Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / [Feature Friday] Laurent Notin on Applying a Global Mindset to Marketing - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 37

Transcript

[Feature Friday] Laurent Notin on Applying a Global Mindset to Marketing - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 37 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:02
  Laurent Notin: Start with why. So that's what we do we start with why this is such an interesting exercise to do. Most of the time, they don't have the answer, or they have some sort of an answer. But that answer as they are they have diverted from their initial Why? And their business as becomes something else. Yeah.
• 0:51
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ROI online podcasts where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day.
• 1:49
  Laurent Notin: Hey, hi, Steve. Thank you very much for having me.
• 1:53
  Steve Brown: Yeah, I'm excited. So Lauren, Lauren interviewed me on his podcast A while back and I Enjoying the conversation so much I thought, I thought we need to do a little reciprocity. And so here's Lauren and I wanted him to spend a little time with my folks that listen to folks that listen, Lauren, their business leaders as well. And the cool thing about this podcast is that, you know, we learned that we're all wrestling with similar things. And the more we're all going through business the best way we can try to make decisions, and yet when we learn that others are working on similar problems, we figure out we're just not crazy. Where we're normal. And so that's the cool thing and, and that's what you do with your clients.
• 2:45
  Laurent Notin: Yes, correct. By the way, well done on the family name pronunciation.
• 2:54
  Steve Brown: When when a Texan sees no ti n, this is a no 10 right? Yes, go
• 3:02
  Laurent Notin: Not fresh,
• 3:03
  Steve Brown: right? And then here's the thing on on Lauren's last name, he's has a T. And what do we need to T if we're not going to say it right?
• 3:12
  Laurent Notin: Yeah, you know, this is friendships don't don't ask me.
• 3:23
  Steve Brown: So, so Lauren, you have an interesting backstory. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your kind of start where you why you ended up in Laos, and then your your journey there and your your experience working with companies on marketing and research in that part of the world, which is very interesting to me. I'm curious at what, what the difference is, and we'll get into that later. But, yeah. All right. Let's set up your backstory.
• 3:52
  Laurent Notin: Okay. So I landed in Laos on a third of October 1990. Tonight, I still remember when the plane door open. And suddenly I was like, Wow, this is so hard there are mosquitoes flying everywhere there was no road there was nothing but it was amazing. And I moved to now is because I followed my ex partner who is the mother of my kids. And initially we moved there for nine months only. I didn't have any job. I just finished school. So I was like, Okay, let's go there. And you know, we stayed seven years and I'm to back to Europe like last year, so in total 20 years in Southeast Asia.
• 4:43
  Steve Brown: Wow. I recently I didn't know this but Laos has this. This giant forest or wilderness that's almost hardly touched and they have all these amazing animals and and wildlife I know very little about Laos, even though I have a couple of folks that work for me that their families originated there. Yes,
• 5:09
  Laurent Notin: it's a fantastic country, fantastic countries. It's a landlocked country, it's in between, you know, Thailand, Myanmar, get them, no access to the sea. It's called the land of the 1000 elephants. They used to be a lot of elephants. Land sign in motion, the elephant. But of course, with time, you know, and people, they the number of elephants are decreased. But still, this is one of the countries in one of the countries in the world where you can still find elephants leaving in the whiteness. And it's, it's, I mean, when I was when I went there, like, like I told you, there was no roads, there was nothing. I started working for this small market research I didn't see. And we had just such a great time. It was amazing because it was completely different. From what we knew in in Europe, but you know, we were young, we were like 23. At that time, we had a great life. We didn't need a lot of money. Partners enjoy a job I enjoy. I enjoy my job, too. We met at the same time with, we became friends with people will arrive at the same time. So young people like this. We had a blast. It's I recommend anyone to go to Laos and visit this country. It's really worth seeing it.
• 6:32
  Steve Brown: So when you went there, you started living What did you learn about yourself that you didn't know?
• 6:39
  Laurent Notin: Back when so many things. I don't know where to start. First, I think what I learned was that I was able to live in another country. You know, and it was okay to go a little bit white. You know why? Yeah, like, you know, remember like the first thing we did when we knew we were moving to Laos. We went to see the Buster Institute in France because we look at we looked about, you know, things about the mosquitoes and malaria. And we bought like, I think we bought something like 1000 euros of medicine. And for for Minaya, and we read all these books about, don't go on your own evening, close to the Mekong River because there are a lot of mosquitoes don't drink, don't drink, don't put ice into your, into your, into your drinks, etc, etc. all the first thing we did the first evening, we went to the river, because people welcomed us, they brought us there, and we remember we had lemon juice with ice next the river around 5pm was full of mosquitoes and we'll fight
• 8:59
  Steve Brown: Yesterday, right.
