Networking is vital for personal growth, increasing your professional network and your knowledge. Two networking groups — the 21st century Marketing Meet-up and the historic Worshipful Company of Marketors.

Keith Rowland explains the fascinating history of Livery Companies, including swan-tupping, the origin of the phrase "at sixes and sevens". Find out why members can drive their sheep across London Bridge. The Worshipful Company of Marketors believes "in the power of marketing to deliver economic and social good" and Keith explains the importance of networking and the Marketors out-reach programmes to support young marketors into the profession.

Joe Glover "the Marketing Meet-up Guy" talks about his idea of setting up the Meet-Up. Designed as networking for those that don't like networking, the Meet-ups soon outgrow their Cambridge start-up base and become UK wide. Just before Lockdown, the first US Meet-Up was held. Joe explains how he has developed an organisation that was set up for face-to-face networking into a thriving virtual community.


Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast with Kiran Kapur, brought to you by Cambridge Marketing College. See their range of courses and apprenticeships at marketingcollege.com.

Kiran Kapur (00:13):
Hi, I'm Kiran Kapur. And on this week's podcast, we're talking networking. Two different guests from completely different ends of the spectrum. Firstly, we're going old school with Keith Rowland.

Keith Rowland (00:24):
Most of these have grand livery halls. There are around 40 livery halls surviving in the city of London, hidden little passageways and unassuming doors, but they are incredibly impressive places.

Kiran Kapur (00:41):
And then a more contemporary approach from Joe Glover.

Joe Glover (00:43):
So that's how we've grown over these past four years to 13 locations in the UK. And then we also have the opportunity to start running it in New York, starting from February.

Kiran Kapur (00:54):
That's all in the next 35 minutes on the Cambridge Marketing Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast from Cambridge Marketing College.

Kiran Kapur (01:02):
I'm joined by Keith Rowland who, amongst many hats, is the court assistant for the Worshipful Company of Marketors. Keith, welcome. We've got to start with what on earth is a worshipful company?

Keith Rowland (01:16):
Well, it's one of the livery companies of the city of London. So when we talk about the city of London, we mean the square mile in the middle of London, the ancient Roman Londinium, and the livery companies date back perhaps 800 years. We think the weavers' company is probably the oldest, although the Woolmen would argue, but we can track the weavers back to 1130 A.D. So they've been around a little while.

Kiran Kapur (01:48):
What did they do? It was a group of weavers that got together?

Keith Rowland (01:52):
Yes. So all of these, they were originally trade guilds. So the people within the square mile of the old London used to get together, not only to worship because, of course, everyone was very religious in those times and that's why they're called worshipful companies even to this day, but to protect their trade and to train apprentices in the way that apprentices were trained in the medieval period. So it was kind of like a closed shop as well as a training organization, if you like, in those times. Originally there were the 12, as we call them, who became very successful. The great 12 became mostly very rich through legacies and so on from their members. And we still recognize the great 12 to this day. Most of these have grand livery halls. In fact, there are around 40 livery halls surviving the city of London, hidden little passageways and unassuming doors, but they are incredibly impressive places.

Keith Rowland (03:10):
A lot of them were destroyed in the great fire of London, 1666, and sadly some more were destroyed during the blitz in 1940, but around 40 survive to this day. We now have a lot more livery companies. So there were the original 12 and then some more were added right the way through to the Carmen in 1848. And then there was the-

Kiran Kapur (03:34):
The Carmen?

Keith Rowland (03:34):
The Carmen. They were kind of like, they were carriers, they were freight hauliers called the Carmen. And they were the last of that period. And then there was a gap until 1926 when the Master Mariners got their Royal charter and anything since then is considered to be a modern livery company.

Kiran Kapur (04:01):
And I'm guessing marketors probably isn't one of the ancient great 12. So I'm guessing we're one of the modern ones.

