KRGS Doors Podcast

Drew Blackman

0:00

Podcasting

Description

Host & Creator of the KRGS Doors Podcast

Vocal Characteristics

Language

English

Voice Age

Middle Aged (35-54)

Accents

Australian

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
the KRG s door show proudly brought to you by KRG s doors for all your shop front roller shutters, roller grills, folding closures and bi fold doors. Visit www dot kr gs doors dot com dot au. Welcome to the KRG s doors. Podcast on your host, Drew Blackman. The aim of our podcast is to talk to cool people with cool stories, whether it be our suppliers, customers, staff, other business owners or people from different walks of life and get to know them a bit better. If you're interested in coming on, drop us a line or email or connect with us via Facebook and we can have a chat to see what we can do today on Episode 31 of the 18 month old KRG stores podcast, I'm joined by KRG Stores managing director Clayton Blackman and founder and owner of Double Tap Agency Semi. Hardwick, with a background in marketing and working for some of Australia's largest companies, managed teams of like minded marketing guns, but nothing was cutting it. She left her epic job to start double tap and hasn't looked back. Whether it's social media management website design influence, a PR or training in any or all of the above. Double tap will tailor their services to meet your needs and give your business the digital platform it deserves. I will also let you in on our next episode's guest. But for now, please welcome to the podcast, Miss Semi Hardwick. If this doesn't turn you on, folks, you haven't got a switch. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today. Semi. What is the semi Hardwick story? I'm a hard luck story is Northern Beaches girl born and bred? Um, I studied chiropractic, decided I didn't like it, moved to international business, decided. But that wasn't for me either. Landed an epic job working for always like a group which got me, um, to the place. I am now really through a whole bunch of other channels. But it opened my eyes up to digital marketing and how ethnic it is. And now here I am. I run a digital marketing agency called Double Tap were also based on the northern beaches. Have a small team behind us. Um, and I also have a co working space called the loft. It's a bit of a circle, isn't it? from chiropractic to always liquor to double tap. Yeah. Look, I realised it's a funny story. It's actually quite weird once I got into chiropractic, so I love the theory of it. But then when they actually got me to do the practical, I was like, Yeah, no, I'm not really one for touching human beings. I Yeah, I don't blame you. I could imagine on some things like that you wouldn't walk in and go. Actually, no. I think you can see someone else I'll give you. Yes. So how did you start in the social media industry? Okay, so at Woolley's, um, I was working across a number of digital brands there for the alcohol sector. So Well, this has a bunch of different online websites that aren't just like your Dan Murphy's. And then I also worked across Dan Murphy's and whilst working there is when digital is really taking off. And they threw me in the deep end and was like, learn the social media business. We need to be across it. We need to be amongst it. So, um, that's where I started. And from there I just saw the potential. I mean, particularly in the liquor industry to reach millions of people with the click of a button. Um, and then from there I moved and was working on working for an age business called one teaspoon. So they are. They specialise in denim. Um, and I was head of digital marketing there, and that's where it opened my eyes up to Holy Molly. There are millions of young girls online buying off the back of the content that I'm posting. Um, so I dive deeper into it. Um, I'm obsessed with it. Really? And how long has that been? How long you've been doing it For the digital? It would be nine years now. Okay. So when I was at dance, Instagram launched. Yeah, I actually thought it was Facebook. Yeah, it must be. It must be pretty crazy when you said there's millions of young girls out there buying products just because of your content. And we've mentioned in previous podcasts that we've both got. Clayton and I both got daughters and they just buy online. There's a package, they get a knock on the door. And there's a package where we're more touchy feely and want to go into the store and try it on and that type of thing. But, yeah, it's all just done online. My daughter works here and numerous times a week that the Post he comes in and I got a package I gotta pack and you were chatting. Terms stand at the front is that it's quite amazing that how it's done these days, it's just click on the button and arrives the next day, sometimes the same day. Well, when I was at one teaspoon, particularly given that the demographic is the younger demographic. So anywhere from 18 to maybe 40 were purchasing one teaspoon denim, Um, and what we really love leveraged. There was the influencer marketing, particularly because of the style of product. But also what we really focused on was being the most engaging platform that we could possibly be. Um, and by doing that, it actually saw our account. We ranked number one globally for engagement in the denim industry, so that's beating out the likes of Diesel Levi's, and we were just a small Australia and denim company. It's just that we really, really engaged with our audience. That's a good that's a good effort and claim to fame you? Absolutely. So tell us about double tap agency. How did you start? And number employees. What do you exactly do there? Okay, so, um, when I was at O t, I decided I saw that I was constantly having to engage with a number of different agencies. So if I wanted my AdWords done, I'd have to liaise with this agency if I wanted, um, the website updated a different agency. We've just been Go on. Sorry to interrupt. I personally hate admin, and I I communication. I'm