🎙️ Episode 2: The First Time Someone Paid For Our Brains

Do you remember the first time someone paid you for what’s in your head… not what’s in your hands?

In this episode, we rewind to the messy, brilliant, slightly chaotic beginnings of getting paid for our brains. From £45 “I’ll charge you for my time then” moments… to kitchen table strategy sessions… to building a business off the back of relationships, reputation and being brave enough to ask.

We talk about:

• The shift from “can I pick your brain?” to “here’s my rate”
• Why most people underestimate what they actually know
• How one small opportunity can open doors you didn’t even know existed
• What working with celebrities really taught us (hint: they’re just people)
• The power of relationships, referrals, and doing things properly
• And why asking the question you’re scared to ask changes everything

If you’ve ever thought, who am I to charge for this?

This one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to Awesomely Off Topic. Books, brands, business and everything else we're not supposed to say out loud. I'm Taz and Asher. Now let's get into it. So welcome to another episode of Awesomely Off Topic. This time we want to talk to you about the first time someone paid for our brains.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Wow, how many years ago was that? Is that by the pound, Taz, or is that Well I guess it depends how we think about it, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Because technically, when we are employed, somebody's paying for our brains. But I think we're really talking about the first time someone paid us as a self-employed person for our black for our brains and our knowledge. So what about you then? When was your first time? Well it depends how we think about it, because there's been many different times. I mean, before I went full-time into coaching, I was selling various craft items. And I've done that on and off for years. I've made things and sold them. Even teddy bears, believe it or not. But if we're thinking about actual coaching, mentoring, training, I think one of the first times was after I'd left corporate life in 2010. Yeah. I hadn't quite fully gone into the coaching yet, and I was kind of finding my feet. And I remember there was a there was a scenario where there was kind of a friend of a friend of a friend. We've all got that friend of a friend of a friend. Always. Who only ever get us in touch if they want a sleeve tug and say, Can I just put your brains on? Can I just put your brains on? Yeah. And this person would only ever get in touch if they wanted to, do you mind if I just? And one day she got in touch, and I was getting so sick of it, that I went, yeah, it'll be£45 an hour. Do you want to book in? And she went, Yes, that's fine.£45 an hour.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

How did you yeah, but how did you forget the figure for a minute? How did you how did you feel when that first happened? Were you like, was it total shock? I think it was, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, but also, wow, this shit works. Yeah. Well yeah. The shock value is like if she's getting in touch every time she wants something, then let's do this properly. Let's formalise this instead of having somebody sleeve tog every five minutes. And it worked, and honestly,£45 an hour. I know you said don't focus on that, but when you think about that, I'm ten times that now. Yeah. So oh how we grow. Yeah. But I think it does. I think some of the times that really stick in my mind in terms of thinking, of course people will pay for that as well. Of course they will. Well, the times when people employed us to go in and help them with more consultancy stuff or to just actually get the ideas out of their heads. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Brainstorming as we're not supposed to call it that now, but that, exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, I remember the guy who was just starting his own business and asked if he could pay us to literally go and sit down and brainstorm his business name with him. Yeah. And we sat there with him and his then wife around the kitchen table, coming up with business names, and he came up with the name, but we were there just literally to keep oiling the wheels and to get his brain into the right zone. Yeah. And we had great testimonials too. And if I think about it in those terms, and think about some of the kitchen tables we've sat around with people.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Oh, amazing, and amazing, amazingly good fun as well. You know, can we can we really get paid for this for having fantastic fun?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Do you remember when we were catching Sarah Davis, who of course is now BBC Dragon? Yep. And we were working with her team on social media and visibility, and then I remember in one of the sessions where we we'd hopped on the train and got up north for the day, that afterwards she was like, come back to mine. And we all went back to hers and all sat around the kitchen table and they went and fetched fish and chips for everyone. It was fab, wasn't it? I think I had a pie. And then they dropped us off at the train station. I know, it was amazing. But those times where we've where it's felt like fun more than anything, and I think that's when you've really cracked it. I think very often, particularly people who are just going self-employed, just starting their own business, don't know what they know.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

And don't realise just how much knowledge and expertise they have sitting there, sometimes dormant, that people will pay to access. Yeah. What about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Underestimate yourself. We do. Well, for me, I suppose it was when I was being made red after I was being made redundant, actually. We were talking about well, yeah, because that's happened a few times actually in publishing. Unfortunately, it was the nature of the beast, and it still can be. That's that's the thing about, you know, having this kind of that kind of career at that time, particularly when so many people, you know, as we were getting more techie with the whole process of uh publishing newspapers and magazines, a lot of people lost their jobs. And unfortunately, I was part of that a few times. But I think it was because I'd built up such a good there's that contacts book again, so many good relationships with people that had worked with me when I was paid by an employer who wanted to still carry on working with me. I then got people having a chat with me and said, Well, actually, could you do something for us? Could you do something for us?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So you're talking about now when you were made redundant when you were an editor.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah. So it was like so because they knew I'd got that experience, and they just said, Can you come in and could you work on a in a freelance capacity?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So this would have been existing what advertising clients of the magazine you were editing.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, exactly. People that I'd interviewed as part of some of the we often did sort of annual supplements and things for various manufacturers and businesses, yeah, and yeah, so they got to know me through that. And obviously, I got to meet all the team members. That was the great thing about that, was that I was able to meet all these team members in different roles, of course, with different different contacts themselves, and it opened up my world to other people that wanted work and help with copy, and that's where I started really as a copywriter. So it was it was really good. And I got I remember the first time I got that, and it was like, you mean you want to employ me and and as a freelance? And of course, the money actually was better than it had been, and that just kept coming. So for me, that was a great moment because I knew then, I thought, right, okay, I can do this, maybe I can turn this into something now. It's not a one-off because it wasn't a one-off, and then of course, that person that has a good experience with me, as that always happens, doesn't it? You get more referrals, and suddenly you've got people lining up to want to work with you, which is a lovely position to be in.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

