Chris Norton: 0:00

Welcome back to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. Today, we're joined by Guy Utley from Tall Agency to chat all about the importance of specialists in marketing and choosing the right person for the right job. We also get into the chaotic nature of the pitch process, the need to be on your A game, and those difficult presentations and the results of pitching the morning after a particular heavy night of drinking, which certainly made me laugh. So, as always, grab a cuppa, relax and let's hear more about how specialisms are key and how you can get more out of pitching properly. Enjoy, guy Utley. Welcome to the show.

Guy Utley: 0:39

Thank you very much for having me. It's a privilege.

Chris Norton: 0:41

So you're a and I've got your title here. You're the founder and executive creative director at tall agency. Yeah, sounds posh, it does. Now a creative director they, they're the ones that pontificate and think about things deeply, much more mindfully than a, than a pr consultant, I would imagine. So why don't you just let me into how you got into what you do now? How did you start your career and get into creative, into the creative industry?

Guy Utley: 1:08

okay, I'll do the short version, but we'll go way. Back in school I wasn't the most academic. I think we quickly worked out it was quite creative, but I wasn't going to be an a-star english student or mathematical scientist or whatever. So my covers on the paperwork that I was putting in for my English documentation were getting higher grades than the actual work itself because they were entertaining and creative in terms of its cover.

Guy Utley: 1:37

So, I definitely knew I was going to go down that creative career. Then computers came along, web came along even though I thought I was going to be designing sort of album covers and all the exciting stuff. And then there's this website stuff that came along, and there's digital and all this exciting new media. That was a long time ago. But I think that sort of mixture of what we now I now understand to be sort of a mixture of critical thinking and creativity I must have been good at and I enjoyed very much as well. So I think applying that to the industry that I've fallen into has created my career really and it's sort of gone from there.

Chris Norton: 2:19

Yeah, I mean, yeah, what you say there about being creative. To be a brilliant creative it takes, I think, I curiosity, um, but I can't draw like I don't know how anyone can. People are artistically brilliant. I can tell what looks good and what doesn't look good because we work in brand. You know communication. You, I did graphic communication at uni but I still can't do. Are you great? Are you great at doing the art? I, I'm not a fine art guy, I'm not a fine art kind of guy.

Guy Utley: 2:47

I think I've got a low B in fine art. There are a lot of people better than me in that sense. I think it was more like taking abstract thinking and a creative angle to bring it into a different light and to show it in a different way. So I'll give you an example. I work with way, way smarter people than me in some of the brands that we work with. Do I name drop yeah?

Will Ockenden: 3:06

you can do that Do, I do that.

Guy Utley: 3:08

So you know we're working with people in Billund at Lego.

Guy Utley: 3:11

You know these are super, super smart people that probably were A-star in their way, and I found out over the lifetime of working with people like this is why we're useful to them, people like me is they've got this really really quite technically complicated thing that they've got to explain to people, whether it be their audience, their customers, their c-suite level, um, to go get a budget signed off, we I can translate translate that in a way through a story and creativity that they can't.

Guy Utley: 3:43

So so and then that's the perfect partnership. So it's a very different skill set to have, but it's one that works. So whether you're trying to explain offset mortgages, which is one of the dullest things you could probably be creative about, but you can bring that to life in a 60 second animation to cut to the chase in terms of like how it actually works In layman's terms, but do it in a creatively, really engaging way, that's gold dust to someone who's in finance and who's put that offset mortgage structure together. So I think creative is using many, many different ways and I think it is a. It is a true skill I think to have, and I'm really lucky enough to have a creative team around me that can execute that now.

Will Ockenden: 4:25

So you touched on it by mentioning Lego. But why don't you talk to us about the kind of work and the kind of clients you have on the books at Tool Agency?

Guy Utley: 4:34

So we have a mixture of global through to small local Yorkshire businesses, spanning through from food sector fast-moving goods to toy brands such as Lego. So we've got locally Shark Ninja, which are Leeds-based but also London-based and Boston-based, and we work with all the teams across those three areas. So Shark Ninja, if you don't know them, they're the ninja fryers, the vacuums, the hair curlers, the hair straighteners.

Chris Norton: 5:04

I didn't even know they were in Leeds.

Guy Utley: 5:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah Just announced it's Leeds, but the main businesses run from America but they're obviously global.

Chris Norton: 5:12

They're going everywhere, yeah, yeah.

Guy Utley: 5:13

So that's a fascinating business, very fast-paced, run by a CEO called Mark Baracus who's dominating the world. Obviously, we know of the Dysons of the world, so you put them in that level. And then Lego is obviously probably one of the brands I would write down. If I could work with three brands ever in my career, that would be one of them. Fascinating business, family-owned, multi-billion-pound global company full of very, very smart people. So they do keep you on your toes.

Will Ockenden: 5:48

I was just reading about the latest LEGO PR stunt at the. Was it the? Miami GP Fantastic, yeah, really, really I mean they basically created working F1 cars for the Miami LEGO.

Guy Utley: 6:01

In LEGO, yeah, in LEGO. Amazing, I mean. Imagine being like that marketing team and going what could we do? Imagine just building 10 F1 cars. All right, let's do it.

Will Ockenden: 6:10

That's the thing. You can literally roll that idea out in multiple yeah yeah, it's like right. What can we build in Lego? That's amazing.

Chris Norton: 6:17

I've still got a half-built Millennium Falcon that I. I don't think an F1 car might be a bit beyond that.

Will Ockenden: 6:24

My experience of Lego is basically walking into my son's room to wake him up in the morning and treading on a bit of Lego, oh yeah, classic, classic, yeah, absolutely.

Chris Norton: 6:34

So you've said in your notes this is a quote from yourself I wouldn't use a painter to fix my roof. Do you want to give us an example of where you've seen brands or agencies doing this and what it means in?

