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Matters of life and death Australia’s death care and funeral industry is big business. We meet death doula Dr Annetta Mallon and funeral industry adviser Martin Tobin, two caring and passionate business owners supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Dr Annetta Mallon is an end-of-life consultant, doula and educator and grief psychotherapist based in Tasmania. With decades of experience in trauma recovery and personal growth, Annetta helps people understand their rights and options at the end of life – especially those without a strong support network. Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business. He is founder of Funeral Direction, a consultancy supporting funeral homes and cemeteries across Australia and New Zealand. A former solicitor, Martin brings legal, strategic and business insight, and is focused on helping the industry evolve through innovation, education and long-term planning. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel at Myrtle & Pine Studios -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP03_Matters of Life and Death James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death. In this episode, we're talking about matters of life and death, well, the final matter, how we say goodbye. Death is big business, and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more than $2 billion. And with us are two entrepreneurs, two people who work in this area, supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. We're joined by Dr. Annetta Mallon, an end of life consultant, an educator, and also known as a death doula. And Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business and is now an expert adviser on the global funeral industry. Annetta, Martin, welcome to Life's Booming. So many places to start. I'm excited. And Martin, I'll start with you. What's it like when the family business is death? Martin: Yeah, well, it's all I've ever known. When I was, you know, when I was born and grew up, I, we actually lived in a funeral parlour. Um, so when I was, for the first two or three years of my life, uh, the funeral parlour was downstairs. We lived upstairs. So when it's all you've known, you don't think anything different of it. And I suppose all of my friends and sort of social groups when I was young and a teenager thought it was pretty quirky and funny, but for me, it was what I knew. My grandfather and his brother started our family business in the thirties. And by the time I came along, it was well, well and truly established. I didn't really work directly in it straight away after leaving school, but it was always in the background. And so I've always been comfortable with it. James: Yeah. But such an interesting thing. Like what's, what's the dinner time conversation. Did you have a good day, darling? Good deaths? Some good deaths? Martin: Well, all of that. You know, I think that's the stereotype, isn't it, that funeral directors are a bit, sort of weird and severe and a bit morbid, but, but it's, it's far from the truth. You know, I think most people who work in funeral service, and the work that Annetta does, are really warm and loving and gregarious people because you have to have those qualities to really survive and thrive in, in what we do in that space. James: You kind of got to love life, Annetta. Annetta: Absolutely. We are fiercely alive until we are dead. And I think that. Whether it's from the professional funeral side of things or more from consumer advocate and personal support side of things, coming in with a joke – why do we screw the coffin lids down so hard to keep the oncologist out. Great icebreaker: show up with cake. Make jokes, because most of us have a lot of laughter and love in our lives and it's important to leaven sorrow and, and grief. Martin: Yeah. Don't let death just drown out the… James: What's the undertaker's joke? Martin: Oh, there's so many. I mean, everyone used to, I used to get called Stiffy Tobin, that sort of stuff. James: Stiffy, Tobin… Martin: …you know, a bit. So a lot of funeral directors get called Stiffy. Annetta: …that's a 1930s cartoon character, isn't it? James: It's like, it's the, the Millers, the Millers and bakers are Dusty. You know, it's that, it's that era, isn't it? Annetta: You're a Tintin character. James: Yeah, exactly. Martin: Yeah. Luckily I wasn't, you know, I don't fit the stereotype of tall and gray. I'm sort of fairly short and not gray. And so when I joined our family business, I was quite young. So I was lucky I sort of didn't fit that stereotype. And back in the early 90s, there was very few women, very few people, young people, very few people from, from diverse backgrounds. So it's changed a lot really for the better in that sense. So there's no stereotypical funeral director now it's, it's a really, really diverse. James: What's a, what's a doula? Annetta: Well, a doula is someone who supports life's transitions. So I've been a birth doula, and it's a very powerful energy when someone comes into the world, but it's really not my jam. I like the other transition, and I'm better at it. I provide an awful lot of information for people who have questions like, what is this going to feel like? Should I be at home or should I be in the hospital? And the point of a lot of my conversations is not to provide answers, but to support people into recognising what's best for them, which I suspect is actually quite a lot of what Martin does, with the way that you work with businesses. James: When do you turn up? Annetta: A piece of string question. I can turn up pre-need, so there's no terminal or life limiting diagnosis. There's a bit of a myth that we turn up magically, like a fairy, in the last 24 hours of life. That's not really great or optimal. James: So, do some people get you, even if, well, I don't have a diagnosis, but I want to start working with a doula? Annetta: If you're a doula like me who does planning and can answer questions and help people prepare their documentation and their wishes, because that's not anything you want to be doing at the last minute and in cases where there's dementia and cognitive decline. It's too late then to get your planning in place. So I also help to support and foster family-wide and network-wide conversations so that everyone understands if someone's interested in assisted dying, let's talk about that. Does anyone have questions, for example. Or have you considered your pets in your planning? Are you including your grandchildren or just your children? Would you prefer to die in a medicalised environment, ideally, or in a home like environment? James: So you can, yeah, so you're there at any point and really every circumstance is entirely different. Annetta: It is, it's unique every single time. James: Same for funerals? Martin: Yeah, I mean, a funeral really should be a reflection of the person's life and interests and values and philosophies, and sometimes, you know, historically, traditionally, in say the last couple of hundred years that, that often revolved around their, their faith. So these days funerals are quite sort of open-ended, quite, quite unstructured, quite celebratory and people are trying to find some ritual in that and some meaning in that and, and that's the, that's the real change that's happening in funeral service. You know, funerals have been going on for thousands of years. They're one of the early rituals of human, human existence. So, and they emanate from the human need to stop when someone from among us leaves us, and reflect on that person's life, to typically grieve that person, if they meant something to us. So that is, you know, invariably people feel sad, not always, but typically. And people have to then say, well, how do we, how do we move forward without this person? And then for a lot of people, that's incredibly difficult. Grief, grief is just our response to loss. You can't control it. You can't make it go away. So if you suppress it in the early days, it comes back to bite you later. So a funeral is a chance to gather, reflect, embrace the reality of the death and embrace the early stages of the grief, the pain that you'll often experience, and to receive support from your community and to let go of that person because they go from being with you to being a memory. James: It's interesting the way you phrased it or the point of view you expressed there was to me it was the person closest to whoever's died, it's for them. And then it's for the community. It's not for us. Funeral's not for the guy that died. The funeral's for us. Martin: Yep, that's right. And we're finding a lot of people now trying to sort of orchestrate their own celebration and say, this is what I want. I want this to happen, that to happen. And that's, that's got a place, but it's really for the living, for the, for those that are left behind. And, you know, the dead, the dead can't tell the living what, how to feel. But they can give guidance and direction, but I think it's really important that the funerals, funerals are done the way that the survivors feel they need, need to do it so that they, that helps them get back into life afterwards. James: Yeah. Yeah. Would you agree? What's a funeral for? Annetta: I think a funeral is an opportunity to remember why your person was so important to you. One of the big changes that I think we're going to see more and more of in Australia now, with assisted dying nationally available, is a fabulous ‘going away party’, as I call them. So people who attend their own funerals, because basically, especially if you're in a hospital, you know when your time is coming. So there's almost like a bookending effect where we have a celebration with the person and they get to say goodbyes and explain to people why they were important and hear all the good stuff. Then there's probably going to be a gathering of some kind afterwards, possibly ham rolls and whisky will play a part, because, as Martin has said, we need to commemorate the fact that this aspect of our lives is now irrevocably changed. I think for a lot of us, the relationship goes on, but it's very different. I still talk to my mother and my grandmother, both of whom are dead. I don't expect them to respond. But there's still kind of… James: …I think that's the sane way to do it. If you expect them to respond, I don't… Annetta: That's a different conversation. James: That's different. Yeah. We're doing another whole episode on that. Martin: Different podcast. Annetta: Different podcast. James: From Beyond the Grave. Welcome. So again, the funeral's not really for the dead person. Annetta: I've never thought a funeral is for the dead person. It is to really bring us out of the immense shock of the raw grief that – and this is a generalisation – is about 72 hours. And that's not a sustainable emotional state. We get to come together. We get to shift from intense grief, the personal experience of loss and that response – because grief is love with no place left to be put – into mourning, which is a more shared communal public sense of loss, which is a really important transitional period in accepting a death, coming to terms with a death, acknowledging a death. And the funeral makes a space that I think is important, not just for the closest people, but for friends, work colleagues, community members. So there is a space that can be welcoming for a variety of community members, which is also really important. Community can be quite intimate and small, it can be broader and more encompassing. Martin: Yeah, look, I think it does need to, I think a good funeral will reflect the person's life. If, if it's, if it's not authentic, if you go to that funeral and you say, Gee, that wasn't about Fred, then clearly the family have got it wrong. So there has to, they have to be the central character, and that has to, you know, has to really reflect who they were, ideally. But if Fred starts micromanaging his service, his celebration, then I think we're missing the point because it really is for, for those left behind to say, what's going to be meaningful for me to help me, you know, take stock of my life now that Fred's, Fred's gone. A good example is, you know, sometimes people these days will often say, look, let's not go to the fuss of a funeral. Let's, let's have a private cremation or burial and we'll have a memorial service, which is fine. And a lot of people choose that. But if Fred's not there, you know, the emotions around how people feel about Fred and the stories about him aren't really aren't heightened enough for people to really feel what they should feel at a funeral. It's hard to sort of get started with your grief, is sort of the perspective I have… James: …But I suppose there's often that, that's often thought of, we're going to do this in a few days, but the memorials in two weeks… Annetta: I think it's individual. And I also think it is broader culture. So for example, in some cultures, from Eastern Europe, there are marker days. So you will have the funeral on a particular day and then you might do something 10 days later. And then the 40th day might be, for example, in the Macedonian community… I still pay attention to ‘death-aversaries’ and I pay attention to it because it's going to affect my mood and the way I go throughout the day because I will be thinking about that person. And ideally, you have had the opportunity to spend time with your person, whether that's in a hospital room. For example, I did that when my mother died. We were allowed to have the room for as long as we wanted with her. Or at home, and you might keep your person at home for a day or two and sing to them, wash them, sit in silence, cry with them, laugh with them. That's, that can be part of the saying goodbye, which the funeral then when it's done properly and appropriately, I think sort of wraps everything up and ties it as neatly together as you can so that you can move into all of the afters of grief. James: Martin, let's talk about the, the business of funerals. It's a big business, isn't it? Martin: Well, it's, it became an industry a hundred plus years ago, something that people started outsourcing to, you know. And initially it was outsourced to cabinet makers who made the coffin. And then they, the cabinet maker said, well I can, not only can I make the coffin, but I can transfer the body from the place of death and… And over a period of time it became an industry. So, it is there, so it is an organised industry in most, most countries around the world. And so the, the organised funeral director will provide a range of services to, you know, support people who've lost, lost someone. In Australia, it's primarily, historically, made up of family owned private businesses that are multi generational family businesses. But about 25 years or so ago, a lot of the well known family businesses were purchased by larger groups. But certainly they're at, in my view, they're at a competitive disadvantage to a generally family owned local community based, family owned business, because they just don't have that essence. James: Yeah. Is it a strange thing? I mean, you've talked very compassionately about grief and about the humanity of what's involved about the moment of death and what people are dealing with. Yet this is something that you'll make profit from, that the company is going to make profit from. Is that a strange, is there a conflict there? Martin: There isn't really. I mean, you know, sometimes I think a lot of the people who are attracted to the industry, yeah, they're talking to a family and they've gone through a loss and there's a lot of grief and pain and there might be, there might be some challenging financial circumstances too that they glean from the conversation. And yeah, that people feel, feel, Oh, gee, how can we add pain to them, or, you know, add, you know, send them an invoice for $10,000, whatever it might be on top of what they're already experiencing. So yeah, it is a little bit uncomfortable, but I think if, if the business has integrity around its pricing and there's, there's genuine options and, and you know, they're not sort of forced into any sort of uncomfortable decisions, then, you know, most people recognise that a funeral, if it, you know, needs to be done in a certain way, there's going to be a cost to that. James: And do you find that, you know, the, the rise of doulas, the presence of doulas, the change… the way in which there seems to be a lot of, a lot of alternatives to those bigger companies or that standard sort of the mahogany casket approach. Is that in a reaction to this sort of somewhat, you know, industrialisation of, of the process? Annetta: Partially, yes, and from my perspective, I think we can, Okay, Boomer, let's give you a big vote of thanks, because at every stage of life, the Boomer generation, it's a cliche for a reason, they've demanded information and choice, and they want things on their terms far more than we'd seen in the silent generation, certainly, and previous generations. So, what are my rights, options, and choices at end of life? What can we do better and differently? It's made space for things like Daisybox Caskets Australia. I'm not affiliated with them, but they offer a lower and a high quality product, but it's less expensive than mahogany, which you mentioned. Not a bad option for families on a budget, not a bad option for cremations. I think, as we are in such an almost overwhelm of information age, people do want to know what's possible and we can readily see that, for example, in the USA, we've got Katrina Spade, who started with the urban death project. James: What’s that? Annetta: The urban death project was an architectural hypothetical exercise. How can we offer a space for respectful memorialisation and body disposition that is not taking up valuable land. And from this, then we have, recompose, which is natural, organic reduction, nor human composting. In Tasmania, we've got the very first water based cremation service. James: What is that? Because I mean, cremation implies fire to me, not water. Annetta: Yes. So it's alkaline hydrolysis. It's a high temperature, high alkaline process of dissolving everything, which at the end you get a product that instead of gray ashes, white, you get a completely sterile liquid, that I personally don't see why we can't use on green spaces, urban green spaces, but it can go down the drain. James: Just water me in the park. Just go water the flowers with me. Annetta: I quite like that. Martin: Splash me into the ocean. James: Splash me into the ocean. Annetta: There we go. And it's, it's about a seventh of the environmental footprint of a flame cremation. Costs about the same, maybe a little bit more, but we also have a team that will transport statewide. We don't do natural burial, we don't have dedicated natural burial, um, spaces in Australia. The UK does it really well. James: Again, what’s natural burial? Annetta: Okay, so instead of going down six feet, like into colder ground, which is anaerobic, there's frequently a lot of concrete involved, you're in essentially like a hotter ground. You've got more microbes and oxygen, you're going to break down faster. And in the UK, the multipurpose spaces where you might be running, sheep, for example, or growing wildflowers or food. In the USA, when you have the composted remains of people, which turns out to be quite a lot, large in volume, they work with a national park, and it actually goes to beautify hiking trails and to recondition public spaces. James: I like all these. Annetta: I like it too. James: They're kind of positive, aren't they? Annetta: There's options for everybody. So it's opening up spaces for non medical community based people like myself. It also means that there's new and exciting ways for funeral directors to then work with people to make the meaningful, personalised, ritual and ceremony and funeral experience. So, thank you, Boomers. We've got a lot of change. James: Yeah.. And is, are the traditional companies, are they embracing this? Are they seeing the need to embrace this? [00:19:15] Martin: The traditional funeral of being in a church and sort of straight to the cemetery with, with everything sort of reasonably structured, that pattern has definitely broken. We're seeing two things in the Australian industry, that is people trending or consumers saying That doesn't do it for me anymore, I'm either going to go for something very simple that's, like, low cost and, you know, where there's not much of a fuss; or people are saying, I want something highly customised, highly celebratory, highly innovative. And the companies that have stayed quite traditional and conservative are actually losing relevance. And so the funeral directors who are seeing those Baby Boomer-led changes, and are responding construct-- who are responding or actually leading the way themselves and coming up with some of those ideas themselves, they're the ones that are becoming or staying relevant and are thriving. You know, there's a funeral company called Tender Funerals who, whose focus and philosophy is that the family are much more involved in the actual funeral, which is, which is a great thing, which is how it should have, how it used to be. You know, the family themselves would… James: So what might take place? What do they, what do they do? Martin: Well, they might wash and dress the body as, as Annetta said, you know, they might, they might carry the coffin in some of the steps that normally the funeral director would, would only do. There's subtle differences and I don't, I don't profess to know a lot about what they do, but, but philosophically their, their message is let's do funerals the way they used to be done, and not outsource everything to the funeral director. So that's a challenge for the organised industry, because people are responding to that, and because people are saying, Yeah, actually, that's how we did use to do it. And I think the work that doulas are doing is getting people comfortable with the conversation, you know, the fact that we all die and that… Annetta: We've checked, everyone dies. Yeah. Martin: Yeah, we worked that out before. Annetta: Spoiler alert. James: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Martin: So, you know, the organised industry has to realise that with education and Boomer-led sort of innovation, there's a lot more, you know, sort of change and sort of innovation they have to embrace, otherwise they will become irrelevant. Annetta: Whether you're coming from a more business-like perspective or something that's more community led, we all offer skills and services that have value. People train to be funeral directors and celebrants. People train to be morticians, people train to be doulas. And there's an awful lot of ongoing research and continuing education because the legislation is changing very quickly, in terms of documentation, where it's stored, how it's processed. Assisted dying is constantly changing, as we review the laws. And there is a value to that. I'm not a charity. I like to eat meals and sleep under a roof. So, I think one of the unexpected benefits of having more open conversations, generally, is people can recognise, Oh, well, maybe this much for a funeral seems too much, but this is a reasonable sum and I'm happy to pay that sum because we're getting something of value, in the end. That may be more personalised, maybe more ritualised and traditional, but then we have an exchange of something for something. James: But also those pro, the kind of, you know, those newer processes you were describing, even of how we dispose of the body, a more sustainable approach, is going to reflect a lot of people's values, you know, in a way that a traditional cask of being buried at a six feet under. Martin: Funerals don't operate in a vacuum. You know, they're part of the broader society. James: Yeah. Why do you like working in the area of death? Martin: It's a real privilege to, to work with, I mean, you know, the work that Annetta does is amazing. Like to have an open conversation with someone who is facing their own mortality, must, every day, must be an amazing privilege. And the work that I've done historically is after that. So it's, it's not as, it's not as confronting, because it's happened, but it's just really satisfying work to help people, you know, when they are at a low point to do something for them that's valuable, that's meaningful, and to help them with the long-term journey they're about to embark on. A funeral is just one of the first steps in their, their overall journey without that person. And if you can get them off to a good start with a good, you know, this notion of a good funeral, then, you know, then it's incredibly satisfying work. The vast majority of the people that work in funeral service, and I'm sure in the work that you do, are there for the right reasons. They're there because they, they are people-driven people, they love helping. They want to make a difference for people. So, it's a very satisfying industry. But most of what we have, the stereotype of we're all a bit weird and that it's far, it's almost the opposite. James: Annetta, why do you like it? You said you were better than this. You'd been a birth doula but you said ‘I'm better at death’. Annetta: I am better at death. I like puppies, not children, which probably explains a lot. I'm a good story keeper. And someone who is at end of life or is coming to terms with a life-limiting or terminal diagnosis – maybe a slower decline or more rapid decline – there is still an essence of themselves that they would like to have preserved, which I think feeds into this idea of the meaningful, purposeful funeral. The meaningful, purposeful end-of-life, with quality of life until we die, and then trying to offer a quality of life to people as they come to terms with the death of their person, is values driven, I think, in terms of planning. And also, for me, it's about honoring that person and trying to empower them with as much information as appropriate so that they can make informed decisions. I think there's nothing more empowering. When I've done my job really right, I'm not even involved when someone dies. Sometimes I'm in the room and that's okay, but often I will hear from families afterwards. And there's wonderful stories about the time that was spent while their person was dying, caring for their person's body after death, how the family and the friends came together to facilitate all of that, and then how that relationship of community changes, or stays the same, following that. So people then find meaning in their own life, get more excited about planning. The death literacy snowball is a wonderful thing to watch in action. That's my jam. I really love it. James: What do they do? What, what have people told you about death? Annetta: Interestingly enough, for a lot of people, it's not about death itself. It's about being frightened of dying. My pain threshold's in the basement, I don't want to be in pain. That bothers me far more than my moment of death. The people they loved know that they're loved… James: They want that, they want them to know? Annetta: … They want that. They want to know that love has been expressed, which I think is possibly why we're seeing that uptick, too, and people saying, I'd like this playlist at my funeral. I always start with a playlist with planning, you know, control it, be the DJ. Could we talk about this? I'd like these elements. Because it's a way of caretaking in a sense, the people that they're going to leave behind. The messages that people leave are messages of love. I think that's something the film Love Actually got really right, in the beginning. How do I convey that? How can I try and make that my legacy? So we're seeing it arise in, life writing, the narrative of someone's life so that there might be a digital book or voice recordings. We're seeing that with social media platforms where social accounts can be turned into memorial accounts. But I think also we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that sometimes that is all yanked away with no warning, sometimes, by family members who think that that's the right thing to do. And that can leave people devastated. So I think we're all kind of jogging along together, trying to come to terms with all the changes and make them a good fit for individuals. James: Martin, what do you hear? What do hear people say about death? Martin: Most people dread the day, you know, they're dreading the day, they have to get it, get up there in front of all those people, walk through the gathering and everyone's looking at them. And so there's a, there's a lot of dread. People will say, can we just get over and done with? Can we do it tomorrow? You know, when the death's been today, or whatever. So there is that sense that it's going to be an ordeal. So if, after it's happened and you, the feedback is all the conversations you hear are, Oh, that was really special and it went well and, and what a tribute we paid to Dad or Mum, you know, you know, he would have loved it or whatever. You know, that you've lifted all that dread away, and then they move ahead. So they're off to a good start. Otherwise, if we just die and we, we pause for a few minutes and we get back on the bike and start living again, well, you know, that person, all their, what they meant to us and all their stories and history and what they wanted to be said about them just gets shuffled aside and we get on with life again. So I think we, I think most of us deserve a bit better than that. And a funeral is a really good opportunity to just stop the clock for a while. You know, we don't have to wallow in it for weeks. And some cultures do, they actually, they put a real ritual around it. But as a minimum, just have some, some chance where we can say, his life mattered. I think that's, I think that's really good. Annetta: Yeah. James: This has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much, Annetta. Thank you. Annetta: Thank you for having me, James. It's been a pleasure. James: Martin, thank you. Martin: I enjoyed it. James: Terrific. Thanks to our guests, Dr. Annetta Mallon and Martin Tobin. You've been listening to Season 6 of Life's Booming, Dying to Know, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please, leave a review or tell someone about it. Head to seniors.com.au/podcast for more episodes. May your life be booming. I'm James Valentine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U. S. is the largest importer of aquatic foods, which includes fresh and saltwater fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants served in restaurants and homes. A critical piece of this global market is the cold chain, keeping these foods chilled or frozen during storage and transport to market. With 44 percent of aquatic foods sold live or fresh globally, the percentage of fresh over frozen aquatic foods creates an extra logistical cold chain challenge. What's more, most aquatic foods become, well, fishy from cold chain disruptions, which can cause perceived food safety concerns, potentially resulting in food getting tossed into the bin. Until recently, research to understand just how much aquatic food gets wasted or lost has been spotty. However, in a recent Nature Food article, researchers argue that aquatic food loss and waste in the United States is actually half of earlier estimates. And that's good news that we'll explore today. This interview is part of an ongoing exploration of food loss and waste. This episode is co-hosted by environmental economist, Martin Smith at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. Interview Summary Martin Smith - So I'm really pleased to introduce our guests for today. First up from University of Florida, a natural resource economist, Frank Asche. Frank is a long-time collaborator of mine and a good friend. And he's also one of the world's leading experts in seafood markets and trade. And honestly, Frank has taught me just about everything I know about aquaculture. Also today, we have Dave Love from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Dave is someone whose work I'm also very familiar with and is a leading expert in food systems and sustainability. And recently in my classes, I have often said out loud to some student questions that I don't know the answers to. I'll bet Dave