You went self-employed quite well before I did. I was still in employment for a long time after you went self-employed. Yeah. So we were both working at the same B2B publishing outfit in Kent. Yeah. And then I got headhunted to go and work at the last magazine I worked at, and because it meant relocating, yeah, you were the first person allowed to work from home, I think, because I didn't want to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I was. I just set a trend. I know I set a trend for homeworking before it became the thing to do. Yeah. No, long before all the the lockdowns and more people went, you know, go to home. Way back in whatever year it was. Yeah. Probably back in 2004 or something. I think I was the first one in the company to do it. Yeah. And it and it worked. It worked. It was weird, but it worked, and I still remember that amazing feeling that there was a bit more freedom there. I got the job done, I was trusted to do the job, and it was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I also remember though that you used to be really worried because your sales manager used to make a point of phoning you either on the on the dark 9am or just before. Yeah. And just bound on half past five to make sure you're at your desk, which really is missing the point.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

You know what's interesting now, of course, you could now, you could do that, and you wouldn't need to be at the desk, you could be anywhere, couldn't you? Yeah, really. But yeah, so that was interesting. But it was a it was great because it gave me the confidence to think I can actually do this and I can get paid for other things. And then on the back of that came other magazines. I I was an editor for freelance editor for two B2B magazines, as well as the one that I'd been on when I was made redundant. So that was a really good experience too, and it just went from there.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

So at first, when you weren't self-employed, it was mainly copywriting.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

And you were what was your business name then?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

AJB Communications?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Absolutely. An original, but when I was planning to leave corporate life and take the leap into the great unknown, at first we were working together, weren't we? Because we re- we turned your copywriting business into a full service PR, digital media, social media, and training agency. Yeah. And that went really well with this idea that we'd worked together until I'd built my coaching arm up enough to step out, which happened about five years earlier than we thought it would. And even then, because I was feeling so rotten about stepping away, it took sort of took a third party coming in and saying, I'm sacking you. Yeah. From your own company. Because Asher needs to do that and you need to do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

And that was really tough, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, it was a tough time. But we had got so many before up until that point, hadn't we? We got so many great referrals from people that from our industries that we'd already been in. Yeah. And that's what it is, isn't it? You leave a good track record, then people will remember you and they will come back to work with you. And that happened for both of us. So that gave us the confidence, I think, to be able to do it. And also to go out separately as well, which was a big step for both of us. Yeah, it was. So y yeah, it was a good, it was a good time. I think the more it's like anything, isn't it? The more you do and the more success you have with what you're doing, you get a bit braver and stick your toe in somewhere else into other waters to see whether you could do something else. And so we started doing I mean, well, lots of things like we were doing talks, weren't we at the NEC for one of our clients?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

The Giftware Association. Yeah, Giftware Association. Giftware Association, which at the time was headed up by a wonderful woman called Isabel Martinson. Yeah, she was a powerhouse, I imagine she still is. Yes, I'm sure too. Absolute powerhouse. And that was a baptism of fire, wasn't it? Because we were both supposed to be going and delivering this talk. It was a really big deal for us at the time. Yeah. We'd do we'd done talks for them before. We'd done Do you remember when we went to do live social media setup for them? Yeah. I mean, we're really going back to the time where businesses were just starting to realise they needed to be on social media more now. And we got everyone to bring their laptops and we were doing them live LinkedIn business page setups during the workshop. Remember that well. And we got everything done, we got all the slides sorted out. You know there's a bug coming, don't you, listeners? You just know there is something coming. Well, two things happened. Yeah. Number one, on that day, the Wi-Fi went down in the venue. Yes, I remember that. And so we were trying to squeaky bum moment. Yes, we're trying to talk people through without them being able to do a live setup. And then when we finally got some Wi-Fi, LinkedIn had moved everything overnight and redesigned. So everything we'd done, even up until the night before that had been perfect, was all out of sync.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

But then that's it. I remember when we went there another time, I can't remember which was first. It was a big deal for us when we're working with the the giftware association. Um that was pre-pinked as. Yeah, it was. I've still got long blonde hair with red flashes there.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

You had. Before you even went turquoise, was it turquoise at that point later, wasn't it? Turquoise. That was before it had been turquoise. Right, okay, that's what I thought. So that is.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, because we had a phase where when I was still employed, I had the long blonde hair with red flashes. So it was as far as a dare push it. Yep. And then I went short with the turquoise fringe because branding, darling. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

And I always wore something with turquoise. Turquoise in it. I didn't do the hair, but I did the whole right graph something of turquoise fringe.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

And then eventually when I moved out into my own world, it was we went pink. The natural colour is blonde for anyone listening, which explains an awful lot. But I don't remember if it was the first time with Giftware Association or the second. We got up really early to go. Again, really big deal. It felt like a big contract for us at the time. Got up extra early to get on the train for something like 7am or something. Yeah. And then you went, Taz, what's this? And there was water pouring through the ceiling. Oh, yeah, of course. Remember? Yeah, so yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Oh, panic. Yeah. So we were doing this last minute running around. What on earth were we going to do? Essentially, the the water tank had burst. Yeah. Which at the time was up in the loft. Yeah. Got water pissing through the ceiling. So we had to do that make this last-minute decision. We were supposed to be doing a two-hander. It's going to have to be one of us. One of us is going to have to go over there on our own and deliver this two-person. Can we guess who would do that? Because who would have the most technical knowledge? You. And one was going to stay home and manage the water bottle. And I did, I actually wanted to stay home and save you, if you remember.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

