Joe Polish is a highly capable marketer, but he surprised David and Steve by inserting the word "grateful" into his mantra that we should approach networking, relationships, and business, with a blend of being useful, grateful, and valuable.

in situations, I initially struggled with why he sandwiched grateful between useful and valuable. When I wrote about value in my blog post, in terms of adding value and being valued, I considered useful and valuable in my own way, but I didn’t think to add grateful into the mix.

As is discussed in this episode, Joe's reference to being grateful, tunes into the emotional aspect of every situation; something that's easy to overlook if you're simply focussed on adding value or being useful.

For our first segment, however, Steve wanders through some insights shared by legendary comedian, John Cleese, in relation to creativity. He especially hones in on Cleese's warning about how we can let ourselves stray aware from the important path of being creative.

In the mailbag segment, Steve reflects on a recenty discovery of how to change his communication style to suit the preferences of a client.

And for a dose of perspicacity (the sharpening of our minds), David and Steve ogle over the TV commercial for Antz Pantz that neither of them believe would be made today. Or would it?

We hope you find this helpful.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:47 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.

Beat A New Path To Creativity

The Monty Python legend, John Cleese, says political correctness is ruining creativity in all aspects of human activity and at age 82 he recently attended FreedomFest (an annual gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas) to discuss creativity.

Putting his war on wokeism to one side, for this episode, Steve shares a wonderful description that Cleese shared, of how our brains can habituate away from creativity.

Steve argues being aware of this is a sure way of noticing when our creativity is losing the battle against lazy thinking.

The interview we took the snippet from, was Cleese with Nick Gillespie from Reason.

14:31 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.

Be Useful, Grateful, And Valuable

In every situation you encounter, in which you can be useful, can add value, or can be valued, there is an emotional aspect to what is going on.

For example, we can feel good about being useful, be grateful for being able to help, and be grateful to have added value to whatever is going on.

In short, we always act and react in an emotional way, so it makes sense that it's better for us to acknowledge the emotional aspect of our behaviour, because this is the part of us that's crucial for building long-term, healthy relationships with other people.

The conversation in this episode arose after David and Steve both read Joe Polish's book, What's In It For Them?, which also happens to make a great mantra to repeat whenever we are doing anything with our marketing hats on!

The extra video snippet in the show notes on the website, captures a great analogy from Joe; you can't expect to get heat from a fire until you've added a little wood. This reminder, coupled with a commitment to trying to be useful, grateful, and valuable, is an empowering mindset with which to approach networking sessions and all interactions in daily life.

28:29 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.

Methods of communication

Steve shared some insights learned recently from a client who was difficult to pin down to set meetings or get project feedback from.

While Steve is happy chatting on the phone or in a Zoom session (or even face-to-face, Covid permitting), his preferred method of communication with clients and mentors is email and/or SMS.

He prefers this because it creates a record of what's been said and what times/dates have been mentioned.

However, with one client, Steve noted that timelines were blowing out.

It was all solved recently when Steve asked for communication preferences directly.

It turns out this client's email inbox feels impenetrable and he just can't bring himself to tackling it unless he is directed to a specific email.

There are no right or wrong answers on this topic.

In this case, however, communication is now stellar; SMS for most communications and an SMS to alert the client to a specific email when needed.

Hopefully, this might help you manage communication with your clients and customers.

32:14 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case stude from the past.

Antz Pantz

In 1989, model, Toneya Bird became very famous for a very risque TV commercial for Antz Pantz.

It featured Toneya on a bed wearing nothing other than panties and a tanktop. As she twists and turns on the bed, ants start crawling up her legs and across her crotch, at which point we meet Rex The Ant Eater in bed with her. He wants the ants, so she says, Sic 'em, Rex.

It became a well-worn phrase that entered the vernacular at the time.

But would it work today?

Go on, sic 'em David and Steve!

As an aside, Bird rose to fame via this TV ad, but after modelling for a few years she moved to Europe and married a Norwegian prince. At that point, she virtually stopped modelling. The marriage didn't last very long however, and after the divorce she had a child with an Austrian prince. They later married. And as far as we know they still live in Vienna.