Latest / Sarah Knows Support Workers / Stop Posting for Posting’s Sake: Ethical NDIS Marketing That Works with Michelle Flynn

Transcript

Stop Posting for Posting’s Sake: Ethical NDIS Marketing That Works with Michelle Flynn · Sarah Knows Support Workers

• 0:00
  Hi everyone. It's Sarah, No Support Workers
• 0:02
  podcast today. I've got you, Michelle from
• 0:04
  Arise, and I am so keen to talk about your background and things
• 0:08
  that you're doing in this sector because you're doing some really
• 0:10
  cool things. Hi, it's lovely to meet you
• 0:13
  Sarah, and it's lovely to meet all of your podcasters.
• 0:16
  So a little bit about me is I've been in the sector for Nelly 10
• 0:21
  1/2 years, came into the sector following through a education
• 0:25
  career actually. So I started in journalism, in
• 0:29
  radio journalism and then actually ended up in TAFE
• 0:32
  teaching radio journalism and then ended up doing marketing
• 0:35
  promotions and anything in the media related industry.
• 0:39
  So yeah, it was a a bit of a transition from TAFE into a new
• 0:44
  career, which was in the marketing field.
• 0:47
  And it was, was more of a calling for me because my
• 0:51
  actually, my cousin worked as a supportive employee for a Ford
• 0:55
  in the factory and he was always hassling me.
• 0:58
  We'd we'd grown up together. He had an intellectual
• 1:00
  disability and he'd always pest to me and say come with me, come
• 1:05
  and work with me. And just by chance it was two
• 1:09
  months after I'd finished up at TAFE, the position at a Ford
• 1:13
  came up and it was known as the Australian Foundation for
• 1:16
  Disability at the time, very small local Penrith community
• 1:20
  based service provider and we didn't have the NDIS then.
• 1:24
  It was all the old, old model block funding and I went in and
• 1:29
  it was, it just captured my heart.
• 1:31
  It was like I felt right at home.
• 1:33
  I never thought I'd be able to replace that feeling of being a
• 1:36
  teacher and in a classroom, but as soon as I started, I felt,
• 1:40
  yeah, this is something that I really love.
• 1:42
  Feel like your experience of being a teacher and in a
• 1:45
  classroom helps you get to where you are today?
• 1:48
  Because it's breaking down. An activity teaches us what we
• 1:51
  do. They do.
• 1:52
  They break it down to make it really easy for everybody in the
• 1:54
  class to understand. So when did you realize that
• 1:57
  marketing was what you wanted to do long term?
• 2:01
  I think I could see when I started at a Ford how powerful
• 2:06
  marketing could actually be and what it could do and how, you
• 2:10
  know, you could send out. I'm very creative.
• 2:14
  I love creativity, I love imagery.
• 2:17
  I love that creative spark and it lent into that creative
• 2:21
  aspect. And because I was a one man band
• 2:24
  for a long time at a Ford, which, you know, funnily enough,
• 2:27
  when you look at how large it is now, having one person doing all
• 2:30
  the marketing back then was quite a feat.
• 2:32
  I got to to do all aspects of the role.
• 2:36
  So I wasn't leading anyone at the time.
• 2:39
  It was just me as the marketing manager.
• 2:41
  And I actually got to do a little bit of everything and
• 2:45
  really grow those skills that I've been teaching and put them
• 2:48
  into practice. So I think that was the moment
• 2:51
  in that position where I realized this was what I want to
• 2:54
  do. And you know, as you're growing
• 2:57
  up, I was young still. As you're growing up, you've got
• 2:59
  all of these hopes and dreams. And I don't think I ever thought
• 3:03
  of marketing as an option until I actually started teaching.
• 3:06
  And then it just lent into the job at a forward.
• 3:10
  Marketing's fun to be. Honest, it is fun.
• 3:14
  I do have a disability background as well, like
• 3:16
  yourself, but there is a frill and I think maybe this might be
• 3:20
  a teaching thing that we might have that's in common.
• 3:24
  Is it there's a frill with marketing that you're able to
• 3:26
  nurture and teach the audience, the people that are watching,
• 3:29
  you know about your service and what you do and why you do it.
• 3:32
  Do you feel that you learnt that from being a tape teacher or
• 3:35
  from your time in corporate? I think it's a bit of both.
• 3:38
  Obviously you're teaching the fundamentals and you're teaching
• 3:41
  the theory behind what you've learned in a classroom setting
• 3:45
  and you're helping other people put that theory into practice.
• 3:50
  You're actually not doing it yourself in the real world,
• 3:52
  although I did set up the course to be more like a real world
• 3:56
  opportunity. We actually used to hold open
• 3:59
  days for the Blacktown tape. We were one of the only tastes
• 4:01
  that had organized that. So we used to hold open days and
• 4:05
  make for those open days. We would launch movies and we
• 4:10
  would launch marketing campaigns.
• 4:11
  So I tried to make it as real worlds as possible, but I think
• 4:16
  it's a bit of both. When I went into the sector.
• 4:20
  That then solidifies all the theory and you put it into
• 4:23
  practice. What was it like building and
• 4:26
  leading marketing at that organization?
• 4:28
  Because it seems like such a big step, and especially now when
• 4:32
  you get to look back at it and see how it's grown and developed
• 4:36
  itself. Yeah, it was, it wasn't.
• 4:38
  I wouldn't say as big a step as if as if I had have stepped into
• 4:41
  a Ford in today's, you know, the size and what it is today.
• 4:45
  But when I stepped into a Ford, I did a whole new brand.
• 4:49
  So I created their their branding.
• 4:52
  So I got to actually, I think along the way I got to
• 4:56
  experiment and learn and we all make mistakes at the beginning,
• 5:00
  but I think it wasn't such a huge transition because it
• 5:04
  wasn't as big as it is today. So it was very localized, very
• 5:08
  small, small budget to start with.
• 5:10
  It wasn't until two years later when they'd rolled out the NDIS
• 5:14
  that it was it just went international, went very large
• 5:18
  and then we were looking at huge budgets.
• 5:20
  So from that period of time, what leadership qualities did
• 5:25
  you learn from them that you bring into today?
• 5:27
  What I really think that in terms of leadership, so once we
• 5:31
  started to grow the team, so once it all of a sudden became
• 5:35
  about not me doing everything. I think the hardest part for
• 5:40
  somebody when you're doing everything yourself and then you
• 5:43
  grow a team and you have people reporting to you, is learning
• 5:45
  how to delegate, learning how to actually let go of the reins and
• 5:49
  empower somebody else to do what you were doing before.