just not about it. Like one email dot points. I'm done. I don't need to be going to a million different people. So I saw that there was a hole in the market. As such, when it comes to having one point of contact does every in the digital space. And that's when I went right. I love this job. It's amazing. But throwing in the towel and I'm going to start my own digital marketing agency, and I'm going to do all of those functions myself. And from there we grew into having a team. So I've got to contractors that work externally. So once in Brisbane, once in Melbourne, And then I have, um, an in house team now of four. Graphic designer to account managers, um, three account managers. And then there's me. So semi companies and brains can come to you your company called Double Tap, and you can look after their social media and marketing. Yeah, we can look after everything to do with your digital funnel. So anywhere from Google AdWords email, marketing, social media management, paid ad advertising, we also tight builds website design. We also have a whole graphic design channel as well. So if you need your branding, done unique content tiles for social media and we do photography Wow, you've got it covered. We do have it covered, and over time it's taken shape as well. Like I focused initially on the social media asking the email mark expect. And then from there we grew. I already given the jobs that I was in before had a really good understanding of all of the platforms so I could run my own Google ads, and I could do all of those things. And at the time I just started to outsource is we've got as well, I guess it depends Also the client that comes to you and has different requirements or different demands. Whether you can get Hey, we can look after that and we can take care of that or we can. We can advise you at this avenue and so forth. So I guess that's what grows your your business on that side of things as well. And how many clients do you of those? Like, how many current clients do you look after doing all that at the moment with your team? So it really depends on the panel because, like the websites, for example, once the job is done, the job can tend to be just be done. Um, But when it comes to ongoing accounts that we manage on a daily basis, um, across the channel is probably 30. Okay, that'll keep you busy. Keeps us busy. So I do more personally. I do a little consultations, the workshops, the strategy and the planning. And then the team does the execution really nice process happening there. I'm not really I'm kind of done with doing sitting down and nothing it out and like, back and forth kind of banter on How do we get the best marketing strategy in place. Delegate, Delegate. Everyone saying this is where we're going to do it. Yeah, And then come back to me if I haven't made any sense. When did you start? Double tap That just turned four. So we turn for that. So we're still a baby. Still lots of growing to be done. Um, and we've actually scaled back. So, um, we may Well, during covid, we just took on anyone and everyone that we possibly could, um, one. I wanted to help as many people as I could and two I saw. Well, I'm not really want to say no to, um, someone coming our way. But after that, I realised that I really stretched the team too far. I felt that we were kind of like just running in a little bit drowning because it was just so much work. And I just went, not pull the pen. Let's just see who we're dealing with. Let's scale it back. We might need to lose some clients along the way, but I feel like we're not gonna don't have the time to pay to give So, Sammy, did you see with Covid? Did you see an increase on businesses reaching out to you. Oh, my Lord. It was like in 24 hours, my inbox was just inundated with people reaching out from simple things. Like we need 10 photos for our instagram because we need to tell people that were open still, or Hey, we need our homepage updated on the website because we need to let everyone know that were closed or it came down to We don't have any digital presence at all. What the **** are we doing? And how do we do it to things that we socially we probably us particularly We ramped it up, didn't we? Yeah. So we ramped it up at that time as well, but I guess it gave companies time or they had time at the at the moment to say, sort of look back and say, Well, ****, hang on a minute. We We need to be better on on this. We've got our time. So lets start and, um, do some work on our digital president presence. Um, so, yeah, you probably you probably and every other companies were probably reaching out looking for an edge. Ah, but I can guarantee you the social media. We ramped it up and it made a big difference in it. Made. You certainly was actually dumbfounded as to how many businesses, particularly locally, um, didn't have a digital presence at all. Um, it might be that they have particularly restaurants. Um, they might have a zoo motto listing where someone's like screenshot of the menu and uploaded and entered some data. But other than that, they barely had anything. Um, so when this hit, they didn't know what they didn't know where to go, what to do. And they were very much back to the very, very beginning in this space. I have no idea how many businesses, what didn't have a digital presence. And then the other thing that came about was everyone had so much time on their hands to a point that they the creative juices were flowing and we would have people calling us at all times of the day just being like, we need to do this. We need to do that. We need to do it now. I thought about this like, Well, hang on, let's put a plan in place here because that's probably not going to work on going if we keep just having these epiphanies mid afternoon that we need to execute. It's interesting what you said about the restaurants there. That would be some sort of. And I know they were close and they had takeaway stuff and that type of thing, But that would be something like the industry that could have so