Guy Utley: 6:49

a creative context so I think, I think there's a couple of things here right, so we stick to what we're good at. Yeah, so I I don't profess to, I can't do paid. I don't know the first thing about paid media or setting up a huge event, or you know, I know digital, I know, I know my, my boundaries and I think, um, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna this, I'm not gonna go all like sour on things. But I think there's there's companies out there that try and do too much and I think it's really, really tempting because the client's asking you to do more and more and more. And can you help us with this? It's really, really tempting to do that, but I really believe that having a specialism and and using a specialist to do that job's the right thing to do. So what I'm sort of saying is that you wouldn't. You wouldn't go and get a painter to start, you know, replacing your roof on your house. Use a builder for that right and use one you've been recommended.

Guy Utley: 7:39

you wouldn't use a builder to go spray paint your car. The key thing is it's a simple rule, really. Really it's using the right people for the right job, and I think that goes for the types of agency you're using as a brand, or even getting the right people in the business doing the right thing. You know we're a small business. There's only 15 of us in the car team. We're wider in terms of the partners and freelancers we have, but I think you know and we have to have a we end up doing each other's jobs sometimes because you do as a small company.

Guy Utley: 8:09

But I think it's also really important to understand whose skill sets are best placed on the project at the right time in the right place. And I think what I'm doing there in a really waffly way, sort of saying, is we're all really good at something and we should focus on that and promote that. It probably ties into one of the other things we're going to talk about, which is probably the drunken pitch.

Will Ockenden: 8:37

And we look forward to hearing about it. Yeah, okay, we'll go on to that. I mean you mentioned you know, obviously it is tempting if you've got a great client and they keep asking you to do things and an agency would naturally say, yeah, we can do that, we can do that. But actually a trend I've noticed in the last few years is most agencies us included, and it sounds like you guys as well tend to be grown up about working together.

Will Ockenden: 9:00

now I remember 10 or 15 years ago, there'd be lots of kind of butting heads, wouldn't there? Several agencies are in the room, but now it's quite common to go to a meeting and you've got, you know, a content specialist, you've got a videography specialist, you might have a PPC specialist, and everyone works quite collaboratively. So that's um progress, I suppose.

Guy Utley: 9:18

I would totally agree, I think I know we're sat in Leeds, so you know Leeds is probably on catch-up on that front. I think Manchester's probably been there a little longer in terms of the collaboration in terms of agencies and the community side of it and then passing each other conversation, work and projects and just working together generally. But yeah, leeds does feel like that is certainly a way of working now and has been for a fair few years. We have to because we're so niche and focused, which is great, but it also has its disadvantages. We work closely with performance agencies, for example.

Guy Utley: 9:56

There's two or three that we work with in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester, Because if they don't do their job right, there's no traffic coming through to a user experience or to see a brand. So they've got to do their job right. And then if we don't do our job right, all that hard work they've done isn't going to convert. So to be siloed in that way is not great for the client and for the brand. So I think, yeah, absolutely. There's enough work for us all to go and have a piece of and apply that specialism that we've got to it.

Chris Norton: 10:33

I've got a question for you because we're talking I mean, we don't meet many people from the Leeds sort of agency market, so our listeners are all over the world. They've got some listeners in Peru, Mozambique I saw the other day.

Guy Utley: 10:46

Right right.

Chris Norton: 10:47

But what would you say is the pros and cons of being an agency based in Leeds in the UK in 2025? Because I think it's very different from when we started 14 years ago.

Guy Utley: 11:00

I think let's start with the pros. I think the pros are the UK has a fantastic history in design. Some of the greatest things have been designed in the UK and some of the most brilliant talent is here, and I think that is recognized worldwide, from Asia to America. And I think the talent here I mean look at it the other day, we won't go down politics, but look at the film side of it. You know the fact that all the films that have been made in the UK versus, say, america, is because of the great talent that we've got here. You know the UK is absolutely full of it. It's the same in the design industry. It's well-recognized, it's well-known, it's got a really good history. So I think having an agency here in in my field is is is a benefit. You know, I do think we're well respected and I think, um, there's something about being english or british, um, that still has a, a standard of approval yeah, but does it matter where you are in the uk now?

Chris Norton: 11:59

do you think yeah, does this?

Will Ockenden: 12:01

you know this preconception that you have to be based in lond, london if you're a big client. Is that starting to go away? I think it's starting to change.

Guy Utley: 12:08

I bang the drum for the north all the time, too much sometimes, and I get in trouble a little bit. But look, if a London agency, for instance, wins an account up north, fair play, right. And this is all about your own confidence and your own proposition. It's not about where you're located. There is about your own confidence and your own proposition. It's not about where you're located. There is that little bit, and I think it's old-fashioned now.

Guy Utley: 12:29

But you know, as a marketeer or a brand owner, you know to be whisked off down london and taken out. It's a bit of a day trip, right. It's a bit of oh, I'm getting to go down to london and or up to london and get taken out. That's fantastic and it's quite exciting. But I think you know, look at, look at manchester now, look at league, look at sheffield these are fantastic cities and it's very exciting to be up here. So I think, after covid, obviously that took away some barriers in terms of, like, remote working. So, look, we work with people in all over the world, literally. So to have a barrier between here and london, which is a couple of hours on the train, is, I think, madness. But the positive side of it. I think that is starting to be removed now.

Chris Norton: 13:12

Well, the fascinating thing that we've heard is that we spoke to somebody not long back and they were compiling a list of US CMOs and using UK agencies to service American businesses. Because, basically, for those of you that don't know, if you're in America, your salary is because it's more expensive. Your salary is minimum 80, I think it's 80K, or did you say 120K? You might have even said $1,000 for a normal marketer, whereas you can, and as as are the agencies, follow suit over there. So now apparently, the us is seeing, is looking at the uk and is going actually, like you've just said there that the creative industries are brilliant, they respect the brits. They probably think our accent, although maybe not from leeds, is yeah, yeah, say that being from here, uh, is, is, um, is respected. They think that we are good at what we do and we're in a slightly different time zone, but we get shit done, basically, and they're going to get it for a better bang for their literally better bang for their buck.