Love knows the answer to that question. Norbert Wilson - So Dave, let's begin with you. Why was it important to develop better estimates and methods of aquatic food waste in the US? Why did your team pursue this research question? Dave Love - Great question. So, the US government has a goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030. And if you want to know how much you need to cut, you really need to go out and measure. And that's one of the areas of food waste that we really don't know a lot about for many different types of foods. We know the production data. We know how much is produced. We have a pretty good sense of what's consumed, whether that's in an economic sense of being consumed or actually eaten. But we really don't know how much is wasted. And groups come to the table with different numbers, different estimates, and they, they make their way into reports, into national guidelines. But for seafood in particular, the estimates haven't been refreshed in a while. So, it was about time to do that. And this study aimed to tackle that issue from all the stages of the supply chain, from production to consumption, looked at different forms of seafood and among the top 10 species. So, we rolled those species estimates and stage estimates into a national number. So yeah, that that's, that's why we did it. And we were really surprised at what we found. Norbert - Well, what surprised you? Dave - Well, earlier estimates were that about half of seafood was lost or wasted in the US and that came from UN Food and Agriculture Organization data. And when we actually crunched the numbers for the US supply, we thought it was more like 22.7 percent is wasted. So, a lot less than the FAO estimate. Which means we're doing a good job in some areas, but there's also room for improvement in others. Martin - So, Frank, maybe you could tell us a little bit more about the key takeaways from this Nature food paper are? Frank Asche - It's really that it's important to recognize that we are consuming a lot of different species and they have very, very different characteristics. For instance, the filler yield of a salmon is about 65 percent while for a cod it is about 40%. That makes your starting point really important. Moreover, this thing of looking at the whole supply chain is important because there are different ways to organize it, and there are a lot of potential uses for what food is sometimes wasted. And to look into what different types of producers are actually doing. What different companies that are operating these cold chains that Norbert spoke about are doing. And what they are doing when these things break apart. Kind of, there's all these people in the supply chain that may help us, and some of them do. Some of them aren't very good at it. But it's really nice to find that there are best practices that can really help us a lot of people take the trouble to figure that out and follow that up. Martin - That's really interesting. And it makes me wonder with all this heterogeneity that you're describing, are large producers better positioned to manage or, or reduce food waste than small producers? Or is it the other way around? Frank - Oh, I'm a good researcher. So it depends. Martin - It depends. Of course it depends. It depends! Frank - If we're going to say anything general then, in wealthy countries, large producers are better. In poor countries, small producers are better. In the sense that when labor cost is low, and food is relatively expensive people are much more willing to eat a fish that is not the best quality. While, if you're a small-scale producer in a wealthy country where labor is really scarce, you tend to focus on your main production process, which is the fillet. While if you become a big producer, then the quantities that potentially gets weighed that become so large that they actually are a useful raw material for new products. And we see big producers developing new products that it doesn't make sense for smaller producers to look at. You've all eaten your hamburgers. One of the more popular products in recent years is different kinds of seafood burgers. And they are great because they are trimmings and cutoffs and slices that doesn't fit well into that fillet that you're normally thinking about when you're consuming a chunk of fish. Martin - Yeah, and I think many seafood consumers have had that experience of being at the fish counter and saying, 'Oh, I only want this much,' and they put too much in there and like take a little off. And then you start to ask yourself the question, who's going to eat that little, little bit that gets sliced off. That's really interesting and enlightening. I had another question for Frank. Before we go back over to Norbert. So, in this paper, you describe different points along the food supply chain where the seafood might be lost or wasted. Can you talk a little bit more about that in different points in the supply chain and why there are some of these differences between species? You mentioned the sort of, yield of salmon and cod for a filet being a little different. And so, I'd like you to talk a little more about why different species might, might get different rates of loss. Frank - I think it starts with this thing here that for most seafood species, there's a choice part that is sort of your preferred chunk of meat. Most species it's a filet, but for a mussel, you eat everything that is within the shell. But it's different. But even for all those species, kind of, there are shrimps with small heads, there are shrimps with big heads, there are fish that gives you really good fillet yield, fish that doesn't. There are fish where there's a lot of useful meat that, say, the head or in the tail, that normally doesn't make it to a store, but it's useful if somebody chooses to use it. And then you have the quality issues. If a fish, say, falls to the floor during the production process, what do you do with that? And, yeah, that's one of those things we learned that in Vietnam, they will give it to a worker, and they will eat it. And Norwegian salmon, they will typically put it into some kind of acid where they use it to make animal foods. Small scale producers will just throw it into the bin. Other producers have good systems which, within the right hygienic control systems, are using what they can and not what they cannot. In general, producers have been getting better, but producers are still one of the key points in the chain. The companies from the producer of the raw fish to the consumer is generally pretty good. And there's fairly little waste in transportation and processing and so on. Then there's a bit more waste in the store. One of the cool little episodes I learned during this project was that one of the biggest items of food loss for fish in US grocery stores were people buying shrimp for the salad, and then deciding that they didn't want the salad anyway, and they are putting it in a shelf somewhere else. But you and I are the biggest problems. That is, what do we do with what we do not eat when we come home? What do we do with this portion that we put out of the freezer, and we didn't eat all of it. And we are pretty bad when we go to a restaurant too. And too often we don't eat our full portion. We may wrap it, but, but do we actually eat it the next day? In general, we do not. Norbert - Dave, I have a question. I recognize you as a sustainability expert. So how does understanding the pinch points for aquatic food losses and waste help households, the food industry and, and policymakers? Dave - Seafood is one of the most expensive proteins. If you go to the grocery store, it's going to be, you know, $9, $10 up to $15 or $20 a pound. And really, consumers don't have that amount of money to throw out. If they're going to buy it, it's in their best interest to eat it. So, we're looking at ways that the seafood industry can package and sell products that are going to help consumers, you know, stretch that dollar. One of the ways is through frozen seafood. Selling prepackaged individual units frozen. And, through this project, I've started to buy a lot more of that type of type of seafood. And you can also buy it now for other kinds of meats. And you just, whatever you want to prepare probably that, that next night you, you know, cut out the packaging, put it in the fridge and a little bowl in case from food safety standpoint in case it leaks. And then you don't want to leave it on the counter overnight or leave it out for a couple hours. But so, there are ways that you can package products that perceive what consumers are going to ask for. And you can still get that freshness in seafood, even if it's frozen. Because a lot of frozen seafood is frozen on board the vessel. It's frozen sooner than it actually would be if it was processed in a processing plant. So, you know, I think it's kind of a win-win. We've been exploring cook from frozen as a not just food waste, but also for other angles of sustainability. Because of course when there's waste is also the embodied energy and the embodied water and all the things that go into making that food. And when it gets to the consumer, it's got a lot more of those steps involved. Norbert - Thanks, Dave. I will say from some of my own research looking at package size, and package configuration that smaller, more readily used products are less likely to be wasted. I can appreciate that kind of innovation in seafood products could also be beneficial. And my family, we're big users of frozen seafood, and the quality is good. So, these are really helpful ways of thinking about how we as consumers can make adjustments to our behavior that can actually mitigate some of the food waste that you all observed. And so, because of this research, what new insights do you have about loss along the supply chain for aquaculture versus wild capture fisheries? Dave - That's a really good question. I can speak to the production stage. That's one of the areas we looked at where you see the most amount of food loss - at the production stage anyway. But we sort of split it out as the fisheries losses were either discards or bycatch. And from aquaculture, people had not really estimated what food loss looked like in aquaculture. But we looked at disease and mortality as a cause of food loss. We asked farmers, what's your typical mortality rate when you're raising shrimp or salmon or tilapia? We got back their mortality rate, we did some modeling, some estimation and found out when a certain percent of that harvest dies. Not just when they're babies, but when they die close to the harvest period, we'd count that as, as food waste. Because there are ways to control disease in aquaculture. You know, it's not going to be zero. There are always going to be some animals that die. But, if you do control disease, you can cut down on some of this kind of perceived food waste in the process. So, we counted those two things differently. I would think a good example would be Alaska sockeye salmon. Over the last 10 or 15 years, they've instituted a lot of new methods for reducing damage to fish when they're captured. For example, now you get incentives as a fisherman to put down rubber mats. So, when the fish come off nets, they don't hit the boat hard, they'll hit a rubber mat. Their incentive is to bleed the fish, which helps with quality. And of course, to ice them when they're caught. You know, a lot of the catch of sockeye salmon in the '80s - '90s, didn't necessarily get refrigerated after it was caught. It went to a canning line. And folks eating canned salmon, they couldn't tell the difference. But as the salmon industry in Alaska transitioned to more of a value-based fishery, they increase the quality, increase the percentage of fillets compared to canned. I think a lot of these things go hand in hand with value. As you decrease food waste, increase food quality, you can sell it for more. I think that's a nice transition point for a lot of farms and producers to think about. Martin - Since we're on salmon, I have a quick follow up on that. I noticed in the paper there is some differences in the rate of food waste for wild caught sockeye and for farmed Atlantic salmon. And in my mind, I immediately went to, well is that because most of that wild caught sockeye is ending up frozen? Maybe it's sold at the fresh counter, but it's been previously frozen. That's certainly my experience as a seafood consumer. And most of that farmed Atlantic salmon is actually sold directly as fresh and never frozen. And so, I'm wondering how much of that is a driver or how much it's really the disease thing? Dave - It's probably a little bit of both. At the retail stage, if you're going to a grocery store and you're looking at that fresh display case, the rate of waste there is somewhere between five and 10 percent of what's in that display case. It's going to end up in the garbage. They want to just have a nice presentation, have a lot of different products laid out there and they don't all get purchased. Some grocery stores will prepare that and sell it on a hot bar. Others, their principle is we just want to provide the freshest thing and they are okay with a little bit of waste. For canned and frozen seafood, the rate is more like 1%. And as Frank alluded to, sometimes people pick up a frozen item and they get to the checkout counter and they go, you know, I didn't really want to buy that. And they might slip it into you know, another aisle where it shouldn't be. That middle of the chain, there's not a lot of waste that we saw. You know, wholesalers and distributors, that's their job to deliver food and they really do a good job of it. And then at the upstream stage, the production stage, there's a big range in waste. And it depends on the product forms and at what point is the fish cut and frozen. Martin - So, I have a question for both of you now, maybe changing topics a little bit. So, reducing food waste, food loss and waste, is an important element of environmental sustainability. I think we all agree on that. And that's particularly in response to climate change. We know that Greenhouse gas emissions associated with our food system are a major contributor to climate change. I'm wondering, sort of looking ahead, what role do you see seafood in general playing in a future in which we might price carbon emissions. We might actually make it costly to buy products that have a lot of that embodied greenhouse gas emissions in it. Frank - Yeah, pretty well actually. But it depends a little bit on what's your current diet. If it has lots of red meat, seafood is going to do really well because red meat in general have significantly higher carbon emissions. If you're a vegetarian, maybe not that much. So, in the bigger scheme of things, seafood looks pretty good in the category of animal proteins, largely together with chicken. The difference between most seafoods and chicken is not too big. And of course, there's a little bit of variation within the seafood. They of course have a problem though in that nature produces a limited quantity of them. And if the amount completely takes off, there's no way you can increase the supply. So, then it must be aquaculture. And then you are more than slightly better or approximately chicken. Dave - And I'd say you know, if you want to learn more about this topic, stay tuned. We've got a paper coming out about that. It should be out fall 2024 or early 2025. Similar to the waste piece, we've done the energy footprint, the greenhouse gas footprint, and the water footprint of all the products you see in the Nature Food paper. And we're really excited to share this finding soon. Martin - That sounds really exciting and I can't wait to see it. Norbert - I'm curious about your thoughts on how trade incentives or restrictions could be used to remote access to aquatic foods in addition to climate resilience of the food system? Frank, could you give us your thoughts? Frank - Oh, there's a short answer to that or a complicated answer. So, the short is, of course, you can do like you're done with some other challenges. You also have dolphin-safe tuna and turtle-safe shrimp and so on. And you could basically make it hard to enter the market for people with bad practices. And you can make it easier to enter the market for producers with good practices. But if you go to the more complicated thingy, and particularly if you are also interacting with domestic supply chains, then we do know really well that eating beef is a real environmental challenge. But I still cannot see a world, at least within the foreseeable future, where US policy is going to sort of suggest that we're going to import more seafood so that we can produce less beef. And when you get to all those complicated interactions, yes, you can use trade policies to advance some agendas. But they are certainly going to run into some others, and it's a challenge when there's so large heterogeneity when it comes to what do you think a good food system is. Norbert - Dave, what about you? Dave - Well, I sort of come at this from a different angle. You're thinking about local; you know. What's the value of local food and local and regional food systems? And so, in principle, I'd like to suggest that to people to buy their food from regional markets. Because of the connection to place and that's really important. Once you have that connection to place, then you start to value the environment where it comes from. You get a little bit closer tied to the labor market and the folks who grow and produce that food. So, I like to kind of come at it from that perspective. Invariably we're going to have some internationally traded seafood. Right now, 70 percent of seafood is imported. But I think looking at opportunities to support your local and regional fisheries, and your local and regional aquaculture, I think there's a lot of merits to that. Some of them could be climate arguments. And there's lots of other good arguments for it as well. Frank - I agree with that, but I really think that you should have the caveat that producing your seafood, or really any food under good microclimatic conditions, with good soils or water for that product, gives you food with a much smaller footprint than what you have necessarily locally. And particularly if you're producing something that doesn't really belong that well locally. And it's also really important that, except if you fly your food by air the carbon footprint of transports is tiny. Dave - Yes, that was, that was one thing we found. With air cargo be really careful. You want to buy live seafood or fresh seafood that's air freighted, that's going to be a big piece of the carbon footprint. And really for consumers, an easy way to chip away at their environmental impact is to cut out stuff that's flown in fresh. But, you know, that flies in the face of what restaurants and grocery stores are trying to sell, which is 'the freshest.' ‘We're going to give you never frozen super fresh.' So there's a bit of a disconnect there. And I think unlocking that is going to be getting into some of these chefs' minds and talking to them about - you know fresh is important, but how do you want to spin this in a way that you can have it fresh today, but you also can have it fresh in the future. Not just today, but a few generations down the road when it is possible to fly in food from all over the world that have that perfect plate. And you know, this is something that we need to engage with lots of different people on. Martin - It sounds a little bit like you're suggesting a, a world in which we, we seek to consume fresh local, and frozen global. In the sense that, that you cut down all those, those transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, if you're doing frozen seafood, and you can exploit that sort of natural comparative advantages of different places to farm and different places to catch seafood with those global markets. But, but for the real fresh stuff, there might be some benefits to eating locally, including those, those greenhouse gas emissions. Dave - When we looked at the trade from Asia, 99 percent comes by container ship. You know, almost nothing's being flown in. And then when you look at closer markets to the US. What was Europe... it was maybe closer to 50 /50 for flown versus shipped by water. And yes, I think South America was similar. I guess the closer you get to the US market, you know, there's that incentive to kind of fly it in and get the price premium. There's definitely a reason to do it, but it does come with a part of the carbon footprint, you know. It's, it's maybe a quarter, maybe a third, you know? Frank - But as Marty alluded to, as long as there's no cost associated with the carbon footprint as is the case now, nobody will really care. It's first when you actually have a system where there's a price to it that you would expect to see any real change. Dave - Yes. And, we did some work, sort of a spinoff to this. We looked at the US seafood industry and then they become more carbon neutral. We teased that out for a couple of different sectors: farmed catfish in Alabama and wild caught salmon. And there are steps that producers and fishers can do, but a lot of it's going to have to depend on their local utility. What's the energy mix of the utility? Because that utility energy mix is what feeds the plant. It feeds the energy going to a catfish farm. And they use a lot of electricity, but they don't have a big say in what the Mississippi Electric Cooperative or Alabama Electric Cooperative chooses as its energy mix. So, I think there's, it's really a 360 issue that when you start trying to unpack energy and climate, it goes well beyond the seafood sector really quickly. So, we can be a voice. But it's going to take a lot of people to make systematic change. Martin - Great. So, I had one final question to ask each of you. And that's really about what's next? And I know we have this other paper that's coming out to look deeply into the life cycle of the different species featured in your food waste paper. But I'm wondering specifically what's next on seafood waste and, and what kinds of things will affect what kinds of policy changes might be on the horizon, what kinds of things will affect change, short of, I guess, what we've already talked about. Which is some, you know, sweeping carbon legislation that, that prices carbon. But short of that, what other kinds of things are going to affect change and what else do we need to know? Let's start with you, Dave, and then then we'll go to Frank. Dave - I think we sort of laid out the big picture. The estimates for the US supply for different production stages. But I think we really need to drill down into case studies where folks, us and, and colleagues, I know Ronnie Neff is exploring this with you Norbert, but really drill down into case studies that try out some of these ideas that we have. Some of the innovations being implemented and see how they work and maybe scale up the best ones. Frank - Right. And beyond that is like companies are doing what companies always have been done at all stages in supply chain. As long as new technology makes it profitable for them to be more sustainable, they're going to be more sustainable. So, there's going to be a lot of new packaging and new ways of chilling and so on that will help. But at the end of the day, the biggest challenge is you and I as consumers, and what we both buy. Because that determines what products is going to be on offer. And then how we treat them after we have purchased them. This podcast is co-sponsored by the Recipes Food Waste Research Network Project, led by American University and funded by the National Science Foundation. BIOS Dave Love is a Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Dave's work focuses on aquaculture and fisheries and the environmental, social, health and food system issues related to those industries. He also engages in a wide range of food-related topics including food waste, veterinary drugs and drug residues in foods, antimicrobial resistance, and CAFO worker and community health. In 2012 he founded a research and teaching farm at the Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore and oversaw the facility from 2012 to 2015. The farm is now called the Food System Lab and is a place where students of all ages learn about urban agriculture. The Food System Lab is a member of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore and sells produce at the Waverly Farmers Market. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins Dave was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Kara Nelson, working at the interface of engineering and microbiology, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California Berkeley. Frank Asche is a professor of natural resource economics at the University of Florida School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatic Sciences. He is a natural resource economist with a research focus on seafood markets, production of seafood from fisheries and aquaculture and the sustainability of these production processes. Frank is president of the International Association of Aquaculture Economics and Management (IAAEM), editor for Aquaculture Economics and Management and associate editor for Marine Resource Economics. He was also a member of the team that developed the Fish Price Index of the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).​  

On this episode, my guests are Martin Lena and Linda Poppe of Survival International. They join me to discuss “fortress conservation” in the Congo, the issues facing Kahuzi-Biega National Park, and the recent victories of Survival International there. Linda is a political scientist and director of the Berlin office of Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous peoples' rights. She is also part of Survival's campaign to Decolonize Conservation, which supports Indigenous peoples, who continue to suffer land theft and human rights abuses in the name of conservation.Martin is an advocacy officer for Survival International. He primarily works on Survival's campaign to Decolonize Conservation and has collected testimonies directly from communities facing violations of their rights in the name of conservation. Show Notes:What Conservation Looks like in the Democratic Republic of the CongoThe Evictions of the BatwaSafari Tourism in DRC ConflictThe Militarization of Conservation in Kahuzi-Biega National ParkLand Guards vs Land GuardiansOrganizing Victory! Scrapping French Involvement in Kahuze-BiegaThe German Government Continues to Fund the ParkSolidarity: How to Respond / Act in ConcertHomework:Survival International: French government scraps funding plan for Kahuzi-Biega National Park, citing human rights concernsSurvival International Decolonize Conservation CampaignBalancing Act: The Imperative of Social and Ecological Justice in Kahuzi-BiegaTranscript:Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the End of Tourism Podcast, Martin and Linda. I'd love it if I could start by asking you two to explain to our listeners where you two find yourselves today and what the world looks like there for you. Linda: Well, hi everyone. My name is Linda. I work for Survival International and I'm in Berlin. I'm at home, actually, and I look forward to talking to you and chatting with you.It's dark outside already, but, well, that's, I guess, the time of the year. Martin: And I'm based in Paris, also at home, but I work at Survival's French office. And how does the world feel right now? It feels a bit too warm for October, but other than that. Chris: Well, thank you both for for joining me today. I'd like to begin by reminiscing on the season three interview that I had with your colleague Fiore Longo, entitled "Decolonizing Conservation in Africa and Beyond."And in that interview, we discussed the history [00:01:00] of conservation as colonization in the context of Tanzania and the national parks that were built there and the indigenous lands that were stolen in order to do so. I'm curious if you two could offer a bit of background for our listeners in terms of the history of conservation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and especially in regards to the Batwa people and the Kahuzi Biega National Park.Linda: We were quite you know, astonished of the colonial history that, we find in the park where we're here to discuss today. Well, the Congo, obviously, you know, was a colony. And I think in this context, we also need to look at the conservation that is happening in the DRC today.And a lot of the things that you have discussed with our colleague, feel very true for the DRC as well. And the, the park that we're going to look at today, I think it's probably [00:02:00] also the best example to start to explain a little bit what conservation looks like in DRC. It's an older park, so it was created a longer time ago, and it was always regarded as something that is there to protect precious nature for people to look at and not for people to go and live in.And this is exactly what the problem is today, which we see continues, that the people that used to live on this land are being pushed outside violently, separated from the land which they call home, which is everything for them, the supermarket, the church, the school, just in the name of conserving supposed nature.And unfortunately, this is something that we see all over the DRC and different protected areas that exist there, that we still follow this colonial idea of mostly European [00:03:00] conservationists in history and also currently that claim that they're protecting nature, often in tandem with international conservation NGOs.In the park we look at today, it's the Wildlife Conservation Society, and they're, yeah, trying to get rid of the original inhabitants that have guarded these spaces for such a long time. Martin: To build on that, in our campaign to decolonize conservation and survival, we often say that fortress conservation has deep colonial roots and you can definitely see that with the the actual history of the of Kahuzi Biega National Park because it started as a reserve that was created by the Belgian colonial government in 1937 and It was transformed into a national park after independence.So in the 70s, but it was still designated as such following the lobbying of a Belgian conservationist. So it's really the continuation the Western and the European will to keep controlling the, [00:04:00] the independent territories. And that in Africa oftentimes was done through conservation.Linda: And it also has this idea of, I think a lot of the conservation projects that we see, Martin just said it, there was also this post independence push on creating national parks, which was obviously related to the idea that Europeans might lose hold of control in certain areas, so they were pushing for the creation of national parks like the Kahuzi Biega National Park.And that is the setting that we're talking about, basically, something that has very colonial roots and has been pushed into the post colonial era, but in a way which is actually very colonial. Chris: Thank you both for that brief, brief history and introduction into what we'll be speaking about today, Linda, you mentioned that so many of the circumstances around the creation of these national parks includes the exclusion and [00:05:00] displacement of the original inhabitants.And in this case, among others, this includes the Batwa people. And so I'd like to just give our listeners a little bit of a context for what's happened to the Batwa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And so the statistics tell us that "over 90 percent of the 87, 000 indigenous Batwa people in the park have lost legal access to their native territory, turned into conservation areas, and who are desperately poor," according to a 2009 United Nations report.Now, in a recent Reuters article, it's written that, quote, "Local human rights and environmental experts say that the authorities failure to fulfill promises to the Batwa has undermined efforts to protect the forest and its endangered species, including some of the last populations of eastern lowland gorilla.Some of the Batwa around the [00:06:00] park participate in the illegal poaching, mining, and logging that are destroying the gorilla's globally significant habitat. As a result, the conservation outlook for the park is