Keith Rowland (04:09):
Quite right. Marketors. There's an airline pilots, there's an information technologists. There are several of the modern professions. Of course, some of the ancient professions like the Skinners and the Salters, some of these things, these trades from the medieval period don't really exist anymore. The Horners, for example, have reinvented themselves to represent the plastics industry. The fan makers have reinvented themselves to represent air conditioning.

Kiran Kapur (04:44):
Wow. So they literally went from presumably fans that ladies carried type of fans to thinking, "Well, we waft air around. So we'll be air conditioners."

Keith Rowland (04:54):
Absolutely right.

Kiran Kapur (04:55):
Fantastic.

Keith Rowland (04:56):
So, we are one of the modern livery companies and the modern livery companies are slightly different to the ancient livery companies, because obviously you don't have to be a Salter or a Dyer or a Skinner or something to be part of these great livery companies. But the modern livery companies are much more closely linked to their profession. And in the case of the marketors, you need to be in the marketing profession at a fairly senior level. I like to think of it you need to have arrived to be considered for what we call the freedom of the company. In the old days, you had to get your freedom of the company and then your Freedom of the City of London to be allowed to practice your trade in London. That's not true anymore, but nevertheless, it's still recognized.

Kiran Kapur (05:53):
Before I explore that a little bit further, because the idea of becoming a freeman of the city of London sounds very fascinating. I wanted to check. It is marketors with a T-O-R-S, not marketers, which would be the sort of more standard spelling.

Keith Rowland (06:07):
Yeah. It's branding. I think in 1975, when the fellows, some of the fellows of the Chartered Institute of Marketing decided to form a livery company, they looked for a name that was slightly quirky. There are several other misspellings of professions such as the Plaisterers and the Paviors. And I think they looked at the word marketor and thought, "Well, doctors are spelled O-R-S but pronounced doctors. So why shouldn't marketers?"

Kiran Kapur (06:39):
Fair enough. So tell me a little bit more about becoming a freeman of the city of London because there's something about sheep, isn't there?

Keith Rowland (06:48):
Yes, there is. In the ancient times, it was considered a privilege of the freeman of the city of London. That was the people who'd finished their apprenticeship and were free of their indenture. Those people had the freedom to take their livestock to market, particularly Smithfield, I suppose, over London Bridge, which was the only bridge in those times without paying the toll. And that, of course, was worth a fortune to those people. So it's still a ceremonial privilege to be allowed to take your sheep over London Bridge. The city of London police don't look very favorably at you doing that during rush hour. But once a year, the Woolmen organize a sheep drive and I was privileged to actually do that a couple of years ago. And of course the money goes to charity.

Kiran Kapur (07:44):
So you literally take sheep over London Bridge as part of the [crosstalk 00:07:49].

Keith Rowland (07:49):
Those poor sheep, they were shuttled backwards and forwards across that bridge in a little pen, a little lane at the side of the traffic for a whole day by hundreds of liverymen from various different livery companies, but they survived.

Kiran Kapur (08:09):
Okay. Continuing the livestock theme, there's something about swans as well, isn't there?

Keith Rowland (08:15):
There is. The swans on the upper parts of the Thames all belong to the queen unless they are claimed by two of the livery companies. And that is the Vintners company or the Dyers company. So once a year in the summer, and unfortunately not this year, but normally in procession, representatives of the Skinners and the Dyers and the queen row up the river in full ceremonial clothing and mark the swans. Once upon a time, they would have nicked their beaks with a little mark. But now of course, they check them over for welfare to see if they're caught in fishing line and so on. They'll take them. They have a veterinary hospital on the bank there that they'll take them to if necessary, check them over. They mark the ring, the cygnets, that belong to the parents and, of course, therefore belong to the livery companies or the queen every year. And you can follow this. It starts somewhere like Cookham or somewhere like that. And they row up towards Oxford. So it's a lovely day out.

Kiran Kapur (09:22):
And just before we move on, because I'm sort of still fascinated by the ancient side of the liveries. There's also one of the phrases that we use. We talk about being at sixes and sevens. I think that's something to do with the livery, isn't it?