Chris Norton: 14:16

Whereas there's always been this thing about London, as Will said, and it's now, I think, the world is slightly changing. People aren't just looking at London for the day out, and to open a big office in London seems a bit ridiculous. That said, I don't see massive talent shift around. You know so talent moving away from London and being in loads of different places, and I was just interested to see, if you do, you have everyone in your. Do they all go to your office?

Guy Utley: 14:45

I mean, like we've got the car team of around 15 um and they do like to come to the office, or so they tell me. I mean they're there but they're in tuesday, wednesday, thursday. Um there's, people are starting to creep back in on a monday and a friday. You know we're not going to go back to how we were, uh as, but I think it will be flexible yeah but the way that we work and operate is we're working with people all over the place south of Wales, london.

Chris Norton: 15:08

Scotland.

Guy Utley: 15:10

We've got freelancers and partners all over the country, so to us this isn't new. Anyway, I think COVID just highlighted that it's possible and sometimes you need an awful event like that. There's a lot of positives that's come out of it. Sometimes you need an awful event like that. There's a lot of positives that's come out of it. But, yeah, I think. Look, I think location isn't as a blocker, is a null way of thinking. Time zones can be worked. Now I agree with you in terms of the US using UK talent, and that is actually increasing.

Will Ockenden: 15:41

Until the Trump tariffs came in. Yeah, which yeah?

Guy Utley: 15:45

yeah, I mean, that's a different topic, isn't it? But that's a bit there that's a bit of chest pumping, puffing and yeah all that kind of stuff. But yeah, absolutely I think, um, I think, barriers are going um. The us do seem to hold the uk in good regard in terms of a number of things, so it's hope, hopefully, there's a good relationship there so, um, let's for a moment talk about lazy content, because, yes, in the kind of the pre-briefing you were, you were talking about, um, lazy content.

Will Ockenden: 16:43

So, as a bit of a starting point, what is lazy content in 2025? What do you mean by that?

Guy Utley: 16:48

so lazy content, okay. So let me just start by saying I'm creative, I'm not. I'm not technical, I'm not an SEO expert or into the performance world, right, and it doesn't. I'll be completely honest, it doesn't really interest me. I get quite bored quite quickly. It's probably like a ADHD type thing. It's really really important that now and then. So basically, google is still very much in charge for now. So basically, google is still very much in charge for now, and what they say with their algorithms and how they decide who's going to be successful online is down to them. Up until July, august last year, there's a few things you could do to make sure your site's ranked or your brand's seen well online. It's changed now. Basically, google is wanting you to give a very, very clear and well-put-together human experience online, which is great because all of a sudden that's back into my world. Whereas before, search was all about how much search copy you could put into a page and backlinks and all that dark magic, which was really boring and uninteresting.

Will Ockenden: 17:57

Writing for robots, not writing for people.

Guy Utley: 17:59

Yeah, so Google does not like that.

Chris Norton: 18:01

now, I don't think it ever did, to be honest. No, but they could cheat. It was a cheat code, wasn't it?

Guy Utley: 18:07

Yeah, cheat the algorithm kind of thing. I've got massive proof and case studies. Now that is winning. There's a lot of work and there's a lot of companies wanting to work with us because of what we're doing, but we've always done it, but now we're being able to measure it and we've got a bit of a science around it. So if I give you a, an example, if you go into jack gtp and you give yourself less headache by writing all your content, your web content, for your page, and then you put it on the website, google's going to know that Google's got its own AI that picks that up and it'll go.

Guy Utley: 18:41

Hmm, not that useful, not that engaging. It's not really giving much guidance. And also, what else is going on in this page? Are you getting some? Is there some audio content on there that's giving some guidance around how to be, how to work, how to buy that product? Is there video content on there that's going to help me understand this product before I buy it as a user? Is there guides?

Guy Utley: 19:06

Basically, there's some key things and I'm not going to give you all the key secrets because this is what we sell, but think authority, think trust right and think a really good human journey. You get all these things right in the right order. Google will absolutely love you for it, and we've got case studies where we've had um I use one for shark ninja they were nowhere for a certain key term to do with vacuums nowhere on google. Within six days, they were on the first page. It blew their minds out. And it was term to do with vacuums Nowhere on Google.

Guy Utley: 19:35

Within six days, they were on the first page. It blew their minds out, and it was all to do with creating the right content. So if you're lazy with it, yeah, you'll get there quick, and then you'll have your website quick, or your blog or your page or whatnot. Google won't thank you for it, though. So I think the time of lazy content although we've got these really tempting tools in front of us, like AI and whatnot, to get things done quickly image generation, video generation, copy generation just be really, really careful with it. I'm not saying don't use it, but just make sure that you look at. Are you ticking all the boxes?

Chris Norton: 20:07

It's the average of averages. That's why.

Guy Utley: 20:09

Yeah, that's what I was doing.

Chris Norton: 20:15

My thing about Google is is is even google relevant anymore? Like, like, you're pumping it into google and you're talking about being on page one. Great, I mean we, we do for a lot of what. So our background so we've in terms of public relations? Public relations is all about reputation, trust. It's all the stuff that you're talking about. It's always been good on google. If you've got a good PR reputation, you've been pushing it out. I'm not selling the services, that's just the way Google works If you get coverage out there. That's why all these SEO agencies ended up in the late 2000s hiring Suddenly.

Chris Norton: 20:47

I was teaching at Leeds Beckett University. I was teaching on a PR degree and half my students from my court were at SEO agencies and I was warning them. I was teaching on the PR degree and half my students from my course were at SEO agencies and I was warning them. I was saying, look, it's great that you're in there, but you're going to be stuck in like a cycle in a box of writing a story about data, getting a link and then that's it. But it does get you links to PR and that side of it can help build trust.