much content to put on their Facebook and to put on their instagram every day of Hey, this is the chef, for this is the head waitress or the waiter. This is our new menu, or this is a new thing that we're trying every day they could release something. The menu varieties are unbelievable, but on any restaurant there that they could be updated all the time. What we found during this time is that there was so many restaurants that had so much that they could offer the market, particularly when it came to their food or even just their location, Um, and then a few restaurants locally, they like pop up bars outside, um, take away and all of this and they didn't have anyone because they were so hands on producing the food or because the staff had to be cut back that they couldn't get the content. So then we launched a little side bit to our from management packages called Real Time Content creation. So what that meant was, is we sent a team member out to those locations, particularly restaurants, um, and gyms, even to create the content while the business owners hands on so that they then had the content to post on their social media. Yeah, that that certainly makes sense. I'm sure the staff loved that part of going out of the restaurant to take the photos and taste test the meals and that type of thing as well. Well, they would have had before with those sort of restaurants where it would have been word of mouth or just, um, in the local area. All of a sudden, they had to tap into a new market or find new people find new customers. Yeah, and they've only been Newport on the Northern beaches, and it's a pretty It's still pretty small town, um, really localised environment here. So a lot of the restaurants are not even on the likes of the uber eats, and that because they just simply don't have to be. Then when covid here, you know? Yeah. And then they didn't really necessarily need the fees that come with being on those platforms forms either. So they were coming into us with asking, How can we get around it? How are we going to be able to post online and get people to come to our front door? So what are the biggest changes that you've seen in the industry since your time have been in it? Wow. Um, great question. So a lot. I mean, it's definitely OK. So organic growth, particularly on the social platforms, has slowed down. Um, you need to have an edge on the market or on your competitors to really grow organically. Um, and you need to be very dynamic. So if the platform launches a new, um uh, feature, you need to jump on it and be active on it, because what happens is the platforms promote that feature or anyone using it. And that's how you can help your organic growth. When we when I started in the industry account booming because again Instagram and Facebook wanted people on the platform, so they promoted accounts. Um, the other thing I've noticed is just consumer behaviour. So obviously, back when social media particularly started, there was really no function to check out. There was no shopping. It was more a social social. Exactly. Yeah, just say the same thing. I bet you when Facebook and Instagram the creators of that, they would have never thought of any, like online selling or advertising from that. It was just an actual social. Hey, look what Sammy's doing. Look what Drew is doing and so forth. You mean it would have been the advertising or the selling on that would have never. And and that's the biggest part of it now, Yeah, the dollars moving through the platforms is insane. Um, but again, even that side of things has really has really changed, you know, consumer behaviour. And where they shot, they used to. They're still obviously extremely active on Facebook when it comes to shopping. But it depends on the demographic as to where they're going to check out. The demographic are highly engaged on instagram and the shopping on that platform, whereas the slightly older demographic are extremely engaged on Facebook. So you fall into the marketplace is how you're going to use the channels. Yeah, one of my daughters, my youngest or the other night? Um, so I said something about Facebook and she said, Facebook's for oldies. Oh, I mean, it's funny. You say that my mom is so engaged, our moms so engaged. I've actually I've had to put her on silent because everything you put up it gets a comment or a like or what not, But it's like they've got yeah, absolutely, exactly right. So with the biggest changes, what's the biggest challenges you face? I personally have found that being an expert in my field, staying on top of what's going on is extremely challenging, Um, knowing what's coming next, predicting what the next updates are going to be watching all the platforms, you know? Now there's so many platforms that people are active on, and what are they doing? And the shift in how people operate it, Um, that's probably the most challenging and and I think that for businesses, what happens then is if if I'm looking at it every day, of course, businesses are not on top of it and be spending their money over here on this platform. But they should really be now spending it over here. Um, that's probably I definitely one of the big I could imagine. As you said, nine years ago, when you first started, Dan Murphy's Instagram had just launched. But now Snapchat and Tiktok and the list is endless. I don't know how you obviously do it to understand how they all work and what's best for when the business comes in and says, We need to do this and, you know, Well, actually, you should be on Facebook and Tiktok and not instagram and things like that it be, yeah, I couldn't imagine how to do it. So here's a question. Sammy without notice. What is the next bit? Put the pressure on. What is the next big thing on social media? Well, I think videos. Personally, it could be totally wrong here, so we'll have to check back in. But video is definitely on the rise video, and, like virtual reality, I think, is going to come into place somewhere in the field. I'm not sure how aware, but