July 31, 2024 • 43 mins
FROM THE ARCHIVE:What if you could revolutionize your business by abandoning the office altogether? Join us as we explore the extraordinary journey of Matthew Stibbe, the founder of Articulate Marketing, who is building of a fully remote B2B marketing firm.
Ever wondered how to create a close-knit team without a physical office? Matthew shares his strategies for team bonding and collaboration remotely, including book clubs, happy half hours, and mandatory stand-up calls. Discover the magic of their "validation channel" on Slack, where employees uplift each other, and how regular in-person meetings in London play a crucial role in sparking innovation and building relationships. We also talk about the concept of a "free-range team" that thrives on autonomy and mutual respect.
So tune in for a wealth of knowledge on building trust, productivity, and a forward-thinking remote business model.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (00:00):
Hello everybody.
It's Alex again from the RemoteWork Life podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I have a wonderful guest withme today, somebody I've been
watching for a little while,matthew Stibber.
He runs Articulate Marketingand Articulate deals especially
with B2B marketing for techbusinesses, especially with B2B
(00:24):
marketing for tech businesses.
So they're all things websitesand leads and content and I
thought this would be ideal foryou, because I know that you're
in the world of tech, you're inthe world of digital, and who
better to ask than somebody whois in the world of tech and
digital themselves and has builta successful and sorry, is
building a successful business,and a successful remote business
(00:45):
at that?
So, matthew, I really want tothank you for for joining me
today.
Thanks so much.
Matthew Stibbe (00:51):
I'm delighted to be here, alex.
Thank you for asking mepleasure, pleasure, pleasure.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (00:55):
And you know I've got a few questions
for you.
We may not have time foreverything because I had so many
questions, but, um, I wanted tofind out more about you, about
your business, about how you gotit all set up, and I think the
question I always normally askat the beginning is can you just
talk me through your journey,how you came to be, uh, running
(01:16):
such a, such a great business?
Matthew Stibbe (01:19):
I think that's a very um glowing introduction.
I wasn't sure if you werereferring to me, so okay.
Well, right, I articulatemarketing 20 people, remote
working, specializing in B2Btechnology.
How did I end up running thatbusiness?
Well, I'll tell you a funnystory.
(01:40):
In the 90s, when I was muchyounger than I am now, I set up
and ran a computer games companyand it got to about
70-something people and I soldit in 2000.
And I left the business.
I left the office on the day, Isigned the papers, sat in my
car and went right.
I am never going to employanyone ever again and I'm never
(02:05):
going to have an office everagain.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (02:09):
Famous last words.
Matthew Stibbe (02:10):
Well, the funny thing is, I kept one of the
promises and I broke the other.
I have employees now.
Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovelycolleagues, I don't have an
office and so, if you want toknow how kind of the germ and
the genesis of articulate it wasreally out of that, that moment
where I didn't want to have anoffice and I wanted to do
(02:33):
something.
Why it could be work from homeinitially and, and as the
company has grown in the lastfour or five years, work from
home and let other people workshops or whatever they want to
do.
Um, so the reason they didn'twant to have an office was it
was very expensive and, um, youknow, we had 10, 11, 000 square
(02:55):
feet and we had, you know,receptionists, cleaners and air
conditioning and maintenance andsecurity people and all this
stuff rates bloody rates.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (03:04):
Oh yeah.
Matthew Stibbe (03:06):
Wiping checks all the time.
But there's sort of a hiddencost to it as well, which is
that you have to sort of hirepeople who can get to that
office, which means suddenly youcan't hire the best people, you
have to hire the best peopleyou know who live within a
reasonable commute, and that wasa limiting factor.
So I walked out of that gamesbusiness and I thought, right,
(03:28):
I'm not going to hire people andI'm not going to have an office
.
And then I thought, what thehell do I do now?
I hadn't had any thought aboutit.
I had started the business whenI was 18 and I had not really a
moment thinking that I thoughtthey'd carry me out of my coffin
.
So I sat there and I thought,well, I've solved this, I've got
nothing to do.
And I was active, decisivelyand creatively and imaginatively
(03:50):
.
I went and had lunch and then Iwent for a walk.
I thought about it for a bit.
I ended up spending the nextcouple of years sort of as a bit
of a dilettante writer and Iwrote for Wired and Popular
Science and Director and Ilearned to fly and I started
reviewing business jets for anAmerican magazine which is, you
(04:10):
know, nice work if you can getit.
And, off the back of that, aftera couple of years, started
getting the occasional corporatejob, including one less than
with Microsoft, and Microsofthas been a client since 2003.
And it started with me settingmy games company and thinking it
would be a luck to become awriter.
(04:32):
So that's the genesis of thecompany.
How did it become how it istoday?
Four or five years ago I brokethe first promise and I hired
somebody.
She's my chief happinessofficer now, as she is today,
but when I hired her she was mypa?
(04:52):
Um, and so her career hasdeveloped over the last seven,
eight years?
Um, as the company has grown.
and and then I started hiringwriters, and you know now here
we are lots of people doing lotsof clever techie writing and
marketing stuff for techcompanies.
Does that help?
Is that a good answer?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (05:10):
that's brilliant, that is great, and I
think the genesis genesis, if itwere, as I can't say the word
genesis of it all is verysimilar to many other people
I've interviewed.
Actually, in terms of, you know, you want to give opportunity
for people who aren't in theimmediate vicinity.
Um, you want to be able to, youknow, work from home as well,
(05:32):
work, I suppose, on your terms,for for much, for much of it and
you want to provide a goodservice, and it seems you've
been doing that since 2003 now,and has that always been
remotely?
Matthew Stibbe (05:46):
Yes, the initial freelance writing and
journalism was all remote.
I've always worked from homesince 2000.
So, yeah, all remote.
We don't have an office at alland everybody who works at
Articulate now is remote andthey're all over the place.
I have a colleague in Bucharest, another in Vienna, another one
(06:06):
who seems to flit around Canadaquite a lot but spends a lot of
his time in the UK, some up inScotland, some in Wales, all
over, and I think that's ratherlovely and they're an amazing,
amazing bunch of people.
And here's here's the funnything.
We, we, as, as the business hasgrown and we've kind of got a
(06:28):
little bit more, I would say,reputation, but a little bit
more to offer and a little bitof a better story to tell for
ourselves.
It's incredibly appealing thisremote working thing.
I mean we get um.
Last week, last round of inintern adverts we ran last
intern recruitment we had 650applications.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (06:47):
Wow, and is that typical for you?
Because I mean again, that'ssomething that I get from
speaking to lots of managerslike yourself, lots of business
owners like yourself is thatwhen you put out an application,
people, you just get inundated?
Matthew Stibbe (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think, because
people some people doesn't suiteveryone want to work in this
remote way, want to have thatflexibility.
I think for us, it's partlythat, partly also, I think, as
we have grown, we've put a lotmore emphasis on our company
culture and I'm beginning tothink that is now coming across
(07:25):
in the way we talk aboutourselves and some of the things
we do.
For example, we have a chiefhappiness officer out, you know,
in a company of 20 people.
That's a very deliberateinvestment in around motivation
and engagement.
And um, we we became a b corplast year, which means that
we're making a commitment to ourcommunity and our stakeholders
(07:47):
and to the environment, as wellas to the bottom line.
Obviously, it's the only way tocare about the bottom line, but
people want to belong tosomething that's sort of aligned
with their values, somethingthat is going to let them have
some flexibility and freedom.
And the next thing that we'reworking on we've been working on
this all year is towardsinvestors and freedom.
And the next thing that we'reworking on we've been working on
this all year is towardsinvestors and people.
(08:07):
So we want to become investorsand people certified by the end
of the financial year and whatthat talks to is making
investment in people's careersand in their development and
their personal growth.
So I think that all thesethings interrelated, but it
helps us, it helps attractpeople and it helps, you know,
(08:28):
build this amazing culture andhow do you do I mean 600
applications on, if that's likea whole lot of applications.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (08:36):
How do you deal with so many um
applications in one go?
Matthew Stibbe (08:40):
it's very hard because you, you, you want to
give everyone a fair shake ofthe stick and you also, you know
, in a small company you don'thave a lot of hours.
I mean, if you've got to makemoney and do client work and
stuff, everyone's working atfull capacity.
So if I say, you know, here,review these 200 CVs, oh, that's
(09:02):
going to take me a few hoursDividing up the labor.
I do a lot of CVs.
Oh, that's going to take me afew hours Dividing up the labor.
I do a lot of CV reviews.
I think perhaps I've got quitean eye for it now.
In my life I've seen so many youdevelop some heuristics about
CVs that are obviouslyinappropriate.
I mean, a fair few of them arefrom we do try to recruit in the
(09:22):
UK or EU.
So US applicants or Australianapplicants.
If that's too far, it's toodifficult.
There's a few simple rules likethat.
But once we get to a long listand I suppose we had 35, 40 on
the long list we had to hire anHR consultancy to just
(09:42):
pre-screen them and get the listdown to a manageable number for
interviews.
And because we interview veryintensively, we give people
homework and then they meet five, six people over a course of
multiple interviews.
That's the real time commitmentfor us.
So we have to really be sure.
But we had the most amazingcandidates.
I astonish.
