E51: Simon Akers

Richard Hill
Hi there, I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One. Welcome to our 51st episode. In this episode, I speak with Simon Akers, the founder of Archmon, a growth and performance consultancy, industry writer and mental health champion. Simon is actually a trusted partner to the agencies and trusted advisor on performance and strategy. Simon regularly talks about mental health and a very refreshing and open and honest way. And he actually came on the show right at the beginning. Episode 9 almost a year ago. So we thought we've got to get him back on a year later. Some of the topics we cover in this episode, we talk about all things lockdown and how the past year has impacted him personally and his own business and mental health. Simon talks all things brand performance, marketing and how things have changed in the past year and how, as an eCommerce store, you can maximise both. He talks about specific channels and specific campaigns that have made a real impact over the last year, and we go deep on imposter syndrome and taking time out for ourselves. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode.

Richard Hill
How are you doing, Simon?

Simon Akers
I'm good. I'm honoured to be invited back onto your podcast, having seen such illustrious guests.

Richard Hill
So we're on episode 51, and Simon was actually one of our first guests way back when, when this was just a bit of an idea and a bit of a -

Simon Akers
By unpopular demand.

Richard Hill
Exactly. Well no, popular demand of course. So I think, yeah, we recorded, we managed to squeeze in your recording pre-lockdown, although we did launch post-lockdown. So it was over a year ago when we last spoke, obviously we spoke, we spoke all things marketing and -

Simon Akers
Isn't it weird, it's like this last year has gone so quick. In many ways. It doesn't seem like two minutes since we sat in that room. But the last year, it's just incredible.

Richard Hill
I know, I know.

Simon Akers
Mind bending to so many people.

Richard Hill
It is crazy isn't it, a whole year has passed since we were sat in our office. We actually, myself and Simon, our companies are both based in the same sort of digital workspace in the middle of Lincoln. And I think since that day, we've probably seen each other about four times, maybe.

Simon Akers
Plenty of times on Zoom I'll tell you that.

Richard Hill
Yeah, another zoom. So let's get into it. Obviously, a whole year has passed, we've had a year of lockdown almost, you know on and off, but mainly lockdown. How would you say the last year has impacted your business, your mental health and those around you?

Simon Akers
Now there's a question, I think, looking back to March last year, just shortly after we recorded our episode. Things were going really well at that point. Start of the year, very optimistic about the year ahead. It was my first full, it was going into my first full year of trading. So I set up Archmon in 2019. And I believe that going into 2020 was a going to be my year. It's gonna be our year right? It was all of our years and I think overnight things just dropped off for me completely because a lot of my work was based around consultancy, on-site support, strategy, planning, that kind of thing. And overnight it was very clear, despite my best efforts and the work I do, they had to prioritise. And there was a little bit of kind of a Darwinian mode going into a lot of businesses and they furloughed their staff. So if we're furloughing our own staff, we can't easily justify paying some consultant to come in and do some slides for us. So basically. Yeah, there was a little bit of a bit of a humbling awakening for me. But I think on the business level, my sort of summary of the last year and actually said this morning on a call that business went down but it's definitely picked up because I think you get to this point in May, June, a couple of months in where things are bad and you think right. What am I going to do, am I going to go back to work? A bit of self-doubt on my own. Either that or you just think, I just need to get on with it. You know, I put all this work in. Why would I throw this away now? So I've kind of changed my attitude. And I changed my approach to my clients. And I said, look, I'm there to support you on a remote bases. We can do hour-long clinics. We can do virtual training sessions, this kind of thing, and send me some stuff and I'll do some remote, you know, cred-deck collateral management, that kind of thing. And it just built from there. And luckily now, you know, I'm actually about to close my best month since November 2019, I think so. You know, in terms of business, yeah, I'm happy with the way things are, especially in 2021 so far. But that's not without pain. And I think a lot of it, I don't know if it's fake optimism or feigned optimism, but I'm guessing I don't know how you're finding it Richard at eComOne. But I'm finding that people are a lot more open to, let's just get on with things now, we're sick of this. That's the ethos I'm getting, you know what I mean?

Richard Hill
Yeah, very much so. Very much so. Especially this last, I think since Christmas, really like January seems to be a real, I mean, it always is quite a busy time in Digital isn't it, January. People are making decisions, but it's just like the whole dial's been turned up with this optimism about things opening back up and you know not just physically stores and things -

Simon Akers
You're right on the optimism front and on the mental health thing as well, I've kind of gone the opposite. I like think my business was down and it's gone up. But I feel like the mental health thing's been a bit of a paradox because at first I was kind of quite, we're all in it together. There was a kind of a level of empathy and kindness, and people were supporting each other. People, there was less expectancy. I think as time has gone on, I sense people's mental health has suffered a bit more and there's been less tolerance and a bit more irritation and people huffing and puffing when you're walking around Sainsbury's. And I'm just sensing a general kind of apathy. But hopefully we can all maintain a little bit of camaraderie just for a few more months. We've come so far and hopefully everyone plays by the rules and we'll be back in -