• 5:54
  And then to also support them to grow and do it in a way that you
• 5:59
  know you've mapped out in your mind.
• 6:02
  So it's handing over the trust, it's handing over the reins,
• 6:04
  it's letting go. And for me, I'm a perfectionist
• 6:07
  and I love to be hands on. So in every leadership role that
• 6:11
  I've had, I always have to be a part of doing.
• 6:16
  I can't just delegate everything.
• 6:18
  I really like to be part of creating and that creative
• 6:22
  process. So I've always kept my hands on.
• 6:24
  So I'd always delegate myself an aspect of the marketing to do.
• 6:29
  And then you then find the strengths in your team and you
• 6:34
  then delegate the tasks that suit those strengths.
• 6:36
  If you try to, I think as a leader, one of the biggest
• 6:39
  mistakes is to try and then give people tasks that really don't
• 6:43
  suit their skill set. And as a leader, I think that's
• 6:46
  your job is to find out what skill sets people have, what
• 6:49
  they love doing, what empowers them, what brings out the best
• 6:53
  in them. And then between your team
• 6:55
  delegate the the roles and tasks that really suit that that skill
• 6:59
  set. So I think it was a little bit
• 7:01
  of learning to identify people's skill sets and letting go was
• 7:04
  the biggest thing for me. We never had a marketing budget.
• 7:08
  Your budget, you're pretty much somebody would put something on
• 7:11
  Facebook and that'd be it, or you might end up in the
• 7:13
  newspaper and stuff like that. How have you been able to grow
• 7:16
  and develop your skills? Because it hadn't changed?
• 7:19
  Like social media has changed so rapidly in the last 10 years
• 7:23
  that it's really hard to keep up.
• 7:25
  It is really hard to keep up. And I think the biggest thing
• 7:29
  with budgets, when I first started at a Ford, we had a
• 7:33
  really small budget and then it blew up to, you know, we had
• 7:36
  $1,000,000 budgets there. So I think when you've got an
• 7:40
  unlimited budget, it's actually a lot easier because my mind is
• 7:44
  so creative and I think so much out-of-the-box that you can
• 7:48
  afford to do things when you've got a bigger budget that that
• 7:52
  are in your mind and that are out-of-the-box.
• 7:54
  Like having a mermaid swimming in a tank at one of our gala
• 7:57
  balls, Like that's huge, you know, and you have the budget to
• 8:02
  do that. I think it's a lot more
• 8:03
  difficult when you're dealing with smaller budgets.
• 8:06
  That's when you have to be a little bit more creative in
• 8:09
  terms of how can I get something as grand or as spectacular as I
• 8:16
  do when I've got a larger budget with this smaller budget.
• 8:19
  So that really tests you and I've found ways to overcome
• 8:24
  that. Is it ever going to look as
• 8:27
  great or grand? Am I going to be able to afford
• 8:29
  to have a mermaid swimming in a tank with a smaller budget?
• 8:33
  Probably not. But what can I do to get that
• 8:36
  same sort of impact? So I think when you're working
• 8:38
  with smaller budgets, it's more difficult.
• 8:41
  I've always had a smaller budget.
• 8:42
  So for me, coming from a really small tight budget to a big
• 8:46
  budget, I found really quite overwhelming because I was
• 8:49
  always used to, to strapping it like, you know, like, you know,
• 8:53
  finding ways to get people's attention, to draw people into
• 8:57
  service. So yeah.
• 8:59
  Is there any campaigns that you've like had like you've
• 9:01
  talked about the mermaid that you're really proud of?
• 9:03
  Yeah, definitely. The campaign that we ran when we
• 9:06
  actually moved into the Melbourne market, that space was
• 9:09
  really difficult. And this was, we're talking
• 9:11
  about with, you know, not long after the NDIS rolled out,
• 9:15
  probably, you know, your 2018 period.
• 9:18
  And we were finding it was very clicky, very hard to
• 9:21
  breakthrough in that market. And as because we were a
• 9:24
  centralized team based in Sydney for our marketing, you really
• 9:28
  need to, you know, get to know the audience because your
• 9:31
  audiences in every state are different.
• 9:33
  So trying to breakthrough to that audience, we had to start
• 9:36
  thinking, OK, feet on the ground, what can we do?
• 9:39
  So we went and we had a trip to Melbourne, you know, checked
• 9:42
  out, you know what we were working with, had some
• 9:45
  conversations with people and I found a grant and it was
• 9:48
  actually for a train wrap and it was $1,000,000 train wrap, train
• 9:52
  tram wrap. And we actually had to submit a
• 9:56
  video. So we had to put together a
• 9:57
  video and submit a campaign idea for the tram wrap.
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  And we actually were one of the one of the winners.
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  It was actually went out to a few different community
• 10:07
  organizations within the Melbourne space and we were one
• 10:09
  of them. So we won $1,000,000 tram wrap
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  and what we were able to do with that is we actually used our
• 10:15
  participants and we did a photo shoot with them and they were
• 10:18
  actually blown up. What bigger than life-size on
• 10:21
  the side of the tram. And we actually then took them
• 10:24
  down to Melbourne for the unveiling of the tram.
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  And we had a big celebration and a big meteor open day down
• 10:31
  there. And it was just heartwarming to
• 10:34
  see the families and to see the participants, see their faces
• 10:38
  light up, see them crying. It was like this is what it's
• 10:41
  all about for me. And that was probably my
• 10:45
  favorite campaign. And what we did is we just
• 10:48
  saturated the market. We went with it.
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  We had this tram rack which was worth $1,000,000.
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  So we thought at the same time, let's get out and get other
• 10:57
  methods running at the same time.
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  So we had a huge campaign running together with that tram
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  rack. So it was a very successful
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  campaign and it was very humbling experience.
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  Was it something that you guys thought of as a team together or
• 11:10
  was it like one of those shower ideas?
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  Or, you know, the 2:00 AM I woke up in the middle of the night
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  and thought that's not a bad idea.
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  Like how did you get to this point?
• 11:19
  It actually came about because we had somebody who worked on
• 11:22
  our grants and she saw this opportunity came up, had come up
• 11:27
  and she said to me, Michelle, would this be something you'd be
• 11:29
  interested in? And I said absolutely.
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  So I have just take my hat off to our grants lady at the time,
• 11:36
  Tony. She came forward with the idea.
• 11:38
  She actually helped me fill out all the application and then I
• 11:41
  just had to go away and put together the video production.
• 11:45
  And I remember looking at the final video edit and I was just
• 11:50
  crying and I thought, if this does not win, I do not know what
• 11:56
  will win because it was just a beautiful and it was all of our
• 12:00
  participants and it was showcasing what we did as an
• 12:03
  organization. I'm a crier.
