Anything but Artificial

Meet Heather Murray, a woman who went from spending part of her early career feeling like a servant to owning her own agency and then becoming a thought leader in one of the most talked about topics of our time, artificial intelligence.Tune in to hear Heather's inspiring story, from starry eyed beginnings at KPMG to founding her own content marketing agency, Beesting Digital as well as how she overcame imposter syndrome and work-life balance challenges along the way. She even shares how her struggles with anxiety have become a driving force in her career.

From hosting events and burlesque lessons to starting her digital agency, she's always found ways to make the most out of her situation. And all the while, LinkedIn has been at the forefront of her success story, playing a crucial role in landing her big-name clients and helping fundraise for a cause close to her heart. We also delve into her innovative approach to outbound marketing and how her charitable works have resonated with major companies.

Heather opens up about how balancing her presence on LinkedIn and running her business has been a challenge, but also shares her strategy for overcoming it. Listen in as she discusses the intangible aspects of creativity that can't be replicated by machines (all thanks to Mum's infamous closing question), the importance of not selling when engaging with potential customers, and how she prioritises self-care to power her successful agency and overcome the nerves that come from speaking at international events. This episode is packed with insights, inspiration, and nuggets of wisdom — you won't want to miss it!

Find Heather's website for Beesting Digital here: https://beesting-digital.com/
Subscribe to Heather's newsletter 'AI for Non-Techies' here https://ai-non-techies.beehiiv.com/subscribe

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Chapters

• 0:01 Introducing Heather Murray - Entrepreneur and Thought Leader on AI
• 6:25 Experiences at KPMG and the MOD
• 22:08 Becoming an Entrepreneur and the Evolution of Beesting Events
• 28:58 Fundraising and Starting a Digital Business
• 35:45 LinkedIn's Contribution to Business Growth
• 42:40 The Decision to Focus on AI
• 51:25 How to Land Big Clients Through LinkedIn
• 54:45 Anxiety, Managing Self-Care and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• 1:09:58 Mum's Closing Question

Transcript

John Hawker: 0:01

Jobsworth season one, episode nine anything but artificial. Welcome to episode nine of Jobsworth. My guest for this episode is Heather Murray, agency owner, entrepreneur and thought leader in the ever-evolving landscape of AI. I met Heather when I was still very much in denial about just how quickly artificial intelligence would permeate our day-to-day lives, and it's her I have to thank for making it feel ever so slightly less daunting. From her days at KPMG to founding her own content marketing agency, Beesting Digital, heather has been on an incredible journey, but it's not just her professional accomplishments that make her stand out.

John Hawker: 0:50

Heather has been honest and open about her struggles with anxiety and how she's managed to turn them into a driving force in her career. In this episode, we get her views on everything from managing work-life balance, overcoming imposter syndrome and eversome tips on how to land big-name clients through genuine conversations on LinkedIn. Whether you're an entrepreneur, tech enthusiast or someone looking for inspiration to overcome personal challenges, then this episode really does offer something for everyone. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to someone that, despite knowing everything there is to know about AI, is anything but artificial Heather Murray. Heather, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Really appreciate it.

Heather Murray: 1:31

Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for having me, John.

John Hawker: 1:34

Oh, you're very welcome. We're going to start with an opening tradition on this podcast, and I don't know if you've listened to any of the other episodes, but the opening tradition is a question, so I'm going to ask you when you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Heather Murray: 1:47

There's kind of two answers really. One is a really strange one that I wanted to make sandwiches. It's such a strange one. I wanted something that I find really calming about the process of making sandwiches. I used to just sit there when I was little on my own and make these paper sandwiches and serve them to people. It was really odd. It's that kind of I don't know. And then I worked at Gregg's and that kind of killed that idea of actually making sandwiches.

John Hawker: 2:14

Was that because you saw too much behind the scenes, heather? Do you think?

Heather Murray: 2:17

Yeah, it was.

John Hawker: 2:18

Yeah, you saw how the sausage was made basically and you were like, no, I don't want that.

Heather Murray: 2:23

Yeah, it was quite an innocent kind of thing. And then the other thing was probably on completely the other end of the scale, a concert pianist. That was the other one. I loved the drama and the grandeur of that. I'd play piano when I was little. I've still got the kind of Steinway logo on my wrist, oh nice, yeah, I love a bit of classical piano. So it was just kind of one very achievable one and one completely wildly unrealistic. I've got tiny hands that would never have worked.

John Hawker: 2:50

I mean, there are some artisanal sandwiches out there, so you know, you can really turn it into an art form, but the barit entry for that and then the concert pianist is fairly different.

Heather Murray: 2:59

It really is.

John Hawker: 3:00

There's a void. There isn't there.

Heather Murray: 3:02

Yeah.

John Hawker: 3:02

Paper sandwiches. You made paper sandwiches.

Heather Murray: 3:05

Yeah, it was always something creative, I suppose. And it was kind of I just wanted to constantly be doing something from when I was little, so I think my mom used to set me up with just a big, some scissors glue. Just always had to do something with my hands. So I made fish and chips. I remember cutting out individual chips and making a big box of chips and fish.

Heather Murray: 3:22

And I would serve that on the on the corridor upstairs in my, in my house, and then it became sandwiches and then it was sort of like stamping library books and I think I was just up there, maybe entrepreneurial from an early age, going trying to sell these kind of items on the corridor with very little foot, for Very little.

John Hawker: 3:40

Yeah, just the same people walking past as well. It really was yeah. I asked that question just so I can see if there's a link between what you were doing then to what you're doing now. And albeit tenorously, I do think there is that entrepreneurial spark there that you're exhibiting, and the minute you said something creative, obviously that really lends itself to what you're doing now. Do you have any siblings at all, heather?

Heather Murray: 3:58

Yeah, I'm the middle child, very much middle child syndrome. Yeah, I've got an older brother who's in. He's a bit of a high flyer. He's in investment banking and portfolio management and all that sort of stuff in the city. And then my sister. I've got a younger sister. She's a vet nurse. So we've got quite a broad spectrum of jobs in our family.

John Hawker: 4:16

Yeah, very different things going on. That's great. And now you're on a podcast talking about being an entrepreneur, helping other entrepreneurs, and what you do is day to day as well, with either the value and the content you're putting out there or coaching people like me as well, because I'm one of your clients from a content marketing perspective. And you're also in that intro you're being labeled as a thought leader. How comfortable are you with those kind of labels First off entrepreneur and then second a thought leader?

Heather Murray: 4:44

Entrepreneur I feel very comfortable with. I suppose I've never really used that word to describe myself, but I see what it is and I've met many entrepreneurial types and, yeah, I believe it is. I'm always thinking of new ideas. Everything is a business idea and I love that kind of I've got that shiny new object syndrome. I think one of my mentors, lee Lam, who's incredible she said that some people are builders they create, and then they're not really sustainers, they're not in it for the long run. They like to create new things and get them going and set them up and then move on to the next new thing. And I think that's probably. That's probably who I am and I think that's why I like topics like, I suppose, ai and things, because they're constantly changing and constantly replenishing. Entrepreneurial, definitely, but thought leader that's that makes me feel like I'm nowhere near there. I'm a bit uncomfortable.

John Hawker: 5:38

Goosey the Ick Again, a lot of the beginnings of these conversations that I had.

John Hawker: 5:41

I do feel like people might be listening, thinking John's just blowing smoke up people's arse and being over complimentary and being really nice. But part of the reason I started working with you, heather, is because I saw what you were talking about and maybe this was kind of before you really went all in on AI or 95%, as you've mentioned in one of your posts 95% in on AI and I just saw what you're putting out about content marketing and then engage with some of your AI posts, because I was completely against what you were posting initially as well. So I've come around to that idea. But yeah, look, if someone said I was a thought leader in recruitment, I'd cringe as well, but I think it's probably a label people are using, maybe behind your back in a very complimentary way. We're going to go back, we're going to rewind things now and go back to your earlier career and we're going to start with your time at KPMG, because this is as far back as you LinkedIn profile goes. So you spent four years with KPMG. You joined in 2000.

Heather Murray: 6:30

Yeah, fresh from school.

John Hawker: 6:31

Yeah, so I think around that time landing a job at KPMG so a huge firm in the consulting space straight out of school would have been seen as a pretty big success. And don't get me wrong, it's still seen. Working in that consulting space is still seen as a big success now as well. Why consulting and why KPMG? What led you there?

Heather Murray: 6:49

So when I've started to look for a job, I wasn't sure where to start and I met this kind of I suppose she was a recruitment consultant, but it was this really one on one service. I kind of started in this really premium way.

Heather Murray: 7:01

So, she met me in a cafe and she said, look, she kind of she I think I went under, took loads of tests as well and she was kind of right, okay, she thought I was pretty, pretty bright and she had big clients on her books and she was, she, specialized in entry level jobs at these big firms. I, just for the life of me I can't remember. I think I found her in the yellow pages. It was something as as simple as that.

Heather Murray: 7:24

At the time Because back in the day, you know, I think the internet was a course around, but it wasn't really something you'd go to yellow pages and things like that it was still a thing.