And I said, no, this is our reputation. You are going to be more on it. You're more techie than me. You will know the latest developments in this in this work, and I won't. And if I get stuck, that does not reflect well on us. So that's why we sent you. And actually, it was okay in the end. We did get the ceiling sorted eventually, didn't we?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

And do you remember what else happened though? Just as an aside, the insurance company dragged their feet for such a long time that literally the guys came to change the flooring. Oh yeah, I remember that. And just before they knocked at the door, we looked at the boiler and the bloody thing had burst again. On the day they turned up to replace the flooring. So we had to turn them away because it's gone again. And that's when the water company told us it was because we'd got aggressive water.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah, I think you actually drew something, didn't you? I did and did a champ with an angry face on it. That's not like you at all to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

No, I know. Oh no. Because it was the people, it was the repla the people who manufactured the replaced boiler said they weren't liable because we had aggressive water. That was it. That's ridiculous. But anyway, that gig w went down really, really well. We got more from that. We ended up going and presenting at the NEC on the back of that as well. So delivering these talks and live training. And it was a r an actually really exciting time. Yeah, it was a very exciting time. It was an exciting time to be at the forefront of the kind of social media revolution. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

In fact, some of our talks were called that. They were, and of course, that came out of that. You know what I'm going to say next? What came out of that as well? We had Tweeting Times.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Tweeting Times came first. Yeah. Yeah. Tweeting Times came first because we launched Tweeting Times before I left corporate.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Of course we did, because you were 9-5 in and then 5-9 in, weren't you?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yep. We launched Tweeting Times a minute after midnight in 2010.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So what what was it, Taz? What did we say? What was our little tagline? The World's First. No, it was the first World's First. Oh, it was the Words First Digital Magazine for the Twitterverse.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

The Words First. World's first. Digital magazine for the Twitterverse. And remember Stephen Fry broke the servers. He did. Because Stephen Fry loved it, tweeted about it, and we had to upgrade our servers. Yeah. Because so many tried to.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

So it was exciting times, wasn't it? Lots of things going on.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

And at the time we're there working in our spare bedroom with another guy, it was a trio of us at first. Phil Crocher, if you're listening, hello. Hello. Phil's the guy I also used to do the Pink Hair Pink Head Post podcast with. Yeah. We did a few vodcasts onto that until we both just got busy and forgot about it. Should do another one of those at some point. And Phil was supposed to be doing the sales. Yeah. And we were doing all the editorial and getting the interviews. Yeah. And just as it was starting to take off, Phil's life turned upside down and he had to go back into employment. Yeah. So by this time, we'd got loads of celeb endorsements. We'd interviewed Stephen Fry, Boy George, Gail Porter, Sam Fox. We were being invited invited to all these celebrity parties. Arlene Phillips invited us to her book launch in London. Yes, she did. And that was such a bizarre situation, wasn't it? Because we were standing there and there were people milling about. And at that kind of do, everybody kind of looks like there should be a celebrity.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

But we were nudging each other constantly, you know. Are we supposed to recognise that?

unknown 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Who's that? Is that somebody that's famous? Were a few people from Streetly, weren't there? That's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

But we could tell that other people were doing the same with us.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, I know, and it's like, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

It was really weird. Really weird situation. But all of that stuff was going down. We had to recognise, though, that once Phil stepped away, we had a choice. We didn't have the time to keep running our PR and media business and write tweeting times every month and go and secure advertising and sponsorship. Yeah. So in the end, we reluctantly decided to put it on ice after what, about six editions, something like that?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Oh yeah, I was thinking maybe more. I think there were a few more than that actually, but anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And it never quite came off ice. A couple of times we said we were gonna re we were gonna do it. Yeah. And it never came back. No. But we would so we we did our best. We got sponsorship and advertising from Cadbury's. Yeah. From 4N. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

We were speaking to car companies as well about it. Yeah. All sorts of people. It was a really busy time, but it was great fun, wasn't it? Yeah. And it we and again, confidence. We try to hand it different things. And some things came off really well, some didn't come off so well, but mostly nine nine out of ten times, we had lovely feedback, particularly for the magazine, didn't we? As well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

It was cool. And remember, we're doing this in our spare room, in our spare time. Yeah. At first I was five to nine in and doing it, you know, between my my existing job. Then knew about it to be fair. I had checked first before I was thinking of leaving. And we came, we were a finalist in the National Digital Magazine Awards. Yeah, we were. And if you remember, we got picked to the post by Sky magazine. Yeah, I mean Sky TV. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

So when we were in the final outfit like that, we were like, that's us. And we're doing this from us, from our spare bedroom. It just shows you anything, and everything is possible. It does. And it was great fun. I loved it. And it was right at the the height of the kind of new technology, so it meant that we could have this digital magazine, which meant for the first time, it was like a Harry Potter episode of Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Oh, never give that woman any publicity.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

All right, sorry, sorry. Vid yeah, but video and audio and written word are all on the same page. Yeah, pages that move with live links. And it was like it was magic.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Right now it's just like, yeah, it's another one of those. Exactly. But at the time it's got page turn technology, it was really new, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

