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#077 Thor Holt!

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HTRM 77 Thor Holt

[00:00:00] Yeah, the power of the power of questions is really underrated in our culture. For some reason, we, we think that we have to kind of, yeah, people might say they have to sell themselves by saying the smart thing, but what about by asking the right question? Welcome to the how to raise money podcast for anyone who wants to raise other people's money for a business or property venture.

Right now, there has never been more money on the planet and there has never been more opportunity. This podcast will help you put the two together. So if you need money for your business or property proposals from banks, lenders, angels, whales, or dragons, this is the podcast for you.

Don't recall everyone and welcome to the how to raise money podcast. I'm Ray McLennan and he's with me, Nigel T best morning, Ray, how are you? I'm good. And we have a guest on today. We have Thor Holt who is in, are you in Aberdeen [00:01:00] Shire? Um, well out into the country. Yes. I, I'm probably closer to the Queens summer house than I am to Aberdeen, to be honest.

That's the way I like it. Oh, I see. I see mixing with the queen. Do you pop in for tea? Yeah, no. She pops in by her here and has this gone with me? I don't, I tend not to travel these days since locked down. I just stay at home and do a lot of zoom and WhatsApp calls. Oh, you see Ray. I was thinking that Paul was going to kick this podcast off with an absolute bombshell saying that he wandered across into the Queen's house.

And this is the way to raise money with a simple conversation over a cup of tea. But, uh, not too bad, probably it probably is a legit way to raise money though. Isn't it it's to keep it as relaxed as possible. But, uh, no, I have never met the queen and you know what I would actually be. I'd be really. The muse as to what to do.

Cause you know, when you've got a kid, I was kind of taught to stand up for the [00:02:00] national Anthem and all that stuff. But the idea that in 2020, you would still bow to someone, especially with my dodgy back. What I mean, is that what you have to do? Do you call her mom or do you just treat her like a normal human when it's not a proper ceremonial thing?

I would be really, that'd be

The problem would love to find that the state first and then mom afterwards. What's that I said, it's your mom. As in jam your majesty when you first meet her and then ma'am later. Well, let's get you guys both know it's me that lives near there. My point is. Well, we just say, do bacon thought we've just saved your bacon.

You could have been locked in the Dungeons of there and no one would have ever seen you again. So you can thank us later. Well, I thank you right now. People listening to them. Hold on. Before we go any further, I just want the audience to know that before. This recording. We had minutes of fantastic banter where Nigel Javin are ready to [00:03:00] press record and he wouldn't do it.

I said, as soon as you press record, we're going to be like three stuffed dummies and have a really awkward conversation. So now we've ended up having a conversation about the bloody queen and taking cups of tea with a green. It was great bunter before. Believe us he's on game shows and all sorts of things.

They have the warm-up guy. Yeah, no. The, the, the comedian that comes out to warm the audience up before the cameras actually start rolling. I think it's not really known as a fluffer and comedian circles, but yeah, different industry. Have you not heard about one of my new enterprises I'm doing with NAS Hossain?

We just, we just soft launched it. Well, we're going to make. Comedy more vital than porn. That's the tagline. We're making comedy more vital and important. And we have the domain name, comedy hub. Basically, we're looking for distributors to, to be Miko agents or for comedians because comedians are screwed right now.

Like these poor guys and girls they're basically sat at home. They're not able to perform. And this is across the Western world. So, what we're doing is we do it. [00:04:00] We're going to replicate what NAZA does. We're going to teach them what NAS does or other NAS is going to teach them. I'm kind of the silent partner.

If you can believe that I'll be silent. It's one behind the scenes and NAS is big ahead of it because he already has black neck comedy, a very successful comedy club in this part of Scotland. And yeah, we're going to make comedy more vital important. I wouldn't be surprised if Joe Rogan wants to have NAS on his show in the end.

Cause Joe being a comedian himself, he'll love the grassroots. Idea here, because what we're looking to do is give anyone the opportunity to be a micro comedy agent, to be able hire comedians local to them or from across the world. Because of course, these are all delivered on zoom at the moment and yeah, that's the idea.

So what do you reckon chaps shoot me down. Yeah. Well you need a podcast called how to raise money to get some money for that. Yeah. I think, you know what? I posted the video and within half an hour, I had someone offering to invest in the, in the enterprise. Now we don't necessarily need an investment, but.

That's literally what happened with the first video you quit for your zoom subscription. [00:05:00] Ah, okay. Well, that's, uh, that's the kind of logistical stuff that NASA will be dealing with. I said, I'm the silent, Hey, listen, if we keep going and Nigel gets warmed up here, they said we might be one of the first comedy entrants.

There's nothing like putting someone on the spot and that was it. But no, all I was thinking there is all it takes is a good idea and take action. And when you talk about how to raise money, you get people actually beating a path to your door. Sometimes if you put it out there with a great idea, people that doesn't need explaining in too great, a depth because people go, I get it.

I get it. I mean, Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, that leads us nicely into a Thor's Thor's biography or who is he? Because people are probably listening this guy. What about half an hour? We haven't even adopted stuff. So he delivers on client projects, including commercial pitches, up to 20.4 [00:06:00] million, which was an individual win.

Love to hear about that. That's not a big number for you, right? We all know, as I was saying earlier, I want you to do is sit down, counting money in between your podcasts, because you'll probably visit the site. I wrote career performance, select wins, high visibility events, speaking, preparation, business, leadership development, other assignments, and a previous regular workshop leader at Massachusetts Institute of technology, where he assisted entrepreneurial teams with our pitching and presenting.

