Spill The Tea | Episode 10 | Whimsy Feat. Josh Langley (Season 1 Finale)
[Ming Johanson, Kira Carlin & the Spill The Tea Crew just want to thank all our listeners for an amazing first season! We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did & we’ll anticipate Season 2 with you.]
[Ming Johanson]
…how powerful those tools are! Because we’re technical nerds, right? We press every button ruthlessly until we figure out what it does. On, off, on, off. What does this one do? On, off.
[Josh Langley]
And especially if it says, do not press this button. Oh, yeah.
[Ming Johanson]
Oh, yeah, I am the worst person for that. Do not put me in front of nuclear weapons.
[Intro]
What if you could learn from the mistakes of others? The Spill The Tea podcast is a great way to get information on all things related with digital marketing and business. Hosts myself, Ming Johanson and Kira Carlin break down our knowledge in various fields, including business, sales and marketing. So whether you’re new or old at doing any of these things, tune in each week and hear the lessons learnt, titbits of knowledge and talk of tea.
[Ming Johanson]
You’re not Kira? [Laugh]
[Josh Langley]
No!
[Ming Johanson]
Hi Josh (Langley)
[Josh Langley]
Hi, Ming. How are you going? I can look like Kira and sound like Kira if you want.
[Ming Johanson]
I feel like that would be very difficult. You’re not surrounded by eleventy billion cats.
[Josh Langley]
I know, which is a good thing. Because it’s, you know, I don’t want to be…. Only one person can be the cat lady on this show.
[Ming Johanson]
That’s true. That’s fair. [Laugh]. So last episode, Kira and I spoke about the fact that we were going to talk about whimsy in the next episode. And then she very rudely decided to go on leave. No, she’s well deserving of leave. She should absolutely enjoy her break. And that she’s gallivanting across the other side of the country and I thought, who is the most whimsical person I know? It is you. It is you. You are the most whimsical person I know.
[Josh Langley]
Thank you, I will take that as a huge compliment. Thank you.
[Ming Johanson]
And I thought it would be good because this is our 10th episode of Spill the Tea. So for those who are new [Oh well done] to this podcast. This podcast is about business and marketing and sales and money and all the things in between and learning from all the mistakes that certainly I have made and other people have made. And we kind of have a topic and a conversation, but I thought you would be a great person because aside from being a very good friend, we have worked in the media, adjacent and we have worked with you in your business and your website. I thought you would be a great person to talk to.
[Josh Langley]
And I’ve made lots of mistakes, so that’s a starting point. [laugh]
[Ming Johanson]
As have we all. So I kind of wanted to ask you, what has been the most surprising lessons for you in your business?
[Josh Langley]
I suppose one of the things is, I’m a bit of a control freak as you know Ming, and I like to control every aspect of what I’m doing. But the problem is that no one really can actually know what they’re doing. That’s one of the things you got to have a certain element of, just see where things go. If you set things up and go, okay, where’s this going and this element of curiosity where your business is going and you got to let go and allow that to take that process.
Because I know that for myself, where I started with my books, my writing and all that sort of stuff where I started is not where I am now, is not where I ever dreamed I would ever be. So I’ve had to allow a certain level of surprise, curiosity to lead me into places that I didn’t think I would ever go and I can’t control all that. I’m not going to be okay with that.
[Ming Johanson]
Which I think is really ironic, because a lot of your children’s books are around, you know, being different and being adventurous and letting go of things.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, I know. They say you write what you should be learning yourself. And I’ve always held that as an idea that, you know, I’m not teaching other people everything I know. I’m teaching myself what I need to know and bringing everyone else along for the ride.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, I love that. I really love that. What tea are you drinking?
[Josh Langley]
I’m drinking peppermint tea. It’s my little favourite peppermint tea, it’s my perk me up during the day. Have two cups of coffee in the morning, really strong espresso then it’s peppermint tea.
[Ming Johanson]
Is it to calm you down? From the caffeine intake? [laugh]
[Josh Langley]
Well it’s just such a lovely zesty tea. But I’ll tell you a story about tea, about lemongrass and ginger tea. So I used to buy, you know, like the Lipton or whatever it was from the thing and go “it’s not too bad”.. And then someone said, “Why don’t you make your own?” And I went ‘What? I can’t do that! How do you do that?” and I realised I had a bit of Lemongrass growing in the garden. I had a bit of ginger in the fridge and I had one of those little siff things? What do you call them, not strain things that yeah whatever.