(10:04):
We had a woman who we hired inhere, um, who'd done a ted talk,
for example, wow, and she wasjust looking for a second,
looking to explore a secondcareer in marketing and writing,
and, and, despite being havingbeen incredibly successful in
her educational career, justsaid well, you know, I will come
and work as an intern for youand I'll learn something new,
(10:24):
and if it works for everyone,I'll stay.
Well, you know, I will come andwork as an intern for you and
I'll learn something new, and ifit works for everyone, I'll
stay.
And I think that's the sort ofthing that it's not just, oh, we
can work with somebody inBucharest or Birmingham or
Glasgow.
It's also, you know, forsomeone like her who has young
children, who's looking for achange of career, looking for
something that's a little bitmore interesting and quirky,
flexible.
It works really well for her.
(10:46):
We've got something to offerfor her.
Another example we just took ona junior consultant, our sort of
word for salesperson in someways, although it's more
complicated than that.
Anyway, his life, his passionis parachuting.
He's a parachute instructor andhe lives now in the Netherlands
(11:10):
, although when we hired him hewas in Italy.
And what he does, I'm serious,it's extraordinary.
He works all morning.
He bases himself at an airport,sits in their cafe, works all
morning and at lunchtime torelax, goes and does a couple of
parachute jumps, and then heworks all afternoon and then
(11:32):
just to wind down at the end ofthe day he goes up and does
another couple of parachutejumps.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:33):
Well, I'll tell you what.
So go ahead, Matthew.
Go ahead.
Matthew Stibbe (11:37):
No, I just think that's the most extraordinary
thing imaginable.
But that works for him.
There he is in a Dutch airfielddoing his job, parachuting.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:47):
Well, I'll tell you what.
I always ask the question on mypodcast what's the most unusual
or exotic place that you'veworked?
Well, the most unusual placeI've heard so far is the
Norwegian fjords, but I thinkthat what you just said, that
tops it, that takes the prize.
I think somebody who what youjust said, that tops it, that
that's um, that takes the prize.
Matthew Stibbe (12:06):
I think somebody who goes parachuting um on
lunchtime another reason howwe've hired um has splits her
time between Guernsey andValencia in Spain, and just you
know the fact that she she justwants to spend time with her
family in in these differentplaces and doesn't want to come
to London to work.
(12:26):
But here's the thing it's notall remote, meaning we spend
quite a lot of time and effortand money to bring everyone
together.
So, there are regular meetingsin London.
We probably have six, eight ayear, a couple of days each.
Everybody we could possibly getto come in comes in and joins
(12:50):
us.
You know we have some socialevents.
We have a couple of days oftraining and discussion and
planning or projects.
So we try very hard to form thebonds that you get in a
business and I don't think itwould save us any money if we
(13:10):
we're not doing it to save money.
I think we spend everything wewould spend on an office doing
all this other stuff, having Lizand having the meetings and
things.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (13:18):
Do you think that's I mean?
Because, again, that'ssomething that a lot of remote
businesses try to do.
They put a lot of effort intobringing everybody together to
have that face-to-face time, ifyou see what I mean.
But is that something that you,um, you think is perhaps more
important in a remote businessas opposed to a co-located
(13:38):
business?
Matthew Stibbe (13:41):
I think it's important in both kinds of
business and it's one of myregrets that I didn't do it more
at intelligent games Games, tobe honest and spend more time as
a company together rather thanas teams or as management.
If you run a business, youspend an awful lot of time
talking to the same people teamleaders, your bookkeeper, your
accountant, your lawyer, thissort of stuff.
(14:02):
You know that the, this sort ofstuff and and what.
What the company meetings allowus to do is to, to kind of work
and meet people who aren't inour team.
Yes, they contact group um and Ithink that's that's very, very
valuable.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:18):
It's it's sort of um sparks new ideas and
it's a great way to get to knoweach other.
And I think another thing isthat, as well as that, it's
working remotely.
You don't have that spontaneity, do you, in terms of
conversation.
Obviously, working in aColocate situation, you can,
(14:39):
after work, you can go down tothe pub or you can ask your
friends, you know who's sittingnext to you, what's the time or
whatever it is.
How else do you get to to sortof like form those bonds and get
to know each other?
Matthew Stibbe (14:53):
Liz does a really good job with that.
She has all kinds of littleschemes, things going on.
For example, we have a bookclub, so we read a book and then
we chat about it on Skype, well, on Zoom, and we have happy
half hours, so everybody.
At the end of Friday afternoonpeople go and get a drink and
(15:15):
whatever they want and they sitin front of their computer and
they have one of these mosaicboxes of everybody talking and
chatting and there's a littlebit of and it's surprising, I
deliberately don't join verymany of them, not because I'm
antisocial, but I think on aFriday afternoon they probably
want to pitch and moan about itand I don't want to be like the
(15:36):
school teacher who tries to becool by going to these parties,
you know.
But, um, I go to a few of themand the people quite happily sit
and chat for hours and it'sreally funny and so that that's
a, that's a lovely thing thathappens.
And, um, we, we also have acompany stand up every Tuesday
morning, so everybody's on thatcall, that's it's.
It's as close to mandatory aswe get.
(15:57):
So there's lots ofopportunities to meet people and
do things.
Um, uh, both video conferencingand otherwise.
But we also have slack, like alot of companies, and that the
bits of slack that work verywell and not the kind of you
know, businessy, messagey bits,but there's the sort of random
chatter and the sort of nonsensethat comes up.
(16:19):
That's very bonding, I think.
And we have a lovely thing thatemerged spontaneously called
the validation channel.
Um, we have a validation centerwe had a prospect trying to
sell to about three years ago.
They were called the validationcenter and what they did was
they, you know, hardware andsoftware testing.
It was a testing company.
Well, we never won them as aclient, but somebody in the
(16:40):
company picked up on this nameand set up a slack channel
called validation.
And so you know, wheneveranyone does anything nice,
people just say oh, you know,well done, maddie, you did this.
Or well done, alex, you did thatand it's really good.
Or thank you for your help, andit's not me making that happen,
sort of topped out, you know,employee of the month and all
that stuff incredibly organicand spontaneous and and I'm
(17:03):
enormously proud of them for it.
I think that it's.
It's a lovely.
I mean, I think this is one ofthe things that I've been
learning, because I'm an oldfart really, but from from the,
the, you know the gen x types,um, that work in the company.
They're very um open with theiremotions and their gratitude
(17:24):
and their respect for people.
Like you know, it's, it'srather nice I, I like that.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (17:29):
So, yeah, some of the things well, I I
think you mentioned a word thatactually sprung to mind.
Uh, you were talking just noworganic.
Everything seems in yourbusiness, to happen quite
organically and obviously you'remanaging your team, but they're
, for most parts, obviouslyself-managing by the sounds of
(17:51):
it, and they have their ownactivities, and you call them a
free-range team as well, don'tyou A free-range team?
How did that come about?
Matthew Stibbe (18:02):
Is that because of I think a lot of that stuff
on the About Us page.
You know, they just wrote thatand there's a little video on
our About Us page that they made.
And that was quite delightfulactually, because I just said
somebody wanted, we wanted avideo.
And I hired a film crew for aday when we were having a
(18:24):
company meeting and a couple.
I just said to a couple ofpeople, look, just make a video.
And they were in another roomjust making video and they would
grab people and go and I had noidea, um, and they just
produced that video themselves,um as a team, and um, they also
and this I think is lovely theymade all the music for it as
well.
There's quite a musical uh groupin the company, lots of
(18:46):
different instruments andwriters and things, um, so that
sort of thing emerges verynaturally.
And what that's very helpfulfor is is it gives me a sense of
how people are.
I mean, it gives me a sense ofhow people are.
I mean it gives me a sense ofhow they are when they're not
trying to be polite to the bossa bit, but there's quite a lot
of deliberate culture quite alot of deliberate work and that
(19:10):
doesn't mean that one has to beskeptical or cynical about it.
I mean, I think all companieshave a culture to be skeptical
or cynical about it.
I mean I think all companieshave a culture, you know, but if
you don't work on it and youdon't think about it and you
don't try and make decisions inthe right direction, you get
perhaps a hostile and negativeor neutral culture or you get
one where people are disengagedand cynical about it.
You know, I think Liz puts inan enormous amount of work just
(19:34):
on sort of you might call itpastoral care, checking in with
people.
But she also does formalsurveys and we have a tool
called WorkBot that doesemployee NPS scores and that's
amazing.
So we have there's a sort of anumerical data-driven backbone
and a very sort of soft, gentle,human front to it.
(19:55):
We also there's some odd thingsthat we do that are deliberate
choices.
But people think that we havethis organic culture and
sometimes people can say to meoh, you know, we're doing this
new thing and it doesn't feel asorganic as it used to be.
And then I say, what do youmean by that?
And they'll tell me somethingthat they think was organic and
(20:16):
natural and I'm like I was in ameeting for four hours before.
We worked really hard.
You think that just is natural,how it just happens to be like
that.
And it's not.
It's bloody hard work.
We agonize agonize sometimesover some of the choices and,
(20:40):
god knows, we make terriblemistakes, change our mind and do
something different.
A couple of examples we have amodel of measuring work.
We don't use timesheets.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (20:49):
Okay.