Keith Rowland (09:33):
Yes, it is. So all the livery companies are ordered in precedence. The Marketors are number 90 of the 110 livery companies. And that reflects that we're a very young livery company. And as I said, I've talked before about the great 12 who with the Mercers, the richest, and most established of all at number one, nobody could agree, the Merchant Tailors and the Skinners couldn't agree who should be number six and number seven. So in 1515, the king at the time decreed that they would take it in turns to be number six and number seven. And that's the origin of all at sixes and sevens.

Kiran Kapur (10:16):
Fantastic. Now we've talked a lot about the sort of history of the livery because clearly that's very important, but I would hate anyone to be left with a view that the Marketors is simply about swans. So talk a little bit about what you do in the sort of in the modern era, because you've actually got quite a lot of initiatives going on, haven't you?

Keith Rowland (10:34):
Yes. Well, all of the livery companies have a role in the governance of the city of London. So first and foremost, we are a city livery company. We are different from the CIM or any of the other marketing organizations as such, but we are the livery company for marketing professionals. So in addition to our role in the governance of the city of London, we also promote marketing within the city of London and beyond. And in fact, during these difficult times this year, our business lectures that were previously live lectures have gone online and we've been doing one a fortnight, and I even gave one myself. They've gone down extremely well. And we're going to pick those up again in the autumn. So we do further education. We also support education by making awards to post-graduate marketing students from various business schools. And they are then invited to come to our dinners and receive their awards. So we very much have a role in marketing as well in our case.

Kiran Kapur (11:41):
And you have a Future Marketors initiative. Is that around the postgraduates?

Keith Rowland (11:48):
Not necessarily. I mean, we, we are just building the future Marketors. We realized that most of our members were older and we wanted to do something for people, particularly people under 20, who weren't being served really by the livery companies. So we were just now founding the future Marketors with an emphasis on mentoring and on education and on fellowship, which is a very important part of being in the livery. It's friendship and fun really, but also it gives people that connection. Especially when they're in their early stages of their careers, perhaps they don't know too many people in marketing from beyond their companies. So we wanted to provide something for that as well as access to some of the big names in marketing. For example, Malcolm McDonald is a liveryman of our company. So we're trying to develop this. We believe that mentoring will be very welcome with young people and the Marketors have a history of mentoring.

Kiran Kapur (12:54):
And you have four Cs, don't you, that's a sort of mantra of the livery company?

Keith Rowland (12:58):
Yes. The four pillars of the company. So as I said before, we still have a role in the governance of the city of London, the liverymen of our company, and other companies, are entitled to vote for the sheriffs and the Lord Mayor of the city of London. We share that, of course, with the ancient livery companies and we follow their traditions in some of the ceremonial that we do, which is different to ceremony, but it's very transparent, but a little bit of fun we have with that. That's the first C is the city. The second is the craft of marketing, which I've talked about already. The third is the charitable side. We have a charitable trust of our own and the members of the company are encouraged to donate to the trust. And that trust makes the awards. It also provides some prizes for our military affiliates because all the livery companies are affiliated to various regiments, ships, squadrons, or whatever, because we're obliged to defend the city of London. And we really are probably not the best people to do that ourselves. So we defer that to the military.

Kiran Kapur (14:07):
Sorry. I have a vision now with marketers rushing out, going, "Yes," raising a cutlass or something.

Keith Rowland (14:14):
It's a horrible vision. So we provide awards to young officers, soldiers, sailors, and so on. And and our last one, the last C, is the company itself of being a member, company in the sense of fellowship and friendship and fun. So in addition to having a lot of business events, we also have social events and we also have almoners who, there's a long tradition of taking care of members of the various livery companies in distress. And some of the livery companies, some of the ancient ones, unfortunately not the modern ones, have alms houses for people in distress, but we have people who take care of people, look after our members, make sure that people are well and their mental wellbeing is being taken care of.

Kiran Kapur (15:07):
If somebody is listening and thinks, "This all sounds amazing, I'd like to become a member," how do you go about doing that? You said it was for people that had sort of arrived. So I'm assuming you've got to have a fair amount of experience.