[Ming Johanson]
THE THING! The cage where the tea battles it out!
[Josh Langley]
The wrestling cage? It was the ginger and lemongrass wrestling cage and all you do is just chop it up finely, stick it in the cage and stick it in the thing. And then you go and you’ve got all the goodies and the wholesomeness of having real food, real products, as opposed to having something made by Lipton. And it was like, it’s that easy. And I think that can be applied to anything because we overcomplicate things and think we can’t do things because it’s like, that’s too hard. But when you sit down and look at it and go, Oh, oh I can do it!
[Ming Johanson]
What a good analogy to it, I love that. I am drinking a, what is it? What peach tea from T2 and for some reason, haven’t sponsored me with tea yet and I’m not saying I’m disappointed, but I’m suggesting you get on that.
[Josh Langley]
Have you reached out to T2?
[Ming Johanson]
Look, I was just hoping they were going to read my mind.
[Josh Langley]
Are you tagging them in all your social posts and the podcast?
[Ming Johanson]
We are tagging them on our website so they should get some, you know, depending on how good their SEO team is. And I am drinking it in my cup that says ‘Find your trip’ because the ‘E’ fell off. So yes. So I’m finding my trip at the moment.
[Josh Langley]
Okay, that’s good. Sounds like an adventure.
[Ming Johanson]
So I guess you are very whimsical, I feel. How can you… like you’re… so I think there’s a lot of people that say to me, oh, I wish I was brave enough to be the nonsense monster that I am. Because I am full of nonsense. But you know, I’m also the CEO of my own business. I have a team of seven. You have published multiple books, not just children’s books, also books for adults as well. How do you maintain your whimsical-ness? Is that a word? I feel like it’s not a word. I feel like I made it up.
[Josh Langley]
Oh, well, we’ve made it up. That’s rough, whimsical-ness.
[Ming Johanson]
Whimsical-ness.
[Josh Langley]
Look sometimes it is. It can be hard because, you know, I’ve got anxiety and that sometimes tends to dominate my life and I get worried about everything. But it’s not taking everything too seriously. It’s looking at the way business is done, the way society is structured. And you look at that and go, just doesn’t make any sense. It’s just, the only way…
[Ming Johanson]
Not for me!
[Josh Langley]
Yeah. The only way to combat it, is to be silly about it and to have a bit of whimsy-ness and a bit of, you know, eclectic-ness, a bit of bizarreness. But I mean, look, you’re the mother of unicorns. I mean, that’s what drew me to you in the first place. You know, one whimsical person attracts another whimsical person, and you create this great convalescence.
but in that middle, you have these situations where you’re not taking things too seriously. But at the same time, you can embrace the wonder and the magic of that moment when when two ideas come together and then see where it goes from there and I think that’s what I find that having run a business myself in advertising business for nearly 20 years, things can get so serious and like, where are you going to be in 5 years time?
What are you projected incomes? You know, outcomes. Where are you going to be? All this sort of stuff. And just like really it gets in the way of actually having fun, actually enjoying some of the idiocy that you have around running a business and about having fun with some of the people that you do business with. And then suddenly, you know, it’s like, we’re all going to die in the end anyway. [laugh]
[Ming Johanson]
I like that you said idiocy in business. [It’s true isn’t it?]. Because I do sometimes feel like you have to be a complete maniac to go into business. And I’m mindful that that word can sometimes be a bit tenuous with people. But you go into business with or at least I did when I went into business, I was like, Oh, this is going to be great.
