August 21, 2023 • 50 mins
Imagine going from a band singer to a blue cartoon dog to finally becoming a successful digital marketer. You'd think it's a movie plot, but it's actually the life of our guest, Jason Barnard, the CEO of Kalicube. Jason's diverse background and his engrossing journey to the top of the digital marketing world are truly something to marvel at. In our discussion, he takes us along his unique journey, sharing his experiences from starting a record label in Paris to his current role as a leading expert in digital marketing. His candid storytelling will have you hooked from the get-go.
What does Google think about you or your brand? Jason believes that understanding this concept is vital to effective digital marketing. He introduces us to the concept of Brand SERP and how it impacts your digital marketing strategy. Jason provides insights from his own company, Kalicube, and how they leverage Brand SERP to create effective marketing and branding strategies. His experience and mastery of this concept are evident, as he also introduces us to his Kalicube Pro SaaS platform, a tool that can help businesses analyze their data from Google to better prioritize their digital marketing efforts.
In our final segment, we open up the floor to discuss the importance of continuous learning, the role of generative AI in the digital marketing landscape, and the significance of team building and delegation. Jason stresses the importance of being on top of your game and continually honing your skills to stay relevant. We also delve into his philosophy on "educating Google" and how it can be used to bolster your SEO strategy effectively. We wrap up the episode with Jason sharing his thoughts on building a successful team, the importance of delegation, and how it was instrumental to the success of Kalicube. This episode is a rich tapestry of insights, practical advice, and inspiring stories that have the potential to transform your digital marketing strategies.
Here's the link to the white paper Jason mentions on the episode: https://solutions.kalicube.com/easy-to-sell-services-and-lucrative-margins-with-kalicube-pro
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the Catalytic Leadership podcast.
Each week, we tackle a topicrelated to the field of
leadership.
My goal is to ensure that youhave actionable steps you can
take from each episode to growin your own leadership.
Growth doesn't just happen.
My goal is to help you becomeintentional about it.
(00:37):
Each week, we spotlight leadersfrom a variety of fields,
organizations and locations.
My goal is for you to see thatleaders can be catalytic, no
matter where they are or whatthey lead.
I draw inspiration from thestories and journeys of these
leaders, and I hear from many ofyou that you do too.
Let's jump into today'sinterview.
(00:59):
I'm thrilled today to haveJason Bernard on the podcast.
Jason is the CEO of CaliCube, asoftware company that helps
business leaders take control oftheir brand narrative online
and dominate the competition.
Jason has over two decades ofexperience in digital marketing,
starting in 1998, the yearGoogle was incorporated with a
(01:22):
website for kids based on thecharacters Buwa and Koala that
he built up to become one of the10,000 most visited sites in
the world.
In the 1990s, he was aprofessional musician with the
punk folk group the Barking Dogs.
He currently plays double basswith Bar Acoustic.
He's a conference speaker atmajor marketing conferences
(01:44):
worldwide.
He's a podcast host with hisshow Branded Search and Beyond
with Jason Bernard, being aweekly staple in the digital
marketing community.
And he's an author with hisfirst book, the Fundamentals of
Brand Serps for Business,published in January of 2022.
Jason, I'm so glad you're here.
Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's an absolute pleasure, William.
That was a delightfulintroduction.
My life sounds really excitingand fun, doesn't it?
It does.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I can't wait to hear more about it.
Let's start there.
I'd love for you to share someof your story with our listeners
, particularly around yourjourney and your development as
a leader.
How did you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Right?
That's a lovely question.
In fact, I grew up in thecountryside in the north of
Yorkshire, surrounded by pigsand sheep and goats and cows,
and very lonely.
Then I went to Liverpool,joined a band, played the cavern
(02:45):
club, where the Beatles playeddelightfully, and I was a singer
in the band.
I met a friend of mine 30 yearslater.
He was the guitar player in theband and I said to him thank
you, thank you for being in theband with me and giving me that
opportunity and organizingeverything.
He said no, no, no, you've gotit all wrong.
(03:05):
He was about to give up playingthe guitar when he met me and
he said you were so naive, soenthusiastic and so good at
organizing and getting people todo what they needed to do when
they needed to do it, toactually get the band going.
It reignited my delight and mypassion for music.
It turns out I organizedeverything and I just didn't
(03:28):
remember.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Wow, that's so fantastic.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It was really, really an interesting time.
Then I moved to Paris andjoined another band and
organized all of that as well.
We couldn't get a deal with therecord company.
In 1991, I set up my own recordlabel and we recorded our first
album in three nights,sub-renting a music studio a
(03:57):
recording studio from anotherlocal band in the middle of
Paris.
I was working all day as ateacher and then I finished the
work as a teacher and for threenights I did no sleep.
Three days working three nightsplaying the music.
It's actually quite a goodalbum, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Wow, how did you get from that to marketing, to
digital marketing?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
The whole thing about that was I was determined that
our group would be successful.
I organized gigs.
