Find Your Audience with Nathan Yeung | RR228

Janice Porter: 00:00:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode

Janice Porter: 00:00:03

of relationships rule. My guest this week is Nathan Young, who

Janice Porter: 00:00:08

is bicoastal? I think these days he lives in Vancouver and is

Janice Porter: 00:00:11

also in Toronto half the time where he is today as we speak.

Janice Porter: 00:00:15

So first of all, welcome to the show, Nathan.

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:18

Thank you, Janice for having me.

Janice Porter: 00:00:20

My pleasure, I'd love you to share with the

Janice Porter: 00:00:23

audience a little bit about who you are and what you do. Because

Janice Porter: 00:00:27

from what I've read about you, you had what what one of my

Janice Porter: 00:00:32

friends calls a squiggly line career. So it wasn't a

Janice Porter: 00:00:36

straightforward path to where you are now. So can you share a

Janice Porter: 00:00:39

little bit with with our audience of who you are and what

Janice Porter: 00:00:42

you're doing?

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:43

Yeah, so I've been an entrepreneur ever since I was

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:46

really young, it was kind of like what I always wanted to do.

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:48

So I went to school for a program called Marketing and

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:52

Entrepreneurship at school called BCIT. And that was a,

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:55

that was a fast track program. So I actually completed that in

Nathan Yeung: 00:00:58

two and a half years. So I always wanted to do marketing.

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:01

But that was not definitely my first job. My first job was

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:05

actually a VP of Finance in China. And for all you

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:08

listeners, the funny thing is, I actually don't speak Mandarin.

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:11

So you asked me how that was. That's, that's another story.

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:13

But as a VP of Finance in China, and then after that, from being

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:17

completely burnt to the ground. And I really mean that. I was a

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:22

management consultant for about four to five years working for

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:24

various angel investors in their investments and, and helping

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:28

with kind of m&a management and change management. And then,

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:34

essentially, you know, life changed and kind of thought

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:37

about what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And I went

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:39

to kind of help my family business, I moved to Toronto to

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:42

help one of our business partners open their office in

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:44

Toronto. And then I found out, I'm too much of an entrepreneur,

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:49

not great for a corporate environment. So I went back into

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:51

entrepreneurship. And here I am running, find your audience,

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:55

find your audience is a business where we're a bolt on marketing

Nathan Yeung: 00:01:58

department. And the reason why I did that was because during my

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:01

times, advising people, I had really felt like I would advise

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:05

people in management consulting, and then I would never see the

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:08

fruits of my work, or you would be kind of given off to these

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:11

freelancers or other consultants, and it wouldn't be

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:14

executed well. So I found that very frustrating. So I wanted to

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:18

solve the whole problem of like, I want to be able to advise, but

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:21

I also want to be like fully accountable to deliver that

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:24

work. But I need a team to do that. So that's essentially what

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:27

find your audiences we do everything from strategy all the

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:30

way down to nitty gritty execution. So my company is now

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:34

like 2627 employees, we hire like one or two employees, like

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:37

almost every month, and I kind of call this like a scaled up

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:41

fractional business, because now there's a lot of like different

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:44

fractional buyer advisors. There's fractional CROs. There's

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:47

fractional CMOS, you know, there's interim CEO CEOs too.

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:51

But I come with a full team. So that's kind of a difference. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:56

that's, that's kind of where I am right now. So about 10 years

Nathan Yeung: 00:02:59

of quote, unquote, professional marketing experience. But you

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:02

know, if I were to be honest, I've been doing marketing for

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:04

probably well over 19 years, I've been doing marketing since

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:08

I was 16. I was dabbling in email at a very young age, I was

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:11

dabbling in like, automated social media at a very young

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:14

age. So my, my, my amateur or maybe not informal years of

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:19

experience is 19 years, but my professional experience is about

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:22

10 years.

Janice Porter: 00:03:23

Wow, there's a lot there to unpack. That's

Janice Porter: 00:03:25

great. Thanks. Anything. I have to ask you, though, I'm gonna go

Janice Porter: 00:03:28

back to the very beginning first when you were the the financial?

Janice Porter: 00:03:33

Yeah, yep. Oh, I think our

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:36

VP of Finance, not the CFO. So I had no fiduciary

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:39

duty. That's actually the reason why I was like, I'm not being a

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:41

CFO, am I too young?