I’m going to be in control of all my hours, not realising that I was going to use all of my hours and every waking moment and some to try and wrangle this into something and can cobble something together that was reasonable and rational that made me money. And then I think I find when I am, yeah, the authentic self, the most honest, people are very confronted by that, they’re very confronted by honest, candid, candid conversation. Certainly because I talk a lot about mental health and you’ve seen that. And yeah, the very fact that my, my first job title on my LinkedIn profile is Mother of Unicorns, which is, which is really a filter. [laugh]
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, I remember I remember you describing that to me when we first started chatting and I think I handed you down and because you’d said it’s an attraction thing, isn’t it? It’ll eliminate all the people who go through. I really want to be dealing with the mother of unicorns. How serious is she about her business? And then you got someone like me that goes, I know she’s the right person for me because there’s the irreverence to it, but there’s the playfulness. But there’s also, if you’re confident enough to call yourself that, then I know what you’re going to be knowing what you’re doing with your business. Know what I mean?
[Ming Johanson]
So a lot of people misunderstand, that the ‘Mother of unicorns’ actually came from the Start-Up ecosystem. So in Start-Up, a Unicorn is a business that has scaled very quickly and grown very quickly. And so if I’m the mother of unicorns, I’m the person who helps people scale their businesses very quickly.
[Josh Langley]
Ah gotcha!
[Ming Johanson]
So there was actual thought out and meaning behind it. And in the Start-Up Space, I’m well known for that. So a lot of people were like, Oh, you should talk to Ming. She’s the mother of unicorns. It was actually a moniker I was given. It wasn’t one that I gave myself. So a lot of people were like, You should know the mother of unicorns.
If you don’t know the mother of unicorns, you’ve been living under a rock. Like that would be the verbal vernacular that would get thrown around a lot. And so I just took ownership of it because it was like, ironically, I had a few… I’m going to call them old fuddy duddies.
[Josh Langley]
Thats being polite
[Ming Johanson]
No, I’m trying to be nice. Who were like, Oh, she’s not professional.
[Josh Langley]
Oh… that’s one word I can’t stand!
[Ming Johanson]
Professional yeah.
[Josh Langley]
Be professional. I’ts just like… yeah anyways.
[Ming Johanson]
Whereas, you know, God forbid, being yourself should be the perfect thing.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[Ming Johanson]
And I find things like being professional, so being professional means showing up 9 to 5, showing up early to your job, you know, on a 9 to 5 time schedule that nobody can function on, you know. So there’s things in our business where I have flexible work hours with my team and you know, and I’ve spoken about this in previous episodes, but we got rid of the whole, you got to be on time. So? What does that actually make? It doesn’t mean anything. And it’s and it’s built for people who are neurotypical. In my mind, whether or not it is, I feel like it’s built for neurotypical people. It’s not built for people with neurodiversity.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah. No, exactly. And that’s an outdated system that’s designed just to micromanage people, to keep them in check and keep the wheels of the economy turning just for someone else.
[Ming Johanson]
I don’t know how anybody has time to micromanage somebody.
[Josh Langley]
I’ve seen… Oh… I am no longer working in an office environment. That’s a story for another day. I mean, I remember back in 2000, I quit my day job and I had nothing to go to. And I had about maybe 500 bucks for a computer and started up my own business, advertising business outside of creative. And I was just in a back room of a friend’s place, but I was inspired by this…
It wasn’t the freelance economy then. It was called something else. I can’t remember now, but I used to devour, you know, magazines like Fast Company and how they were looking at the changing nature of the workplace. And I’m talking 22 years ago, and they were what we’re looking at now is what they were predicting back then. And I wanted to be part of that.
I wanted to be one of those change makers and actually go out, working on my own terms, in my own hours of learning everything I could growing. But I didn’t want to scale the business though, I didn’t want to. It was all about my own personal lifestyle. [Yeah] And one of the things I came up against, though, is your own expectations in your own conditioning.
Because I remember I was, it was one of those days I was like a Tuesday, it was mid-November. It was sunshine and all that. And my partner at the time said, just go to the beach. I’ve got no work. I’ve done everything I needed to do. I’ve done a, you know, a massive email out to all these prospective new clients. I’ve done everything that I could do. And they said ‘go to the beach!’. I went ‘I can’t do that. I can’t be seen to be enjoying myself.’
[Ming Johanson]
I should be working, yeah.
[Josh Langley]
I should be working! It’s still 11:00am in the morning. And I realised that I was going to get everything I was actually trying to do, which was actually, redefine what work was on my terms. [Yeah] But that old work ethic and the thing from your parents generation, ‘Oh you got to be seen at the office, you know, hacking away on the typewriter.