We produced four music albums.
We played 660 concerts.
I organized concerts.
I organized them all.
I set up a touring company.
I set up a record company.
All of that simply because Iwanted to be in a band and I
(04:48):
wanted to make my living playingin a band.
And I made it happen.
Then that stopped and I decidedafter that that I wanted to be
a blue dog in a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Very non-traditional career path.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yes, I set up a company to do that as well.
I set up a company that did webdevelopment of games for
children and music albums forchildren that I recorded I was
the blue dog Boa, who has verydeep voice and sings a lot and
enjoyed it greatly and built avery successful business.
(05:25):
As you said, it was one of the10,000 biggest sites in the
world.
We were competing with Disneyand PBS.
That was huge and we weremaking very good money.
A lot of the traffic, a lot ofthe kids found us through Google
.
We were ranking number one forall the key terms like kids
games, coloring pages, kidssongs all of these terms and
(05:50):
attracted a million kids a monththrough Google alone.
Five million visits a month.
That's 100 million page views amonth, which is over a billion
pages seen by children on thiswebsite in the year 2007.
(06:14):
Think about that 2007.
Wow, a billion pages for asmall website for kids Brilliant
.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
What was?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
next.
Yes, I was a very goodbusinessman in the sense that we
were making a lot of money.
I was a very bad businessman inthe sense that I took the wrong
business partner who proceededto steal the company in legal
ways because I was naive.
Once again, another person whosaw that I was naive but took
(06:43):
advantage.
This time I had to set up a newcareer.
When I started to pitch for workas a digital marketer, I
realized that when people searchmy name Jason Barnard it said
Jason Barnard is a cartoon bluedog.
The clients I was trying tosign were saying well, that's
not serious, I'm not going togive my digital marketing
(07:05):
strategy of millions of dollarsto a cartoon blue dog.
I then had to figure out how tochange Google's perception of
me, so it presented me as adigital marketer.
If you search my name todayJason Barnard,
j-a-s-o-n-b-a-r-n-a-r-d you willsee that I look like a digital
marketing superstar, notnecessarily because I am, but
(07:27):
because that's Google'sperception of me.
And that's the key here.
What is Google's perception ofyou as a person and your company
and your products and offersand services?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's brilliant.
You talk about educating Google, jason.
Yes, that is a fascinatingconcept.
I don't know that I've everheard anybody talk about that
before.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I actually realised the other day that I've just
reproduced Boo, other blue dogin Cali Cube.
Because, yeah, educating Googleis all about educating a child.
That's what Buwa and QuaLa wereall about.
They were educational games.
We did a TV series with ITVInternational.
(08:15):
It was educational content forchildren to show them the world
that surrounds them that theydon't necessarily understand and
that they are often fearful of.
Quala was the small child thatBuwa was helping understand the
world.
The lovely thing about Buwa andQuaLa that we didn't take
everything down to a really lowlevel.
(08:36):
It was discovery, it wascuriosity, it was kindness and
helpfulness within any givencircumstance.
I realised a couple of weeksago that's what we're doing at
CaliQ.
What we've done is we said,well, we can educate Google.
Come with us clients, agencies,and we can help you to educate
(08:59):
Google.
That makes your world much lessscary.
Google isn't scary.
Google's a child thirsty forknowledge.
All we need to do is transferour knowledge about ourselves
into Google's mind I might evensay soul, but that might be
pushing it too far.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's fascinating to me, I wonder.
I mean, is this somethinganybody can do?
Can anybody teach Google?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yeah, it's a really, really lovely situation.
Google is a massive machine.
It's hugely complex.
That makes people think thatit's difficult to interact with
it.
In fact, everything you postonline is interacting with
Google directly or indirectly.
It's simply a question ofinteracting with Google in a
(09:50):
consistent manner and giving itclear signals and clear messages
about who you are, what you'redoing, which audience you serve.
If you can do that, you caneducate Google, because Google
is sucking in all of thisinformation Like a child.
If it gets consistentinformation about specific
(10:11):
topics that make sense and itall fits together, it will
understand.
When it understands, then itcan start recommending you to
the subset of its users, who aretruly your audience, because
Google, at the end of the day,is a recommendation engine.
We go to Google for arecommendation for the solution
(10:31):
to our problem or the answer toour question.
Google will recommend thesource my company, I would hope,
or myself that it finds to bethe most trustworthy,
authoritative, credible, expert,experienced.
Google calls that EEATexperience, expertise, authority
(10:54):
, trustworthiness.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And you can adjust where you fit into that
particular equation by what youput out there.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, it's micromanaging, which some people
find very difficult, especiallycompanies, and so that's the
huge challenge is to say well,if I want to have a consistent
message, that's actually thehardest thing for a human being
to do, and even more so acollection of human beings
within a company.
(11:25):
So one of the keys at CaliCubeis weekly meetings with the team
.
Everybody discusses whatthey're doing, everybody
understands what everybodyelse's job is and everybody's
working together with the sameideas, the same approach, the
same communication style, theCaliCube voice.