Richard Hill
I think so many people listening will relate completely to that sort of OK, excuse my French, but shit, what is going on? It's April, May, March or April, May last year, it's like, whoa. And a lot of businesses, consultancies and eCom stores, you know, depending on what they're selling, will have fallen off. Obviously, there's the complete opposite in the same respect, you know, in terms of certain industries are flying. But, you know, I think just pushing through, like you're saying, that those times where it's like, what the hell? I've got to get on with it, just got to go with it. And I know that sounds a little bit harsh, a little bit brash, even from me saying it out loud. But it's like that is the reality isn't it. It's temporary.

Simon Akers
Yeah you kind of wake up, yeah, it's your, it's your own energy and mental health. It depends what your purpose is in life, I guess, and whether you self actualise yourself as someone who is active or is an entrepreneur or is self-employed or whatever it is you're doing. You're running a business, you're working for someone you know, your purpose is kind of what drives you and what gets you out of bed every day. And if you, for whatever reason, decide that, you know, things are going to beat you, they do beat you. And I'm not you know, I'm in no way a positive thinking guru at all. I'm probably the opposite. But but what I will say for myself is that I got sick of my own self talk. I kind of got sick of my own, almost pity? Almost the whole, 'oh, this isn't going well for me. Poor me.' You know, just, the only person who's going to sort this out is me. I'm the CEO of my own life and my own company. I need to work out what it is I'm going to do and the way I'm going to do is do my courses, relax more so I'm more focussed on the work I do do, keep positive, read books, we'll come to that I'm sure. We love talking about books don't we. And and, yeah, you know, just get to a point where actually, rather than treat me as, I'm my own victim, treat me as my own care package to look after.

Richard Hill
That's a great, that's a great takeaway right there, isn't it? You know, it's that putting that work in for yourself, let alone your business, but just the things that you're consuming. Whether it's turning off the news and reading the right book or two or being a very, very selective of the people, maybe that you're spending time with or the media you're consuming or, you know, what you're learning from or who you're learning from and what you're consuming because it can soon, you know.

Simon Akers
The human diet, the literacy diet, the business diet, you know, people who especially because we're in this virtual world and we lose that element of, you know, the vibe you get when you're in an office or in a meeting and you can connect with people and you have a beer at the pub and there's that kind of chemistry and we can all enjoy. We're all lacking that. And I think we're all missing that more than we our bodies realise. And I think your energy is a lot more sensitive to smaller changes. So if you are having a bad day, it's hard to get lifted or, you know, if you're speaking to the wrong people, they're going to drain your energy, which is why it's more important than ever like you say Richard to have that consumption diet and consume the right content, the right partnerships, the right business, the right clients.

Richard Hill
I think we had a we had a, we, as I said at the beginning, we sort of have spaces in the same office building don't we in the middle of Lincoln. And we we actually met up on a business level last week. Was it last week, week before? Last week I think it was, wasn't it?

Simon Akers
And it was a business level.

Richard Hill
Exactly. I'm just getting that in there yeah yeah. We are, we obviously we do have offices in the same building and we have, you know, and just coming into the building and working from the building and seeing the buzz around the building, even though obviously still most people aren't back.

Simon Akers
Did you feel that when you came in?

Richard Hill
I felt that, I felt that, I felt that. I had, I had, that day I came, I mean, we didn't actually spend that much time together for obvious reasons, you know, with distancing and and whatnot. And obviously -

Simon Akers
We shouted across the room at each other for half an hour didn't we.

Richard Hill
Yea you were about 20 yards away. But we did have you know, we had, we had a chat and then I had a day in the office, you know, which is my first day in the office, my first full day in the office for I couldn't even tell you, to be honest. I mean, I've popped in. Checked on my things and fetched things and whatnot and just had a bit of a stretch of the legs and go to the office for the hour or whatever. But that was my first full day. The difference that made just having, spending a bit of time with you, spending a bit of time with others that were obviously, there was probably about eight, nine people in the building, which I couldn't -

Simon Akers
We didn't get our jalapeño chicken fries though from Burger King, which was always a win. But I'll look forward to that when we come back to the office.

Richard Hill
But we did make up for it didn't we I think from memory.

Simon Akers
We did. Oh believe we did. Ask Mr Domino he'll tell us.

Richard Hill
OK, so let's move through. So, last time when we when we chatted and obviously chatting to you as we do quite regularly, brand versus performance marketing, you know, these are these are the two sort of, two big topics. Two things, you know, we know that we spend our lives involved in and with. What's changed? What would you say has changed in the last 12 months or during the lockdown and during the sort of pandemic or what has changed in general between brand versus performance? What's your take on that at the moment?