So Thor, tell us about the 24.4 million pound window. I love to hear about that. So that was a particularly sweet job, actually, because. Because of the people aspect to it. And I wish I could say I pulled off this year in the year of COVID, but it was actually, it was a few, a couple of years ago now, but it was a, it was actually a big charity who had to, but I mean, a child is a business too, and they had to.

Pitch for this really huge piece of work. I mean, huge for [00:07:00] them. Anyway, it's a pretty big, chunky piece of work, worth 20.4 million pounds. And they had never, this particular executive team who were going to be pitching had never won, never landed anything with a pitch before, so that it had worked come to them.

But yeah, they never won with a, with a pitch. So pretty challenging and high pressure because if they didn't land this piece of work, they were going to lose. We're going to have to make London one fifth of their workforce. So yeah, that's. That to me was when I quote the number, just because people can be impressed by numbers.

But to me, it was the one facility organization workforce that was saved through, through the wind. And they were, they were actually told by the awarding panel, I wasn't there for that, but they were actually told that it was a perfect pitch and that was the words they used, which that's lovely to hear.

Um, and that didn't happen by accident. Of course, there were a few months of blood, sweat, and tears. Tears that went into it. Um, but yeah, that was, that's the basics of the story. [00:08:00] And as I say, the thing that it's the people's side, honestly, that motivates me. That's why I enjoy coaching. And that's why I enjoy anything I do within a business context.

It's the relationships and the lives. I know we've now got no laughs, but you know what I mean? Life's too short. Not to have fun with your work. Well, that's true. I mean, I was going to say, just picking up on that, the perfect page. Uh, I love the fact that you caveated that with the overnight success was 10 years in the making type thing, because too often people think, Oh, I'll just go and I'll wing it, but it kind of leads onto my question.

You got involved in this because what will you seeing people do wrong in pitching where, you know, why did you feel you had to step in and help? The thing. I think the thing that is most commonly, I don't know if I'll call it wrong. Cause it's, it's the thing most people seem to do. But most people just, if they don't frame the pitch in an interesting manner, that's my, that would be my big bugbear.

I don't know what you guys think. [00:09:00] So typically opens with, with the boring stuff that we w like, we already know your name as a rule. So, but so many people open with their name, like straight away. You're starting to lose people because why do we need to know your name again? You've just been introduced or you you've already met each other.

Had the preamble and then it's the facts, you know, thanks for the opportunity to type stuff again, it's just so boring. So for me, that is somewhere that I can instantly help virtually anyone who's in a pitching or presenting situation is to help them come up with something more engaging, an analogy that works or a story that works.

But yeah, that's kind of my biggest frustration with pitches and presentations genuinely my job. Go on, go on, then give us a, I'll put you on the spot. Give us one of your favorite starting lines, because I'm realizing, as you said, all that we need to write, we seriously need to edit the start of this podcast because that was exactly what we did.

Hello?

Okay. This is out in the [00:10:00] bathroom and I'll do that. We're not pitching for anything. It's uh, w you're asking for the starting line to what that how'd you mean? Oh, opening a page. So someone's been introduced they're there. This is the time. This is the start of the page. It is basically shit or bust on this one, you know, for the whole company and their opening line should be, I can't believe you didn't lose your attempt to win that.

Client said that that that's, that I might have missed. That's an actual line I used with someone. Yeah. In a presentation, this was a corporate, like a law is a partner of a law firm. And we opened with that. It was, it was like, he took it from an email, which he'd had from another partner in the deal. And this guy had just been getting dogs abuse basically in public and he just stayed totally calm.

So this was an email of praise to him basically saying, listen, mate, I can't believe that you'd stayed calm when that guy was being such a Dick. So we [00:11:00] took that and we literally opened with it. He didn't say his name. He just stood up to present and just went, I can't believe. And just literally quoted.

That's just one. I'm not saying that's the best one.

Yeah. It's a real pattern interrupt. Isn't it? Cause that is not what your brain is. Gearing yourself up to hear your opening line to be. So is that kind of one of the key things when you, when you're opening with, you know, the, the correct framing, the interesting is pattern interrupt, make people who aren't paying attention suddenly focus back in, is that one of the keys, uh, for your opening?

Yeah, maybe I dunno, pattern interrupts a good way of looking at it. I hadn't thought of that, but I guess, yeah, everyone does have a certain expert don't they have how a meeting is going to go, how a presentation is going to go. So, so yeah, you're right. I hadn't thought of it as a pattern interrupt, but I guess that is what it is the way I usually talk about it though, is earning someone's attention.

So it's not, we're not actually doing something frivolous. It needs to be relevant. Like I could just strip off and show you my COVID Tommy, and it would [00:12:00] be a kind of attention grabber, but it wouldn't be an attention earner in the context of a business conversation. So my favorite one recently is I helped a guy with a weed pitch.

This is actually a career job. And he, he needed to pitch though, too. Cause he's up against competition. It's COVID time. And you know, there's hundreds of applicants for every role. And I hadn't beating a drum, his new boss doesn't listen to this podcast because he's going to recognize and go, Oh, that's where they got the idea from.

No, but the guy was a musician. In his other life. So we had them beating a drum. Now it was relevant and I'm not going to say why it was relevant because that actually would start to give away who it is potentially, but it was completely irrelevant. So we had the drum as a heartbeat and there was an environmental theme to the pitch and it absolutely worked.