Heather Murray: 7:33

the yellow pages, yeah, yeah. So I think I kind of looked up I don't know something to do with finding a job, or maybe I saw her, you know, advertise somewhere or something like that, and yeah. So I met with her in a cafe and she said look, there's this, this job available and I will drive you, I will advise you on what to wear, I'll drive to the interview. And she had this fancy car. I remember thinking this already coming out of school. This is, this is a life for me.

Heather Murray: 7:56

I like this page for the lunch. I love a bit of free food and yeah, and it was really good. So I mean, I didn't understand the time. She's probably getting a nice big commission on that and it was a you know, I think what was. What was the salary back then? It was something like 12,000 or something really low, but it was good for me. I couldn't believe it was wow, this is going to be what I'm going to be paid. It's amazing. And it was a junior secretary role and I've always loved typing. I remember you know we were just saying about being keeping myself busy all times. I kind of have to keep moving all times and I used to unplug my keyboard, my computer keyboard, and type to Coronation Street to type what they were saying. Again, my mom just giving me things to do to keep me occupied, and that's how I learned to type really fast. I thought, oh, I'm going to be able to type and be paid for it. So that was exciting. She could see how fast.

John Hawker: 8:49

And it's obviously something that has evolved over time. The typing skillset isn't it, but minute taking, as you will well know, there's tools that can do that now as well, but typing was definitely 20 plus years ago, was one of the biggest skills you could learn early on.

Heather Murray: 9:03

Yeah, and listening. I've been able to type in real time. I think even people you know I still have learned in a really strange way because nobody taught me how to type, so the fingers are on, but being able to listen to multiple people speaking, and that was very true, that's a skill. That's obviously. I think her name was Suzanne, this recruitment person. She picked up on that and clearly I've kind of built these skills to be a secretary before it even started the world of work properly. So I came in and that we just it was.

Heather Murray: 9:27

I couldn't believe it. When I walked through that door I was in this probably ill fitting suit and then got it from Asda, from George. My mom had bought it for me and I'd never been in a suit in my life. But I walked in and the lobby I couldn't believe this double height, this bright light lobby there was. I think there was a small waterfall in there as well, which in my mind I was some huge, dramatic waterfall when I remember it, and everybody looks so glossy and they were just. Everything was amazing. The lift went so fast and all these things are just never experienced.

Heather Murray: 9:59

You know, fresh, fresh from school and lived in you know, and I still I still live in the area, but I'm a much nicer road now but got a rough area. This was a whole new world that was so flashy and so impressive and I thought, wait, I want to be part of this. I want to feel I don't know, feel kind of part of this big, powerful world and finally use my brain. So I don't think I'll use that very much in school, which is why I left early. It just never was for me and yeah, so I came in.

Heather Murray: 10:23

I remember when they said also, one of the things that really stuck in my head was yeah, you get this little pass and you get a free lunch every day. And, as I said, I'm terminally impressed by free food. You were so focused on this free food and I thought, wow, I'm being paid, I get free lunch, I get to come into this amazing office, I feel powerful and part of something like I'm important. Suddenly and yeah, I absolutely loved it I happened to get run over a couple of couple of days into my job and I was off for a few weeks. I got run over pretty badly.

John Hawker: 10:56

Heather, that's not come up before. You got run over. When you said a couple of, I thought you about say run over a couple of times, but it was a couple of days in Wow, okay.

Heather Murray: 11:05

Couple of days in and I remember they sent me this KPMG. They, even though they barely knew me. They sent me this huge bunch of flowers and this big card that was signed by everybody. And I just felt like this is somewhere that they don't. Is this team of people, this group of people that made me feel, made me belong this department? It was corporate finance and it was just this. Yeah, I absolutely loved it from the second I walked in that. I loved the nine to five. I loved being on the train and that feeling of being part of something. It was just like. I wish I could have started this when I was 12 or yeah, amazing.

John Hawker: 11:36

And again, like I said around that time, I think the view of moving into those big firms now has changed slightly. I just think people know again, people know too much about what goes on behind the scenes and you need to really be aware of what you're signing up for, which will talk about your experience actually when you started there. I think starting there in 2000, having left school early, societally that is a huge win going into those types of firms and nice that you had a positive experience with the recruiter to start things off which is obviously why you didn't balk at all when I got in touch and you were like oh no, don't want to work with a recruiter.

John Hawker: 12:08

That is really nice to hear as well. So, Suzanne, we don't know where she works. She might have given it up now. You don't know.

Heather Murray: 12:13

Maybe she has, I don't know. I don't know. She was older at the time.

John Hawker: 12:16

We'll try and find you, Suzanne. Reach out.

Heather Murray: 12:20

She's probably long retired actually. But yeah, suzanne, and a fancy car, that's all I remember.

John Hawker: 12:25

If she was doing it well enough, she would have retired already. Yeah, Definitely Okay. So your first few days in there, hit by a car but still made to feel like you're part of something, this sort of journey, this lifestyle, this whole career out in front of you. You spent four years there. Just in a nutshell, what was the actual lifelike and why did you leave?

Heather Murray: 12:44

I think I loved it initially. I loved all of it, as I say, the feel of it and being part of something. But there are a couple of things I found. So the other secretaries, all those other people and people are kind of up to sort of a manager level, because I worked actually in marketing straight away with the marketing manager. I thought they were all super friendly, really, really nice.

Heather Murray: 13:04

But there was a whole layer of people that I found were very not friendly and very removed from us, which was the partners, the managing partners. That's why I kind of helped the other secretaries to start off with, but then I got given my own partner and when that move happened I suddenly thought, oh, I suddenly stopped feeling so important. I think I remember one of the partners I looked after. He didn't even say good morning to me. So I was his cheerful little soul I've always been a bit cheerful soul and I got a good morning and he just wouldn't even acknowledge me and I found this was actually quite common for barely an acknowledgement. I had a particularly bad one and I was to set up his laptop because he didn't know how to do that and it suddenly started to feel very kind of like a very low level servant.

John Hawker: 13:50

I was going to say master servant relationship, yeah, which is how no one wants to feel.

Heather Murray: 13:55

Yeah. So where my confidence wasn't that good coming from school and it really built in starting the job and it started to go back down again, I felt that and then I suppose I started to see a little bit behind the curtain as to kind of how this works. And yeah, I mean, as I said, I did stay there for a while. I made some really good friends there, but I did find that in that job as well and it's always been a thing that wasn't enough for me to do so as a genius secretary. They were giving me jobs and I was finishing them so quickly.

Heather Murray: 14:25

And I remember the marketing manager at the time. He was just in, I think his name was, and he was really, really lovely. I really liked him. But he was kind of, oh my God, I can't give her enough work. And there wasn't a kind of roll above or anything. I don't think it was probably mature enough for a roll above at that time either. And he just gave me marketing magazines and said type them out. And I was happy as Larry, because I love typing. So I was typing. You know, scanners existed, absolutely did not need me to be typing these magazines out.

Heather Murray: 14:53

But, he'd even like specific articles and things like that and just say maybe he was using them to write articles. Later on I liked to think it wasn't entirely redundant because I did it for a long time.

Heather Murray: 15:02

Of course, Of course yeah, but, as I say, I really did find that pattern. In the same way as I kind of liked cutting out the chips from a fish and chip shop, I liked the pattern of typing I'd lose myself in it. And then I found audio typing as well. I loved that. I thought that was fantastic, just sitting there listening to people and typing, and there wasn't a moment where I was sitting twiddling with them.

Heather Murray: 15:20

So there, was always an endless amount of work. So, yeah, it kind of after a while it started to. You know, I think towards that last year I started to feel a little bit deflated with it all and it's kind of I started to realize that what I was doing wasn't of much value.

John Hawker: 15:34

Yeah, I think it's been a really important thing for you and also something that you really try and do as a service. Now is the value piece I think on every call we've ever had from our consulting sessions we do, you're always talking about the value that you give people. Yes.

John Hawker: 15:49

As in, you're trying to teach me about the value I can be giving people as well. So that is obviously a value or a trait or an aspect of you that has really served you well and is now serving your clients well. So you make the decision to leave KPMG. There's a couple of jobs, one of which was with the MOD, which would have been incredibly interesting.

John Hawker: 16:07

I can imagine in a slightly different type of role, wasn't it? Rather than being the secretary type role you've moved into the? There was one before, but then the MOD one was in a finance type role.

Heather Murray: 16:18

Yes, yeah, that was radically different. I've always I think I suppose I've always been drawn to these prestigious you know like KPMG. And then after that it was Birmingham Post and Mount, which is part of the Trinity Mirror group, and there was, yeah, mod. I just wanted my CV, I suppose in the same way with my company, one of these big brands, I wanted to kind of have this there and go over the top because that's the best I found. That isn't necessarily the best experience when it comes to clients and when it comes to kind of working for people, but I liked the idea of having that prestige and being associated with those types of names. But the MOD was, I think it was like a 12 month recruitment process. It was unbelievable, wow.