And that really helps us toeducate Google, because, whether
(11:48):
it's Joanne in social media orKatrina on the service pages, or
Jean-Marie or Bernadette orLeanne writing the articles on
the website, or indeed thedesign which we often overlook,
with Verona and Jean-Marie andMary Ann, everybody is
expressing themselves in a verysimilar manner, using the same
(12:11):
language, the same ideas, thesame style.
So CaliCube has a voice and Ihave a voice, and Google is now
able to recognize that voice andit's able to extract and that's
a really important point, it'sable to extract information from
what we write and what weproduce, reliably and with
confidence that it is fullyunderstood what we're talking
(12:33):
about, because we communicateconsistently and in a way that
we know Google can easilyunderstand.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
A lot of the people who are listening to this, jason
, are business owners smallbusiness owners, such as experts
and this, to them, feels likesomething that they should do,
but they're not techie.
They wouldn't describethemselves as a tech geek.
Like is this?
This feels like it may bebeyond them.
Is that true?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
No, I've got great news for them.
It's not.
It's absolutely withineverybody's reach, and I think
that's one of the terriblethings about SEO.
Search engine optimization isthat the community has made it
seem much more technical than ittruly is.
It used to be very technical.
It has got progressively lessand less technical.
(13:26):
So let's say, in 1998, when Istarted, it was 20% the content
you produced, 80% the technicalway you put it in your web page.
Now it's the other way around.
It's 80% the quality of thecontent you produce for your
audience and remember thatyou're producing the content for
your audience 20% the technicalimplementation.
(13:48):
And from that perspective, itmeans that the value that you
need to push within your team isthe quality of the content you
produce for your audience andactually answering their
questions, solving theirproblems, because that's what
Google is looking for.
That's good.
(14:09):
And actually, once the contentis on the page, google's getting
smarter and smarter and smarterand smarter.
And even if you don't do such agreat technical job and that
20% is only half done, you'refine if you've done the 80%
content.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Wow your book that you published last year, the
fundamentals of brand serps forbusiness.
Some people listening wouldprobably want to ask you what
exactly is a brand serp and doyou?
Care about that for us, for ourbusiness.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, and yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.
I can't remember what all thequestions were.
Yes, you should read the book.
Yes, you should focus on brandserps and yes, a brand serp.
I will explain what it is.
A SERP?
S-e-r-p is a search engineresults page, so every time you
search on Google, it producesthat page.
(15:03):
It gives you therecommendations we mentioned
earlier on.
Now, a brand serp is the searchengine results page for a brand,
a company or a person.
That page represents Google'sunderstanding of that company or
that person and which contentaround that company or person
(15:24):
their audience is going to bemost interested in, what content
is going to be most valuable,helpful and relevant to the
audience.
And that's the huge insight.
This is where we move away fromSEO, the geeky Google thing,
and towards marketing andbranding, Because what you have
(15:44):
there, when you search your owncompany name, is Google's
understanding of your company oryour brand and Google's
understanding of your marketing.
And if it's not what you want,then you've got a problem in one
or both.
And what I like to say topeople is search your name, your
(16:06):
brand name, company name,personal name, even your product
name, but before you hit return, think what do I expect to see.
Make a little mental note whenthe page appears.
What do you see?
How similar are they?
Number three what do you wantto see?
How far away is that from whatyou expected to see?
(16:27):
And what you do see?
And what you'll find is, bycorrecting that from what you do
see to what you want to see,you will naturally build a much
better marketing strategy and amuch better branding strategy.
And that, the SEO, is actuallyat the end of this little
triplet Branding, marketing, SEO.
(16:50):
If you don't have a brand,you've got nothing to market.
If you don't have anything tomarket, you've got nothing to
SEO.
So you need to do it in thatorder.
And the CaliQ process in mybook talks about that idea is
saying well, SEO, search engineoptimization is actually just
packaging for Google.
So it's packaging something youshould be creating anyway for
(17:11):
your audience, for Google.
So if I now look at my brandSERP and look at it and think,
well, I've put a lot ofresources into Facebook, but
Facebook isn't on my brand SERP,Google doesn't think it's
important, there are twopossibilities.
Number one is Facebook simplyisn't important within your
(17:32):
industry and you're wasting yourmoney.
Or number two, you're not doinga very good job and you're
wasting your money.
So, either way, you canimmediately see from Google's
perception oh sorry, it'srepresentation of your brand is
its perception of how youraudience engages with you, and
(17:52):
that's both to do with the workthat you're doing.
I mean, my Facebook work wasterrible.
Therefore, it's not ranking.
Therefore, I'm doing a bad job.
Therefore, I need to thinkabout what I'm doing, but also
your competitors within yourmarket.
What works for a real estatedeveloper?
It's going to be more somethingalong the lines of images than
it is Twitter, so it'd be morelikely to be Instagram.
(18:15):
But we have the data in CaliQPro.