Simon Akers
I mean, this is a this is a huge subject that requires a separate 45 minutes alone. But the whistle stop tour of where I am mentally with that is the last year has refocused client budgets. Right. In terms of what they're looking to do, what their priorities are, they've having to sort of all go a bit back to basics, start with what their proposition is, and work it through to their comms, their messaging and their ultimate activation and execution of the message. So, you know, in terms of marketing, which is in essence, you know, the positioning of your product or service to the market and then the subsequent promotion and advertising of it, you know, that is always going to be a fundamental truth, regardless of whether we're in, you know, Shakespearian times or some dystopian future where we're all, you know, in offices having Burger King's I mean, this is the same throughout. Can you imagine? Right. So going back to the main question, you know, there's traditional, there's this dichotomy of brand and performance and brand marketing is kind of your big creative message. And it could be on TV adverts, cinema, out of print, radio. And performance marketing is kind of the the the discipline of getting transactions over the line. So typically that could be paid search, paid social, shopping ads, affiliates, native, biddable, programmatic, that kind of thing. So there's very much over time there has been this development of this dichotomy between brand and performance and the disciplines that go with it. I think this last year, there's been more of a focus towards performance and short termism in ROI, which has driven more of a performance focus, but also in the industry and technical level, there's going to be changes around the third party cookie, you know, the activity of Chrome, the iOS 14 and App Store relationship with Facebook. There's a number of things which means that identity is going to be changing. So I reckon some of the performance budgets will probably be going into more brand budgets, contextual budgets, more sort of audience contextual because there needs to be more brand building activity because there's going to be less of an addressable audience potentially. I'm interested to see how this evolves, and I'm sure you'll have first hand experience of this with your clients. But look, there's a digital agency, there's a media agency, there's a creative agency. The industry's almost manifested the problem in itself in the division. I think, by us all working together. Say, for example, if I needed a client who does eCommerce stuff and paid search, obviously I'd speak to eComeOne and they can help. But, you know, if you've got a client who maybe need to do some stuff that's wider advertising outside of what you do, then, you know, I can help. And I think ultimately it comes down to the client and they all have different locks that we need to unpick. And I think it just depends ultimately on the budget of the KPI.

Richard Hill
So if a company had a limited budget so let's say, you know, eComOne's listeners varying from, you know, doing Start-Up eComm store to maybe even 100 million a month. I think we've got a few guys like that. But let's say, you know, you've got a limited budget. You're, I mean, what's the budget? It's limited. It's a small budget. It has to work. It has to work.

Simon Akers
Said every single person in the last 12 months.

Richard Hill
Said every conversation I've had.

Simon Akers
Yeah, exactly. Yeah I mean, it's a common question. And, you know, I'd be lying if I said you were the first to ask that. And the most boring, irritating answer is it really does depend. I mean, if for example it was a B2B - I know I'm sorry. If it was a B2B project or a small event or a charity that you are advertising, you might want to pay for areas where you will have authority, might do some examples and some some content sharing through a SEO or you might do, sponsor an event where there's a lot of viewers and speakers.

Richard Hill
Or be a guest on a podcast like this.

Simon Akers
Be a guest on a podcast like eCom@One. But, you know, or maybe if they want to grow via a newsletter or aggressive acquisition or sign ups, then of course using things like Facebook and sort of biddable performance channels will serve a purpose. But again, it depends on what your capacity is for. And I use the analogy of, you know, you've got the bath and you've got the tap right, you know there's so much water you can put in the bath. So I was doing a lot of stuff at the start of the year, a lot of branding, doing a lot of, I've released my book, I've been on some panels and, you know, a lot of work is, you know, quite a bit of work is coming off the back of that, which is fantastic. But sometimes it's time to loosen the tap, just tighten it a little bit and let it drip whilst you have your bath so to speak. And then I think just tighten on and off. So again, I think it depends on where you are, where you are in your journey, whether you have the capacity to take the business on. And if your KPI is newsletter sign ups, use Facebook, if your KPI is to grow the brand awareness and be associated with the right people, like almost like dating by partnerships, use those sort of forums and events and stuff like that. So again, it really does depend doesn't it.

Richard Hill
Yeah, obviously it's a little bit of a tricky question. I know, we do that on purpose. So we've got that brand, we've got performance. But let's say, let's say we're going down the performance channel and you've got to choose one or channels, and you've got to choose one channel in performance. What were your thoughts on that? What are you seeing? I know it's another, it's a similar response I'm guessing.

Simon Akers
No, no, this is great. This is really going to be, obviously, if there was an easy answer to all these questions, there would be no need for a podcast and no one would need to work with people like us ever would they? But again, it depends, I think, on the brand journey and the category. So if I had fame already right? Say I was a famous brand. I would probably bid on, say, maybe some brand terms and some generic terms because I know that people would search for my brand on Google. So they would find it and they would hopefully click and convert to sale. Now, if I'm in a familiar category and no one knows my brand, it might be a case of -

Richard Hill
Which is probably more the case.