John Hawker: 16:54

Because of the security aspect of it, I would imagine yeah.

Heather Murray: 16:57

And they looked through my school reports. They requested reports on me from school. I was checked on every possible level and the interview was it was really really that really built up this job in my head. I was thinking it's amazing, but it wasn't a nice atmosphere it was. I didn't realise it was split into military and civilian and there was a real divide between the two groups in the office. I don't know whether it is the way in other offices, but in that particular office there was very much a divide socially and I was in the civilian group and I was working with a lot of military people and they were just not engaging with me. There was something wrong with that. They really need to work on their culture in that office. Yeah.

Heather Murray: 17:38

And it was just a bit of a miserable place it wasn't. It wasn't very good at all to enjoy the MOD one bit.

John Hawker: 17:44

Having done a presentation this week, an event where there was 200 plus service leavers, yeah, and it's all about how we can do more to give people leaving the military a chance of securing jobs in the civilian sector because of the stigma that's held. I think it does work both ways and if people are at some very honest conversations, that people in the military in that context they are the best of the best at what they do, and it's very hard. I think if you've got people that are still serving, that are having to engage with people that aren't, I can imagine that makes for a really, I'm going to say, interesting culture and the mix of people, yeah.

Heather Murray: 18:21

So yeah, I think it's almost as if the office was set up to amplify that divide as well. It was a I think it could have.

Heather Murray: 18:29

I don't know whose role it would have been, but somebody fairly senior on that site really had some work to do. I think they could have. You know, socialization happened separately as well. Everything was separate. It was really bizarre and like it was mostly the sort of the admin team that was civilian as well. But if you had, if you're one of the admin team that had a military link, then you were almost seen as above the rest of the people and it was just a bit of a strange it's a strange experience I don't think that way at all outside of that office.

Heather Murray: 18:59

But yeah, it really wasn't very comfortable place to be and finance was not for me either. I think I was trying to kind of go. I think I saw an MOD and I was, you know, off the job and thought, well, not got too much finance experience, but I'll give it a go If I get the job, we get the job, and it turns out I did that. I thought I'll give that a go. You know, widen my scope a little bit, because I don't want to end up back in a marketing position. My experience of marketing so far was I'm bored because I finished it already, you know. So I thought finance, maybe, numbers, maybe that's the type of place to go. But it was a bit of a misstep for me.

John Hawker: 19:32

Great experience to go through, though, isn't it? I mean that type of organization, and maybe start the start of that lesson. Learn that just because it's a big name and it's a prestigious client doesn't mean they're the ones that you need to be fishing for all the time, and, as you say, you've taken that into your business, and it's something that I've realized over time. Some of my best clients are not the names that you've necessarily recognized on a billboard somewhere.

Heather Murray: 19:53

Yeah, I mean, I've been advised as well. I had a meeting with Nim Rita from Creative Copywriter, actually, and she said the best clients are the unsexy ones. That's what she's saying. They're not got the big brands, but they're big businesses, but they work in that sort of middle space. So they're not small, they're not the super big, but you've probably, you've definitely never heard of them, but they're really engaged and that's the sort of space that's the best spot, which is where I'm kind of trying to maneuver myself.

John Hawker: 20:18

Yeah, and it's really good advice. I'm going to try and ask for more advice from you, Heather, not for, I mean, I'll probably use it myself as well, but for anyone listening. In terms of building brands and reaching out to brands, I think you've got some really, really nice tips that we can talk about a little bit later on After the MOD. You had a couple of roles from that, so is this about the time that you started moving into more of the kind of PA EA space within the legal sector? Yeah, so this is your foray into legal. So why legal Again? Was that anything to do with big names, prestigious clients, law? Did that have an attraction? Yeah, that all played a part.

Heather Murray: 20:53

Yeah, I mean, I was still there young as well. It was the fancy office thing and like just wanting to because the MOD really didn't fit. So it's probably going back to all my comfort zone with KPMG, which is kind of, you know, in a similar space to legal, a very sort of similar setup structure, kind of, yeah, prestige again. Yeah, I think that's why I went into legal and also I heard that there's a lot of typing there. So again, it's just being this theme throughout that I've just loved typing. I really did.

Heather Murray: 21:23

I felt like, if I've got a job that I think at the time my dream job would have been just like 90% typing, I just really enjoyed it because it never ran out and that's to me. That's say, I just need to be busy all the time. So that was the only pillar I knew of.

John Hawker: 21:35

You're highlighting it yourself already, but, yeah, that is the common thread running for all of this is that you need to be busy, and I think you've been very honest about that in some of the posts you put up on LinkedIn, about this need to not stop and to keep engaged and to keep going. So you're right, and this is part of the passion that you've got around learning everything there is to learn about AI, because it is a black hole as well. But you know, again, we'll go on to talk about some of the tools that you've used to get that balance, because black holes are never ending and you can carry on down that road for a long time as well. So getting the balance is important. Let's fast forward, if it's OK. To Osborne Clark what year is this Put you on the spot? What year were you working with them or what do you use that?

Heather Murray: 22:14

I'm useless at remembering years, obviously.

John Hawker: 22:16

You were at Osborne Clark, because I don't have that date either, but while you were there, you started your own events business.

Heather Murray: 22:21

Yes, yeah, is that?

John Hawker: 22:22

around that time. Ok, so talk to me about that, because obviously this is your first foray into kind of entrepreneurship and starting your own thing.

Heather Murray: 22:30

Yeah. So it was kind of finding the balance between what I was doing outside of work, because that nine to five was very sudden and I started to go oh, if I can't be super, super busy in work.

John Hawker: 22:41

I need more to do.

Heather Murray: 22:42

Yeah, that's it. I remember saying to my sister oh, any time not spent working is time wasted, and she was like you're obsessed, heather. But I kind of wanted to find something else to do, like I've never really enjoyed the evenings. You know, when people go, oh, I can't wait to kick off my shoes and watch TV, but I need something there as well. It's probably kind of a hyperactive thing. I need to be scribbling something or devising something or have some form of project going on. So, yeah, I started busting events. So that was off the back of. At the time I was, my confidence was still pretty low School did a number on me and, yeah, and I'd had a couple of bad relationships, not my confidence even more. And so I was determined, as I said, always kind of a see a problem, I want to go run head first into trying to fix it. I never hide from things. So one of the things was I just thought, right, what's the scariest thing I could think of? Burlesque lessons.

Heather Murray: 23:39

Wow, right in at a deep end yeah right in and I thought, like I've been to a couple of shows and I thought, hey, those women look really confident and they're all shapes and sizes and you know, I want to give that a go. So when I did the burlesque lessons, I completely didn't begin, as course I met some really lovely people I found. You know, when I went on to the advanced kind of bit I never performed, I was, but my stage name was Betty Beesting, so hence where Beesting came from Fantastic.

John Hawker: 24:06

I didn't know. That was the origin story of the name, that's it yeah, yeah, but we yeah.

Heather Murray: 24:11

And then when I went to the advanced thing, I found that it just there was this big cut off my mind. I just wasn't interested in the performing side of things, but what I loved the idea of was pulling people together and directing a bit of a show. And so I started off with some charity shows at the local community centre, because as one clock I also started working part time I think the timing timelines are fuzzy in my in my thing, but I'm pretty sure I was working for the community centre a little bit then as well. So I put on some some charity shows and to help them raise money and raising about sort of 20 grand for them With these 10 pound ticket kind of charity shows and raffles and things like that. She's where I got into LinkedIn, actually.

John Hawker: 24:54

We'll talk about that next. Funny enough.

Heather Murray: 24:56

Yeah, you're for range LinkedIn yeah.

Heather Murray: 24:58

But I found that directing shows was just wonderful and I thought I really like not being the face of something but bringing people together. So that evolved from charity shows into corporate shows as well. I did these murder mysteries for, you know, I think there were 40, 50 pounds a ticket at prestigious venues. It's that prestige again. So I got the Lord Mayor's Mansion house and I did this murder mystery, where it was all but less characters as the suspects and they all performed and then died in mysterious ways and it was just wonderful and that was, yeah, that was a really exciting world to be in as well, just with all these performers and stuff.

Heather Murray: 25:32

So I kind of I had the kind of the office job in the day and then I'd be doing the event stuff in the night as well, which I really really loved. But there's not much money in the events business and even for me it was a little bit too much. There's a lot of kind of politics between the performers, there's a lot of drama and it was a little bit much for me. I kind of prefer one to keep things a little bit more professional.

John Hawker: 25:52

Yeah, the irony when you said there's a lot of drama when you're running events and hiring actors as well. I can only imagine, when you put that sort of mixing pot together, the situations you were having to manage. But incredible again, just really tapping into that entrepreneurial spirit that you very clearly have, which is also on the back of this conversation, very clearly linked to an inability to sit still and just rest as well. Okay, let's move on then. Beesting events then evolved into Beesting Digital. Where does LinkedIn fit into this? Because I think I, like a lot of people, would have started to engage with content that you were sharing on LinkedIn. Now, you definitely started Beesting by the time that we were speaking. When did Beesting start up? The 2020, wasn't it?