Chris Norton: 21:12

So the each side of it is great and being on page one of Google is fantastic, but does page one of Google actually matter in 2026? Because if I do a search now, it doesn't give me. My results become below the AI result and below the, and it gives you a snippet, it gives you the answer to the question, not your search, but the actual thing that you're thinking about. So that's a problem for Google. For me, I think it's a problem because they've got, they're selling advertising, they're selling positions, but they're giving you the answer before you're going anywhere else. So they don't even get into the beautifully laid out execution of the pay, because they're getting the AI result and that's Google's issue. Are they becoming Self-create? A problem.

Guy Utley: 22:00

Yeah, they've created their own problem.

Chris Norton: 22:02

I also think they got caught with the pants down with ChatGPT and the others.

Guy Utley: 22:06

Well, the US have just launched shopping within ChatGPT, so you can literally go like what's the best vacuum cleaner and it'll bring the shot and the content and the recommendations straight into Jatch ETP.

Chris Norton: 22:18

Yeah.

Guy Utley: 22:19

It's not released in the UK yet, but it'll be a matter of weeks before I do so. We're already adjusting all our projects to make sure that Jatch ETP indexes the content that we're writing.

Will Ockenden: 22:28

If you do a spelling mistake in a social media post, it gets something like 15 times more engagement. Wow Because everybody's like Mistake and you see some brands doing it with a really obvious spelling mistake. So if you ever do a, spelling mistake in a post and the client flags it. Oh, it's deliberate because it gets 15 times more engagement.

Chris Norton: 22:45

That's why we've been doing it. For years there's been shit. This show's about mistakes.

Will Ockenden: 22:51

This was great so anyway, come on, tell us about the shadowy world.

Guy Utley: 22:54

The thing is it's not that shadowy. I think the days of this dark magic of SEOs it's going to be a thing of the past.

Chris Norton: 23:01

Yeah.

Guy Utley: 23:02

Chat, gpt. They're very clear and open in terms of what's needed. I think that's the beautiful thing. I think the way that they work is very different now. They want this to be used in the right way. They're very clear in terms of their system is not recommending the content. Their system is pulling what's being reviewed on the web right, and this is where they're trusting the authority.

Chris Norton: 23:29

Yes, so that's the confusion.

Guy Utley: 23:32

And in other places though, there isn't just Google, I know we're all just going to Google.

Chris Norton: 23:35

Other search engines are available. Other search engines are available yes, these articles UGC customer reviews Customer.

Guy Utley: 23:40

Other search engines are available. Yes, these articles, ugc, customer reviews, customer reviews, everything the stuff that you guys do, which?

Will Ockenden: 23:43

comes down to reputation Again, reputation PR.

Chris Norton: 23:49

The two have got a symbiotic relationship because you've still got to get good reviews.

Guy Utley: 23:51

If you've got a shit product.

Chris Norton: 23:52

It's not going to work, is it?

Will Ockenden: 23:54

Unless the search is what's the shittest product in this sector?

Chris Norton: 23:57

In that case, you'll get loads of links in this sector. In that case, you'll get loads of links.

Guy Utley: 24:00

I didn't get a chance to answer you. So what you were saying was I understand where you're coming from and it's not just about ranking on the first page of Google, but you still need to have that. If you have that lazy content and you're not backing up with reviews and authority and getting people to write blogs and comment on it and tell you why this is a fantastic product, you're not going to be found and you're not going to be found in all these different ways of being found. So if you've got the best product in the world and you're not taking time to sell it properly, if you were going to spend £80,000 on a new car, you're not just going to go oh, that's a nice one, there's £80,000, have it. You're going to go talk to the salesperson. You're going to go down to the garage. You're going to see it, open it, smell it, turn it on whatever you do when you're buying a car but you're going to see all the features and find out about it because it's a big investment.

Guy Utley: 24:51

People are doing that with an £800 coffee machine, right? They want to understand all the benefits and how it's going to change their life. You can't just stick a picture of it up at five different angles and go yeah, it makes six coffees, buy it. It's just that world's gone now. People love to self-educate and they've got time to do it and they're doing it on their mobiles. We call it kind of the messy middle. So if there's three coffee machines, which one do you buy? It's the messy middle. It's got to be sold to you, right? You've got to find out why it's going to change our life. Yes, there's a price point, but if it's 100 quid difference and one is going to change your world, you're going to go for the more expensive one.

Will Ockenden: 25:27

So okay, how do we distill that then? And this sort of links with how do we not do lazy content?

Chris Norton: 25:32

Is it?

Will Ockenden: 25:32

about customer understanding? Is it about really getting under the skin of the questions?

Guy Utley: 25:41

the problems, the challenges the consumer has. You've got to understand your customer and you've got to understand what they want. So the reason that Schattenger are moving faster than probably Dyson and some of the other competitors is they're really really spending a lot of time and money and effort understanding their client base. So let me give you one example on a vac right, a vac's a vac. Everyone has a moan. Some people love Dyson. They're heavy, they look nice, they break after whatever, whatever chart.

Guy Utley: 26:07

Ninja didn't go in on that angle. They went in on like how are the people actually using them? And they're researching question, had them and they were sort of saying so what, what do you do when you vac? Tell me what you do. Well, I've backed my house, I've got got two daughters and a cat and a dog and they watched them and what they did is every couple of weeks they saw the user turn the vac upside down, pick all the hair out of the little spinny thingy take it apart, pull all the hair out, chop with the scissors, cut it all out, clean it, put it back in.

Guy Utley: 26:42

And they said to the customer he's like what were you just doing then? Can you explain? Oh, I was just taking the cat hair. Is that a problem? Well, no, that's what you do. That's how I've always done that, that's just the thing.

Will Ockenden: 26:53

That's the way it goes.

Guy Utley: 26:55

Chat Ninja. It doesn't have to be like that, though. So what they did is they built one where they've got the tool where it cuts it as it's been turned, so there is no hair in it, so now it isn't a problem. So they're finding problems that we didn't even think were problems. So it's really, really about understanding your customer.