• 9:00
  Laurent Notin: Exactly, exactly. So that gives you a lot of this ability to take a step back and look at things completely differently. You know, and realize that what you have in, in Europe or in the US, it's not that bad actually.
• 9:21
  Steve Brown: So in my mind, I'm wondering, what kind of market research Did you? You go to Laos? They don't have row. Yeah, at least that in the area that you were. Why Why do they need marketing? Research right,
• 9:35
  Laurent Notin: is well, when we arrived in a capital city, they were building the roads up with asphalt. And in six months time, there were roads, roads everywhere, but still, it's a small country. But the thing is, people do consume and big brands like Unilever, Unilever is huge. in Southeast Asia, well, they need to understand the cause they're there, the market needs, they need to, they need to, you know, sometimes they they launch products they need to test the products they need, they need to understand how people feel what people do, etc. So, then you need market market research. And there was one researcher to see. And I ended up working working for them was a small, small team and I tend to have people and it was very interesting because it was all pen and paper, you know, questionnaire. So we have this team of interviewers and we will send them we send them out in a field and he will fill in with a ban on on her hardcopy questionnaire, get the questionnaires back. And we will do we will do all the data entry or will we actually send that entry to Cambodia for another research agency for which we did a lot of
• 11:39
  Steve Brown: That's fascinating to me. Huh? So you lived in Cambodia, you lived in Vietnam. Yes. And so I'm, you talk about being an expert on Southeast Asia, like about the differences in the marketing mindset in those countries. What did you learn? What? What was contrast? What was the same? Huh?
• 12:08
  Laurent Notin: So our dimension about time, that as that as a big, you know, difference between Europe or the US and in Southeast Asia.
• 15:33
  Steve Brown: the iconic status symbols and how it is to convey where you are in that hierarchy. arranged marriages. Hmm,
• 15:43
  Laurent Notin: yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I thought it will. It will come out and we'll come back. Yeah.
• 15:52
  Steve Brown: So when you you're considering them. I'm curious how the company's arranged their marketing to To convey respect, or to convey how their product might complement whatever the status and their hierarchy was.
• 16:14
  Laurent Notin: So that is the thing is that a lot of companies when they were doing advertising, they were focusing on these social status symbol. Let's take the app for example. So stat BIA is seen as a symbol of power very mainly, is expensive. So in the advertisement beer companies will play with that. But that's the only thing they will do. But then they will do the same with banking, they will do the same. They will do the same with every time every type of products and at the end of the day, you see all the same advertisings everywhere and All that we've seen the same population, the elite those with the money and everybody else, some companies, they have understood that you need to go beyond that. And I'm going to take the example of V level again because they were really really good at marketing. Unilever developed products for the rural market. Let's take shampoo, for example. The people living in rural areas, they cannot afford this big bottle of shampoo that you can find in a big in big cities. So what they did is that they developed small sachet.
• 19:54
  Steve Brown: Fascinating, huh? So what is so now you're back in Thinking. And, you know, wherever we go, we change, we transform, we learn things. And when we come back we bring you bring lessons back to where we are and apply them. And that that makes what you have to offer special, unique. What are some of the things that incites it's in the story, it's called the hero comes back with a gold after they go through their journey. And they learn this thing and it's called the gold and that's when they return back to their where the whole journey started. And some of the goals that you brought back.
