V.O. Guy

Hello and thanks for coming along to …And we have an office dog, the digital agency podcast where we talk to agency owner, directors and learn more about what makes them tick from the things that make them similar to the things they’d rather have known sooner where they’ve had success. And where they’ve learned some hard lessons. All will be revealed. With your host, Chris Simmance, the agency coach, and he’ll be talking to a different awesome agency person in each episode, asking them four questions and seeing where the conversation takes us over the next 25 minutes. OK, so let us begin over to you, Chris.

Chris Simmance:
Thanks, voiceover guy. Um, as that intro was playing, I just realized I’ve got the wrong person on the podcast, I’m afraid. So you’re stuck with Anthony for about 25 minutes. Hey Anthony, how you doing?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I’m good, are you Chris?

Chris Simmance:
I’m great, I’m great, how are you?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Um, good. You know, I, I intro had a smooth baseline, so I’m okay with that.

Chris Simmance:
Good, good. So tell us, first of all, who are you?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Wow. Where do I start?

Chris Simmance:
get existence.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Let’s get, okay. Well, I was born in Hong Kong, raised in Canada, and I moved to London. But yeah, this is where I find myself. Actually, it does have a bit of relevance because in Canada, I actually spent four years in university studying print. And then when I moved to the UK, I was like, no one’s really looking for print work. And I kept looking at this. this job description, it kept popping up like SEO, SEO. I was like, what is this stuff? So I had to look it up and I kind of blagged my way into my first job. But I got my first job as SEO copywriter and then quickly bought a book and read about what it was.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
And

Chris Simmance:
The old Richard Branson technique.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
yeah, and that’s how I got into digital marketing. From there, I went to SEO copywriting to social media, which is where I am now. It was more B2C social media. I’ve done content for Predator Manger and Just Eat. But now I’ve got my own agency (Mean Write Hook) and I’m working with B2B companies on their LinkedIn content.

Chris Simmance:
So I know, because I see you an awful lot on LinkedIn, that your content for the audience that you’re cultivating, agencies, B2B companies, et cetera, it’s different. It looks different, it hits different. There’s a humanity behind it. So what do you do with agencies? If an agency is just about to type an email and ask for some work from you, what is it that they would buy? What are they buying?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Well, first of all, I don’t think humanity should be a differentiator in our content. I mean,

Chris Simmance:
Sapi

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that’s kind

Chris Simmance:
is.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
of, I mean, that’s just, that’s, that’s the state we’re in, Chris. That’s the state we’re in. Um,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, well…

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that’s, that’s why I’ve decided to, to kind of go away from the B2C world and kind of bring all that into B2B. Cause it’s, I feel like there’s a big shift, a momentous shift in, in how B2Bs talk in our marketing. We’re all waking up to the idea that B2B isn’t just like, you know, suit and tie and tied up really tight. and then talk jargons like forever.

Chris Simmance:
Yep.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
We’re all talking like we’re humans and we’re talking to humans and the best storytellers win. The best marketers who can break down their complicated concepts into simple concepts wins. And that’s what I wanna do. And now I completely forgot what your question was. Ha ha

Chris Simmance:
I mean,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
ha.

Chris Simmance:
you more or less answered it by telling me what you do, but if an agency is looking to work with you, what is it that you can do that will help an agency?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Yeah, I started off this agency journey kind of doing everything and anything about social media. And what I’ve quickly found out is that if you want to win more businesses, if you want to stand out in the crowd, or actually just for people who know who you are, you kind of have to niche yourself down. So what I’m niching myself down to is helping companies and agencies who’ve got long form content. We’re talking about blogs, webinars, podcasts like this. or white papers. Let’s break those down into engaging LinkedIn content. That gets you more visibility, that gets you more leads and engagement at the end of the day. Because all of that content is great. It’s just stuck in long form right now. When you throw it into LinkedIn where, you know, the average time we spend there is about seven minutes and 38 seconds, we don’t have time to digest all of that great content. So, The idea is to break down that knowledge into small little chunks that’s entertaining, that’s reflective, and that has a short story rather than trying to tell the whole long thing in one shot.