I remember us just sitting around the computer and just going, look at that, that's incredible. So more than that.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Do you remember what happened when we first went over to Cadbridge to discuss sponsorship with them? You remember what it was like going into Cadbury's HQ?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Um, I remember there was a lot of chocolate just on the reception desk, and you must help yourself.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Great big help yourself.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Full of celebrations and just like that scene, Charlie, in the chocolate factory, isn't it? How much can you eat?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

It's like fill your pockets, and then we sat there in the waiting place waiting for uh for the marketing guy to come over and talk to us, and he came over laden with carrier bags, yeah, which were full of more chocolate. I know we took chocolate.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And he said, and we ate quite a lot on the way home too, didn't we? I seem to remember that. I think our lunch and our tea that day was chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

And that was a massive lesson in valuing ourselves. Yes. Because I don't remember how much money we asked for for sponsorship at the time. It's the only time I've ever known this happen. We quoted him and he said, I think we can do better than that. And he said we weren't charging enough and gave us more than we were asking for. Rookie mistakes, but hey. But at the time, there was no benchmark because there was nothing like it. No. And it wasn't massive. I think we went in at something like 800 and he paid like 1200 or something. That was that kind of that kind of what's the day I'm trying to think of the word, that time for type of disparity. Yeah. That's the wrong word. Anyway, the word will come. The word will come. It will. When you're talking about something completely different, probably. Uh we're recording this at quarter past eight in the evening, by the way, in the car on the way back from a long day sorting out tech problems for my mum. So if you're wondering what the background rumble is, you might hear some of, even with the funky mics, that's why we're driving. We're driving. So yeah, massive, massive lessons, massive opportunities. And of course, for anyone who's wondered how we've occasionally ended up with working, working with celebrity clients, yeah. That's why it all came, it all initially started.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Started with tweeting time. And it still carries on. That's the thing. And this is coming back to something else we were talking about, I think, in a previous episode. It's about, you know, you never know when those contacts are going to come back and come up trumps for you. Also, I've used the word the T-word as well. Oh no. Um but come up.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Oh no, and oh my goodness me. Well, that's also so you know, that word also means fart.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, okay. But yeah, you'll never know when that might pay dividends for it. You it might come poorer. It was very southwestern. And it would really, you know, make a difference to you. So those contacts can stay in that contacts book, and you might not have spoken to somebody for six months, a year, five years, you know, and I still have clients coming back now from my times when I was in the office products industry, for instance.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, and me too. I've still got good friends from those days. Remember David Seahill, Norton Mouse? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Oh yeah, of course. What about the twenty four hour tweeter thought? Yeah, we did do that and we've said about doing something s something similar or something to to have a bit of fun and raise some money for a charity. Yeah we did it for comic relief. We did it for comic relief and we tweeted non-stop for twenty-four hours.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

And the idea was there couldn't be any more than something like I don't know, something daft like five seconds between every tweet. Oh well that wasn't that bad. It wasn't a lot. It was a few things you and Norton Mouse. Yeah. And we had to make sure the three of us were constantly tweeting.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

We had to pay him and a lot of cheese.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah. And in the end, we were coming up with everything we could. We were doing, we were doing live video streams doing Fingermouse the Rock Opera. We were making little finger mouse with rolled up bits of cardboard. We were true story. Singing opera duets.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

There might be a lot of people that don't know who Finger Mouse is.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

If you don't know who Finger Mouse is or Finger Bob, then you are too young to be listening to this podcast. Don't say that.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

We want younger listeners as well. Don't put them off. Okay. Go off at the old people with the you know reminiscing.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Do you remember what happened then? So the rule was that we had to sing all these operatic ballads and rock songs. Yes. But the rule was the the only word we could use was finger mouse or finger bob. No finger bob. Finger bob. Finger bob. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Because I remember us doing queen tracks. Yeah, we did queen as well. Yeah. To finger bob. Yeah. But new meaning raps it did to finger bob.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

And in the end, we were, I don't know, like 250 quid shy of our target or something. Yeah. And Sam Fox, bless her, form at page three, an international pop sensation. Sam Fox was pretty much, for God's sake, shut up, I'll pay it. She did. So we just raised the raised the figure to aim for. Yeah. But yeah, they were good times, good times, and it led so so much. And that led to some of my earlier speaking gigs as well. Yeah. Because I remember as well that through the Twitterverse, Fry's Gig was launched. Yeah, of course, of course. So of course, Stephen Fry was the pinnacle of celebrity on Twitter. Yeah. And there were this, there was, there were all these fans around Stephen Fry. And a charity movement was set up called Fry's Gigs, which were rock gigs that supported various different causes and charities, homeless charities, things like that. Yeah. And because I was editor of Tweeting Times, I was invited in to Compare. And that was how we met some of our people we were friends with on Twitter in the flesh for the first time. Yeah, it was a good night, wasn't it? That was also the day we met Gail Porter, because we went and interviewed her on the same day. Oh yeah, we did. And then went off to Fry's gig.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

So yeah. This started out with the first time we were paid for our brains. We've gone off a little bit, haven't we?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Have we? I don't well. Yeah, we have a bit, I suppose, but you know, it's all kind of it's all linked, isn't it? It is all linked. It led to us being paid for gigs afterwards, didn't it? You know, lots of stuff that came out of that that led to some really good business opportunities. Massive opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Absolutely. What was your proudest moment when we're running Turquoise Tiger as it was at the time of Fruit who became just Turquoise Tiger Press?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