• 20:44
  Laurent Notin: I think one is what I mentioned before is the capacity to take a step back and not be overwhelmed as fast as other people can be. I've seen so many issues I faced so many challenges like every day you would go to work and you would not know what will happen. And there is always something always something going on and you know, beat, I don't know, an extra ticket. No, no internet, someone has an accident. It's all the time all the time, all the time that it gives you that ability to relax in front of adversity because otherwise you can't get through it. You know, the way also people are less educated than we hear in in Europe or in the US. So you have to deal with those people, no daily basis and sometimes it can be very difficult because you would tend to micromanage or do the things for Because at the end of the day we will fit you will end up but you know what, I'm going to do it myself, because it's going to be faster, it's going to be better. But that is not the right way to go. This is true everywhere. But it's even more true over there because of the lack of education. It's very tempting to think they are incompetent. But they are not incompetent. It's always the same, like everywhere in every business is you need to hire the right people. Once you have the right people, or you need to train them, so they leave when when they leave that your company, they leave with better, better skills than when they arrived. It's exactly the same over there, except that the business environment and the constraints are different. So you need to adapt. What is something also I learned that it's something that so I'm able to teach or mentor my my clients with
• 24:53
  Steve Brown: Now. That's crazy. It's like It's like training, training in an environment, maybe in sand or, or you're training in a adverse environment. Now, when you return back to Europe, you would assume that those obstacles or barriers or the resistance to certain things would be less. But it's not necessarily true. There are different adversities. But to take that same mindset, is that where you started to fall in love with CrossFit? Did you get into some kickboxing or anything in that area that's very popular.
• 25:36
  Laurent Notin: No, that's an interesting story, because it is. It has really shaped who I am CrossFit. So I studied CrossFit six years ago, more or less. And after I came back to from Vietnam, I resigned from the market research company, I was working for them. That was like 14 years of market research. resigned in a dw out because that was a lot of challenges. When I was when I was in Vietnam didn't go very, very well. I didn't burn out like a real burnout and you know, work for this new company, this advertising agency where I did have shares, but I would go to work, but I would not be there. I could physically see myself moving, but I could not feel
• 26:28
  Steve Brown: No, and then felt awful. That must have been Yes. feel like a failure. You feel like want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI. quickstart Academy for authors. Every day. I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation and we want to grow our business but But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics we should put in place, what kind of technology, what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns. And that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea you have a great book, but what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors? Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI quickstart team. It's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign. To get you more have what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit ROI online.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. There's this point where I, I've been in a few situations where I never wanted to be to say this, but you get to the point where you actually you struggle to just say, oh, but I hate my job. That that's like, giving up or, to me, it was like this real awful connection to find myself in that position. That's where
• 28:42
  Laurent Notin: that was. That's why I've resigned from the market research company. And that's why I'm moving into a new into a new industry into a new company when I chose the shares that Intuit the advertising, but resign. Yeah, because I was I was, yeah, I couldn't stand it anymore. There was a lot of Things that happen. And I don't want to expend too much on that. But I was in that in us, you know, very, very weird space of not feeling very well. But I was back to I was back to Cambodia. We had my family, my kids I was working for new for new industry was super interesting because the business was small and there was a lot of things to be to do. But I was not I wasn't there. And I remember at that time, I was playing a little bit of football and talk I was fed up to about football. Like everything was and I talked to this guy it was it was written by David. And he used to be in the rugby team of the under 21 in England. So like the die was feet, he was big. And he told me during lunch that he studied CrossFit and CrossFit. What is that? He said Way to expand to lead merely to be they say, well, you should, you should try because, you know, they just open a box in town. And every Saturday morning there is this free trial. Just go and try. So I went there immediately. And men was hooked. Like just like that. You know, when you had this feeling where you discover something and you're like, wow, this is what I was looking for all my life. That was the app immediately fell in love with the spot in that spot is completely changed me. Again, several changes. I was you know, for example, physically and soon 44 in three weeks it will be 44 I have never been in such shape. And every year I am in better I'm fitter, which is which is amazing. But, you know, today I'm 45 What I'm going to be 50 what is it that I can do you know? And that feeling of being fit, and everyday being able to use that fitness into your everyday life, being able to think better, being being able to sleep better. You know, I don't want to lose that ever. So that as you know transformed me. I was fat. When I started CrossFit nine I still had a little bit of fat but you know what, less so I had to change my diet I had to change my diet to in CrossFit has also brought me one thing which is discipline. I've always I've always been someone quite discipline until I until I was not anymore. So I've always been going like discipline discipline is even embalm down, you know, but CrossFit, I have to be deeply discipline because it is so demanding that, you know, if you want to if I want to be better, if I want to continue being able to do, you know, pull ups, handstand push ups and whatever crazy things we're doing, we're doing a CrossFit, I have to get that discipline of taking care of myself, but it is so rewarding. So I'm trying also to bring that to my coaching to my with with my with my clients, we're talking about discipline, then start discipline, start with yourself.