[Ming Johanson]
If you’re not early you’re late, that was one. That was one I had stuck in my head for a really long time. ‘If you’re not early you’re late’! And so I would always be like half an hour early. And if and if I’m not half an hour early, I feel crippling anxiety that I am late to everything.
[Josh Langley]
Thanks, boss.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember very early on I would reply to emails like 3am in the morning, which is ridiculous. [Yeah] And then I was training my customers that they had my undivided attention at 3am in the morning.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, bad move.
[Ming Johanson]
Bad move! [laugh] Learnt that lesson! That only took me three years to learn. Yeah I think the battle against your own internal past version of yourself, of what you think is a good employee, of what you think is a good boss, of what you think is a good CEO is wild. It’s wild what we think is true. And I spend a lot of time and I did a post this morning on LinkedIn actually, talking about being a flawed boss and that actually being okay. And I’m, you know, that idea that being a CEO, you’re meant to have all the answers and you’re meant to be perfect and was like, that’s like, no, none of us are. We’re all winging it. Everybody is winging it.
[Josh Langley]
And that’s the thing. Most people pretend they know what they’re doing, but they don’t. And it’s when they don’t have that little nuance to go, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t’ you know, what do you guys think? Or whatever? And that’s when they back up against that or the double down on I don’t know what’s going on, you’re going to do it my way or the highway. I think that concept is slowly dying out now.
[Ming Johanson]
I hope so.
[Josh Langley]
I think it has. I think COVID has actually created a wonderful opportunity for people to think differently about how work is done, whether it’s, you know, people work a four day week as opposed to a five day week. Because the last job I had, I ended up working. It was three days a week, then I ended up four days a week and I got more done in those days than I would have done in five days.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, absolutely.
[Josh Langley]
And it’s just like this concept of ‘to be seen’. A really good example is that when the last job, I say I was a radio copywriter so I would literally sit at the computer and write commercials or I was coming up with ideas for campaigns and coming up with ideas for promotional strategies. So in order to do that, you needed Headspace to actually come up with this idea.
So I would sit on the, I had a couple of chairs in my office. I would sit on them, stare out the window, go for a walk around the office, go for a walk at the park, look at the vase and just loosen up my mind to come up with these ideas. And these ideas would then come up with a $1,000,000 campaign.
However, I would still be, if I’m sitting there and one of the…there was a programme director for the radio station and she would always look busy. She was just like, a stressed look on her face all the time, walking up and down the corridor with a clipboard. And of course that suddenly says, I’m important because I carry a clipboard.
[Ming Johanson]
[Laugh] Optics, Love it.
[Josh Langley]
Exactly, you got to be seen to be busy and I’m going, okay, I’m just coming up with an idea and I felt bad every time she walked past, I went quickly jump back to the computer and look like you were busy.
[Ming Johanson]
Everybody look busy.
[Josh Langley]
I was like, this is the stupidest… I don’t want to swear on here but that creates a while stupid mentality, where people get anxiety, they have meltdowns because we have to live up to this perceived notion of what work is and how it should be done. When it’s all an arbitrary thing, from the old industrial era of, you know, school and education is tied into that. So send kids to school at these hours. So then the parents can go off to work and work for the machine and then and then we can buy the things that we don’t really need that we can’t afford to buy anyway and was all like, Really?
And then when you do try and claim it back, there are no instruction manuals on how to do it. As you would know, you know, running your business, there are no there’s no instruction manual. You’re making it up. And, you know, and that’s what happens. But that’s part of the joy and part of the adventure of doing what we do is stepping into this unknown, stepping into this space and going well I got no idea what’s going on. Let’s see what happens.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah. I treat it like an experiment. Everything’s an experiment. I don’t. And neither does anybody else know what the future is going to look like. And so, like, I always laugh when somebody says, What are you going to do in five years time? And It’s like shit,. Half of the jobs that I do now didn’t exist five years ago.