Janice Porter: 00:03:44

Right. So the VP of Finance, you lived in China,

Janice Porter: 00:03:46

then I lived

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:47

in China. And if you want to talk about

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:49

relationship status, that entire role came from relationships,

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:54

and None None for my family, all ones that I built myself. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:03:58

and that was that's like a, that's a beautiful story of just

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:01

like, when you hustle. And you do what people can't think you

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:06

can do and you deliver and it surprises them. Like, that's how

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:09

it got me a job. I flew to China two weeks after I graduated, and

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:14

I presented something to a consultant in China. And I was

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:18

like you had people all across North America looking for this I

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:21

brought it to a you don't know who I am, I want a job. That's

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:24

literally what I did you want?

Janice Porter: 00:04:25

What's your idea? Right then there that you wanted

Janice Porter: 00:04:28

to go and live in China for a bit? Or no,

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:30

no, I was just like, this is a phenomenal

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:32

opportunity. And if I can get a job here, it's going to like,

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:36

you know, leaps and bounds my experience leap into math in my

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:40

professional experience. So I was like, if I can get this

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:42

done, like, this is amazing. So So I took a chance I literally

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:47

flew to Shanghai didn't have a place to live and I showed up at

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:50

this guy's door, showed him what I got him and essentially he was

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:54

like, Okay, well, I don't have a job for you right now. But how

Nathan Yeung: 00:04:57

will you just work for me and just do it jobs. And that's

Nathan Yeung: 00:05:00

actually how I got the VP of Finance job. It was really like

Nathan Yeung: 00:05:03

relationships and hustle.

Janice Porter: 00:05:05

Well and and what I call it what the the Jewish

Janice Porter: 00:05:08

people call hutzpah, okay, you did it on nerve, you did it on

Janice Porter: 00:05:12

footside, like you believed in yourself and you were you were

Janice Porter: 00:05:15

brave enough to go and make that happen. And that's the heart of

Janice Porter: 00:05:19

an entrepreneur, I totally believe that a true

Janice Porter: 00:05:22

entrepreneur, we use that word very loosely these days. But I

Janice Porter: 00:05:25

think the true entrepreneurs are the are the visionaries, and the

Janice Porter: 00:05:29

people that are willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

Janice Porter: 00:05:32

And that totally sounds like that's, that's amazing. Thanks

Janice Porter: 00:05:36

for sharing that. So you talk about being involved in all the

Janice Porter: 00:05:42

aspects then of marketing, and I can see why because it's feels

Janice Porter: 00:05:47

so much better when you can see the fruits of your labor. So I

Janice Porter: 00:05:52

saw somewhere in one of your your posts are great, by the

Janice Porter: 00:05:55

way, on LinkedIn, I think that you definitely have the gift.

Janice Porter: 00:05:59

And marketing is definitely oozes out of you. So what

Janice Porter: 00:06:05

essentially, you know, when you what, what would you say? Or who

Janice Porter: 00:06:09

industry wise are, you don't have to be specific if you don't

Janice Porter: 00:06:12

want to name the companies, but your ideal client? So what gets

Janice Porter: 00:06:18

you excited? When you get that job? What is it about it? Is it

Janice Porter: 00:06:23

the industry? Is it the client? Is it the size is the the

Janice Porter: 00:06:27

challenge?

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:29

You know, um, I think the number one thing that

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:32

gets me excited is when my client trusts me, and makes me

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:37

fully accountable, I think that's the really, really

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:41

exciting part. So I'll give you a great example. Like we work

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:45

with a variety of different clients and in a variety of

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:47

different ways. And one client, they're not on their largest

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:51

retainer, but they're on our medium sized one. And they have

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:55

a sub business unit that they're kind of spinning up because they

Nathan Yeung: 00:06:59

have a person who owns a p&l themselves, and they want to

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:02

spin this up as a bit more of a business. And so the the, the

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:05

the owner of the business, or the CEO came to me and says, you

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:08

know, hey, you know, I don't really want this to be

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:10

additional scope and like, how are you going to do that. And I

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:13

said to him, I was like, Look, as long as you give us creative

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:16

freedom. And as long as you are okay with us doing what we think

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:20

is the most important, which actually streamlines our work a

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:24

lot. The reason why our work is not streamlined is typically

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:27

because of client feedback cycles. If we actually were just

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:32

allowed to be accountable, we would actually be far more

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:34

efficient. So so the CEO was kind of like, yeah, absolutely.

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:39

And I was like, Are you sure? Like 100% He's like, he's like,

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:42

Nathan, I hired you guys, because you guys know what

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:46

you're doing. This is not the most important business for us.