Keith Rowland (15:18):
Yes. I think if you're over 30 and you have got your diploma in marketing, or you have reached your management level through your abilities in marketing, then you could certainly drop a line to membership@marketors.org. And I actually will take that up and contact you and take it from there. If you're under 30 and perhaps you're still working your way up in your career, then the Future Marketors might be for you. And again, if you drop a line to a membership@marketors.org, I would be very pleased to hear from you. And we were piloting this up until Christmas and we hope to launch it fully after the new year. I'd be delighted to welcome you to the Future Marketors.

Kiran Kapur (16:10):
And are there levels of membership?

Keith Rowland (16:14):
If you're a full member of the company, not one of the Future Marketors, you start as a freeman of the company, and then we help you out to become a freeman of the city of London, which is another ceremony at Guild Hall and is open to members of all livery companies and none and in fact was conferred recently on Colonel Sir Tom Moore, after his great achievements raising money for the NHS. So once you've got your Freedom of the City of London and your right to drive sheep over London Bridge, then we would consider you for full membership of the company, which is called livery, where you have another graduation ceremony, as it were, and we clothe you in livery. The livery means every livery company has its own colors because once upon a time people couldn't read, so they were identifying their professions or trades by the colors that they wore. And we clothe people in livery by putting on a green gown, like a graduation gown and celebrating that.

Kiran Kapur (17:20):
Keith Rowland, that was absolutely amazing. I'm sure everyone's been fascinated by the history of the livery companies and the fact that there is a Worshipful Company of Marketors. If you would like to find more information, the website was marketors, don't forget that's T-O-R-S, .org. Keith, thank you very much indeed for your time.

Keith Rowland (17:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast from Cambridge Marketing College, training marketing and PR professionals across the globe.

Kiran Kapur (17:49):
My next guest has set up the world's loveliest community for marketers, probably, back in 2016 and it's fair to say it's grown exponentially. Joe Glover, welcome to the show. So let's start with what made you set up the Marketing Meetup.

Joe Glover (18:07):
So first off, hey, thank you very much for having me. The Marketing Meetup, it's funny even to hear you say that it started in 2016, because I'm not sure I was particularly cognizant of that before, but when I think about the reasons why I started the Marketing Meetup, it was very much just about providing a place where I could learn, a place where I could meet other marketers, but potentially most crucially, it had to be a place which was enveloped in a sort of a wrap of kindness and love. It was a place where people could feel welcomed and included and free of most of the tropes that you find around networking, of folks trying to sell to each other, to not listen to one another and just generally come out feeling a little bit grimy.

Joe Glover (18:52):
It was really important to me that it was just like a place where we could look to help each other, and we encapsulate that in the word community, but really it's just about looking to help each other and learn and grow together. So yeah, it was started with fairly humble intentions really in that we were just looking to provide that place in Cambridge, but over the past four years or so, it's grown into something quite a lot more significant, which is really quite lovely.

Kiran Kapur (19:22):
So let's start with how you started. So I remember meeting you and you weren't really very sure what you were going to do. And we had a coffee together at St John's Innovation Centre and it was sort of, I've had this idea, but you clearly had an idea and were going to make it happen. So I seem to remember that to beginning, it was just one place, Redgate buildings. That's where you were working, wasn't it?

Joe Glover (19:43):
Yeah, well, I was working downstairs in the Redgate Software building and they were kind enough to lend us their servery. So you were spot on. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing then, and I've only got a little bit more of an idea of what I'm doing now, but it was very much, "Let's just get a bunch of people together. Let's have a nice time. Let's find the opportunity to learn." So we did that through the ability to have a couple of speakers. So we've always curated two speakers per event, each speaking for about 20 minutes and then follow with Q and A and just the opportunity for networking, but very crucially, as I say, just in that really sort of relaxed informal environment.