So, I have no certainty around that and I feel like that must be difficult for a younger generation who’s told to get a job, have a career, do all the things, get an education, figure out… figure out what you want to do kid. And it’s all nonsense, like you don’t know what your future career might be and it doesn’t even have a job title yet. So I know it must be so difficult and crippling and anxiety driving for the kids.
[Josh Langley]
I think kids are… especially the generation of kids or the ones in primary school. They’re the ones that are actually starting to embrace this new concept of, you know, you don’t ask an eight year old what you want to be when you grow up. You actually go, what are you curious about? And you conditioned them to go, okay I like dinosaurs.
[Ming Johanson]
That’s awesome, yeah.
[Josh Langley]
And they might go, You know, an archaeologist will be really good fun.
[Ming Johanson]
Palaeontologist, yeah.
[Josh Langley]
You know, or you could start an online start up with archaeology or do something, but you can go down that way. So I think what a lot of parents and teachers are doing now is looking at kids, because this is the space that I work in, is actually encouraging them to follow their curiosity and by going, okay, if you’re an accountant if or if you want to be an accountant, if you want to be an engineer, sorry, those jobs are gone because ai and all that sort of stuff, automation is going to do that for us. We don’t need those, we need people.
[Ming Johanson]
Don’t tell my accountant. [Laugh]
[Josh Langley]
Well, it’s true, their days are numbered unless they’re going to do creative accountancy. But it’s these so-called soft skills, Ming. You know, communication, creativity, imagination, emotional regulation, understanding who we are, self awareness, ability to adapt, ability to change, ability to see things coming up and go, Oh, I’m going to do a right hand turn. I want to reinvent myself now.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah and being able to adapt quickly. Right?
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, exactly. As opposed to having a meltdown like at the moment, the teenagers today, they’re in this sort of crossover period where their jobs were at uni for. They are studying year 12. Then they’re going to get a uni to study to be an engineer halfway through their engineering degree. AI’s going to take it over.
[Ming Johanson]
Look, ai’s not going to take it all over! It’s not like, I feel like…
[Josh Langley]
It’s going to be gradual. But still.
[Ming Johanson]
AI is still going to need human operators. It will still need people through checks and balances because of bias and unconscious bias around that. I think, like theres components of every job that may be taken over by ai, but I don’t think we will completely get rid of it.
[Josh Langley]
Perfect example, Ming is copywriting. My old profession, I just have to load up Jasper and it does it for me. [laugh]
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, but it’s not perfect.
[Josh Langley]
It’s a lot better than what I used to do. No seriously but that’s what I mean. Look I don’t know how we got onto ai but it does make a lot of jobs simpler and easier.
[Ming Johanson]
It does. And I think it’s there to support people. Like I’m a big… so I grew up with a father who was an automotive automation engineer. So he designed food processing, packaging machinery that got rid of packaging lines. But there were people who then they had a different job or a new job or creative job that was around designing, packaging or running, but still making sure of the quality control of the packaging.
[Josh Langley]
Exactly. So, you know… can I pause for a second?
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, absolutely.
[Josh Langley]
[background chatter] Oh do I have to summarise what I learnt from Ming.
[Josh Langley Partner]
I just wanted to know what Josh learned from Ming.
[Ming Johanson]
Hi Andy. Josh’s partner Andy has popped into our podcast. To say hi and check in on lessons. [Laugh] But it is a relevant question though. So I do want to ask you, like what is the lesson of learning from what you knew in traditional advertising, traditional radio advertising to what you’ve learnt now from Google advertising?
[Josh Langley]
All bets are off, literally. The traditional advertising is dead compared to Google ads, it’s a completely different ballgame. [Yeah]. And the way you do things the way of the mentality that I bring to the table, look, I want to create a really nice headline that’s going to get people’s attention. You know, it’s the old age of principle, you know, attention, interest, desire, action.
I wanted that formula, that sort of funnel that doesn’t work anymore, especially when you look at Google ads and what people are typing in, you know, how do I get things fast? They just when they come up, I just want keywords. I want to see the bang. I want that and they’ll click on that. [Yeah] Yeah. Okay. So, and that’s why ai can create those ads really quickly.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah. So yeah, does that make you a bit sad? Does that make you a bit sad? That, like the traditional advertising kind of ways, aren’t really transferable to Google or.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, I suppose It is a little bit sad, but it’s also exciting because I go, okay, well I need to learn something else now. What else can I learn? You know how it works. Look, it’s like that because advertising sometimes is an excellent art form. It was a great creative outlet where you could actually get really creative and really connect with people on an emotional one on one level. And that was great fun. But with these Google ads, it’s just. No, there’s none of that really.