He actually got back to me and said that the MD had been basically in tears because it was just so powerful. So it's not, it's not gratuitous though. Like, yeah, we could come on and just do silly things and sell, tell silly knock-knock [00:13:00] jokes and pattern interrupt. But there's got to be more to it now.

It's got to be real. Yeah. I'm writing this down. This is gold. I'm writing. You help a lot of sort of executives to, to, uh, pitch for work, um, you know, on, on online and in person and so on. And it reminds me that, you know, when they always say, well, thank you for your interview today has any questions you'd like to help us.

And one of the best ones I heard was the guy said, yes, what does it take to be successful around here? And they immediately said, well, actually, if you start doing so-and-so services and they, and they became the person giving the interview, uh, then became a sort of mentor because here's what you need to be successful here.

Um, it gets the job and then I'm going to take you under my wing and look after you because I've told you what it needs to be successful. And it was a brilliant one. I got my son who is only 11, but he's at football Academy. And new coaches came in and I [00:14:00] asked Ted Massad say that when you, on the first day of training, which they went back to see that, and that's exactly what's happened.

They've kind of taken them under their wing. Now he's in a football Academy. He's not the best player there by any stretch. The imagination is really good players. There. He's a goalkeeper is worried that he's not going to toll, you know, grow tall enough to stay being a goalkeeper. But, you know, I think he's in there with the bricks.

Yeah, the power of the power of questions is really underrated in our culture. For some reason, we, we think that we have to kind of, yeah, people might think they have to sell themselves by saying the smart thing. But what about by asking the right question? So there's a question. I get people to ask what a version of.

You're right, right. There's a question of COVID there. I was coughing I'm muted, coughed. How's your sense of smell? Perfect. No, but there's a, there's a question. I get my, uh, career coaching clients to ask a version of it that works for them towards the end of an interview. I'll get them to ask something along the lines of.

Um, is there any [00:15:00] region you can see that you wouldn't want to progress me to the next stage of this process? Like, just tell me right now and let's see if we can cover it. It has to be, it has to feel right for them, but a version of that. And it just it's again, I guess there's a bit of a pattern interrupt where they're not expecting that level of bluntness, but it, it seems to really, really work.

So yeah. Questions much underrated. I love that idea of your kid asking that question of the coach. My daughter has a job at a stables and when she went for the trial day, I said to her, Emily, you need to shovel shit with a smile on your face. And when you finish shoveling the shit with a smile on your face, go and ask your supervisor.

What can I do next? What can I do and just keep asking and you'll get the job. And she did, she did that and she did get the job. Luckily, I didn't know about this job at the stables. It was going to begging, or they'd all been there, shoveling the smile on their face too, because that's the situation and this part of the world.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you're talking about there in [00:16:00] terms of the question, the power of questions. Why do you think you said it's, you know, it's a trait of ours. Why do you think we have that trait? Why don't we teach people to ask questions? Well, that's a great question. I don't know the answer.

There's probably a, there's probably a PhD in that because it's, it's pretty fundamental, isn't it? Yeah. Honestly not sure. It's so easy. When, when you're sort of explaining some of these techniques. It suddenly becomes so obvious and blindingly obvious how you can step up, step out, stand out from the crowd, um, with something so easy is maybe a half a dozen words.

It doesn't words. You can suddenly make yourself memorable. It's amazing why we don't do it. And I think back to when I was leaving university, which was early nineties and it was nobody was getting jobs, it was a terrible recession. It was a nightmare. And I went into one of those. Cauldrons of, uh, 20 or 30 people all doing a group interview [00:17:00] with, I think there was two jobs going for it.

And it was how do you stand out? And when it came down to the individual thing you had about 30 seconds and they said, well, you know, Tell me something about yourself. And I just said, I'm six foot four, and the person laughed. And, uh, she wrote it down. She said, I'll remember you for that. And I got the job.

And when she came back, I said, what was the difference? Are you were all the same? You're all much of a muchness, but I remember you saying you were six foot four. And she said it was such a random thing to say. And, uh, as I said it, I thought you idiot. What have you just said that that is the dumbest thing you could ever do?

And it was only later that I realized, Oh, okay. So saying something slightly different was the only difference in me getting a job Nigel. I was in, um, in West London working with a company that [00:18:00] we're creating a factory for recycling clothes. Okay. And we had to, we had to recruit. 50 people. I think it was now, this was in any area of deprivation, not many jobs around to cover a disused factory.

And the idea was that they would send trucks all around charity shops in Scotland to pick up the bags of clothes at the charity shops couldn't sell. And then these clothes were all sorted out. So you'd sort out the Woodlands, the denim, et cetera. And a lot of it was sold in what's called African Beals to go to Africa.

Where, you know, you'll always see them, you know, in South Africa, when they're protesting, they're wearing Manchester United shirt from 20 years ago, they get sent over there. So what we needed to recruit was Lani drivers, forklift, truck drivers, but then a lot of women, usually it was women who did the sorting on a conveyor belt.

Because they would stand and chat for hours and sort everything out and throw it into buckets. And that, and myself and the other guy, Brendan, who was the boss's son, we were there interviewing people. And we went into the job center in Danny and Sterling shop. And there's a queue of people [00:19:00] outside. And this, this parade of people came in.