Matthew Stibbe (20:58):
We have gone through several evolutions of
this, but we measure outputusing a points pricing, points
menu, points menu thing.
We ended up building an app todo this, so if you write a blog,
post, you don't go.
I spent three hours working forthis client writing this blog
post you go.
You know one blog post titlethis this client on delivered on
this date and it gets loggedand there's a sort of a rate
card for the work.
Um, so nobody is being measuredby hours, but there is an
(21:23):
element in which they're beingmeasured by output oh, yes, yeah
and this.
This has been on some levels.
That's really attractive.
Companies, people who've neverworked in a sort of billable
hours environment don't knowwhat a terrible load of bs that
is and all the politics that cancome with it, and they just
assume that what we do sometimesis a terrible load of bs with a
(21:43):
lot of politics that come withit and I go, well, yeah, because
it's too much work.
But we we had.
We had some fairly painfullessons as we sort of adopted
that and kind of thinking aboutthe culture of how we use it,
not to build clients or to planwork, but how we use it to plan
work force.
You know how many people?
Yes, yeah, how we measurepeople's performance and what
(22:07):
role does it play in appraisalsand and so on, and and and and
kind of.
There's been somemisunderstandings, but so that
that that's.
That's an example of somethingwhere something that looks from
the outside.
Now, if I told you the positive, spun version of that, oh, we
use points, we don't do billablehours.
It's.
Everyone loves their work andwe can do this.
We can see that, you know, andit's very good.
(22:30):
Now it's a good, positive thingand people appreciate it, but
it hasn't always been that way.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (22:36):
Well, tell you what I mean from.
You mentioned all those thingsabout how your culture has
evolved from you know, from thebottom up, and how you become a
b corp, how you've you'reattracting the right sort of
people.
It does take a lot of hard workbehind that and I think it from
(22:57):
when I looked at your websiteand I I got the inkling as well
that I wanted to interview.
Because of all of that, I got asense that there was something
about articulate that I I likedand I think a lot of businesses
can probably take note of this,because if you look at
articulate at marketingcom,there's lots of things on,
(23:19):
there's lots of information thatgives you an understanding of
who they are, how they work, notjust what they do.
It's all about why as well whythey do what they do, and I
think that in itself has led tothem receiving 600 plus
applicants to a job and a TEDapplicant and people you know
building a team.
That just sounds.
(23:39):
You've got a really cohesiveteam by the sounds of things.
That's right.
Yeah, I have to take my hat offto you and I think lots of
people who may be skepticalabout you know putting together
remote teams.
This is a great example of thehard work it takes to build a
team, but the fact that it ispossible and you know what the
(24:02):
outcomes can be from all thehard work and you mentioned,
martin, you mentioned somemistakes.
Are there any other mistakesalong the way that you?
Perhaps, if you look back now,you think to yourself, actually
we should perhaps have taken adifferent tack to doing that
certain thing.
Matthew Stibbe (24:27):
No, there's an ongoing issue challenge which is
around um, discussing andcapturing our culture.
So you know, in 90 percent ofculture is what you do, what
happens around it.
(24:47):
You know how, what instincts orpreferences or principles you
use to make decisions.
It's not what's written down ina book right, that's not
culture.
But there is value in writingsomething down in a book.
There is value in trying tocapture and distill it.
You're on board new people andyou kind of want to explain it.
(25:09):
You want to put it on thewebsite.
It's a requirement forinvestors and people certified
and we have been through acouple of fairly lengthy
exercises in the history of thecompany, working on our culture
and documenting it, and a coupleof them have been very
successful.
When we were smaller, the lastattempt, and there were specific
(25:32):
, unique reasons why it didn'twork so well, but it didn't work
so well and it ended up being alittle bit feeling a little bit
unfinished, a little bituncomfortable, not like people
were cross or cynical, but Ithink I think there were a lot
of passionate views about thingsand everybody wanted to put
something into it and a fewpeople wanted kind of like I
(25:54):
want the culture todocumentation, to say this kind
of thing and I want it to saythis kind of thing, I wanted
that kind of thing and we didn'tquite spend the time.
We needed just to land it.
And then, as I say, there aregood and specific reasons why
that happened.
Um, but it it reminds me of theobvious point, which is, if you
(26:16):
all of it takes work, you can'tjust blithely go oh well, we're
going to work on thursday onour company culture and write
something down.
I mean, everybody has opinionsand ideas and thoughts and
everyone and everyone has a.
In some ways it's a tribute tothe fact that people are
passionately invested in thefuture of the company.
They care so much In mostcompanies.
That kind of culture workshopstuff you know, so what we've
(26:41):
actually done is the woman whohelped us with our company
culture three, four ago, um, nowhas a full-time job doing
something in hr in a very bigcorporation and we've done a
deal with her two days ofmarketing advice, if we can have
her for two days to run ournext nice workshop next year.
(27:02):
So we pulled her back in um andwe're going to have another,
another go at that to really tryand dig into it, um, so that.
But you know I'm lookingforward to that um, but I, I, I,
you can't phone it, you can'tphone the stuff in.
I think that's that's theobservation you have to put.
(27:22):
You have to put in the hours,let people have their, and you
have to work through the pain alittle bit.
I think it's very easy toreduce pain by you know, for me
as the boss, by exercising my.
You know, I'm the boss andwe're doing it like this
Whenever I do that, not wheneverI do it if.
I do it solely for the purposeof bringing a difficult
(27:44):
conversation to an end.
That never works.
You kind of have to lean intothe pain a little bit.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (27:50):
And about culture.
I mean, there's a big topic ofconversation now in the remote
world, not just the remote worldactually, but hiring people
that actually I suppose fit orare culture fit I don't like
that expression.
But hiring people, that I justdon't like it.
But how do you know, whensomebody's right At the top of
(28:13):
the call you mentioned that,okay, not everybody is suited to
remote work, that's one thing.
But how then do you, from these600 applicants you've narrowed
it down to say I don't know 10.
How do you know who's?
Matthew Stibbe (28:29):
going to work.
You don't always know, yeah,unfortunately, um, but you don't
always know works in both, intwo directions it.
Most people try to reduce therisk by hiring people that are
more like themselves, or morelike people who've been
successful, or, you know,relying on apparently objective
(28:52):
factors like education orexperience.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (28:56):
Yes.
Matthew Stibbe (28:58):
When those things are probably easier to
test in a CV or an interview,but they aren't necessarily
indicative of whether someone'sgoing to be any good.
So what do we try and do?
Well, yes, you're absolutelyright, we're trying very hard to
read out people who are notgoing to be comfortable working
on their own.
So we do a lot of.
We give them people homeworkfor every interview.
You know they have to write ablog or they have to do some
(29:21):
sales consultancy role, theyhave to do some analysis on
something so we can see whetherthey're capable of hitting a
deadline, reading a brief,understanding something, giving
us something back, and we tryvery hard to do that before.
We've spoken to them very muchbecause we're in, you know.
We then look at their work.
Another thing that we do it's avery small thing that actually
incredibly helpful on ourapplicant management system.
(29:43):
We ask yeah, send your CV, senda cover letter, whatever,
whatever, whatever.
We ask three questions.
For example, what are yougeeking out about at the moment?
And if you could be doinganything at the moment, what
would you be doing?
And they sound a little bitcliche interview questions.
But what we're interested in isgiven an application form for a
(30:04):
job that you might like to do.
How much thought are you goingto put into what you write?
Are you going to write?
Oh, the third one is in 280characters a tweet.
Tell us why we should hire you.
It's a bit of a sneaky test ofpeople's ability to write.
Easy said and done.
Yeah, so these questions.
When I'm reviewing CVs, that'swhat I look at first.
(30:25):
I go to those questions and ifsomeone just puts, leaves them
blank.
Oh dear, no If someone puts insomething sort of vacuous.
I don't like it when peoplemention bland TV shows, because
it just doesn't show enoughimagination.
They're not engaged in theworld enough.
And if it you know love.
What are you geeking out about?
Love Island?
What I like is someone who'sactually geeking out about
(30:49):
something like really,passionately yeah so we're
looking for attributes ofbehavior and attitude and life
skills.
So we want people who arecurious about the world, people
who have the ability toself-motivate to learn a new
thing, parachute jumping right,people who are, you know, got a
bit of get up and go about them.
People who've got a hit forremote working, people who have
(31:10):
their own hinterland, their ownlife outside work.
They're not expecting work tobe all their friends and all
their social life.
They have friends, family, sure.
So you know we're looking forthat, we'd like it when we see
good academics, but we don't.
We don't hire on academics, butwhat that says to us is when
people have applied themselvesintelligently to something but
(31:33):
we've hired.
Well, we haven't hired yetbecause they won't release her
from the.
We wanted to hire and offered ajob to a woman who works in the
armed services and not anenormous academic career, went
in at 18 but an amazing militarycareer and has has had
(31:54):
management leadership training,has had writing training for her
work, very intelligent, veryinsightful about what she and it
would.
It came across very clearly inher cv and it came across in her
answers and it came across inher cover letter.
When the military release her,we're hiring her in a heartbeat,
same with our former headteacher.
Actually, she had got anacademic thing, but it was in
(32:17):
PGCE 20 years ago.
That's not really aqualification for marketing, but
a.
TED talk hell yeah.