[Ming Johanson]
Well, there’s this data. So like the thing with Google ads is there’s a measurable thing. So like we just did a whole exercise earlier before the podcast where we punched in a whole bunch of keywords that we thought people were searching for. And there was nothing. Nobody was searching for any of those things. [I know] And so that’s why, like, I love those tools, because I can get that direct feedback immediately.
Like I can find out whether or not people are searching the things that attract in my head that I’m very much assuming. I very much acknowledge my bias and learn that, Oh, I am really biassed. I have made a lot of assumptions about my customers that are wrong.
[Josh Langley]
Well, I suppose that’s part of the learning aspect, is that really it’s a whole new ball game and I really can’t bring any of the old advertising skills into this, and that’s why I’m sort of foundering a bit and going and especially with the real time data. And that’s the other thing is like with a good radio ad campaign, it was like to wait a few weeks.
Then anyone calls in, maybe someone called, then you ask ‘where did you hear the ad, Oh heard it / watched it on the TV’ but you’re not advertising on the TV. Oh, must’ve heard it on the radio then. So all these vague bits of data coming back and you can only really go by what was going through the teel. That was it.
That’s the only way you can measure it. Success of an Advertising Campaign has your profits going up or sales gone up in the period that we’re advertising? Well, yes. Well, then it’s working. But that’s about as serious as you could take it. Really. [Yeah] What you’re looking at with the Google ads it’s so much more precise.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah.
[Josh Langley]
And the data is there that backs it up and, and for me, it’s like all I want. I want sales.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, of course. As to all of our customers. And I think what’s interesting for us is we came from social media advertising, as you well know, and social media advertising is really disruptive because it goes on people’s feeds and they don’t, but you can still measure conversion. So during the pandemic, we kind of moved into Google space because we’re like, well, why not?
And then discovered how powerful those tools are! Because we’re technical nerds, right? We press every button ruthlessly until we figure out what it does. On, off, on, off. What does this one do? On, off.
[Josh Langley]
And especially if it says, do not press this button. Oh, yeah.
[Ming Johanson]
Oh, yeah, I am the worst person for that. Do not put me in front of nuclear weapons.
[Josh Langley]
I suppose the thing is that for me is that when you explained it in regards to Google, people are already looking to buy. Yeah. Looking for something on Facebook then not so you’ve actually got it which it’s very similar to the radio advertising. It’s you’ve got to get them where they are and you got to consistently throw ads at them and you appeal to their, emotions and go, okay, well, I wasn’t really thinking about buying a plush toy. You know, but maybe it might be nice for my niece.
[Ming Johanson]
I do like Unicorns. [Laugh]
[Josh Langley]
Then you’re going to get them through the whole buying cycle and all that sort of stuff. But on Google there at the end stage of the buying cycle. Yeah. And that’s and so you can bypass that whole branding that, all that sort of stuff and go straight to the ads on Google, Google ads. And I think that’s kind of…I’m seeing results of that now, through what you guys have set up and which are inadvertently mangled through my control freaks. But we had a chat about that.
[Ming Johanson]
You’re not doing too badly. Look, I always appreciate your enthusiasm to learn and I guess I wanted to ask you about that was, I am well aware of how much of a control freak you are, as am I, as I am. I’m also a control freak in certain aspects of my business. How was it for you handling that control over because like we worked on your website and did a re-design. How was that for you?
[Josh Langley]
That was really scary because it was like I was used to having my own, you know, basic wordpress software, I could just go in and change it, whenever I wanted to do. Which goes against every single thing that I used to tell everyone else about advertising, consistency, and keeping a stable platform. So when people go to it, they say the same thing and it becomes familiar and they trust it.
Don’t keep changing it. And when you and when it went okay, well like I better take this seriously, you know, I’ve got to actually invest money and do that investment and it completely changed the way I mean, look, yes, I have done my own little tweeks since we’ve done. Since you did it, was that last year?