I think that it's definitely something to look at. Um, just spent the weekend with my cousin. She's 15, and I was just my mind was blown at the video side of things. She spent the whole time creating videos, Um, and then how she used them, how she spoke to her friends. Even there was no texting. No, no, it's all, um, I've got So my youngest daughter is 16, and it's the same thing. It's it's of a nighttime. There is on the laptop. There's two or three kids at the same age, all in conversation. There's no texting. Like you said. There's no texting, no phone, and everything's everything is filmed. Everything's every conversation or every everything that you're doing. It's always on. She always films it, I agree. And I think there's going to be, well, more hoping than thinking that it will move more into real time as well. Like none of this pre edited cleaning it up more happy to be raw now. We don't necessarily need philtres. We don't need any of those things, and I think people are starting to understand that, and I think that we're going to see more content off the back of that. People aren't spending as much playing around well, even so nowadays, with those YouTube creators, like they're worth a gazillion dollars. You'd sort of say to the kids, Go to school and get that done. But learn how to edit and film videos and do all this thing because that's where it is, like even even kids now are filming themselves, playing fortnite and NBA two K and putting up and they're getting millions of views. And then sponsors are jumping on the back of that like my my girls to talk about different YouTubers and so forth, and some of them they went some. I couldn't tell you who they were. They went to school with and so forth. Are these kids a youtuber famous future? I've never heard a kid in my life, but what do they do? The YouTube is that the YouTube is right. But what do they do for work they like? How is that a real job? Well, it is these days. So I was talking about this with one of the girls that works to me. She's just finishing up her degree, and, um, she's a part of her course at Sydney. Uni is learning social media. I was like I did a marketing degree. There was no digital in my degree none. I know. It's amazing. Like they're incorporating a lot of these things into just your standard degree now. So going with double tap, how do you advertise or get new clients on board? Yeah. So, um, look, we've been pretty lucky to date that our clients have majority. The majority of them have come from referral. Um, I also love a good networking, you know, just naturally, I just live for it. But given, uh, we have dabbled in the paid advertising space, but we don't anymore. So we get our clients through referral and then through our INSTAGRAM account is pretty much how we go. Yeah, that's tremendous. And I guess the proof is in the pudding by what you do and then getting the clientele from actually what you do. So it's a good way to often forget referral. We focused so heavily on digital and paid advertising, and obviously, I love all of those. But they're one part of the giant picture. Um, you still need to, um, be in, like, focus on referrals. Do you need a referral programme? How does that referral programme fit in with your holistic marketing strategy? Um, I think that There is a huge piece there that's often missed. So what do you put your success down to? Um, Harbour? I think that I mean, blessed with the love of working. I genuinely love working. I love helping other people work. So, um, I often get told I need to shut my computer and sit down and relax. Um, but that's just not who I am. I'll work for all hours of the day and they'll get my hands dirty. And I think that's why we're in a place that I'm proud of because I have hustled to get to where we are. That's good. That's the sort of attitude that you need because it's it's like a bank account you've got to put in before you can take out. So that's that's a good attitude to having having business. Yeah, and like I do, I do sometimes overdo it. And I do like, not put my laptop down. And I do need people to tell me, Sammy, relax, girlfriend. But overall, I think that business is hard work. You've gotta hustle. I agree. You certainly do. You've got to be out there all the time. We call it flying the flag. So we're sort of knocking on doors or networking or putting stuff up on social media to let people know we're still here. And social media has now semi allowed that where you can work around the clock, you don't necessarily 9 to 5 your old hours 9 to 5. You can actually all hours of the day on the same. I work in all hours of the day. Totally anyone can contact you at any time, and you need to be able within reason to respond to that and give that person the attention that they need. Because ultimately there are other options, other avenues to go down because again they just another click of the button and they'll reach out to someone else. We have inquiries on our Web page and so forth, the lead generation where people can inquire and you would be surprised at the hours of the day that we get inquiries like night times. Um, one o'clock in the morning, we get inquiries. one a.m. seems to be a hot spot for people needing to contact people. I often go into the office and check everything, and I'm getting emails or instagram messages at one a.m. Same thing? Yeah, this May. You may have already answered that This next question, but away from work. How do you relax? I want the page. Um, I love it. The ocean. I often just Yeah. Okay, so I just did a blog article on this recently. Actually, I'm, like, all in or all that out of 100 miles an hour. You can't support me or I go completely recluse underground. You will. You won't hear from me. So we want to relax. I have a caravan down south. People often find me there with my dog down the beach. Just zoning out about Stan South semi like to Barry, which is like, just outside Alajuela. Yeah. Good spot. Very nice spot. It is the dentist. South Coast. Nothing better. Good