critical, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature." The article goes further and says that "the Batwa have no choice because they are poverty stricken, according to Josue Aruna, president of the province's environmental civil society group, who does community outreach for the Batwa." It seems in this way that the land rights and traditional lifestyles of the Batwa are intimately tied to the health and survival of the ecosystems within the national park, which they've been excluded from, and that their poverty is a consequence of their displacement. Do you think that the issue is as simple as that? Martin: It's always interesting to read these reports from the conservationists, whether it's the IUCN or the NGOs, because the problem is always "the local people. So they are poor and they [00:07:00] have no choice. They participate in poaching." and it's always their fault.Like you were saying, if they end up being poor it's because they were evicted from the land. And as Linda was saying earlier, the forest and the land more generally is everything to them or was everything to them. So it's not only the place where they get food, it's also the whole basis of their identity and their way of life.So once they lose that, they end up in our world, capitalist system, but at the lowest possible level. So, that's why they end up in poverty. But it's a problem that was created by the conservationists themselves. And even when you read Their discourse or their position about trying to improve the situation for the Batwa, it's always about generating revenue ,lifting them out of poverty, developing alternative livelihoods. But what we are campaigning for is not some alternative to the loss of their rights. It's Their land rights themselves. And to go to your other question [00:08:00] about the fact that the loss of their land rights has led to a degrading in the health of the ecosystem.I think, yes, for sure. That has been the case, and it's what we're seeing all around the world in these protected areas that are supposed to protect nature. But actually, once you evict the best conservationists and the people that were taking care of the land for decades, then there is room for all kinds of exploitation whether it be mass tourism or luxury safaris or even mining and logging concessions.So it's not a coincidence if 80 percent of the biodiversity on the planet is located in indigenous territories. It's because they have lived in the land. It's not wild nature. They have lived there for generations. They have protected it and they have shaped it through their practices. So, to us, the best way to protect this ecosystem is to ensure that their land rights are respected and blaming them for poaching or putting that on the fact that they are poor, it's just [00:09:00] dishonest and ignoring the basis of the problem.Linda: Yeah. I agree. And when you just read out these sentences, I noted down like the way it was formulated, as a result, the park is threatened. It's again, just focusing on the local people as being the problem. Like the protected areas, they are to protect an area from the local people, which I think becomes very clear in the way you explained it. And also, like, Martin, I'm quite struck by the idea that they talk about poor people, but ignoring that, you know, their actions that of the Batwa have also caused this poverty. So it's, in a way, you know, first you make people poor and then you kind of insult them almost for being poor and then, you know, acting accordingly.I think that is quite, you know, ignoring what has happened. And I think it's the same with [00:10:00] the general model of conservation. Like the sentences you read, I mean, there is some sympathy in it, you know, it sounds like, "oh, these poor people," you know, "in a way we regret what has happened and that they were evicted."But it's like "those poor people," they don't really look at, you know, why were they evicted and what are the consequences for our kind of conservation today? Like the consequence could be that the Batwa can return to their land because they are the best guardians and because it would give them a base to, to live, not in poverty.So that consequence, they don't see it's because they ignore all the things that have caused the supposed poverty and have caused this kind of conservation that we see. So, don't think about what we've done in the past, we'll just go on, but that is a problem because they don't learn any lessons from what has happened and that land rights should be so important.Chris: Yeah, I think that it definitely points towards this notion that I think a lot of people are becoming apt to in our [00:11:00] times in these days, which is the general kind of approach to the dilemmas in these contexts are to look at the symptoms of the dilemma and not the causes.And in the context of the eviction and exile, displacement of the Batwa people, one of the articles mentions that "one of the consequences of the induced poverty includes the endangering and further endangering of the eastern lowland gorilla." And I mention this because in my research leading up to this interview, this conversation, I looked into the tourism offerings in Kahuzi Biega, in the National Park, and I found the following.I'm just gonna read off a list of what I did find. " Gorilla safaris, or trekking. Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center tours. Camping safaris. Cultural tours. Bird [00:12:00] watching. Hiking. Climbing and boat cruises." And so my next question is this. To what extent does the safari tourism in the national park play a part in this conflict?Linda: Oh, that's a super interesting question. I mean, it obviously depends on the specific park that you look at. But I think I would say in almost any national park that we look at in Survival, there is some kind of idea that this park needs to have tourists. Tourists need to come and go and see the beauty of nature, ideally Western tourists, so that they become involved in conservation and donate money, and also in a way that tourism would be a way to pay for services that are related to maintaining the park.So it's something that usually always pops up. It's kind of, it's like twins a little bit. And, you know, I, I work on, on [00:13:00] mostly German politics and how they relate to this conservation. And it's something that you can't really separate where you read about conservation projects that the German government funds, you will always also read about tourism.So they're very interlinked. In some parks, you know, there isn't a lot of tourism because the situation is not very attractive to western tourists, but the idea is always there. And then the extent to which tourism actually happens obviously differs and then has different effects. In some parks that we work on, There's a lot of tourism, there's a lot of creation of infrastructure for tourists, hotels, for roads, for tourist vehicles to go places.Then it obviously has a much stronger impact on the area and also on the people that live there. If there are less tourists, then the actual effect of tourism is, of course, a little bit less than it might sound in these proposals to have tourists there at all.Chris: In the [00:14:00] context of conflict zones, which from what I understand this particular park in the Congo is a conflict zone, or at least parts of it, that tourism can act as a kind of barrier between local populations or local ecologies and the consequences of those conflict zones, right? But it doesn't necessarily stop the conflict. It just turns it underground, it turns a kind of blind eye to it, waiting, in most instances that I know of, until the organized crime in the area ends up getting, you know, their hands into the economy of, of the tourism itself.Martin: Yeah, I mean, I agree with Linda that it's always there and it's always under the discourse and it's never only about conservation, there's always tourism. And often the national parks are created for this purpose. If you read the UNESCO definition or the IUCN definition of what a national park is, it says it's also for [00:15:00] recreation.So these places are built for tourists. against the locals. So, yeah, it's always there and it's even in the definition.Linda: So yeah, when you said tourism is a barrier in some cases tourism can amplify the problems that are there because there is more eviction or there's more interest of, for example, governments to evict people, to create this great picture of nature, which is so attractive to tourists.So I think, I would find it as something that can really worsen the situation. I think from what I've seen, you know. We sometimes talk about sustainable tourism or respectful tourism, but in the terms of conservation projects, my impression really is that it's been harmful.And the indigenous populations that work in tourism, which is one of the things that funders of conservation projects often [00:16:00] say, that they can find jobs in tourism. A lot of these jobs are not very good. And I would argue that a lot of times people need to take these jobs because they have lost the choice to not take a job and live from the forest.Chris: Yeah, it's an interesting thing to wonder about in the little research that I did around what's happening in this particular park in the Congo, that there are rebel groups. It is a conflict zone, and yet there are these tourism offerings, right? And that surely, the champions of the National Park and conservation and in many areas would say, "well, you know, the more, the more tourism we can get in here the more we can undermine at least the economic causes if not the political ones that are contributing to the violence," when in fact, from what I can understand from Survival's work, that this is just deepens the causes that produced that conflict and that exile in the first place.Linda: Yeah. And I think there's also [00:17:00] perception of injustice, which we shouldn't underestimate. I mean, if you're an indigenous person that has been violently evicted or whose family has been violently evicted from a certain area, and then you see, Western tourists mostly, which are rich, you know, pay a lot of money for these trips, are allowed to go in and use that area in a way. I think that also creates, yeah, a sense of injustice, which is also, yeah, it's quite, quite sad. Chris: Mm hmm. Definitely. And then that's certainly what we see in over touristed places around the world and in places that are just starting to become over touristed, this kind of deep resentment amongst locals for the inequalities, the growing inequalities and yeah, as well, the injustices that these industries bring.And so on that point of conflict zones, especially in and around Kahuzi Biega. I wanted to ask you both a question around the militarization of conservation. So, [00:18:00] some people believe that militarized park police, which is what exists in this park, are a necessary evil.Officially, at least, "the guards protect the park from armed militias or rebel groups in the area, ensuring that they stay out of the park." Of course, those who they confront and sometimes attack also include the indigenous people, the Batwa in this case, who are trying to retake and reclaim their ancestral lands.And the argument is that without the guards, the land would fall into the hands of much more malevolent groups or forces. And so how do you think the presence of armed conflict as well as militarized conservation guards complicates the issue? Linda: That's a tough question. Well, maybe I can just give like a little anecdote.It was actually about this park, the [00:19:00] Kahuzi Biega National Park, and we were talking to German politicians and government officials about the problem of conflict and about the problem that these park rangers you know, are trained and have a lot of weapons, which seems very militant. And they, they were seeing the problem.They were seeing that this is probably not the best thing they should do, support security forces in an area which is already so problematic. But their thinking was, if we don't give them the money, now we have created this this force, basically. We have hired people, we have trained them.Now, if we stop supporting them, what are they going to do? You know, they're gonna maybe take the training and their weapons and make it even worse. So in a way, I mean, this was off record, right? They were just kind of thinking out loud. But in a way, they were seeing that the projects that they have supported have created structures which [00:20:00] very likely will increase conflict.And it seems quite obvious also because you see all these conflicts with indigenous peoples. So, I'm not going to say that it's a very peaceful area and there is not a need maybe for people to defend themselves. But in a way, the structures that we have in militarized conservation are not the solution.You know, they make the situation much more complicated than it initially was. And now, like, in this park, we're in a situation where we witness terrible human rights abuses, and everyone's scared to act and do something because it could get even worse. And it's, yeah, it doesn't seem like a very good solution.I think we need another way. We can't just stick our head, and say, oh, you know, we just go on, we'll just go on and then let someone else deal with it in a few years. I don't think that's a very good solution. Very good example.Martin: And it's questionable also to what extent do these these guards, these armed [00:21:00] rangers actually protect the, the parks and the species because they are here supposedly to fight against illegal wildlife trade and poaching and everything.But what studies have shown is that the root cause of of poaching and of the, of the illegal wildlife trade is mostly the demand for such products that comes from industrialized countries or at least other parts of the world and the system is made for the guards to take action against the local population and not against the actual criminal networks that lead to illegal wildlife trade and poaching.They get money for people they arrest and the easiest people to find are the locals that are trying to get to their ancestral lands. And there's also sometimes the park management involved in these criminal networks. So, you pretend to put in place a system to fight against illegal wildlife trade, but there ends up being no choice but [00:22:00] for the guards to, to take on the local people. Linda: Maybe we should also think about the indigenous populations as guards, or maybe guardians is the better word, of this area. And if we zoom out of the DRC and look at South America, where we have much stronger land rights... it's not perfect, but of course, better for indigenous people.They often act as guardians or guards of these territories, even though they're also confronted with illegal logging, quite brutal illegal logging, for example. But in a way, they are there and they, of course, are supported by authorities ideally, in defending these territories, but you see a less violent or militarized conflict because you have the indigenous guardians, as opposed to starting out with their protected [00:23:00] areas and armed guards, which are not just there to defend themselves, but have extensive rights of use of violence, and they don't have to fear any repercussions if something goes wrong and they kill, for example, an indigenous person.I mean, that's what we've seen in this park, that they can basically act with impunity. Chris: And thank you, Linda, for offering that example of the difference or the contrast between places like the Kahuzi Biega National Park and the DRC and other places in South America, for example, where there is this inherited intergenerational understanding of guardianship and while there's only maybe a half a century of conservation industry in these places, of course, they're an extension of the colonial project or projects that were undertaken much further back in time in places like Africa and places like the DRC before it was known as such.And then what happens, you know, after X amount of [00:24:00] generations after this kind of exile and displacement, that there is no lived memory anymore of what it means to be a guardian of your place. And I don't just mean as a title, but in terms of how you guard that place, as an indigenous person.We might be able to say that the Western world or the modern world that that's very much what we've become is people who are unable to remember or have a lived memory of what it's like to adequately stand as guardians for a place. You know, I think with the work that you two in Survival International are doing, there's a path forward towards that.And I'd like to remind our listeners that we're also here speaking today in part because there was a victory that was won by Survival International on behalf of the Batwa people and activists like yourself. And so I'd like to just read very briefly from [00:25:00] July 2023 press release from Survival International, in which it is said that, quote, "in a landmark decision, the French government has scrapped its plan to fund the controversial Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo."France's Minister of State for Development, francophonie and International Partnerships, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, confirmed that the plan to begin financing the Kahuzi Biega National Park has been scrapped. Ms. Zacharopoulou said, quote, "It has been abandoned, in line with our requirement for the respect of human rights."So first of all, I'd like to say congratulations to you both and to your teams at Survival for for getting this this victory and for doing the work you need to do in order to get there. And I'd like to [00:26:00] ask about the strategies that were employed in order to revoke French support for the park. You know, so many of these efforts and victories are either ignored in the context of the endless dilemmas or they're celebrated kind of superficially without considering the work it took to organize such campaigns.And so my question is, how has this campaign been organized by Survival International? Martin: Well, to give a bit of context the first time we heard about the French Development Agency planning on funding Kahuzi Biega, it was in the exact same time period as the publication of a report by Minority Rights Group International detailing brutal waves of violence in 2019 and until 2020 of appalling human rights abuses. So, atrocities that including murder, torture, rape [00:27:00] the burning alive of children, the burning of villages. So, we are, in this context, where we are reading the minority rights group report and understanding the scale of these waves of violence against the Batwa.And around the same period, we see that the French Development Agency has been a delegation, including the director, has been to the park and plans on funding it. So, of course we are appalled and and decide to write to the French Development Agency, but also to the to the ministry that has oversight.So, one of them is the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And then we wait. And then we also got the support of a senator who also sent a letter and asked a question in Parliament to the government about their plan to fund this park in the context of these human rights violations.And so in July 2022, so last year, they decided to suspend temporarily the project. It was also in the context of an internal scandal because there was an expert[00:28:00] in the field and contracted by the French development agency to carry out a feasibility study. And he was basically saying around, and it can be heard in recordings saying that basically the study is just a formality and that the decision to fund the park has already been made.So there's both scandals. An internal scandal about the due diligence apparently being considered a formality on the field and the scandal of the very detailed report that had just gone out about the atrocities. So, that led to a temporary suspension. And they said that they would conclude the study and look into the abuses into social aspects.And then a year passed and we kept sending letters, of course, and doing some public campaigning about it on social media, et cetera. And then the senator asked again a question in July this year, and that's when we learned that the project was cancelled. So, of course, it's a victory, and it shows that sometimes the government actually does have the oversight[00:29:00] on the development agencies and takes the right decisions.But, of course, it's just the whole model still needs to be challenged and the park still has many international backers, even in the context of the atrocities that we that we know about. Chris: Mm. So the senator that asked about the status of the funding and found out that it was in fact scrapped, the scrapping of the funding was never made public until that point?Or there was never any press release saying so? Martin: No, they made it public, In the answer to the question, orally, in, in commission in Parliament. Chris: Mm. And would there be no way that the French public, for example, would be able to find out about this otherwise?Martin: I don't think so. And to be honest, I'm not even sure the decision had been taken before. I think they looked into it again because the senator asked a question again, but that's just speculation. Chris: And you spoke about writing letters, obviously to politicians and to the ministries [00:30:00] and also social media campaigns. Do you think there was more of an effect on the scrapping of the funding because of the public campaign, the social media campaign? Martin: Yeah, I think and that's basically the whole premise on which our campaigns are based is that an efficient mobilization of the public opinion will lead and the fact that the public cares and is informed will lead to a more efficient lobbying and advocacy of the governments and, and other government agencies. So yeah, I think one can't go without the other. And I don't know what would have happened if only the Senator had asked the questions or if only the Senator had asked a question or if we had only sent a letter and no public campaigning at all, or no press release, or no social media, I don't know. So I think, yeah, both go hand in hand.Chris: Mm hmm.So do you think that without the report from the Minority Rights Group, that the funding would have gone ahead, regardless of what was actually happening there? Martin: It's possible because we know that the funders were aware for years and [00:31:00] years of the human rights violations. And even before the waves of violence that are described in the report, we know that they were aware of that risk of violence at that time and of the human rights violation in the whole context of the militarized park.So, I think it could have very well gone ahead, because the other funders knew and kept funding it. And yeah, it's very important to get that kind of report with very detailed testimonies and information from the ground, and really documenting these atrocities. Otherwise, it's just business as usual.Chris: And the original proposal for the funding at least by the French government or the ministries involved, they were basically just promoting conservation in the way that it typically is. That's what the funding was for? Martin: Well, it's hard to know because they never published anything and actually, they never actually started funding it.It was just, just a project. Like I said, they went on a visit there and started making [00:32:00] promise to the local conservation agencies and to the local authorities. It's not clear to this day what exactly they were planning on funding, but it was clearly stated that there were planning on supporting the park itself, but I don't know for which kind of activities, but still, funding the same structure that that has been responsible for these abuses is still unacceptable.Chris: Mm hmm sounds "sketchy," as we say in English. And and so for our listeners, just a little bit of further context while France simply abandoned plans, the country had not yet made, or the government had not yet made, Germany continues to finance the park despite France's, however, subtle acknowledgment of human rights violations.And so, Linda, my question for you is, first of all, why is Germany funding a national park in the DRC to begin with? And, if you know, [00:33:00] how does that money get spent? Linda: Well, I guess the, the German interest in this park is pretty old, so the German government started funding the park already in the 80s.And there were some other projects even before that, supposedly. But it's considered to be a very, well, it obviously is a very long running project financed by the German government. And some local people call it the German park, because they assume that without the German funding, it wouldn't even exist. Like the kind of money that has been given over decades and the kind of things that have been funded, the infrastructure, the Congolese conservation authorities, the park rangers, you know, all the things that were funded basically crucial for the park to function. So yeah, it is a very German funded project. And also the German government has for very, a very long time looked at it as being a prestigious [00:34:00] project.You know, it was this great park, the gorillas, you already mentioned it, you know, and the Germans been funding it, which when you know a bit about German history, post World War II, there was a lot of interest in biodiversity and conservation funding because it was a good thing to do, which gave Germany a little bit of a different international picture than it had after the war.So there was a lot of interest in funding projects, and they were perceived as being fantastic, and they were shown to be these great projects that Germany is supporting internationally. And then, obviously, it isn't, but the German government has been very, very good at denying that there are these problems, and the role that it has had in facilitating these horrific human rights abuses. Mm. Chris: And how, if at all, has the German government responded to the [00:35:00] scrapping of the French funding? Linda: Very good timing, because I just got a response today, actually from the German government. Mm. 'cause we did point out to them that the French government has decided to not fund the park because of the violations of indigenous people's rights and because of human rights concerns. So we pointed this out to the ministry again, just in case, they would not have learned about this themselves. But the reply basically doesn't address this at all. You know, this was what we wrote the letter about and the replies about all the great things that the German government keeps funding and the improvements it is supposedly seeing on the ground and these improvements justifying their continued support.So it's just a letter explaining why they continue funding it and not addressing why maybe partners like the French government have decided not to fund it. And it's something that we have seen over the years. I think [00:36:00] survival first raised human rights violations in the Kahuzi Biega National Park in actually 2017, so that's quite a few years ago.There was a Batwa family. A father with his son, a teenage son. They were going into the park to collect herbs for medicine because another son of the family was sick. They encountered park rangers who killed the teenager and hurt wounded the father. So it was quite a terrible incident.And the father wrote to the German government, to the funders, and he complained about these human rights violations and the fact that the Batwa had lost access to the park and to their livelihood because of the German funding. The German government just said, "well, you know, there's not much we can do about it, basically."They tried to pay some money, but then really nothing, nothing else happened. And over the years, the situation hasn't improved. It has [00:37:00] gotten worse. But the German government keeps saying that they have faith in the Congolese conservation authorities and they do not see grounds to stop the funding or the project.They keep saying that they see progress. And things will get better. And we know it hasn't gone better. Chris: I'd like to return anyways to this this question around tactics and strategies and organizing. It seems that activists and those not directly involved in social movements struggle with the weight of our times.I mean, it's you know, kind of hard to ignore these days. And so, given that the German government, I imagine, is the obvious next target in the campaign to defund Kahuzi Biega, or at least the conservation authorities and programs there, what tactics, what strategies are being employed by Survival in your campaigns, [00:38:00] and how might our listeners in Germany, France, Europe, and, and beyond, how might they participate?Linda: That's a very good question, because, as I said, you know, Survival has been working on this for a few years, and there's a little bit of frustration, of course, that not much is happening in the terms of acknowledging the problem of funding this park. I think what Survival, what we're thinking is, quite important in this issue of conservation is making sure that donors in the West understand that this is a very symptomatic problem.So, a lot of conservation projects function like this and it is because there is this underlying problem with them, that they do not acknowledge land rights. But they continue to say that certain government authorities or certain conservation organizations are best put to run these places. It's the same with the [00:39:00] Kahuzi Biega National Park.The German government now says, "well, we know there are problems, so we pull in the WCS. They're the conservation organization and everything will be better. But it won't because they also have a record of not respecting indigenous people's rights. So, we need to make them understand that there is this underlying issue of not acknowledging indigenous people's land rights.And we try to do this by pointing out that this is a problem which is happening in a lot of national parks. So, protected areas that Survival has looked at in Africa and Asia, almost all of them, even the ones that we were told were good examples, have these problems. And we try to show that to the donors that have such big impact on these conservation projects and make them rethink what they're doing.It's a very difficult process, of course, because they've always done it in a different way. And now it's hard for them to think [00:40:00] about, you know, giving control and power to local people, which until now they've always said is a threat to conservation. It's like a total turn of what they assumed so far.But for us, it seems like that's the thing that we have to do for them to actually acknowledge the problem, because otherwise all the solutions that they come up with are not real solutions. They put people like the WCS in power, which is also not going to respect the Batwas' rights. Chris: Yeah, I think one of the critiques around development is in the context of these industries, especially things like conservation, volunteerism is another one that as industries, you would imagine that they would have in their mission statement, or vision, or ten-year plan, the slow and intentional disappearance of their own industry, right? Because if what they were [00:41:00] doing was working, we would need less of them. And there would be less of them, but here we are, right? And it's just, of course, a massively growing industry, both conservation and volunteerism. Martin: Yeah, it's true that our key targets are the donors, because like many of the issues that indigenous peoples are facing across the world, the root of the problem and the funding for these problems come from the West and our societies. So that's going to remain one of our targets and key part of the strategy. I think we are starting to see a shift in the discourse, in France, at least. And when we talk to the politicians, we also see that shift, that shift in the discourse of the conservation NGOs, but it's still as harmful. So instead of saying that these places are wild and empty and that the local artists are destroying it or encroaching, well, they still say it, but they also say that what we were saying before about the poverty issue and that [00:42:00] they will generate new projects and new activities and development basically.So, I think that they are starting to acknowledge the presence of these people. They couldn't be further from recognizing their land rights because, like you said, otherwise it means their own disappearance, and they're not built for that. Linda: Yeah, so it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing. I mean, I think we try to talk to people that are more inclined to understand the importance of indigenous people's rights so that we can have a base of people that support our campaigning, which is very important for us.And then we select our targets and try to engage the people that support us in convincing these targets to change projects or change their minds. And sometimes, you know, that can just be it a tweet that texts someone who we know makes decisions about certain [00:43:00] projects, try to raise awareness that there is concern about this project, that some people disagree, that this doesn't comply with human rights, that this doesn't comply with, agreements or treaties they're supporting for indigenous people's rights.And sometimes it's a more complex lobbying strategy. So there are different things we try to do and sometimes, like we saw with the example of the French government, sometimes it works because there's timing, there's different things coming together. But obviously, even though we have a lot of strategies, it's always difficult to know what will work in the end.So we try different things and try to engage with people that will help us spread the word about the need to decolonize conservation and do it differently and acknowledge land rights. And sometimes it's little things that really change a lot. Sometimes we work on something for a long time and it wasn't the right strategy and we need to change.