Joe Glover (20:26):
So there wasn't a plan to start off with, but it kind of just whatever it was resonated and people kept coming back, which was much to my surprise at the time, not because I thought it was bad, but just because I never really expected it to be anything. It was just something that I felt the need that I wanted to do. And I was grateful that people turned up.

Kiran Kapur (20:46):
And one of the things I loved when, because I've spoken at your event and you're very clear at the beginning that everybody has to be positive. So your positively lovely maxim really comes through.

Joe Glover (21:00):
Yeah. It's so true. Yeah, it's kind of become a tagline now. It has. It has.

Kiran Kapur (21:07):
Yes, it really has. So, okay. So you started in Cambridge and it was the Cambridge marketing meetup. Now the Marketing Meetup, because you sort of outgrew Cambridge. So where did you go from Cambridge?

Joe Glover (21:17):
Well, I've never claimed to outgrow Cambridge. It's very important that Cambridge knows that is a very loved and important part of the Marketing Meetup. But we initially, I grew it myself to Norwich and then London. So basically I was just having a lot of fun doing it. I really, really love these events because people would just come with the best attitude and really do look after each other at them. But shortly afterwards, people started coming up to me and saying, "This thing that you're doing in the servery in Cambridge, well, I'm traveling from Birmingham to come and do it," or "I'm coming from Bedford to come to this event on a Tuesday evening. So do you mind if I do this thing closer to my house?" So, again, very much blase, very informal, really. I said, "Yeah, I'll support you. I'll give you what you need. We're not making a lot of money from this, but it is what it is. So if you want to use the name, then by all means."

Joe Glover (22:23):
And so that's how we've grown over these past four years to 13 locations in the UK. And then we also had the opportunity to start running it in New York, starting from February. So that again is one that I started running personally, but of course COVID hit at that time. So, we had to stop doing that. So that was the physical events. So yeah, 13 locations in the UK, one in the USA, but also encapsulated within that there's these 17,000 amazing marketers who really make it special.

Kiran Kapur (22:59):
So you have the dual mission, I know, where you wanted somewhere to network and also somewhere to learn. So as you always say, the learning bit is the easy bit to talk about. Let's talk about that bit. So how have you encouraged the learning? What sort of level are you teaching people at?

Joe Glover (23:14):
I think we tend to look at things, we start off with a very high level. So all of our outward communication would be, if you are a marketer, you are very welcome here. And that's the truth, and I think to narrow it down based on job title alone, it's not necessarily a useful thing to do because the head of marketing in a 10 person company is going to be very different to head of marketing in a 2000 person company, as an example. That being said, most of our content tends to touch on elements of both tactics and strategy, something that you would probably associate with a marketing manager at a 50 person company, someone who is likely to be working on their own or in a small team. They're likely to know a little about a lot, but not a lot about a little. So we're there to give them the guidance and both the strategic element of it and the tactical implementation of a specific thing at any given time.

Joe Glover (24:17):
One of the advantages of what we're doing is that we're producing so much content and engaging with so many speakers over the course of time, we're also able to sort of deep dive on each of these elements. I just said, deep dive. So please don't hate me for saying that, but we're able to take a real look at each of these different elements and sort of give them the time that they deserved. As an example, the other day, we had a webinar session with the wonderful John Espirian, who is a LinkedIn expert and a copywriter, and we were able to focus for the entire session just on best practices on LinkedIn, which was a really, really useful session. The comments were coming in, that people were saying, "This is the best webinar I've ever attended" and stuff like that. And we were able to have that because we're able to look at so many things over the course of time. So yeah, the learning element certainly is the most easy bit to focus on and generally speaking focused on the marketing manager level sort of strategic and tactical elements.

Kiran Kapur (25:17):
So let's talk a little bit about the networking front, because actually I know, because you've been quite open about the fact that you're a nervous networker or you were. I don't think you still are. And actually, although you come across as a big extrovert, I believe you are not particularly extroverted. So how do you find the networking side and how have you created that sort of friendly environment?