Simon Akers
Yeah, yeah. So it could be golf products, safes, kitchens, whatever right. You might want to be using sort of generic terms and content and using that to sort of pivot to that, so like SEO. You might use Amazon if you're selling a certain product because Amazon is good for linking the category to the buyer so you can come up in the results with better known products. So say you're competing with Morphy Richards, you know, and you're a new kettle brand called Hill's Kettles, you know go on Amazon, let's bid against the Morphy Richards and also -

Richard Hill
Heard it here first.

Simon Akers
Yeah, exactly. And shopping ads as well, you know, shopping ads. Now, if you, if you are, for example, a, creating a new category, so a subscription business of, I don't know what, kitchen towel, there you go there's an exciting one. Cleaning up here Rich sorry.

Richard Hill
Eyyyy.

Simon Akers
Sorry that was - so say you're doing a - iMop, iMop.

Richard Hill
Boom boom, I need a little drum sound effect now.

Simon Akers
Please, please delete or add accordingly. But you know you might want to do a bit of content, a bit more brand building on that. So you might find that actually Google is probably not the best thing and maybe a Facebook reach and frequency buy to raise awareness might be something good. So again, I think the eCommerce tool you use has to be based on what you, whether you're familiar in the category, you're starting a category or you're a known brand.

Richard Hill
Yeah. Great. That's great. Some great ideas that I should give everybody something to think about, obviously, depending on where they are with their brand and on their journey.

Simon Akers
I always say it's like a line in the sand right. So let's say I'm speaking to a client today. The advice that I would support them with and the planning I would give them, I want it to be out of date in a year because that means that the journey you've gone on has evolved to a point where you can turn that tap off, or turn that hot or cold tap on or whatever.

Richard Hill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously working with a lot of brands on work and working on a lot of different campaigns. Tell us about a campaign maybe that you're working on at the moment or a brand that you're working with at the moment that you're really passionate about.

Simon Akers
OK, well, I mean, there's a few I mean, I'm working with a couple of really cool brands, I'm working with a mental health publisher at the moment. So they're building a hub and it's about to launch next week, so I can't reveal too much. But we're just doing a soft launch now. And it's going to be a go to and the CEO's vision wants it to be almost like Amazon for mental health. We're going to have mental health books. They've got their own published books and they're going to have a lot of extra SKUs on there. But over time, they want to build out apps for their products and resources so you can go there. And if people aren't necessarily open about talking about their mental health, which they aren't, they've got products from device that can support them. So, you know, the power of reading is so important. I mean, you look at the bookshelf behind you, it's so important. I think that that is always a fundamental truth. And I've got so much out of reading and I love that they're doing that. And I feel like I'm using my experience to serve a purpose which actually helps people. It's not just, you know, shifting products. And I love all of it, clients that pay bills are good, to be honest. But it's really good when you have that. But in terms of wider campaigns, you know, not just the stuff I do. I mean, there's there's one couple that stand out in particular elsewhere, and it's the ones that really do, they're not, they're not vapid and they're not they're not fake. They're real. So remember, KFC last year they messed up and they balled up their supply chain -

Richard Hill
Chicken delivery, yeah.

Simon Akers
Yeah. And they changed it because the strength of their brand, everyone knows KFC is, the design and the font, they changed it to FCK. Everyone knows what that means. It was beautiful because they had the brand, they owned their supply chain gaff, and it was just it was brilliant. It was really effective. It was great PR and they owned that. And also, from a mental health perspective, I love the Calm advert when I used to work and walk past it in London. On the South Bank ITV tower they had 84, 84 men, because that's how many people, you know, there is a great guy lives on a daily or weekly basis. I can't recall now, but it was a terrible statistic. And they had cut outs of the men stood round the top of the building. And that resonated because that was like really, that was a real punch in the gut that was. And the ones that you remember are the ones that hit you, whether it's like fair play you're being honest or fair, play that's serious.

Richard Hill
Yeah. They get they, you resonate or they get a response from inside. Emotive, emotional. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I haven't actually seen that. I actually have the app it's a fantastic product the Calm app or the Calm, well it's an app isn't it with all different things on there. But I hadn't actually seen that one. But what we will do, we'll make sure that we, we link up to your mental health project that you're working on and obviously that will be updated or released or launched in a week or so. So we'll update the podcast notes so the guys that are listening, look at the podcast notes. By the time you're listening to this, we'll hook that up. And obviously there'll be a lot of resources there on mental health, as you say, books, resources, community, et cetera, et cetera. Keep an eye on that as that develops so that, you know, we'll link all that up in the show notes.

Simon Akers
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think this is the whole, because there's two, there's Calm the app isn't there. And then there's CALM - Campaign Against Living Miserably. And that was like the men's charity.