[00:44:00] Chris: Well, speaking of how might our listeners find out more about Survival International and the decolonize conservation campaigns and especially around the work that you two are doing. Martin: Well, I strongly encourage people to read more of our campaigns on the website, on social media, also to subscribe to our newsletter, because that's where we mostly share our urgent actions.So which are one of our tools to put pressure on the targets. So, mass emails basically sent by our supporters to the targets about specific projects. And we also publish some video, direct video testimonies in our tribal voice projects, as we call it.So if they want to listen to, to the victims explaining the problems they are facing, but also the way of life that they have lost or sometimes more inspiring things about the resistance and and the fight. I think it's also very interesting to hear directly from the people affected.But yeah, I strongly encourage people to join the movement by [00:45:00] any means possible. And sometimes as Linda said, just small actions like a tweet or sending an email through these campaigns can be can really make an impact and and it does help ensure that the advocacy and the lobbying is effective.Linda: Yeah, and I think it's also a nice way to picture that you're showing solidarity with, for example, the Batwa, who often perceive the Western donors as being the cause of their problem. And I think for them, it's nice to see that there are also people in the countries that, where the problems originate that are standing up for their rights and supporting them.And I think it's probably the least we can do also, because we're so obsessed with African nature that I think it would be a very good step for us to think about the people that live in these places.Chris: Yeah, absolutely. And maybe not immediately or superficially in part because of the inundations and the dilemmas in our times, but that kind of [00:46:00] solidarity can begin to break down as well, the largely like unconscious nationalist tendencies we have when we think of other people in other countries, we always associate those people with their governments, right?Which is just like, absolutely ridiculous when anyone thinks of themselves in relation to their own government, right? But these are two faces, two voices of the resistance that are working on behalf of many others.And so I just wanted to reiterate that we're here today just to have the chance to be able to speak about a little bit about this this small victory that all willing will lead to many more to much bigger ones in regards to the Decolonize Conservation campaign of Survival International.It takes work and I'm grateful to be able to speak with you both today and to have you share some of your work and your dedication with our listeners and I will make sure that all of those links that you mentioned, Martin, will be on the End of Tourism website and available for our [00:47:00] listeners to sign up to the newsletter and follow on social media and of course participate if they so wish.Thank you both. Linda: Thanks. Martin: Thank you.​ Get full access to ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

Sheltering from the rain under a yew tree in a Shrewsbury churchyard, we chat to 'Tree Pilgrim' Martin Hügi, the Trust's outreach manager in the South East. He's taken a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats and visit thousands of incredible trees along the way. Hear Martin on awe-inspiring trees that have rendered him speechless, the vital Ancient Tree Inventory that helped plan the route, the value of ‘plugging in' to nature and what's in his kit bag! We also hear from Adele, who explains that old trees like those on Martin's pilgrimage are not protected or prioritised like our built heritage. Find out what you can do to help. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.  Adam: Today I am off to meet the Tree Pilgrim, which is the moniker of Martin Hugi, who is doing a proper marathon pilgrimage from Land's End to John O'Groats using the Woodland Trust's Ancient Tree Inventory, so you're gonna visit a huge number of ancient and veteran trees, something like 6,500 of them he's expecting along his walk and I caught up with him in Shrewsbury in Shropshire, which is just on the River Severn about 150 miles or thereabouts, north, north west of London, and I caught up with him at a rather rainy churchyard. This is very unusual because normally I join people on walks, but actually you've been walking for what, what day is it?  Martin: I'm on day... 79 today   Adam: You had to think about that!  Martin: I had to think about that.  Adam: Yeah. So this is so you've actually taken a break and you've come into Shrewsbury and we're, we're we are in a green space in a churchyard where, now we're we're here for a special reason. Why?  Martin: So last night I was giving a talk, talking about ancient trees and the the need for greater protection and just telling my story of what I've been up to.  Adam: Right, well, first of all tell me a bit about this pilgrimage you're going on.  Martin: Yeah. So I'm calling it an ancient tree pilgrimage and it is a walk from Land's End to John O'Groats and I spent 12 months planning meticulously a route between some of the most amazing trees that I could fit into a north-south route and working out the detail of how I wassgoing to get to those trees via other trees on the Ancient Tree Inventory.  Adam: So the Land's End to John O'Groats, which that walk, famous sort of trip which is called LEGO for short, is it?  Martin: LEJOG, or JOGLE if you go the other way.  Adam: LEJOG, right OK, LEJOG.  Martin: Land's End to John O'Groats.  Adam: OK. It's long if you do it straight, but you've gone, gone a sort of wiggly woggly way, haven't you? Because you're going actually via interesting trees. So how many miles is that gonna be?  Martin: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, it's if you're going to go a sort of more classic route, it would be something like 1,080 or 1,100 sort of miles. The route that I've planned is 2,077 miles.  Adam: Wow.  Martin: So it's double.  Adam: 2,077 mile walk.  Martin: Yeah, I had estimated doing 18 miles a day. That would be, that was my average. I'd sort of planned rough stops where I thought I might be able to get to. I'm more doing about 13 miles a day, which is not a lot less, but it's, I'm spending more time with the trees. And I, we also we lost our our dog on the day that I was setting off. We went down to Penzance to start and we took our our old family dog with us and he was very old and and elderly and he actually died on the morning that I was going to set off. So we just drove back home and didn't fancy starting again for another couple of weeks. So if you can be behind on a pilgrimage, I was already 2 weeks behind, but actually, I'm on a pilgrimage, so it's it's it's about the journey.   Adam: Would you say you're a religious person?  Martin: Not in the classic sense of an organised religion, but I, I do have a spiritual side to me for sure. Yeah.   Adam: And what difference then, you you talk about this tree pilgrimage and it not being about the distance, it's about the journey, which, you know, one often hears. What, if anything, have you learnt about your feelings for the natural world, or what you think it can offer you, or what you can offer it during this journey so far?  Martin: Yeah, I think I'm learning about my connection with nature and ancient trees and the sites that they sit in as being good places to access that connection. So one of the stories that I tell is about meeting the Majesty Oak in Fredville Park in Kent. And we went with a conservation trip with work and it's just such an incredible tree at it's 12.5 metre girth and a maiden oak. And it just goes straight up and it's just it's, it's, it's bulk, it's sheer dominance and size literally blew my mind to the point where I was speechless for a couple of minutes and I wasn't the only one, and because I think it it just it takes you out of the ordinary state of ‘this is what a tree is' and it put me into a state of, this is something different, and it was a a real feeling of awe and I get that from ancient trees, I sometimes I will feel awe and that's a a rare feeling in my life and potentially a lot of people's lives. And I think that's well, that's what I'm seeking, I suppose, but it's almost like a gateway feeling for other potential feelings that you can cultivate around nature and trees. Just things like respect and gratitude, and I've actually found myself thanking some of the trees because of, they're just full, so full of life and and they're persisting and the resilience and feeling actual gratitude that they persist and doing what they do.  Adam: And you must meet a lot of people on your walk. 70 odd days in so far, they must ask you what on Earth you're doing and must give you some sort of response. What, have people been surprised, shocked, do they think you're nuts? Do they go ‘can I join you'? What's been the response?  Martin: All of those things, I suppose. Yeah, I'll, I'll sort of tell them what I'm doing and and as soon as I get to Ancient Tree Inventory, I get a blank look.   Adam: OK. Well, you say lots of people don't know about this, let's talk about this. First of all, what is it, and then how do people get involved?  Martin: Yes. So it is a citizen science project, it's an open publicly accessible data set of ancient trees across the UK.  Adam: And so I could, I mean, for instance, today if we think we found this ancient tree, we would go on the register and go, here it is, we think it's a, you know, a an ancient oak or what whatever it is and we measure its girth, its its width at about do you do it about 3 metres high? Is that what you meant to do?  Martin: It's 1.5 metres.  Adam: So only twice wrong *laughs* there we are, well a good margin of error. Yeah, 3 metres is too high. No, I'm short as it is, overblown idea of how tall I am. So 1.5 metres high you sort of take a tape measure and you measure it and you say you you think you you know what it is, you give it a good go and there's lots of online apps you can help you. And you sort of make comments about the tree. You sort of say it's in this sort of condition, but you don't have to be an expert, it is just fine to give it give it a go.   Martin: Absolutely and and actually you don't need a tape measure, you can you can make an estimate and if you don't know what the tree is exactly or don't know what it is at all, you can still add it to the inventory and it will, it won't appear as a public facing record at that point, but it will show up to an ancient tree verifier, a volunteer ancient tree verifier. It will show up as an unverified tree and and I I am an ancient tree verifier, since 2008, and I'll be able to see that there's an unverified tree here and I can go along, I can say, well, it is an oak and I can measure it if I can measure it, if it's possible. And I can record other details about the tree like its veteran characteristics.  Adam: So already, I mean I don't get too bogged down into all of this, but I get notable trees like an event has happened under them, and there's lots of amazing trees where the Magna Carta was signed under one the Tolpuddle Martyr, the first ever union was created under a tree, so there's lots of historically important trees like that. But the the difference between veteran and ancient, is there a clear distinction between those?  Martin: No, in a way it's a subjective thing, but there is guidelines. There are, for different species, there are graphs saying if it's over this sort of girth you you would, it would be erring into an ancient tree. And and different species and different growth rates so there'll be different sizes. My, so a sort of colloquial definition is it's a tree that makes you go wow, would be an ancient tree and be that awe inspiring sort of feeling. But then also an ancient tree is one where you can see that it's been through multiple stages of growth, and what you'd say as a development phase for a tree, so an oak tree for example, you'd be able to see that it's it's, it's gone up and it's done it's mature oak, it's lost limbs and then it's shrunk back down again and then it's gone back up again and then it's come back down again and it's gone back up again and you can see that history in the shape and form of an ancient tree. So an ancient tree is a veteran tree. It's just that it's been a veteran multiple times and it's gone through them.  Adam: And presumably it's different for different species, because I mean, we're looking at a couple of yews, I mean, a yew tree can last 2,000 years. So what might be old for a yew tree is very different, might be old for a cherry tree, for instance. So you you can't apply the same rule for all trees, presumably.  Martin: You can apply that same thinking and principle to all trees that, has it been through multiple stages of life and development. Yew trees for sure are some of the oldest living trees. Something that's really stood out to me in Powys, in Wales and, is how they will put roots down into the inside of their decaying stems. Roots go down, they're called adventitious roots, and it's literally feeding off of the decaying body of itself and then those adventitious roots become stems, and I've seen this over and over, and again in some of the oldest yews that, the internal stems are adventitious roots and the outside of the tree is decayed and and hollow and and so in theory a yew tree is potentially immortal. You know, they just go on and on because you you can see some of these big stems that will have adventitious roots inside them, but that big stem might have been an adventitious route originally, so they're just incredible trees and and all trees will do that.  Adam: And so why is it important that this thing exists? I mean, why why make a register of ancient trees, apart from the fact you might want like quite like an excuse to go around the country listing them, which I I get that might be fun, but why is it important?  Martin: I think there are, there's there's several reasons, really. I mean, apart from, I mean a simple one would be cultural and social history and the heritage as part of our our common collective heritage. But then there's also from a some more sort of biological view, they are old genetics, they're old genes that have persisted, so they're adapted to their conditions, who knows how many offspring they've generated and the genetics that that tree came from, you know, going back into millennia, so I think they're an important reserve of genetic history. They're also nodes of undisturbed soils, so they obviously clearly have been there such a long time that the roots and the mycorrhizal associations under the ground and the complexity of life that is in that area, it's like a node of of life and of part of our landscape that hasn't changed and that is an incredibly important place, akin to ancient woodland soils.  Adam: And the whole the whole idea about ancient woodland itself is that you can't replace tree for tree, you can't knock down an ancient tree and and put in a new tree and it be as environmentally beneficial, so it's surely it's important because if we know about how to modify our landscape, if we're, whether where we should build new homes or or or anything, then actually it's important to know what we're disturbing, you can only do that if you know what's there.  Martin: Absolutely, yeah and I mean *church bells ring* sorry that's just distracted me *laughs*.  Adam: That's fine, distracted, distracted, slightly by the the ominous bells of the church in whose yard we are sitting in at the moment. So, you know, we're we're under a beech, you might hear the rain. We're cowering from sort of fairly light rain and in this churchyard and just listening to those those bells, anyway, they've they've gone, they've gone so.  Martin: It's where Charles Darwin was baptised.  Adam: In this church? Charles Darwin? Well, that, that raises a really interesting point, because also I know the local community were trying to protect an oak. And they called it the Charles Darwin Oak. You know, it's always good to have a name, isn't it? And they called it that because they think, well, you know, Charles Darwin could legitimately have played under this oak. It's old enough, and it's where he was baptised and everything. And it raises this issue, doesn't it, about people's connections to trees and local communities' connections to trees and it, I mean, I, from, as an outsider, it feels that that is becoming more a thing more a thing that people talk about, just regular people do feel it's important to have this connection.  Martin: I I think it's it's it really is yeah. I think people are now realising much more how the trees and the ecosystems around them actually provide us with the atmosphere and the our ability to live on this planet. It really is such a fundamental part of being human and survival to look after these green spaces that it's it's, you know, people are, people do realise that I think people do recognise that.  Adam: It it brings us on to the debate about the environment and protection. It was interesting, on the way here, I was reading an article by Jonathan Friedland, the great writer, who was talking about the ecological debate, saying they've said the the ecological sort of lobby group have the argument right, but they're using the wrong words and and he was saying that you know that that their argument isn't framed in the right way, but it feels like this is a super important moment, maybe a flex point, one doesn't want to overemphasise these things, sort of, but does feel that, I mean, right this week we are seeing heatwaves, I mean sort of properly dangerous heatwaves in southern Europe. Flooding, there was flooding on the motorway as I came here, so we have extremes of weather which feel very unusual for this sort of early summery type period. How worried are you about the environment and our ability to actually do something to protect it and our place in it?  Martin: I am confident that we have the know-how and the ability as humans to change our ways to a more sustainable way of living in harmony. I think that is changing. I think the economics has got to be part of this debate and the conversation, I I read a fantastic book in 2008 by Eric Beinhocker, The Origin of Wealth. I don't know if you've heard of this and looking at the environment as complex adaptive systems, but he was also saying how the economy is a complex adaptive system and evolution of economy, evolution is a, you you can't predict a thing what's going to happen sometimes and  Adam: No, I understand. And that's interesting to the, that the economy is itself an ecology and it adapts to the environment that it's facing. And I agree, I used to do a series for the BBC called Horizons when we travelled the world looking at technology. And I tend to the panicky, I have to say, and I thought this wouldn't be good for me when I'm looking at big challenges facing the world. And actually, I was really drawn to the fact that there are tech solutions to all sorts of issues, and it's often the money that's preventing, you go, ‘we can fix it, it's just not commercially viable'. No one wants to pay to do this at the moment, but if oil prices went through the roof, suddenly this alternative would be commercially viable. So it was, we talk a lot about technology, sometimes it is the economics of it which are preventing us from doing things and the economics change, don't they? So that that might be.  Martin: They do and it's something that is not predictable because there's so many moving components, there's so many interactions, there's so many feedback loops that, I mean, that's something that intrigues me about complex systems is that, the more complexity you have, the more feedback loops, the more agents that are interacting with each other in a system, the more resilient it is to change, but it can shift if if you if you get some events that are just too too much or you you degrade the amount of complexity then that system becomes less stable and that's the, that's the danger with, potentially what we're doing with trees and our environment, our, if you like a tree is an emergent property of the soil, it's it's an expression of of of what, of plant life and it's it started as algae coming out of warm freshwater, sea, freshwater in, 600 million years ago and and partnering with fungi to make, to have lichens. And then you get soil and then other things, other more complex plants evolve and then we've ended up with trees and they're like the, an emergent property of complex systems of the soil.  Adam: So we're talking about people's interaction with the environment. I should explain some of the symphony of sound we're hearing. So we we had the church bells, we had the rain above us. And I think there is a charity Race for Life with, thousands of people have emerged, in in a bit of green land we were going to actually walk through. And I think there's a sort of charity run going on, which is why you might hear, some big blaring music in the background, which is not as quiet a spot as we thought we might have ended up with, but does show the amenity value of these open green spaces. It's just rather a lot of people have chosen to use it on, on this particular day. One of the other things I just want to talk to you about as well while we're talking about this debate, and I know you talk on on behalf of yourself, not the Trust, and you're taking a sabbatical so these are your views, but given the debate we're all having, it feels to me that we talk a lot about armageddon. And I know from talking to people, you know, my family, they they sort of just disengage with after a while it just becomes background noise. And I wonder if you have an idea or an insight into how to talk about these issues to explain that they are potentially the difference between humans surviving and not surviving and yet not just sound like, some crazy guy screaming into the wind and also to stop people going ‘well, if that's the way it is then you know what am I gonna do I, I just better carry on because I can't do anything about it'. Is there a key that we're missing you feel, or an emphasis that we have wrong in engaging with this topic?  Martin: I don't know if I would say I have an answer to whether it's wrong or not, or the way we engage with it, but I think for me the the key is connection to nature and encouraging people and you've got to start young, I think, getting children through forest school perhaps, getting them out outside and experiencing nature because that's where nature connection comes from. And you don't need a, you don't need an ancient tree to to give you a sense of awe. I mean you I I can and ppeople can find awe in a tiny flower, but it's just a case of looking and spending time plugging in if you like.  Adam: You're right. I mean, I'm not sure I'd quite describe it as awe, but I often have in my car like a a little bit of a berry or an acorn and and you know, sometimes, it's going to sound weird now I'm describing it *laughs* but if I'm in a traffic jam or something and I look at those things and go actually, do you know what, if that was a piece of jewellery that was designed almost identical, we'd pay a lot of money for it and we'd go, ‘isn't that beautiful?' And you'd hang it around your neck in a way that you probably wouldn't hang an acorn around your neck or most people wouldn't. And yet you look at it and you go, it's quite extraordinary when you take time to look at these things a leaf or something, and I don't want to sound, you know, too Mother Earthy about it and people to, turn people off about that. But taking the time just to look, sometimes, you go, the wonder is in the detail. It is there actually it's quite fun and it's free.  Martin: Yeah and and I think when we when we go into a potentially, you know an undisturbed habitat like an ancient woodland where there is complexity and and you you immerse yourself in those areas, that's that's where you you you you can see, you can feel life.  Adam: Let me take you back to your walk, because, from which I have dragged you. A hundred odd days planned on the road, carrying all your own stuff. That means you have to find a place to sleep. Wash every now and then. I mean you you smell beautiful so I'm I'm assuming you've found some magic trick or you are washing and carrying clothes. What, just what is the trick for doing that? Because sometimes I go away for the weekend and I feel I'm already carrying far too much. How are you doing a hundred odd day walk carrying everything. What's the trick, what's your sort of kit list?  Martin: Yeah, I I did spend about two years actually building up different kits and trying different things to be as lightweight as possible. But that's in a way that, the whole having to find somewhere to camp, having to find water, these are basic simple things that take you away from all the other stuff that is going on you know, in my life sort of thing so I can actually immerse myself into the flow of of that journey.  Adam: So, but just because you, look, you're wearing a lightweight top, it's it's raining. No coat at the moment, I mean, but sort of how much clothes are you taking? And you know, yeah, how many, how, how many shirts? How many socks? How many pairs of pants? I've never asked this of another man before *laughs* How many pairs of pants do you have?   Martin: Right. Well, I can answer that *laughs* I have five pairs of pants, five pairs of socks, three pairs, three shirts, three T-shirts and just one top that I'm wearing now, a rainjacket and some waterproof trousers and some walking trousers and a pair of shorts. That is actually my clothing list. The the socks, the pants and the T-shirts are all merino wool essentially so they're very lightweight, they're very thin, very lightweight. Don't, merino wool or wool doesn't pick up smells and odours readily. The socks have got silver woven into them, so they're antifungal, antibacterial, and they're pretty amazing socks, actually. And they they dry as well. So the T-shirts are very thin merino wool T-shirts. I can wash them and they'll be dry in a few hours, especially with the hot weather that I was having in May and June.  Adam: Not, not the rain, nothing's gonna dry in this rain, although this tree is providing some amazing cover for us. So look, you've come into Shrewsbury to to to meet me to have a look at this ancient tree, which I I might leave you to measure yourself given the the increasing amount of rain that is pouring down on us. And I stupidly did not bring a coat because I just thought it was such nice weather when I left. Anyway, what is, when I leave you, where are you off to? Where is the next sort of part of this walk taking you?  Martin: Well, I am, will be taken back to my tent, which I've left at a campsite in, near Brecon and and then I am heading north to some yew trees and then to, up to Welshpool and Oswestry and then across into, towards in between Liverpool and Manchester and then north, Cumbria, Scotland. We'll see how, how, how far we get.  Adam: I know you thought the first bit of the trip you've you've not been on pace to actually complete it, but you never know, it, you might pick up, it might might get easier going.  Martin: I've actually slowed down and I thought I would speed up as I went along and as I got fitter and stronger I thought I would speed up but actually I've started to slow down and go at the pace, at a pace that my body wants to go at as well as the time and mental space that I wanted to to have from this trip. Yeah.  Adam: That's the difference in us. You're you're going to go off and measure a tree, and I'm going to find a coffee *laughs* some, somewhere dry. Look, best of luck, an amazing journey. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if you've been inspired by Martin's journey and want to help protect veteran and ancient trees but don't want to take a marathon walk the length of the country, there is still something you can do from the comfort of your armchair.  Adele: So, I'm Adele Benson, I'm a campaigner at the Woodland Trust.  Adam: So what can people do to actually help?  Adele: We're running currently the Living Legends campaign to secure better legal protection for our oldest and most special trees. Because ultimately we are seeing some of our oldest trees with, you know, immense ecological wildlife and historic value being felled, or the value of them is not being fully appreciated in law. We've got a petition with almost 50,000 signatures and and we're trying to ultimately get to 100,000.  Adam: So if anyone is interested, they can search the Woodland Trust's Living Legends campaign on their computer and you can sign that online. Great, great stuff. I I think people might be surprised to learn that buildings often, or perhaps most of the time, get better legal protection than trees, even if the trees are older and actually more significant than the built structure next to it.  Adele: Yeah. So in Hampstead Heath, there's a, it's approximately 300 year old beech tree. And and it was planted next to a fence that had just been erected so think back 300 years ago. Now this fence has a Grade II listing on it, but the beech tree doesn't have any legal protection at all. So when they were found that the roots of the beech tree and the trunk was sort of impacting quite heavily on the fence, they were very, they wanted to essentially cut down this tree and remove it. However, that's not now happened luckily, but it's essentially having that equivalent of protection that is so desperately needed because we're valuing this this built heritage but we're not valuing this natural heritage that we have such a wealth of in the UK. The Woodland Trust celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and in that time, it's been working considerably to protect some of our oldest and most special trees and woodland, and ultimately I think it's now a time for action.  Adam: So let's just remind everyone that is the Living Legends campaign, which you can search for online if you want to sign that petition. And if you just want to find a woodland near you to walk in, just go to the Woodland Trust website, type in, find a wood that will come up with a whole range of places near you that you can visit. Until next time, happy wandering.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you. 