All we need them to do was to sort clothes. And they came in and yeah, my name is so-and-so Olivia and after day two, when we were virtually frazzled. We were almost at that point of look, the next person that comes in is getting the job. I don't care. I don't want to listen to any more people talking, just let, and then this woman came in and sat there with a big smile on her face.

And we were both there. And I remember we had tea and Kit-Kats and I was looking at my Kit-Kat and I was thinking, I really want a bit of the KitKat, but I have to listen to this room. And I looked up and she was sat there and I said, and what's your name? And she went. And smiley smiley. My name's smiley by nature.

And I looked at Brenda and he looked at me and we both went at the same time. You're hired.

I wonder what she's doing now and smiley from Danny. Oh, I love about this is there'll be a fair number of. People who are out of work right now, who are listening to this show and they're thinking, okay, so I know what I'm going to do. Next time. I get any Winnie in an interview, I'm going to say I'm six foot four [00:20:00] and I'm cold and smiley.

It's a window. It's a double bubble. You'll definitely get a job guys quite a lot. And I got it from my granddad, I think. Um, and, uh, a lot of people comment on it. You know, somebody says, you know, I might go into a shop or a total stranger and they say, you know, they go with total insincerity. So, how are you doing today?

You know, are you having a good day? And I always say every day is a great day. Just try missing one. And they're all like, where did you get? That's quite profound and a conversation starts because again, it just sort of bricks. And I don't mean, yeah, an ice breaker, but I can almost hear my wife rolling her eyes.

No, she's got a, you're not telling that story again. I forgot. She just sharp. You know, my wife was just like, why do you have to do it? Every single shot we go into just shut and your comedy audience everywhere you go. Right? If you're, if, if a comedian took his audience with him, his whole career, His audience is obviously going to get bored with his jokes [00:21:00] and his one-liners.

So you need to tell your misses to just send it down. And my wife has the same problem is when I go into shops and ask for a discount, my wife is he really asked for a discount in Tesco. Yup. Actually talking about discounts and I have to credit this with what's his name? Um, chris' boss. Who's an FBI.

It's I think it's chris' boss. Yeah, never, never spoke negotiator. I think it might be him. I might be wrong though, but, uh, when he asks for a discount and somebody says, well, why should they give you the discount? And they'll say, because my name's Ray McLean and they'll get the re McLennan disco. And quite often it leads them to go, Oh, let me speak to my supervisor or something like that.

You know, every now and again, one will do that rather than hang on, tell the truth, tell the truth. Right? Because normally when you say that the security come straight over and lobby you out and we say, well, none of those, none of those Raymond plan on the ground here, get you get out of it. But anyway, look right.

[00:22:00] Email me and you talking about us. Why doesn't Thor talk about us. I mean, so talk about why does it

for you guys? So this year I've performed a wee bit of a pivot, as in I've set up a separate brand, which is called Korea, goldmine.com. There's a video of course, there, which has been selling hasn't, hasn't sold enough to buy in my Tesla X yet, but it is selling. And the whole point of the site is to help people.

Get organized, find and land a job because that is a massive need. So the thing is though it takes a lot of attention and time, and I've got a couple of other projects, which I'm happy to talk about. Um, but they're going to be pulling a lot of my attention next year. So I would love to find a way to do something great with their career goldmine up site and brand.

It's got an element of. It's [00:23:00] already done for someone because it's got the video, of course. And it's also got like some marketing materials and, uh, and, uh, you know, uh, uh, process and emails, all set up in a list and everything of people who are interested, um, cool to sell it maybe, or. Somehow do something with it.

What do you think I should, do you guys have businessmen of the world? Nigel, Nigel groove universe? Yeah, I think that was a really elegant example of a pitch to us, you know, thank you very much. Great demonstration of the scale because there was a bit of intriguing here and it was also, um, that sort of opening yourself up and asking for help on the, uh, which immediately.

Gets our brains thinking as to, I don't know about anyone else, but when somebody put something like that in front of you as a bit of a puzzle, a bit of a challenge. There's parts of me that always goes right. I've got to solve this. So I think [00:24:00] anyone that's out there that is a solver and he's listening to this, that'd be going alright, well, you can do this.

What about that? And it's, it's a great spark it's, it's where the dry Tinder. And you've just put the spark to as a, now all you need is someone just finding the flames to, uh, to get this idea out there. So I've got loads of loads of thoughts on that, because I think that's, it's such a guy thing though.

Isn't it to one, two problems. I mean, right. Women

Nigel. We need to perform, we need to perform a stop and a thought criminal investigation integrated. He firstly said women were chatty on, on the line when they were sorting 20 year old man United shirts. I thought I'll let him go with that one. That's popping up sexism, but this is too far. Cool. If you call the cops I'm offended.

I told them, they told you, you press record. I told you don't press record. Right? They snuck could end you actually, [00:25:00] if you come North of the border again, there's a new hate crime bill coming in. And I'm pretty sure you just fell foul of it twice in a row. Mr. McCloud. Oh, well, I think it's called doing a Ratner.

Is that right? Well, don't get put on Janel, flipping. Heck, he's still getting harassed. Like 30 years later, I've made billions again, since then. He has, he has actually, it's just got a new book called reinvent yourself, which I just arrived to you the other day. And that's proof that's proof. There's no such thing as bad publicity in the end because we're now selling his book for them all those years ago, the guy's been through all this trauma and all the terrible things that happen to you.