Chris Simmance:
And you spot on, I think, from an agency’s point of view, like they could do this with their customers, you can come along and help them, there’s like an outsourced partner type thing, but there’s also the fact that most agencies don’t do their own marketing very well either. They’ll write a massive case study, they’ll write a series of blog articles, and that’s where their only chance in life of getting seen is maybe an impression or two in Google, or an email newsletter with a low open rate. Maybe LinkedIn, but not very much. And just snip it down into something of interesting value. Why would you not make this content much more engaging for the audience that you’re trying to get in front of?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
100%, particularly for those companies who already have these kind of respectable LinkedIn followings. You know, your content is there. All we need now is to take that and actually give it the attention and treatment

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that it deserves, so that it gets the attention that it deserves.

Chris Simmance:
So, potentially difficult, contentious question. What do you love

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Go

Chris Simmance:
the

Anthony Leung (Guest):
for

Chris Simmance:
most

Anthony Leung (Guest):
it.

Chris Simmance:
about working with agencies?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I’ll tell you what, I’ve worked with agencies now that I feel are incredibly collaborative.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I think that, and I don’t know if I’m lucky, maybe I am, but like I said, you know, people like yourself, Chris, where there’s, it’s, it’s a very, It’s a very collaborative environment where I feel we’re all here to help each other and build each other. And that’s an awesome thing because I could just go back to a nine to five and the environment could be very different. There’s nine times out of ten, the environment is different than something that’s very collaborative. So I love the idea that we can hit each other up, bounce off each other. There’s no egos. We’re just all here to help each other out. And I love that.

Chris Simmance:
Well there’s lots of egos, but usually they’re nice people.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
They hide it well with me.

Chris Simmance:
Well, I mean, the cynical thing I can say is that you’re definitely wrong and the fact that all of the people you work with happen to be nice. It’s a good sign that your marketing’s working. I work with lots of agencies and the agencies that I work with that we do the accelerator programme with, they’re nice people too. So my cynicism is definitely wrong. I’m just a very British person and I quite like to find… some cloud in that silver lining. Agency people are generally nice people because they have businesses which are people businesses. You have to be good at people.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Absolutely. But hey, until I run into those ones that aren’t, then I’m going to keep writing that.

Chris Simmance:
That’s fine. I mean, you’re on LinkedIn, so you probably get a few emails every day. I get asked if I want… What was it? Today I’ve had about 17 of the, can you take X amount of qualified leads emails on? It’s like, nope, not interested. But, you know, thanks for doing manual targeted outreach that’s not targeted. That’s just angry Chris coming out there. Sorry, everyone. So in all the experience you’ve got… with agencies, yourself included, the agencies that you work with, the businesses you work with, what sets the best out from the rest? What would you say is the, you can tell from a mile off, they’re going to be good.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I think it’s been interesting. Again, off the bat, everybody’s been super. super incredibly collaborative, nice and well-intentioned. You know, that’s the key thing, right? But I do find that the best people to work with in this kind of area has two things. One is a solid idea of who the brand is. They don’t necessarily have to have like a brand strategy or, you know, or like a nine step, whatever,

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
but they do have a very good sense of who they are, why they’re there, what their brand, how their brand’s supposed to behave.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
And that’s been helpful because if that’s not in place, then it becomes very hard to try and write into a style

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that’s very you. Oftentimes that’s probably where a lot of the hardest work is, is I’ll create something and then be like, oh, it doesn’t sound like us. But I have no idea what us sounds like. So that is hard.

Chris Simmance:
So

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Yeah, go ahead.