We've got a platform.
What we do is, when a clientcomes to see us to work with us,
first of all we say do you havea marketing department?
If they don't have a marketingdepartment, we can't help,
Because what we do is we click abutton in CaliQ Pro, which is a
SaaS platform I built, and itwill pull up the full digital
marketing strategy based on yourcurrent strategies, their
(18:39):
success and failure, your cohort, ie, your competitors, and then
we can talk to you and say well, this is your ideal strategy
based on those two things thatGoogle has told us.
So it's Google telling us whatyou should be doing.
Then we talk to you what areyour resources, what are your
priorities, what are yourbusiness goals?
(19:00):
We can then adapt that idealstrategy to what you're actually
trying to do.
We call that the CaliCubeprocess.
Then we implement it with ourclients by coaching their team
to brand better, to marketbetter and to ensure that the
packaging for Google is wrappedup in their natural standard
(19:21):
operating procedures for everyaspect of their marketing.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
It is so intentional and purposeful in how you've
built that and how you serveyour clients that day.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, I mean, I've been doing it for 12 years and I
only really realized quite howintentional it was recently.
So it's unintentionallyintentional, if that's the thing
.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Really intentional oh that's much better.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Thank you very much.
You've just saved the day.
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So the SaaS platform that you've created sounds
fascinating.
I mean, this sounds like a toolthat companies can use to
really manage what you'retalking about and really make
some ground as they're trying tomove the ball up the field.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well, in fact, I created CaliCube Pro, which is
the SaaS platform, in 2015, soit's actually eight years old,
and I created it to solve aproblem that I had, which was
analyzing this stuff manually isvery slow, very painful, very
boring and you get it wrong,whereas what we've done at
(20:32):
CaliCube I've built thealgorithms, I built them myself
is to analyze the data that weget back from Google about a
brand and its competitive marketand prioritize everything based
on the data, which means thatwhen I say focus on Facebook,
I'm not saying I think youshould focus on Facebook.
(20:54):
I'm saying Google's analysis ofyou and your market tell us
that Facebook is the mostimportant.
So we need to start there.
And when you create thatcontent for Facebook, make sure
that you're using it as well onyour website.
You're creating a post.
Think about how you mightintegrate that into your website
(21:15):
or vice versa.
It doesn't matter, but thinkabout why am I and once again,
the idea of being intentional issaying I shouldn't just be
creating a piece of content forFacebook, even if I then say,
well, I'm also doing Twitter andfor LinkedIn.
There are three differentplatforms with three different
(21:38):
approaches.
It may well not be worth yourtime even posting on Twitter if
it's simply not important inyour industry.
It will be more worth your timetaking that content and
creating a page on your websitethat actually helps your users,
solves a problem or explains toGoogle tiny bit more about who
(21:59):
you are, what you're doing,which audience you serve,
because Google cannot readeverything on Facebook.
Somebody once told me it'sprobably untrue, but 30%, let's
say.
Google can only get 30% ofFacebook.
It's just too huge.
But it can get 100% of yourwebsite and it also, when it
sees it on your website, itknows it's you.
(22:20):
It knows it's you saying it.
So if you've got somebody onFacebook asking a question let's
say somebody pings you in apost and says I'm not sure how
to download the software for Mac, and you reply on Facebook done
why don't you take thatquestion and put it on your
website as an FAQ and say wheredo you download the CaliCube
(22:43):
software for Mac?
Here is the link.
This is where you might want itand this is why it's a credible
solution.
So repurpose it where it'sactually going to be useful.
And that thing of saying yourwebsite is your home, it's
something you control.
It's something that Googleconnects directly to you, so
it's your best conduit forcommunicating with Google.
(23:05):
And we come back to educatingthe child.
You need to educate this childso it understands who you are,
what you do, which audience youserve, because only then can it
recommend you to the subset ofits users who are your audience.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So what you're describing as far as Google's
limitations with Facebook, dothose apply to LinkedIn as well?
A lot of people I know arecreating content on LinkedIn now
.
Do the same limitations apply?
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, we don't know quite how much it's able to
crawl.
We even don't know if it cancrawl in certain circumstances
because of the fact thatLinkedIn often, depending on
circumstances, will force you tolog in.
So you don't know how muchinformation it's getting out of
LinkedIn.
We don't know how muchinformation it's getting in our
Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
It's got a firehose, so it getsit all, but what does it do
(23:54):
with it?
And there's so much junk inthere?
Is it important?
Is that stream Sorry, it's theworld stream of consciousness.
How useful is that in terms ofunderstanding the facts?
It's good, great for sentiment,because Google can bring it all
together and say well, all ofthis talks about CaliCube.
The sentiment of that is highlypositive.
(24:15):
Therefore, we can assume thatCaliCube is a good company that
serves its clients well.
That's great.
But it doesn't get the details.