EVERYTHING ELSE SHOW: Martin & Marc discuss what it is like to have life-threatening heart issues, to be saved by modern medicine as well as what it is like to undergo lifesaving surgery with an intense recovery. Amazingly, Marc discusses how he seemingly healed himself through retraining neural pathways.Note from Martin: It is difficult to outrun genetics, but I could have possibly avoided coronary artery disease by diet and more exercise. A low sodium diet is extremely beneficial, also staying away of high cholesterol foods and keeping your "bad" cholesterol in check.

02:44 - What Are Roller Coaster Profits  06:16 - The One Objective Of Business 12:15 - What Are Margins? 15:47 - What Impacts Margins The Most? 22:39 - Do You Know Where You Break Even? 24:50 - The Difference Between Target Profit And Target Sales  28:50 - You Make Money, But You Don't Have Any . . .  35:39 - Inventory Terms And Supply Chain Issues  39:10 - Delayed Gratification  42:45 - What're The Signs Of Bad Books? 48:32 - Integration Into Your Techstack Quotable Moments “It's so important for people to realize that it's a target profit and not target sales. When you have a target sales, that's what leads you to do things like discount.” - Khalil “The smarter bidders out there are including some of these things like there might be weather delays. There might be issues with material orders where I still have to pay my guys, but I don't have the materials to do the job. You've gotta keep in mind when you're bidding.” - Khalil “The number one thing to follow is your margins because it tells you what your break even is.” - Martin “It's sales that bring margins and the margins have to be sufficient to pay your overhead expenses. Resources CFC 030 - Get Paid With Jan Reeves CFC 090 - Building A Family Legacy With Michael Barnett CFC 054 - Financial Statements Made Easy — Balance Sheet The Cycle Of Business Download  Need Marketing Help? We Recommend Benali Watch On Youtube Follow On Social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Subscribe To Our Newsletter, The Countdown Have Questions? Email us More from Martin theprofitproblem.com annealbc.com    Email Martin Meet With Martin LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from Khalil benali.com  Email Khalil Meet With Khalil LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from The Cashflow Contractor Ask Us A Question Sign Up For A Free Consultation thecashflowcontractor.com  Email The Cashflow Contractor LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

@MartinGinnane from  @ginnaneassociates is an expert advisor on #retaildevelopment #placemaking and #brandactivation. He's worked with international cities and regional towns on major #investmentattraction #regionalrenewal and #retailrenewal projects. He was the #vicgov first retail industry specialist, is a member of the @victoriangovernment #SmallBusinessMinisterialCouncil and had senior roles at the #vicgov #DepartmentofBusinessandInnovation and was #DeputyManagingDirector of #DowntownDutyFree. The following quote from his website sums up his philosophy and approach to the work he does."Global Cities of significance all have one thing in common, a strong and vibrant, culturally diverse heart that encourages people to live, experience, participate and claim ownership of their location. At the heart of these cities, is a unique offering that makes them stand out from the sameness that is making so many cities bland and boring. Retail strength, placemaking and events are the economic backbone of all successful global cities and large residential developments." He's currently working on a major retail renewal project with the @cityofwarrnambool and in the discussion we cover;bringing his experience with major city #investmentattraction to regional townsthe exciting opportunities ahead for #regionaltownsavoiding the 'sameness' that is making so many cities bland and boring, the #oversuccess of big citieshow #Covid19 fast-tracked problems in the retail sectorwhere and how #prestige  has lost out to #masstige  and why "luxury is about where you found it rather where you bought it"#liebigstreet #warrnambool the critical role of #localgovernment   #restorationgrants  #landlords #localcouncilthe component pieces in a vibrant and vital #retailstrip#treechange and the influence of these younger people when they return to the towns they were born in#foodandbeverage #whiskybars #goodbottleshop  #ginbars #goodpizzabuilding #sustainable #businessmodel from services and products that appeals to #locals and #visitors #smallbusiness an #employmentgenerator in #regionaltownswww.kerrcapital.com.auA full transcript of the interview is below. Michael Kerr: Hi, it's Michael Kerr here presenting Small Business Banter.A healthy micro and small business sector means a successful economy and a more vibrant society. Small Business Banter is about helping regional business owners better prepare for current challenges, but also for the next stage of business success. I'm Michael Kerr, founder of Kerr Capital, advisors to business owners.Each week I interview a fellow small business owner or an expert and they share their stories, their life experiences, the wins and the losses, and their best advice to help you, the listener, get the most you can from your own business. Small Business Banter is brought to you from the studios of 104.7 Gippsland FM and is heard across Australia on the Community Radio Network. Thanks also to Kerr Capital supporters of the show.Okay, welcome to another edition of Small Business Banter. Really pleased to have in today with us, Martin Ginnane, from Ginnane & Associates. Martin will tell you a lot more about what he's done in a few minutes, but I just wanted to cover off some of the highlights. He's principally responsible for advising on retail development, place making and brand activation. He's done a lot of work in both big cities and regional areas. He's a member of the Small Business Ministerial Council, and he's really a Retail Industry Specialist here in Victoria. And prior to that, he was the Deputy Managing Director of Downtown Duty-Free. Firstly, welcome in today, Martin. Martin Ginnane: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Michael: And for today's discussion with Martin, we're going to be talking about regional renewal, making the most of retail, attracting investment, and lessons learned from some of the major initiatives. Martin was involved in Melbourne and now has been working with regional Victoria locations in Camperdown Warrnambool and Ballarat. So we're looking forward to that. But Martin, if you could, just give us a couple of minutes in your background so the listeners are in sync with where you come from and what you do. Over to you.Martin: Thank you, Michael. I'm fortunate enough to have had a very varied background, but all around the retail sector. Born in Melbourne many, many years ago. I was raised in Melbourne. I spent 20 years in Sydney where I started my retail career with companies such as Angus and Coote, The Jeweler's and Diamond Traders, which was part of then of the Hooker Corporation owned by the illustrious George Herscu. And then was poached to join Downtown Duty Free in the days when Duty Free was a big business. We had Melbourne Airport, Brisbane Airport, Sydney Airport, and about 15 off-airport stores. So, at about 6,000 staff in those days. I joined there as Deputy Managing Director. And after six years, we were taken over by Swiss Air Company. I was retrenched and thought, well, I'll come back home to Melbourne. I came back to Melbourne and was appointed as the Victorian government's first Retail Industry Specialist at a time when Melbourne in particular had vacancy rates as high as 17 to 18%. I was appointed under the Kennett government for 12 months and ended up staying there for 17 years. And during that period, I work mainly on investment attraction for the CBD, an original advisor on the Melbourne Fashion Festival for the state government up until I departed 10 years ago to establish my own business, Ginnane & Associates.Michael: Excellent. So, from that background, you know a lot about foot traffic. So I'm looking forward to exploring the work that you've been doing. I mean, drawing on that rich experience, but also relating it to what you've been doing in some of the regional parts of Victoria. So, I just wanted to start off with a quote from your website, "Global Cities of significance all have one thing in common, a strong and vibrant, culturally diverse heart that encourages people to live, experience, participate and claim ownership of their location. At the heart of these cities, is a unique offering that makes them stand out from the sameness that is making so many cities bland and boring. Retail strength, placemaking and events are the economic backbone of all successful global cities and large residential developments." That's straight from your website. It was very powerful. I'm going to ask you about how regional towns and regional cities in Australia can take something from that. I'm assuming it applies across towns as well as cities.Martin: Most definitely, Michael, it does. It's a big statement, and it's a strong statement and it's one that I'm thinking actually of using on every single presentation that I do to whether be commercial or private government, particularly in this day and age. It came from the fact that a lot of things were happening in the retail sector prior to COVID. We can all say that COVID caused it, but there are massive changes happening prior. One of the things that was driving this belief that I have in that statement is that sameness was happening all around the world. So you could walk down in Collins Street, you could walk down all the major cities, and they were taken over now by the mega giants, the Louis Vuitton's, the Gucci's, the Prada's, who roll out their international branding twice a year.So, you can walk down these streets and look in the windows and you'll see the same thing. The only time that you'll notice if you'll look up and you'll see St Paul or St Patrick's Cathedral or Notre Dame and you'll think I'm not in Melbourne, I'm in Paris. So seriously, that's how bad retail was getting.Michael: They'd taken that McDonald's consistency of product just a little bit too far with their retail.Martin: Yeah, and I call it masstige rather than prestige. It has got to the point where the big players are having to buy smaller boutique operations now to make themselves unique and so-called exclusive again because of the success and over success of some of those global brands.Michael: Too much commoditization of a once glorious brand. Martin: Exactly. So, one of the things that comes out of this is the desire to experience something that is different and unique. One of my other sayings is, "luxury to me is about someone says where did you find that as opposed to where did you buy it." Because you can buy anything these days. If you've got the money, you can buy something at the top. When within 18 months it'll be at H&M or probably far less than that, or how you can buy the copy of it. But the wonderful discovery, finding something, whether it's a great old book or pre-love tie or whatever the case may be. So, jumping back into your question. This is where retail cities and towns across Australia had the upper hand. It is really, really their opportunity to shine. We can discuss that as we go along. Michael: Yeah. Look, I think we ought to jump straight into that. The renewal or the potential renewal of the local shopping strip. I mean, you're doing some work recently, I think, in Ballarat, which got some magnificent real estate and grand streets. But what would you take to those places to make that local shopping strip vital and exciting for the locals? I'm assuming we're not going to have potentially some of those big international luxury brands.Martin: Nor do you want them. But Michael, what I think is the scenario is that it's going to be driven by two things. You've got to have an appetite by the local government. You've got to have an appetite by the council. For example, I just almost finished four years work with the City of Warrnambool on the redevelopment of Liebig Street. So they had a counselor at the time who had a vision to say to themselves and their constituents, "If we don't do something with this beautiful old big wide street, it is falling into such disrepair that we are losing out to the new shopping centers that are opening and almost circling like a western movie with the wagon train circling the town." Michael: Right. And choking it off.Martin: And choking it off. Now, this scenario with success for any regional town or major strip is to make sure that they are no longer just selling stuff. I use the difference between a product and an NSA stuff. This is not being derogatory to any of the brands that are in the shopping centers around regional cities. And those shopping centers do offer convenience. If it's pouring with rain, a young mother can drive in or a young father can drive in. Unload the baby. It's dry. They are not going to get wet. But although found in those shopping centers is stuff. They'll find inexpensive football socks for the kids which they need because they grow so quickly. They'll find a dress. They might find a cheap, inexpensive set of cabinets or something for their bedroom. That's fine.When they come into Warrnambool or when they come into Ballarat or when they come in to Camperdown, it's about wanting to come into town because that is where they are going to experience and find things that are different and unique. They are going to be able to engage with the community in a much nicer environment, wider footpaths, planting, better awnings, easier parking. All those things make for an environment that will make regional cities and towns continue to thrive.Michael: Right. So Warrnambool, Ballarat, other regional towns around Australia, the history is there. But you talked about having local councilors being a big part of the equation they need to support. What about landlords? I mean, some of these buildings are grand and make for beautiful retail or food or whatever. But the older they get, the harder they are to maintain, or the costly they are to maintain.Martin: You can see examples not just in regional towns. You can see examples on Chapel Street under the Council of Stonnington on Glenferrie Road in many, many areas. One of the advantages that live shopping centers have is that every so many years, your store must be refurbished. You must meet the guidelines of the shopping center and so forth. So while that creates a great Disneyland feel and a very, very nice, safe environment and a pleasurable environment where we're almost craving. Well, we are craving something that's a bit more earthy and a bit more real.Warrnambool, and I know the City of Ballarat as well. Warrnambool successfully offered restoration grants for property owners during the redevelopment program. The City of Warrnambool got that funding from federal state and from their own coffers. So three lots of funding. I believe the City of Ballarat has done the same for the renewal of the mall. I believe both cities are offering grants and financial assistance to restore and renew these heritage buildings.Michael: Right. So assuming the landlord takes advantage, then it does really open up the opportunities for smaller retail operators, whether they be food or whether they are quirky retail, to start something.Martin: Michael, the exciting thing is when you walk down the streets of these areas now is that you are seeing young people. You are seeing in Warrnambool there's, I think, three whiskey bars. There's a gin bar. These are all being run by young people who were born and raised in Warrnambool. Evidently, you do need to either be born there or marry somebody. And if you marry somebody, you need to be married for 20 years before you are classed as a true business owner.Michael: Before you get your stamp. Yeah.Martin: Even though I've been there a lot, I still don't think I'm a local. But they are coming back to town. They are seeing opportunities to come back to their town and make a living for themselves and their families. There's new housing estates being built in big numbers around these large and medium-sized regional cities. And these people come in many ways, quite often from urban environments, and they still want to live the same way. They want to be able to go out to a whiskey bar. Well, they want to be out to buy some nice cheese and some nice bread. Michael: Yeah. And in today's edition of Small Business Banter, I'm talking with Martin Ginnane from Ginnane & Associates. Yeah, that's a trend that we talk about all the time on Small Business Banter. The movement back from CBD areas, whether it be Sydney or other states and capitals, and this reinvigoration of towns and those people bringing with them some of their experiences. There's no question me, Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane and Adelaide have some incredible innovation in food, but it seems to be transplanting now in these regional locations. Is that a result of people just having enough of the city being too expensive to run businesses? What are your thoughts on why this is happening?Martin: I think, Michael, you are spot on it. But it's a combination of all those things. It's a combination of perhaps the over success that large cities have had in terms of urbanization, particularly Melbourne, in the last eight to ten years. Massive increase of student population, which we see the massive contribution they've given to the economy, particularly as I haven't been here for the last 12 months. It's a combination of all those things. People want to not necessarily escape, they just want to experience something, whether they are moving permanently or whether they are visiting. The other thing that's happening, of course, is that the ability. I know someone in particular who's going to be working. He stays in Ballarat but is working from Melbourne firm, and then you need to go to Melbourne that twice a week. So all that flexibility is something five years ago we didn't have.Michael: Yeah, I think you made a comment earlier about not what you bought, where you bought it or you found it. You know, I live down the Bellarine Peninsula. My office is in Queenscliff. Well, it's fascinating every day to walk through that street and what it might be and see the gin bars and the distilleries. Not so much in Queenscliff, but certainly in other places, it's booming. It's a combination of that vigor and energy. If you were to take a view of what the next town that wants to reinvigorate their retail strip, the historical retail strip, what are the key that we've talked about to support to restore buildings? I guess we need landlords to come onboard and buy into the vision, and the small business operators. What else or who else is needed to really kick start getting these places? Because people are traveling more and more through regional Australia because you can't go elsewhere. So the opportunities would seem to be there if you've got an interesting offer.Martin: The LGA, the Local Government Authority, has to have the passion. And the counselors, the CEO, have to have a dream of what that town could be. In many eyes, retail doesn't play a part. Retail services and hospitality don't really play a part in local government plans. They may have a four-year strategy for economic development, but retail and services don't normally play a big part in it. So, in order for what you've just said, the other players, the landlords, the small business operators, the potential investors. You have to know that you are moving into an area or considering to move into an area where a council is hungry for your business and is keen to get it.I'm just about to deliver an investment attraction to the opportunity in Warrnambool where we are inviting some of the big commercial real estate agents down to have a look at what the area has to offer. How it's grown, how it's changed. Not necessarily to get any big players down but for them to be able to put Warrnambool in their head for property investors, but also for businesses that might be looking to expand. Michael: So you're saying that retail and retail services aren't really a driver for the LGAs. Is that it?Martin: No. I'm not saying that with all of them, but with a lot of them it's very much... When I started originally with the state capital which was over 20 years ago. I remember having a director said to me, "But Martin, why are we even playing in this space? One shop closes, another shop opens." It's not as simple as that. It's a scenario where council needs to lead the way in a vision of what they want the city to be. And when I say retailer, not necessarily just talking about selling more stuff. A good regional town, a good regional city, should attract people. It should attract its own people. It should attract visitors. But it should attract them for a multitude of reasons. Retail, food, beverage is one of the biggest drivers in today's market.Michael: Absolutely. It is. And it's certainly an area for further discussion. But if you look around, I spend a lot of time in traveling in regional Victoria. I go a long way for a good bakery, a good beer, a good pizza. So, what are the components for a good contemporary retail strip in any given town? What must you have to get people to choose that town over another town? Martin: You have to have two things. You have to have a business model that appeals to the locals, and you also have to have a business model that will appeal to the visitors. Now, I spent a lot of time as a young boy, which was a long time ago in Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, and I remember how it was and I see how it is now. However, for all the success, Daylesford in particular is still very much a weakened economy. Because driven by everything that appeals to the tourist. You must maintain an offering that appeals to your local residents as well. So you need, as you just said, a good pizza joint which Warrnambool has about two and Ballarat has about six. You need a really good bottle shop. You need a couple of good pubs. You need a pub that has good live music. You need a good delicatessen. You know, there's one in Warrnambool called Darriwill Farm. It was a retail released by a woman by the name of Lisa Pitkethly. It's the most amazing business. It's got absolutely everything.Michael: I also tried some stores in the city. I didn't know that.Martin: They had one in [inaudible] and they had one in Albert Park, I think, but I think that both are gone. Lisa's got bought out her own business now. But it's that sort of business where you just go there. It's almost like a small Ikea for food and delicatessen. You just go in. You pick up a basket and you buy. The other thing is, do these towns need this as they get to and need to have the services as well? So there's a good banking infrastructure. There's two insurance brokers. There're things like that that help the community.Michael: Yeah. And those communities would think on across the board of growing. So you've got a bigger and more permanent base to build a business around. This idea of investment attraction, it's still a viable model for local government to think about, local councils. It's not just for big cities. Martin: It's essential because big cities have been so badly hurt. The big cities that have relied particularly on government employees, in a big, big way, and international students. I think of Victoria's wonderful campaign they had many years ago with the jigsaw puzzle. And the course CBD of Melbourne, which I'm actively involved in working on their precincts, review work at the moment. But the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fall on that. So, the students are falling off the table. The tourists are falling off the table. The public servants in town.Michael: I get it. In that investment attraction, I just want to get your thoughts quickly. There's quite a difference between attracting big employers versus attracting new business operators. I'm very passionate about seeing more small business owners. So it's a balance between getting a bigger organization that can employ 20, 50, or 100 people. But also, I think, sometimes the opportunities to attract new and innovative small business operators. We had Carly Flecknoe from the Made the Grampians Way. She's a classic tree changer. This is maybe 30 episodes back. But that's the kind of energy and vigor that I think we need as well as obviously attracting... Not everyone wants to be a business owner, so we need to have a balance. But I sometimes wonder whether small business might get underappreciated as an employment generator. Martin: They certainly never get underappreciated if I'm involved in anything. I've been in small business in different ways on and off for so many years and I know the difficulties of it, but I am so passionate about believing that this is their time to rise. This is really, really their time to rise. They've got access to so much now in terms of they don't need to pay for big advertising. They've got Instagram. They've got everything at their fingertips to grow their business. Michael: Yeah. They got something that's interesting, quirky. They can get people to the destination.Martin: Exactly.Michael: They can build it and they will come. Maybe that's going to come true for some. Martin: Well, that's why we're doing the investment attraction work. It's certainly not to when under no idea that we will attract big brands, but it's about putting the city of Warrnambool and other cities in investors' minds. Michael: Yeah, and really building on the natural advantage, the heritage, the proximity to food, beverage, produce. Martin: And a wonderful life.Michael: And a wonderful life. Yeah. Hey Martin, that is, unfortunately, time up for us today. But that was a really great chat. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your energy and passion for that reinvigoration and renewal. Keep up the great work and perhaps we will chat another time, but go well.Martin: Thank you, Michael.Michael: Thanks, Martin Ginnane.So that is all for today's episode of Small Business Banter. I continue to be inspired, bringing you small business experts and other small business owners and hearing their stories. Do you want to listen to any past episodes? Jump onto your podcast platform of choice and search Small Business Banter. There, you will find a diverse and fascinating collection of small business owners and experts openly discussing and sharing their experiences. For any of the links, resources, or information we've talked about on the show today or to contact me, please head over to smallbusinessbanter.com, or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. It would be great to have you tune in the same time next week for another episode of Small Business Banter.[END]

What are marketing metrics? (4:50) Which marketing metrics matter? (6:24) Measuring marketing production team metrics. (21:23) What marketing metrics do not matter? (32:10) Quotable Moments “Did I make more money from my marketing than I spent on it, in other words, revenue income.” - Martin “It is also your responsibility to understand what's working or not. You can't just throw money out there and then wait five months and say, I didn't get any more. Maybe you did and you just don't know it.” - Martin “Just because something's working right now and it matters today and you feel like is the bread and butter of your business, if you're really wanting to grow, it doesn't mean that it's the same thing that's going to take you like it did from zero to one million to five to ten million.” - Khalil “Follow the metrics that lead to revenue and focus on those.” - Khalil Resources Check us out on Youtube Follow us on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Subscribe to our newsletter, The Countdown Have questions? Email us! More from Martin theprofitproblem.com annealbc.com    martin@anealbc.com  LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from Khalil benali.com  khalil@benali.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram More from The Cashflow Contractor Ask Us A Question Sign Up For A Free Consultation thecashflowcontractor.com  info@thecashflowcontractor.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

Yeager: This is the Friday, January 29, 2021 version of the Market Plus segment. Joining us now, Sue Martin. Hi, Sue. I realize when we started the main show I just said wheat and went marching, I didn't even really say hello. I'm sorry. Hello. Martin: It's fine. Yeager: We needed to get going. We had a lot to talk about. Martin: Yes, we did and it went in a New York second.