My proudest moment. I think one of them was around the Tweeting Times magazine because we because it was a real passion project. Yeah. And it meant that we we got some really good celebs on board. And at the time we were really kind of hitting back on all that kind of celebrity scandal stuff and giving celebrities the opportunity to talk. Oh, do you remember? Yeah, I do remember. Go on, you carry on.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So some of you might remember if we go back again. It's a while back now. It's gonna be probably about what year are we in now? 26. It's gonna be a good 15 years or so back. Yeah. If not a little bit more. Where the national press went through this trend of ousting celebrities who'd been a bit naughty, particularly with things on the sexual side.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

You mean ousting or outing?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Outing, sorry. Yeah. Outing celebs who'd been a little bit had a little bit on the side, shall we say. And I remember that one of the reasons the celebs were trusting us at coming to us for interviews was that we weren't doing that. We were going right now, all the press are going kind of gutter press.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Salacious kind of.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Salacious got it. Yeah. And we were saying, well, not interested in anything of that like that. We don't even have an agenda. We just want to talk to you about whatever you want to talk to us about. We want the human interest stories, we want the charities you support, we want and the everyday stuff. Everyday stuff, human interest, human beings. Yeah. And because we weren't running any of the salacious stuff, the amount of celebs who trusted us and agreed to be interviewed by us was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, it was. Such a variety as well. And there was one.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Can we say A-list? I think we can.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, well, actually, probably even, yeah, equally now, more so. Even more so now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

A-list celeb. You managed to wangle us free room to interview this celeb at the Dorchester in London. It was the Hilton. No, the Hilton, sorry. The Hilton town. The Hilton, sorry. It wasn't the Hilton, it was the No, it was the Hilton.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

You sure it was the Hilton? Hang on, what's the one on down in Field? No, it is. No, it is Dorchester. The Dorchester. It's off uh is it Dorchester? Yeah, it is. You're right, it is, isn't it? Just off if you come down the strand. Is that the Dorchester?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

The Dorchester's the one we used to do our work gigs at, so it wasn't the Dorchester. Savoy, it's the Savoy. Savoy, of course. Is it the Savoy? It was the Savoy. Anyway, it's one of the top.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

It was the Savoy. Sorry, listeners, if you're bored by not. We had to have a load of different words.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

We can do something more interesting. Top London hotels when we were when we were in. We're on tours.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Our memories are, you know, not quite well.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Well you angled a free room at the Savoy. I did. For us to do this interview because that happened to be where this celebrity was staying. Well, I had a big fairy mic for that one. You did? You had a boom mic, but it was before the days of recording on iPhones and Androids. Yeah. We had a little flip cam.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yeah. Anybody remember the flip cams?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

We turned up with a little flip cam, the tripod was bigger than the camera. Yeah. To an A-list movie and TV star. Set up this tiny little camera. And it got to the point where he had to offer, uh they had to offer to hold the boom mice and but it was a really lovely interview, and off we went, and what happened?

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Well, a certain newspaper broke a story about this particular celebrity.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Well, they were going to, weren't they?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Or about it was about to go live.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I'm not sure if it ever did go live or if it was it.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Did it? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

I can't remember. I remember my mobile ringing and looking at it and going, wow, that's that celebrity actually ringing. Yes. And I answered, and they basically said they were really sorry, but we'd have to hold the story. Because there were the a national newspaper was threatening to run one of these scandal pieces on them, and their manager and agent has said they'd got to hold all press. Yep. So we pulled the story. We did. You know, and legally we knew as former journalists we could have just said publish and be damned. Yeah. And ridden off the back of it. But our ethos was very much we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Again, if you remember in the first episode of this series, the previous episode to this one, we were talking about how we were trained as journalists.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Which was about reporting fairly. And on this case, it was like we can either ride off the back of all the salacious gossip, which would mean we were going back on everything we were saying, or we can do this very well-known celebrated favour, and then that I was a favour, yeah. Essentially. So that was one of the things that happened.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Ah, memories, memories, memories, eh? I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

It's amazing, isn't it? The things we think back to now.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

So have we gone right off topic, Taz now? Have we completely lost the plot?

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I don't think we have. I think, you know, this was the first time people paid us for our brains, and we were being paid for tweeting times via advertising and sponsorship. Yeah. But we were also being paid in credibility and connections. Yeah. I remember going to interview Esther Ranson. Yeah. And whatever anyone says about Esther Ramsey, I've got to say, she was bloody lovely. She learned you learnt so much from her, didn't you? Yeah. We turned up to meet her when she was campaigning to become an MP. Yeah. And she sat me down again with my little flip cam. And she taught me how she was taught to interview to camera. Yeah. Including the setup of the camera, where to put it, where to look. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

You got a master class, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 31:16