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:49

But it is important. And I don't want to increase scope. So if

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:53

you're telling me you just need to be accountable, and you're

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:54

not gonna charge me for it, and it just can fall under our

Nathan Yeung: 00:07:57

current retainer. That's great. Go do it. I was like, okay, but

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:00

here's the name. Are you cool with this name? He's like, it's

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:03

a little corny. But yes. And I was like, well, it's corny,

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:07

because I have no budget to market it. So it has to be a

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:09

little quirky. Right. And so he was just like, go for it. It's

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:13

not sexy. It's not huge. But we get so much joy because it's

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:17

like full accountability, our creative angle, our copywriting,

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:22

our headlines, our taglines, our benefits statement, like it's

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:25

all us. That's really fun. So our ideal client is really one

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:29

that understands, hey, I don't have marketing chops. Or at

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:34

least I've come to the realization I don't, I need to

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:38

go hire someone. And I don't have the capacity to hire a full

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:41

team. So I'll go to Nathan. And I'll hire him because I know

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:44

he's got eight designers, you know, three web developers,

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:47

three content writers like all these things behind them. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:50

that's a full team. And I can't afford $40,000 worth of overhead

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:54

a month for a full team. So it makes sense to hire me. That's

Nathan Yeung: 00:08:57

like our favorite client, because there's a lot of clients

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:00

that kind of call us accountable, but they hold the

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:03

reins on everything, and everything is designed by

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:07

committee. And that is that's not really fun for us.

Janice Porter: 00:09:12

Because that would take away your creativity

Janice Porter: 00:09:14

immensely. Yeah. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:15

honestly, it's kind of defeats the purpose,

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:18

right? So it's like if you're hiring us, you're hiring us to

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:21

help you prioritize, you're hiring us to help you align,

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:23

you're hiring us to help you execute. So to put us on a

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:27

leash, it's kind of counterintuitive to the hiring

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:29

process.

Janice Porter: 00:09:31

Mm hmm. And so it's from a company standpoint,

Janice Porter: 00:09:35

it's a project it's not I have to don't have to hire somebody

Janice Porter: 00:09:38

for the entire year as a marketer or as like it's a

Janice Porter: 00:09:41

project kind of based thing right? They get your company

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:46

a lot a lot of our companies hire us for over a

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:49

year so like our average our average client in years like

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:52

three and a half years and the reason is is because like my job

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:56

as like a fractional cmo comes in waves, because it's such as

Nathan Yeung: 00:09:59

like Identify and now like I analyzed the needs, identify our

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:05

priorities, and then we initiate those projects. So as they start

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:08

to initiate projects, that goes back to the team so that my

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:12

involvement cycles, right, but the the execution of marketing

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:16

activities is happening all throughout the year. And I break

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:20

this out, as there's two types of activities, there's like

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:22

maintenance activities, and I use that word lightly. Because

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:25

it's sometimes can be misconstrued as like, post

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:27

maintenance, just like posting a social, it's like no

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:29

maintenance, it's just like, the general activities like, what

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:32

like a well oiled car, right, you need the oil, so you need

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:35

the oil to work, it doesn't do a lot. But like, if you don't have

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:39

it, it's not going to work well. And then you have like, the

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:41

special initiatives. So that's like, the turbocharger on your

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:44

car, right. So that's the one that gives you the boost. So

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:47

every business has maintenance activities, and then every

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:50

business should have additional budget for special initiatives.

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:53

So those are either launching new products going into a new

Nathan Yeung: 00:10:56

market, or just like promotions, or things like that. So those

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:00

are your campaigns and things like that. And and so, so we

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:02

kind of ebb and flow with maintenance and special

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:05

initiatives as needed for most of our organizations. Okay, that

Janice Porter: 00:11:09

makes sense. So your role, obviously, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:11:13

that my podcast and my beingness is all about relationships and

Janice Porter: 00:11:18

relationship building. And you said it right at the beginning

Janice Porter: 00:11:21

of that last piece about trust? And I would imagine that your

Janice Porter: 00:11:27

role, then is your that you're the person out there selling

Janice Porter: 00:11:30

right, you're the front of the company, right?

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:32

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think a lot of times

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:35

when companies choose us, it's because of potentially, my

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:40

relationship with them. And the trust that's built from that

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:44

relationship. And I think, because I've said this to a lot

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:48

of people, marketing is actually very simple. All you have to do

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:52

is your marketing needs to build a level of trust that your

Nathan Yeung: 00:11:57

services or solutions will get them to their desired outcome.

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:01

And I think that's something that a lot of people forget,

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:04

it's, it's less about selling them on. Yeah, yes, you have

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:07

benefits and pain points and all these fancy copywriting

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:10

language. But the point is, is that when a person makes that

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:14

decision, it's actually trust. And it's trust, that you will

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:19

deliver that outcome or trust that I have the highest amount

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:23

of trust for you, as a consultant or a vendor to

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:26

deliver that desired outcome, right, because everyone is

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:29

promising the desired outcome. So a lot of the things that we

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:33

do, whether it's through marketing, sales, or just purely

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:35

just relationships, is building that trust to attain that

Nathan Yeung: 00:12:39

desired outcome.