I have actually shared a stage with general retina. Cool. I have a book too. My partner in crime, it says from journals that are signed by him. So, uh, I have a lot of time for Joel Ratner, lovely guy. Um, yeah, I like him a lot. Uh, so yeah, if I have my own venue, my ID, right. I don't mind. It's fine. Well, we would re you, can't break it out with the fact that we busted you for sexism.

So anyway, let's just talk that we'll we'll, [00:26:00] we'll mock it out. Yeah, I'll do some, Oh, he's, he's now holding up to the camera. If you're listening to the podcast is holding up a picture, which looks like there's a beautiful white divide down the middle as if he's got one of them and one of Gerald Ratner.

And that's it. Nigel is the deep fake they've got videos these days where they can do deep fakes. And that looks like one of those is raised. Put that together himself. He's putting, he's got all these pictures of him with the famous people that is glued together. Yes, I do. That's his new book that actually we invent yourself Joe Brown.

I pick up because I love listening to Rob's podcast podcast. So I will definitely be. Taking that lead book up. Where did we get you to? We were talking about something serious. Really? Yeah. It's exactly the very reason you're here. Career gold miner. I, I think, um, uh, the thing that you touched on at the moment is whereas people for many years, many years just went through the traditional.

Okay, I'll go to school, get [00:27:00] qualified, go out, uh, apply for a job, get the job, stay in the job for years and years and years, the gig economy and everything fracturing. Splintering out there suddenly people are faced with. Um, a situation that they have never been exposed to before and never really been taught in school because the people who are in school have never been through it.

So it's an experience that is, is very hard. And the fact that you're doing it, putting something together in a, in a box, in a package that can li hand-hold someone through a process and give them the best chance of getting that job. I, I think he's, you know, really quite remarkable, obvious, but still remarkable.

So. Tell us a little bit more about you say it's fairly new, but how are people finding it? W you know, is it successful? People are getting jobs off the back of the free, there's a free PDF called captain your career, which is based on the analogy of. You know, being a pilot of your own career, basically, and just taking control of the joystick and doing what you want to [00:28:00] do rather than just letting the economy crash and burn you.

So it's 21, 22 point plan. Just the checklist as aviators we'll know, you have checklists for everything. That's why planes don't crash because pilots follow checklists and, um, the captain, your career is the basics of the program. And then after that, there's a video thing, the video course, which is just takes you more into depth on how to business Storify.

Your career. So to make your career something that you can tell stories about and deliver value, talk about how you've delivered value in a business storytelling fashion. So that's the paid bit. And then there's also coaching off the back of that. Something called CV gold miner, which is a two-hour coaching package.

Now I could teach someone who's a good listener and empathic, and with a bit of life experience, I can teach them how to deliver that. They don't need to be a recruiter or a coach necessarily, although it probably would suit someone like that. But yeah, the basics of the program is free. It's the 2122 point captain your career checklist.

So someone can just download that from Korea, goldmine.com. [00:29:00] Um, yeah, that's it really it's. I mean, yeah. And isn't that the thing that, uh, you know, if I always, I always tell my kids when they're struggling with something, I said, look, everything is a game. And the way that you win a game or play a game better than other people is to understand the rules just a little bit better than other people, because a lot of people don't are not interested in learning the rules or finding out the rules.

I remember as a kid trying to play, they made us play rugby and they told me to stand somewhere. They told me I was something and I didn't know where that position was and I didn't know where to stand. So I just kind of wandered over to an empty bit of grass and stood there. And then, uh, you know, I kept getting shouted at, and I just thought, this is, this is madness.

I've no idea what they're doing. Some of them are hating each other and the ball isn't near them. Uh, some are over there and they're kicking it, throwing. I didn't understand that at all. And so I didn't feel I could join [00:30:00] in. And a lot of people, I was almost on the sidelines and I feel a lot of people in society, maybe like that.

If you're trying to raise money, I don't know where to go, where to start. If I'm trying to get a job, I don't know why to go, where to start. So go career goldmine.com. Yep. He's gotta be right up there as your first port of call to go find out and. It may be that listeners of the podcast. It's not, there you go.

It's not necessarily for them, but it could be for someone they know who's in a situation that needs a bit of help. So let's spread the word on that. Thank you very much. I mean, what I'm actually, and the reason I'm potentially up for selling that brand and that part of my enterprise is because I think someone else might be able to scale it back.

And I can like if a recruitment company took on, for example, they could, you know, a decent sized recruitment company could potentially scale that and make it available to a lot more people that would make me happy a bit like with my 20.4 million pitch. The big deal for me is the people. So if someone [00:31:00] could take that off my hands and genuinely scale it to a much bigger audience of people who are really in need, that would be, that'd be wonderful because at the same time what's happened is through, through following my own advice, which is if you want.

Hmm, if you want, what is that again? If you want money, ask for advice and if you want advice, ask for money. So I go down to ask me interesting people for advice, and there was a gentleman I asked for advice on how to buy businesses because this guy has bought a whole load of businesses and then put them into a group and sold them.

And he's done that more than once. And he's in the middle of doing that now. So we get one good eight and I asked him if he would mentor me. Because I said, I'm interested in trying to do this. I had a situation with an it company who is the guy who was into the next thing. And I start thinking, Hmm, I wonder if I could, instead of him just exiting with this turnover, I wonder if we could put them together with these other companies.