Will Ockenden: 27:12

That's a recurring theme time and time again on the pod, isn't it? It's all about customer understanding, Absolutely Skipping that you will pay for it, right?

Chris Norton: 27:19

It's been that way for marketing for years, though Forever. If you don't understand your bloody audience you're fucked, aren't you?

Will Ockenden: 27:24

Why isn't Dyson not doing it? No, they will be doing it.

Guy Utley: 27:27

They will be doing it. I think it's just. There's a number of things. I think Dyson are a fantastic company, by the way, and I think it's just down to really, really understanding. And then, once you found that out and this is the one thing that the Americans are really good at is like is. Is is really like exaggerating the, the, the, the features to be on, like you can't live without this. Now Can you imagine picking some scissors up and going and cutting through some like dog and yeah, oh, my god, it's disgusting. So I think it's about finding that out and then marketing it, and I think the companies that are doing the marketing well then, doing all the things we just talked about, are going to be the winners. The brands that are trying to cut corners, um and not, and do lazy content are gonna they're gonna lose out so this is my favorite bit.

Chris Norton: 28:18

So, yeah, you had an um a. Yeah, you had a pitch situation where you might have been slightly intoxicated. Is that correct?

Guy Utley: 28:26

absolutely intoxicated, yeah. So when you said, like, tell me about some mistakes you made in business, I've got lots, it was 17 years in, in tall and I had a business before that five, six years. So there's lots of mistakes made. But I think, look, I think you learn off your mistakes and you pick yourself up and and hopefully there's positives that come out of that. But we'll talk about this one. So I think there's a couple of things I've learned from this and and if I'm spreading any advice is don't drink on a school night, even if it's an award. So we were out celebrating an award um, this was a fair few years ago. This was going back 10 years ago. It was um best creative agency award all right, it's a big one.

Guy Utley: 29:07

It's a big one yeah, absolutely, and we won it. And then you know you've you've been drinking a couple of beers and you've had a white wine, we dinner and then some bring some red wine and you wouldn't drink like this normally. You'd have in different drinks and then you'd have all have a whiskey because it's celebrating the next thing. You're very, very drunk and you can't remember. The taxi on this was me on a normal thursday night, completely forgetting. At 9 am the next morning I had a pitch. So it's not like I can call up another creative director of my business and owner because it was already written, right it was already done.

Guy Utley: 29:42

It was booked in and ready to go. Yeah.

Chris Norton: 29:45

Right Already written, yeah, so at least you had it written.

Guy Utley: 29:50

Yeah, that was the great bit. Whether that helped me at all in the morning was a completely different scenario. Now, thankfully, it was a local pitch. I won't say whether I drove or not, but it's just probably an autopilot getting there. I can't remember the pitch at all. I remember going in the room, but I can't remember actually pitching the pitch.

Will Ockenden: 30:10

Barging into the room.

Guy Utley: 30:13

I dread to think now, because the client were there. It was a well-known bread company and I just think, oh God, what? Almost I smell like pure yeast, like in the room that's a bit like severance, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 30:26

if you're uh, you've got no memory of, yeah, what happens in the room.

Guy Utley: 30:29

Yeah, so yeah, um, so awful. So then come monday you're thinking, oh my god, I better contact the agency we were dual pitching with because we're using their, their officers. I was in. It was you know. This is Guy from Tarl. He's the digital expert here and he's going to. You can imagine, were you on your own from Tarl? Yeah, I was on my own.

Chris Norton: 30:48

So you were in another agency's domain, and then you were wheeled out of the scene.

Guy Utley: 30:53

Standing up for Tarl's brand and representing Tarl Halfcut. Now the good news, talking to the other agency owner, is he didn't have a clue. He said, oh, you're really. No, I didn't. I didn't get that at all. I was like, wow, we found out a week later. We won, we won the pitch. So we were against the other agency, we won the pitch, but you've got no idea what you promised. I have no idea what I promised, which gets to the learning bit in a second, but yeah, so I think the lesson learned there is, I think, for me, and I don't drink on a school night and if it's awards, take it easy and try not to book anything out the next 24 hours afterwards.

Chris Norton: 31:31

I think you've been harsh on yourself there, mate, because, like, if we're going out, we wouldn't get, absolutely, you know, thunderbolted on a Thursday night, but if we've won an award for best, you know we've won best PR agency a few times.

Chris Norton: 31:44

If that happens, I remember going Sambuca's on offer Literally it's the one time where you know you've got to celebrate and the fact that you forgot. You know I mean what I would say. There is the lesson there is plan your diary better. If you need to plan your diary better. If you need to plan your diary better, you need to speak to Will.

Will Ockenden: 32:01

Ockenden because he's brilliant at planning his diary. Maybe that model works perfectly. Have you tried it?

Guy Utley: 32:04

I'm just going to say well, I think the lesson the lesson learned from it was because I think prior to that, because I didn't read the notes, I didn't read the pitch, I think, I just pitched no. So I think the lesson I learned from it was I used to really, really over-prepare for pitching. I used to have the cues and the notes and I used to get myself so wound up thinking I've got to deliver everything in a certain way, in a certain and I just don't do that anymore. I don't prepare. Obviously, I need to understand what it is I'm pitching and I do't prepare. Obviously, I need to understand what it is I'm pitching. I do my research, but I don't prepare the actual pitch order Because what I've found is actually you're not as natural, you're not being able to pull from your experience and your knowledge in the right way because you've already formatted it. So if there's a question or you have to pivot within the pitch scenario, you can't because you're already rigid and you throw yourself off.

Chris Norton: 33:04

Does that?

Guy Utley: 33:04

make sense. So I think what I found out after that was, if I can win it drunk, then surely I can win it sober. But what I've learned from it is like chill out a little bit, you know, just have like a little bit more of a relaxed sort of way of presenting your knowledge and skills and experience. Um, and that's the thing I've sort of taken on board. Um, when I go into meetings now and I'm showing talking about my business, it's very rare the laptop e-moon gets opened, because it's more about understanding what that brand wants. Yeah, what's your problem?