Chris Simmance:
just to jump in on that, so there’s a lot of agencies that know themselves, there’s a lot of agencies that don’t. How do you, if I’m running an agency now and I’m kind of going, am I doing this right? Am I speaking in the right voice? Am I saying the right things? What would you kind of look for? that would kind of help you go, here’s where you should start, or you’re not quite hitting the mark. Because loads of these agencies, they’ve got great names, good branding, good logo and everything like that, but they’re not taking 30 leads a day and not getting super excited about all of the goings on in the industry, because they’re just kind of moving along. How can you be one of those people that you said are doing the best job?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Okay, I think there’s a second part to the best job actually is actually to start to create content in general because I think that as you would know it’s hard to create content It’s hard It’s easy It’s easy to sit in front of a mic maybe or even across somebody and talk But to kind of put formalize that into content it becomes a little harder. It’s kind of weird, but that’s what happens So those two things I think are key but in order if you’re if you don’t already have your brand in check. I think that there’s two ways to go about it. One is to get professional help. That sounds awful, but you know what I mean? I don’t mean mentally,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
but I mean

Chris Simmance:
no, you

Anthony Leung (Guest):
your

Chris Simmance:
find

Anthony Leung (Guest):
brand.

Chris Simmance:
an agency accelerator called the OMG Center. If you have

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Oh,

Chris Simmance:
these troubles, yes, of course.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
those guys are amazing. Highly

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
recommend. Yeah, you come to a guy like Chris and you go to the OMG Center and you get help with finding yourself, finding your brand and what you mean. And it’s so easy to… brush that off as, oh, it’s fluff. But once you realize who you are, your content changes and the ability to attract other people changes. And you know, it’s, I feel like there’s two groups of people. There’s the type of people who don’t believe in it and will always forever swear by, you know, every time I spend X, Y it has to come back. But branding is one of those things where if you invest in, it’s a long ball game. And when you win the long ball, Even when times are tough in the short haul, you’ll win the long game. So

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I firmly believe that.

Chris Simmance:
I mean, branding is the kind of thing which is the, it’s the underlying tone of voice that people use when you’re not in the room. So it’s that, you know, your marketing is, is your outward kind of impression and everything like that, but your branding, when you’ve done it right and you’re speaking in the same language and you’re saying, Genuinely, like who you are and what you do. Inauthenticity kills it if you don’t have it. So then when you’re not in the room and people are saying, oh yeah, that agency’s great because, or have you heard of Person X in that agency? And their tone of voice follows the brand and the way that brand explains itself as well.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
100% um, you know, I think that the worst thing I’ve had a friend who said the worst thing anybody can say about you is You know, oh What about that Anthony guy? What’s he like? And if anybody goes, oh, he’s nice that’s like an insult because that was the only thing they could think of to Describe you and that’s the same for an agency. It’s like if somebody goes up to an agent He goes, what was there? What’s it like working with them? And if they’re like, okay, you know, it’s not

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
good enough Yeah,

Chris Simmance:
yeah,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that doesn’t stand out

Chris Simmance:
I think the, I think a lot of the hard work to get to that point where you don’t have that outcome, it’s, it is quite, you do really have to kind of look deep, and it is a bit of a therapeutic type thing, because it actually, you usually end up essentially just articulating something that you always knew. Okay, it’s not always fun though, you might come down to it and realise, oh, actually, We like being a safe pair of hands, a safe bet. We like working with accountants. We’re not fun, but at the same time, that’s fine because that’s who we are. Or you might be like a super cool work with influencer type agency that’s got a million things on the go at the same time. And that’s still you. The ones that aren’t, when you get down deep into it and you really like match up who you are, it feels great.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
100%. One of the exercises I like doing with companies and agencies is sketching out your brand as a character. Because if your brand can behave like a character on social media, that’s what people are attracted to.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
So it’s not only just your values, like what you’re for, but think about what you’re against as well. If you’re against content being thrown that that’s what I’m against and how do I as a brand respond to that? Am I angry? Am I silly about it? Am I helpful? You know think about that and I think that if you can if you can get right your brand as a character as visual as you can visualize it almost like you visualize let’s say Wednesday Adams you know you when you see when you think about Wednesday Adams you know what makes your tick you know how she behaves you know what she likes and doesn’t like if you can get to that level that’s pretty cool.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, and that’s when it’s really easy to get people to come and work for you in your agency because they know what they’re buying into, as a client as well as a member of staff. And I’ve often seen that some of the best agencies, people will almost all speak in the same tone of voice. There’s… accidental values that these people have and accidental similarities these people have because they’ve bought into that kind of the persona part of the brand because it just fits them. So you know when you go to an interview the employer will see a bit of them in reflection and vice versa and when you’ve got loads of people that you’re interviewing or loads of people that you’re trying to win in a pitch against you’re going to… want to go with what’s familiar, what feels good, and if that happens to align with you, that’s great. I don’t think there’s very much point in going through all this effort though, Anthony, if you then go after clients that don’t fit you.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
No, the whole point is like people, like people, like, like people, gosh, I have to figure that out better. But people,

Chris Simmance:
You’re a content

Anthony Leung (Guest):
put that,

Chris Simmance:
guy,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
put

Chris Simmance:
right?