But if I post that same contenton my website in a more
structured manner and structuredjust in terms of human beings
saying here's the question,here's the answer to that
question as concerns my company,I'm educating Google, and
educating Google is the singlemost important thing to do in
(24:39):
SEO today, by far and away.
And educating it is justanswering the right questions
and solving the right problemsfor the right audience, and
putting it on your web page in amanner that they can understand
it and they can use it and I'mtalking about people here.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, I'm curious.
You have really elevated yourgame over time.
I mean, there's no such thingas a wasted experience.
I tell clients to solve thetime.
There's no such thing as awasted experience.
You're going to carry what youlearn forward and it is going to
benefit either you or peoplearound you later in your life.
(25:15):
You have continually upped yourgame.
How do you do that?
How do you stay on top of yourgame and level up with the new
skills you need to lead yourcompany well?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Oh, that's a lovely question, because as a kid I was
criticised by my father becauseI played one sport, got good at
it, stopped, went and playedanother sport, got good at that,
stopped and went and playedanother sport.
And he couldn't understand thatwhat was happening was that I
was getting good enough torealise that I would never be
(25:49):
great.
So there's no point.
Wow.
And the only sports I playedconsistently were field hockey,
chess and football.
And I played field hockey forthe French champions and I
played football in the FrenchParisian third division.
I played chess for the northernhalf of the UK as a 18 year old
(26:16):
punk, but then I stopped chessbecause I realised I was never
going to be a grandmaster.
So then I did economics atuniversity and I realised I was
never going to be the greatesteconomist with the greatest
ideas and I wasn't going tochange the world.
Played music I think I was avery good musician.
Then that fell apart and Istarted doing the cartoons and
(26:37):
so on and so forth.
So it's always this thing ofalways wanting to improve,
always wanting to learn, alwayswanting to get better and in
fact, the only three things thatI've never stopped and you
mentioned it earlier on musicyou have never mastered music.
Making cartoons you have nevermastered videography.
(26:58):
Making cartoons, making funstuff, educational stuff.
I made a video this weekend forCaliCube and I enjoyed it so
much.
It spent eight hours doing it.
I did the whole productionprocess, recording slides,
things coming in and out.
I really enjoy it because everytime I learn something new.
And the third one is figuringout how to educate Google,
(27:22):
because educating Google is likeeducating a child, but it's the
smartest child that you haveever met and it's the child that
has perfect recall memory andit's the child with the biggest
capacity to remember everythingyou tell it.
If you tell it in a clear,concise, consistent manner, wow,
(27:44):
and it's so much fun.
There are always differentangles and one of the best
things about my job is whenGoogle gets confused and people
say, oh, it's got my age wrong.
Or oh, I've got three differentrepresentations of me in the
knowledge graph.
Or it's ranking my competitor,not me.
(28:06):
It's misunderstood my brandname it's not putting.
I've got a small letter at thebeginning of my brand name and
it's putting a capital letter.
All these things, they'remysteries to be solved.
I'm Sherlock Holmes.
I get my magnifying glass outmy pipe and I go around the
internet.
Elisa and Nell in the CaliQprotein do this as well.
(28:27):
It's figuring out what it isthat's made that child
misunderstand and then fixingthe points that are making that
conflict in the child's brain,and it's magical to watch you
fix that.
You wait a few weeks.
Google understands what you'vedone.
Everything comes back exactlyas you wanted it and it's all a
(28:48):
question of figuring out whyit's misunderstood and fixing
that.
And one of the great thingsabout CaliQ Pro is that it shows
you big on the screen.
This is the confusion.
You obviously have to look alittle bit, because there's a
lot of human intuition, andthat's the other thing.
There's so much human intuitionin this.
It's data.
(29:09):
I can show you a big list ofdata, but I can't program in
every single exception, everysingle issue.
What I can do is present it toyou as a smart human being.
You can look down the list andsay there it is, and that's so
much fun.
And we're opening the platformnow up to agencies, so it's an
agency platform.
One of the people using theagency, gert Melak, said what he
(29:34):
loves about it is it's sorobust, and what I love about
the word robust is it's solid,it doesn't break, it doesn't
fail to load, it doesn't giveyou the wrong data.
And guess where that comes from?
Comes from Buanquara, becausewhen I was building the games, I
(29:54):
was programming the games.
If there were any bugs in any ofthe games, the child would
always find it and the childwould get frustrated because
they didn't finish the game.
They'd got a score of 100 orwhatever and they were about to
get 120, and it was going to betheir high score.
It breaks, the bug hits in andthey go absolutely.
(30:16):
They're so frustrated and whenthey get frustrated, the parents
get frustrated, the parents getangry and they write very rude
emails.
So I used to bug test and stresstest our platform all the time,
to the point at which the gamesthat I built in 1998, 25 years
later still work.
(30:37):
Wow, yeah.
And one thing is we had theserver and I used to stress test
it and just send lots and lotsand lots of queries to the
server to see at what point itwould break, and every now and
then it would break.
Obviously, these things wouldhave a perfect.