I got a masterclass class in how to interview to camera by National Treasurer. Esther Ransom. Yeah. That was amazing. What else did we learn in through interviewing celebs? What else did we learn?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Just how helpful they were. They recognised they were really appreciative of the fact that we let them talk freely.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That there wasn't an agenda with it. We didn't have an angle already, worked out before we went on the call on the on the on the face-to-face meet. Also, total respect for them. We met a few sports stars along the way. One of my heroes I met, which was David Seaman, England. Yeah, met him. He was lovely. And I think just from having those experiences with them, it was fantastic to be able to just have a chat. And it felt like a chat. You know, and the fact that we talked about that A-list celeb who held the boom bike for us, but that was so many people, what because we treated them with respect, they're just people. Yeah, and like an ordinary person, you know, we all have to do the two Ps, don't we, ultimately? So it's like, you know, because we did that, the response was really positive, and I think they appreciated that. So I learned that you've just got to, we've between us interviewed quite a few celebrities over the years, and you've just got to, you know, not be too, you know, sycophantic, not be, oh, you know, try and um sweeten the deal. Just be yourself with them, and they react, respond to that, and we'll get a better interview for it.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And it wasn't just it wasn't just celebrities in the UK. You know, we had we interviewed and had a brilliant relationship with Hal Sparks. Hal Sparks, a stand-up comedian who was also in Queer as Folk, the American Version. Oh, yeah, the American Version. Yeah. He was lovely. Yeah. David Faustino. Yeah. And I remember the the first time I think I ever saw him in anything was. Can you for some people who might not know who he is? He was in Married with Children. That was when I first became aware. That was when I first became aware of him playing Bud Bundy. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But think about some of the other people from that now. You know, you've got Christina Applegate, you've got Katie Sagell, you've got Ed O'Neill. There's some people and that have really come up the ranks a lot since. Yeah. Who else? Oh, really beautiful, gorgeous bloke in the in the States. American rock star, J-Link. Death and Taxes. Oh, okay. He was so supportive, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah, he helped. But again, that's because the way we treated him, I think, and he we you liked that. For our approach to that, we weren't going to kind of just try and sweeten him up to get the story we wanted.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And we had a few other celebs who would who didn't go around to have any interviews with us, but they supported us and supported us behind the scenes. And I remember one well-known, again, American A-list TV star who never appeared but would regularly tweet me behind the scenes privately and talk about how brilliant the job we were doing and how much she wanted to support us. Yeah. So there was so much that wasn't said. It was really amaz amazing. That the the the things that opened up for us. I remember when we went to Sam was it Sam was it Sam Fox's birthday party or Gail Porter? No, it was Gail Porter's Porter's 40th party. Gail Porter's 40th birthday party. And that was the first time we met a Sam Fox face to face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah. We got some good pictures that day.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Daniel's more. Yeah. Oh, there's so many people there we met. And just what a lovely, amazing group of people. And it's like, well, who are you? Well, we're just these two letters from Lincolnshire, really. Yeah. But it led to so much. That's how we met Luke Lou Caulfield, who became a really dear f dear friend to us. We're still in touch with now. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Loads of people, loads of people. But lovely. Lisa Faulkner, she was lovely.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yeah. Probably still is. Still is lovely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I think she was Lisa Faulkner was probably one of the loveliest interviewees.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah. Lisa and Gail. Yeah. And also, oh my goodness me, who did was it not MTV, was it? Can't remember her name now.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

It's alright, it'll come to the house. Laura Hamilton. Laura Hamilton. Laura Hamilton, who was still on Nickelodeon at the time.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

That was another classic where she was helping us out, wasn't she?

SPEAKER_01 35:42

And giving us advice on how to she at the time was on Nickelodeon, of course now she's a travel presenter, isn't she? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had to go to the Nickelodeon studios. Oh, yeah, in London. To film it. Yeah. And we were going all past these kind of life-size Spongebob sets, and it was like, what this is. Where are we? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Oh no, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

And here's another tip for you. Bless her, she kept getting really tongue-tied helping us shoot a promo video. Yeah, sorry. She couldn't get just tweeting times. She was saying things like the tweet times and tweeting on times. And we did a blooper reel. She did tweeting on times lots of times. Tweeting on times like Stoke on Trent. But the blooper reels that we did from any of those used to get way more views than anything else when we used to sit on the YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Because we'd all be having hysterics because we you know, don't matter how many times she rehearsed it and went through it. Yeah, you know, she's a brilliant presenter, but on that occasion, for whatever reason, it just wasn't going in at all. And the more we tried to be serious and film, the more we started laughing.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

And then yeah, yeah, and the three of us were just corpsing and giggling.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

But it was, yeah, we ended up talking to Lisa Faulkner about things like angel numbers and finding white feathers. Yeah, I'll be right back. Because again, we're not talking about I think we might have mentioned the time that she had her head thrown into a dick fat fryer on. It was in Space, wasn't it? Oh, it's another great series. We started re-watching that recently, didn't we? But it was the real stories behind the celeb factor. And that's what you've got to remember if you want to get to the point where you work with and since we've interviewed plenty, but I've also coached celebs since plenty of times.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

But that I have no doubt that that wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for all these things that we've we've talked about tonight.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

You've got to, particularly if you're running your own business, you have got to be aware of how many doors can open from one tiny step.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

You know, you might open one tiny, you might step through what feels like did you see that?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

No. You said one tiny step. There's a little tiny, it was a stoke or something, just run across the road. And its little feet were going, uh, 90% dozen, but it got there safely.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Sorry. I was trying to say that ties in beautifully. That what might feel to you like going through a little mouse hole sized door. It was literally it's just got in front of the car. That can open great big swing doors. It's one opportunity leads to other opportunities. So don't ever rule anything out because you feel it's a dead end or too small. Be willing to think, I don't know where this comes, and I don't know who this person knows, and I don't know where this might lead. Yeah. And you know, it really can sometimes be that snowball effect. So it took us a long time to get to interview Stephen Fry. Yeah, yeah. And what eventually got us to Stephen Fry, there was, I don't know how many of you all know her, but there was a wonderful Twitter celebrity at the time called Mrs. Stephen Fry. Edna Fry. Oh yes. And Mrs. Stephen Fry used to write a column for us. Yeah. And she was hilarious, still is. It was one of our most popular parts of the mag, wasn't it? Yep. And somehow it was through Mrs. Stephen Fry that we got to interview Stephen Fry. Yeah, of course. And one of my biggest surprise moments was walking into WH Smith's, picking up Mrs. Fry's debut book, and I think it'd been on the Times Best Sellers List or something. Yeah. Looking at the acknowledgments, and there we were mentioned in the acknowledgments of Mrs. Stephen Fry's book.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Super cool that. So yeah. Believe in yourself. Be brave enough to go there. Because so many people, you know, will say to me when they've got aspirations to work with people big in the business world, in the celebrity world, but but who am I to speak to them? You know what? At one point, they were sitting way sitting where where you are and thinking things like, well, who am I to think I might one day be on TV or in movies or on big stages?