• 32:31
  Steve Brown: Let's talk about that. Now you return to Helsinki. Obviously, you have a very successful business, coaching, training, teaching. How does that discipline? How do you work that in to an entrepreneur that used to being in charge doing making all the decisions and so they're going to be a little bit of resistance resistant to someone that's coming in and telling them what they should do? How do you do that code?
• 33:02
  Laurent Notin: Well, the first thing is that I don't work with people who don't want to change when they come when my clients need my help. Once my up, they want my help. They are they are in a phase where they're like, okay, there's something that you know I need to change I need to improve and ready to accept external help.
• 33:27
  Steve Brown: I'm just gonna interrupt right here is like the biggest secret to running a good business and picking good customers. repeat that again. First of all, I don't
• 33:40
  Laurent Notin: put it I say
• 33:45
  Steve Brown: you don't worry
• 33:46
  Laurent Notin: about people. We work with people who don't want to change. I don't want to we don't want to be coached. Yes. That's huge.
• 33:54
  Steve Brown: That's a great statement.
• 33:56
  Laurent Notin: Oh, but you know, I've when I started my business, as a as being a become a business coach, I decided that I would pick my clients. And that has given me amazing freedom. Because before I was never I never did that really that exercise of going after the ideal clients to a certain point, but not to the point where I brought it and now with with my business, and that gives, like I said, gives a lot of a lot of freedom. So I don't want to work with people who don't want to work with me. I don't want to I don't want to work with people who are asked me at the end of the day, Hey, can you give me a discount? Because No, that's not what I want to do anymore. I've done that for 20 years, you know. And the first the first thing with coaching is that you want if you want to change you need well if you want to change if you need to be ready to change. If you're ready to change or if you're ready to improve if you tell me Okay, I am gonna commit, maybe, you know, on a scale of zero 100%. I'm gonna come in at 80%. If there is an obstacle in front of me, I'll go through it with you help, that I would, that I would. That is the first thing when for coaching. When it comes to discipline, it's a lot about building routines, I would say. And those routines, they are up to you. This is I can't, I can't teach you or train you on. I can't tell you what the routine is. But you have to build your own routines. I don't know which routines will work for you. I know which routines work for me. For example, in the morning, I take my time that's my routine. Taking my done, I wake up I go, you know, I make the coffee. I sit on the couch, sipping my coffee while watching the news and I prepare myself for the day, that is my routine, it takes like one and a half hours just because that's it. But you know, other people they want to, they want to go into work. I like immediately. Some people prefer to work later on the on the evening. But what is important is to build routine to get into the discipline of having those habits until they become a routine, and you don't have to worry about them anymore, because they are just part of who you are. The most difficult is to start that first step. It's easy decided to change is easy, just just a snap of fingers. Okay? Today I'm going to change, right? But then you need to make that first step, that first physical step to stop the change. What is it, whatever whatever it is, if you want to lose weight, maybe you can start by stopping in reducing the number of soda you drink, you have to physically do that. And then you realize that once you've done it one time, the second time is easier. The third time is easier. But you need to keep on going and going and going and you know, whipping yourself a little a little bit, maybe getting a coach to help to help you be accountable for yourself until it becomes
• 37:26
  Steve Brown: routine. Why is that hard? Why is the first thing to start so hard?
• 37:36
  Laurent Notin: Because that's, that's a great question. Have you seen these comics where you see these? These speaker talking to a crowd of people? And the first question you ask is who wants to change? Everybody raise the hand. No. And then the second question is okay, who is going to lead the change, and everybody's got I think that's that said it's because it's it's change sometimes means suffering. And suffering is not your brain is not made for that your brain doesn't want you to suffer. You know, it's look at look at how easy for example it is to blame someone and how difficult it is to give a compliment to someone. I find that very, very interesting. But it's I think it's the same it's the same with with with change. We're like, Oh, yeah, it's not that difficult to, you know, stop quitting cigarettes. But actually, it is very difficult to quit
• 39:00
  Steve Brown: So let's talk about the clients that your are your best clients, obviously they want to change, but describe who your perfect client is, and, and how they transform after working with you.
• 39:17
  Laurent Notin: So, I wouldn't say that change, maybe it's not the right, the right verb, it's more like they hit a plateau. And they're looking to get to the next phase of growth. But somehow they have difficulties to do it. So yeah, on the way, they may have to change some of the things starting starting with them,
• 39:43
  Steve Brown: and they're looking for that they're there at this point, when they send an evaluation. They realize they can't take it, or that where they could probably do better if they engage someone to help them think a little bit different or approach it different, correct?