Guy Utley: 33:36

what do you want me to do. How can I help? You death by power they don't want to hear 10 minutes about how great tal is. The last 70 new gives a shit like it's more about. Yeah, they want to know you've already been recommended. You know you've got the scene, who you're working with. You know it's about them.

Chris Norton: 33:51

Yeah yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, absolutely is. But the weird thing is, the weird thing about all you marketers out there listening to this is everybody's bloody different. And you're right, like nobody gives a shit how long you've been going or we've been going and how many people we've gotten, that we have wellness wednesdays and you know all these things. They don't care. But then you meet that client that actually does. Who can I see those pitching? Can I say who's going to be working on this, please?

Will Ockenden: 34:17

yeah, you didn't tell me which awards you've won yeah. I mean that really. I mean it's you're right when you're in the room. They've done their due diligence. Yeah, nine times out of ten yeah that's the first ten slides of the deck, yeah, yeah you know you're just boring them, aren't you? Yeah, we've won this many awards.

Guy Utley: 34:32

Yeah, these are the clients of course they know what your brief said.

Will Ockenden: 34:42

We wrote the brief. We know that.

Chris Norton: 34:44

Actually usually the brief's wrong. By the way, the people that write the brief usually get the brief slightly wrong. And then there's the brief, with inside the brief. It's our job as a….

Will Ockenden: 34:55

We've had the client actually arguing in a pitch over the brief because it wasn't what they thought. The brief was Brilliant, brilliant.

Chris Norton: 35:02

Yeah, that's the worst when you've got somebody like a really senior marketer and then you've got the junior marketer who's written it. The junior marketer has written the pitch brief. You've pitched to the pitch brief and the senior marketer hasn't. Have you been in that situation?

Chris Norton: 35:16

Yeah, a lot of times, and they're going this isn't why and you're going this is what's in the brief, yeah. And then you're thinking I can't say that because they're sat there and they've written it. We asked them the question we asked them that question and they're sat there looking all shady I think.

Guy Utley: 35:29

I think there's another thing as well and I've just, if we've got time, just touch on like imposter syndrome a little bit. So I don't know if you've ever had imposter syndrome, it's.

Guy Utley: 35:37

It's a weird and wonderful and odd thing every day yes, I do all the time, um, and I was like what? I came to realize that that's okay too. So I'd you know, I've been these meetings and these pitch scenarios. I'm thinking, oh god, you know, what are they expecting from me? You know, am I going to deliver? Um, am I the right person for it? You know, as you do, as you create and as you, that never goes away, because you might feel comfortable in that small room of two or three, but then as your clients grow and the brands grow, and you're sat in front of Lego and Shiningers of the world and the boardroom's a bit bigger and there's a bit more people in there and they've got more fancy titles.

Guy Utley: 36:16

The same people. I now know that they do the same thing, but the imposter syndrome on my side was still there. And then I heard or got told a story, and I really do forget who it is. So apologies and credit to whoever told me it, but they give me like an example and it was like who's the most important person in the room at?

Guy Utley: 36:37

that point and the example was there's a surgeon, there's a, there's a, there's a joiner and there's a, there's a golf tutor. Right, who's who, would you say, is most respected in that room?

Chris Norton: 36:51

a surgeon, a joiner and a golf tutor yeah, where you choose the surgeon, yeah, so the most respected person in that room is the surgeon.

Guy Utley: 36:58

I think, think 99.9% of the public would probably say that, and that is true if it's just in a general environment, right in a coffee shop or in a bus stand. Whatever what happens, though, if the surgeon and the joiner is on the golf course and they don't know anything about golf, who is then the most respected person?

Will Ockenden: 37:21

in the room the golf tour right.

Guy Utley: 37:23

So it's about context, it's about where you are and on that day you're there for a reason. They've brought you in as the expertise. So they're looking at you with that respect or they should be doing it otherwise, they're not the right brand to be working with but they're looking at you with respect of like you're going to tell them what they should be doing, how they should be doing, how they should be doing it. So the imposter syndrome doesn't need to be there. You just need to have confidence in yourself and and I think that that's always stuck with me.

Guy Utley: 37:48

Depending on where you are and what is the task to be done on the day is, you're probably the right person to be talking to them at that point.

Will Ockenden: 37:54

I actually see imposter syndrome as as a positive, in as far as it means you're pushing yourself and putting yourself in situations you're not comfortable with yeah, that that's progress, isn't it? Absolutely If you're not having imposter syndrome. Maybe you're not pushing yourself hard enough, so that's another way to frame it.

Chris Norton: 38:08

It's interesting what you were saying about the pitch size. I love pitch bants Because Will was in a. I wasn't in this pitch, but Will was in a pitch probably a year ago, a year or so ago, and there was I think there was over 30 in the room. Wasn't there a particular um let's, how can we cut a brother?

Will Ockenden: 38:28

oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, it was. It was the client's international um marketing conference and they thought it would be a good idea to get all 30 of the international team in the same room. So the original two clients we pitched with and built built a relationship with. Suddenly there's 28 more of them and they're all asking questions and most of them hadn't even read the brief and it was a fucking nightmare. I bet I bet Building rapport.

Chris Norton: 38:52

Yeah Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a Bill's report with 30 people.

Guy Utley: 38:55

Yeah, because you'll get one person go.

Will Ockenden: 38:57

oh, you've not told anything about yourself to us, so can you go back and you're like we ended up getting in a bit of an argument with this Dutch guy who hadn't read the brief and didn't agree with what we were proposing in a market that wasn't even here. We didn't win the pitch.

