t quite far enough.
[53:38] Darren Jamieson:
Gutted.
[53:39] Scott Gould:
Yeah, gutted.
Ten years ago, I had stopped being a church minister, and I applied to speak at a conference on a case study about Lego. They said sure, and I got it.
Then I wrote my book, and then I began reaching out to conferences and saying, “I’ve got this book. Could I speak at your event?”
It was all digital, because I used to run a digital conference myself, so I managed to get speaking at those.
Then it just slowly built up.
I don’t do it as much now, but typically I’ll be a keynote speaker and get paid a fair amount for being the keynote speaker at a conference.
Generally, those aren’t business conferences that you can attend. They’re generally company conferences or association events, and normally they’re not public events.
I do that, and it’s nice, but the effects aren’t long-lasting.
[54:33] Darren Jamieson:
Do you mean the effects to your business, or the adrenaline rush of doing it?
[54:41] Scott Gould:
No, the benefit to the hearer.
[54:44] Darren Jamieson:
Ah.
[54:45] Scott Gould:
Conferences are really ridiculous.
People will pay a lot of money for a good-name keynote speaker, who you will forget 90% of what they said, and you will apply even less. You apply minimal amounts.
Having a coach on a regular basis, regular training, regular coaching is far more effective than keynotes, training programmes and all of this stuff.
Just consistent sharpening of the saw is far better.
[55:18] Darren Jamieson:
It’s like that famous quote, isn’t it? People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
[55:26] Scott Gould:
Yeah. You have to recognise that you’re going there to create a feeling, ultimately, and your client is the conference organiser and making them look good. You’ve got all this stuff going on.
So I don’t like keynote speeches in the sense that they’re all glitter and everything, but in terms of actual change, in terms of actually helping people become better, I far prefer coaching.
[55:49] Darren Jamieson:
So coaching is the big thing for you?
[55:51] Scott Gould:
Well, I say coaching. Even then, not coaching like, you know, “Tell me,” using the GROW model or whatever.
I just mean conversations with people where you’re helping them get better.
Let’s work on this together. Tell me what you’re thinking about. Let’s do this.
That’s what I did as a church minister. I was a pastor. I’d see people and I’d go around to their house for dinner, have coffees with them, be there for them in hard situations, and get to know them when times are good.
Obviously, I’d do a lot of visiting and everything, but it was just those little micro-conversations. Then you see them every week, so then it’s just, “How did that go? How’s it going doing that?”
That, for me, is where it’s always been: regularity of conversations around getting better or staying good.
[56:38] Darren Jamieson:
It’s like anything in life, isn’t it? If you want to get good at it, you’ve got to practise.
Whether it’s sport, whether it’s writing, whether it’s singing, whether it’s going to the gym, you’ve got to do it regularly.
There’s no point doing it once and thinking, “That’s it. I’ve done it now. I’m going to be brilliant at it.”
[56:53] Scott Gould:
And you’ve got to then observe how you did, make adjustments, experiment, all of that stuff.
Hence, I just don’t like days of training because I just feel like, what’s the point in this?
[57:04] Darren Jamieson:
Interesting.
[57:05] Scott Gould:
I find it really frustrating. Anyway, that’s a different conversation for a different day.
[57:09] Darren Jamieson:
It is. And would you believe we’re out of time?
[57:11] Scott Gould:
Yeah, I know. That went quick.
[57:13] Darren Jamieson:
That went really quick, didn’t it?
As a final point, anyone listening to this thinking, “I would love to work with you. I’d love to find out more about you. I’d love to reach out and contact you.” What’s the best way for someone to get in touch?
[57:24] Scott Gould:
Well, I would love, if you’re listening to this and you want to just find out more about engagement, I’d be delighted to connect.
I’m a very human person, so reach out to me on LinkedIn. Scott Gould is my LinkedIn username. Just search for Scott Gould or Scott Gould Engagement.
I’m online at scottgould.com.
If you go on YouTube, Scott Gould Engagement, you’ll get loads of videos and stuff where you can watch.
But yeah, reach out to me. [scott@scottgould.com](mailto:scott@scottgould.com) is my email, and I’d love to say hello.
Flipping heck, life’s too short to not enjoy saying hello to people.
[57:59] Darren Jamieson:
I love that.
I will put the links for those below the podcast. So, if you’re watching on YouTube, it’s in the description. If you’re listening on iTunes, Spotify, Spotify, Spotify, Audible—
I love Spotify.
[58:11] Scott Gould:
Who doesn’t love Spotify?
[58:13] Darren Jamieson:
It’s in Spotify. I don’t know why I spotted a fly. I don’t know why.
[58:17] Scott Gould:
Yeah. Said the old woman who lived in the shoe.
[58:20] Darren Jamieson:
So it’s written below in the podcast, so scroll down and you can connect directly with Scott there.
Scott, thank you very much for being a guest on The Engaging Marketeer.
[58:28] Scott Gould:
Darren, thank you, and I really appreciate being on a podcast with such a great name.