beaches, good people, great food. Lovely. So if you could give one piece of advice or a tip to a small business which our podcast usually goes out to regarding doing their own social media or building their brand, what would it be? Strategy, strategy and planning. John, just get online and host content. It's not the best way to go about it. Think about what you want to say. Think about who you're speaking to and think about the content you're going to put out. Put a little plan together and you'll find that the process is so much easier and it's not overwhelming. Do you find that your team? So they put something together and then they might leave it for an hour and then go back to it because it's like, Yeah, let's do it this way. It looks great. It looks great. And then after an hour, they've had a coffee and done something else and then come back and I actually should do it this way. Yes, all the time. Um, what we do is we work up to a month in advance for our clients, so it allows for us time to plan, put the content together, step away from it, work on another client and come back to it because we often have new ideas or something will come up and we'll go. Oh, no. Let's tweak that piece of content so that it's in line with that. And again, it makes everyone's life, business, life, working life so much easier. That does make sense now to end our podcast. We asked our five fast questions to get to know you a little bit better. So they're just rapid fire. Your favourite holiday destination, Chandu Biology. Ali. Okay, have another one. No, we haven't had Bali before, so you'd probably be hanging for the borders to open and get back there. Yeah, I often go in again at one of those moments where I'm a recluse and I turned my phone off. No Internet, and you won't see me for a month. And that's my heart out. Now, your secrets out of the bag. So there'll be clients flying to Bali to come and track you down. What would be your last meal? Oh, not Charles. Okay. You can't beat a good night off heats of guacamole. Okay? You'd be paying through the nose to because I think the prices avocados are about six bucks each. Now, what is one of your weird quirks? I talked to myself all day. Out loud, out loud. Wow. Do you answer yourself back? Sometimes I'm not. That's a fair amount of head noise that this makes me sound a bit crazy, but I need to just hash it out. I sometimes get caught talking to myself. Like I'll go into the petrol station and pay for the petrol, and someone will say something. And I walked back to the car and I'm sort of reliving the moment. Or I should have said this and I should have said that. And I'm talking to myself and the kids are in the car, actually laughing. Going? Look at this idiot talking to himself. Look at this. In missile. What colour is your toothbrush? Black Black. Okay, it's an electric one. The black and white. Mhm. And finally, if heaven does exist, what would God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? What on earth are you doing? I might not go there, you know, that's a great I actually have no idea. Yeah, I think. What the **** are you doing here is suitable. That is suitable, Sami. Thank you very much for your time on the podcast. If people want to find you or double tap agency, where can they find you? Probably the easiest place to find us is that our instagram account, so double tap agency. And then from there you've got all the links to everywhere else that you can find us and folks that are listening. I do follow double tap agency on Instagram, and it's not only all about their stuff. They do put out some really good learnings for the average Joe like myself that you can apply to your own business or your own social media account to, uh, to learn from and increase your reach amongst it. We have borrowed some of your ideas, Samuel. Maybe major plagiarised. I think it's plagiarise. That's cool. Hi. Look, once it's online. But we do appreciate your time. You should be extremely proud of what you have achieved in four short years with double tap and wish you nothing but success in the future. Thanks, guys. I really enjoyed these. Thanks for having me. Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you very much. Take care, Sammy. All the best. Thanks. So that wraps up the 31st episode and chat with Semi Hardwick, founder and director of Double Tap Agency. For more information on double tap, you can visit their Web site, www dot double tap agency dot com dot au or follow them on instagram Search double tap agency. Or you can book your free consultation. A mini strategy call with semi over a quick 20 minute chat semi will get an understanding of where you're at, where you want to go and how double tap agency can help you on your way. If you have missed any previous episodes of the KRG s doors podcast, you can download them from our website www dot krg s doors dot com dot au forward slash podcast or on your favourite podcast player search KRG s doors. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button to ensure you don't miss any future episodes. This also boosts our ranking and my ego. The other thing, I suggest if you've enjoyed the podcast, visit your favourite podcast player and leave a review or a rating on our next episode. We speak to Grant Hartley from brand local brand Local is helping businesses make informed marketing decisions. Grant is recognised as one of the world's leading authorities when it comes to Google. He has been a speaker with Google and local governments and was instrumental in setting up Google's first Google's trusted agency in Australia and New Zealand. So keep your eyes field for that upcoming episode. I've been your host drew blacken. And you've been fantastic for tuning in today. As always, you can be anywhere in the world. But you here with us. Thanks until next time. Yeah. The k I. G s door show proudly brought to you by K. I. G s doors for all your shop Front roller shutters, roller grills, folding closures and bi fold doors. Visit www dot kr gs doors dot com dot au.