Richard Hill
Right.

Simon Akers
And, you know, they weren't massively known at this point. And the CEO, Simon Gunning, I met him he's a really interesting guy. They, this campaign, they got so much word of mouth and I think this is the thing about good marketing, get shared. So actually, it's the relative cost, media cost. So if you do a really good piece of content, like a really good bit of out-of-home advertising, good bit of out-of-home, buy one poster, have it up for one day on one street. Just get a photographer to get a couple of pictures of it, get that on social and you basically, it's price signalling, it's signalling you've got a lot of fame and brand power.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Simon Akers
And it's a great conversation piece, it's evocative and and I think that's what Calm did so well. They really amplified their message through something really powerful and visual.

Richard Hill
Yeah, yeah fantastic. Thank you, Simon. So, performance marketing. Let's get the crystal ball. Let's get that crystal ball out for a moment. Give me maybe some insight and give the listeners some insight on what you think some future trends to look out for and things that will become more mainstream in performance marketing over the next year or three.

Simon Akers
OK, well, I kind of touched on it earlier on, and that's this this division, this brand v performance and there's channels that do brand and channels that do performance. And I can't help but thinking that that's going to become, I think we're going to need to take a more agnostic approach. I think there's going to be more overlap. There's going to be more understanding of how different channels drive different things through improved marketing, technology, dashboards, econometrics, that kind of thing. And I'm seeing, for example, the growth of connected TV is going to be interesting, so rather than just buying on YouTube, you can buy on VOD, connected TV on the media houses. So while they were traditionally selling cost per thousand ads to audiences in the middle of Love Island, you can now buy adverts to address a particular audience, and it's underpinned by the DSPs that power, like programmatic display advertising on the GDN. So, you know, this is a really interesting move. Digital out of home as well is very interesting because, you know, they're using data points. So when the sun comes out, you serve an advert for a barbecue and they use datapoints. So what I'm saying is you can use performance, data and performance conversion data to inform the brand and to inform the targeting, or I call it button up planning. But there's also the element of actually the traditional stuff driving sales. So the growth of podcasts and the increased listenership has, I'm not just saying it because I'm on here, I'm saying it because you know, people do sponsored content. So this is sponsored by Squarespace, go on Squarespace slash Richard Hill for your free trial, whatever. And you know, there's a lot of so-called traditional channels working harder, which are driving performance. So when I look into the future performance, bringing it back to the question, I'm looking at a question about right, what drives business outcomes? What drives business outcomes isn't an arbitrary channel or choice. It's a campaign and a focus that is performance marketing. So you know all these tools at our disposal. You've got performance people using brand, brand using performance. It's, it can all do all of it, if you use it correctly, to a degree.

Richard Hill
Fantastic, fantastic. OK, so in our last episode, way back when, pre-lockdown, fifty three weeks ago. Fifty four weeks ago. It is actually 50, it was actually a year ago today wasn't it the official lockdown, the 23rd and we're on like the 24th today. We shouldn't say that out loud.

Simon Akers
I can tell you what day it is. Is it yeah it's the 24th, yeah.

Richard Hill
It was actually, a year, a year and a week ago actually that we left the offices. Yeah. So we talked in that episode very much about imposter syndrome and sort of mental health and imposter syndrome. Have you found any new sort of techniques to overcome this and if so, what are they?

Simon Akers
I'm going to. I'm going to challenge your question, I'm going to reframe that paradigm, because this time last year I wrote a couple of articles on it and it was very important for me to sort of normalise that actually, people have imposter syndrome and it's OK to feel like you're not quite matching up or you feel like you're playing a part. And when your mental health is not there as well as it should be, it's easy to think that you're not aligned with the person who's coming across and you feel like you kind of fell like you're faking it til you make it kind of thing. Right? Now, yeah, I talked about the techniques last year, for example, you know, know that everyone else goes through it so it's a leveller, that sort of thing. But what I want to sort of take on now is more about addressing the fundamental issue as to why it's an issue in business. Right? We should be rewriting the norm of what is acceptable. You know, I think it's okay to say, oh, sorry, I'm shitting myself, excuse my language, for this coming meeting. I think we should all normalise being scared, feeling like we're not feeling up to something. That doesn't mean you're an impostor or have imposter syndrome because the word imposter infers there is a standard, an identikit that one should be. Now, I challenge that convention. I challenge the idea that, you know, there is nothing to imposter. Why would I want to copy someone? You can only be you. So the best thing to do is map the best versions of you to the job you've got to do.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Simon Akers
And there is no imposters.

Richard Hill
Yeah yeah.

Simon Akers
You see what I mean?