Of course we hire that Ofcourse we're looking for those
kinds of things and you can seeit very quickly in a CV.
If someone's actually donesomething interesting and and
had a bit of a life, um, then weinterview a lot.
I mean they, they meet a lot ofpeople we hire them at.
(32:41):
So one, one other thing, oneother thought no, please, please
wherever we can, we startpeople as interns.
We give them three months on thejob training.
We put a lot into theinternships but it gives
everybody a chance to seewhether it's right for them
before we commit to a full-timepermanent role and they commit
to full-time remote working.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (33:02):
And is your in terms of your strategy?
Is it more of an in terms ofyour strategy?
Is it more of an in terms ofyour hiring?
That is, is it more inbound oroutbound?
Because I noticed when I lookat your website that there is.
I think when I first contactedyou, I mentioned about the
underrepresentation in tech, um,especially of women, and you've
(33:25):
got your team is probably what?
70 women, 60 is it?
Matthew Stibbe (33:32):
yeah, it's it.
But if women areunderrepresented in tech and I
think that is probably borne outby the statistics certainly I
was talking to andrew about thisand women going into STEM
subjects is veryunderrepresented, I remember in
my computer games company we hadtwo women working for us, one
(33:54):
woman programmer and a graphicdesigner, which was terrible.
Out of that time, 30, 40 people, but it was a representation of
this lack of women coming in,lack of africans, lack of, but
it was.
It was enough to enough forcosmopolitan article about them
(34:15):
so really I don't know if wewere the only computer games
company in cosmo, but we werecertainly one of them, um which,
which I think is extraordinary.
Even looking back on it now, itseems extraordinary that it
should be so remarkable.
But yes, ok, women areunderrepresented in tech.
True, I think men.
I think there's a slightly lessextreme but slight gender
(34:36):
imbalance in marketing.
In my anecdotal experience of15 years in marketing, there was
probably slightly more womenthan men.
So I think we actually rep we,I think we reflect our gender
imbalances in our industry rightnot.
We're not doing a great job ofgetting women into tech.
We're doing, you know, aninadequate job, perhaps getting
(34:57):
men into marketing.
I'm afraid, yeah, yeah, I don'tknow.
I have to be careful about this, because I'm not sure it's
completely true.
It's only my instinct.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (35:04):
Yeah, I have a similar instinct to you
and um, and I don't know, I haveto be careful about this
because I'm not sure it'scompletely true.
It's only my instinct.
Yeah, I have a similar instinctto you and um, and I don't know
it's.
It's, it's something that'sthat's close to my heart because
I've got, you know, two girlswho really are passionate about
both marketing well, notmarketing, but tech.
They kind of gravitate towardsthe tech things and my, my
family, my family, were in instem subjects, and so it's
(35:28):
something that was passionatethat I, I again, I'd noticed
about your um, about the visualson your website, but, um, I
think you're doing a, a greatjob in terms of your team
building, your team buildingyour business, uh, growing as
well, and just one, I suppose,one.
Well, a couple of last questionsfor you in terms of um,
(35:49):
managing, I mean again, lots ofhiring, lots of managers in
general, they, who, who, perhaps, in the co-located business
they have, I suppose, a I don'tknow if it's mistrust when it
comes to allowing people to, to,to work remotely, and there's
still a bit of skepticism there,isn't there?
(36:11):
What advice would you give tothem in terms of, you know,
again, building a team You'vegot 20 in your team Building a
team that's, again, cohesive andis just right on the ball.
Matthew Stibbe (36:24):
Yes, I wrote an article about this a couple of
years ago and I just saw itagain yesterday looking through
an old blog and the title was abit provocative Managers care
about absenteeism but leaderscare about presenteeism and the
thought that that rather glibheadline sort of captures is.
(36:47):
If you're a kind of insecuremanager, you know the thing that
you can control and if you'reinsecure you're interested in
control is whether or not johnor jane are sat in their desk at
you know six o'clock working onyour project, whether they are
(37:09):
or not, whether it helps to havethem there working later,
whether it matters if they comein at 10 o'clock in the morning
and go at seven o'clock, or comein at 6 am and go for or work
remotely, you know.
But the thing that you cancontrol is can I see them?
Are they there?
And there are definitely, youknow, insecure managers who want
that level of control and I'vecome across them in my life.
(37:30):
I've certainly heard about them.
Like my wife had a manager whowho, if ever she booked a day
off to work from home, wouldbook immediately like a call at
nine o'clock to make sure shewas sat at her desk.
On some spurious pretense andand you know, would it would
come up behind her in the officeand it all seemed a same sort
(37:54):
of package of insecure kind ofcontrol freak behavior.
So I think I think the theanswer has to be something about
trust.
I think the answer has to beI'm going to give up the control
of hours and presence and I'mgoing to gain some control
(38:16):
through relationships, throughtrust, through expectation
setting, by providing context,by having the difficult
conversations about productivityif someone's output isn't as it
should be.
But you know, assuming thatthey're going to do a good job
and assuming if they're workingfrom home, they're working right
(38:36):
.
I mean, and here's here's theflip side of that, if you, if
you make force people to commuteevery day and in london that
means you know 10 hours a week,yeah it's a lot of people.
If you let them work from home,you're probably going to get
most of those 10 hours for work.
I mean everybody you talk towho has to commute.
Now I love working from homebecause I get so much done, the
(38:57):
phone doesn't rig and I don'thave to bloody commute.
And then they feel guiltybecause they've got to work.
You know they're not out in theoffice so they work really hard
.
So you know my experience.
You let people work from home,remote work they actually get
much more out of much moreproductive.
Um, so, trusting in that, um,one of the things that we do, I
think, as I mentioned, was wemeasure output rather than hours
(39:17):
, and that that's a veryprofound.
The other thing that people findreally hard to deal with we
don't set deadlines so peopleunderstand sometimes, when
client work has to be done by acertain date, you know there's
an event or a website launch orwhatever.
Well, you know that.
You know if you're working on aproject, you know what the key
dates are, if there are any.
And people understand also.
(39:38):
We have to deliver a certainamount of work for a client
every month.
There's a program and aschedule, but I'm not going to
tell you you need to do this byfriday and then you need to do
the next thing by wednesday andthe thing after that by friday.
If I have set this up andcommunicated the context
correctly, you know what needsto be done this week.
You know what needs to be donenext week.
I'll leave it up to you tomanage your time, your schedule,
(40:01):
your workload, your planning toget the right work done at the
right time for the client.
And that, I think, is I explaintry and explain this to some
clients, you don't.
You, I need deadlines, I want atable.
You get it by the end of themonth, it's all it'll come.
It's like wagamama you'll getit when it's ready and
everything, and it will be fresh.
But that that's very.
(40:22):
I think that's probably at thecutting edge of of remote
working, right for me, gettingpeople to accept.
And it's interesting becausepeople come into the company and
they want me to set deadlinesfor them and I'm like I'm not
doing it, you've got to figureyour own stuff out, that's your
workload.
So actually this is, and Ipromise I'll shut up.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (40:43):
No, this is great.
I love this.
Matthew Stibbe (40:48):
That thing about setting deadlines can cause
some stress for people, rightMeaning if they've just got a
heap of work and they don't knowwhat to do first.
So we do have to do sometraining, we have to talk to
people, we have to communicateabout how to manage your task
list and how to communicate withyour boss saying I'm not going
to get that done because, or yousaying I'm not going to get
that done because, or I've gottoo much to do this week.
(41:08):
I've got these five things onmy to-do list and I can do any
three of them.
What's the most important thingfor you, account manager, for
me to get done first?
Those are life skills and thoseare valuable things.
None of that.
Nothing is going to be solvedby me telling you what your
deadline is, except 50% of thetime you'll miss the deadline,
(41:29):
and then everybody will getstressed out, of course.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:32):
Well, I'll tell you what that was the
voice of Matthew, or this is thevoice of Matthew Stibbeck on
the Remote World Life podcast.
He's the CEO of ArticulateMarketing and I'd listen back to
this particular marketing andI'd listen back to this if
you're, if you're in management,if you're building a remote
business, then this is just gold, because it's it tells you
about not just the, the trustissues, the culture issues, the,
(41:55):
everything when it comes tobuilding a remote team building,
remote business, and one thathas been successful for the last
well since 2003.
So have a listen back to thisrecording, matthew.
I just really want to say thankyou for your time and we'll be
looking out for Well since 2003.
So have a listen back to thisrecording, matthew.
I just really want to say thankyou for your time and we'll be
(42:16):
looking out for what articulatemarketing is doing in the future
?
Matthew Stibbe (42:19):
In fact, what's on the horizon for articulate
marketing?
Well, we just launched an applast week HubToolkitcom so
anyone who's using HubSpot, it'sa tool that makes HubSpot does
SEO and social media things inHubSpot more efficiently, and
we're working on the new versionof our Points app, which will
eventually surface in ourapplication, turbinehqcom, which
(42:40):
does purchase orders, expensesand time off requests.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:42):
Wow.
Matthew Stibbe (42:44):
So besides being a marketing company, we also
geek out on this other stuff,and geeking out is what people
look for, too, from.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:48):
Articulate Sounds good, and where can we
find that Across atarticulatemarketingcom.
Or is there another domain thatyou want me to share with the
audience?