Every time it broke we wouldget literally 200 emails in the
(31:01):
space of a day from very, veryfrustrated angry parents, thanks
.
So for me, I needed it not tobreak in order for me not to
have to employ people to replyto 200 emails from angry parents
, and it was a great lesson inlife and I built that into
CaliCube Pro and I'm hugelyproud of it.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
That's fantastic.
There's a lot of agency ownersthat are listening, and I know
this is a tool they're going tobe very interested in learning
more about.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
And we've just finished a White Paper, Six Ways
oh sorry, Six Services you canoffer to your clients as an
agency with lucrative profitmargins that allow you to add
services and scale your agencywithout headaches and without
needing to employ vast numbersof new staff.
And that was the video I wasrecording this weekend, because
(31:52):
the White Paper is 5,600 wordsand it explains in detail six
service offerings, with pricingand how to implement them.
But we realized that agencyowners don't have that time, so
I made a seven minute video thatexplains it all so you can
immediately see is this going tobe interesting for my agency or
not.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I love that.
I would love to share that,when that's ready, with our
Brilliant Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
I'll be ready in two days' time.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
That's fantastic.
We'll send the link over andI'll put that in the show notes
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Brilliant.
Thank you very much.
I'm really, really pleased,because I built the platform
eight years ago to solve oneproblem for myself and it's
ended up solving six differentproblems which we sell to our
clients as an agency using ourown platform.
But it also allows us to thenhelp other agencies, especially
today.
What's happening withgenerative AI in the digital
(32:44):
marketing space is that all of asudden, you can create lots of
great content really quickly.
Ai will write your code for you.
Ai will appear in the searchresults and it would appear that
it's taking over the searchresults, and a lot of agencies
are frightened and worried.
Do I provide the same number ofservices but reduce my prices?
(33:05):
Do I keep my price, add moreservices?
And if so, how do I do it?
What we're now doing is sayingwell, why don't you just offer
more services and you canmaintain your prices, sometimes
even increase them?
If you can say to a client, Ican extract from Google the
exact, perfect digital marketingstrategy for your company in
(33:27):
your situation, in your markets,and then I will coach you
through that digital marketingstrategy In the first year, you
will get an increase invisibility, brand awareness,
across the entire web.
We will clarify your message inGoogle's brain.
You will then rank you higherand in the second year you will
(33:47):
get an increase in SEO traffic.
That is beautiful.
The point there is from CalliQwe've implemented ourselves.
The first year we got 25%revenue growth and that's just
from the digital marketing,without any SEO at all from
hitting the right spots,standing where your audience are
(34:07):
looking, offering them thesolution to the problem they
have front of mind and showingthem what the next step is.
And they walk straight downyour funnel.
It's beautiful.
Then the second year, of course, google understands that we're
doing this and it can see thatthis is what's happening.
We've been standing where theaudience is looking.
We've been showing them that wehave the solution to their
(34:28):
problem and we've showed themthe next step and they walk
straight in 300% growth insearch traffic the second year
because we had created thecontent that demonstrated that
that's what we were doing.
And in two years we've doubledincome and this year I've
already CallieCube's alreadydone as much income in the first
(34:51):
six months as the entire yearlast year.
It's a veritable hockey stick.
I think it's just coffeeattention.
It sounds like I'm showing off,but I'm British and it's really
difficult.
I suddenly feel really guilty.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I think you just caught the attention of every
business owner and leader andagency owner.
Who's listening?
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Right, brilliant, oh, that's great.
I would like to thank Leanne,jean, marie, maryanne, katrina,
who have helped me to really getthat nailed.
I mean, we managed to createthis white paper and this
explanation.
It's become incredibly clear.
I couldn't have been that clearthree weeks ago as well.
(35:35):
I'm here.
I'll also thank Elisa for theCallieCube Pro team, who is the
best in the world.
She's the person who serves theagencies.
And the other great thing is,as we're building our own
CallieCube process, I mean,we're implementing our own
digital marketing strategy,we're developing the skill sets
in-house and we're now workingon SOPs that we can then sell on
(35:58):
and provide to agencies and ourclients, based on our own
experience.
What went right, what wentwrong, where did we get it wrong
?
And one of the vastlyunderrated aspects is getting
that process, getting the rightsoftware tools, not wasting time
, not having many backwards andforwards, and making sure you're
really hitting the spot with asmuch efficiency and efficacy as
(36:22):
possible.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
You know, jason, one of the things that has stood out
to me in this interview is youillustrate a principle that I
teach a lot and you're living itout and you're not even aware
of it.
I don't think.
And the principle- is thatnobody.
Nobody ascends to greatnessalone.
No company ascends to greatnessbecause of one person.
(36:45):
What you have done is you havesaid, hey, and I wanna talk, and
so and so and so, and every oneof your team members that
you've named you know you'vecalled out my name because you
realize that every one of themmakes a difference.
They make an impact, andCallieCube could not be what it
is without every one of them.