Richard Hill
I do. I do see what you mean, I see exactly what you mean. It is ok to some days be not feeling great and that's just it, that's just how it is, sort of thing you know. And you, those days, you know, you don't have to worry too much about that thing or you shouldn't be worrying too much about that thing and just getting used to being yourself and getting used to, you know, or accepting even be more accepting of the times when you might just feel a little bit more down or down -

Simon Akers
I had a terrible day yesterday. I went into our office, actually, and the community manager, he made a quip about, 'all right part timer' or whatever, which is obviously, as you know, ironic coming from him. But the interesting thing, Ben if you're listening, I'm sorry, but what I would say is I had a really bad day. I was up early. I didn't sleep well, had some stressful stuff going on. I'm looking at houses in my personal life, which is a whole other brain clutter, for want of a better phrase. And, and I was just burnt out, I just down-tooled at three o'clock, got the train home and I cooled off, put it as a bad day and I thought, I'll do that client work tomorrow morning. I got up early this morning, had a really good start to the day and I'm OK. And, you know, spreadsheets are consistent, campaigns are consistent. Dashboards don't have emotions, us humans do. Right. So own the fact that you're up and down. And then you'll be fine.

Richard Hill
I just love the fact that, it's like you just never know what other people have got going on. So that little remark, and you know the chap we're talking about is the, is the nicest chap ever. But it's like those little remarks, you don't know what other people have got going on. And even when you know yourself there and me when I'm having a bad day, I think, just recognise them. And I shouldn't even say bad day. It's not a bad day, it's just life isn't it, sometimes it's like that roller coaster, you know -

Simon Akers
In fairness to Ben, he owed me that comment because I said that to him once. I'm cool with it. But I know exactly what you mean. Like, if I was in a bad place, I would not, I'd be like, Ben shut up.

Richard Hill
And to go, you know what, to recognise it and to go, you know what? Excuse my French. Fuck it. I'm going to call it a day and I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to step, I'm going to down tools. I'm going to step away. I'm going to go and do, in your case, jump on the train, go home and do whatever it is. That's OK. If you, obviously, depending on what yo, you know, depending on where you are work wise, it's a little bit more challenging. But at the same time, step away, go for a walk. Have a little refresh.

Simon Akers
Because my two worlds are acquisition, marketing and mental health. I always, I cross the worlds over a lot. It's quite nasty of me. I always think about, sorry, ou know paid search and diminishing returns? There's only so much, you can only get a good CPA or ROAS for a while on a small audience because, because you have to grow and you have to do whatever and remarket. I think we have diminishing returns. You know, we get our peak performance. But you can't, I can't keep up my level of thinking or whatever your own level is, your energy and thinking and work all day. You can't do it. I mean, I get to half six, or even earlier sometimes, I mean in the afternoon. I'm like, I can't think, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not the man I was this morning.

Richard Hill
So sometimes you just gotta turn the ads off, have a reset.

Simon Akers
Turn the ads, restart the computer, fire up again.

Richard Hill
Reboot.

Simon Akers
Set the budget to zero.

Richard Hill
Pause them over the weekend.

Simon Akers
And that's important, the pausing, pausing for all of us, I think, I read somewhere the other day, we've gone from living, was it living at - working from home to living at work. So it's very, it's extra important now to try and create that divide between home and work. I dunno, how have you found it? Because it's hard to just sort of -

Richard Hill
It's been terrible trying to get that divide, you know, trying to get that split and differentiate because you wake up when you're at work. You know what, I think this last month or so, just over a month now, I've been really getting obsessed with walking, which has really helped. So that morning, like that, that commute in the morning in which I think we talked about in the past, you know, getting up in the morning and rather than straight working and just working through, I had to admit, I wake up in the morning -

Simon Akers
Fake commute.

Richard Hill
I do a little bit of work for about an hour. This has been my routine for about six weeks now. I wake up and I do work, I do an hour, and then I go out for at least an hour to two hours. And that's been a real shift for me to give me that split and try and split my days up more so it doesn't feel like I'm doing the, well I'm not doing the 10, 14 hour day. I'm definitely trying to keep it and retain it.

Simon Akers
I remember in January, I remember I had a really bad week and I realised it because for about two or three days in a row, I just got up, got in the shower and schlepped to my laptop. And that was it, that was my existence. And I started making, because I used to get the train into Lincoln for work and I started making my little plastic coffee and going on a fake commute and just walking around by the river. And, you know, it's good, it's good to do that because you feel revitalised, and I did it this morning at like six, seven am, which is early for me.

Richard Hill
Yeah. And I'm on a, I mean, it's pretty early still. Isn't that what are we on? About half past eleven in the morning and I've done 11,200 steps so I'm ready for a sleep.

Simon Akers
Absolutely.

Richard Hill
OK. Some great, great things there fantastic. So, so, obviously you have worked a lot of agencies, you've worked on a lot of campaigns, you've been interviewed for this that and the other. I noticed that you're speaking at Ad World coming up in May.

Simon Akers
I am yes.

Richard Hill
Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to listening to that one.

Simon Akers
I've got I got a few comp tickets maybe going, I might be able to sneak them your way if you're nice.