Martin Jennings statues have been commissioned by the UK's greatest institutions: the National Portrait Gallery, St Paul's Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster, the University of Oxford, and many others. His statue of John Betjeman, the driving force behind the saving of St. Pancras station in the 1960s, welcomes visitors from all over the world to the capital city. He won the Public Monuments and Statue Associations Marsh Award for Public Sculpture in 2017. Join us for a new episode and BE INSPIRED BY SCULPTURE. You can find images of Martin Jennings work and a transcription of the interview at SCULPTURE VULTURE If you are looking for a new book, the novel mentioned in this interview is currently available free from Sculpture Vulture. This podcast was brought to you by Antique Bronze Snippet from the interview: Lucy: Today, I began our chat by asking him if he'd always been creative. Martin: Well, that's a big, open question. I think we all are from birth, and I have, I suppose, been so in different ways. I went to university, studied English literature, and looked at art literature, as it were, from the outside before I went to art school to start making things myself. Lucy: And so, it was books and literature, words, that drew you before the form and fine arts? Martin: Yes, it was. I come from a very artistic family. My mother was a painter, and I have several brothers who are writers and journalists, and also painters and good at drawing and that sort of thing, and calligraphy. In fact, what I first studied at art school was calligraphy and lettering. But I came to it rather late in my 20s. So I'd struggled with playing the piano at school, and, as I said, most of my exposure to the arts was through books and reading. But as a visual artist, well, I didn't really start till I was in my early 20s. But it has gone on continuously since then. Lucy: Was it somebody that influenced the moving towards sculpture, or did it just feel like a very natural progression? Martin: there was a moment at school I remember, I went into the art teacher's sculpture studio. And as soon as I saw the working life he had, you know, surrounded with blocks of stone, and with dusty books on the bookshelves, and just, sort of, dust everywhere, I came to the conclusion that this was the life for me. I'd never have to put a tie on ever again. But I then went to university, and it took me until after I left university before I really approached it seriously. Lucy: With my own children, we have a studio at home, and there's all sorts of projects all the way around them, but because it's so familiar to them, they kind of go against that. They want to do the opposite of what I'm interested in. But for you, I suppose, the familiarity of having your mum painting, and the materials, and those things at home, just felt much more natural to you? Martin: It certainly seemed like an occupation that could command respect, insofar as my parents were forever talking about art and artists, mainly painters. So where other people

Nonprofit Fundraising in our COVID-19 World with Martin Leifeld Martin Leifeld, author, coach, consultant, and public speaker directed the raising of over $500 million dollars during his 24 years of fundraising leadership in the St. Louis region. Martin authored the book, FIVE MINUTES FOR FUNDRAISING - A Collection of Expert Advice from Gifted Fundraisers. MartinLeifeld.com provides nearly 125 video presentations about leadership and fundraising matters. Martin served as vice chancellor for university advancement at UMSL for 10 years. He led a dramatic increase in fundraising, averaging $26.4 million per year. University Advancement had 140 employees and a $16 million budget focusing upon alumni engagement, community relations, fundraising, marketing and communication, university events, and St. Louis Public Radio. Previously, Martin was associate vice president for university development at Saint Louis University and director of development for the Diocese of Belleville, Ill. Martin was named the 2018 Outstanding Fundraising Executive by the AFP St. Louis Regional Chapter. Martin was selected as the 2020 Millard S. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award from St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU).   Read the Interview Hugh Ballou: Greetings. This is Hugh Ballou. Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Every week, we have a guest who has knowledge and wisdom, and experience in a topic. They have been there and done it, and they have some things to share with you. You're sitting in the seat as clergy, nonprofit leader, or board chair. Maybe you're a business person thinking about launching a nonprofit. This series is here to help you think out of the box, think of some new paradigms, and learn from some people who are experienced. Today, my guest is from St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author of this book, Five Minutes for Fundraising: A Collection of Expert Advice from Gifted Fundraisers. Martin Leifeld, welcome. Would you tell people a little bit about yourself, and why is it that you do what you do? Martin Leifeld: First of all, it's an honor to be on your program today, and I appreciate your audience. I hope I can be helpful. I've been in various leadership roles for around 45 years. 25 years of those were in small and larger universities. 25 years, although they didn't overlap exactly with the universities, I have been involved in fundraising. About two years ago, I retired after 10 years as vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, which is our local urban land grant university here in St. Louis. I had a wonderful run there. Long story short, here in the St. Louis region, which is where I spent my 25 years of fundraising, over $500 million raised, that's a lot of money for St. Louis. It's not about the dollars raised; it's about the involvement, the lives changed, and the impact because of the dollars raised. Two years ago, I retired. It wasn't my timing, to be honest with you. I had health issues. My handle in the last couple of years has been author, coach, consultant, and speaker. A little bit of everything. I think you know what I mean. I have a website, MartinLeifeld.com. There are over 120 videos there on fundraising and leadership. You were kind enough to point out the book. I have been doing podcasts, a couple dozen of them, and regular postings, particularly on LinkedIn. I am trying to give back. This is all about trying to give back to a profession that has been such a blessing for me, so good for me in so many respects. Certainly developed professional skills. I have grown as a person by doing this extraordinary work of fundraising. Hugh: We have in the audience two fundraisers who are CFRE. They're here because they heard about you. We'll let them ask questions later. Martin: I'm beginning to sweat, Hugh. Hugh: They're very nice people. Martin: I hope so. Hugh: I had a funding professional last month. He said he reads a fundraising book a week. My area is transformational leadership and the conductor. The best leaders I worked with in corporate or nonprofits are the people who are always working on themselves. The famous speaker Jim Rohn always said, “Work on yourself harder than you work on your business.” I wrote that down and have been working on it ever since. 73, and still working. Martin: I'm impressed by somebody who would read a book weekly. There is a chapter in the book called, “The Three C's of Fundraising.” The first is competence. If you want to be involved in fundraising, being somebody of impact who makes a difference, you have to develop competency. There are two ways to do that. One is lifelong learning. You are a student of the game, of the practice. That can include certifications and the like. You mentioned CFRE, which makes me nervous. You go to webinars like this, podcasts, so on and so forth, to remain educated and current in the field. But book-learning alone doesn't make you an impactful person in the work of philanthropy. You have to add to that experience. In any profession, if you're working diligently and are learning, being humble as you work your way through successes and failures, you should acquire the kind of experience that makes that study you do come to life and be most virtuous. That's just competence. You have to have confidence. Confidence is not bravado. It's not fake it until you make it. Real confidence grows alongside the development of competence. But to get to your point, the third C is character. What donors want is someone who is competent. They want to recognize a competent professional who is doing their work with excellence and to have that quiet confidence that comes over the course of time. But what they are really looking for is people with outstanding character, people who are virtuous and trustworthy, people who you might say they know they can do business with. They can shake hands and make something happen. If you don't have all three operating, I don't think you can be a master in any profession. Hugh: Absolutely. I have earmarked a few things. I want to talk to you about the correlation between leadership and fundraising. Did you just sit down and say, “I want to write a book?” What was the inspiration, and how did you connect with the people in there, who are all experienced fundraising professionals? Martin: You might find this story curious. Since I turned 30, every consecutive decade since, on the 9th, the 29th, the 39th, etc., I would use that year very deliberately to reflect on my life up to that point, trying to look at success and failure, places for improvement. To look at the next 10 years and try to project what I can do to have an impact. I should say every decade, I got more intense about this, too. Six years ago, when I was 59, I was really working through that year. I decided in that spring to take 100 days and really drill down about the future. Every day in my journal, Day 1/100, Day 15/100, I began my journal. Journaling is part of my morning ritual. Seeking ahead, you might say. Believe it or not, around day 72/73/75, I have what I call a small I, inspiration. The inspiration, as I referred, was to give back to the profession. I wanted to start there. I thought, Well, I had done so much mentoring and coaching and fundraising with staff and volunteers. I was very good at doing something briefly. Somebody asked a question, as you can tell, I can go on for five minutes. Five minutes, I can give a good answer that would be appreciated. Maybe I could do some brief videos. Then I thought, Well, not everyone wants to watch a video, let alone look at me for a few minutes. People prefer to read. Let me do both. So the genesis of the book logistically was transcribing my first year and a half of videos on these very subjects. Hugh, you may know this, and your audience may also. Seven minutes of video, especially the speed at which I talk, only translates to a few pages. I got into this and thought, I am not going to have a book. The other part of this was I never tried to give a comprehensive answer about something. It was more stuff I noodled about, experimented with, discovered that I thought was helpful. That is what prompted me to go out and recruit 26 others to join me as collaborators in this. It was a fun experience because maybe 60% of them I knew, some very well, but the others I went out and recruited based on word of mouth and reference. I had to establish a relationship with them, like a donor, and ask them for their assistance. I found overwhelming willingness to be supportive. Hugh: Wow. 26 of them here, all by name. Each chapter says, “Collaboration.” Speak a little bit about how collaboration works for you, and how it manifested itself in the book. It's interesting how you have each section with dots and italics to stand apart, where there is a dialogue. Martin: What I was trying to do was say something about the particular subjects, insight and angle. I had come to realize through experience and effort and training. Then I wanted to enrich it. I tried to find people. I called them collaborators. In other words, I wanted to start with what I had to say about a particular subject and ask them to add to it. Nobody really directly contradicted me as a collaborator. But they collaborated in the sense that they took the content seriously and enhanced it with their own reflections. Many of them added stories that put the flesh on the bones of the point of the chapter. It was interesting. If I had asked people to write it, they wouldn't have written it because they were too busy. I had somebody help me interview them. We came to it in different ways based on the needs and availability and interest of my collaborators. I tried to collaborate logistically and practically in order to have them help, but they were generous about their time. The thing about this word “collaboration” is the goal is a joint thing we do together. The goal is to bring the best of more than one person to bear in order to, as you talk about with synergy with your organization, to get that synergistic gain, to get that exponential gain that you can't get with just yourself necessarily. Even if you have the authority with CFRE. Hugh: People introduce me sometimes as Hugh Ballou, an expert in leadership. I say, “I'm Hugh Ballou, a serious student of leadership.” Martin: Hear, hear. Hugh: The title of this episode is, “Fundraising in COVID-19.” And the post-COVID-19 world. There are some consistent things and some new thoughts. That chapter with leadership, the Three C's, your collaborator said, “ABC: Authenticity, belief, and confidence.” You and I were talking before about how fundraising is terrifying for a lot of us. I don't want to go. It's like when I was a teenager calling a girl for a date. I didn't want to get turned down, so I stood by the phone and sweat. Is that like people wanting to make a money call? What is it about trying to raise money that is so fearful? Martin: I don't know. It's all about fear. It's the fear of the unknown. It's the fear of being rejected. The fear of fumbling your way through it. The fear of someone being rude to you. If you will be embarrassed in front of them or embarrass them. It's something new. I haven't done it before. For those in religious work, it's unseemly. I shouldn't have to do that kind of thing as a pastor. Leave that to someone else to do. There is a lot of things. When I first got into major gift fundraising, in the St. Louis area, I would criss-cross southern Illinois, a larger rural area, sometimes driving an hour or an hour and a half to see someone. Talk about sweating bullets. I would rehearse half the trip, “Hugh, would you and Mary consider a gift for the education of poor elementary kids, a gift of $10,000? You could even pay that over three years.” I would say that over and over again because I couldn't trust myself. When I first began to do it, and I fumbled, it was a long drive back, knowing I hadn't done what I set out to do. I began to rehearse very seriously. Once I got in the home or the office, who knows what might happen? It might be something I couldn't predict. All I had to do was say, “Hugh and Mary,” and out would come the rest because I had rehearsed it. For those of you being called upon to raise money, practice makes perfect. You can do it. But let me shift into something more serious. Fundraising is a privilege. Fundraising is the most honorable of work. Fundraising is a spiritual work. Fundraising is actually a vocation. I came to this once I was talking to a very wise woman about fundraising and the struggles. She said, ‘Martin, you're in a helping profession.” A helping profession? I had never thought of it that way. I thought, Especially now, physicians, nurses, first responders, educators, oh my gosh, the young families. Two of my kids are educating kids at home. They have a manifold of appreciation of what it takes to be an educator now that they are trying to do that in their living rooms and around the kitchen table. But I hadn't thought of my profession of being something that was actually about helping. That's what it is. What we do as fundraisers are facilitators in effect. I like to refer to myself as a facilitator of philanthropy. What we do is on behalf of worthy causes. In effect, what we want to do is come alongside, almost put our arm around someone's shoulder, and say, “Look, there is an opportunity that makes sense to you as I have gotten to know you, and through which you can demonstrate great impact on this world. Here is the idea. Would you consider it?” That kind of work is very powerful and honorable work. I have had the privilege, as many of your audience have had, of interacting with some people of extraordinary success, Fortune 25 executives. I have had some of those people say to me, “Martin, I could never do that job. That is too hard a job.” Some of them knew it first-hand because they were chairmen of nonprofits or board members. They were called upon to go out and do it. They knew first-hand what I was doing full-time. They respected it. We underestimate the value, the contribution we are making in this work. Hugh: Wow. That's a paradigm shift. Somewhere, and it may be in this chapter, “Five Generous Fundraisers,” before we talk more about donors, let's consider you as the fundraiser. Somewhere, you talk about the impact it has on donors to actually donate. There is a point of philanthropy that releases something in you to make that donation, to see something happen. Talk about that. That is an inspiration that we don't think about, the impact that it has on the donor. Martin: First of all, it's all about the donor. What we tend to do is focus on ourselves. In one sense, we should because we want to be professional and effective and do the job with excellence. We also want to represent our organizations with integrity, as effectively as we can. It's all about the donor. What we're into is a business of building lifelong relationships, not just after a transaction. We want to build and support the relationship that the donor has with the organization for their lifetime hopefully. In that relationship-building process, there are opportunities for financial exchange. What this is about is not a transaction although writing a check or giving away stock or a document with a commitment is part of it. But what it's really about is helping people to influence the world for the better, and to demonstrate their values and what matters most to them. In that process of a donor taking their eyes off of themselves and looking outward, looking at, “Okay, I have been fortunate enough to have accrued these assets,” rather than being preoccupied with how I could take care of myself, I am going to give it to others or to the world to improve it. As they do that, they become greater people. Biochemically, by the way, we change. Enzymes are released. One person called it the family bonding enzyme. I used to notice that somebody would make a big gift to one of my organizations and suddenly they would be everywhere. They would be at every event, bringing friends and colleagues, talking about the organization with great enthusiasm. What's this all about? By their making a serious commitment, a gift of greater significance, there was something that happened within their entire being. A wise man, as you know, once said, “It's better to give than to receive.” There is something we receive as an internal, spiritual, reward by giving of ourselves generously. One of the ways we give ourselves generously, certainly in this contemporary age, is with financial resources in addition to our time and talents. Hugh: That's so good. The other thing I earmarked is you wrote this chapter about the donor development cycle. There is a transaction, and there are those who never ask for the sale. I have been there many times. One higher net worth person asked me, “You didn't ask for the sale.” It was my first conversation to get acquainted. But he was a businessman, “What do you want?” Another one, I am packing up to leave after I told him about what I was doing. He said, “Don't you want a check?” Then he wrote me a check and handed one to me a lot bigger than I thought. That was about relationships. But this cycle, you go through steps, identification, qualification, and more. Talk about the process. There is a transaction, but there is a lot more to this process. Martin: The bottom line is this is about a relationship. In the course of a relationship, you go through seasons. In this particular cycle that we use in our fundraising business, you identify. Then qualify, which means are these people of capacity? Are these people who have an interest or potential interest in what we represent? Then we cultivate, which is about building a relationship and involving them in the organization. That can include charitable giving, but not a gift of greater significance. As we get to know them, we are able to think about, Okay, given what they are interested in, how does that align with what we are about as an organization? What dimensions of our organization would be something that would make sense to them, that they would desire to support? Then we have the conversation about asking. Some people are proponents of never asking for money. They just listen their way to a gift. I have always believed to have conversations about money, about scale, about impact, about size. That might be, with this amount, you can do this and that. Provide some options. But I always want to be working with numbers. People want to know what we would like them to do. My experience has been perhaps more often the opposite of yours. If I don't ask, I get something smaller than what I had hoped for. I have always been one to say, “Let's talk about money.” It's a part of life. It's how we carry on in this world. Most people want to get to the bottom line, “How much do you want?” They can say yes, no, maybe so. They want to make that happen, but they can't make that happen now, or they will have to think more creatively about it. They can't write a check. I have always taught our people the 80/20 rule. Listen 80% of the time. COVID-19 has brought us to a hard stop here in some respects, but when you think about the frenetic pace of life that has only gotten faster and faster during our adult years, it has reached the point of sheer lunacy. Was anyone listening to anybody? One of the reasons we are such a divided nation is we completely lost the ability to listen, and listen with respect. What I found in fundraising, and I think many professionals in other fields would say the same thing, if you want success in your life, in your business, in your endeavors, you listen. It wouldn't be that I would listen 100% of the time. But what I found is people desperately wanted to be heard. They wanted to be listened to attentively, appreciatively, and respectfully. Honestly, when I think about to what extent I was a great fundraiser in my career, it's because of the power of listening. I have to ask for money, too. But listening puts us in that best position to understand. What I would do is retain, record, and retrieve. Three R's. Retain. Somebody had something to say during the course of the conversation. I was listening closely and thinking, That's important. Record. I would get in the car, call my assistant, and tell them, “Start taking notes.” Or I'd get back to the office and start typing at my computer. I would record all the various things I thought would be insightful and helpful, not just for me, but for anyone in my organization who would have reason to engage with those people. This is all about preparation. When I would prepare for my next visit, I would retrieve. The thing is in work like this, we are in front of different wonderful people each day. If a month has passed, there is no guarantee I would remember what someone said was important to them a month ago. One way I would respect them is I would retain, record, and retrieve, so that when I would return to them, I could say, “Hugh, so how's Mary Alice doing? You were talking about her facing that surgery.” Or, “Hugh, how's that billy goat dog of yours doing? You were worried about this.” Or, “Hugh, you said you were going to be marrying off your son Charlie. How'd it go?” People know I am representing the organization, but they love the fact that I listened to them as people. I cared about them as people. Do you think when it came to talking about a gift eventually, that put me in a better position to be taken seriously? Without question. It seems like, Geez, this is common sense, isn't it? We have lost a lot of common sense. Hugh: The problem with common sense is it's not very common. *Sponsored by EZCard* Let's pivot. You talked about some brilliant reframing of some old scripts we tell ourselves that minimize ourselves. I am guilty as anybody else, maybe more. That's not my job. I teach leadership. We have been in an era of lockdown. We are going back to work in Virginia. Churches are a sort of meeting with very limited engagement. No children. No singing. There is a new paradigm of how the exercise classes are in the parking lot with rain all week. People are getting paychecks from unemployment. What if that money runs out? Then what? We are facing some new challenges. How does that impact fundraising going forward? Martin: If you look back to the great recession, some sectors did better than other sectors in terms of fundraising. In the great recession, I had just come to the University of Missouri to take a campaign that was already underway public. I was there a month, and the economic sky fell. The world was thrown in the craziness. It doesn't exactly line up with our situation today, but there are some similarities certainly. Long story short, we decided to go ahead with our campaign. In my first year there, we raised 54% more than any other year in the history of that institution. When I hear someone say, “Boy, we can't ask for money now. People don't have it,” I immediately say, “That's not necessarily true.” One thing I would say is this: If somebody is philanthropic, and they have less money, are they less philanthropic? I don't think so. Philanthropy is a part of a value system. Let me ask you this about the organization you represent. Has its value proposition changed because of this pandemic? No, it hasn't. Now, if you are a food bank, there might be more urgency, immediacy. Crises bring out people's desire to try to do something for others, whether it's by cutting a check or by cheering on the streets for the first responders and nurses. People want to be supportive. One way they are supportive is certainly with their philanthropic support. Hugh: Love it. Would you like to have some questions from our audience? Martin: As long as they're all soft balls. Hugh: No guarantees. There's Jeffrey Fulgham from Richmond, Virginia. He is a CFRE and has done many good things. Used to be in Lynchburg, but moved just a couple hours away. Do you have a particular observation or question for our guest today? Jeffrey Fulgham: I don't really have a question, but I love what I'm hearing, Martin. The first thing when I came on (I missed the very beginning) is the part you were talking about studying, and that's only part of the equation. You can glean all this information, but if you started moving through your presentation, you were talking about relationships, which has always been the meat of this business. It's never more important than it is right now of letting folks know we care about them, and you hit that nail right on the head. That's what I have been preaching to my clients and associates: how important it is to stay connected to people and let them know that this relationship is a personal relationship before a financial relationship. I really liked what you said about character because I think that's the core of what we're doing. It's the core of leadership. If you don't have the character, you probably shouldn't be a fundraiser or in leadership either. The other thing that you mentioned about evaluating, that was so good. I didn't start doing it early enough. I wish I had done it the way you did it. The last five years, I have taken the month of December, or January because we are so darn busy in December that we don't have the time. I did a post-mortem on the year and on my life. How could I be better? This is great stuff. I'm glad I connected today. Martin: Jeffrey, pleased to meet you, and thanks for your great comments. I'm glad I'm in the ballpark with mine. One of the things, in fact, I just did a podcast on this, writing a chapter on someone's book on morning rituals. Every morning, as part of my morning ritual, I have one page in my personal/professional planner (I call it that), and I review what matters most about my life. That is a way for me to get locked and loaded for the day, in order to go forth and have the greatest impact possible, as a professional, but as a person. What am I all about as a person? Being able to define that, have it clarified, reviewing it every day has been amazingly powerful. One other thing I would say around the word “authenticity” is people want to be authentic, and they want authentic people in front of them. We don't have to be perfect in our work, but we want to be respectful, thoughtful, and do it the best way we can. Fundraisers come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities, and they understand that. But they don't want a fake, a snake salesman. They want a human being that they can respect and look up to. That's what they want from us. Jeffrey: I definitely agree with that. That authenticity and character and genuineness, people would ask me about having these relationships with people. I said, “You have to be in a genuine relationship. You can't have a relationship where you want someone to think that it's about the fact that you like them and want to be in a relationship, but it's really about the money, so you are clocking it so that it looks genuine. It might work for a little while, but it won't work for you forever. If you really want to have successful fundraising, it's about long-term relationships with people.” I'm fortunate that I am connected to people who I am three or four organizations removed from now. I still have relationships with them, and I still talk to them, especially right now with everything going on. Staying in touch. That's the fun part of this business. It's the most fun. Martin: The relationships is the most gratifying part of the deal. It's not about the dollars raised although that's great, too, because it can accomplish great things. In our business, we get to meet the most wonderful people. Phenomenal people. When I think about my own personal and professional development, a lot of it was profoundly stimulated by the people I have gotten to spend time with in this work of fundraising. Hugh: And I have gotten to spend time with Jeffrey and Bob Hopkins. Bob, you've been quietly listening. Do you have a question or comment for our guest today? Bob Hopkins: I'm in my backyard outside. Didn't know I had any airwaves back here. Beautiful day in Dallas by the way. I am loving listening to you. After 40 years of doing this kind of thing, you think you know it all. While I might say I do, it's so much fun to remember some of the key aspects of the fundraising process. When you first started talking, I thought, Why doesn't he talk about listening? Sure enough, 15 minutes later, you talked about listening. I am so grateful for that conversation. I teach speech, and I'm teaching people how to talk. But there is a chapter in my book called “Listening.” I spend about five minutes on listening because I don't think people need to know anything about it, and I am so wrong. As you said, the 80/20 thing is so true. I have so many great stories of when I didn't listen, and you know what? I didn't get the gift. Or when I listened and waited and patiently took my time about receiving, that I got about six times more money than I would have gotten had I asked earlier when the person wasn't ready. Martin: It's such a great comment. Pleased to meet you. We talk about this in a lot of fields, the blending of art and science. As I said, developing competency is about education and experience. Maybe that's the better way. This is a work you learn on the job; it's on the job training. As we stick with it, it saddens me when I think about the turnover in the profession. If something is willing to stick with it and keep at it, as you all know, the satisfaction is phenomenal to be in this work. To become competent at it over time is immensely gratifying. Beautiful horse by the way, Bob. Hugh: That's not his current one. He has one he is really proud of. That's his passion. One day, I was having lunch with him in Dallas, and he went off on this horse thing when I asked him about his passion. The principle is 80/20. 