Matthew (42:59):
Articulatemarketingcom has a tools page and everything
we do that's not Articulate ison there.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:04):
Matthew, thank you so much for your time.
It's been great talking to youand I'll be following and
watching with a keen eye to seewhat articulate marketing is
getting up to in the future.
Thank you so much for your time.
Matthew Stibbe (43:16):
My pleasure.
Thank you very much, Alex.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:18):
Thank you.
Hello everybody.
It's Alex again from the RemoteWork Life podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I have a wonderful guest withme today, somebody I've been
watching for a little while,matthew Stibber.
He runs Articulate Marketingand Articulate deals especially
with B2B marketing for techbusinesses, especially with B2B
(00:24):
marketing for tech businesses.
So they're all things websitesand leads and content and I
thought this would be ideal foryou, because I know that you're
in the world of tech, you're inthe world of digital, and who
better to ask than somebody whois in the world of tech and
digital themselves and has builta successful and sorry, is
building a successful business,and a successful remote business
(00:45):
at that?
So, matthew, I really want tothank you for for joining me
today.
Thanks so much.
Matthew Stibbe (00:51):
I'm delighted to be here, alex.
Thank you for asking mepleasure, pleasure, pleasure.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (00:55):
And you know I've got a few questions
for you.
We may not have time foreverything because I had so many
questions, but, um, I wanted tofind out more about you, about
your business, about how you gotit all set up, and I think the
question I always normally askat the beginning is can you just
talk me through your journey,how you came to be, uh, running
(01:16):
such a, such a great business?
Matthew Stibbe (01:19):
I think that's a very um glowing introduction.
I wasn't sure if you werereferring to me, so okay.
Well, right, I articulatemarketing 20 people, remote
working, specializing in B2Btechnology.
How did I end up running thatbusiness?
Well, I'll tell you a funnystory.
(01:40):
In the 90s, when I was muchyounger than I am now, I set up
and ran a computer games companyand it got to about
70-something people and I soldit in 2000.
And I left the business.
I left the office on the day, Isigned the papers, sat in my
car and went right.
I am never going to employanyone ever again and I'm never
(02:05):
going to have an office everagain.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (02:09):
Famous last words.
Matthew Stibbe (02:10):
Well, the funny thing is, I kept one of the
promises and I broke the other.
I have employees now.
Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovelycolleagues, I don't have an
office and so, if you want toknow how kind of the germ and
the genesis of articulate it wasreally out of that, that moment
where I didn't want to have anoffice and I wanted to do
(02:33):
something.
Why it could be work from homeinitially and, and as the
company has grown in the lastfour or five years, work from
home and let other people workshops or whatever they want to
do.
Um, so the reason they didn'twant to have an office was it
was very expensive and, um, youknow, we had 10, 11, 000 square
(02:55):
feet and we had, you know,receptionists, cleaners and air
conditioning and maintenance andsecurity people and all this
stuff rates bloody rates.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (03:04):
Oh yeah.
Matthew Stibbe (03:06):
Wiping checks all the time.
But there's sort of a hiddencost to it as well, which is
that you have to sort of hirepeople who can get to that
office, which means suddenly youcan't hire the best people, you
have to hire the best peopleyou know who live within a
reasonable commute, and that wasa limiting factor.
So I walked out of that gamesbusiness and I thought, right,
(03:28):
I'm not going to hire people andI'm not going to have an office
.
And then I thought, what thehell do I do now?
I hadn't had any thought aboutit.
I had started the business whenI was 18 and I had not really a
moment thinking that I thoughtthey'd carry me out of my coffin
.
So I sat there and I thought,well, I've solved this, I've got
nothing to do.
And I was active, decisivelyand creatively and imaginatively
(03:50):
.
I went and had lunch and then Iwent for a walk.
I thought about it for a bit.
I ended up spending the nextcouple of years sort of as a bit
of a dilettante writer and Iwrote for Wired and Popular
Science and Director and Ilearned to fly and I started
reviewing business jets for anAmerican magazine which is, you
(04:10):
know, nice work if you can getit.
And, off the back of that, aftera couple of years, started
getting the occasional corporatejob, including one less than
with Microsoft, and Microsofthas been a client since 2003.
And it started with me settingmy games company and thinking it
would be a luck to become awriter.
(04:32):
So that's the genesis of thecompany.
How did it become how it istoday?
Four or five years ago I brokethe first promise and I hired
somebody.
She's my chief happinessofficer now, as she is today,
but when I hired her she was mypa?
(04:52):
Um, and so her career hasdeveloped over the last seven,
eight years?
Um, as the company has grown.
and and then I started hiringwriters, and you know now here
we are lots of people doing lotsof clever techie writing and
marketing stuff for techcompanies.
Does that help?
Is that a good answer?
Alex Wilson-Campbell (05:10):
that's brilliant, that is great, and I
think the genesis genesis, if itwere, as I can't say the word
genesis of it all is verysimilar to many other people
I've interviewed.
Actually, in terms of, you know, you want to give opportunity
for people who aren't in theimmediate vicinity.
Um, you want to be able to, youknow, work from home as well,
(05:32):
work, I suppose, on your terms,for for much, for much of it and
you want to provide a goodservice, and it seems you've
been doing that since 2003 now,and has that always been
remotely?
Matthew Stibbe (05:46):
Yes, the initial freelance writing and
journalism was all remote.
I've always worked from homesince 2000.
So, yeah, all remote.
We don't have an office at alland everybody who works at
Articulate now is remote andthey're all over the place.
I have a colleague in Bucharest, another in Vienna, another one
(06:06):
who seems to flit around Canadaquite a lot but spends a lot of
his time in the UK, some up inScotland, some in Wales, all
over, and I think that's ratherlovely and they're an amazing,
amazing bunch of people.
And here's here's the funnything.
We, we, as, as the business hasgrown and we've kind of got a
(06:28):
little bit more, I would say,reputation, but a little bit
more to offer and a little bitof a better story to tell for
ourselves.
It's incredibly appealing thisremote working thing.
I mean we get um.
Last week, last round of inintern adverts we ran last
intern recruitment we had 650applications.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (06:47):
Wow, and is that typical for you?
Because I mean again, that'ssomething that I get from
speaking to lots of managerslike yourself, lots of business
owners like yourself is thatwhen you put out an application,
people, you just get inundated?
Matthew Stibbe (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think, because
people some people doesn't suiteveryone want to work in this
remote way, want to have thatflexibility.
I think for us, it's partlythat, partly also, I think, as
we have grown, we've put a lotmore emphasis on our company
culture and I'm beginning tothink that is now coming across
(07:25):
in the way we talk aboutourselves and some of the things
we do.
For example, we have a chiefhappiness officer out, you know,
in a company of 20 people.
That's a very deliberateinvestment in around motivation
and engagement.
And um, we we became a b corplast year, which means that
we're making a commitment to ourcommunity and our stakeholders
(07:47):
and to the environment, as wellas to the bottom line.
Obviously, it's the only way tocare about the bottom line, but
people want to belong tosomething that's sort of aligned
with their values, somethingthat is going to let them have
some flexibility and freedom.
And the next thing that we'reworking on we've been working on
this all year is towardsinvestors and freedom.
And the next thing that we'reworking on we've been working on
this all year is towardsinvestors and people.
(08:07):
So we want to become investorsand people certified by the end
of the financial year and whatthat talks to is making
investment in people's careersand in their development and
their personal growth.
So I think that all thesethings interrelated, but it
helps us, it helps attractpeople and it helps, you know,
(08:28):
build this amazing culture andhow do you do I mean 600
applications on, if that's likea whole lot of applications.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (08:36):
How do you deal with so many um
applications in one go?
Matthew Stibbe (08:40):
it's very hard because you, you, you want to
give everyone a fair shake ofthe stick and you also, you know
, in a small company you don'thave a lot of hours.
I mean, if you've got to makemoney and do client work and
stuff, everyone's working atfull capacity.
So if I say, you know, here,review these 200 CVs, oh, that's
(09:02):
going to take me a few hoursDividing up the labor.
I do a lot of CVs.
Oh, that's going to take me afew hours Dividing up the labor.
I do a lot of CV reviews.
I think perhaps I've got quitean eye for it now.
In my life I've seen so many youdevelop some heuristics about
CVs that are obviouslyinappropriate.
I mean, a fair few of them arefrom we do try to recruit in the
(09:22):
UK or EU.
So US applicants or Australianapplicants.
If that's too far, it's toodifficult.
There's a few simple rules likethat.
But once we get to a long listand I suppose we had 35, 40 on
the long list we had to hire anHR consultancy to just
(09:42):
pre-screen them and get the listdown to a manageable number for
interviews.
And because we interview veryintensively, we give people
homework and then they meet five, six people over a course of
multiple interviews.
That's the real time commitmentfor us.
So we have to really be sure.
But we had the most amazingcandidates.
I astonish.
(10:04):
We had a woman who we hired inhere, um, who'd done a ted talk,
for example, wow, and she wasjust looking for a second,
looking to explore a secondcareer in marketing and writing,
and, and, despite being havingbeen incredibly successful in
her educational career, justsaid well, you know, I will come
and work as an intern for youand I'll learn something new,
(10:24):
and if it works for everyone,I'll stay.
Well, you know, I will come andwork as an intern for you and
I'll learn something new, and ifit works for everyone, I'll
stay.