• 12:04
  I always get emotional love when a campaign goes off and I, I
• 12:09
  love it. I just, you know, I'm always
• 12:12
  shedding a tear and going, Oh my God, this is amazing.
• 12:14
  So she came up with the idea actually by just stumbling
• 12:19
  across it. And then as a team, we just
• 12:21
  snowballed ideas of how we're going to get this video to stand
• 12:25
  out and really make an impact. And I said, look, we need to
• 12:28
  talk in emotion because this is what we're, you know, we're not
• 12:32
  selling a product. We need to to showcase the
• 12:36
  emotional side of what we do. And we did that.
• 12:39
  There's so much the impact unpack there and get ready.
• 12:43
  All right. So I would say that you and I
• 12:45
  are quite creative by nature because when you you're doing
• 12:48
  some like it, it is marketing, right and you've got to create.
• 12:51
  How do you balance the two because sometimes my head will
• 12:54
  go further than what is actually expected at that period of time.
• 12:58
  How do you keep it like in and relevant still?
• 13:01
  Yeah, well, that's where the strategy comes into play.
• 13:03
  So you have to have both strategy and creativity working
• 13:07
  together. You can't have one without the
• 13:08
  other. It just doesn't work.
• 13:10
  So your strategy, you set your limits, OK?
• 13:12
  So it gives you goals, it gives you outcomes, it gives you those
• 13:16
  limits that you want to want to set.
• 13:18
  And then that creativity, you work within those limits.
• 13:22
  So it's a really big balancing act to have both of those
• 13:25
  things, but they're both just as important as each other, and you
• 13:28
  don't want one to be more than the other.
• 13:31
  You're not really selling a product.
• 13:32
  You're selling emotions. You're selling people and what
• 13:34
  they do. Yeah, Like I was talking to
• 13:37
  somebody the other day that this is a very unsexy topic to be
• 13:42
  honest. The NDIS is a really hard sell.
• 13:44
  So how do you in, in your opinion, with all your
• 13:47
  experience, how do you get in front of people to sell, not to
• 13:50
  sell, but to promote what you guys do at Arise?
• 13:53
  Yeah, I think you have to lead with emotion and lead with
• 13:56
  heart. What you're doing is you're
• 13:57
  trying to, and let's be honest, what we do in the industry, a
• 14:03
  lot of people are doing similar, very similar things.
• 14:07
  So how do you then set yourself apart to families who are often
• 14:12
  struggling emotionally, they're overwhelmed, they're time poor.
• 14:16
  How do you breakthrough? And you and you're, we're all
• 14:20
  inundated with messaging. OK, so you know, we're, we're
• 14:23
  consuming so many messages all the time.
• 14:25
  How do you breakthrough? What do you do?
• 14:27
  What, how do you set yourself apart?
• 14:29
  For me, it is being honest, trustworthy and really building
• 14:34
  those connections and that trust.
• 14:36
  And how do you do that? Will you talk about what you do?
• 14:39
  Well, you don't over promise and under deliver and you focus on
• 14:45
  making your messaging simple. Really, I think when you're
• 14:48
  talking about people with emotion, when you're talking
• 14:51
  about emotion, keep it simple. That's really the best way to
• 14:55
  get your message across and make sure that you are connecting
• 14:59
  with people that you're using. Don't use terms and terminology
• 15:04
  that people are not going to resonate with.
• 15:07
  You want to speak their language and you know to them, not at
• 15:11
  them. So I think like we're on π here
• 15:14
  because you can a horse to water, you can't make a drink,
• 15:16
  right? So yeah, you can have all the
• 15:19
  best marketing strategies possible.
• 15:21
  But once they come into service and have that conversation that
• 15:25
  really needs to be leaked on and made to be like to make sure
• 15:29
  that the interaction between the two is perfect.
• 15:31
  How do you manage that? Because you like like I said,
• 15:34
  you could do some really fantastic, beautiful campaigns.
• 15:37
  How do you take it from the campaign into service to make
• 15:40
  sure that they are provide you're the provider of their
• 15:42
  choice? So I think like you said, being
• 15:47
  honest about what you deliver and how you deliver that service
• 15:51
  is key because as you said, when it gets to the point, if a
• 15:56
  family are going to come through, so you have a day
• 15:58
  program, If a family are going to come through your day program
• 16:00
  and you say we deliver the best services, we have an amazing day
• 16:04
  program. We have the best sensory room
• 16:09
  in, you know, in the state. If families come in and you
• 16:14
  don't have those things, you've lost their trust straight away.
• 16:17
  So you really have to promote what you have and be honest
• 16:22
  about what you have and do it in a way that people can then come
• 16:25
  in and see it for themselves. And luckily, thank God, where I
• 16:29
  work now, we have that our day program.
• 16:32
  If I can get somebody through those doors, day program sells
• 16:36
  itself because they walk in and they literally walk through a
• 16:39
  rainbow tunnel and go wow. That is the reaction I get every
• 16:45
  single time. So when I'm out there and I'm
• 16:48
  selling and you know it is selling yes, telling people and
• 16:52
  you're selling a message about have an amazing space.
• 16:55
  I have an amazing day program. I do and I, I actually wouldn't
• 16:59
  be able to do it without believing in what, what I, you
• 17:02
  know, where I were. I have to really believe in what
• 17:06
  I'm doing and where I'm working and be values aligned.
• 17:09
  Otherwise I wouldn't be working there.
• 17:11
  So yeah, for me that's really important is the honesty and
• 17:14
  building that trust right from the beginning and really telling
• 17:18
  people what you have in an honest way that actually appeals
• 17:21
  to them and gets them through the door.
• 17:23
  And it's not just behind a computer.
• 17:25
  You do. Because I'm nosy, right?
• 17:26
  Like, let's be honest, I see you out and about and I see you
• 17:31
  talking and networking and collaborating with people.
• 17:34
  Is this that something that comes easy to you, or is it just
• 17:36
  something that's second hand because you've just done it?
• 17:39
  I was an only child and I I grew up with aunties and uncles who
• 17:44
  were in there late teens and early 20s.
• 17:48
  So growing up in an adult based environment, I've learned very
• 17:52
  quickly how to interact and how to engage with people.
• 17:56
  I had a very still have a very close relationship with my
• 17:59
  grandmothers. I'm very much like her.
• 18:01
  She was a nurse until she was 76 years old.
• 18:03
  So she's a carer as well. And she was always able from the
• 18:08
  country. So we both, you know, I grew up
• 18:10
  in the NT for part of my life, I went to 15 different schools.