80% of your results are produced by 20% of your people. 80% of your inventory only produces 20% of your profits, but 20% produces 80% of your profits. It goes with donors; it's a repeated principle. When I wrote my first book, Moving Spirits, Building Lives, it's about church musicians and transformational leaders. That is when I moved into leadership. It took me 40 years to write this and 30 days to put it on paper when I was leaving the profession. I determined in that book the Ballou 10/90 principle. As a music director, 10% of my job was music; 90% made that possible. I am thinking as far as a professional fundraiser, the 10% is what people see, but 90% is under the iceberg. 90% is relationship, staying in touch, that allows that 10% to happen. There is a lot that happens that is invisible to most people, but that is where the hard lifting is. Let's hit real hard on this. We still have money in the economy. The fed printed more digital currency. Money didn't go away. Some people are struggling to make ends meet, but some companies are doing really well. Google had a record-breaking quarter. Grocery stores are slammed. There are some ministries that are challenged. Some restaurants are out of business. There is still money out there and people who want to make a difference. What is the change of mindset for addressing the new normal here? Martin: In some ways, the mindset hasn't changed. In other words, we have an organization worthy of support that is doing important work in this world. We are engaging with people who want to make a difference with their lives and resources to the extent that they can. They may have taken a hit financially, so they may not be able to do something right now. They may have to structure it differently. Back in the great recession, we mentioned we raised 54% more than any other prior year in the institution's history, that wasn't people writing a bunch of huge checks. People were writing smaller checks, making pledges over longer periods of time, putting gifts in their estates, and so on. Bundle it all together, and it would be a number that was not insignificant for them, but they couldn't do it. Even today, a year ago, someone might give you a large number with checks over a couple of years. Now, they still want to give you that number, but it will be put together in a different kind of package. What we need to do is be sensitive to people. We are all talking the same talk here. We have to put the concern for the people first. There are relationships. If we treat them that way, whether they can make a gift now or later, we are building the relationship for the long term. We are doing our job with the relationship by putting them and their concerns first. We all have stories and connections, a degree or two away from us, of people who have been profoundly impacted by this. We should know it firsthand, and be sensitive as we engage with others. To raise major gifts, it's typically a face-to-face, labor-intensive business. Up until very recently, there hasn't been any face-to-face work. Difficult to have a talk with a donor ten feet apart. Tools like Zoom, even my sister who just turned 80 years old knows how to use Zoom. We can all use Zoom. People welcome Zoom calls or the equivalent. They desire that human interaction. If we get on a call like this, we just have a conversation, and we listen to them, that's powerful. Hugh: whoever thought of this term “social distancing,” it's physical distancing. We are still social. Anti-social distancing. This book is chock-full of stuff that is not rocket science. It's a solid experience when people have been there and done it. Stuff that most of us don't know. You have been around and done this for years; you've practiced this. I'm a musician. We rehearse. You have rehearsed a lot. What I am so appreciative of is you put it in a book to share with people. Why should people have this book? Where can they get it? Martin: Why they should get it is it's a way of staying current in the work. If you are a beginner, it's an insightful introduction to the work. It's getting 27 seasoned professionals' input, not just one's. I call it Five Minutes for Fundraisingbecause each chapter is about a five-minute read. They are stand-alone chapters. You don't have to read it in consecutively. You can go to what resonates or what you need right now. In terms of the book, if you want an autographed one, 15% off, no shipping and handling, go to MartinLeifeld.com and order it there. You can get it on Amazon as well. Like any book, it's available on multiple channels. Hugh: It's not an expensive book. *Sponsored by EZCard* *Message about a Youth Philanthropy Conference on 6/27* This has been a very helpful interview. Lots of good sound bites. What do you want to leave people with today? What is a challenge or thought as we go into the unknown? Martin: Every day we are going into the unknown. That was six months ago, too. It's new every morning, as it says in the Book of Lamentations, for those of you who look at the Bible. What we're after is helping people become greater through philanthropy. We're doing that through putting them first, respecting who they are, helping them to demonstrate their value system to the world. Hopefully, by working with our organization as part of their way of doing so. We are privileged. It's honorable work. It's worth people devoting their lives to. Not to highlight myself, but this is powerful. When I retired two years ago, they had a party for me, which was very nice. A number of the donors were there who I had worked with for years. Unbeknownst to me, they had a video. If you go to YouTube, it's there. This couple who were the first alumni in this young university to reach a $5 million-level gift of cumulative giving was on the video. This is what they said, and I think it pulls it together and certainly represents so much my gratitude for the work of philanthropy in my life. They said, “By teaching us about giving, Martin, you have given us a great gift. Our philanthropic involvement with the university has enhanced our lives on many levels. We owe that to you. Martin, because of your professionalism, expertise, and friendship, you made something that is truly enjoyable even more rewarding. You showed us the way to contribute in a meaningful manner, and this resulted in our receiving so much in return.” Hugh: What a great summary. Martin: Isn't that amazing? That's what it's about. Hugh: It is amazing. You have touched people's lives on both ends of the spectrum. Martin, thank you for sharing your wisdom and time with us today. Martin: Thank you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeager: This is the Friday, May 22, 2020 version of the Market Plus segment. Joining us now, Sue Martin, Hello, Sue. Martin: Hi there. Yeager: I've been talking, I said this to Pfitz a couple of weeks ago, to a computer screen so it's good to have and we're starting to slowly get back into that human interaction. You were making the trip down today along I35 and you're used to seeing traffic on busy holiday weekends. Did it compare at all this week? Martin: It compared very well.

What's the fastest way to generate traffic for a new website? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, entrepreneur and business growth expert Martin Ochwat shares his strategies for driving organic and paid traffic to a brand new website.  As the co-founder of a new direct-to-consumer brand of zero-waste personal care products, Martin is dealing with this exact challenge right now as he prepares to bring his new business out of stealth mode.  In our interview, he talks about what it takes to create a high performing website, and how to use strategies like paid ads, podcasts, video, and guest blogging to quickly drive traffic and build domain authority.   Highlights from my conversation with Martin include: Martin is currently launching a new direct-to-consumer company called Moop and is working on strategies for driving traffic to his new website. Before he works on driving traffic, Martin says it's important to ensure your website is optimized. Specifically, it should be a good looking site that showcases a clear value proposition and delivers visitors the information they are looking for quickly.  One way to test if your site will perform well is to run limited paid ads on Facebook. There are two main types of traffic that Martin focuses on - organic and paid. When it comes to organic traffic, Martin suggests using podcasts, video and guest blogging to quickly drive traffic. With podcasts, you can start your own, but two very quick ways to get traffic are by being a guest on a podcast or by sponsoring a podcast. He also suggests creating video and using it to start a YouTube channel. Another way that Martin has successfully gotten backlinks and built domain authority is through posting guest blogs on other high authority websites. Finally, he says that public relations can be helpful in driving traffic, but advises that you don't necessarily have to hire a PR firm. There are plenty of ways to DIY your PR strategy so long as you have a compelling story. When it comes to paid ads, it's very important to figure out where your target audience is and then test to see if your ads are successful in reaching them there.  Once you identify the individual ads that are performing well, you can double down on your budget and you should see strong results. It's important to have tracking pixels correctly set up on your website. With those in place, you can use tools like Criteo and Adroll to do retargeting campaigns. Resources from this episode: Visit martinochwat.com Follow Martin on Twitter Connect with Martin on LinkedIn Listen to the podcast to learn more about driving traffic to a new website. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. My name is Kathleen Booth, and I'm your host. And this week my guest is Martin Ochwat, who is a growth marketer and a serial entrepreneur. Martin, you've had lots of different reincarnations and I'm really excited to talk to you about some of the marketing lessons learned that have come out of that. So welcome to the podcast. Martin Ochwat (Guest): Thanks for having me, Kathleen. Martin and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah. Now, can you tell my listeners a little bit about who you are, your background, the types of businesses you've been involved in, and what you're working on these days? About Martin Ochwat Martin: Sure. So I'm a growth marketer by trade. And initially started with more of a mathematics background in school. What happened is I ended up in Silicon Valley working at a gaming company, which at the time we were one of the largest advertisers on Facebook and many channels in the world. So we promoted two games, mostly Game of War and Mobile Strike. And during my short stint there, I learned a lot about running digital paid ads across several channels with Facebook and Instagram being the core. After two years in the Valley, I decided to quit my job and start working remotely while starting a new eCommerce business. So over the next few years, I started several different brands selling products from jewelry, fashion, swimwear all types of niches. And eventually, we're working on a new eCommerce brand now called Moop. And we're creating zero plastic waste personal care products. Trying to take plastic out of your day to day routine. Kathleen: That is such a hot topic right now. I think that's awesome. That's what you're working on. It's shockingly, well it's interesting to me how shockingly difficult it is to cut plastic out of your life. I've seen a few news reports on the impact it has, and I've tried to go in that direction to no success whatsoever. So I do think it's only going to get solved by companies creating new products that reduce our reliance. The products themselves as opposed to workarounds if you will. So kudos to you. Martin: Thanks. Driving traffic to a new website Kathleen: But what I am interested in talking to you about is you have this new company. And obviously with any new business, one of the challenges from a digital marketing standpoint is just driving traffic to your site, right? I'm in a similar boat to you. I just joined a really early stage startup that for all intents and purposes, doesn't have any website traffic. So I'm faced with a similar challenge of how do I get people just to come to my website? And you have some interesting thoughts on that. You've worked on that before. That's really the topic I would love to focus on for you. So maybe you could just start with where do you begin with that? Martin: Sure. Yeah. So starting out is always really difficult no matter what business you're in. Even once you launch your product, you need to get a bunch of users and validate if it's the right project you're working on, which happens over time. So I think a good way to think of it is first look at what channels can you use to acquire users? I usually break it up into two segments. So you have paid, and you have organic. On the organic side, a lot of that's content. So blogging, video, podcasting, Whether you're doing your own podcast or you're a guest on other podcasts. It can include things like guest posting. So writing content on other high domain authority sites. PR, the list goes on. There's a ton of organic ways you can get users. And then on the paid side, it usually involves running ads on channels like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the dozens of networks out there. So high level, it's good to separate paid and organic. And then within those, you can try to find which types of channels make the most sense for your business. Kathleen: So let's actually start with your website, because this is something that I think about a lot at the company I'm with now. What shape does your website have to be in before it's worth it, especially from a paid media standpoint, to begin paying for traffic? Because that's one of the things I think about a lot is am I going to pour money into pay-per-click and drive traffic to what is essentially a leaky bucket? How much of the value in those early days is really getting people in and capturing them versus just getting the traffic, getting the backlinks, beginning to build domain authority? How do you approach that? Building a high performing website Martin: Sure. So if you're going down the paid route, it's especially important you have a really high performing website to begin with. The reason is if you don't have a great site and you just start spending a bunch of money to drive traffic, that traffic's not going to convert, they're probably going to leave and you're just going to end up wasting a lot of money. So going down that route, it's really important to start with having a good looking site. It doesn't have to be super beautiful, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it perfect. But it should have a clear value proposition. When people land on your website or your landing page, they should know very clearly within the first few seconds exactly what the website is about. And it should give them relevant information. And one way you can actually help with making sure your website is high converting is maybe running a little bit of paid traffic to test how are users interacting on your site. And that could be as simple as spending 50 or 100 dollars on Facebook ads, getting traffic to your site, and see are users bouncing? Is there a certain section of your website that they're skipping over? And there's a ton of great tools like heat mapping tools and even free ones like Google Analytics that can help you get all this data to make sure your website is high converting. Website analytics software and tools Kathleen: Can you talk a little bit about those tools? If somebody is listening and they're in that situation of just getting started, what would you say, if it were you, what tools would you put in place and what key metrics would you be watching in those early days? Martin: Yeah. So number one, I'd start with Google Analytics. First off it's free and a really great suite to get started with. In Google Analytics, usually you can just set up some code on your site and it'll track different metrics like website visitors, bounce rate (which is how many of those new website visitors leave right away). You can look at page views - how many pages in your site they've gone through. And the other great thing about Google Analytics is setting up goals. So let's say for example, you're an eCommerce site, right? So you can set up a goal when someone reaches the add to cart page. And then when they reach the checkout page and finally when they make a purchase. So by setting up all of the metrics that are important for your specific business in Google Analytics, you can quickly go through different reports and see, if I spend $50 on Facebook ads, I get 200 visitors. How are they performing on my site? Are they dropping off after the first page? Or are they dropping off at the checkout page? And this will help you make small tweaks and improvements to make sure your site is high converting. Kathleen: So Google Analytics. Any other tools beyond that, as far as heat mapping or things like that? Martin: Yeah, there's a bunch of great heat mapping tools. One I use is called Sumo. Honestly, there's a ton that are great in the market. Other than Sumo, I don't have a specific one I can recommend you. Organic traffic growth strategies Kathleen: Okay. No, that's great. I just always liked to hear what you're using. So now, let's go back. And we've talked about the website and getting your house in order, if you will, assuming that that's the situation and you're in a position where you can start to go out to the market. Let's start with breaking down the topic of organic traffic. So you're going from nothing to hopefully something. You mentioned a variety of ways that you could start to generate traffic back, starting with podcasts. So maybe we can begin there. Martin: Sure. So actually before we jump into all of the organic traffic channels, one thing I want to say is when you are launching a new website, it's really important to know who your target audience is. So if you already know, that you're ready to jump in. If not, try to understand your users a little bit better and see which specific channels they live on. So that way you can decide which channels to go after. But yeah, let's say we know our target audience and we want to go into podcasting. So do you have any specific questions of how to generate users? Kathleen: I think there's probably a lot. I mean obviously, I spend a lot of time with podcasting. But there's probably a lot of people out there who either don't have a podcast or haven't been a guest on a podcast. They might listen to them. So if they're thinking okay, podcasting. Can you break down how do you do that? How do you go about getting on podcasts and building that strategy for which podcasts you want to be on, etc? Martin: Sure. So I'll break it down into three different ways you can take advantage of podcasts. One you mentioned is starting your own podcast, whether that's daily or weekly. Or it's in a podcast with just you where you have guests every single week. So that's one channel you can definitely pursue. It's a lot more work. It can be a great longterm strategy though. I think for a lot of people starting out, it's easier to do number two, which is being a guest on a podcast. Or number three, which is sponsoring a podcast. So being a guest is essentially trying to find a podcast within your niche. So where are your target customers? What are they possibly listening to? And trying to build a relationship with hosts, reaching out and seeing if you can provide value to the host. Number three with sponsoring podcasts would be paying a set amount of money, whether it's $50 to thousands of dollars depending on the podcast audience size. And having a sponsored message. Let's say you're Calm. They're an app that helps people with meditation. They might sponsor the Tim Ferriss podcast, pay him a few thousand dollars, and he'll give a one to two minute shout out with a promo code to try out their app and get users that way. Kathleen: So if somebody wants to reach out to a podcast host about coming on, any tips or tricks on A, how to do that correctly? And B, any advice on what kind of expectations they should have as far as how likely it is that they'll get a response? Martin: Yeah. So first when looking at podcasts, you want to see what kind of audience they might have, what kind of reach. Different metrics I would look at is how many episodes do they have on say, Apple Podcasts? How long have they been going for? Is the podcast brand new just getting started or have they been around for a year or several years? What kind of guests do they have on the show? Would you fit a similar profile of these guests? It's unlikely get onto The Tim Ferriss Show, for example, starting out. But there's hundreds, if not tens of thousands of smaller podcasts that you can start with, build your way up and your reputation, and eventually get onto larger podcasts. So I think it starts with really evaluating the podcasts themselves and making a short list of say 10 to 20 to start. After that, it's looking at how can you get in touch with the host. Some podcasts will have a dedicated website with a page that says contact us, or if you want to be featured as a guest, fill out this form. That's great. If not, you may need to do a little bit of digging to find the email. Or say Twitter, social media handles of the host. And make your pitch. And with the pitch, it's really about trying to see how you can add value to the host and their audience. And that can be as simple as sending out a tweet or sending out an email with a little bit more information about yourself. Kathleen: Great. And you're a guest right now on this podcast and you've done this with other podcasts. What do you look to get out of it? Obviously people will listen. But in terms of either traffic to the site or leads, how do you set goals for your involvement in things like this? Martin: Yeah. So when you're a guest on a podcast, I think a common misconception is you want to be selling your audience on your services. I'd say the best advice is try to provide as much value as you can to the audience. It's similar to other types of content marketing. If you can provide value to listeners, they'll often come back and provide value back to you. So being on a podcast after you, just talk about general topics and provide value. At the end, you can usually give a shout out to your website. Or if you have a special promotion or offer for the audience, say you might be an eCommerce store, or like the Calm app. You're selling meditation services. Maybe your audience can get 20% off by using a specific promo code from that podcast. So there's definitely a way to acquire users at the end. And if you have Google analytics set up, you can track where those users are coming from. Or with different promo codes, you can also see how much of that traffic is coming from the podcast. Kathleen: Yeah. And is there any such thing as how small is too small with podcasts? I know it's hard to really nail down what listenership a podcast has, but how do you think about that? Martin: Yeah, it is something you definitely need to consider when looking at podcasts. The most obvious way is try to find podcasts that have been around for maybe a year. They have a few dozen Google reviews. And then it's likely you'll get more traffic to serve more viewers. But on the opposite side, if you find like a brand new podcast. They might just be starting out, but it looks like it has a lot of potential. There is value in being one of the first guests on their podcasts. A lot of the times if people listen to a podcast, they like it. They might download all the episodes. If you're on one of the first episodes, you can get perpetual traffic for once or years to come just by getting in early on that podcast. Kathleen: That's so true. It's like the Netflix phenomenon where people, I just discovered the show Freaks and Geeks, which was on a million years ago. And I'm currently binging it, starting from episode one. And I mean, it's like years and years after the show came out. But you're totally right. It's that habit that we've gotten into with places like Netflix and Hulu now. We're trained to find new things and start from the beginning, and binge right through it. So that's interesting. And then you talked about podcast sponsorships. How do you approach that in terms of identifying the right podcasts and expectations in terms of what you should spend and the results you should get? Martin: Yeah. So it's, honestly the process is very similar. When you're looking at sponsoring podcasts. The types of podcasts you're going after generally will be a little bit larger. So a lot of brands or companies, they might go after ones that have at least a few thousand or 10,000 viewers on every audience. Or sorry, on every episode. And usually, charging for podcast sponsorship. It's based on a CPM, so it's a cost per thousand impressions. You'll usually be given a rate. You might have to negotiate one-on-one with a podcast host. Say it's $20 per thousand viewers, or it might be $50. The rates can vary a lot in the industry. But overall, you're still looking for which podcasts have a larger audience and which audiences are relevant to you. And then a lot of that is just testing. You might allocate sponsorship for 10 different podcasts, see how they perform. If there's one that performs really well for you, you can go back to them and sponsor future episodes. Or you might find a specific niche of maybe self-help people. Or, you find the niches that are resonating with your audience and you try to find similar podcasts within that niche. Kathleen: Yeah. So we've covered the topic of podcasts. What are some other strategies you've used to drive organic traffic in those early days? Referrals, I guess would be the other category. Martin: Yeah, great question. So I think a lot of people starting out with organic, they really think heavily about SEO and how can they rank for top keywords in their niche. I actually think that's very difficult to do when you're a brand new company. In many niches it's very competitive for keywords. And it might take you years to show up in the top of Google search results. A great way to start getting traffic earlier organically is through guest posting. So guest posting usually involves reaching out to recognize websites in your space. Say for me on martinochwat.com, I give digital marketing tips for small business owners. So I would look for high domain authority websites. Let's say you have social media today. You have even larger sites like entrepreneur.com. And a lot of it is trying to reach out to those sites to do a guest post where you're essentially writing a blog post or a piece of content for free on the website. And in return, you get a link back to your site. And because these websites are so large and they get so much traffic off their posts, you can generate a lot of traffic through that guest post. And you might even be able to get it to rank highly in Google, which will just continue to give you longterm organic traffic over time. Kathleen: Now when you say high domain authority, is there a certain number that you're shooting for when you evaluate what sites that you would spend your time to create guest posts for? Martin: Yeah. So