And I think that's the sort ofthing that it's not just, oh, we
can work with somebody inBucharest or Birmingham or
Glasgow.
It's also, you know, forsomeone like her who has young
children, who's looking for achange of career, looking for
something that's a little bitmore interesting and quirky,
flexible.
It works really well for her.
(10:46):
We've got something to offerfor her.
Another example we just took ona junior consultant, our sort of
word for salesperson in someways, although it's more
complicated than that.
Anyway, his life, his passionis parachuting.
He's a parachute instructor andhe lives now in the Netherlands
(11:10):
, although when we hired him hewas in Italy.
And what he does, I'm serious,it's extraordinary.
He works all morning.
He bases himself at an airport,sits in their cafe, works all
morning and at lunchtime torelax, goes and does a couple of
parachute jumps, and then heworks all afternoon and then
(11:32):
just to wind down at the end ofthe day he goes up and does
another couple of parachutejumps.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:33):
Well, I'll tell you what.
So go ahead, Matthew.
Go ahead.
Matthew Stibbe (11:37):
No, I just think that's the most extraordinary
thing imaginable.
But that works for him.
There he is in a Dutch airfielddoing his job, parachuting.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:47):
Well, I'll tell you what.
I always ask the question on mypodcast what's the most unusual
or exotic place that you'veworked?
Well, the most unusual placeI've heard so far is the
Norwegian fjords, but I thinkthat what you just said, that
tops it, that takes the prize.
I think somebody who what youjust said, that tops it, that
that's um, that takes the prize.
Matthew Stibbe (12:06):
I think somebody who goes parachuting um on
lunchtime another reason howwe've hired um has splits her
time between Guernsey andValencia in Spain, and just you
know the fact that she she justwants to spend time with her
family in in these differentplaces and doesn't want to come
to London to work.
(12:26):
But here's the thing it's notall remote, meaning we spend
quite a lot of time and effortand money to bring everyone
together.
So, there are regular meetingsin London.
We probably have six, eight ayear, a couple of days each.
Everybody we could possibly getto come in comes in and joins
(12:50):
us.
You know we have some socialevents.
We have a couple of days oftraining and discussion and
planning or projects.
So we try very hard to form thebonds that you get in a
business and I don't think itwould save us any money if we
(13:10):
we're not doing it to save money.
I think we spend everything wewould spend on an office doing
all this other stuff, having Lizand having the meetings and
things.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (13:18):
Do you think that's I mean?
Because, again, that'ssomething that a lot of remote
businesses try to do.
They put a lot of effort intobringing everybody together to
have that face-to-face time, ifyou see what I mean.
But is that something that you,um, you think is perhaps more
important in a remote businessas opposed to a co-located
(13:38):
business?
Matthew Stibbe (13:41):
I think it's important in both kinds of
business and it's one of myregrets that I didn't do it more
at intelligent games Games, tobe honest and spend more time as
a company together rather thanas teams or as management.
If you run a business, youspend an awful lot of time
talking to the same people teamleaders, your bookkeeper, your
accountant, your lawyer, thissort of stuff.
(14:02):
You know that the, this sort ofstuff and and what.
What the company meetings allowus to do is to, to kind of work
and meet people who aren't inour team.
Yes, they contact group um and Ithink that's that's very, very
valuable.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:18):
It's it's sort of um sparks new ideas and
it's a great way to get to knoweach other.
And I think another thing isthat, as well as that, it's
working remotely.
You don't have that spontaneity, do you, in terms of
conversation.
Obviously, working in aColocate situation, you can,
(14:39):
after work, you can go down tothe pub or you can ask your
friends, you know who's sittingnext to you, what's the time or
whatever it is.
How else do you get to to sortof like form those bonds and get
to know each other?
Matthew Stibbe (14:53):
Liz does a really good job with that.
She has all kinds of littleschemes, things going on.
For example, we have a bookclub, so we read a book and then
we chat about it on Skype, well, on Zoom, and we have happy
half hours, so everybody.
At the end of Friday afternoonpeople go and get a drink and
(15:15):
whatever they want and they sitin front of their computer and
they have one of these mosaicboxes of everybody talking and
chatting and there's a littlebit of and it's surprising, I
deliberately don't join verymany of them, not because I'm
antisocial, but I think on aFriday afternoon they probably
want to pitch and moan about itand I don't want to be like the
(15:36):
school teacher who tries to becool by going to these parties,
you know.
But, um, I go to a few of themand the people quite happily sit
and chat for hours and it'sreally funny and so that that's
a, that's a lovely thing thathappens.
And, um, we, we also have acompany stand up every Tuesday
morning, so everybody's on thatcall, that's it's.
It's as close to mandatory aswe get.
(15:57):
So there's lots ofopportunities to meet people and
do things.
Um, uh, both video conferencingand otherwise.
But we also have slack, like alot of companies, and that the
bits of slack that work verywell and not the kind of you
know, businessy, messagey bits,but there's the sort of random
chatter and the sort of nonsensethat comes up.
(16:19):
That's very bonding, I think.
And we have a lovely thing thatemerged spontaneously called
the validation channel.
Um, we have a validation centerwe had a prospect trying to
sell to about three years ago.
They were called the validationcenter and what they did was
they, you know, hardware andsoftware testing.
It was a testing company.
Well, we never won them as aclient, but somebody in the
(16:40):
company picked up on this nameand set up a slack channel
called validation.
And so you know, wheneveranyone does anything nice,
people just say oh, you know,well done, maddie, you did this.
Or well done, alex, you did thatand it's really good.
Or thank you for your help, andit's not me making that happen,
sort of topped out, you know,employee of the month and all
that stuff incredibly organicand spontaneous and and I'm
(17:03):
enormously proud of them for it.
I think that it's.
It's a lovely.
I mean, I think this is one ofthe things that I've been
learning, because I'm an oldfart really, but from from the,
the, you know the gen x types,um, that work in the company.
They're very um open with theiremotions and their gratitude
(17:24):
and their respect for people.
Like you know, it's, it'srather nice I, I like that.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (17:29):
So, yeah, some of the things well, I I
think you mentioned a word thatactually sprung to mind.
Uh, you were talking just noworganic.
Everything seems in yourbusiness, to happen quite
organically and obviously you'remanaging your team, but they're
, for most parts, obviouslyself-managing by the sounds of
(17:51):
it, and they have their ownactivities, and you call them a
free-range team as well, don'tyou A free-range team?
How did that come about?
Matthew Stibbe (18:02):
Is that because of I think a lot of that stuff
on the About Us page.
You know, they just wrote thatand there's a little video on
our About Us page that they made.
And that was quite delightfulactually, because I just said
somebody wanted, we wanted avideo.
And I hired a film crew for aday when we were having a
(18:24):
company meeting and a couple.
I just said to a couple ofpeople, look, just make a video.
And they were in another roomjust making video and they would
grab people and go and I had noidea, um, and they just
produced that video themselves,um as a team, and um, they also
and this I think is lovely theymade all the music for it as
well.
There's quite a musical uh groupin the company, lots of
(18:46):
different instruments andwriters and things, um, so that
sort of thing emerges verynaturally.
And what that's very helpfulfor is is it gives me a sense of
how people are.
I mean, it gives me a sense ofhow people are.
I mean it gives me a sense ofhow they are when they're not
trying to be polite to the bossa bit, but there's quite a lot
of deliberate culture quite alot of deliberate work and that
(19:10):
doesn't mean that one has to beskeptical or cynical about it.
I mean, I think all companieshave a culture to be skeptical
or cynical about it.
I mean I think all companieshave a culture, you know, but if
you don't work on it and youdon't think about it and you
don't try and make decisions inthe right direction, you get
perhaps a hostile and negativeor neutral culture or you get
one where people are disengagedand cynical about it.
You know, I think Liz puts inan enormous amount of work just
(19:34):
on sort of you might call itpastoral care, checking in with
people.
But she also does formalsurveys and we have a tool
called WorkBot that doesemployee NPS scores and that's
amazing.
So we have there's a sort of anumerical data-driven backbone
and a very sort of soft, gentle,human front to it.
(19:55):
We also there's some odd thingsthat we do that are deliberate
choices.
But people think that we havethis organic culture and
sometimes people can say to meoh, you know, we're doing this
new thing and it doesn't feel asorganic as it used to be.
And then I say, what do youmean by that?
And they'll tell me somethingthat they think was organic and
(20:16):
natural and I'm like I was in ameeting for four hours before.
We worked really hard.
You think that just is natural,how it just happens to be like
that.
And it's not.
It's bloody hard work.
We agonize agonize sometimesover some of the choices and,
(20:40):
god knows, we make terriblemistakes, change our mind and do
something different.
A couple of examples we have amodel of measuring work.
We don't use timesheets.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (20:49):
Okay.
Matthew Stibbe (20:58):
We have gone through several evolutions of
this, but we measure outputusing a points pricing, points
menu, points menu thing.
We ended up building an app todo this, so if you write a blog,
post, you don't go.
I spent three hours working forthis client writing this blog
post you go.
You know one blog post titlethis this client on delivered on
this date and it gets loggedand there's a sort of a rate
card for the work.
Um, so nobody is being measuredby hours, but there is an
(21:23):
element in which they're beingmeasured by output oh, yes, yeah
and this.