Janice Porter: 00:12:40

Right. And like, I was thinking, I read one of

Janice Porter: 00:12:43

your posts on LinkedIn. And I think it was about the

Janice Porter: 00:12:46

familiarity principle. And I'm not sure if this fits into it or

Janice Porter: 00:12:51

not. But when I was thinking about that, I was thinking that

Janice Porter: 00:12:54

I think I'm always a label shopper, I've always been a

Janice Porter: 00:12:57

label shopper, and I hate the generic brand. I don't have the

Janice Porter: 00:13:03

same trust in those things as I do in the Apple product, or the,

Janice Porter: 00:13:08

you know, the, I don't know, if I think you know, I always want

Janice Porter: 00:13:12

to buy the brand name, not the copy. I don't know if it's snob

Janice Porter: 00:13:17

appeal, or if it's just that familiarity, that it's always

Janice Porter: 00:13:21

been a brand that I can trust. I think your article talked a bit

Janice Porter: 00:13:26

about the word the the song that gets stuck in your head. And

Janice Porter: 00:13:31

that's how you talked about you can share it if you like a

Janice Porter: 00:13:33

little bit about that. But what does that mean? Am I on the

Janice Porter: 00:13:36

right track this?

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:37

Absolutely familiarity principle just comes

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:39

with the fact that like when you are familiar with something or

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:42

someone, there is actually an inherent trust that's built from

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:46

this. And I describe this in a layman's kind of analogy, or

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:51

metaphor in the sense of like, lets us imagine you're going to

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:54

school, you don't have a car. So you are taking public transit.

Nathan Yeung: 00:13:58

And as many of you know, when you're going on public transit,

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:00

whether that's going to work or to school, and you have a very

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:04

regimented schedule, you likely run into the same people on

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:08

transit. And if you don't, every single time, you know that maybe

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:11

about 30% of the people are actually repeats, they're not

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:14

repeats every day, but you definitely see them, you know,

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:17

once twice, three or four or five times a week. What's

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:20

really, really interesting is you aren't really realizing it,

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:23

but even the fact that you're just simply on that same bus or

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:29

train or whatever you are, whatever public transit system

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:32

you are on, you're actually creating this very thin layer of

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:35

trust amongst yourself and you don't even know it because it

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:39

now if I want you to think about this, I want you to imagine this

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:42

for a second. I just want you to imagine a random stranger coming

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:45

up to you and asking for your cell phone. There's there's a

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:48

lack of there's a there's a ton of anxiety that gets built into

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:51

you. Now out of just being a nice person you might feel

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:55

obligated to give that person your phone because you know like

Nathan Yeung: 00:14:58

what could go wrong, but Now I want you to take an imagine that

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:02

same scenario, but now imagine it with that one or two persons,

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:05

or one or the two people you've always seen on the same bus or

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:10

train again, and they asked you for the cell phone. And I want

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:13

you to be really honest with yourself, do you think you

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:16

actually have the same level of anxiety, giving you the sale?

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:21

And so just through familiarity and frequency, they build trust

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:25

with you with absolutely no interaction? Right. And that's

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:29

what familiar you guys. And so subconsciously, as you are

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:33

repeated as you have repeated exposures to the same things,

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:36

trust is actually being built, whether you know it or not. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:40

that's essentially what the familiarity principle does in

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:43

layman's terms is that when you are frequent, this is why people

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:46

do retargeting, right? So retargeting ads to make sure you

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:48

see it. That's why you see a lot of ads everywhere. And that's

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:51

why you see a lot of studies about frequency, and how many

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:54

times you have to show ads to certain people. So that is the

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:57

familiarity principle. And and it's a beautiful thing. But it's

Nathan Yeung: 00:15:59

also really, really important for relationships, like think

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:02

about it as simply simply as like, Do you really think you're

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:05

going to have a great relationship with a client or a

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:09

potential vendor? If you only see them? Once a year? Or you've

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:14

only emailed them once or twice? No? Right? So so constant

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:18

interaction constant frequency, that's building familiarity. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:16:22

when you build familiarity, you naturally build trust.