• 18:14
  So I had to learn to adapt. So that's naturally me.
• 18:17
  If you, you know, my dad was in the Navy so we travelled around
• 18:20
  a lot. So you learn very quickly if you
• 18:23
  don't have that social, that social skill or social
• 18:27
  interaction that, you know, moving around so much, you're
• 18:31
  not going to build a network of friends very quickly.
• 18:33
  I think that's innate in me. I love people and I love
• 18:37
  stories. So that's why I originally
• 18:40
  started in journalism because I love hearing people's stories.
• 18:44
  And I genuinely do. I will sit there and listen to
• 18:47
  somebody's story and ask so many questions.
• 18:50
  And I know some people go, oh wow, you ask a lot of questions.
• 18:54
  It's because I'm genuinely interested.
• 18:56
  I do that too. That's why I have a podcast.
• 18:59
  I'm just curious like you're like, and how did you get here
• 19:02
  and what you did watch and we just struggled to tell me.
• 19:04
  I'm all ears. I love it.
• 19:08
  Sorry you, you got me at my core.
• 19:12
  Yep. Yeah.
• 19:13
  So. To get where you got, you get.
• 19:16
  You've had to. You've made some babies and
• 19:18
  errors and we all have, especially I I will.
• 19:21
  Be. Yeah, I'll admit to that.
• 19:23
  I've made plenty of errors during my time.
• 19:26
  So what is 1 mistake that you have learnt early that taught
• 19:30
  you something really big that you can use for today?
• 19:33
  It's actually, when you look back on it, it's funny, but at
• 19:35
  the time it wasn't funny. So when you're in marketing,
• 19:38
  you're doing a lot of design and you know, you're printing out
• 19:43
  collateral to give away and marketing.
• 19:45
  And we actually had ordered this big huge shipment of mouse pads.
• 19:51
  OK. So I set up the design for the
• 19:53
  mouse pad and sent it through. And somewhere during that
• 19:58
  communication, there was a bit of a Lost in translation moment
• 20:03
  where they'd actually changed. The word afford to a fad.
• 20:09
  So we got over 2 mouse pads with a fad on there instead of a fad.
• 20:17
  And that's because I trusted the process of when they sent back
• 20:22
  the. So when I would send through my
• 20:25
  my original files and say OK here's what I want and here's
• 20:28
  the look and feel. They send back a proof and you
• 20:30
  have to check the proof. And I'd quickly checked the
• 20:34
  proof and I didn't notice. They changed it to from the R to
• 20:37
  the A, and I was like, approved. And then, yeah, opening the box
• 20:43
  was a surprise, I must say. I died.
• 20:47
  I completely died. I went, Oh my gosh, this is a
• 20:51
  lot of mouse pads to have the word of heart.
• 20:53
  And so they thankfully recognize that it had been lost in
• 20:58
  translation on their end and they actually sent through some
• 21:02
  correct afford I. Understand for like I've been
• 21:06
  telling people for a period of time I was sending an e-mail
• 21:09
  saying regrettably Sarah instead of regrets regards and I'm just
• 21:14
  really dyslexic and I didn't have touch FBT.
• 21:16
  So when when I hear mistakes like that, it's a part of my
• 21:19
  heart sinks because I know how it feels and it's really crap.
• 21:23
  That but that from then on I religiously started using, you
• 21:31
  know, making sure, of course, that you, you go through and you
• 21:34
  check other people's work. You can't ever rely on somebody
• 21:38
  else to get it right at all times.
• 21:40
  And it's better to have, you know, really good eyes looking
• 21:45
  over it. So I always do things now where
• 21:48
  I get others to have a look with their fresh eyes.
• 21:51
  I have a look and a third party and I always use Grammarly now.
• 21:55
  I run everything through Grammarly and I taught, I got my
• 21:59
  team Grammarly, access to Grammarly, and they all use
• 22:02
  Grammarly as well. So I think it's putting in
• 22:05
  strategies. Once you you know, it's a
• 22:08
  learning curve, people make mistakes for human
• 22:10
  unfortunately, it's then what do you do from that and how do you
• 22:13
  learn from that? And what strategies do you put
• 22:16
  in place to make sure that that you reduce the risk of that
• 22:18
  happening again? What's your definition of good
• 22:20
  marketing and how has it changed over time?
• 22:23
  And I feel like you've kind of nailed that one on the head, but
• 22:26
  is there any more that you'd like to add in what what it's
• 22:29
  changed? Yeah.
• 22:30
  I think for me, I don't like to judge other people's marketing
• 22:34
  because I think that's a subjective question and saying
• 22:37
  what do you think is good marketing?
• 22:38
  What don't you think is good marketing?
• 22:39
  For me, something may resonate for me and it may not resonate
• 22:43
  for somebody else. But I think having the
• 22:46
  fundamentals of understanding and knowing your audience and
• 22:49
  making sure that you build trust or in our industry, trust.
• 22:54
  So know your audience, build trust and make sure that you've
• 22:57
  remember we talked about those strategy and those parameters
• 23:00
  earlier on, making sure that you have clear strategy, you have
• 23:03
  clear outcomes and goals and what you're looking to achieve
• 23:06
  place that can set the foundation for a good marketing
• 23:10
  campaign. Probably one of the best
• 23:11
  marketing campaigns I've ever seen that still resonates with
• 23:15
  me to this day is the University of Western Sydney.
• 23:18
  They did a beautiful campaign about one of their graduates who
• 23:22
  graduated with a law degree and it resonated with me because of
• 23:25
  the emotion behind it. So for me, I like campaigns that
• 23:29
  have emotion or I do like campaigns that have a bit of a
• 23:32
  laugh because I like to laugh. So those are the two marketing
• 23:36
  styles that I really resonate to personally watching ads and and
• 23:41
  seeing marketing campaigns. But I think in our industry,
• 23:43
  emotion is really key to what we we use and put out there and
• 23:48
  stories, stories that people can relate to, not made-up stories,
• 23:51
  real stories and making sure that that connects with people.
• 23:55
  More humans and then if I, if I look at it and like if I pull it
• 24:00
  apart, the more human the story was, the more engagement that I
• 24:03
  felt that I got from people because they were intrigued
• 24:06
  about the story and how we got the how we're able to travel,
• 24:09
  train, how we're able to get a job, how I was meant to be
• 24:11
  independent. These are fantastic stories that
• 24:14
  I find at times we don't promote enough or we don't talk about
• 24:17
  enough because we talk like, you know, if you look at some
• 24:21
  campaigns that I've seen, it's just, it feels like a take and
• 24:24
  not a give. And I feel like we could give
• 24:26
  our audience so much more like a what we do and do it well.