Heather Murray: 26:34

Twenty, yeah, june 2020. Yeah, the LinkedIn stuff was way before that. So I worked at a community community centre for a while and and that sort of tied in with my the Beesting events stuff. So I was trying to find raffle prizes. So I was I'm going to join LinkedIn and ask directly. Ask the people at these big brands, go to the head office. I found the head office contact. Yeah.

Heather Murray: 26:58

Whoever's working in CSR or anything I could think that would be head of charitable giving or something like that.

Heather Murray: 27:04

And I thought I'm going to go back to all of these firms that I've worked at because I saw that they would give 500 pound checks or they would give you know, like volunteers or retailers would give like experiences and stuff like that.

Heather Murray: 27:16

And I made an absolute killing with raffle prizes going directly to people on LinkedIn because nobody else was doing it, yeah, and so that evolved into kind of more fundraising going to work with companies like Marks and Spencers, hsbc, a Viva Insurance.

Heather Murray: 27:32

I got them to for the community centre I was working for. I got via LinkedIn and managed to persuade them to send teams of 10 to come and help paint our walls, to provide all the materials 500, it was always 500 or 1000 pounds. They got them to build benches, and so we managed to sort out this community centre via LinkedIn completely for free. So I was like the power of this platform is pretty amazing for charities and I taught that for a little while kind of while I was at the community centre as well, teaching people how to get raffle prizes and how to kind of contact big brands and to get partnerships with them on LinkedIn too, because it's that lack of gatekeeper. You're not sending them an email that they're PA, because I knew from experience the PA is going to delete. Yeah, there's no blocking, you're speaking directly to them.

John Hawker: 28:19

I know all about that as a recruiter. Yeah, yeah.

Heather Murray: 28:21

Yeah, so it was exciting, an exciting platform for all my various uses at the time.

John Hawker: 28:27

Yeah Well, I question the longevity of what I continue to do, if LinkedIn ever just switched off one day. I mean, I'm kind of heavily invested as I know you are as well.

John Hawker: 28:40

Okay, so, so Beesting, then the inspiration behind Beesting. I think it's important to tie that in with the mention that you did around the charity and the fundraising you do as well, because they are kind of inextricably linked, aren't they? Beesting is Genesis and the charity side of things, so what makes you then go to that? What's the catalyst for Beesting? And maybe just tell us a little bit more about the charitable stuff that you guys do as well and how that's linked?

Heather Murray: 29:04

Yeah, so just quickly off the back of the corporate. So when I stopped working for law firms and I think the two things coincided for a second, because there's not much money in working in the community centre yeah, I think I worked in the day at the law firm, in the evening at the community centre I was doing like silly hours but happy as Larry, of course, because that was my job. But yeah, I, walking into a community centre, I was just going in as a kind of in an admin role that I was completely overwhelmed with how different that was, that world was, and for that's when I started off I was frightened by all. I thought you know, these are the people who were drunk on drugs injecting in the toilets. There were people out on. We had free computers for you know anybody, whether you've got an address or not, so it's helped. We had ran drug clubs for people you know, homeless people who wanted to sort themselves out when we come and help them. But it was a scary place to be. When I was so used to kind of this ultra safe, sanitised world of corporate, it was terrifying. But after a while my whole attitude changed and the people I met, these absolute saints that are completely thanklessly, totally off their own bat, never being acknowledged, are coming in and helping people every single day and doing these amazing things. It just completely blew me away and I started to kind of do my own things there as well.

Heather Murray: 30:26

So I started off this thing called festive friends because I was already, on the side of all of this, a befriender for older people with age UK. So just going around and meeting people who haven't got any friends or family and just having a little chat, a little coffee after work. And I met some lovely people and their loneliness really struck a deep chord. So at the community centre I started. I thought, right, I'll get this money using LinkedIn, I'll get this money from these big brands and then I'll run social events for older people. So I started it there at the community centre and that was just yeah.

Heather Murray: 30:57

My heart was completely taken by this sort of charitable work. We did free computer lessons for older people, managed to get everything funded. But it started to be a slog in getting that funding for these projects. It was really difficult. I didn't have any money myself. What I did have, I'd put into these projects and one by one, these sort of funds once the big brand had given, it was a harder to get them to give again and it was a lot harder to get them to give again and it became a problem. And getting public funding was very difficult as well, because it was just tightening and tightening Just for the whole public sector. It was just very difficult. So yeah, I kind of had the idea I was working at another agency at the time. So there's a whole big chunk of time in the middle of this Went and got a marketing degree and then started working.

John Hawker: 31:45

Oh cool. Yeah, we didn't even touched upon that. I'm really sorry, heather. Yeah, so the marketing degree plays a part as well.

Heather Murray: 31:51

No, no, it's fine. There's a lot that's happened. But yeah, I nipped and got a marketing degree because my brother was like you should probably go get one of those, you'd probably be good at it. So got a marketing degree, got a first and then went and got a job at a marketing agency. So I learned about running an agency through there. You know I was fair. I rose through the ranks pretty quickly from a copywriter right to the head of business development there and I saw just the two things kind of my background in corporate and then this charitable kind of purposeful, lovely stuff that actually means stuff in life. You know, there was the power and the money, which is enticing and exciting and it fuels things and it enables things and opens doors. And then there was the stuff that genuinely matters, like helping people. So I was made redundant from the job that I was in in the agency. I won't go into why. I don't think it's particularly relevant here.

John Hawker: 32:41

Yeah, I won't ask, don't worry.

Heather Murray: 32:43

No, I don't want to throw anybody under a bus or anything like that. But yeah, so that happened. I thought, right, ok, here's my chance. I can actually make something. I confuse a powerful, profitable company that works with corporate, that also does good, that is designed by its very nature to do good. So we will get our I wasn't sure how much at the time, but we a proportion of our profits will go into creating. You know, we can now fund festive friends ourselves. So that was amazing. I'm like, oh my God, I won't have to ask anybody for it because I'll be generous. I love this engine. So, from the word go, that was the whole point of it, that we fund festive friends.

Heather Murray: 33:19

I wasn't sure how much it was, whether it was going to work or anything, but yeah, we landed our first client I actually had when I started Beesting Digital.

Heather Murray: 33:29

It was as a side hustle, and so I got a different job. I managed to get a job in New York, remote job for a children's clothing company in marketing Really good job, really well paid. So we got them both at the same time, thinking our Beesting is going to take a while to take off, but within three days we had our first, first three grand a month client. I was thinking, oh, my God, okay. And then we had another one and I was thinking, right, okay, so I think it was sort of four grand a month in total and I was thinking, actually, that's enough for me to, for me to kind of if I need to focus on this properly because this is actually going to work, so I quit the New York job after after three or four days Very kind of well, I'm so sorry after this really long interview process and then focused on Beesting Digital full time and yeah and yeah. And that was the beginning of it all.

John Hawker: 34:15

Yeah, I really thought you were going to say the rest is history, then Heather, and just it's like bingo in these podcasts. But yeah, I think I bet it is. You know it's a good way to describe it. But I think what you've described there from having a side hustle as well, like finding full time employment, just to take the pressure off, knowing that you're going to have regular income, but to have picked that client base so quickly and to become sustainable, know that you're going to earn enough money to pay the bills. Yeah.

John Hawker: 34:39

It's one of the biggest barriers to for why most people don't start businesses in the first place.

John Hawker: 34:43

But you're getting that box checked very early on, which is amazing. I love the fact that it's all linked to the charitable work that you do as well and just taking the ball by the horns and going, yeah, do you know what I can generate the funds to keep supporting these things that I want to do? And we've spoken before about sort of attracting people to Beesting and retaining the people that you've got as well, and a big part of that is meaningful work, and it's a big part that a lot of companies should be focused on. But it's one of the four pillars that I talk about from an employee value proposition perspective is meaningful work. So if you know you're working for an organization where the work you're doing day to day he's obviously playing a huge part in the company success, but also the work you're doing is playing a huge part in supporting society or people from maybe less privileged or more disadvantaged backgrounds than you. What an incredible thing to be able to do. So I'll just take a second to say I think it's amazing what you've done.

John Hawker: 35:34

Thank you and the support that you're giving as well. I think it's absolutely incredible what you and the team are doing.

Heather Murray: 35:39

Thank you very much.

John Hawker: 35:40

Thank you for doing it, because it's yeah, more people should be following suit if they possibly care. Let's talk about LinkedIn. We've got to talk about LinkedIn, as we will talk about AI for a part of this as well, because it'd just be rude not to, wouldn't it really? But I've mentioned already, I came across you on LinkedIn. You've now amassed 29,000 followers on LinkedIn, which, for anyone on LinkedIn will know that's quite a big following to have on the platform. You're partnering with Sales Force, you're partnering with Nokia, you're partnering with Starling Bank, so, again, we're going back to these kind of big, prestigious names as well. You're an international speaker on a topic that literally everyone is talking about, which is AI. I'm sure this is going to be a multi-faceted answer to this question, but how's the platform, how's LinkedIn specifically contributed to that business growth and what you're doing today?