Janice Porter: 00:16:25

Yeah, that's, it's so funny. I had a woman

Janice Porter: 00:16:29

that I was introduced, I wasn't introduced. I had a campaign

Janice Porter: 00:16:33

going on LinkedIn, and her name came up to someone to connect

Janice Porter: 00:16:37

with. She said, Yes, I looked at her profile. And I went, I think

Janice Porter: 00:16:41

I know this woman. And I went to my closet and found this book

Janice Porter: 00:16:46

that I knew that's what it was. And it was a workbook about

Janice Porter: 00:16:49

telephone courtesy that I had bought when I was teaching

Janice Porter: 00:16:53

telephone courtesy back in the 90s. Okay. And this was the

Janice Porter: 00:16:58

woman who had written that book. Now, I didn't know her at all, I

Janice Porter: 00:17:01

just bought that book. She was a person at that time and still

Janice Porter: 00:17:04

goes by the telephone doctor, because she was all about

Janice Porter: 00:17:07

telephone courtesy. Well, when that when her name showed up, as

Janice Porter: 00:17:11

she accepted my connection request, I had to tell her that

Janice Porter: 00:17:14

story. We were like, best friends in five minutes, because

Janice Porter: 00:17:18

of that interaction, so many umpteen years ago, that, you

Janice Porter: 00:17:23

know, neither one of us knew the other person, but that trust in

Janice Porter: 00:17:26

that that connection was there. And now we're like best friends.

Janice Porter: 00:17:30

It's so funny.

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:31

Yeah, and familiarity is the same

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:33

principle as finding, like, you know, like subjects that people

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:38

are interested in, right. So if you know that your your

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:42

potential clients has kids, and those kids like karate, and your

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:46

kids go to karate, there is a sense of familiarity when you

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:50

have that topic in common. And that again, builds trust, right,

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:54

and so familiar to you know, is is just the outcome of, of

Nathan Yeung: 00:17:59

certain things in life are certain effects in life. But

Nathan Yeung: 00:18:02

familiarity, just that feeling, really, really encapsulate like

Nathan Yeung: 00:18:07

a lot of opportunities to build trust. And if you know how to

Nathan Yeung: 00:18:10

create familiarity, it's a great tool to use.

Janice Porter: 00:18:13

Yeah, I call it when I'm talking, when I'm

Janice Porter: 00:18:16

teaching people on LinkedIn, how to engage with people that

Janice Porter: 00:18:20

they've just met, or that they want to get to know because they

Janice Porter: 00:18:23

want to pursue any possible lead generation from that is building

Janice Porter: 00:18:28

rapport. It's about building rapport. And it's looking for

Janice Porter: 00:18:31

those signals that you know, those things on their profile

Janice Porter: 00:18:35

that they could use to leap frog from that, you know, to build

Janice Porter: 00:18:40

rapport, which is so true. I had hoped that when I first met you

Janice Porter: 00:18:46

that talking about your little girl, which just made you light

Janice Porter: 00:18:51

up, amazingly. And I have the same experience with my little

Janice Porter: 00:18:54

granddaughter who's a little bit older than Naomi, right, is that

Janice Porter: 00:18:57

your Yeah. And that was a way to build rapport with you. And and,

Janice Porter: 00:19:02

you know, and then that was one of the first things that I

Janice Porter: 00:19:04

wanted to talk about when I saw you again today. So yes, I think

Janice Porter: 00:19:08

that's so important is building rapport, female building

Janice Porter: 00:19:11

familiarity, and getting people to trust and the sooner you get

Janice Porter: 00:19:16

it, the better obviously, I wanted to ask you this was not

Janice Porter: 00:19:20

on anything except that actually, I saw this on your

Janice Porter: 00:19:24

LinkedIn profile, that you are part of pavilion. Now. Is that

Janice Porter: 00:19:31

because I had the owner of that on my podcast, Sam Jacobs? Yes.

Janice Porter: 00:19:36

Yeah. So that was an interesting platform that he created. Are

Janice Porter: 00:19:41

you still part of that you were quite involved with it? I

Nathan Yeung: 00:19:43

think I am still a part of it. So I'm

Nathan Yeung: 00:19:45

hypothetically an envoy, which means I lead a small group, the

Nathan Yeung: 00:19:50

line Law Group in Toronto. I'm also a part of the fractional

Nathan Yeung: 00:19:54

Consulting Group and also the CMO group. So I'm part of a

Nathan Yeung: 00:19:57

different group, but I only lead the language group which is a

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:00

Toronto, kind of segment of the pavilion group. And it's been,

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:06

it's been an interesting experience. Um, I would say

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:09

that, you know, as a person who also grows private community, so

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:14

I have kind of our private community executives that I kind

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:18

of curates and program events for, I would do things

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:23

differently. It's been a great platform to meet new people I've

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:26

met, probably what I would consider Shara Bell, if you're

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:30

ever doing Account Based Marketing to be called out to

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:32

her. And Janice, if you get an opportunity to talk to her,

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:36

she's an amazing person, Shara is I would go on to be

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:40

considered a lifelong business friend. She and I have a small

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:44

little private community together, and we talk very

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:47

openly and honestly about our business. So I've made some, you

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:50

know, absolutely amazing relationships. I think just in

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:54

terms of some of the event programs, there could be some

Nathan Yeung: 00:20:56

changes,

Janice Porter: 00:20:57

of course, well, you should tell Sam.