Guy Utley: 39:10

I mean, it's probably yeah, this is probably a different podcast but the, the, the pitch, the pitch, things is broken anyway. You know I don broken anyway. You know I don't with this. Warm pitches and there's cold pitches, yeah, and we try to like, implement like a no pitch policy at all, um, a few years back, and it's very difficult because people are setting their ways and you have to pitch for stuff, um, but we've kind of got to a place where we call it a warm pitch if we've not had a bit of a chemistry call or meeting.

Guy Utley: 39:40

And it's not bulletproof, because you sounded like you'd already done that on this, this example, but you, we've got to have a bit of a chemistry meeting. We've got to see if the businesses are. You know, have we got? Have we even got that connection? You know, on the on the front line, before we get into the nitty-gritty of, like, the project detail and, because we've spent far too many hours and far too many pounds, get into a certain point, and then they'll say, oh, it turns out you haven't got an in-house copyright. Sorry, where was that in the brief?

Will Ockenden: 40:10

You know yeah.

Guy Utley: 40:12

So it's flawed in so many ways. But I think again, the marketeers are getting smarter now. Brands are getting smarter and they understand that and a lot of the marketeers now have come from agency side, so they get, they've seen the other side of that and they get that.

Will Ockenden: 40:27

So I think it's refreshing when they do get it. I mean, last year we, for the first time ever, we got paid to pitch that was amazing yeah and that was, and it was somebody that was from a consultancy agency background. They got it right at the.

Chris Norton: 40:40

That's just respectful of time if you're picking, so we do that. We qualify all of our leads and then we'll have a call to qualify. We've got several qualification stages and then you get through to it. But to get through to the final I mean. So we once we were going to pitch to a big travel brand and it was warm, they'd been to a couple of events of ours and they invited it was Will and I, it was a long time ago, it was only about six of us at the time and we got invited to this travel brand and they said the question, the qualification mean, was how many agencies are going to be pitching? And it was either 12 or 14.

Will Ockenden: 41:17

And we just said and that was to the final stages. That was to the final stages. We were like no, how could you even, how could you even remember pitch one when you pitch 14, and how different they're really going to be.

Guy Utley: 41:30

This is another thing. We all sell the same thing. We all use the same tools. There's 100 agencies in Leeds that do what we do, from small to large, and we're all doing the same thing.

Guy Utley: 41:44

Okay, so it only comes down to a few things. Are we alike as a brand and an agency? Are we going to get on a people level, partnership level, right, yeah, yeah, because there's very different types of people, right, and some of them might think I'm a dick and some of them might love me. It depends on who I'm talking to. Um, then there's a skill level. Of course. You're going to have a certain level of skill in in the business. The tools we're all using is that are the same. We're all using ai and figma and chat and this, and it's all the same stuff, right, and we might be using it in a little bit of a different way, but it's all the muchness, right, it's got to be about. Are you right for that project and that client? Have you got experience in it? Have you got great ideas in terms of where it can go? But, like 14 different agencies, how different can that be really?

Chris Norton: 42:40

So my next question is because I went down to something called PR360, which is a conference for PR Week, a couple of years ago and they had a session on pitching and I came back with this and it was basically these two top guys who pitched in London for two of the top 10 PR agencies different ones competing against each other regularly, by the way and if one of them was against the other one, they both admitted to shitting themselves because they knew they were both good, which I thought was quite refreshing. And one of their tips was if there's no budget, there's no pitch.

Guy Utley: 43:07

Yes, we had the same.

Chris Norton: 43:09

Because if they won't commit to any form of budget, don't pitch. And I was like that's a game changer, because really you get so many people who just want to kick the tires. Take a look around. Oh yeah, I think it's a problem.

Guy Utley: 43:29

What can you do? Can you half your budget? Can you do that, you know, and I think it's a bit, it's a bit disrespectful, I think. And I think the paid pitch is a great scenario because you, you, the due diligence has already been done, the hard work and the graphs being done on both sides, so you've got it down to say, three companies and you're willing to pay for those three. That feels right to me because it's not and it doesn't need to be a lot of money, it just needs to be skin in the game from both sides and I think you will get a better result from the agency. They'll work harder, they'll go look at it a bit deeper and a little bit harder and they'll want it more. And I think that light briefs, lazy briefs, no budget and just firing it out to like 10 agencies that's got to change and I think agencies will start pushing back. We do say no and we're in a privileged position.

Chris Norton: 44:14

People don't like it.

Guy Utley: 44:14

No they don't like it In fact, we won two clients when we said no, there's one in Leeds, I'm not going to name them. If she's listening to this, she'll know who it is. I'm not going to name them. If she's listening to this, she'll know who it is, and we've been working with them for many years and we've got a great relationship with them. Now they asked us to pitch and it came through.

Guy Utley: 44:30

It was a good brief, but it was defined. But there were a couple of things in there that we were a bit like. It felt a bit cold and we had a different way about that. We still use it now, but we had something called gravity, which basically was you define the brief first, right, and then you work out the budget. So you define the brief with the all the people that were on the table who didn't know what they were in the pitch room for and what we're here for. We used to do that first, but we should charge an amount for that so basically, we used to get the C-suite in or the high-level stakeholders yeah, paid pitch.

Guy Utley: 45:05

Paid. Pitch right, do it together, work out the brief, and then we'd respond to that. We said no to this company when they sent through the RFP and she rang us and was like kind of how dare you sort of thing, like what do you mean? No, yeah, we've been a few of those.

Guy Utley: 45:20

So I mean, no, yeah, we've had a few of those. So we were like, well, can we come and talk to you about it? There's only down the road. Can we come and talk to you about it? So me and Bruce, my business partner, were sat there and we were sort of defending why we weren't going for the pitch, but we told them about this other way we can do this. It's not all the investment. It'll do a load of work beforehand and we will craft the right brief that we can then respond to and it will give you the right budget that you need. It actually turned out the budget was nearly four times what they needed in the end and they agreed to it. Four times what they put out in terms of the budget right.