Richard Hill
Yeah they seem to have forgotten my invite on the speakers list this year for some reason, I'm not sure what that's about.

Simon Akers
Depending on how you - I'll send you a code.

Richard Hill
So if we could step back ten years, what would you tell yourself? What would you tell your younger self? What would be one bit of advice you'd give yourself?

Simon Akers
That's a good question. I'd probably, a couple of things actually. Given my experiences that I had maybe two or three years ago, I'd probably say don't chase the job title and money so much like don't chase the notion of career success. I'd be curious, always be curious and be open to learning and I'm better now. I would do courses and online stuff.

Richard Hill
You are relentless with the courses.

Simon Akers
I love the self-improvement thing. I just I dunno, I'm a bit of a junky for it now, but I just believe that lifelong learning, you're never too old or experienced to learn and I think that's an important thing. But no, be curious, you know, just just enjoy the process and the journey. You're going to make mistakes. You're gonna not make mistakes. You're going to have successes. You're going to have disappointments. And you need to embrace that journey and learn it and it adds tools to your kit. But most importantly, enjoy the education and the learning you get from it and soak it all up like a sponge. And because one day it'll come in use and sooner rather than later, it's taken me a while to get used to it but, I generally you can use these things quicker. But no, I was like, you know, I was obsessed with sometimes younger, probably more status driven, stuff like that. And I think the the LinkedIn hussle culture and the sort of the career drivel I read, it does set a precedent of over celebrating certain elements of ambition and career progression and stuff. And it's all good stuff. But don't let that be your North Star because that stuff can be taken away. And what you've always got, you can't unlearn you can't get demoted from education. You can't you can't get made redundant from a certification. So, yeah, always look after yourself I'd say that would be my wish to my younger self and anyone listening I guess who's younger than me, which is probably most people with in media now.

Richard Hill
Brilliant advice you can, there's so much out there to learn is is so easy to get access to resources. I think if those that are less than you should definitely follow Simon on all social channels. I know even this morning I think it was or yesterday you posted your most recent, of course, and sort of mini MBA that you got yesterday.

Simon Akers
Yeah, probably go back now. But now the other thing is. Well, I also want learning. Don't be afraid to get a mentor. There's no harm in that when you're younger, like, who do you admire? What man or woman or leader or client or whoever inspires you to be the person you want to be, you know, talk to them, you know, and there's a big thing around this at the moment, no one should ever have to pay for mentoring and that sort of thing. It should be something that should be available. And I had people who supported me and I'm lucky and I've actually got a couple of mentees now. I work with them to start, which is just brilliant. It's to help nepotism and people from socially, socially, economically deprived backgrounds to get jobs in consultancy, etc.. I'm also working with Brixton Finishing School, who do some really good stuff with people from inner city backgrounds who don't always have the same Oxbridge background that bequeaths the Soho, Illuminati and agencies. And, you know, being someone from the East Midlands who got a 2:2 and did alright for themself, I, I want to champion these kids.

Richard Hill
2:2

Simon Akers
Desmond. Yeah. So like I, I'm all for it and I believe in trying to, not give - that sounds awful, but like I just basically just know that, you know, you can be you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Like if you find someone who you think has been down the same path as you or you want to go on, reach out to them, send them an email and most people are really open to supporting. So you I'd definitely get a young - get a mentor.

Richard Hill
Yeah, fantastic. So every episode we always go there, the books, the books. We obviously have a lot of chat about books. And since the last, 53 weeks since we last had you on the pod, I know you released your own, Back to Basics: 21 Ways to Increase Marketing Performance and Success. Tell us about the book.

Simon Akers
Right, I wanted to, being a performance marketer, I was keen to do a landing page with an e-book, OK, so it was all about generating leads. You download the content in exchange for details and then I can follow up, you know, the usual right. And I thought, well, I'll do like a five point basic plan about performance, like have a good message. You know, have good creative. Make the call to action clear. The website needs to work. And don't be crap at customer service, the standard five rules of marketing life. Then it kind of evolved and it got really big. It's like, you know, when you start a jigsaw puzzle and it's like you've started it and you need to finish it, or you're moving house and you're halfway in and you can't finish. It became this unwieldy project. And I wrote, ended up writing like thirty thousand words. And I realised because my, I guess USP, my my client, my business is I do planning and strategy and I work with partners who bring it to life. I thought what better way to amplify my business than to tap into some experts in said areas, like I don't know Google Shopping, for example, Richard. And then people all over the world who helped me, some brilliant people, and I thought, well, I'll come up with my sort of thoughts and break into three, which is kind of the basics of what to get right first, before you advertising. The marketing is, there's a lot of marketing, not just advertising, like get the marketing right, position, product, brand. Then you advertise, there's your channels and then it's kind of like measurement analysis. What does it mean? And what I did I wrote out a lot of the stuff and to validate the truths, I had a lot of my partners who are brilliant and much better than I am at what they do to actually validate and comment. And it was shared, I wrote it and I thought, I just want to kind of do something as well for free as well, gave to a mental health charity that I'm a champion of as well. And for me, I just wanted it to be just something that people could use. And now it's actually being used in curriculum on courses. And I shared it with Brixton Finishing School and Lincoln University, and I'm really proud of that. And it's been quoted at me, back at me. And I sometimes feel like it's really nice to see, but I wasn't even doing it for that. I just did it to sort of, because things were frustrating me. And I wanted to prove that regardless of the fluctuating ideas of brand v performance and Covid and non Covid. They're our fulcrums of truth that are constant throughout. Right. So and that's come across. And I've had people - so that's it came around and yeah, that was -