• 24:30
  You apart from every other provider?
• 24:33
  Yeah. And real stories resonate.
• 24:35
  You know, one of you know, the stories, that stories of one of
• 24:40
  our participants that we've been able to share his story and his
• 24:43
  family have actually done a testimonial video testimonial
• 24:46
  for us. That story resonates with me.
• 24:50
  And everywhere I go, I tell that story.
• 24:53
  And that's because it has made such a huge impact.
• 24:56
  And it's not only the president's life, but the
• 24:59
  family's life. And that's what we're all about.
• 25:01
  We're about making an impact and a difference.
• 25:04
  And so I think those are the things that we we need to share
• 25:08
  more because there's so much negative in the the media now
• 25:12
  about the NDIS space. And we have so many positive
• 25:16
  stories that we could be sharing over and over and over again.
• 25:20
  When you said something that touched the chord with me,
• 25:22
  because if you can share all the positive stories because it it
• 25:26
  does happen, there's nothing stopping any other provider
• 25:29
  doing what you guys are doing. Really.
• 25:31
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. How do you make sure that you
• 25:36
  keep in line with being honest and being ethical?
• 25:39
  Because it can be quite easy for people to step away from that
• 25:43
  thinking that a quick sell would be I can make a carousel on that
• 25:47
  beard or I can create a photo shoot in that beard.
• 25:50
  How do you give it that depth so you've got good ethical
• 25:53
  marketing? Well, you need to.
• 25:55
  So when you're preparing your content, you know you need to
• 25:57
  know what the purpose is. So you don't just make content
• 26:00
  for content's sake. If you're preparing content
• 26:03
  regularly and saying OK, I need to do 5 posts a week and put no
• 26:07
  thought and no effort into these posts and there's no substance
• 26:11
  behind what you're posting, then you're just marketing for
• 26:14
  marketing sake. There's no outcome.
• 26:16
  There's no reason or rhyme and people pick up on that.
• 26:19
  People know when you're just doing a post to fill, you know,
• 26:22
  tick a box or say yeah, I've done my 5 posts for the week.
• 26:26
  I remember coming into this space in this particular job, it
• 26:30
  was really outside of the box for me because I hadn't done
• 26:32
  that sort of, I know growth and marketing are very aligned, but
• 26:35
  I hadn't been the face, the fright, you know, the face of of
• 26:39
  an organization. I'd always been in the
• 26:40
  background. So for me, it was like, well,
• 26:43
  who do I be? What's my identity like?
• 26:46
  What's my brand? Like everyone said, kept saying
• 26:48
  you need to create your own brand.
• 26:50
  I kept thinking, well, who am I? And there's some really big, big
• 26:54
  profiles in the sector who have built great brands.
• 26:58
  And I thought, well, I'm not, you know, that person.
• 27:02
  And who am I? And someone said to me,
• 27:04
  Michelle, just be yourself. What do you love?
• 27:07
  And I said, well, I love for me, kindness is key in everything I
• 27:11
  do. I lead with kindness.
• 27:12
  So you'll notice that that's a key theme in my my LinkedIn and
• 27:16
  that leads with everything I do, even in my marketing.
• 27:20
  So for me, kindness, purpose, storytelling, these are what
• 27:24
  lead my marketing strategies, especially in this industry.
• 27:28
  And that's what's important for me.
• 27:30
  And so that's what I had to realize is I am who I am.
• 27:33
  I love a laugh, I love kindness, and I love stories.
• 27:37
  So I put those things together and that's me and that's who I
• 27:39
  am. So would you give any advice for
• 27:42
  any smaller providers wanting to promote their business in the
• 27:45
  marketing space? Because like I know you, but I
• 27:47
  always say that Linkedin's free, Facebook's free, Instagram's
• 27:51
  free, YouTube's free. Could you give any advice for
• 27:54
  anyone looking into it? Because a few people that I have
• 27:57
  found and have had conversations with in the past would
• 27:59
  automatically ship that off to somebody else or a VA to do when
• 28:05
  really at times it can lose its voice and it's understanding and
• 28:09
  people can. The enjoyment's not the same
• 28:11
  because it's the person that's promoting and posting it doesn't
• 28:15
  understand the business like you do.
• 28:17
  That's right. And what you so I think for me,
• 28:20
  the best advice I can give you is try to all try to get your
• 28:24
  whole team involved, like not just your marketing team.
• 28:29
  So you'll see in a lot of the way that we market in the on our
• 28:32
  Instagram, we, we all our staff get involved, our directors get
• 28:36
  involved, They have fun. And what you're showcasing in,
• 28:41
  in that is who we are, the essence of who we are.
• 28:44
  So when you're seeing the fun that we're having in our day
• 28:47
  program or out in the community or our events that we're putting
• 28:52
  together and those moments that reflects who we truly are.
• 28:57
  And it involves the whole team, not just one person, but that
• 29:00
  we're showcasing that, you know, Arise isn't Michelle, Arise is a
• 29:04
  team and there's a team of people behind Arise and we all
• 29:08
  have the same shared values. So I think getting a team
• 29:11
  involved and making sure it's your team, like, you know,
• 29:15
  having somebody overseas do that, like you said, they don't
• 29:18
  know you or your brand and it's very, very easy to get your
• 29:22
  marketing again for that's what I believe.
• 29:25
  If you're shipping it off to somebody who's not within your
• 29:29
  organization, then how can they know?
• 29:32
  Yes, they can get an understanding of your brand in
• 29:34
  your brand essence and you give them all your brand collateral.
• 29:36
  And yeah, I can understand. And you know, here's my, you
• 29:40
  know, this is what how we run our brand and this is how we do
• 29:42
  it. But are they in there every day?
• 29:45
  Are they seeing your participants today, for example?
• 29:49
  Are they seeing where where they're cheering while our
• 29:52
  participants are throwing and playing points and they're
• 29:54
  getting excited or when you know, one of our participants
• 29:57
  comes in and into my office every day, opens the door and
• 30:00
  says, I see and you know, interest.
• 30:03
  No, they're not saying these. And these are moments that
• 30:06
  really shape who you are and what your brand is about,
• 30:09
  because this is who this is what you do every day.
• 30:12
  So I think having people who really work within your brand
• 30:15
  know your brand, your whole team, your team is your brand.
• 30:19
  They represent you every day when they're out and about.
• 30:21
  So you need to make sure that when I talk to talk to our team
• 30:27
  or when our directors talk to our team, they make sure they're
• 30:30
  like you represent our brand every day.