Heather Murray: 36:28

It's literally everything that we've done, absolutely everything. So we've never up until, quite honestly, this Monday. So the Monday just gone is when we started a different type of marketing, which was our email campaigns. Right, we have never done anything else. We didn't even have a website for the first couple of years, and the website we have got still isn't finished. There's anybody who's kind of tried to set up a decent website?

John Hawker: 36:51

It's always a working prison. Evolution, isn't it? I think, yeah, working progress, yeah, yeah.

Heather Murray: 36:56

So I'm not. Until I'm happy with it, I don't want to direct people to it. So what we ended up doing was learning very early on and I did have some training on it from a company called Maverick, and Dean said and Maverick is very, very good I went to kind of this. So I'd already knew about LinkedIn, obviously from using it way back for getting these raffle prizes and getting these connections with these brands, and through my previous job in that previous agency as well, with the business development, I'd learned, wow, and it was a different place. Then you could get in. Business was probably a little bit easier because it was a less crowded place, but yeah, it was.

Heather Murray: 37:32

So we decided to use my personal profile and just work as hard as I can to create relationships. So laser focus exactly who I'd like to speak to and then just bombard everybody with as much value as I can possibly think of and then try and talk to them and not ever try and sell to them. That's always been my thing. Never kind of. I've tried, you know you always try loads of different things. I've tried to do those outbound kind of hi, we do this and all that. I think they don't work. They've never worked. It's all about kind of being really, really valuable and then starting a casual conversation with them, just something to do with what they're doing, and they go. Oh yeah, actually you know what? I've been following you for six months and that's most of my sales calls start with actually, heather, it's really nice to meet you in real life, because I've been following you for the last six months on LinkedIn and when they say that, I think brilliant. So this is not a call.

John Hawker: 38:22

Working, saying it's working, yeah.

Heather Murray: 38:24

It's working? Oh yeah, it's definitely working. You know the likes of. You know, and you get these incredible inbound as well. So the likes of Unilever came to me. It came to our little agency. You know, I'm sat here in my little little office in Birmingham and you know. And then there's this, my team, one of the biggest brands in the world and the fifth biggest brand in the world. They came to me and we had a conversation and within the 30 minute initial call we'd closed and that you know that would not happen on any other platforms. No way they were going to email me or I don't think on any other platform, you know, like any other social media platform, that would have happened either. And they'd been following me for a really long time and the reason they got in contact was festive friends. They saw that purpose. They wanted their supply chain to be as purposeful as possible, because Unilever are always fighting against negative, their negative reputation you know bad, bad PR.

Heather Murray: 39:17

You know in the news. You know that's their main pain point as a brand is, you know, tackling the stuff that's happening. The stuff comes up in the news, so they need to make sure the supply chains is as good as possible. So to work with a small agency that so clearly has 20% of their profits helping their local community and that they've ruined themselves, that appeal to them and I thought, wow, that's powerful, isn't it? That's something that's that's.

John Hawker: 39:40

Well, you think as well, how many, maybe more, since you've been doing what you're doing, heather, and advising companies to look at that, and that wasn't the intention. You're not using festive friends as a marketing ploy, are you so for a business? And I know that as well. I'm just sort of doubling down on the fact that you, you're doing something that is selfless. You're doing something to support people again that are from very disadvantaged backgrounds and going through incredibly tough times, and that businesses. It's authenticity, isn't it? That's really what it boils down to authenticity trust associated with your brand and a company thought, god, we really want to embody some of those values that Beesting are embodying as well. And it just so happened to be Unilever, who, as you say, are bloody massive as well. So what a way to win work.

Heather Murray: 40:25

Yeah, that was a completely unexpected side of things as well. But with these events because they're really our grassroots events, these are not glossy things we hire a community hall, we all wash up and cook and everybody I know I pull everybody I know, including clients into that and that's been a really good way to kind of build relationships with clients anyway, because what other supplier do you end up kind of serving food with and then you're sitting around having your little books fizzed together? It's a really nice way of bonding team and clients and prospects and everybody altogether and it all benefits the great good of it.

John Hawker: 40:58

It all strips it back. We're talking again I've talked a lot this week about the sort of layers that you put on, and if you're in a corporate setting, you've got I don't know what the right word to use is but there is another layer before you really tap through to the human being behind it. It's whatever. It's a corporate face or a superficial face, because you're yeah, you've got a suit on, and I say suit and I'm doing inverted commas now, or air quotations, but you've got some form of suit, haven't you that you have to try and break through, and I think, in environments where you are just two humans interacting, I think that's such a powerful thing. So, yeah, okay.

Heather Murray: 41:32

Incredible so 29,000 followers.

John Hawker: 41:34

I'm going to talk. Maybe just pick your brains and LinkedIn for a little bit for anyone listening to this, and also, hopefully, what people have been picking up from straight away is Heather's approach to selling, because it is you are selling, but you're selling in a very different way. So the value you're putting out there in your content, the values that you're embodying and that bee sting embody as well, and the aim is that that resonates with the right client. So it filters through, doesn't it? Both in your personal brand and your company brand.

John Hawker: 41:59

You mentioned in a post that you don't need big numbers to do well on LinkedIn, and actually you referenced some of your posts that have got. You know, I would actually call it big engagement, heather, but very little engagement from your posts have actually been the best return on investment as well. You then said about now, 95% of what you post about is all about AI, which is really interesting for me, whilst it's definitely linked still to very much the main service, the core service that you're putting out there and I guess would support a lot of the content marketing that you do now as well. You'd only launched bee sting like under three years ago, or probably around two years ago, by the time you started to pivot, for 95% of your content being AI stuff. So before that AI boom bee sting's launched, how big a decision was it for you to say I'm really going to start doubling down on AI. Now this is going to be my main topic of conversation.

Heather Murray: 42:50

It's well, to be honest, it's first of all the kind of going for 95% was a. It's kind of like a. I'm having to pull back a little bit now as well, because what I did was I got the shiny objects situation.

John Hawker: 43:03

You turned into a magpie, right, it was a next big thing I did. I really did so.

Heather Murray: 43:08

When chat GPD came out, I just saw this opportunity for, oh my God, I can become, I can get ahead of any other agency that I know if I really really go for this. And I found what it did. It just gave me so much material, so much new interest in stuff that people really wanted to learn about that it was almost impossible not to kind of write about it all the time and in doing that it opened so many doors for me personal brand-wise. So, as I said, I've got being left, right and center podcasts, speaking gigs. You know, next week you know I just spoke at Salesforce Tower a couple of days ago next week I'm at Excel Center. I'm presenting there. I've never spoke on stage in my life this is the whole.

John Hawker: 43:51

Thing.

Heather Murray: 43:52

I'm going to Miami in November to speak about all expenses paid. I've got a keynote on the fifth of October and these just keep on coming in and that's excellent for Beesting for me and for Beesting because people go. Great. She was interested. What else does she do, which is the whole kind of thing open stores.

Heather Murray: 44:09

So I saw it as a kind of AI is a way to attract people's attention. Once you've got their attention, you can then say, actually show me a little chat, because there's other stuff that I do and you know that's that the AI stuff is interesting. But actually we've got this whole big engine behind us, which is the content strategy and creation and lead generation stuff, and I'd really like to show you how we infuse AI and automation into that and kind of show that. So what I need to do is pull back a little bit in my strategy, very gently, because I've got so much traction on the AI stuff and so many opportunities but as a result, my business has been neglected a little bit. So I think that those sales have definitely because there's, although AI and automation are integrated into our services, it's not the core of what we do. It's more kind of it augments what we do so.

Heather Murray: 44:58

I've been sitting trying to work out strategy to naturally fuse the two things together. So talking about you know, I'm writing a playbook at the moment called AI and content strategy, so really showcasing my knowledge of content strategy and also saying on where you should and shouldn't use it. So bringing those two topics together as opposed to just talking about here's a new tool for this and here's a new tool for that just being a little bit more clever with with what I talk about and navigating it back or pushing it back into the right sort of arena. I think it's really important to start bringing Beesting back into it.

John Hawker: 45:28

I think, and do you know what? Thank you for being honest about that, because sometimes you have to go through it and then you have to look back in hindsight and sort of retrospectively think, okay, maybe I've over committed or maybe that means that the focus is now needs to be put back into balance as well. So thank you for being honest, because so many people would have just kept answering the AI stuff. But you've actually just been very vulnerable there and said, yeah, maybe you've sort of gone too full in, but a phrase that I've heard of much more recently is AI being used as a force multiplier. So as in, it can really power, as you say, the tools can be used to power basically your core value proposition, which is about content marketing. So how AI can support the goals that really you're helping clients to achieve. That's more about what you want to get to. But you are the reason I now have used AI Like genuinely, and I was so against it.

John Hawker: 46:21

I started seeing your posts and all I wanted to do was argue with you. If I'm really honest with you, I just wanted to go. No, I didn't like it. I just started a creative writing at degree at the time that AI was really starting to blow up and it was all being in the news. It was just being discussed how universities were struggling to tell what was plagiarized, what was being created by AI, and I just thought what is the point? So I was in pretty. You know it was really resistant. I just hate it. I thought what's it going to do?