Joe Glover (25:41):
I think it's so crucial to set the rules up front. So at every event we emphasize, "Listen, say hello, and be positively lovely." And that's like the one consistent element of the Marketing Meetup has been like, "Just listen, say hello and be positively lovely." And we set those rules at every event and there will have been, over the course of time, some people who've walked through our doors and not wanted to network in that way. And that's absolutely fine, but then we're just not the place for them. And that's okay. There's no shame in saying this thing is not for you. So, we're very, very clear from the beginning that that's the way that we want to do things. The second thing is that I heard a quote the other day, which I really liked, which was "Don't network, make friends." And I really liked that, because that sort of takes the pressure off networking than getting 20 business cards by the end of the evening and having five of these convert into a conversation.

Joe Glover (26:40):
And then two of those convert into a pitch and then one maybe turn into a client. You can actually, if you walk into a room and say, "I'm going to make some friends tonight," I think that's the best way to do things because particularly in the B2B environment, I'm pretty sure that most people could relate to the idea that most of their clients come from individuals they would regard as friends or certainly people they've got a good relationship with. So yeah, I think that sort of "Don't network, make friends" sort of thing is something that we're going to be pushing a little bit more heavily into the future because we've already established the rules, but I think that sums it quite nicely as well.

Kiran Kapur (27:17):
So what do you do when somebody comes to your meeting and you've said very nicely, well, actually, maybe this isn't the place for them, on the whole have people understood that themselves, or have you had to do some gentle leaning over the years?

Joe Glover (27:31):
No, I feel lucky to have said that literally I think people have always made that decision. I feel like we've made very clear, from the marketing of the events to the events themselves, how they're set up, and when people walk in the room, that's the way things are going to be. So it's very, very clear with everything we do, that's the kind of paradigm that we engage in. So, I think people have either chosen not to engage with it right from the off, or if they've turned up still and not enjoyed it, then they just haven't come back, which is absolutely fine. So, yeah, I mean, the other day, as an example, then I had a chat on LinkedIn. I didn't know him and this is an odd experience in itself, but people were speaking about the Marketing Meetup on LinkedIn and I just happened to stumble across it, and it wasn't anything to do with me.

Joe Glover (28:26):
They haven't tagged me in or anything like that, but this particular chap had said "The way they write their emails makes my toes curl." Yeah, of course that was quite unpleasant in a way, but in another, it couldn't have made me any more happy because it made me feel like we had a brand and made me feel like we had a viewpoint on the world which people were recognizing and then choosing to engage with or choosing not to. And like for me, that felt like a real sort of watershed moment for me. So I think it just comes from the marketing of the event, the events themselves, and then everything that follows. It's having a consistent voice in the market. And I think that's exactly what we've done, which has been great.

Kiran Kapur (29:12):
I have to say the only network group that I belong to that requires that you have to be positively lovely. Let's talk practical. So COVID clearly wasn't great for a physical meetup organization. You and I were having conversations as you were with other other companies. So I'm interested in two things. One is what you've done to adapt because actually, I think you've been very innovative in how you've gone into the virtual world, but I'm also interested how you came up with that, so that process of what you did to innovate. So should we start with what you've, I was going to say physically, that doesn't make sense, what you have virtually created in this virtual world. And then we'll talk about how you got there.

Joe Glover (29:54):
In terms of what we've actually done as a reaction to COVID. So we were looking forward to 140 events this year, 140 in-person events. And on March the 13th, we made the announcement, it was about a week ahead of lockdown beginning, that we wouldn't be able to run those events anymore. And that in itself was a little bit early because I remember sending out the email and then there was one chap in particular who came back to me and said, "I think you're making a mistake," which was particularly interesting, but so we were a little bit early on that, but we didn't want people getting sick on our behalf. So we, in truth, and this is part of the story and I have no shame in sharing it, I spent four days feeling really, really sad. We'd worked four years to get to this point. We'd worked really, really hard to build these locations out, to provide something valuable, to create an atmosphere, which people would feel welcome in, and then all of a sudden, gone.