• 30:33
  How you interact with our participants when you're out and
• 30:36
  about or even when when nobody's watching, that makes a
• 30:40
  difference because that's what's important and that's what people
• 30:44
  will see. And it doesn't matter how much
• 30:46
  marketing you put out there, if you're consistently seeing
• 30:50
  people out in the public with your branding, wearing your
• 30:52
  branding, doing the wrong thing. Yeah, that's that's never, ever
• 30:56
  going to work. You've said two things that
• 30:58
  touch my heart, so I need to unpack you right now.
• 31:01
  I hope you don't mind. I love the fact that you talked
• 31:05
  about when you're doing marketing, it's more than just
• 31:07
  one person. You involve a whole team.
• 31:10
  And I've found sometimes when I've marketed and I've put it
• 31:13
  out there, if I kept using the same people, they started to
• 31:16
  think that that person was it instead of looking at the
• 31:19
  variety of team members that you've got.
• 31:21
  So you were able to showcase all these different feels that these
• 31:24
  staff members had. Loved that you had me there.
• 31:27
  You. Yeah.
• 31:28
  Cook light and sinker. But also, I loved hearing about
• 31:31
  how people would come into your office and then you'd be able to
• 31:35
  market what and see that because you said also sorry, I can't.
• 31:38
  Yeah, you're touching my heartstrings.
• 31:41
  One of the best things and I and I agree with you.
• 31:43
  I can do all the beautiful things online, but I can't
• 31:48
  market a bad support worker. I because they small towns talk
• 31:52
  like they really do like and if you're out and about and they're
• 31:56
  wearing like if they're wearing a logo or not wearing a logo, it
• 31:59
  doesn't matter. They are your marketing tool
• 32:02
  because the person that we deserve, they talk about it.
• 32:04
  My support worker does XY and Z or they don't.
• 32:07
  You go down to the local shopping centre and you're
• 32:11
  you've got your support worker assisting somebody to get their
• 32:13
  groceries. People talk our people that we
• 32:16
  said they're like mini celebrities.
• 32:18
  So we're to do right by them regardless because they are like
• 32:22
  the pinnacle of community in that sense.
• 32:24
  Yes, that's right. And I think even something as
• 32:28
  simple as driving around our vans, for example, being safe on
• 32:33
  the road, being courteous on the road, these things make a
• 32:37
  difference and they will make an impact in the community.
• 32:40
  People are more aware these days, even more so with what's
• 32:45
  out there in the media. People are aware and they're
• 32:47
  opening their eyes and they're saying and they're starting to
• 32:50
  actually speak up, which is a good thing.
• 32:51
  I love that because it's holding people to account and saying
• 32:55
  that, hey, are you doing the right thing here?
• 32:58
  Should you be doing that and calling them to account?
• 33:01
  And I think that really the first thing you need to start
• 33:05
  with, especially when you're you're building up a brand, is
• 33:08
  making sure all that all you have, firstly, you have the
• 33:10
  right staff and that all of your staff are across what your
• 33:14
  expectations are and really setting that standard and
• 33:18
  setting that bar. So you do get up to a bit of
• 33:20
  mischief, and we haven't really spoken about this.
• 33:22
  Michelle, I'm so sorry you're at Arise.
• 33:25
  What do you do at Arise exactly? Is it either head of marketing
• 33:29
  or can you unpack it a little bit?
• 33:31
  I'm so sorry. Yeah.
• 33:33
  Yeah, I'm the head of growth and marketing and really I think
• 33:37
  this this role has challenged me more than any other role because
• 33:42
  I had to start again. Like I said before, I've always
• 33:46
  been the the face behind the scenes.
• 33:50
  Nobody would know who had created the, you know, Ford
• 33:54
  brand or there's a fair few brands out there that I've
• 33:57
  actually created the branding for.
• 33:59
  And people would never have known that because I was behind
• 34:02
  the scenes and I was comfortable with that.
• 34:04
  I still got, you know, my enjoyment through working with
• 34:08
  like being there with the participants and, you know,
• 34:11
  having fun with stuff and doing fun things.
• 34:14
  But I was always behind the camera or always the one taking
• 34:18
  photos or always the one creating campaigns, never at the
• 34:22
  centre of anything. This role, the growth role is
• 34:25
  probably a majority of what I'm doing at Arise now.
• 34:30
  So the marketing component is very small compared to the
• 34:35
  growth component. And all of a sudden, as I said,
• 34:38
  I had to find who I was, create a personal brand and then get
• 34:42
  out and about and get to know parts of the industry that I
• 34:47
  really, yes, I knew them, but not as much, you know, the
• 34:52
  onboarding processes, all these sorts of things that you didn't
• 34:55
  really have to know in the marketing team, but in the
• 34:58
  growth chain, those things are really important.
• 35:00
  So learning it's, it's actually expanded my knowledge of the
• 35:04
  industry a lot more as well, which is great.
• 35:06
  I think understanding the industry you're in from the
• 35:09
  ground roots up is really important.
• 35:11
  And yes, I had knowledge and I'd been in the industry for a long
• 35:15
  time, but there were still still elements of the industry that I
• 35:18
  really didn't have a lot or was wasn't about involved in a lot.
• 35:22
  I'll have a lot of knowledge of. So this role, the growth
• 35:26
  component is a really huge component has really pushed me
• 35:29
  outside of my comfort zone. And I think I'm really grateful
• 35:33
  because my directors were the ones that said when I first came
• 35:36
  on, they said we can see this in you.
• 35:38
  We can see you're perfect for this.
• 35:41
  I just couldn't see it in myself.
• 35:42
  So they believed in me before I believed in myself.
• 35:45
  So I owe them so much because they've actually given me
• 35:49
  personal growth. They've given me opportunities
• 35:52
  to meet some of the most fantastic people I've ever met
• 35:55
  in the industry. I've built friendships and you
• 35:58
  know, within this industry that I will have for life.
• 36:02
  You know, I call it a village of support.
• 36:04
  And the more people in that village, everybody's welcome.
• 36:07
  For me, it's you. You include everyone.
• 36:09
  So the bigger the village, the better.
• 36:11
  So if you see us out and about, these come and say hello because
• 36:16
  we love to grow our village and we've got amazing people in this
• 36:21
  industry that we align with ourselves with because we know
• 36:24
  we're values aligned and I'm supported to do that, so it's
• 36:27
  great. So you said something that I
• 36:29
  love. I love hearing about growing the
• 36:32
  village. Can you give anyone listening to
• 36:34
  this podcast today any trends or anything that would help them
• 36:37
  grow their village like you have?