I think it depends where you are. If you're starting out as a small business, it's okay to start with smaller domain authority sites. Let's say they might just have a couple, like 10,000 monthly visitors. A domain authority of 30 to 50. It's okay to get started. Often, you need to build your reputation as a business or as a brand. So if you can get a few small wins with different guests posts, you can then leverage those to get larger guests posts. So it's unlikely I could go to as a new brand to like Forbes and say, "Hey, let me guest post for you." You don't have anything to show. But if you've done a few dozen guest posts on smaller sites and then on mid tier sites, that might be a domain authority, like 50 to 70. Eventually, you can work your way up into being an industry expert or a leading brand in your space. And then that opens up a lot opportunities to get the very best websites sponsoring your content and allowing you to guest post. Kathleen: Got it. All right, so podcasts, check. Guest posts, check. What else on that organic side? Martin: Yeah, so video's a great one too. It's really hot these days. And the great thing about video is it's a little bit, it's less competitive than blogging. So with blogs, it's really easy for anyone to start a blog. I think there's a stat, Neil Patel said there's almost a billion new blog posts that come out every single day. It's really hard to stand out in a crowded market. With video, it's obviously more work to get started. But that work creates a barrier to entry in the market. So by creating videos, you can start say a YouTube channel. Or you can even start posting videos on your social media. Like if you use Instagram, they have IGTV now, which they're really heavily promoting. So you can get a lot of views or even videos on channels like LinkedIn. And just starting to create content that resonates with your audience I think is a great way to connect and start building organic traffic through different channels. It might show up initially on search results in YouTube, or it might show up on social media. But over time, you can build up an audience there and also have that rank in Google. Kathleen: So one thing I'm curious about with regards to this, and I've been thinking a lot about this for my own marketing strategy. How important, if that's the approach you're going to take in the early days, how important is it to focus on the personal brands of the people involved with your company versus promoting the corporate brand? Because it seems to me that you kind of said it earlier. If you're a company that doesn't really have much of a track record, it's easier to open doors with a personal brand than it is with a corporate brand. Martin: Yeah, it's a great point. So I think a lot of it will be business dependent. Starting out any new business, whether you're a B2B or B2C, you won't have much of a track record. If one of the members of your team might have some, a larger following on LinkedIn or different social media channels, you can leverage their personal brand to amplify the company's brand. So let's say you're just an eCommerce store. You can still have your founders speaking on different podcasts for example, or making videos that just provide value to people in the niche. And then over time, as you start to build up more background and more credibility for your brand, I think it's important to shift resources towards brand building. Really a lot of value in many businesses comes from the brand. When you look at big brands like Nike. Starting out, Phil Knight was very important to that brand. But today, Nike continues to live on even without its founder. So it is a great way with personal branding to get started, but you do want to make sure you shift those resources to the company's brand over time. Kathleen: Yeah. Now I guess one other topic we haven't talked about, which I would say bridges the organic and paid categories is PR. And I've heard different viewpoints on PR in early stages. And I'm curious to hear where you think it fits in a strategy like this, or if it fits. Martin: So I think PR is a great strategy. It definitely fits for most businesses. But the way you will approach PR might be different. So one, a lot of people when they think PR, they think of a PR agency. Hiring an agency might cost you 5,000 to $50,000 a month on a retainer starting out. For a lot of businesses, they simply don't have the resources to do that. So there are many ways to pursue PR. Just do it yourself. And often, that involves building relationships with reporters or people of influence in your niche. And once you build a relationship, whether that's starting with liking their posts on Twitter, retweeting, sharing some other content with your following. You can often start pitching them to get your website or your brand onto the news. And PR can take really a lot of forms. It doesn't have to be getting featured on Forbes, or TechCrunch, or any of these big publications. It can be local PR. It's often easy to get started with, say you're based in a specific city or there's a town you grew up in. Like I grew up in Toronto. It'd be much easier for me to get PR in local Toronto based publications rather than national or international ones. So I think there's a lot of ways you can use PR to get an initial boost, and it doesn't have to be really hard or really expensive to get started. Even with a few resources and a bit of emailing and building relationships, you can start to get publicity and traffic to your site. Kathleen: And in your experience, what do you find you need to have essentially to get promoted? Are you promoting content you've created? What's the basis for asking a reporter to provide editorial coverage of something you've done, that has worked well for you? Martin: Right. So it usually starts with a story. A lot of reporters are looking for something that will be of value to their audience, right? There's a few strategies you could take. Let's say for example, there's a hot topic in the news like sustainability or the fight against plastic right now. If I have my brand Moop and we're creating zero plastic waste products, I don't necessarily have to promote a blog post about that. I can talk about general trends we're seeing in the industry or market insights on how the plastic industry works and how we can find ways to fight plastic. Another thing you can look at is general trends. How is the environment affecting politics or financial markets? So you want to look at what is the audience of the publication you're going after, and what kind of information would they be curious about? And it can just start with giving commentary and value to that audience. And like we said earlier with podcasts, if you can provide value to an audience, later you can have a link to your website where people can come back and they might check out your product or buy your services. Kathleen: Got it. Anything else on the organic side that you think is important? Martin: I'd say those are the main channels to get started with. So we talked about podcasting, video, PR. Blogging, as I mentioned before, it is a very competitive space. I think it can be important for your brand if you commit to doing broad blogging very well. And that usually includes writing original content. So not just rewriting other people's content in different forms, and committing to the strategy longterm. It can be a great way to rank in Google search results, but just know that it is a longterm play. You might not see a lot of traffic coming from that until many years down the line. But if you do invest in it today, you'll eventually reap the rewards down the line. Driving paid traffic Kathleen: Yeah, it makes sense. All right. Shifting gears to paid. So early stage, probably don't have a ton of money. There's a lot of options out there with paid media, pay-per-click advertising. How do you get started? How much should you spend? What kind of results should you expect? Martin: Great, great question. So paid can be a bit scary for people starting out. Just because there's so many different channels, you're not sure what it's going to resonate with your audience. So a lot of it starts with going back to the audience first and trying to see where does my audience exist? So for example, I was helping launch this eCommerce brand called Lilac and they were selling swimwear. So we found that a lot of their audience exists on Instagram. They might look at pictures of clothing or swimwear, make a quick impulse decision, see how it's worn on other consumers. And then go to the website and make a purchase. So if you can first try to narrow it down to where your audience might exist. Whether that's on Instagram, on Google, Twitter, Facebook, that's a great first starting point. And then the second important thing with paid ads is a lot of it has to do with testing. So testing means creating ads or content to share on different social media channels, and see how it performs. So you might run say an ad for swimwear against an audience of females, 18 to 34 on Facebook. And you might test different audiences. So maybe there's beach goers, maybe there's travelers, maybe there's fashionistas. It's really trying to narrow down, what audience on that platform is going to resonate with your ads? And then testing different types of copy, and images, and videos that might help them resonate. Kathleen: Is there any particular amount that you think someone should be prepared to spend? I mean earlier, you mentioned you can do little tests for as little as $50 to $100. I've heard other people say depending upon the platform, you shouldn't bother if you're not spending a couple thousand. Do you have any rules of thumb you go by? Martin: Yeah. So I think you don't need a lot of money to get started. There's businesses I've started spending $100 or $200 on a single channel to prove it out. Of course, the more money you spend, the more data you can get. But starting out, you're just trying to get directional feedback. So let's say you could spend $100 on Facebook, 100 on Google, and then maybe 100 on Twitter ads. While you might not have all the data you need, you can get directional feedback seeing okay, we're getting a lot of visitors from Google. We're not really getting any from Twitter. And Facebook, somewhere in the middle. So that helps you narrow down. Let's leave Twitter off for later, and let's focus on Facebook and Google. And then with that small test budget too of you probably are collecting data in your Google analytics of how are people performing on your website? Is your website converting as well? Are the ads they're seeing congruent with what they're seeing on your web pages? So using that small test data, you can really get started. And then I would at that point continue to focus larger and larger amounts of budgets onto your preferred platforms where you see some early success. Kathleen: Okay. And one thing I've been thinking about, I'm curious to hear your take on this, is the importance of getting your site set up properly to lay the groundwork for pay-per-click. And what I mean by that is making sure you have different tracking pixels installed. Giving them some time to build up some history. Do you have any thoughts on that? What tracking pixels should be on your site, and how long should they sit there before you try to do anything with them, that sort of thing? Martin: Yep. Great question. So when starting with paid, usually each channel has its own pixel. If you start with Facebook for example, they'll have the Facebook pixel. Google will have its conversion tracking codes. It's always best practice to set up those pixels and codes as early as possible, ideally before you start running any traffic. The reason being the pixels usually help these platforms to spend the ad dollars more efficiently, right? You're essentially sending data back to say, Facebook or Google. And they're able to see from your website visitors, what kind of people are visiting your website, how are they interacting with it, and which ones are converting? And that will help you drive lower ad costs across the specific platforms. And then I'd say in addition to the main pixels you can set up with each social media network or paid channel, there are other pixels you could set up for retargeting. There's tools such as, there's Criteo for an example. One that does retargeting across lots of different channels. Kathleen: Wait, what was that one? Martin: Criteo. Kathleen: Can you spell that for me? Martin: Yeah. So it's C-R-I-T-E-O. Kathleen: Okay. Martin: It's a competitor to AdRoll. You might've heard of AdRoll before. Basically these channels look if someone visits your website, maybe they performed an action and then they left. You can re-target them with ads across different channels. So here's an example. Let's say you are running an ad on LinkedIn. I came to your website, checked out some content, and I left. If you have the Criteo or AdRoll pixel set up, I might later go read an article on Forbes and there'll be an ad showing up again for your website. Or I might go to see, even go scroll through Facebook and there's again a retargeting ad for your website. So there's a few different platforms you can use that let you re-target across all types of channels, no matter where the visitor is on the internet. And also with those, the earlier you can set it up on your website, the sooner they get data, and the better those ads are going to perform. Martin's results Kathleen: Okay, great. So I would love to hear from you now. We've covered the gamut of organic and paid. I would love it if you could talk a little bit about your experience doing this, and what kind of results you've seen, how quickly you've seen them. Do you have any examples you can share with that? Martin: Yeah, definitely. So usually with organic, it will take you a bit more time to see traffic compared to paid. So I'll start with an example of paid. So earlier, I mentioned brand Lilac I was working on selling swimwear. So we looked at our target audience, found that Instagram's the right channel. Started running ads on Instagram. Starting out, we created some say images and videos of content. If you're an eCommerce store, it's pretty simple. You can just show images of your product. If you're a B2B business, you might need to run more video ads explaining your product. But regardless, in our case we'd run several different images and then against several different audiences. So as I mentioned before, it's mostly younger females. We try different targeting groups and see which targeting and which images resonate together. After some initial testing, say a few hundred dollars, we found that one specific audience was resonating well. And this was fashionistas. So we know that fashionistas 18 to 34 female are doing well. And we found that one or two images or one or two specific swimwear products were also having the lowest ad cost. So at that point, what we would do is double down on what's working, right? If you have creative that's working and an audience that's working, try slightly different creative of the same product. So we might show a different image of that same swimsuit. And we might try to tweak the copy a little bit. Instead of saying, "Hey, new website. Check out our swimwear brand." We would say swimwear brand that's ethically sourced, or sustainable, or promote some of the other features of the product. And essentially by doing tweaking and doubling down on what's working, over time you can get your ad costs to continue to go lower. And once you have a lower ad cost, you could scale, right? Because if you're paying less per user or per purchaser, you can invest more money onto that platform. And it's just a snowball effect that compounds over time. Kathleen: Great. And what about any examples of organic growth? I know you said it takes longer, but how long? Martin: So organic, it can take a while to see large amounts of traffic. But to see small traffic, it doesn't have to take that long. So for example on my site, martinochwat.com. Again, I'm giving digital marketing tips for small businesses. I started guest posting on dozens of different websites. Probably within my second month, I got a feature on Content Marketing Institute. And from that site, the article went pretty viral, it got almost a thousand shares. And even today, I'm still getting five to 10 visitors every single day coming from that article. So it can take a while to like find more guest posts similar to that one that can compound. But I think with guest posting especially, it's really great way to get longterm traffic. If you want to get more short term quick wins, I think podcast guesting is a great way to do it. Or getting featured with anyone else who already has an existing audience and tapping into that audience to get users to your website. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Yeah, absolutely. So interesting. Thank you for sharing those examples. Now, there's two questions I always ask all of my guests. And I'd love to hear what you have to say. The first one is, we talk a lot about inbound marketing on this podcast. So company or individual, is there someone you think is really knocking it out of the park with inbound marketing these days? Martin: Yeah, great question. So inbound marketing, it is pretty competitive. One company I really look to is Hootsuite. And Hootsuite essentially, if you don't know them, they're a platform that helps you schedule social media content. So if you're posting on Facebook and Google, or sorry, Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can schedule a post ahead of time to manage your content there. So they have a really great blog. They do video. And with their blog specifically, they generate content all the time about teaching people how to do social media marketing better. So a lot of small businesses will be looking at that content. They're very in depth guides. And just by continuing to publish really great articles and blog posts over time, they have been able to amass tens of thousands of users and really become an industry expert in at least the digital marketing space. Kathleen: I love Hootsuite. I do use it for myself. What about, everything's changing so quickly. Digital is, as soon as you feel like you've mastered it, there's some big algorithm change, or one of the social media platforms changes the rules of the game. How do you stay updated? Martin: Yeah, so there's again, few good resources I like to follow. A popular one on the more organic content site is Neil Patel. Usually at neilpatel.com, he'll post a lot of updates about changes in say the Google algorithm or how to work with podcast guesting. He goes not just blog posts, but videos. And you can follow him on all the social channels. He's a really great resource for that side. I also like Unbounce. I think, they're basically a landing page building tool. But similar to Hootsuite, they have a great blog that focuses on not just social media, but also how can you make changes to your website and improve it. So I think those are two great examples. The third channel I'd like to add is Twitter. So I often follow people in the space that are knowledgeable. For example, Rand Fishkin, creator of Moz. He gives great tips on SEO. There's Noah Kagan that gives a lot of great digital marketing tips. So it might be more specific to which part of marketing you're focusing on. But there's a lot of great influencers on Twitter that are posting regular updates and content that can provide a lot of value. Kathleen: Yeah, I love Rand Fishkin. And he is a great example I think of what you talked about earlier. He has a new company SparkToro. And you mentioned if you're going to blog, commit to doing it regularly and really write great content. I think that's exactly what he is doing over at SparkToro. He doesn't write a huge volume of blogs. But when he writes something, it is always worth reading. It's really good content and nobody knows more about SEO and building up domain authority than Rand, so totally agree with you on that. How to connect with Martin Great. Well if somebody has questions, wants to learn more, or reach out to you, what is the best way for them to find you and connect with you online? Martin: Sure, yeah. You can find me on Twitter. If you search Martin Ochwat, I show up there. Usually number one. Same on LinkedIn, very active on LinkedIn. And I'm often just sharing content and helpful advice on my website martinochwat.com. So any of those channels are great to reach out to me. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was really interesting and I love hearing how somebody else is tackling the same challenge that I'm facing right now. So I appreciate you sharing your story. If you are listening and you learn something new or you like what you heard, of course I would love it if you would leave the podcast a five star review on Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice. That's how we get found. That's how we get traffic. So please take a moment and do that, especially if you're a loyal listener. And, if you know somebody else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, please tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to interview them. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Martin. Martin: Yeah, thank you Kathleen. I've had a great time today. Kathleen: Great having you.

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

Panel: Alyssa Nicholl Joe Eames John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Martin Jakubik In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talk with Martin Jakubik and he has been working with Angular for the last three years. He has one large and one small Angular application, which the panel talks about. Show Topics: 2:31 – Alyssa likes to be called... 2:40 – Alyssa: You have a large and small application – what makes it small? Is it the user-base? 2:56 – Martin: It is one module out of ten or twenty components. 2: 59 – Panelist: Only 1 Angular module? 3:47 – Panelist: Joe went off on how much he hates modules. I am sorry JP we had to throw that in that? 4:04 – Joe: I am an anti-modulist. 4:11 – Martin: Just one module. 4:21 – Panelist: When you are building an application with one module – start us from the beginning, what does it look like? 4:38 – Martin: It is actually quite special. It has to run in an iFrame, and all it does it allows the user to add into the experiment. 5:05 – Alyssa: Is it like a CMS? 5:10 – Martin: It is like Google Optimize. The application is quite simple and every component is in that one module. 5:36 – Panelist: How many do you have? 5:44 – Martin: There are less than 10 services and 20 components at most. 5:57 – Panelist: I feel personally, I feel like that I a decent size? 6:11 – Panelist: That makes perfect sense. If there is no routing or nothing... 6:40 – Panelist: Asks a question, and clarifies the question to Martin. 7:48 – Panelist: It is nice and clean. 7:55 – Panelist: I do, too. 8:08 – Alyssa: How new is it? 8:15 – Panelist: June/July? 8:32 – Martin: I am using the new style. 9:01 – Panelist: I am leery of using it. 9:13 - Panelist: I would like to clarify. When you mention you have 20 components... 9:40 - Panelist: Do it. 10:34 – Panelist: Webpack. Can you explain what that is and how you solved it? 10:57 – Martin: I don’t think I did anything special. I wanted to know how it works. I used webpack and used their configurations. Several months into the project then I... 11:40 – Panelist: Why did you decide not to use the CLI? This is like an Iron Man thing. 11:55 – Panelist: I think it’s a pain thing. 12:05 – Martin: I wanted to know how it works. 12:32 – Martin: I started from scratch, I can’t remember. 12:44 – Panelist: Whenever I use webpack it makes my head spin. 12:56 – Martin: The application was very simple. I was doing more blogging. 13:45 – Panelist: It is doing more configurations on the fly for you. It’s wonderful if it works and if it doesn’t work then I don’t know what you’d do. 14:17 – Martin: That’s why I did it, so I can appreciate all the magic. 14:30 – Panelist: How big is big? 14:36 – Martin: Enterprise level. 100 different components. 15:06 – Panelist chimes in. 15:13 – Panelist: That is complex. 15:28 – Panelist: let’s add more modules to add to the complexity... 15:55 – Alyssa: When you took your app to the CLI was that hard? 16:06 – Martin: That took me one whole day. The module is so simple that’s why. 16:32 – Panelist talks about this topic. 17:39 – Panelist asks a question. 17:53 – Panelist: Fixing any problem ... ever work on tooling help people if they have their stuff in the right file name? 18:18 – Martin: I used Cypress. 18:58 – Panelist: Under what situation would you recommend it to anyone? Do it your own webpack configuration? 19:23 – Martin: Only if... 19:51 – Alyssa: What if you wanted to add a watermark to each file, do you have to stop adding the CLI? 20:13 – Panelist: So am I...what are the boundaries, I don’t know what they are? I’m curious. 20:41 – Panelist: Are you asking, Alyssa, how you would customize it? 21:09 – Panelist: You won’t loose all the features that you get. You now elected out of that place where they had it; webpack configurations. 22:12 – Panelist: What happened to it ejecting? How do you get it out of there? 22:26 – Good question! I have – I like to play with scissors. 22:43 – Advertisement 23:32 – Panelist reads a message from the company. How do you get that voice? 24:10 – First you have to have a really deep sinus cold. 25:00 – Panelist: Do you live without eject? I really don’t care. What I care about...Scratch that! I want to know what kinds of things you can’t do with a CLI that would drive you to do your own application? What other things could you not do in webpack. 25:50 – Martin: I wanted to see how it works. 25:56 – Panelist: Now I use CLI and all it’s features except testing. I use Cypress completely separate than CLI. 26:46 – Panelist: I feel like it’s talking to the one person without a cellphone. 27:01 – Panelist: Wow! I had no concept that life could be like that! I thought you had to have a cellphone. 27:29  – Martin: What does anyone use the CLI for anyways? 27:44 – Martin: I use it for unit tests. 27:52 – Panelist: Another question. 28:30 – Alyssa: You write things out by hand because it’s easier?! 28:44 – Panelist: You copy, and paste and it’s less work. 29:06 – Panelist: It feels easier. 29:22 – Joe: No, I am serious. 29:48 – Joe: Yes, I am amazing. 30:30 – Martin talks about another topic. 30:48 – Alyssa: When you generate a component do you put it into a different file? 31:29 – Panel: We are all friends here and we aren’t shaming anyone here. We are joking here. 32:00 – Alyssa: It’s that he can write it from memory. 33:08 – Panelist: I have been using Vue lately. He also talks about Angular and mentions Sarah Drasner, too. 34:26 – Panelist: Not everyone has a memory like him, though. 35:32 – Panelist: The fourth version of Renderer. 36:28 – Panelist: We are not talking about Nirvana the band, here. 36:46 – Alyssa: It will be the new Renderer. It’s out for you to try. Check out Angular Air. He was trying out IB yourself right now. People are flipping out about it. I am excited to see how my Angular app runs differently now. Here is the code that was generated, here is the code that... I am not sure that there is a promise date. Any secrets heads-up on when it will come out? 38:22 – Panelist: The big question what does this mean for my existing code? Do I have to change my existing code? 38:48 – Alyssa: The Angular team is working so that there are minimal changes. I don’t have a good answer. NGGC. For third-party libraries you run it through and it... I don’t know what that means for the community. 39:49 – Panelist: My hope is that they... 40:03 – Alyssa: For your third-party... 40:18 – Panelist: Question: between your small and large pack? What architectural differences are there? 40:44 – Martin: I have a template edit. 41:03 – Panelist: Come to my... 41:32 – Panel talks about talks that Jon can do. 42:13 – Panelist: True story... The panel is having fun going back and forth with jokes. 43:03 – Panelist: This kind of stuff creeps into production code. That’s the great thing about copy and paste. 43:21 – Panelist: We had a rule, though, if it happens more than once let’s put into our build. 44:20 – It’s 3 hours if you have a CI process, if you don’t... 44:33 – Console.log 44:49 – Martin chimes in. 45:14 – Panelist: Let’s talk about an iFrame in your app? 45:27 – Martin: The point is to be able to do it with any... Make sure that it doesn’t collide. The CSS wasn’t separated. I had to put my application inside an iFrame. 46:27 – Panelist: Thanks for coming on for us, Martin. 46:37 – Picks! 46:44 - Advertisement Links: Martin Jakubik’s Medium How to Copy, Cut, Paste for Beginners by Melanie Pinola Art Joker Blog @AngularMine Cypress Vue Renderer Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Alyssa Question as my pick – About Angular 7...(47:52) True or False? Martin Thank you for having me today. Present your work more. I challenge you all to cook. Blog: Bratislava Angular Ward How to Copy, Cut, and Paste Joe Brian Holt – Eleven Tips to Scale Node.js NPM scripts – I relearned something “new” lately.

Barry is annoyed by Instagram without even being on it. And Barry is ready to lose it over Netflix…again. Morgan remains calm. Does financial success kill artistic risk? The new/old phenomenon of writers seeking patronage. Plus: Email from a new listener! Links: Barry's July ACLU fundraiser The squatter on Instagram Barry is the only Barry Lyga in the country Netflix to trial technology that hands control to viewers | Daily Mail Online Writing in Real Life — Episode 15: The One where Leia Flirts Longform Podcast #249: John Grisham Inside the Actors Studio | Bravo TV Official Site Pivot Questionnaire -aka Inside the Actor's Studio (wowzone.com) Terry Trueman The Bachman Books by Stephen King Tobias Buckell on Patreon Curtis Sittenfeld asks for title help on Facebook Neil Gaiman on George R.R. Martin It’s Amazing That The Old Record Industry Existed In The First Place Litsy (app) Rate us on iTunes