Anthony Leung (Guest):
that, put that on the t-shirt. Like people, like, like people. But, but like

Chris Simmance:
like

Anthony Leung (Guest):
minds attract, attract like minds. And it’s okay to not be loved by everybody because, yeah, what I do, you know, is not for everybody.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
And I know that. And I think it’s better that I know that than to try and win everybody over. And that’s okay. And it’s the same for every agency. Is that we’re here with a set of values, a set of skills that are going to be for certain people. It’s not gonna be for everybody, but if you can find your values and you’re able to express them and make them succinct, that’s gonna attract the people that also share the same values. But until you do that, it’s gonna be hard for them to know. where to find you and how to find you.

Chris Simmance:
Absolutely, absolutely. So if you suddenly became magic and you had a magic wand and there’s only one thing that you could do to change in all agencies across the land, what would it be? Mm-hmm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Magic one!

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, you got a magic wand, that’s all you’ve got.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Oh, again, so far, it’s been, you know, working with agency has been has been wonderful. And I and I think that, yeah, just that collaborative spirit, I think has been great. It’s really

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
hard to say what to change. But maybe it’s what to ramp up instead. Maybe it’s to it’s about I guess it’s about It’s about, if I can have Magic Wand and go, ba-doonk, I think it’d be great if all of our content was super engaging on LinkedIn. I think we’d have this understanding that LinkedIn isn’t just a place where we throw out content as a PR exercise or as a tick box exercise. And it’s that you reckon, if we can all recognize that there are these rich. valuable relationships that we can build on LinkedIn,

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
not just personally, but as a company, we would treat our content differently. We would treat our clients content differently because it’s priority.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
If your client has 10, 20, 30,000 followers on LinkedIn and they have like 10 likes and five of those 10 likes are from their own employees, it’s not reaching the people it’s supposed to reach. So why are we accepting this as a status quo and why is that okay? I think it shouldn’t be okay. That’s what I would change. And I think that, you know, my suspicion is that it’s not high on people’s priorities right now, which is why when you see, you know, LinkedIn pages right now, it’s very low in engagement. But I think that this is also where the opportunity is, is that the first people who wake up to it are the ones that can reap the benefits.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, yeah, well, it’s a good thing to wave your magic wand on. Hopefully in the other recordings that I do with other partners, they’ve got something equally as valuable to offer because I’ve got a lot of these recordings to do and if they all say the same thing, it’s gonna be really boring.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I mean, we can you can then just make a super cut. It’d be great

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, supercut, a bit like that one where all the people in TV news anchors are all saying the exact same things all the time, but they all say it as if it’s them. And yeah, I’ll do that.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
You know what I’m gonna do now? I’m just gonna go through a guest list and we just email them what I just said and then

Chris Simmance:
Oh god, I regret today. I regret everything. Um,

Anthony Leung (Guest):
I regret nothing.

Chris Simmance:
thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Anthony.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Chris, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Chris Simmance:
I’ve enjoyed the energizing chat about LinkedIn content, which didn’t, that seems like an oxymoron, but you know, it’s not. Doing it right does get results. You get a lot of engagement for the work that you do. So agencies out there, you should be A, doing this better and B, finding out how to do this better by finding Anthony on the OMG Center, having a chat. go through the community, make friends, learn some stuff, pay them some money, maybe.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Pay Chris first, let’s go. Let’s get the OMG.

Chris Simmance:
Ha ha! Thanks so much for coming on, mate.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
All right, thank you for having

Chris Simmance:
Take

Anthony Leung (Guest):
me,

Chris Simmance:
care.

Anthony Leung (Guest):
Chris. All right, bye.