• 36:39
  Yeah, I think and I can tell you don't ever doubt yourself.
• 36:44
  If I can do it, anybody can do it.
• 36:47
  I'm 51 years old, I'm 52 this year.
• 36:50
  And I thought this is beyond me, I can't do this.
• 36:55
  You definitely can. So find out what drives you,
• 36:59
  what your passion, really reflect on who you are in, you
• 37:03
  know, it's in the growth role in particular.
• 37:06
  We're not so much talking about the marketing here.
• 37:08
  Find out who you are, what drives you and lean into that.
• 37:12
  Embrace that. And that that is who you are as
• 37:14
  a brand. Because you can't say, you know,
• 37:17
  don't try and be somebody else. Be you because that's all you
• 37:21
  can really be. If you try to be something that
• 37:23
  you're not, it's not going to work for you.
• 37:26
  And when I finally realized that and lent into that, I've and
• 37:29
  I've been supported, I have to say I've been supported by some
• 37:32
  amazing people and they've helped build my confidence.
• 37:36
  They've helped empower me and they've supported me and
• 37:39
  surrounded me and hasn't always been smooth sailing because when
• 37:42
  you're starting something from new, your confidence like give
• 37:45
  me a classroom walking confident, give me marketing
• 37:49
  walking confident, no problem. But the growth side, my
• 37:52
  confidence wasn't at the same level as it was.
• 37:55
  So my my advice to people that are taking on roles like growth
• 37:59
  or marketing is lean into who you are, Be yourself, be
• 38:03
  authentic and always be willing to learn and grow and take
• 38:06
  advice from others. If I hadn't have done that, I
• 38:09
  wouldn't be where I am today. Do you get the opportunity to
• 38:12
  mentor other people in your team?
• 38:14
  Because you seem quite inspiring that you know, you're able to
• 38:16
  get to this point here and to say I didn't think that you were
• 38:19
  52 spring chicken I. Do I take on workplace students
• 38:23
  quite a lot? Because I know how difficult it
• 38:25
  was for my students to get work placement.
• 38:26
  So I currently have a work placement student with me and
• 38:29
  before that her I had another work placement student.
• 38:32
  So I love mentoring, I love teaching.
• 38:34
  That's something that will be ingrained in me for the rest of
• 38:36
  my life. So if I can help somebody and I
• 38:40
  get a lot of messages through LinkedIn saying, hi Michelle,
• 38:43
  I've been told you're somebody to connect with to get some
• 38:46
  advice on marketing and growth. Will you help me?
• 38:49
  OK, sure, no worries. I've actually got three meetings
• 38:51
  coming up with those, those requests about can you give me
• 38:54
  some guidance? Can you give me some help?
• 38:56
  Give back, always give back. Don't I think in growth what you
• 39:00
  can do and even in the marketing space, if you can actually offer
• 39:04
  to help other people, that will come full circle without
• 39:07
  expectation either. There's not I don't go into
• 39:10
  something and and go, OK, I'm gonna help you with marketing,
• 39:14
  but I expect this in return. There's no expectation.
• 39:16
  Please give back because we all need, we all have come from, you
• 39:21
  know, growth where we, we starting somewhere.
• 39:24
  We're, we're new, we're fresh and we're learning.
• 39:27
  And having someone there to guide you and be your mentor and
• 39:31
  be there to support you is really important.
• 39:33
  So I will always give back and I will always help other people.
• 39:37
  And that's just who I am and what I love to do.
• 39:40
  I love that because it really doesn't cost that much.
• 39:44
  Even if you're thinking no return, there's always, I'm huge
• 39:49
  on karma. So what you give is what you
• 39:50
  get, right? I don't, yeah.
• 39:52
  Yes. Don't know why, but I'm always
• 39:54
  being that way, that if I give that's OK and if I don't get
• 39:57
  back that's OK. But I do believe that, you know,
• 39:59
  by doing more good, you get good.
• 40:01
  Yeah, I do. I agree.
• 40:03
  And I just, I really think it's really important for us because,
• 40:06
  you know, like you said at the beginning, marketing and this
• 40:11
  industry in itself is constantly changing.
• 40:14
  So I'm, I can, I'm self-taught on a lot of things.
• 40:17
  So when I graduated, we didn't have things like Adobe, We
• 40:21
  didn't definitely didn't have IR.
• 40:23
  And so I'm, I had to self teach myself some of these programs
• 40:29
  because we've done them in analog, not digital.
• 40:31
  Everything became digital. So all of a sudden I was in the
• 40:34
  digital world from an analog girl.
• 40:37
  So I had to go through and teach myself all of these programs.
• 40:40
  And then I eventually did some, you know, training and learning
• 40:44
  on them, but always learn. I will be a learner for the rest
• 40:49
  of my life. Education is really important,
• 40:52
  and even free courses, learning off mentors and taking other
• 40:56
  people's advice. Never think that you know
• 40:58
  everything or that you can't learn anymore, because learning
• 41:02
  is really, really important because everything's always
• 41:05
  changing, especially this space. I think you're my future.
• 41:11
  There's so many things that you've said that you don't
• 41:13
  really do. Struck my heart Gods, because I,
• 41:16
  I'm forever learning and for like for me in particular.
• 41:20
  So a little background. I'm a mum of three and to be
• 41:24
  able to go to uni or TAFE, I didn't get those opportunities
• 41:28
  because it's really hard, right? But wherever you can, like
• 41:31
  there's always used to, there's you could always ask.
• 41:33
  Like it doesn't hurt, like you said before, it doesn't hurt to
• 41:35
  slide into Adm and ask a question.
• 41:37
  Like it, it's probably served me more better.
• 41:39
  I've had more successful outcomes by asking than not
• 41:42
  asking at all. Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:45
  And it's, and I say there's no stupid question.
• 41:48
  I'm sorry, but there is no stupid question because when
• 41:51
  you're learning, you know, if you know, just ask, ask, don't
• 41:55
  be afraid to ask. That's what I say to anyone that
• 41:58
  you know, I work with or I manage.
• 42:02
  I say, please don't sit on it because I know as a
• 42:05
  perfectionist, I used to do that a lot.
• 42:07
  I used to be afraid to submit something because I'd, I'd be
• 42:10
  like, is it perfect? Is it, you know, I, I need it to
• 42:13
  be perfect. I'm not sure.
• 42:15
  Don't you know, nothing has to be perfect and always go and ask
• 42:20
  for a second opinion. Even if you know, you, you get a
• 42:23
  colleague, a work colleague to, to read over something or, you
• 42:27
  know, I'll often, you know, read other people's resumes because I
• 42:30
  do a lot of resumes for people and they'll say, can you read my
• 42:33
  resume? You know, I can help them with
• 42:35
  the graphic design. I never charge for those things.