Guy Utley: 46:01

But they agreed to it because they'd been on the journey with us and they've gone, they've seen and realized, and they were like god, yeah, did we tell you it needed to be in another two languages? No, I didn't say that bit. So so by the time we got through that process, where what happens with pitching is all the people go for that, that budget they've been given, so they all respond to it, go yeah, yeah, yeah. And then actually, the nitty-gritty of the project and it's not really a 50-gram project, it's a 100-gram project. You know what I mean. So there are a lot of downfalls to the pitch scenario. It's quite comical sometimes, though, as, being an agency owner, being on some of the, seeing the different ways that you know the brands put out the pitch and what they expect from that as well, and thankfully.

Guy Utley: 46:43

I suppose you don't get it too much in the PR world, but the three-concept thing's gone. You know it used to be. Can you just give us three concepts? Three concepts brand concepts, web concepts. Can we have three concepts in the proposal, please? And that's the work, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 46:56

That's the work.

Guy Utley: 46:57

But I'm like how can we do the work? We don't really truly understand what you need yet, because the briefs.

Will Ockenden: 47:02

It's such a one page long, isn't it? Where um perspective, you know a pitch crosses over into the work the work.

Guy Utley: 47:09

Yeah, someone asked for a strategy. Yeah, she is the work.

Will Ockenden: 47:11

Yeah, I suppose it's about it's it's. I've never quite resolved that. No, it's okay I do.

Guy Utley: 47:17

I don't know how you're finding that, but I do see that becoming less and less. Now they start. So it's not a creative pitch, so we don't. We don't expect designs, but they still expect a lot of strategy. They want to know that you've got that strategic level of thinking that's going to reassure them and the key stakeholders, that they're going to get a return on investment, and actually I think that we are doing more of that. If, if not, you know, we're actually leaning into that and we're able to. We've got some fantastic tools Some of them are our own actual tools that helps demonstrate return on investment.

Guy Utley: 47:51

Now, that's a massive game changer in the brand world, because it used to be like, no, honestly, if you do PR or you do brands, you're going to get something back. How much then? Well, you'll get more. Can you guarantee that? Well, no, no, but trust me, because we've done it for these other brands and it doesn't fulfill it probably. Well, the cfo doesn't like that, you know. So the this is another thing like I think you know, I think we might, you know, want to talk about is the friendship between the cmo and the cfo. So the chief marketing officer and the financial controller who was ultimately holding the purse strings. They're very, very different people and no matter how much culture you put in front of them, how much skill set and you know portfolio and case studies and depth and breadth of where you've come from CFO's going how much, and does that fit into the budget? Hard numbers, yeah.

Chris Norton: 48:48

Often the founder can be like that as well. If you work with founder businesses and rightly so.

Guy Utley: 48:53

I totally get it. Especially I know you've got global listeners, but in Yorkshire there's some people quite tight.

Chris Norton: 49:00

That's just played completely to a stereotype there. Yeah, absolutely.

Guy Utley: 49:05

Yeah, but you know what I'm saying it's kind of.

Guy Utley: 49:09

It's a real balancing act. I think we've we've got quite a difficult job to do in normally 60 minutes, whether you're drunk or sober, but you've got. You've got 60 minutes to please a lot of people. I think the hands are tied on marketeers sometimes when they've got a set budget already, because the world is changing so dramatically, so fast, that a budget that was set even nine months ago is wrong because it means the marketeers can't take advantages of the changes that are happening. So the lazy content or the what's Google want now, what's ChatGTP doing now? Or the agency or the PR agency have got a different idea because they can take advantage of this in TikTok or this on a website. But the problem is the marketeer's got their budget fixed.

Chris Norton: 49:55

Yeah.

Guy Utley: 49:56

So it's kind of like, where do you go from there? So fluid budgets.

Will Ockenden: 50:02

We need a minimum budget, but there needs to be some bandwidth in that.

Guy Utley: 50:06

It just needs flexibility, and I think there needs to be a combined communication and not a siloed one. I'm probably going too deep into that side of it, but I think there just needs to be a recognition that marketing is changing and it needs to be flexible.

Will Ockenden: 50:19

There'll be lots of listeners planning pitches, so some really good insight. The briefs or the responses, yeah.

Chris Norton: 50:28

So you've been on the show. Now, if you were us, who would you next have on the show in that spot to ask them about their mistake that they could share on air?

Guy Utley: 50:39

Oh, so there's the people that come to mind and these guys I've worked with for many years Rob Savin and Nick Gander from Super Infinite. Okay, so these are two guys that I've worked with for many years. They've been in some fantastic businesses, mainly in the finance world, but more recently in retail as well, from Yorkshire Building Society to the co-op to OutKit, and they've been going about a year there. I don't know if I can use the word consultant because they're not. They're sort of business strategists. They've got so many stories. They're fantastic to listen to. I'd highly recommend them. Oh, they're brilliant. They've got so many stories. I'd highly recommend them, oh they're brilliant.

Guy Utley: 51:27

They've got so many stories, you probably need three.

Chris Norton: 51:29

Rob Savin and Nick Gander. Rob Savin yeah, give us an intro.

Guy Utley: 51:31

Yeah, absolutely, they're fantastic to listen to.

Guy Utley: 51:37

So if people want to get hold of you. How can they find you? Guy Tallagency, nice and short brand short. We're called Tall Small team in Leeds, working globally. Just give us a shout, whether it's you want a new brand, you want to digitize your brand, you're looking for a better digital experience? We're doing high-performance work at the minute. So if you're wanting to there's a lot of CMOs out there and heads of brand who are getting asked. A lot of them in terms of increasing revenue, selling more and being demanded of more online we can help them. So, yeah, gives a shout to all that agency that sounds like a recently sharpened proposition.

Will Ockenden: 52:18

It is a recently sharpened proposition.

Guy Utley: 52:20

Yeah, that was relevant. I know I'd get me in a lot of trouble if I didn't know it thanks for coming on.

Will Ockenden: 52:25

Thank you so much. Rai May been a pleasure. Thank you.