• 39:57
  Laurent Notin: Yes,
• 39:58
  Steve Brown: yes. Yes, there are two beavers by nature.
• 40:02
  Laurent Notin: Yes, because they want they want the business to do good. You know, they it's it's a lot of people said it's my baby. But that's that's that's what it is they they've won to the business to do good but they also want to make sure that they provide a job to the people they hire employee because most of these entrepreneurs, I work with the capital those a lot. They care because they know that people are their best assets.
• 41:40
  Steve Brown: That's a common theme I hear often. I'm glad I don't have that problem. Running mindedness but I'm, I'm being facetious but
• 41:51
  Laurent Notin: you don't have a client to have a client is in his in Vietnam. He has been running his companies 50 for 15 years. That is the problem. He has
• 42:04
  Steve Brown: But it's hard to admit your Yeah. It's hard to admit your, your baby is ugly. That is my maybe. And Isn't he cute? Or Isn't she cute but but you can see where, where the bottleneck is how do you get someone to? To get over that and get past it?
• 42:28
  Laurent Notin: Usually we talk we talk about strategy a lot.
• 43:00
  Steve Brown: Yeah, that's a great point to help them revisit the original reason because because maybe they've forgotten maybe they've got distracted maybe, hmm yeah. You see that in love stories too where the the couple's kind of over each other and and then someone comes along and help them remember why
• 43:22
  Laurent Notin: you're doing yes except a little life
• 44:06
  Steve Brown: So in Helsinki or in that area of the world are there a lot of connections with Southeast Asia?
• 44:15
  Laurent Notin: Not too much.
• 45:18
  Steve Brown: But so you're uniquely positioned because this event, here we are sitting in our sheltered in place because of everyone's had to remain distant from everyone because this event that originated in China, and a lot of countries have realized their supply chain is at risk. If China has another blip, we've had several events come out of China, the SARS and other so it would make sense that many companies are starting to reconsider where they should relocate their supply chains and you're perfectly positioned to help them with those new conversations with many other potential new relationships.
• 46:05
  Laurent Notin: Yes, that is that is one of my hopes especially because also the same time there is no news about getting in positive news about how Vietnam and handle the COVID-19 situation with very few cases I think no disease or very limited number of disease and you see those news starting popping up on social media on LinkedIn. So that also should attract more attention from from from Europe. Plus China also is becoming more and more expensive. So when you are a company you need to look at your actual actual cost. And you know, the other countries have cheaper alternatives with with the highest sometimes you know, high school people because in Cambodia for example, yes, people are not educated. Well, the education event is is low, but they can be a skill. I mean, if you give them technical skills, it can be really, really, really good to train them properly. And they can do that very, very well. What I think also is going to happen is that more and more companies are going to lose companies yes are going to look at look are in their own country production. Coming back to the roots. I see that in Finland, this this people are pushing a lot for local mate products, not only vegetables, but you know, meat and all the other products like there's a there's a lot there's a lot of fitness is very known for these innovative innovative design products.
• 47:46
  Steve Brown: So you would attempt to as far as the future of the economy and in Finland.
• 47:52
  Laurent Notin: Sorry, can you say that again? What is your
• 47:56
  Steve Brown: temperature? How do you feel about the future? The economy in Finland
• 48:04
  Laurent Notin: is an interesting place.
• 50:50
  Steve Brown: Excellent. I really enjoyed this conversation Lauren. And so there are some some folks that are listening to this, and then wondering maybe what opportunity needies might be available for them, either in Finland or your connections with Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, how can they contact you? How should they reach out?
• 51:15
  Laurent Notin: Okay, so well they can reach out on my website, ww claw on return.com and go to contact me. Otherwise I'm also reachable by email contact at low anata.com and also have a mouse our website also have my telephone number that is available if you want you can what's up me? If you can also listen to my podcast, which is called interviews where I talk to other entrepreneurs. It's an episode every week for them for the moment.
• 51:50
  Steve Brown: So and they can find that on Apple everywhere.
• 51:53
  Laurent Notin: Yes, apple, Spotify, iTunes. I Heart Radio My website dude.
• 52:02
  Steve Brown: All right, excellent. Hey Lauren, I appreciate you and value and thank you for being on the ROI online podcast.
• 52:10
  Laurent Notin: Well, thank you very much for having me.
• 52:12
  Steve Brown: That's a wrap for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better, be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.