It's not just about you, it'sabout the team that is
(37:07):
accomplishing what you're doing100%.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
And two and a half years ago I was completely on my
own.
Wow, it was just Jason.
And now we have a catchphrasein CallieCube.
If you go and see our team page, search for CallieCube team.
It's great page that I didn'tbuild, of course, but at the top
it says CallieCube.
It's not just Jason, and that'sone of the things we've really
(37:35):
had to communicate.
It's Maria organizing ourpodcast.
We've invited you on the podcast, but I've said to her but she
has to say yes, it's not mychoice, and that's the another
point is we have what we callCallieCube babies, which is a
project that is 100% in thehands of one person and that one
(37:58):
person is there to nurture thebaby and help it to grow.
And Maria's CallieCube baby isthe podcast.
Wow, and the podcast isabsolutely rocking it because I
don't get involved.
I just turn up and interviewpeople, which is lovely, but up
until the point I'm actuallyinterviewing them, I've got no
idea who they are or what we'retalking about, because Maria
(38:20):
literally does everything.
Wow, that is phenomenal.
What a team it is.
And I think that's the I meanit's Madsingers who taught me
this, something I'd love to sayit was all my invention, but it
isn't.
And he said first thing aftersix months, my team was falling
apart and I had him on mypodcast and he explained to me.
(38:41):
He said you're giving themtasks.
That's never gonna work.
You're looking for people to dowhat you were doing and just
repeat your process.
That's not gonna work.
You need to give them roles,responsibilities, which is where
CallieCube babies came from andyou need to delegate to them
and you need to understand thatthey will find a better process
(39:05):
than you because they're gonnado more of it.
It's gonna be theirspecialization and you have to
trust them to do that.
And if you can't trust them todo that, don't work with them.
And he's right.
And another interesting aspectthat we're really starting to
get right in the team is anatmosphere of friendliness and
happiness and mutual support,and I'm hugely happy with that.
(39:28):
Ann, who joined the team a monthago.
We have weekly team meetings.
Everyone explains what they'vebeen doing in a week so that
everybody knows what everybodyelse is doing, which really
helps the CallieCube Pro team,help our clients, because they
understand the problems of thedifferent members of the
marketing team.
And during the meetings after amonth, I say to the person
(39:50):
who's been there a month, Iwould like you to stay.
You've done a great job.
This has been a really goodmonth.
It's been a great kickoff.
Do you want to stay?
And I mean they can say no orthey can say yes, and she
actually said yes, I would loveto stay.
I haven't had meetings whereI've laughed so much ever.
(40:11):
There is usually a lot ofpressure and no laughter, and
for me, meetings are aboutsharing success, sharing how
we're all working together, whateach of us is doing.
It's not about proving howvaluable you are.
If you have to prove howvaluable you are and you've got
five minutes to do it in frontof a boss in a public meeting,
(40:32):
that's a terrible, terriblesituation to be in.
I agree with Anne so good, sogood.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I love that.
I hope every leader who'slistening, who leads a meeting,
listens to what you just said,backs it up, listens to it again
, backs it up, listens to itagain and then writes it down
and puts it on their wall.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Another thing is also it sounds very trite, but,
leading by example, I makemistakes I moved all our
WordPress sites to a new serverand then the whole thing just
collapsed.
I had to come back and thenmove it to Kinster, who are a
great host who I've got no dealwith, so I'm not getting
(41:13):
anything from them for saying it.
I moved it there At the teammeeting.
I had to say well, I moved tothe new server.
It all collapsed in a heapbecause I got it all wrong and
we've now moved to Kinster.
Tata helped me with that.
It's been absolutely wonderfuland I'm really happy because now
I can hand off the whole thingto Tata and it's now her CaliQ
baby.
But I think it's important thatI said I actually messed up the
(41:36):
first time and I got it wrong.
It was a misjudgment on my part.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yes, Absolutely, because when you go first in
that, jason, when you go firstand say, hey, I messed up, you
give other people in the roompermission to also mess up, to
know that it's okay not just tomess up but to admit it publicly
and say, hey, I own this, I didit, I screwed it up.
This is how I'm fixing it.
(42:01):
When you give that kind ofpermission to your team, that
creates a dynamic of health thatis really astoundingly
effective in creating momentum.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah, I've always been quite honest.
I've got nothing to hide.
I don't mind being wrong.
I don't mind showing that I'vebeen wrong, but I do love people
teaching me things and I thinkyou'll agree with the podcast.
One of the best things abouthaving a podcast is people
coming on and teaching youthings and explaining things.
You just go, wow, I've got atick.
(42:34):
That I was.
I often go ooh when somebodysays something I found really,
really interesting andsurprising.
It's really just the enthusiasmof saying, oh, I didn't know
that.
Yes, yes, it's so.
So loving that's I think wecall it, wearing it out in your
sleeve.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I think that's a wonderfultrait, man.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
If we come back to the growth of Cally Cube and the
team, I've had this platformsince 2015.