unknown 39:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

They're people. They're just people. So the first thing you've got to do is drop drop the sycophantic element. Yeah. Drop the hero worshipping, drop the oh my god, a celebrity it's a celebrity. And see them as human beings with a job. And a job that, depending on what you're doing, is probably nowhere near as stable as yours. So they have their concerns, their worries, their anxieties, like everything else. And once you get to one, that's where the snowball starts. So a few years back when during lockdown, when I did my Taz Talks Mental Health series, yeah. Where again we interviewed more celebs, and not many of those I think had met through tweeting times, if any of them. I think Gail, but hers didn't publish because she was going through her rough time. She just lost her dad at the time. Yeah. But I know when I was trying to get a load of the stars from from Holby City, casualty and lost.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, I'm sorry. Let's let's go off. I'm gonna go off topic now. I'm gonna have a 30-second round. Give me that, listeners, please. I'm gonna rant because I was a casualty fan until we had Holby City. And for me, out of the two, if I had to choose Holby City all the way, fantastic characters. What who was the wonderful surgeon in her we loved? What's her name? Which one? Oh well they were all brilliant, but there was so I can't remember any of the names now. That's gonna do it. Catherine Russell. Catherine Russell, but also Serena. Serena, but also Oh Amanda Mealing, we interviewed her. Manda Mealing, we interviewed. There were so many guys, and she and then she's now in I think she's in casualty now, isn't she? Or she was. But for me, Hobby City for the win. And when they got rid of it, I think I've got to be. Get rid of casualty and keep up with city. Or have both, but don't get rid of it. And I think what they did was they used the money they Jack Naylor. Jack Naylor. Jack Naylor, great cut. Oh, and her ending that the they gave her a yeah, hell of an ending in that show. Not a dry eye in the house. But what I was gonna say was she absolutely, yeah. That for me was why couldn't you have kept ideally both of them? But if not, I think the money that went from Holby City went to bringing back the what's the the kid, the school one. Oh, Waterloo Road. Yeah, I think the money went there, and I think I should have kept it with Holby City. But there you go. That was more than 30 seconds back where we were, Taz.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

And of course, one of my more recent celebrity coaching clients is well known from Waterloo Road. But talking about that snowball effect, when we were trying to get more people for Taz Talk's mental health. Yeah. I was trying to get some people from Holbein Casualty. Interviewed Heather Peace. Heather is such a beautiful human being. She's bloody lovely. Heather had interviewed me for Radio DVD. She's still on East Enders now, but she was, wasn't she? Heather had interviewed and she was also on Waterloo Road. Yeah. Heather had interviewed me for Radio Radio Deva. Radio Diva. A few years before. Radio Deva. A few years before.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

When I had been mentioned on the Diva Power List. Yeah. Woo! Yay!

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Do you remember what number you were out of a hundred, wasn't it? Probably 99. No, no, no, you weren't. You were kind of midway somewhere. I think you were on it a couple of times.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

But like you are now Taz.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So because we already had a relationship, she agreed to be interviewed for Taz Talks Mental Health. And then once Heather had been interviewed, a few of the others were like, oh well, if Heather's done it, must be alright. Chizzy Akadulu came on board. Yeah. Chizzy was brilliant. And then Catherine Russell came on board, she was brilliant. And it started this little snowball.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

So you just gotta be brave enough to ask.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

You really have. You just gotta, instead of putting a barrier between you and people that you see as being celebrities or business gurus, you have to remember that they're human beings and you need to take the barriers down and you need to be brave enough to just ask. And the same comes for clients. If there is a business out there or an individual that you really want to work for, instead of thinking, oh, that's a pipe dream, because all the time you're saying it's a pipe dream, guess what? You're gonna be right. You need to be brave enough to ask. You need to have a compelling reason for them to work with you, and you need to be willing to ask.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

And that's worked be brave enough. Yeah, that's worked so many times. And even way back in the tiger days when we were doing PR for other people, we were doing PR for an animal charity. Yeah. And one of the campaigns we ran with them was getting loads of their branded. They have doggy bandanas that they give to dogs of given blood.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

And we got a load of their doggy bandanas. And between us, we got loads of celebs to sign the bandanas, didn't we? Jody Pringer was another one. Yeah, we auctioned them off, didn't we, to raise money? Jodie Pringer, Gail Porter, Stephen Fry, Supervet. Yeah. We had loads of brilliant stuff. Because it again goes so far. There's there's the sky is the limit. You've got to stop thinking that you're not good enough and start thinking, well, who am I to not do this? Instead of who am I to do this? Who are you to not do it? If you have an idea and something that's going to genuinely benefit the world in some way, even if that starts with you, then go for it. Who would have thought? Do you want to just say something briefly, Ash, about I like the way you said briefly, Asher. Briefly.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