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, yeah.
[Josh Langley]
Okay. However, the biggest compliment that I have got since is that when I did some school visits and I went to Dun Craig library and, and the librarians there I was chatting to them and they said, look, when we organised to have you come here, we went to your website and your website was the best author website we have seen in our time and everything was on there, we needed to know
[Ming Johanson]
Amazing
[Josh Langley]
It was easily accessible. We could find out this, we could find out that, we could send an enquiry form, we could do everything and so well done on having the best website.
[Ming Johanson]
Amazing, I love hearing that.
[Josh Langley]
And it made me feel good because it’s like suddenly, you know, I’m not just one of these all that maybe has a bit of a landing page or something like that or whatever. This is my business and this is my business.
[Ming Johanson]
Has a Wix website.
[Josh Langley]
Yeah, exactly.
[Ming Johanson]
No judgement, everyones gotta start somewhere.
[Josh Langley]
A lot is breaking. And it’s like, but this is my business. I am my brand, I am my business. I want it to succeed and said, for I want the best tools I have available to make that happen. So that’s why I have the website that you guys designed and that’s why my programme, the inspiring It’s programme, is part of that website.
[Josh Langley]
So it’s all in the nice one spot. It’s beautiful that’s not segmented, you know. And then we got the Google ads campaign that’s running at the moment. So keep fiddling with. [Laugh] Which will keep improving once you keep that. And it’s like it’s just a perfect scenario at the moment. So even though everything evolves at the moment, it’s everything I need and it’s and it’s still growing.
[Ming Johanson]
So I think whenever we’re designing websites for our clients, the goal is always for the website to be reflective of the person that we’re building it for. And quite often it’s not. Quite often the website is well, and you’ve heard me say this term before, and I think I’ve mentioned this before on a previous podcast is it’s a franken wife. It’s not frankenstein, it started off as a beautiful relationship and then you just started to add and bultch it on and you kept bolting shit on and you didn’t actually do anything. I think everybody in business at some point has done this. So it is a pretty normal part of the journey. And so everything we’re trying to do.
[Josh Langley]
And it ends up looking like a dog’s breakfast. That’s my, I think that’s the way you describe my old website.
[Ming Johanson]
I don’t think I use those words specifically. I believe you used it.
[Josh Langley]
And you just nodded politely.
[Ming Johanson]
Yes. Yes. I believe there was nodding involved. The cool part of it was navigation, What were you selling? Like, what were you selling and what did you want people to focus on and where did you want them to go? And the way that you design the website helps with that navigation.
[Josh Langley]
Mm hmm. Exactly. And that’s the thing. And I’m finding the feedback now is that people know exactly where they can go to get the information they want about me, about what I’m doing, about my products and services, and all that sort of stuff. So, so that’s, that’s the goal achieved.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah. So it’s really wonderful feedback. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and sharing that with our listeners. [That’s okay] So what would you give as your final parting advice to authors, to business owners when it comes to the big wide world of marketing?
[Josh Langley]
Do your own thing. It’s almost like it’s so easy to look at everyone else and go, oh, I want to do what they’re doing. You can take elements. You can be inspired by what other people are doing and how they’re doing it. You take elements of it and integrate it into your own self to be your own authentic self within that business marketing space, you know, it’s like, what’s this authority marketing? I keep hearing, you know, it’s about you as the authority and what, you know. Allow that to come forward.
Allow that to be who you are, to be the face, to be the website, to be the marketing, to bid for promotion. Don’t be afraid to be you. And then you will draw people of like minded people to yourself and to your business that way. And therefore and then at the end of the day, when you if all else fails, you can at least it’s just being me. You have to pretend to be anybody else.
[Ming Johanson]
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me on my podcast on our 10th episode. It’s exciting
[Josh Langley]
Oh I feel very special, Thanks Ming.
[Ming Johanson]
For anybody looking for Josh Langley, you can find him on his website Joshlangley.com.au and you can connect with me on the LinkedIn. I am the only Ming Johanson in the world. It’s very easy to find me. Thanks so much for tuning in.
