What do Ebay fraud, Sherlock Holmes and Rupert's Fancy Fowls have in common? It's elementary my dear.

Hi, my name is Jim James and welcome to today's episode of The speak PR. This is a podcast to share ideas and thoughts on how entrepreneurs and business owners can get their companies noticed for what they do. I've been an entrepreneur myself for over 25 years and and run an agency with offices in Singapore and China in the UK. And it's a weekend so I thought I could maybe sort of relax a little bit and and talk about some of the insights that I have when I'm not working. But of course, as a self employed person, I'm always thinking as as you will be, I'm sure. So this morning I was working on eBay because I've been working to sell a Sony camera that I purchased and then learned that really the the iPhone camera and the screen makes it More than enough for my needs, and those are the family. So having listed this camera on eBay, within minutes, I had a request to purchase. And then immediately following that, questions asking whether I could send this, this camera to a different address, cause the camera was bought for my daughter. And it was the it was the grammar that first elude first, you know, alerted me to this. And then that I kept on getting exactly the same message repeatedly over the next three hours asking me to change the address. So it alerted me. And then sure enough, this morning, we had an an email from eBay saying that that account had been hacked, and the purchase was not valid anymore. So my first foray into eBay was when I had sold something that was was was going to go to, to some vagabond somewhere. And of course, then when it came to having to relist the product, the customer that I'd also had for the product, said that he couldn't see it online anymore because it had been sold. And so I was then in danger of losing this customer, so I was desperately trying to relist the product. But it's not quite as easy as it might seem, you can't just decline the original offer and then relist it, because it was a false purchase. I had to delete the effect, eBay had deleted the the purchase product specification, and I would have to do it all over again. And this really led me to being extremely frustrated, because I'd already gone through the process once and the user interface for eBay for anyone that hasn't used it. It looks like a teenager had heard in Granted this 20 years ago, which course they did, and it hasn't been changed. Now, eBay is a multi billion dollar business. It has 33 countries with operations and some 14,000 employees and the market cap is $31 billion. And yet, it's the most for me anyway, the most miserable and now not trustworthy experience. And I couldn't, for example, upload my own profile photographs, the photographs and the email accounts of many, many, many buyers seem to be suspect. My wife has felt the same thing. Why is it that they take the money and hold it? You have to go through eBay. And the whole experience really, is is not pleasant. And yet this is a big company. Of course, the yield on the shares is only 1.45% which means that they're pretty much just so Driving on scale rather than on on any kind of service. So, it may be just think about from an observational perspective, here's a company that really doesn't look as though it's being led by anyone that really cares about the consumer experience. And the observations that we make form a great deal of the profile that we have about a company and of course, this is really public relations. So how a company treats its consumers at every touch point really is public relations. And the the psychologist Albert Bandura is the researcher most commonly identified with learning through observation, and of course, the other is in our learning through doing but according to Bandura, his research, there are a number of factors that will increase the likelihood that that behaviour will be will be imitated. he famously did a survey We had some children in a room and they watched adults beating a large inflatable Bobo toy. And then the parents left and there was no real no repercussions from that violence. And then the children were allowed to play with the Bobo and they then beat the Bobo as well. So we're likely to imitate behaviour as it's been seen, and we're also likely more likely to imitate good behaviour. We like to imitate people that we perceive as warm and maturing and a nature. We like to follow people that we see are receiving rewards for their behaviour. So as leaders of organisations undertaking PR, what sort of questions and what sort of behaviours are you and me creating for people to watch and to imitate? Now obviously, if I have a bad expensive eBay, and I say to my Wife, this isn't going well. So while she says yes, it's bad for me, too, what's happening is it's becoming reinforcing. And we're imitating our complaints, we start to get into a spiral of complaints. And then we share with other people that this is really not a good platform. So we have to start thinking about if we're going to create a company and the brand and all the perception around it, the importance of the observation by the consumer, towards every aspect of our company. People often think PR is simply about media relations. But in my view, it's much more than that. Because if there's been a great article, for example, in a magazine or someone's been interviewed, or there's a fabulous video, but if the user experience when actually get the product, either the car or the clothes or the food or the industrial equipment, and it's not the same, it creates this dissonance, the first person who started to really make this into into the common mainstream was, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Now, when I was at Manchester University, I went along to the Granada studios Tour, which unfortunately now is closed but in castle field, they had a complex because they used to film the Sherlock Holmes series back there in the 1990s. And I was struck and I always remember finding out that Conan Doyle had been a medical student at the University of Edinburgh. And while he'd been there, he had a lecturer called Joseph bill. And Joseph bill was a Scottish surgeon at Electra. And he you know, from night from 1837, sorry, to 1911. So it took a long time ago. But one day, when oil was in the classroom, a young man knocked on the door and nothing happened and Joseph Bell said, you know, Enter. And this young man walked in and came to the front of the of the class and waited and then fella said, Yes, what can I do for you? And the man said, I have a letter for you. And Bill said, okay, present it for me. The man gave the letter. The bell said, Thank you, that'll be all and the man turned, and he left. And he shut the door on his way out. And the classroom I think, offered until Bell said, Okay, what can we learn about this man? What do we know about this man? And they said, What do you think he's