When you are we nearly on an hour or something.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

We probably are. Asher was doing a bit of hero worship with a Paralympian that was kind of on the outskirts of our business social circle. And Ash knew this this Paralympian story was tremendous. And she said to me and a friend of ours, Tracy Baum, oh I'd love to write her book. Thank you. I'd love to write her book. And we went, Well, why don't you go and talk to her then? And you were going, I can't, I can't, I can't know. Somebody else is bound to be already doing her book. She's amazing. Who am I to do that? And we went, go and talk to her.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Talk to her. And we got the gig. Thank you, Louise. Love you. But also, what you didn't know is I'd already talked to her. And she'd said, Oh, I'd love to wear with Asher. Yeah. So that's another kin. She's now one of our closest pals. I coach her and her husband. Massive shout out to the Hunt Skelly's team Huntskelly. Yay! Louise Hunskelly and Chris Huntsculy, Chris, gold and bronze medal Paralympian as well. Amazing, amazing judo guy, and also brilliant at giving you back cracks.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

And guess what? As well, I can't say too much at the moment, but some of the contacts that Chris has very kindly sent my way, and also Louise, have led to more opportunities. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

How many people have gone in touch with you to help them either ghostwriter, produce or edit their book? Yeah. Who've said I saw what you did for Louise on Skelly?

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah. So it all links up beautifully. And so if we hadn't, if I hadn't done that, if you and Tracy hadn't got me in a kind of anything is possible sandwich, that sounds a bit dodgy, that wouldn't have happened. None of this. And I wouldn't have the work that I'm actually, some of the work I'm doing right at this moment, as we well, not actually as at this moment as I drive home, but you know, in my working life at the moment, that work has come through then. So and it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't made that decision to actually go for it, I'll ask.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

And I know that one of your other little ambitions, yes, is to help write or produce the book of a lioness. Yes. So if anyone listening has any lioness contacts. Oh yes, please. Jill Scott, if you happen to listen, we were connected on LinkedIn and then you disappeared from LinkedIn, otherwise I'd be so. Did anybody think she was busy? She's been quite busy today. I know. She's lovely as well. I mean, she put me in touch with her speaker agent and said, you need to be getting this woman on board.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah. So, yeah, that would be amazing. I would love to share the stories that really have been needed to be shared for a long, long time. Women's football is where it is today, thanks to all those lionesses that came before our beautiful, wonderful, incredibly talented lionesses of today. But all the women that came before them, you know, to play for England. So I would love to speak to anybody who's got any connections and tell their stories. I would love to do that. So if you know anybody, or if you are a lioness listening to this, please get in touch and let's talk.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

That'd be fab. Just remember be brave, put yourself out there. Those early foundations we made when we first started our business have opened up so much. We've been on TV since. We've we've been employed to go and work with reality stars on TV as well. It's been an interesting experience. It's been an interesting experience.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

We talked about those, I think, in the first series a bit, didn't we? We did.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

We've been invited to appear on reality shows. I did one. Oh now, can you talk about that right now? There's one as we as we speak. Not every opportunity is golden. There is a reality show on TV at the moment. Called. We're not going to say that. Okay. That I turned down. They wanted me to be one of the people on this reality show. And I turned it down because I had a feeling that it would not be good for me on a personal level. Yeah. And I could I can almost feel my PR screaming at me from here. Fee, I know, but I swear I made the right decision. And I remember I passed the contact on to another friend of mine, and we were talking only last night and both saying, yeah, I've seen some of the episodes now, it's playing. We dodged a bullet there. Yeah, I think he's I know that would have impacted my mental and emotional health. Yeah, just wasn't worth it. And you have to think of the cost at any cost. No. Yes, that would have definitely furthered my followings on social media. But I don't think I would have dealt with it very well. No. Very glad that I turned it down. Yeah. And for anyone listening going, how do we get invited onto TV shows? Talk. Get out there, show up, make a difference, be brave. That last opportunity that I turned down had nothing to do with any of the other celebrity contacts we made. It was because the production production crew and the casting crew had seen some of the videos I'd put out on TikTok and wanted somebody with my opinions and from my walk of life. But I'll just say this. Glad I turned down the opportunity to be handcuffed to somebody with opposing views and leave it there. Anyway, I hope you've got loads from from this from this series so far.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Two episodes already. Yeah, I know. How did that happen, Daz? This is good. Time in the care. Car is all right. Time in the care? In the car. For a few years, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

No, I hope not. I haven't got a few more years yet, thanks. And we've got Tilly in the back with us, who's been good as gold. She's probably snoozing away. Yeah, she's had an exciting day, she's our 14 and a half-year-old labradoodle, beautiful princess girl.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

She is.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

So we hope you've got some lessons from today's episode. Please, please, please get in touch and tell us what your biggest take-home's been from today. And please, please, please, if there's something you want to do and you're putting it off because you're thinking, who am I to do that? Yeah, just have a go. You don't ever want to get to the end of your life and look back and think, if only I've been brave enough to try. It's better to look back and say it. I might not have succeeded as I'd like, but I had a go, than to say, if only.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Two saddest words in the English language. If only. I thought the two saddest words in the English language were Donald Trump. Anyway, oh dear, she's out again.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

We will see you next Tuesday. You've been listening to Autumn Me Off Topic. Make sure you're following so you don't miss the next one. And if you'd like more, come and find Autumn Me Off Topic on social media. You'll find behind the scenes footage, bloopers, and more. See you next time.