This has been on some levels.
That's really attractive.
Companies, people who've neverworked in a sort of billable
hours environment don't knowwhat a terrible load of bs that
is and all the politics that cancome with it, and they just
assume that what we do sometimesis a terrible load of bs with a
(21:43):
lot of politics that come withit and I go, well, yeah, because
it's too much work.
But we we had.
We had some fairly painfullessons as we sort of adopted
that and kind of thinking aboutthe culture of how we use it,
not to build clients or to planwork, but how we use it to plan
work force.
You know how many people?
Yes, yeah, how we measurepeople's performance and what
(22:07):
role does it play in appraisalsand and so on, and and and and
kind of.
There's been somemisunderstandings, but so that
that that's.
That's an example of somethingwhere something that looks from
the outside.
Now, if I told you the positive, spun version of that, oh, we
use points, we don't do billablehours.
It's.
Everyone loves their work andwe can do this.
We can see that, you know, andit's very good.
(22:30):
Now it's a good, positive thingand people appreciate it, but
it hasn't always been that way.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (22:36):
Well, tell you what I mean from.
You mentioned all those thingsabout how your culture has
evolved from you know, from thebottom up, and how you become a
b corp, how you've you'reattracting the right sort of
people.
It does take a lot of hard workbehind that and I think it from
(22:57):
when I looked at your websiteand I I got the inkling as well
that I wanted to interview.
Because of all of that, I got asense that there was something
about articulate that I I likedand I think a lot of businesses
can probably take note of this,because if you look at
articulate at marketingcom,there's lots of things on,
(23:19):
there's lots of information thatgives you an understanding of
who they are, how they work, notjust what they do.
It's all about why as well whythey do what they do, and I
think that in itself has led tothem receiving 600 plus
applicants to a job and a TEDapplicant and people you know
building a team.
That just sounds.
(23:39):
You've got a really cohesiveteam by the sounds of things.
That's right.
Yeah, I have to take my hat offto you and I think lots of
people who may be skepticalabout you know putting together
remote teams.
This is a great example of thehard work it takes to build a
team, but the fact that it ispossible and you know what the
(24:02):
outcomes can be from all thehard work and you mentioned,
martin, you mentioned somemistakes.
Are there any other mistakesalong the way that you?
Perhaps, if you look back now,you think to yourself, actually
we should perhaps have taken adifferent tack to doing that
certain thing.
Matthew Stibbe (24:27):
No, there's an ongoing issue challenge which is
around um, discussing andcapturing our culture.
So you know, in 90 percent ofculture is what you do, what
happens around it.
(24:47):
You know how, what instincts orpreferences or principles you
use to make decisions.
It's not what's written down ina book right, that's not
culture.
But there is value in writingsomething down in a book.
There is value in trying tocapture and distill it.
You're on board new people andyou kind of want to explain it.
(25:09):
You want to put it on thewebsite.
It's a requirement forinvestors and people certified
and we have been through acouple of fairly lengthy
exercises in the history of thecompany, working on our culture
and documenting it, and a coupleof them have been very
successful.
When we were smaller, the lastattempt, and there were specific
(25:32):
, unique reasons why it didn'twork so well, but it didn't work
so well and it ended up being alittle bit feeling a little bit
unfinished, a little bituncomfortable, not like people
were cross or cynical, but Ithink I think there were a lot
of passionate views about thingsand everybody wanted to put
something into it and a fewpeople wanted kind of like I
(25:54):
want the culture todocumentation, to say this kind
of thing and I want it to saythis kind of thing, I wanted
that kind of thing and we didn'tquite spend the time.
We needed just to land it.
And then, as I say, there aregood and specific reasons why
that happened.
Um, but it it reminds me of theobvious point, which is, if you
(26:16):
all of it takes work, you can'tjust blithely go oh well, we're
going to work on thursday onour company culture and write
something down.
I mean, everybody has opinionsand ideas and thoughts and
everyone and everyone has a.
In some ways it's a tribute tothe fact that people are
passionately invested in thefuture of the company.
They care so much In mostcompanies.
That kind of culture workshopstuff you know, so what we've
(26:41):
actually done is the woman whohelped us with our company
culture three, four ago, um, nowhas a full-time job doing
something in hr in a very bigcorporation and we've done a
deal with her two days ofmarketing advice, if we can have
her for two days to run ournext nice workshop next year.
(27:02):
So we pulled her back in um andwe're going to have another,
another go at that to really tryand dig into it, um, so that.
But you know I'm lookingforward to that um, but I, I, I,
you can't phone it, you can'tphone the stuff in.
I think that's that's theobservation you have to put.
(27:22):
You have to put in the hours,let people have their, and you
have to work through the pain alittle bit.
I think it's very easy toreduce pain by you know, for me
as the boss, by exercising my.
You know, I'm the boss andwe're doing it like this
Whenever I do that, not wheneverI do it if.
I do it solely for the purposeof bringing a difficult
(27:44):
conversation to an end.
That never works.
You kind of have to lean intothe pain a little bit.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (27:50):
And about culture.
I mean, there's a big topic ofconversation now in the remote
world, not just the remote worldactually, but hiring people
that actually I suppose fit orare culture fit I don't like
that expression.
But hiring people, that I justdon't like it.
But how do you know, whensomebody's right At the top of
(28:13):
the call you mentioned that,okay, not everybody is suited to
remote work, that's one thing.
But how then do you, from these600 applicants you've narrowed
it down to say I don't know 10.
How do you know who's?
Matthew Stibbe (28:29):
going to work.
You don't always know, yeah,unfortunately, um, but you don't
always know works in both, intwo directions it.
Most people try to reduce therisk by hiring people that are
more like themselves, or morelike people who've been
successful, or, you know,relying on apparently objective
(28:52):
factors like education orexperience.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (28:56):
Yes.
Matthew Stibbe (28:58):
When those things are probably easier to
test in a CV or an interview,but they aren't necessarily
indicative of whether someone'sgoing to be any good.
So what do we try and do?
Well, yes, you're absolutelyright, we're trying very hard to
read out people who are notgoing to be comfortable working
on their own.
So we do a lot of.
We give them people homeworkfor every interview.
You know they have to write ablog or they have to do some
(29:21):
sales consultancy role, theyhave to do some analysis on
something so we can see whetherthey're capable of hitting a
deadline, reading a brief,understanding something, giving
us something back, and we tryvery hard to do that before.
We've spoken to them very muchbecause we're in, you know.
We then look at their work.
Another thing that we do it's avery small thing that actually
incredibly helpful on ourapplicant management system.
(29:43):
We ask yeah, send your CV, senda cover letter, whatever,
whatever, whatever.
We ask three questions.
For example, what are yougeeking out about at the moment?
And if you could be doinganything at the moment, what
would you be doing?
And they sound a little bitcliche interview questions.
But what we're interested in isgiven an application form for a
(30:04):
job that you might like to do.
How much thought are you goingto put into what you write?
Are you going to write?
Oh, the third one is in 280characters a tweet.
Tell us why we should hire you.
It's a bit of a sneaky test ofpeople's ability to write.
Easy said and done.
Yeah, so these questions.
When I'm reviewing CVs, that'swhat I look at first.
(30:25):
I go to those questions and ifsomeone just puts, leaves them
blank.
Oh dear, no If someone puts insomething sort of vacuous.
I don't like it when peoplemention bland TV shows, because
it just doesn't show enoughimagination.
They're not engaged in theworld enough.
And if it you know love.
What are you geeking out about?
Love Island?
What I like is someone who'sactually geeking out about
(30:49):
something like really,passionately yeah so we're
looking for attributes ofbehavior and attitude and life
skills.
So we want people who arecurious about the world, people
who have the ability toself-motivate to learn a new
thing, parachute jumping right,people who are, you know, got a
bit of get up and go about them.
People who've got a hit forremote working, people who have
(31:10):
their own hinterland, their ownlife outside work.
They're not expecting work tobe all their friends and all
their social life.
They have friends, family, sure.
So you know we're looking forthat, we'd like it when we see
good academics, but we don't.
We don't hire on academics, butwhat that says to us is when
people have applied themselvesintelligently to something but
(31:33):
we've hired.
Well, we haven't hired yetbecause they won't release her
from the.
We wanted to hire and offered ajob to a woman who works in the
armed services and not anenormous academic career, went
in at 18 but an amazing militarycareer and has has had
(31:54):
management leadership training,has had writing training for her
work, very intelligent, veryinsightful about what she and it
would.
It came across very clearly inher cv and it came across in her
answers and it came across inher cover letter.
When the military release her,we're hiring her in a heartbeat,
same with our former headteacher.
Actually, she had got anacademic thing, but it was in
(32:17):
PGCE 20 years ago.
That's not really aqualification for marketing, but
a.
TED talk hell yeah.
Of course we hire that Ofcourse we're looking for those
kinds of things and you can seeit very quickly in a CV.
If someone's actually donesomething interesting and and
had a bit of a life, um, then weinterview a lot.
I mean they, they meet a lot ofpeople we hire them at.
(32:41):
So one, one other thing, oneother thought no, please, please
wherever we can, we startpeople as interns.
We give them three months on thejob training.