John Hawker: 46:50

to what's it going to do to creativity. And I have to say, just through this process of osmosis keep seeing your stuff, keep seeing your stuff I was like, oh, the argument is just getting so much stronger for why I haven't? Why haven't I at least dabbled in this now as well? So I think the content you put out there is so valuable and so actionable, and it's incredible that it's free, like you don't have to pay for it, which is madness, because what you put out there if anyone is as resistant as I was six months ago to using AI, you need to seek out Heather's stuff, and we'll include a load of links in the podcast description as well. But you genuinely do.

John Hawker: 47:22

I've got so many more questions and I'm so conscious that we're tight on time, so I am going to move forward now and stop talking about AI, because I know we could carry on talking about that. There's a bit at the end as well. How do you get the balance right between managing your presence on LinkedIn and actually running a business? Now your business is bigger than mine and you've got more people to manage as well. I find myself again. We're talking about black holes. Linkedin is a black hole for me, and there's always a valid reason. And again, air quotations there's always a valid reason why I should be on it, like any form of social media. But how do you manage the balance between running the business using LinkedIn to promote it?

Heather Murray: 47:58

Not very well, to be completely honest. You say it is a black hole. There is always something you can be doing on LinkedIn and it's not necessarily the best use of your time. You know, for example, this morning I spent because yesterday I did a post sort of releasing this playbook and if you'd like this email version, here's the link. So, just as an update LinkedIn now if you add a link to your comments, you know we don't. You don't put a link in the post itself because it gets penalized. So a lot of people put link in the comments. Linkedin now blocks that comment so nobody can see the link for your item.

Heather Murray: 48:31

So what you have to do is get people to say yes, please, or something like that, and then you send it individually. And I spent an hour and a half this morning then going on to people, people seeing and sending it manually, going oh, here you go, and it took ages. So there's things like that all the time. There's always. I've got, always got 150 messages in my inbox at any time. It's. It's really can drain time.

Heather Murray: 48:51

So if, as I say, truth be told, I haven't got the balance right yet, I need to probably set up set times to do it. So probably I generally am on it sort of I start for work very early, about half past six in the morning. I walk the dog half five to half six or come in and do probably half six to eight o'clock on LinkedIn. I'll write a post or I'll do something or I'll kind of send out some messages or something, and then I tend to get into my work, work when everybody else arrives, which is generally about eight o'clock, but then it's like I could easily get distracted by it. I think the way to do it is probably time blocking, but that's hard when you get these notifications all the time.

John Hawker: 49:29

It's really tough as well when you see something behind the scenes and you understand more about the algorithm and you understand that if a notification comes up with someone commenting on your post, you've actually got a window of time to then engage with those posts as well. And that's the challenge, isn't it? And it's actually ignorance is bliss. I think a lot of the time that you're not knowing as much as you do is probably an easier thing to just go. I can time block and I would have a business coach who is very strong on time blocking and suggesting that. Then I know by time blocking and not engaging with stuff in real time will affect my reach as well. And yeah, I just wish I didn't know. Heather, if I'm honest with you, I'll tell me about it.

Heather Murray: 50:07

I hate that kind of you do a post. It does. Well, you think I've got to get back to every single one of these people within two hours and it's a lovely problems I have. You kind of all these comments are coming in, but just think I just want to get on with my work. I don't want to have to keep on going back into LinkedIn and I think, as most people will realize, when you do that there's always some other notifications or a message is coming from a potential lead or something's happened and yeah, it's really.

Heather Murray: 50:31

It's really really difficult to manage it and I don't think I manage it very well at the moment. I think I could probably half the time and achieve if I really structured things properly achieve just the same amount with some good time blocking, and that's what I'm trying to work on. It's my wedding soon and after after I get married, I'm working on better time blocking, so me and my PA are kind of coming up with the ideal day for me. So when do I do? But do I have client calls very early in the day? Do I do my LinkedIn? You know how are we going to structure my day to be optimized for energy levels and for all that sort of stuff. So post wedding is when we get kicking all that off. So I'm really looking forward to kind of feeling more organized in that way.

John Hawker: 51:07

Yeah, and just tell everyone listening, when are you getting married? 14th of October 14th of October, so we're less than a month away, like three weeks away, yeah.

Heather Murray: 51:15

Yeah. I didn't want to put any pressure on you, sorry.

John Hawker: 51:17

Yeah, but yeah, wow, so you're doing all this with a wedding looming and the planning and preparation. I want to ask one advice question that you could maybe give anyone listening to this, because you've landed those big clients like Unilever, hsbc as well yeah, just the names. A man, okay, you've landed them through LinkedIn. What one tip would you give for initiating those conversations with clients like that we talked about? You've got to put value out there and I guess there was a fortune I don't know the genesis of HSBC and you're working with them, but Unilever reaching out to you, yeah, you could give someone to maybe try and initiate those conversations using LinkedIn.

Heather Murray: 51:54

Don't talk about yourself and don't sell. I think people think you need to go hi. What they'll tend to do is do a line that's kind of hot. You know that kind of. I see you've won this award. Did you know that we work with clients like blah blah, blah blah?

John Hawker: 52:09

Straight in.

Heather Murray: 52:10

Yeah, they get thousands of those every day. You never, ever sell. Just talk about them. Just try. If it's a high ticket lead, don't be trying to do it quickly. Use research, and this is where AI is really useful for Google them, find where they're on a podcast and then use something like Merlin, a summarization tool, to get the key insights from that podcast. Pull something like that off and just have just been listening to your podcast.

Heather Murray: 52:35

I really agree with your point on blah blah blah. Or if just read last year's annual report or I've just read that white paper and I saw your comment on this, if you can find people that are invested in content themselves, and usually very senior people will be somewhere online. You've got that in. Just ask them about themselves, allow them to speak about themselves and people think how's that going to make a sale? They will eventually say, oh, what is it that you do? Because you'll see, they'll start to look at your profile and say this person's interesting. Oh, they do this, we could do with that, and they will naturally go oh, could you speak to?

Heather Murray: 53:08

What I find is, if they're the wrong person, they'll go. Oh, actually, could you speak to my marketing manager and you connect with them and say, actually blah, blah blah, just told me we should have a chat, let's book a chat in. There's your conversation. So never talk about yourself. Never do it unless they ask you a question. Keep the conversation completely on them, but try to steer away from the really obvious things. It's very useful if they post regularly as well, because that gives you straight stuff to talk about. You understand their values and things like that. But yeah, you need to put the effort in to find genuine stuff that isn't like oh so you went to Bristol University as well. It's completely irrelevant.

John Hawker: 53:46

And also I'll add to what Heather's saying there, in that we're all recipients of emails of shit outreach and crap sales emails, so just don't do that. If you sat there sometimes and roll your eyes looking at your LinkedIn inbox or your email inbox and think the tone's all for they've gone in straight with a pitch, don't you do it Just you steer from it as well.

John Hawker: 54:05

If you're then going to do it, it's hypocrisy to roll your eyes. You should respond to all of those emails in your inbox. If you're then going to do it yourself, so it's a really good tip, really good tip.

Heather Murray: 54:18

I think if that message. So just one last thing if that message could go to anyone else. It's not personalized enough. So if you could copy paste it and put it, send it to another person, then it's not. So that's kind of the little rule of thumb. I think that has to be specific to them.

John Hawker: 54:32

That is a fantastic takeaway. Yeah, if you could copy and paste that message, it could go to anyone. If it's that vanilla, that generic, then you need to go back and go back to the drawing border and try again. I want to talk about something that's a bit personal with you now, if that's all right, heather, which is around anxiety. If that's okay, because I think a lot of people that might be listening to this would benefit from that insight and learning a bit more about your experience as well. Can you share your experience with anxiety and how it's impacted your career?

Heather Murray: 54:59

Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I think when I was 16, I think it's been pretty obvious throughout my life when I'm saying this can't sit still, and all this sort of stuff, and I think it's kind of. Some people thought it was maybe a bit hyperactive, but the brain's always constantly going, and all that sort of stuff. So when I was 16, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and they gave me these six tablets to take every day and I remember thinking that's an awful lot. I was like, yeah, 16 years old and I thought that I don't like the sound of taking six tablets every day. It's ridiculous. It's probably different now, but I just I took them for a couple of days and they slowed me down and I did not like it, did not feel right. So I just stopped. I just thought, right, no, I'm just not going to, I'm not going to bother with that.