Joe Glover (31:04):
However, on that Saturday morning, it became, of that same week, my mum said that I kind of channeled my granddad by just deciding to get on with it and do something a little bit brave. So in that morning, I decided to get in touch with every most famous marketing person I could find in the world, so for those in the marketing world, you'll be familiar with people like Mark Ritson, Rand Fishkin, Rory Sutherland, just get in touch with them by hook or by crook. I'm sure you'll be able to find them on my Twitter stream, trying to get in touch with these people that I didn't know at the time and just say, "Look, there's a bunch of people that are really scared right now and we want to provide a resource for them, which is going to provide a bit of normality, but also education. Would you mind giving an hour of your time to speak with us?" and thankfully, and to their absolute credit, they said yes.

Joe Glover (32:00):
So within a weekend, maybe four days or so, we built out what I'd regard to be one of the world's leading sort of webinar programs probably ahead of the curve, so to speak. In regards to your second question, which was more about how I came to that place. There's a certain element of it, which is that, what else was I going to do?, which is we knew we couldn't run the physical events anymore, but we had a wider why, which is that we're there to provide an education. We're there to provide connections and we're there to do it in a really kind way. And the most clear option was webinars in the first instance. So we run those every Tuesday, but then we also provided opportunities for folks to engage every Friday, every Friday lunchtime, with something we call Conversation Club, where folks come in, they get split off into groups of five individuals using Zoom's breakout functionality.

Joe Glover (33:07):
They have the opportunity to have a chat for 15, 20 minutes, and then that's it. Then they're done and they've had the opportunity to network and meet other folks they would never have had the opportunity to do so before. One of the byproducts of this is that the Marketing Meetup was built on a very local level prior, but now we've sort of been able to open that out globally. So, whereas we may have had anywhere between 20 people turning up to a Marketing Meetup in Bedford or 40 people in Milton Keynes or 120 in Cambridge, then the other day, one of our sessions had over a thousand people over the course of the call with Mark Ritson and Conversation Club has connected people from, from Luton to Cairo. People are tuning in from all over the world to the Marketing Meetup stuff, which is really quite gratifying and a little bit mind blowing.

Kiran Kapur (34:03):
Yeah. Amazing stuff. So when you talk, you very much of the brand of the meetup, you always very kindly say we did it, but a lot of it I know it comes from you. You're a massive advocate of being authentic. So my question is you are never other than you. I've met you socially, I've met you with a meetup. You are never other than you. When you are being you, are you a sort of enhanced you? Or is this what you're like when you first get out of bed in the morning? How authentic is the Joe Glover that we see?

Joe Glover (34:37):
I don't think I'm intelligent enough to be anything other than me. I think everyone's got their circles, right? So I probably would wear my wife thin if I were speaking about loveliness quite as much as I do in my day to day life. But honestly, that's absolutely where my head's at. I think we're all here on the planet just to look after each other a little bit. And I kind of view my life purpose, and I don't mean for this to go too wishy-washy, but I do see it as a, as an opportunity to spread kindness, to spread love and just look to help people out. So yeah, this is me. Some people might not like it, but that's okay. That's absolutely fine. I'm just not for them, but I'm happy being the person I am. And I love the opportunity for my business to encapsulate that as well. And that's probably the reason why every morning when I walked downstairs to my little office, then I feel really proud to be doing what I do and love it so much.

Kiran Kapur (35:49):
Joe Glover, thank you so much for your time this morning. As you will gather, I thoroughly recommend the Marketing Meetup. It's free to join. It's a great way to network and you will find it at themarketingmeetup.com. Webinars are on a Tuesday, Conversation Club is on a Friday and yes, so thank you Joe, very much for your time.

Joe Glover (36:10):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
The Cambridge Marketing Podcast from Cambridge Marketing College, training marketing and PR professionals across the globe.

Kiran Kapur (36:20):
Thank you for listening today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts from. Don't forget to leave us a review and subscribe. That way you'll get the next podcast the very second it's ready.