So I thought I'm not going to be such a smart ass. I think I just know how to do this. I've never done this before. I have introduced people to money to do that kind of thing. I've never done it. So I asked this chapter, if you could give me some advice and some mentoring. What has ended up in [00:32:00] is a more in-depth conversation where he's now asked me because of, he says, because of my relationship building capacity, he feels that I might be able to help him find and acquire these businesses.

So I can basically get paid to learn from, from him, someone who's done it. A number of times before. So I also recognize that that's going to take quite a lot of focus. I don't think it's just a piece of piss, but I just sent a couple emails. I get that there's a big process and there's a lot of time potentially involved.

So that's another reason why I'm thinking that the career thing much as I love the actual one-to-one coaching and I genuinely do, and I get good results with it. Um, I suspect that my focus isn't going to be, you can only, you can't focus on too many things at once. Can you so. That's another one of the reasons why, um, I'm looking at it potentially moving stage left as I move into this new phase for me.

So, yeah. Okay.

No, I mean, it's perfectly all right. [00:33:00] I'll just edit that bit out. Okay.

Two big questions that I'm sure everyone has got on their mind is how can you help me raise money? And what's the background behind you being called Thor. How can, well, genuinely, if you want to raise money, you should probably speak to Ray because he's probably better than me. I mean, I've helped people raise money a number of times, but I don't do it daily, you know?

So I wouldn't want to pretend that that's my top 40 I've raised money myself for a business that is going to be on dragons then next season. Cause I have a share in the business, but we did that with a proper pitch over the beer. I mean, we did that over a beer at the Indian though with, with an investor who we had gotten to know and build a relationship with.

So for me, it's virtually always about relationship building. It's not about some mechanical process, and I know that maybe isn't helpful to people, but the people that have [00:34:00] money and are interested in investing, they're just people and you can get to know them. And in the modern world, No, you can, you can find pretty much anyone.

No one can expect to just listen to a podcast and go, Oh, that's how I raised money. And then within five minutes, raise money. There's all a,

the premise of the podcast.

Yeah. So for me, it's always about relationships. It's always about the story. I, why should this person trust me? Well, it's not because I say my name and my company values and thank them for the opportunity. It's because I've got a plausible story. So my own story needs to build trust the businesses, the ideas story, whatever the thing is, the story needs to hang together and be credible.

Unless you put it in there.

I never heard his pitch Gordon, Nigel. [00:35:00] I was going to say now the other key thing is Thor. Okay. How'd you get that name? Give us, give us the reason for that. Well, people do assume in some kind of stage name. And as I said in a TEDx talk, I gave years ago, it is not my stripper name. Cause I would not be

not with COVID Bailey. No, no, exactly. Not what COVID belly. I don't think people find that particularly attractive. Uh, yeah. So my name, my mom and dad were hippies moved up to Shetland in the early seventies. And dad says that he thought the name Thor would help me fit in and Shetland because there is a strong kind of Scandinavian Viking influence of there.

Any, you know, it's a good idea. It's a good theoretical, however, same with a lot of ideas. The application could be different to the idea. And my mates just had normal names, you know, Alan Stewart, Martin, there weren't actually many Scandinavian names. I've got a couple of guys who had Norwegian names cause they had Norwegian dads or something.

[00:36:00] But for me, with English, hippie parents living in Shetland in their seventies and eighties, Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't the fun conversation starter is now necessarily. It, it caused me to learn how to fight as Johnny Cash wrote easy for a boy named Sue nicely. So although it's a match your name, you then need to try and live up to it in some way, I guess.

But yeah, so it was hippie parents. Nigel was the truth and I loved them dearly. And I, now I think that for the name, but I'm 47. Now. It's an interesting conversation starter as an 11 year old little English hippy kid. With all the big, tough Shetland lads. It was not necessarily a bonus. No, no, but yeah, I mean it's unusual and there's always normally a story behind it and it's, uh, as you say, it's that, that I think draws people in, uh, when you just peel back a little layer of the onion and, and reveal a little bit something else, because.

Talking there about relationship building. So if you're looking to do this, these relationships, my, uh, [00:37:00] uncle who was, uh, very much, uh, involved in, in certain things for many, many years with people who've gone to, uh, to be a billionaires, he said, it's all down to partnerships. I said, what's the secret of success?

Uncle Steven. And I said, what is it? And he said, it's partnerships. And you've got to, you've got to trust people on both sides. It's got to work both ways and you've got to get on with people. But, but, uh, I guess that's, that's kind of a life lesson as well as a business and, uh, how to raise money, um, lesson as well.

But coming back to talking to you, uh, you, you mentioned about mentoring. And you've had mentors yourself. What, um, what'd you think they did for you in terms of prepping you for where you are now and what you've, what you've achieved? Um, I think the most memorable mentor who pops straight in my head is Bob Keela in terms of, for public speaking.

And I think what, what I [00:38:00] loved about Bob's mentoring was he was direct and to the point, but with a sense of humor, so. You don't, it didn't make you feel awkward, even if you did something ridiculously badly. So I think what that did for me at the time was empowered me to deliver what I needed to deliver in a really short space of time.

If someone just pulls no punches, but they're doing it in a humorous manner. That's the key for me. And I guess that's what I try and model with my own MDs. I've got three MBAs of companies that moment that I'm working with to try and help them be a bit more Elon Musk and a bit less. Good. Amen. And that that's kind of my style and I don't know whether my style would have developed the same way anyway, but Bob was definitely an early and very powerful mentor for me, um, for that reason.

Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. That's good. Um, in terms of the, you mentioned the MDs, um, and people fairly high up, I guess, the reason why you see the Elon Musks, all right. [00:39:00] Successful. They're doing various things, not many people going into space and all the rest of it, but they are not the gray man. Is that again?

Why they stand out? And if it is, why are so many, why do we yeah, end up as gray men, gray women. Why do we end up as, as that. Well, yeah, I don't, yeah. I don't know. See, I'm not going to pretend that I think it's the panacea because some people don't want more of a kind of personal brand image or whatever we're going to call it enough.

So it's not for everyone. I'm sure that isn't, we can't pretend that that's the only reason someone's successful. I mean, there's that fun example though, at the moment of somebody, I can't that who said it, like, it's not me. I just found it and posted on LinkedIn. Uh, it was on a podcast. He was talking about how Elan had managed to sell like 190,000 trucks.

Without having actually made them yet. And how that was about his personal brand. And if the CEO of like Volkswagen Audi or something tried to do that, it probably wouldn't be able to pull off because they don't have the sick, they don't have the personal brand to go with the company brand. And I thought that's a great point, but I'm not going to pretend that [00:40:00] everyone needs to have that personal brand because there are people Rob mud interviewed.

Um, what's the guy's name, the guy off their investment. Steve actually, I can't remember his name that proves the point. Uh, how could he slams down? It was Steve Lansdowne, I think, is it, but the guy was saying he basically always wanted it to be the gray man. Like he didn't, he had no interest in bland or doing his own book or anything like that.

And so we can't pretend he is lonely successful. So it's horses for courses. Isn't it. I'm not pretending that it's the only way. So, and same thing, not everyone is the right. Clients come and work with me because not everyone wants to be telling their story more out in the marketplace and posting more on LinkedIn and doing public speeches.

Some people are happy to be the gray man or woman, and, uh, So if that offends you, right. But there are women in business.

One comment I'll make one comment and look at it.

[00:41:00] Do you know what really stood out about that? So if you're listening to this on the podcast or watch it, just go back to it. Because the only thing that stuck in my mind was the kick-out bit. And I was thinking I could just eat a Kit-Kat and that was it. The rest of the story. I didn't really listen to.

Oh, you got me with the kid cat too. You got to be with the kick out, but I was thinking what? Why? No, tenax I was thinking tonics, TK.

I bet you couldn't remember the woman's name though. Cattle smiling and smiley

Smiley's TV presenters. She was on TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I was, I was there with the Kit-Kat. I was smoothing it off. I was running my nail down. I was splitting it. I was getting the imprint of it on, you know, through the 10 tenfold. I was, I was there at night. Well, they don't do them like that anymore. What.

That's old style time. You need to, you need to break these [00:42:00] things to me generally, right? It probably taking the sugar out of them now as well. Nanny, state County state listen, cattle smiley though. She is awesome. I remember going and seeing cattle smiley in the vagina monologues, which was a super play.

It was on it's real. I'm not, I'm not just being abusive. It was on in Aberdeen and we were watching the play and there was this thing that they called the clip fact, and it was something like the Clifford has 500 times more nerve endings than the penis or something. And so Cal smiley was saying, okay, ladies, because the rumors, the theaters made me feel a little full of ladies and she was saying something like.

You can feel free to shout out any time you can shout out clip fact, and we'll remind you of this. You know, the fact that women have more nerve endings, so they have a better time during sex type of thing. So during the interval, I'm saying to my wife and my friend and his wife, I'm saying, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to have to shout out ClickFox to Cal smiley after the panic.

Don't you dare don't. You damn, my life's good. You did. So obviously I did have to. [00:43:00] What was, that was that man's voice out from the back. Like the lights come up on me and my wife said, Oh my God, once that spotlight on them though, as I was saying to, to segue back to the coaching conversation and I completely get that, you know, some people are just going to put their head down and let the results speak for themselves.

And that is also a fair enough because that also obviously works. So yeah, coaching is the panacea and everyone has to be out there. Shooting their mouth off and being a public figure. Absolutely not. Yeah. And the thing is, if, if everyone, if everyone was out there on bubbly, then they'd become the gray people because then you'd have to be, become the old fashion gray to stand out from all those wacky, crazy people who are out there.

So, yeah, it is a strange one. The only thing I'd say is when you're at a certain level, And there is no distinguishing factor. We're back to that conversation when you're faced with interviewing 10 people. And there comes a point where you've got to do [00:44:00] something. So coming back to Bob Keelan and how he taught you on public speaking.

There are times where people have to get out there and pitching is you've got to verbalize it. It's very hard to do it in mine. Uh, w Marcel Marceau style or something like that, going to, that's going to be hard. So what would you say if anyone listening, watching? Just one thing, a couple of things that Bob said that you went, right.

Okay. That that's useful. Bob said never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Now don't tell Ray that we'll never get off these podcasts. They meant was he didn't mean tell lies. You still need to base your story on truth, but you probably need to, for example, cut the dialogue down and have the punchiest bit of dialogue.

For example. So yes, there might've been eight lines of dialogue, but we only [00:45:00] need two or whatever. We basically, we're going to, we're going to create something that works, that hangs together that has a core of truth. But if we need a funny line, for example, we might create the funny line or if we need to use a prop, we'll use a prop.