Nathan Yeung: 00:21:00

I've left my feedback.

Janice Porter: 00:21:02

Okay. Yeah, no, it's just such a small world in

Janice Porter: 00:21:04

a way because his book kind folk finished first was, wasn't his

Janice Porter: 00:21:09

story. And, and he also talks about the the importance of

Janice Porter: 00:21:13

trust and building relationships to you know, to do what you need

Janice Porter: 00:21:17

to do. And so he created his own platform around that. So just an

Janice Porter: 00:21:24

aside as a busy entrepreneur, and I've got two more questions

Janice Porter: 00:21:29

to ask you. One is, as a busy entrepreneur, do you read,

Janice Porter: 00:21:37

listen, or watch the most? Right, so are you a book? Do you

Janice Porter: 00:21:41

read books? Do you listen to books? Do you watch videos?

Janice Porter: 00:21:44

listen to podcasts? What's your favorite thing?

Nathan Yeung: 00:21:47

Oh, I'm so that's so that's a great question. I am

Nathan Yeung: 00:21:51

so incredibly busy these days, I probably my form of consumption

Nathan Yeung: 00:21:57

or two things, I would say audiobooks right now, and

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:02

YouTube videos. So I used to love and I still have an

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:08

absolutely monstrous Kindle library I have yet to play

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:13

through. But I would say like, just because I'm so busy, I try

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:19

to maximize my time with audiobooks. And definitely when

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:23

it comes to hands on execution, it's definitely YouTube videos.

Janice Porter: 00:22:28

And that's like this, that mostly then for

Janice Porter: 00:22:31

looking you're looking to how to do something, or is that podcast

Janice Porter: 00:22:35

type things, or interviews and things like that.

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:37

So for audio books there, they're mainly just books

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:41

on marketing. So I'm always trying to think about like, I

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:45

can't be the smartest person in the room. So I have to listen to

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:47

all these books, because they must have better angles than me.

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:50

So I'm always listening to marketing books, strategy,

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:53

books, management, and just relationship like, you know,

Nathan Yeung: 00:22:56

kind of EQ type books, leadership books, so everything

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:01

is business oriented. Basically, I'm a very boring audiobook

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:04

person. Um, and then courses by any chance, like so the the

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:10

teaching company was something that I loved listening to,

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:13

because they all had Ivy League Teachers speaking about courses.

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:16

So I used to listen to those all the time. For YouTube. It's

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:20

definitely instructional how to, so I'm, I'm not going to

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:24

consider myself like a fully graduated Python coder. But I'd

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:28

give myself like a level 200 like I'm on my second year. So

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:30

I'm very comfortable. But I'm not a fluid programmer. So

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:33

often, I am trying to hack my way through generative ai, ai,

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:38

and I'm creating small tools for myself. So I'm generally

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:43

watching those videos just because there are a million

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:47

people smarter than me in that space. And there are at least

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:50

100 YouTube videos that are far easier for me to do it than for

Nathan Yeung: 00:23:54

me to try to figure out on my own.

Janice Porter: 00:23:56

All right, fair enough. And are you that, of

Janice Porter: 00:23:58

course poses another question about AI and chat GPT. And all

Janice Porter: 00:24:03

of that, do you incorporate that stuff now into your

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:06

1,000,000%. So as soon as Jack GPT and I said this

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:09

on another podcast, as soon as GPT came out, I had literally

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:14

reallocated one of my resources to be a full time AI person. So

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:18

his first month on the job was literally just analyzing AI

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:23

tools. So I was like, I don't want you writing a word. I just

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:26

want everything to be generated. And then I need you to come back

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:29

and tell me like, how is it working? What are the

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:31

constraints? Why won't it work? And let's figure out what this

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:34

looks like in my workflow. So like AI is massive in our

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:37

organization. And if you're listening right now, and you're

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:40

not using any AI tools, you are going to get behind and you're

Nathan Yeung: 00:24:44

going to get behind very quick.