• 42:37
  It's like, yeah, sure, send it through.
• 42:39
  Have a look, always ask for help because there are people that
• 42:44
  are willing to help. And yeah, I think you might
• 42:47
  learn something. I like to learn something new
• 42:50
  every day. So is that the best way forward
• 42:52
  to follow a career path like yours to get into marketing and
• 42:56
  growth just to learn on your hands?
• 42:58
  Or should I go to uni and learn further?
• 43:01
  There's both, there's both options I've seen.
• 43:04
  So obviously for me as a teacher, a lot of teachers
• 43:08
  really wholly and solely believe that education is the only way.
• 43:11
  There are different types of education.
• 43:13
  I think I learnt more on. So for me, uni is academic.
• 43:17
  OK, so it's about learning the theory behind things.
• 43:20
  It's not actually really putting the theory into practice.
• 43:22
  You actually get to learn more when you're on the job because
• 43:25
  you're actually putting that theory into practice.
• 43:27
  So if you like academics, yes, go to uni for sure.
• 43:30
  For me, TAFE was a great option for my students that were coming
• 43:35
  through and doing these, you know, diplomas, they're actually
• 43:37
  getting straight into second year uni, some of them.
• 43:40
  So it was saving them money, it was saving them time.
• 43:43
  And then some of them just went straight from TAFE, straight
• 43:46
  into the workforce. And they've all, I've had a lot
• 43:49
  of successful, successful students.
• 43:52
  And I'll never forget when I was in my final year of uni, I had a
• 43:55
  very famous radio host come out and do a presentation to our
• 44:00
  university. And we're all in our third year
• 44:02
  ready to go out and find the world.
• 44:04
  And he goes, 90% of you in this room won't end up in this
• 44:08
  industry. And that's just a fact.
• 44:10
  And my, my expectations were like, dropped the room.
• 44:15
  You could see the energy in the room just dropped.
• 44:18
  And I just got really cranky. And I thought what you should
• 44:21
  come in yet. Maybe it is a great, maybe these
• 44:23
  are correct statistic, but it's people like that that could
• 44:26
  change that statistic. So I put my hand up and I said,
• 44:29
  well, Someone Like You could change that because where did
• 44:32
  you come from? Where did you start?
• 44:34
  Did somebody give you a leg up in the industry to get in?
• 44:37
  And he said, oh, yes, I had a mentor.
• 44:39
  And I said, well then you could be that mentor for somebody and
• 44:41
  open the door for somebody else. And rather than coming in here
• 44:44
  and making us all feel like we've got no opportunity, you
• 44:47
  could actually lift us up and say someone like me could be
• 44:50
  your mentor and help get you in a pathway into this industry.
• 44:54
  So always be that person that gives people direction, guidance
• 44:59
  and never forget where you come from because that's the
• 45:02
  important thing. Open doors.
• 45:03
  Don't be a door closer. Open doors for people.
• 45:06
  So people listening to this podcast, how can they connect
• 45:09
  with you? Because I feel like you're like
• 45:10
  the ultimate hype. Girl here, they're getting some.
• 45:14
  Really great advice for anybody that's entering or you know,
• 45:17
  like career shifts, because there are people that enter our
• 45:20
  sector like one of and give you an example, one of my best hires
• 45:23
  I've ever had was a male diesel mechanic and you'd never pick it
• 45:27
  right? But he had a complete career
• 45:29
  shift. Anybody listening to this
• 45:31
  podcast, how do they connect with you to get this type of
• 45:33
  hype energy that you give? Look, I will always answer
• 45:37
  messages on LinkedIn. You know, that's where I spend a
• 45:40
  lot of time because we've, you know, we connect a lot through
• 45:43
  LinkedIn, LinkedIn, so you can reach out to me anytime at
• 45:45
  LinkedIn. Come and visit our day program
• 45:48
  at Bass Hill. You will see something that
• 45:53
  will, you know, inspire you when you walk through those doors.
• 45:56
  You'll be inspired. You'll see not only obviously
• 45:59
  the services in process, but you'll see a team of people
• 46:01
  together that are working together that are create,
• 46:04
  creating what I'm marketing. So they've created that, they've
• 46:08
  given me the content because they're, they're so amazing that
• 46:11
  it's, it's just, it's not even hard work.
• 46:14
  So, you know, we've got an amazing social media manager.
• 46:17
  He's great. You know, it's come in, visit
• 46:21
  me, contact me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to chat or give advice
• 46:27
  or just be there for you to vent.
• 46:29
  Where is that? Is that in Sydney?
• 46:32
  Some like I'm sorry I'm not great it.
• 46:34
  Is in Sydney, Yeah, it is in Sydney.
• 46:36
  So it's in southwest Sydney. So that's where our day programs
• 46:39
  based. We service all of Sydney,
• 46:41
  Wollongong, Canberra, hopefully soon in the Melbourne space.
• 46:45
  Yes, I'd be really excited to take what we have because I
• 46:49
  think we have, we do have something a little bit new,
• 46:51
  unique. So yeah, we're in the Sydney
• 46:53
  space at the moment. If you want to come and visit,
• 46:55
  it is at Bass Hill. But if you just want to reach
• 46:57
  out to me on LinkedIn and have a chat, I'm always there, I'll
• 47:01
  always respond. Yeah, work is my life.
• 47:04
  When I'm next in Sydney, I think I need to come have a visit.
• 47:08
  Yeah. I love a good day place.
• 47:09
  I love day placements. I'm sorry.
• 47:11
  I have a background in day placement, so I'll day placement
• 47:14
  any day of the week. Yeah, no, please come.
• 47:18
  And I can say we would get along so well and yeah, I could
• 47:23
  introduce you to a great team, a really fun and vibrant young
• 47:29
  team who are in the industry for the right reasons.
• 47:33
  What Sam and Summer have created with Arise is something very
• 47:37
  unique, It's something very special.
• 47:39
  And I actually nearly left the industry and if I hadn't found
• 47:42
  hadn't have found them, I was a little bit disillusioned.
• 47:45
  If I hadn't have found them, I wouldn't still be here, and
• 47:48
  thankfully I am. Thank you so much for doing this
• 47:50
  podcast tonight. Yeah, we are definitely catching
• 47:54
  up in the future. Good.
• 47:56
  Thank you for having me. It's been a great chat.
• 47:58
  And yeah, reach out on LinkedIn, everybody.
• 48:01
  I'll put everything in the show notes for everyone.