Heather Murray: 55:39

And I think throughout my teens upon that. You do need to slow down sometimes and it's been something that I've really struggled with. I don't know how to slow down. I feel like if I'm not being industrious, then I'm very harsh on myself as well. It's kind of you have to be always achieving something. So in my teens and into my twenties drinking way too much, you know, socializing, because that was the one thing that slowed me down and still felt comfortable and that kind of probably hanging around with a few of the wrong people and all that sort of stuff, as I'm sure we've all done, but, yeah, way too much on the boozy side in my twenties and stuff. But as I started to realize that actually I can make myself tired but also be productive with work, that kind of having so many, having these two jobs, like I said, I used to work in the in the daytime and then in the evening or I'd have some form of project or charity job or something always going on, and then that's yeah, that's always been something that kind of thought oh, I can put all that extra energy into something that will help people or something that will achieve something and make my life easier or make the people around me's life easier. So that started to happen. And then I think, as it's evolved and as I've got older and matured kind of pretty much in my thirties was when it kind of started to happen really was realize all the other kind of physiological things I could do.

Heather Murray: 56:57

So alcohol was actually making it a lot worse, a lot worse, as I think a lot of people with the anxiety will realize. You feel better in the short term and a lot worse in the long term. So I kind of cut that right down. I kind of barely even have a glass of wine nowadays. Caffeine was the major thing. So actually that was something a nurse recommended not in a medical context or talking to a nurse and they said try cutting out caffeine, you'll be really surprised with how, what that does. And that was a dramatic effect the caffeine really was. It was amazing. So that just if it was at 90% anxiety, if it brought me down to sort of 70%, so that's something I've just cut out completely. And then just my sleeping times as well. I realized, you know, when I got much more anxious when they stayed up late. And so it is a bit of a problem now because obviously when I go to these conferences and there's this socialite, the networking, element You're up late.

Heather Murray: 57:52

I've trained my brain to completely cut out and it's lovely on a day to day basis because eight o'clock I go up to bed and I read for an hour and I'm out cold. I sleep really really well and I'm up at kind of half past four, five o'clock or so. I sleep in nine to five. But I found that was a pattern that works really well for me and I'm feel very positive and I don't kind of have as anywhere near as many panic attacks or anything like that, Just monitoring my caffeine intake, my alcohol intake and my sleeping. There were the three things that have really changed for me.

John Hawker: 58:25

And that's again. I think that's really good to know and really good advice to share with people. Just quickly out of interest, would you say that the cutting back on the caffeine has been more powerful than cutting back on alcohol? Yes, you would. Okay, that's really interesting.

Heather Murray: 58:38

Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, I treat myself very rarely. I'll treat myself to what I call like a turbo boost. Yeah, so like once every three weeks or something, I'll have like a half caffeine, half decaf Coffee, and I remember us in a meeting the other day when I'd done that and with an internal meeting, thankfully, yeah yeah, my team member was like you all right, you just woke up about 10 minutes A rocket ship going off, yeah, yeah. It's quite a useful button to have if you really need to hyper focus.

John Hawker: 59:08

Well, they say straight away a coffee every three weeks is some going. But yeah, if you limit your caffeine intake you'll feel the effects more as well. But I'm really pleased that you've got. Isn't it strange as well that it takes? This might be a generalization, but it takes most people until they reach the sort of 30s before they start just thinking about how the hell can I look after myself more as well, like that self care piece for so many people I speak to.

John Hawker: 59:29

I'm nearly 37, 37 next month, 17th of October. If anyone wants to send me a birthday car, yeah. It's only when I really, when I had kids, when I was 31, oh God, is that right? 31, 32, that I thought, oh, my God, I need to, I need to start looking after myself, yeah, and then you really start thinking about the ways in which you can do that as well. It's, it's funny, isn't it? Advice to anyone in their 20s, maybe start doing it then.

Heather Murray: 59:52

Yeah, which when it starts things start to hurt. The hangover stops a lot of two days instead of a couple of hours. You think I just can't. This is unsustainable. You've got to start making changes.

John Hawker: 1:00:02

I can't live like this. You said as well that you still experience things like nightmares. You still experience things like panic attacks as well. How do you handle that when running a busy agency? Is it the support that you've got around you that is really helpful in that regard.

Heather Murray: 1:00:16

I think I've always been very open with my team about I thought. I've believed in sort of, if I'm open, it's never an obligation for them to be open about their their mental health problems they might be having. But it has actually meant that they are more open. And they said you know, I believe that you have. Everybody has these ups and downs. I certainly do. I feel like I'm not in control if I have a day when I'm really really off and it just happens. I think physiologically it does have.

Heather Murray: 1:00:43

I've spoken to this guy on LinkedIn, Stuart Thompson. He's an anxiety expert absolutely amazing. He's a speaker on it. He's really cool. We spoke about it and he said if you follow the trail back, you'll find you did have a beginning. It's never, never comes out of nowhere. So it's triggered and it's got this kind of thing. But you know, I will say you know I'm having a bit of a bad day today. So I'm going to finish up and or I'm going to kind of switch to different types of tasks. For me it's not a case of stopping everything, so that kind of makes it worse, but actually I'm going to work on some strategic stuff. I've got my beloved whiteboard, which you know I get everything out on, you know everything out onto that, and that's always really good. It's usually associated with having maybe multiple meetings and that type of thing, because it's quite hard to disguise. Sometimes. It's minimally disruptive. It barely disrupts anything because I'm able to kind of control situations.

John Hawker: 1:01:35

It sounds like you've got those mechanisms in place now to really be able to identify when it might happen and also try as best as you can mitigate the fact that it could happen.

Heather Murray: 1:01:44

Yeah, completely yeah.

John Hawker: 1:01:47

With anxiety because you're like, you're speaking at international events. I don't want to make you anxious by talking about this, but you're speaking at international events. You know you've got something coming up. You're speaking with clients from Silicon Valley about technology, which is incredible, and you deserve that, but it is it's madness as well. How do you prepare mentally for those kind of high stake talks? Because they are. You're putting your brand out there. That's your reputation. You're putting out there your company's reputation as well. Are there any ways in which you prepare for those kind of events?

Heather Murray: 1:02:16

Yeah, oh, absolutely. I think anxiety-wise I always have the basics written down. It sounds really bizarre, but I have my name and job title written on a piece of paper, because that anxiety kind of makes me think. Sometimes my brain will go completely blank and. I need to just reference something to start me back up again. So that's what I always write down my key points on a piece of paper, it's never on another document. In case something freezes or anything, it's just post it to my best friend, I'll just put a couple of things.

Heather Murray: 1:02:42

So if it goes, it's there. But I think it was a lot harder at the beginning. I'm now feeling you know, just because I'm anxious doesn't make me less caught. There is a confidence building as well and realizing that I am actually generally more knowledgeable than the average person about these certain topics, which is to help us a lot. So I'm doing my research, being prepared in that way and also I've found, looking too far ahead, nature anxieties you start to think of the worst-case scenarios. I perform much better when I think I kind of section things into time blocks and just go right, ok, what have I got for the next two meetings? Obviously, sometimes you need to look ahead to prepare slides and things like that.

Heather Murray: 1:03:22

And that's why having a PA is really helpful, because you'll go right, you've got something next week. I've blocked out some time for you, but not thinking too far ahead, not thinking about the meeting. That's got four o'clock this afternoon. It's kind of right. What is just next? Look at what is. There's a phrase I think it's not look, not look, not at the mountain, but the few rocks ahead of you, and that's been the the best, best way of looking at things. I think there was. I went to a TED talk once. This, this woman who, very young woman, who had Parkinson's, and her talk was called I've got 99 problems, but Parkinson's ain't one, and it's on YouTube, it's absolutely wonderful.

John Hawker: 1:03:57

I have to look that up. Yeah, we'll include as well, just for anyone listening. We'll include, like you've named, drop some great people on LinkedIn and some really interesting things. We'll put that all in the podcast description, for sure.

Heather Murray: 1:04:07

Yeah, she just talks about breaking your day into small blocks and yeah, that's where I got it from. It's really really easy.

John Hawker: 1:04:13

Yeah, that compartmentalizing and making sure you're not sort of overwhelmed by the bigger picture, it's important to have that ability to zoom out. Yeah, but in times where you're like, oh my God, that is a mountain, I need to try and scale, just zoom straight back in again.

Heather Murray: 1:04:27

Yeah, what's next, what's the next hour? Hold for you, and also really looking back as well. When you achieve something, just going oh my God, I achieved that, and and pat yourself on the back because it's a. It's a lonely life. You know, being a founder, there's nobody going. Oh, great piece of work there. So you need to do that yourself in order to keep going, otherwise, what's the point?

John Hawker: 1:04:46

It's an amazing point and something I need to get better at as well Like you need to give yourself the kudos when you can. When I used to work in a big recruitment agency, if you helped someone find a job, it would be celebrated. Yeah, you know, luckily I wasn't in an agency where you'd ring a bell avoid those at all cost. But you know you'd have pets on the back. You'd be told well done. When you're doing it yourself, you're sat here and you're like oh brilliant, is anyone like it's it's? You need to be able to give yourself that round of applause or that pat on the back and celebrate the wins when they happen as well.

Heather Murray: 1:05:15

Absolutely Find something that you like, even if it's just getting take away that night or you know, just go and see a film that you want, I think, really reward yourself. You have to. It's really important to do that.

John Hawker: 1:05:25

Yeah, I think that will resonate with a lot of people listening to this as well. I've got two more questions and then I've got the closing tradition, heather, if that's okay. The last question kind of links to what we're talking about, but it is about imposter syndrome. Do you suffer from imposter syndrome?