just the courier? And Bell said, Well, we can tell first of all that. He knocked and he waited before coming into the room. And when he did come into the room, he came to the front, but he didn't Hand me the letter until I asked for it like gave the authority. His shoes were polished, but we're not expensive. He didn't have a wedding ring. The colour and he shirt had a ring of dirt. around it. But his suit was was tidy, but not especially clean. And he had some cuff frame. And he didn't wear a watch. So we can see that he was probably in the armed forces at some stage, but not in an officer rank that is not well educated, that is used to take instructions that he probably lives at home alone, or in a boarding house because he lived with a wife or his parents, they will ensure that his clothes were fully clean. And he hasn't had work or good fortune recently because it's close, they're not new. So Bell went on to create the person for this messenger. And this, this analysis was the inspiration for Conan Doyle, later on in life to write the Sherlock Holmes stories. Because as we all know where we watch the Sherlock Holmes stories and movies that they're all about the power of intuition by observation that there's no such thing as black magic. There is observation. So, we are able, as consumers, as customers, and also as leaders and entrepreneurs, to create all of the where with all that if somebody is observant about us and our company, we will be able to send the messages that they may not even know that they're watching, but they're integral to their understanding of what we're doing. When I was a student in Manchester, reading American Studies back in 86 through 1990 with a year in America, I had to watch pennies pretty seriously as I guess every student did in those days there were no student debt really couldn't get a loan. You had a grant of 3400 pounds if I remember rightly to live on and money was tight. And so we would always buy the cheapest of everything we buy a packet of six eggs between all of us that were living in the dorm have one each. So this morning when I went with my daughter to go shopping, we went to the farm shop and I was struck that Rupert's fancy fouls, sells eggs, and they are 37% more expensive than the standard egg. So for six eggs, I was going to be paying instead of two pounds 46 one pound, sorry, instead of one pound 79 I was going to pay two pounds 46 for six x and why would I do that? Well, next to the eggs. There is a just a typewritten sign where Rupert talks about how after 72 weeks, all hens are sent to the basically to the to the chopping yard, may into KFC, but he His family. His girls, as he calls them are all found homes. He said, we've, we've spoken to the wildlife Association, and in partnership with local charities and schools, we find homes for all my girls. And he calls them girls. And he says, so when you're buying the eggs from my girls, actually what you're doing is you're helping to provide a pension for them for when they're old and out on the grassy fields providing joy and comfort to a family somewhere. Now, what a wonderful narrative as a I took a picture my one my daughter's wondering why but I was oh, this is a fantastic example of how a local entrepreneur has created a narrative around his his eggs. Something as simple as a commodity like six X less than or bought two pounds now two pounds 50 for six x And of course, I'm thinking, well, I've got my daughter that I want. I want for my daughters to have a pension, I want them to think about the animals living well happily ever after. And so I bought in immediately to the narrative and on the packaging, it's called, you know, Rupert's fancy fouls. And there's got hand picked, written on the label. And so in a, in an era when people are thinking of battery hens in large volume and cruelty to animals, here is an entrepreneur who's realised that the story and the observation that the consumers have in that kind of a store are going to make them not price sensitive. So it's interesting for me in this COVID time where we talk about COVID on our methodology, we talked about COVID being compassionate, optimistic. values based informative and digital. We have consumers now hyper aware as I am now when I go online of how I'm being treated and being cheated, quite possibly. And when I'm feeling vulnerable and insecure, then someone reaching out Rupert's done espousing homegrown values and caring for his girls, these hens really resonates and I become less price sensitive and more loyal. Interesting enough, his pile of eggs was much smaller than the next one's next, which is also created the impression of scarcity that it was believable. He was saying there were not so many hands and they're hand picked. My assumption is there would not be as many eggs if they'd been twice a bigger pile is the battery hen. Excited gone? Well, that doesn't. Doesn't tally my observational skills. They, the Sherlock Holmes, part of me would have said That doesn't quite resonate. So if you think about your own business, what cues are you giving your staff by the clothes you're wearing? The car you're driving the phone you're using, the way that you're treating each other? Are you modelling and creating behaviour for your staff, that when your consumers, your customers, your business partners do business with you, they, they will see whether they like it or not, as the lecturer, Joseph Bell did all of the nuances around you and your company. And I raised this because it's not necessarily PR in the context of media relations. But when we do press conferences, or we do Skype calls, or we do any kind of presentation, all of these clues that we're, we're giving and that we're living are picked up by people, subconsciously. There's over a 80% of all communication is nonverbal. So, observation is a human intuition. And Joseph Bell, spelt out for Conan Doyle in the class at the time. How that can be translated. In the case of Conan Doyle, of course, he went on to make it a fabulous franchise, which has been amazingly successful throughout the decades because it's predicated on a very basic common human instinct, which is to want to find answers and to want to trust. Now, I want to find an answer. I'd like to find an answer, which is, how can I sell my camera properly? at the best price to someone that I trust is actually not a Russian mafia? eBay has blown that for me. But I still have the same goals. So as you move forward over the coming weeks, and we go back to work around the world, what can we learn From that classroom back at the turn of last century from a Scottish surgeon and lecturer about observation, and how can we make sure that our customers are observing the very best about us and we're being the very best that we can be to be observed by old. So on that note, I wish you great health. I wish you a profitable business. And I pray that you keep communicating. Thank you once again for listening