Janice Porter: 00:24:46

Yeah, it's interesting. I know it's hard to

Janice Porter: 00:24:48

keep up with everything these days, but it seems as though if

Janice Porter: 00:24:53

you use if you use it my limited experience if you use it. Number

Janice Porter: 00:24:59

one you got know what to ask it and be specific. And number two,

Janice Porter: 00:25:03

you have to realize that it only has access to what's already

Janice Porter: 00:25:06

happened. So don't you know, you've got to make it your own

Janice Porter: 00:25:09

after that anyway? Then it would be okay. But I would never, you

Janice Porter: 00:25:14

know, there's so many dangers around it. But that's the same

Janice Porter: 00:25:17

with anything when something's new and people try to find their

Janice Porter: 00:25:19

own way around. Right. So, yeah, definitely interesting. Okay,

Janice Porter: 00:25:25

last question. It's two parts. And I love to ask my my guests

Janice Porter: 00:25:31

this. And my favorite word is curiosity. So number one, do you

Janice Porter: 00:25:38

think curiosity is innate or learned? And part two? What are

Janice Porter: 00:25:44

you most curious about these days?

Nathan Yeung: 00:25:47

It's innate or learned? I think that's such an

Nathan Yeung: 00:25:55

interesting question. And I think if I were to lean into it,

Nathan Yeung: 00:25:59

I would say curiosity is innate. And the reason I would say that

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:06

is because I think some people feel like many people aren't

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:10

just naturally curious. And I would counter that comment is

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:14

no, they probably are, you're just not interested in the same

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:18

topic. Okay, and so therefore, their curiosity is not one of

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:24

generality. It's one of specificity. And so therefore,

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:28

if you don't have that same interest, and you're not going

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:32

to be curious, and neither are they, so So I would say, I think

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:36

everyone is curious. I think the only reasons why we don't find

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:41

things curious to one another is likely the fact that they're not

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:44

they have no interest, essentially. So I would say I

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:47

would definitely be on in need. What am I most curious about

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:52

God, I'm curious about a lot of things. I am, I am definitely

Nathan Yeung: 00:26:57

the type of person who will read like a Wikipedia article. And

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:00

then we'll go through every single footnote, because I'm

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:04

curious. So I'll give a good example I started right. So if

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:10

any of you guys ever decide to follow me and want to see my

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:13

face every day talking about psychology topics, on marketing,

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:17

I ventured, this year, just the beginning of year starting my

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:21

content. And I started moving towards this direction where I

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:25

really want to make marketing and consumer psychology really

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:30

easy to consume. And I want to I may want it to be applicable to

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:34

agile marketing tactics. And so I have essentially journeyed

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:38

into this whole, like, mountainous, incredibly

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:43

uncomfortable amount of research, where I'm reading, I

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:48

think there's a total of 635 research articles that I have in

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:52

my library right now that I've compiled. And I am going through

Nathan Yeung: 00:27:57

them to essentially create the content that I'm producing on

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:00

LinkedIn, and Instagram and Tiktok. And I love it. Because

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:05

every single time, I actually get a chance to go through one

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:08

more article, I go, Oh, my God. And then I want to read one

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:11

more. And it's like, Oh, my God, I don't want to read another

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:14

one. I'm like, Oh, my God, like, what? Why didn't I know this

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:17

before? Or why don't you know this research existed? And I

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:22

find that fascinating, like, I love learning something and not

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:25

knowing that I didn't know it, right. Like, it's like, it

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:28

bothers me. There's like an innate thing that bothers me

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:30

about it. So I just want to learn more. So I'm just curious

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:33

about everything like, and, you know, I think I'm the same. I'm

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:39

very curious about business oriented things. So if you, you

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:42

know, maybe talk to me about, you know, flowers, I might not

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:49

have the best follow up questions of curiosity. But if

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:52

you if you talk about, you know, the greatest copywriter in the

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:55

1900s, I'd be like, Oh, who is it? Oh, what kind of framework

Nathan Yeung: 00:28:59

did they use? How long was he alive? Or what publisher did he

Nathan Yeung: 00:29:02

work for? I'd have a million questions. So I definitely love

Nathan Yeung: 00:29:06

business and I love and I'm definitely like very much in

Nathan Yeung: 00:29:09

love with like consumer psychology and the parallel

Nathan Yeung: 00:29:13

paths that they have in marketing. And that's been

Nathan Yeung: 00:29:16

incredibly fascinating for me.

Janice Porter: 00:29:19

Well, you just basically use yourself as an

Janice Porter: 00:29:22

example for what you had stated in part one, which is brilliant.