We put a lot into theinternships but it gives
everybody a chance to seewhether it's right for them
before we commit to a full-timepermanent role and they commit
to full-time remote working.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (33:02):
And is your in terms of your strategy?
Is it more of an in terms ofyour strategy?
Is it more of an in terms ofyour hiring?
That is, is it more inbound oroutbound?
Because I noticed when I lookat your website that there is.
I think when I first contactedyou, I mentioned about the
underrepresentation in tech, um,especially of women, and you've
(33:25):
got your team is probably what?
70 women, 60 is it?
Matthew Stibbe (33:32):
yeah, it's it.
But if women areunderrepresented in tech and I
think that is probably borne outby the statistics certainly I
was talking to andrew about thisand women going into STEM
subjects is veryunderrepresented, I remember in
my computer games company we hadtwo women working for us, one
(33:54):
woman programmer and a graphicdesigner, which was terrible.
Out of that time, 30, 40 people, but it was a representation of
this lack of women coming in,lack of africans, lack of, but
it was.
It was enough to enough forcosmopolitan article about them
(34:15):
so really I don't know if wewere the only computer games
company in cosmo, but we werecertainly one of them, um which,
which I think is extraordinary.
Even looking back on it now, itseems extraordinary that it
should be so remarkable.
But yes, ok, women areunderrepresented in tech.
True, I think men.
I think there's a slightly lessextreme but slight gender
(34:36):
imbalance in marketing.
In my anecdotal experience of15 years in marketing, there was
probably slightly more womenthan men.
So I think we actually rep we,I think we reflect our gender
imbalances in our industry rightnot.
We're not doing a great job ofgetting women into tech.
We're doing, you know, aninadequate job, perhaps getting
(34:57):
men into marketing.
I'm afraid, yeah, yeah, I don'tknow.
I have to be careful about this, because I'm not sure it's
completely true.
It's only my instinct.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (35:04):
Yeah, I have a similar instinct to you
and um, and I don't know, I haveto be careful about this
because I'm not sure it'scompletely true.
It's only my instinct.
Yeah, I have a similar instinctto you and um, and I don't know
it's.
It's, it's something that'sthat's close to my heart because
I've got, you know, two girlswho really are passionate about
both marketing well, notmarketing, but tech.
They kind of gravitate towardsthe tech things and my, my
family, my family, were in instem subjects, and so it's
(35:28):
something that was passionatethat I, I again, I'd noticed
about your um, about the visualson your website, but, um, I
think you're doing a, a greatjob in terms of your team
building, your team buildingyour business, uh, growing as
well, and just one, I suppose,one.
Well, a couple of last questionsfor you in terms of um,
(35:49):
managing, I mean again, lots ofhiring, lots of managers in
general, they, who, who, perhaps, in the co-located business
they have, I suppose, a I don'tknow if it's mistrust when it
comes to allowing people to, to,to work remotely, and there's
still a bit of skepticism there,isn't there?
(36:11):
What advice would you give tothem in terms of, you know,
again, building a team You'vegot 20 in your team Building a
team that's, again, cohesive andis just right on the ball.
Matthew Stibbe (36:24):
Yes, I wrote an article about this a couple of
years ago and I just saw itagain yesterday looking through
an old blog and the title was abit provocative Managers care
about absenteeism but leaderscare about presenteeism and the
thought that that rather glibheadline sort of captures is.
(36:47):
If you're a kind of insecuremanager, you know the thing that
you can control and if you'reinsecure you're interested in
control is whether or not johnor jane are sat in their desk at
you know six o'clock working onyour project, whether they are
(37:09):
or not, whether it helps to havethem there working later,
whether it matters if they comein at 10 o'clock in the morning
and go at seven o'clock, or comein at 6 am and go for or work
remotely, you know.
But the thing that you cancontrol is can I see them?
Are they there?
And there are definitely, youknow, insecure managers who want
that level of control and I'vecome across them in my life.
(37:30):
I've certainly heard about them.
Like my wife had a manager whowho, if ever she booked a day
off to work from home, wouldbook immediately like a call at
nine o'clock to make sure shewas sat at her desk.
On some spurious pretense andand you know, would it would
come up behind her in the officeand it all seemed a same sort
(37:54):
of package of insecure kind ofcontrol freak behavior.
So I think I think the theanswer has to be something about
trust.
I think the answer has to beI'm going to give up the control
of hours and presence and I'mgoing to gain some control
(38:16):
through relationships, throughtrust, through expectation
setting, by providing context,by having the difficult
conversations about productivityif someone's output isn't as it
should be.
But you know, assuming thatthey're going to do a good job
and assuming if they're workingfrom home, they're working right
(38:36):
.
I mean, and here's here's theflip side of that, if you, if
you make force people to commuteevery day and in london that
means you know 10 hours a week,yeah it's a lot of people.
If you let them work from home,you're probably going to get
most of those 10 hours for work.
I mean everybody you talk towho has to commute.
Now I love working from homebecause I get so much done, the
(38:57):
phone doesn't rig and I don'thave to bloody commute.
And then they feel guiltybecause they've got to work.
You know they're not out in theoffice so they work really hard
.
So you know my experience.
You let people work from home,remote work they actually get
much more out of much moreproductive.
Um, so, trusting in that, um,one of the things that we do, I
think, as I mentioned, was wemeasure output rather than hours
(39:17):
, and that that's a veryprofound.
The other thing that people findreally hard to deal with we
don't set deadlines so peopleunderstand sometimes, when
client work has to be done by acertain date, you know there's
an event or a website launch orwhatever.
Well, you know that.
You know if you're working on aproject, you know what the key
dates are, if there are any.
And people understand also.
(39:38):
We have to deliver a certainamount of work for a client
every month.
There's a program and aschedule, but I'm not going to
tell you you need to do this byfriday and then you need to do
the next thing by wednesday andthe thing after that by friday.
If I have set this up andcommunicated the context
correctly, you know what needsto be done this week.
You know what needs to be donenext week.
I'll leave it up to you tomanage your time, your schedule,
(40:01):
your workload, your planning toget the right work done at the
right time for the client.
And that, I think, is I explaintry and explain this to some
clients, you don't.
You, I need deadlines, I want atable.
You get it by the end of themonth, it's all it'll come.
It's like wagamama you'll getit when it's ready and
everything, and it will be fresh.
But that that's very.
(40:22):
I think that's probably at thecutting edge of of remote
working, right for me, gettingpeople to accept.
And it's interesting becausepeople come into the company and
they want me to set deadlinesfor them and I'm like I'm not
doing it, you've got to figureyour own stuff out, that's your
workload.
So actually this is, and Ipromise I'll shut up.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (40:43):
No, this is great.
I love this.
Matthew Stibbe (40:48):
That thing about setting deadlines can cause
some stress for people, rightMeaning if they've just got a
heap of work and they don't knowwhat to do first.
So we do have to do sometraining, we have to talk to
people, we have to communicateabout how to manage your task
list and how to communicate withyour boss saying I'm not going
to get that done because, or yousaying I'm not going to get
that done because, or I've gottoo much to do this week.
(41:08):
I've got these five things onmy to-do list and I can do any
three of them.
What's the most important thingfor you, account manager, for
me to get done first?
Those are life skills and thoseare valuable things.
None of that.
Nothing is going to be solvedby me telling you what your
deadline is, except 50% of thetime you'll miss the deadline,
(41:29):
and then everybody will getstressed out, of course.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (41:32):
Well, I'll tell you what that was the
voice of Matthew, or this is thevoice of Matthew Stibbeck on
the Remote World Life podcast.
He's the CEO of ArticulateMarketing and I'd listen back to
this particular marketing andI'd listen back to this if
you're, if you're in management,if you're building a remote
business, then this is just gold, because it's it tells you
about not just the, the trustissues, the culture issues, the,
(41:55):
everything when it comes tobuilding a remote team building,
remote business, and one thathas been successful for the last
well since 2003.
So have a listen back to thisrecording, matthew.
I just really want to say thankyou for your time and we'll be
looking out for Well since 2003.
So have a listen back to thisrecording, matthew.
I just really want to say thankyou for your time and we'll be
(42:16):
looking out for what articulatemarketing is doing in the future
?
Matthew Stibbe (42:19):
In fact, what's on the horizon for articulate
marketing?
Well, we just launched an applast week HubToolkitcom so
anyone who's using HubSpot, it'sa tool that makes HubSpot does
SEO and social media things inHubSpot more efficiently, and
we're working on the new versionof our Points app, which will
eventually surface in ourapplication, turbinehqcom, which
(42:40):
does purchase orders, expensesand time off requests.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:42):
Wow.
Matthew Stibbe (42:44):
So besides being a marketing company, we also
geek out on this other stuff,and geeking out is what people
look for, too, from.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (42:48):
Articulate Sounds good, and where can we
find that Across atarticulatemarketingcom.
Or is there another domain thatyou want me to share with the
audience?
Matthew (42:59):
Articulatemarketingcom has a tools page and everything
we do that's not Articulate ison there.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:04):
Matthew, thank you so much for your time.
It's been great talking to youand I'll be following and
watching with a keen eye to seewhat articulate marketing is
getting up to in the future.
Thank you so much for your time.
Matthew Stibbe (43:16):
My pleasure.
Thank you very much, Alex.
Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:18):
Thank you.
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