Introduction to Marketing Mistakes

Chris Norton 0:00

This show's all about mistakes in the world of marketing . So do you want to tell a little bit of us ? I mean , I know it's in the book , so people will have to buy it , but do you want to give us a little bit of an insight into how that came about ? Yeah , so , as I said , like I went on this big world tour with my family

Building a Social Media Following

Chris Norton 0:15

. We did a family gap year and during that time , I did build up a following on social media and , you know , not quite knowing where it was going to go , but I thought , ok , this is something that's quite out of the ordinary to do as a family . So I was sharing it , you know , and I was getting quite good traction on Instagram . People were like , oh , my God , I'd love to do that with my family . How did you do it ? There was lots of questions .

Creating a Family Travel Course

Chris Norton 0:46

So when I came back , I thought , wow , I've got , I know how to do this because I've just done it with two kids . Um , I think , uh , I could maybe do a course . Um , and you know , at the time there was a lot of people doing like everyone was doing a course . So I thought , okay , I'll do a course and teaching people how to like prepare not just uh , from the practicalities but also like , um , mentally , and you know , because it's not all , you know , flying unicorns when you travel the world with two kids . So I really wanted to do something quite uh , practical . So I , you know , I started writing um ,

The Classic Market Research Mistake

Chris Norton 1:08

you know the the course and different , different modules . I wrote in some people that I'd met along the way , other families , for like videos and testimonials and um , and in the back of my mind I was probably not listening to the voice that was saying have you checked , katie ? You know , and I , you know I'm in this field and you know , when it's so close to you , I think it's even harder sometimes to say , um , yeah , it becomes quite personal . I was like , of course , yeah , I know what I'm talking about .

Chris Norton 1:34

Um managed to get some media coverage , as you said , uh , in the I think it's like the front page of the money section of the times um , about how we did it , how we financed it , with a link at the bottom , you know , to find out more about the course , which is great , and that's great , which is fantastic . Yeah , but the one thing I didn't do is I did , you know , I asked the classic mistake , like friends , family and friendly people , whether they thought it was a good idea . Um , and obviously you know I was desperate for this to work . I just quit , you know , my job . I'd just come back from this trip . What I was thinking what am I going to do , um , next ? And so I've . You know it had to work .

Chris Norton 2:08

Yeah , uh , and , as I say in the book , like COVID saved me , because COVID put an end to all travel plans , let alone , you know , family travel plan , and so I had to stop . You know I had to like okay , I have to do something else , because obviously , you know , I don't know when people are going to travel again , but it was a really good .

How COVID Became a Blessing

Chris Norton 2:29

Yeah , I like sharing it because I think people think that you know people like myself who work in the research industry you know , in product and help people around custom discovery are immune to some of the things that go on in your head when you're trying to like do something for yourself and you're trying to like do something for yourself , um , and you're not . You know you have to check in with yourself and , as I said , like Covid put an end to everything . And I always say , yeah , covid saved me on that one . But it was a good learning and you know , sometimes you have to make a big mistake like that to , like you know , not make , not make it again .