Janice Porter: 00:29:26

Yeah. That you know, if it's something you're interested in

Janice Porter: 00:29:29

the questions just start coming right. Yeah. Yeah, that's thank

Janice Porter: 00:29:33

you for sharing that your your answer actually was was one I

Janice Porter: 00:29:36

hadn't really heard very often before and maybe once before,

Janice Porter: 00:29:40

but it's so true. I get what you're saying. That being said,

Janice Porter: 00:29:44

you know, there's an argument for we may all it may be innate,

Janice Porter: 00:29:53

but a lot of it gets kicked out of some people depending on

Janice Porter: 00:29:56

their, you know, their path through school or their paths

Janice Porter: 00:29:59

through their Life, whatever. And then, so I don't know, like,

Janice Porter: 00:30:02

I mean, there's no I'm not gonna say your answers wrong or right

Janice Porter: 00:30:05

or anybody else on my shoulder, it's just really interesting

Janice Porter: 00:30:08

that the majority of people actually, well, I'm not gonna

Janice Porter: 00:30:11

say, it's all good. Anyway, someday I might, I might use

Janice Porter: 00:30:15

these these quotes in the book, I don't know, we'll see. I'll

Janice Porter: 00:30:17

let you know. But um, but thank you, this was a delight and

Janice Porter: 00:30:22

really interesting to, to talk to someone who's so passionate

Janice Porter: 00:30:26

about what they do. And I could tell that I know that there's,

Janice Porter: 00:30:32

there's as passionate and as you know, blinders on as you are

Janice Porter: 00:30:36

about business and learning, I think that you have probably a

Janice Porter: 00:30:40

lot more, I know, you look fit. So you probably care about that.

Janice Porter: 00:30:44

You've got a child, I know you love that. So that's a whole

Janice Porter: 00:30:47

other world for you. And I'm sure there's other things as

Janice Porter: 00:30:50

well. So interesting conversation. Glad to talk to

Janice Porter: 00:30:54

you. Thank you so much, you have one last business tip for my

Janice Porter: 00:30:58

audience.

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:02

Be aware of the spotlight effect, or spotlight

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:06

syndrome. For all you business owners, I know that it's scary

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:12

for you to start. And likely you have something called the

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:16

overconfidence bias, which you probably think you're smarter

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:19

than you are, which you may or may not be. But that also lends

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:22

itself to this idea of you're you think your failures are

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:26

going to be bigger than they are as well. And so my biggest

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:29

recommendation for anyone, when it just comes to business,

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:32

especially when it comes to marketing, if you're if you're a

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:36

small business owner, you can mess up on marketing a whole lot

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:39

before it really matters because you don't have the reach. You

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:43

don't have impressions. Okay, you might mess up one or two

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:47

very key relationships. But I'm just going to tell you right

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:50

now, when it comes to sales, that's one or two of 1000 that

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:54

you're going to have to deal with. So don't worry about that.

Nathan Yeung: 00:31:57

Don't be a perfectionist, start and iterate. And it's okay. I

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:02

think that's my biggest thing. It's just some people get far

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:06

too caught up on their image. And being perfect, it's not

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:09

worth it. spotlight effect does not affect you, you don't have

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:12

the reach, you don't have the impression. So just go do it. Go

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:15

have fun, and be silly with your marketing. Here's the number one

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:18

thing that I'm going to say for everyone, this is the biggest

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:20

tip, okay? If you don't have money, and you don't have

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:24

distribution, you have to somehow create an impression

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:29

that matters. And the only way you're going to do that is by

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:33

invoking some emotion or being a little bizarre. So don't be

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:38

scared about having a silly brand. Just make sure that you

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:41

actually care and are passionate about it. So that's the big

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:45

thing, right? So make sure it's memorable and own it. And that's

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:48

okay. So don't don't try to be professional off the bat,

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:50

especially if you don't have the money for it. Makes no sense. I

Nathan Yeung: 00:32:53

think that's

Janice Porter: 00:32:53

great. And I think that my audience should go

Janice Porter: 00:32:56

and check out your website, find your audience, dot online dot

Janice Porter: 00:33:00

online and go and look at the 20 tips on how to promote your

Janice Porter: 00:33:04

small business for free, because that was really useful. But

Janice Porter: 00:33:09

there's lots of other cool things in there as well. But

Janice Porter: 00:33:12

that just caught my eye this morning. So thank you. Thank you

Janice Porter: 00:33:17

and to my audience, you can read reach Nathan at his website,

Janice Porter: 00:33:23

find your audience dot online or on LinkedIn I'm sure and I know

Janice Porter: 00:33:28

that you're on LinkedIn for sure. And and remember to stay

Janice Porter: 00:33:33

connected and be remembered