For six years, I was justrunning it on my own.
It was basically just myplatform for working on my five
or six clients as an independentcontractor.
But I built an entire platformcloud-based SaaS platform, and I
(43:23):
just didn't let anyone else useit.
Wow Then started building ateam.
Katrina was the person who goton board first and who's still
here.
She started the team.
She managed to keep it together.
She managed to motivateeverybody to keep moving
forwards.
Now, all of a sudden, I canfeel that flywheel going.
Exactly.
(43:44):
All I have to do is what Ialways, always wanted to do is
build my mad machine.
Look into the data SherlockHolmes on Google to figure out
the why it hasn't understood,why it's misrepresenting.
What information it can provideme allows me to help our
clients and the agencies so thatthey can serve their clients.
(44:07):
That's all I want to do in life, because it's the most
interesting job of all, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Well, it's the best use of your time because of your
gifts, your passions, yourabilities, the things you've
learned.
You're able to leverage thatfor the benefit of so many more
people when you can focus onthat.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, I'm going to name check a few more people as
well.
We've got Christina and Leannewho have been pushing and
pushing and pushing, along withKatrina in fact.
Now I think about it, pushingme to stop doing the things that
aren't a good use of my timeand focus on the things that are
a good use of my time.
Yes, I find that difficult.
(44:49):
I think a lot of people do.
I want to look and check andmake sure it's all going well.
A great lesson I've learned fromElisa, who runs the CataCube
Pro team, is every now and then,a client will tag me into an
email.
Then I think, oh, something'sgone wrong.
Of course it never has.
Elisa is completely on top ofit.
Yeah, it's difficult for me notto say well, elisa, what about
(45:13):
this?
I've resisted it.
I've managed to resist it threedays.
Once Then we were having aconversation and I couldn't not
ask her.
Then, as soon as I looked ather, I thought, no, I shouldn't
have done that, because she'ssort of this out.
That's it.
I have to believe, I have todelegate, I have to give
authority, I have to let go.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I think what you just keyed in on is spot-on.
I mean, that's the challengefor leaders to delegate not just
responsibility but to alsodelegate authority.
Ooh yeah, when we do that, thenwe are demonstrating trust,
we're demonstrating value.
People who feel trusted andvalued lean in to your company.
(45:56):
They lean into yourorganization.
Often, what I see is leadersonly delegate responsibility
because there is a lack of fulltrust.
That communicates a lack ofvalue over time.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Right.
You've put your finger onsomething I've only just started
being able to do, becausedelegating responsibilities and
roles relatively simple, I cannow see Delegating authority is
a huge step.
So thank you, I mean becausethat now means I know what I'm
trying to do.
I think that's key.
Once I know what I need to do,it becomes much, much, much
(46:33):
easier because I know I'm goingthat way.
Yes, until that moment you'rekind of striking around in the
dark and never really very sure.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Absolutely, jason.
I could continue thisconversation for another hour.
This has been so fascinatingand so incredibly insightful.
Thank you for sharing sogenerously.
I know a lot of people aregoing to want to stay connected
with you, continue learning fromyou and find out more about
what you're doing.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Right?
Well, the first thing everyoneshould do is Google my name,
Jason Barnard,j-a-s-o-m-b-a-r-n-a-r-d.
And that is my Google businesscard, and that gives you a
choice of how you want tointeract with me on the
left-hand side, and on theright-hand side, it shows all
the facts about me.
That's what a great Googlebusiness card your brand search
(47:21):
looks like from a personalperspective.
From a business perspective,you can Google CaliCube,
k-a-l-i-c-u-b-e, and it willshow you the facts on the
right-hand side once again,which is Google's understanding
of what we have taught it aboutourselves as a company.
And then, on the left-hand side, all our sites, our social
(47:42):
media profiles, our offers.
How do you want to engage?
Do you just want to watch thepodcast, or do you want to jump
in and buy a service?
Do you want to learn more aboutme as the founder, or do you
want to join our Facebooksupport group, which is free?
Or do you want to download thewhite paper for six ways to make
(48:02):
lucrative margin money as anagency?
That's the beauty is our brand.
Surf is perfect because itrepresents to you our audience.
Now, if you search our name,exactly who we are, what we can
offer you, why we're credible,and offers you the opportunity
to choose how you interact withus, and if somebody wants to be
(48:23):
super smart and clever, come andtell us what we're doing wrong
with our digital marketingstrategy by reading our brand,
surf.
I'm happy to hear if we'regetting it wrong.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
And that teachable spirit, that insatiable
curiosity.
That's why you have found thesuccess that you have and why
you continue to go up and to theright.
May it be a model for us all,jason, thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Thank you so much, William, that was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(49:11):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
(49:33):
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
If you're ready to take a nextstep with a coach to help you
intentionally grow and thrive asa leader, I'd be honored to
(49:56):
help you.
Just go tocatalyticaleadershipnet to book
a call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr
William Attaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticaleadershipnet.
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