Heather Murray: 1:05:37

Absolutely.

John Hawker: 1:05:39

And have you got a way of how you deal with that? Or is it just you suffer with it and you just live with it?

Heather Murray: 1:05:46

Just live with it but try to combat it and just say you know, equip yourself with the information, pick your topic and try and learn as much as you possibly can about it. So I've found an area that not many people, not many other people in my industry, are that knowledgeable about and that really tackles imposter syndrome. I was at a think tank on Monday night actually, with all these techy types. There was a global head of innovation at Blacks, o Smith Klein, and they were all talking about tech. They're all techy types.

Heather Murray: 1:06:18

The brains in that room was so intimidating, so insightful. But I kind of had to say you know, had to note to myself I followed every single word that they said. I understood every acronym, some of the questions being asked. I wasn't brave enough to ask a question, but those questions being asked were questions I wanted to ask myself. So I was at the edge of my comprehension but I was following it. So I think those being in those types of things have kind of leveled me up a little bit in knowledge and a bit because they were thought leaders, they were really insightful. Just keeping learning, making learning a really important part of your day, really just helped combat that imposter syndrome.

John Hawker: 1:06:53

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It's also just saying yes to things, isn't it as well saying yes to opportunities, because again, my own personal anecdote from this week and also this podcast like I was introduced at event this week as a professional podcast host at the time of recording this, I've released two full podcast episodes.

John Hawker: 1:07:11

So, I'm walking in and they're going oh, you're the podcast guy. I'm like what is going on? But you say yes to these opportunities. And I tell you what. The best way of tackling imposter syndrome is to say yes to something that is going to try and flare it up. Yes, and survive it. All you need to do is survive. You don't even need to smash it out the park, you just need to get out the other side of it without being laughed out of a room would be nice. And then each time you do that, the imposter syndrome, that little voice in your head that says are you sure, is this really? You just get smaller and smaller and quieter, absolutely.

Heather Murray: 1:07:43

Yeah, do the things that, yeah, those things that scare you like you know that being on stage next week at Excel, I can't believe I'm doing that, but I'll do that. And then the next week we've got another one, the next week got another one, and eventually that first Excel thing would have just been you know, everybody has to start somewhere.

John Hawker: 1:07:59

It was about exactly the same thing. Yeah.

Heather Murray: 1:08:01

Something really important to say is this is the easiest podcast conversation I genuinely think I've ever had. And I keep forgetting that we're even recording a podcast and just having a lovely chat, because honestly I mean this sincerely, john as well that I on a lot of podcasts, have been on a lot over the last few months and this is genuinely the most natural, easy conversation, so you really are brilliant at this.

John Hawker: 1:08:21

And you need to acknowledge that yourself without cringing.

Heather Murray: 1:08:23

You know and how hard that is to do.

John Hawker: 1:08:24

Yeah, no, yeah, I mean you will appreciate exactly how hard it is to do, but thank you so much. That really means a lot. Okay, we've got a couple of minutes, One more question and then it's the closing tradition. So what is next on your list of challenges to conquer? Because you, throughout your career and the story we've heard, it's all been about identifying a goal and then going after it. Identifying a name and going after it. What's the next big thing on your list that you want to achieve with Beesting?

Heather Murray: 1:08:48

I think it's. It's what we were talking about before. It's bringing Beesting back into the conversation. Now I've got this personal brand thing going on. It's now linking. That's a real challenge to bring that back in without people going, oh why is she suddenly speaking about this? And and sort of super charging, Beesting with the power that I've generated on LinkedIn now and keep maintaining that audience without switching them off. So yeah, just bringing that into conversation is definitely my next big challenge.

John Hawker: 1:09:16

Cool. Okay, if people have been listening to this episode and would like to reach out to you for anything that you do, heather, what's the best way for them to get in touch or learn a little bit more about what it is you do?

Heather Murray: 1:09:27

I'm LinkedIn, 100% LinkedIn.

John Hawker: 1:09:29

Yeah, I'm on there.

Heather Murray: 1:09:32

I'm on there far too much. But yeah, if you want to kind of pop me a message, just be aware that it takes a little while to get back to me. But you're very welcome to put my email address. That's probably a lot quicker for to respond to an email than I am to a LinkedIn message nowadays. So if you want to put that in the description, that's fine.

John Hawker: 1:09:47

Cool, fantastic. Again. We'll include links to wherever you want to share Heather. If the website is still a work in progress, we can share that or not, but there'll be plenty of ways to contact Heather in the podcast description, right Closing tradition. If you listen to another fairly famous I say another fairly famous podcast like this, one will be, but another podcast. They have a closing tradition of the previous guest asking the next guest a question. We don't do that on my podcast. I get my mum to ask the questions. Now I tell my mum at very high level overview of who I'm speaking to. She sends me a voice note on WhatsApp. I play it down the phone with not having listened to it previously, so we never know what we're going to get. We're really rolling the dice on this. I'll play it down the mic. Let me know if you can't hear it. I always try and get the volume right but you never know.

Lisa Hawker: 1:10:29

Morning, heather. I work in the creative sector and I was wondering how artificial intelligence is going to affect us. How do we prove to people that we are the actual ones creating the artwork and not AI?

John Hawker: 1:10:45

Thanks, that's a big question. So that's my mum. That's Lisa, if you wanted to. I mean it's putting you on a spot there. It's quite deep. Mum Appreciate that one, but she usually they're a little bit more fun. But obviously she's really latched on to the AI piece of what we're discussing. But maybe that's a good thing to touch on there to create space a lot of conversation about how AI is impacting that. But mum's question is all around. How do you prove that you are the person creating it?

Heather Murray: 1:11:10

Well, there are actually tools now being developed. There's one of these on my list I've got this document of all these tools but there's apparently one that's being created that's incredible that can pull out AI generated copy I can't remember the name of it now, which is really annoying AI generated copy images as well. There's a whole thing around digital watermarking as well that Google are playing with, so it will contain this invisible something created by AI will contain an invisible digital watermark, so you'll be able to buy software that can detect it. So there's that kind of physical way of detecting things. But there was a story told in that in a think tank on Monday night, where you know, when you go to a bank and you're sitting in one of their fancy conference rooms and they've got this great big, you know this painting on the wall and it's by a famous artist and stuff, and you're looking at it. But the real painting is actually in a few floors below and downstairs.

Heather Murray: 1:12:00

You know, people revere that human one. Even though everything's exactly the same. It's brush stroke for brush stroke. There's some thing that we can't quite define yet. That's if it's human generated. If it's, you know, you'd far rather sit with that real painting. You get a feeling from that real painting knowing it was real than sitting with this fake, even though it's completely, completely identical in every way. And I think it's going to be. It's going to be hard to define. I think there's going to be a real rise in kind of in person events and raw content, sort of flawed real conversations. You know, I say flawed, it's just if it's not completely perfect.

John Hawker: 1:12:41

Just being human. Isn't it Real flawed?

Heather Murray: 1:12:43

Yeah, that type of humanity is such a complex concept that I don't think it's particularly programmable, even the way we were. The reason AI created content, you know, when you write blogs or posts. The reason that's so bad is because it can't. You know, there's too much complexity and burstiness. So how it chooses the next word and how it structures different sentences, ai has to run two patterns, and humans don't run to a pattern, or if it is one, it's so incredibly complex.

John Hawker: 1:13:09

We don't know what it is.

Heather Murray: 1:13:10

So how can AI know what it is? So I think, yeah, I think we are much more complex than AI can work out at the moment and I feel like creativity is always going to be ahead of that. But yeah, I don't know what kind of response that was. I think there are tools being developed, but I think you won't be able to replace that human, that human touch, that human effect. But how are we going to prove that?

John Hawker: 1:13:31

I mean, it's a big question, mum. You've really put Heather on the spot there, so it's a little bit unkind, but I do think it's something that a lot of people work in the creative space will be thinking about. And the point you made about attaching again authenticity, trust, showing the human behind who's creating the piece as well, I think is really important. So maybe that's a whole marketing exercise in itself, isn't it, heather? Thank you so much, and thank you for being comfortable, just being raw and honest and transparent around things like anxiety and mental health, because it will only serve to support so many people that are going through a similar situation.

Heather Murray: 1:14:05

Yeah, whenever I write about anxiety on LinkedIn, I get very senior people messaging me and yeah, it's definitely something it's really important.

John Hawker: 1:14:12

It's really important message to put out there. Thank you so much. I'm going to let you get on with your day because I know you'll be absolutely round today, but we will catch up soon, Thank you.

Heather Murray: 1:14:20

Thank you, john, that was great. Thanks very much, cheers.

John Hawker: 1:14:22

Thanks for listening to Jobs Worth. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to like and subscribe. You can stay connected by following me on LinkedIn for more insights on the world of work behind the scenes, content and updates on upcoming episodes. We're really thinking about guests for season two, so if there is a particular topic you'd like us to discuss, then please send in your suggestions to hello at jobsworthcom.