Claire Gets Interviewed on Radio!
Last week, Claire was interviewed on the radio! Yes, on live radio! The girl that hates public speaking and has suffered from imposter syndrome her whole adult life.
But guess what! She actually enjoyed it. It helped that the interviewer was the wonderful Nick Mercer, co-founder of customer experience agency, MercerBell. Nick now lives in the Northern Rivers 'hood' and is a marketing consultant/committee member for Bay FM, with a bit of disc-jockeying for the station thrown in for good measure.
Evan and Claire have known Nick for a few years now, and when someone like Nick asks if you'll be on his radio show, you’re like.. 'what? yes!?'
Anyhoo, after overcoming her nerves she arrived at the Bay FM studio in Byron Bay, armed with an Account Exec, Tahnee, under the pretence of collecting social media content - when she actually needed someone to hold her hand haha.
Claire was on Nick's show called, Beats 'n' Business (you can tell Nick's ex-agency) and his calmness immediately makes you feel at ease.
They covered a lot of ground. From her career in ad agencies in the UK, to how they came to be here, in the Northern Rivers, with an award-winning, full-service marketing agency and a rad team. They talked about how much the industry has changed since the London days. Back in 2008, when they moved to Australia, social media was still quite new - they certainly weren't using it as a marketing tool.
It was an eye-opener, to go back in time and reminisce - Claire has been in the marketing industry for over 30 years!! Must have started her first job when she was in nappies 😉
They chatted about our point of difference, which is an interesting one, because our point of difference is that we don't specialise - not in one area. Some agencies and individuals are experts in one area. There are social media gurus everywhere. With Barefruit you get a holistic view from a multi-skilled team that is educated and experienced in marketing. We can understand business goals and devise marketing strategies that will help to achieve those. And once we are happy with the plan, we can implement it all on behalf of our client, as their very own marketing team. One word you'll hear a lot in our agency is 'integrated'. Many of us were brought up in agencies that delivered integrated strategies and campaigns, so we're not hindered in our thinking.
Nick asked what Barefruit is best known for, and it is our integrated approach, which allows us to be the marketing team for many of our clients. We can support the owner/operator with their marketing, so they can get on with what they do best. We’re also the marketing team to support marketing managers, who are expected to do it all these days.
Values are really important to Claire as an individual and as a business owner. They underpin everything - how we communicate, how we respond to briefs, how we treat each other and work as a team.
So, when asked about what she has learned since they started Barefruit 12 years ago... it is to trust your instinct. If it doesn't feel right, then it usually isn't. And that goes for hiring team members to working with new clients. One of her scariest and proudest moments was firing a client that didn’t align with our values. As soon as that bad energy left the building, new doors opened. You learn and grow from experiences like that.
So, after talking about our goals for the future, which will start with a new hire and strengthening our digital offering, they played a couple of her favourite songs. Oasis, Live Forever – this was actually the first dance at her wedding. And U2, One. That’s what life’s about – ‘One life, you got to do what you should’.
Stay Fruity
Barefruit x