Richard Hill
A real, a real labour of love then over lockdown?

Simon Akers
It was a labour of love and hate. Yeah. I mean, I remember I was writing, I started writing on the twenty - I put my tool - I down-tooled for Christmas and then I opened up my laptop on the 28th because, you know, I was done with, you know -

Richard Hill
Turkey sandwiches.

Simon Akers
Turkey sandwiches, Pringles and Boursin. We'd probably run out of Boursin by then because let's be honest, the Boursin is the one to go first. But, but yeah I just kept writing and writing and writing and writing and I really got into it and then in the end it became a bit of a session and I designed it, shared it and yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. It was a really it was, it was a for me it was an important thing to share, for both my my mindset and for others.

Richard Hill
So for those listening where, what's the best place to download, where's the best place to download that?

Simon Akers
Well, you go to you can Google, I think Google, but I'm not sure. But I can actually share a link with you and you can share it in the podcast notes. But it's Archmon.com, slash Archmon Blog slash Back to Basics. It's quite a it's actually quite an unpleasant link to mention actually.

Richard Hill
Archmon.com and they'll find it on there.

Simon Akers
Yeah, that's right.

Richard Hill
Somewhere. Fantastic. So staying on books for a minute and we always like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Apart from Back to Basics. What would you recommend to our listeners this time around?

Simon Akers
Well, I spent last year reading, I did a Goodread, so I set the target to 18 books and I read about 21 which I was very proud of. But what I did last year, which I think was different to any other year, was read a lot more fiction. And I've got this thing now. I've read a lot of non-fiction books. I read, I really enjoyed Chris Voss, by the way. What is it? Never Split the Difference. Great book on negotiation and Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way about Stoic philosophers and how you can amend and the whole idea of, you know, you can you're still sailing in the same direction, but you adjust your sails based on the wind. You know, I love that notion of being adaptable and we've all had to do that. So from a non-fiction and psychology perspective, Chris Voss and Ryan Holiday have been great. But going back to my point, fiction has been a huge part of my life in the last year. And I would argue that more people in business and marketing should read more fiction because it helps you really craft storytelling. So I really got into Ernest Hemingway right. Now Hemingway, interestingly, was a copywriter, renowned copywriter who ended up being an author. So I thought this was interesting straightaway. And what he does, he's obsessed with the power of what you don't say. So I picked up from a charity shop this book called The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and it's basically like a load of short stories from Hemingway. And he does a few of these. And I think A Farewell to Arms is short, Old Man in the Sea I read in like a weekend. They're very short stories. But what he does, he tells the story without using all the words. So it's almost like what he doesn't say. And I think there's a certain magic to that. And I think that's something that we could all apply to our own - do you know what I mean? Our own thinking and business and advertising, so I'm really into Hemingway. So ad copywriter becomes fiction writer. I'm a fiction reader now.

Richard Hill
Right. Well, we'll have to link up some of the Hemingway and we'll get those ordered.

Simon Akers
Do it, do it

Richard Hill
Well Simon, second time round it's been even more of a blast. So I think we'll have to, this might even become a yearly thing. So Episode 51 this time around, it might be Episode 101 -

Simon Akers
Area 51. Okay cool Episode 101 please. 101. That would be good, 101.

Richard Hill
Yeah, we'll see you in a year. It's been a pleasure. I'll see you soon.

Simon Akers
Thank you so much, Richard. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on again.

Richard Hill
So, one final thing. If the guys do want to reach out to you, Archmon.com, find you on LinkedIn, anything else?

Simon Akers
Yeah absolutely. Follow Archmon on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn Simon Akers. I use Twitter less now. Yeah. Archmon.com, you can go on the blog and follow the blog. You can subscribe to our newsletter or ping me a note at simon@archmon.com if you want me to share any resources or the link to the book with you.

Richard Hill
Thanks so much. I'll see you soon.

Simon Akers
Thank you, Richard. Cheers.

Richard Hill
Bye.

Richard Hill
Thank you for listening to the eCom@One eCommerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe and don't forget to sign up to our eCommerce newsletter and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce marketing agency.