So yeah, I like, I like Bob's attitude, which was humorously, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. He wasn't saying Bernie Madoff bullshit. But what he was saying was. We need to hone this thing. We need to craft it. We need to test it in front of audiences. We need to take the pitch through, to a place where we know that it's going to work.

So it's that level of discipline that Baba played as well, which I also, I think comes from my own professional acting background is you take it through a process. It's not just a matter of developing it on day one with a set of slides and going well, that'll work because it's all true. And it's all about our company and our proposition.

That's not enough. You then need to take it through a process. To make sure that it actually works. So using test audiences was another thing that Bob rammed home to me, which I found really helpful. Yeah. So, [00:46:00] so whatever you come up with, you've got to practice it. It's almost certainly not going to be right to begin with.

So many people think, well, I'll just knock together some slides and it may look awesome. It probably does. But is, does that hang together as the thing that's going to be considered the perfect pitch in the end? Probably not. If you haven't had a test audience or a test, decision-maker look at your pitch and really push hard and ask you some challenging questions.

It's probably not ready. I mean, it might be, but what's the chances because most of us can't pull it off. First time. You almost certainly need to take the knocks, take the challenging questions and take it through a process. Yeah. And it's also vital to get feedback from, I mean, from people, one of the things that, you know, we do is, um, people want to do a pitch, excuse me, pull a pitch together.

We'll do a zoom call. We'll do a zoom call. We'll meet over a cup of coffee. Yeah. If we can, what you're saying? Hi, to raise money by the mug, by the muggy, he's going to be on the website saying [00:47:00] I can buy it. They get the feedback because the feedback is what horns it. I can find. Yeah. Um, Uh, the, I mean, I've tons of examples of the thousands of pictures I've looked at over the years.

Um, but one of the, one of the best that stands out, I suppose, was, uh, a couple of guys that were absolutely terrified of public speaking. Couldn't stand in front, uh, and do it. And I said, well, why don't you create an evergreen video? Just create a video that you can just play the video, and then you can do Q and a.

And they did that. And it was one of the, one of the most successful pitches, ever success guarantee. We're not success defined by how many people wanted to invest in it. Um, and in those days, when we did the pitches in a, a room in a lawyers office in London with maybe 20 to 40 investors there you'd stand up at the front, you get 10 minute pitch, and then they would Mark down if they want to invest in you or not.

And most people got sort of 50, 60%, but this, these were the first guys to get 100%. So that was the measure of success. And they've [00:48:00] since gone on to use that video in the last four or five years, same video, because it still tells the same, it tells the same story and the story is about, you know, their product and the problem.

It solves not about them or anything when they don't get a mention until the very end. It just says, Oh, I love that. I love that. Right. I love that. It's that whole old thing of people don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care, like give them something useful to them. First. I, that's actually a really fun, little differentiated I get people to do sometimes rather than introducing the presentation with their name, say your name and the last line.

So you give them everything else first. And at the end you say I've been through a halt and I'd love to take your questions or whatever your ending is. Yeah, cause they need to know your name then because Oh, thought they're going to ask you a question. Whereas what most people do is open with their name and then for the hell out of us.

And by the end we couldn't care less what your name is. We can't remember that anyway. So yeah, I love that. I love the way those guys did it. They made it individual with that video as well. They differentiate by having a video. And they, they [00:49:00] played to their strengths rather than to their weakness. So I love it.

One of the things I, I need to close a loop here because Nigel mentioned Marcel Marceau and I can't help, you know, he was a great mom artist. Um, and I have to put in the factoid here of the reason he was a great artist as he was a member of the French resistance during the second world war and to communicate with other members out in the field and in, in villages and things like that.

He used to, he used the main. That's how they communicate their messages. And then he went on to become, uh, the great, my martyr study was did, did he come out with that phrase? Listen very carefully. I shall mine. There's only one. The men there, certainly, but it's not him. Yeah. Your listeners can't see me face palming.

Nigel's joke. Thereby that was a connection. That was a wonderful show, which probably wouldn't be allowed these days for reasons I can't think of, but it was a great, great comedy. It was, uh, it was one of the best and I have to say it's, uh, you know, um, I'm a great fan of, uh, [00:50:00] of the visual. I'm a great fan of the visual.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So showing a picture of, of the, the inept policemen that can't speak French, talking to her near at the cafe, they always started off with, I was pissing by your shoe. I thought it was, I was pissing by the door

more than it makes you laugh. I can see that. Okay.

I'm just thinking I've got a hell of a job editing the sucker on this week that we go right. You might not actually feature on this episode.

It's a clean show. Is it meant to be nosy, but probably said, I said, vagina. Yeah, that was the title of the show. So Carol smiley, smiley the names. My, the, my nature was the, [00:51:00] uh, the presenter of that particular show. I've got a top tip. See what you think, because it, I don't think some people ever grow out of this.

Um, and, and I see it when I'm interviewing people for jobs. So see what, see what you think. But. If you've got kids, if anyone's listening, if you've got kids and they do some work and they say, Oh, come in and look at my work. And it's kind of, you know, they've sweated, they've taken, you know, they've really thrown their heart and soul into it and spent maybe four minutes writing an essay.

And you, you get given this essay and you take one, look at it and you think. I that is rubbish, but they are thinking it's perfect. They are thinking it's absolutely amazing. And the one defining thing that makes them sort of, uh, realize maybe I need to do a bit more work on this is I get them to say out loud.

I said, right, don't show me it, read it out loud to me. And within 10 seconds, there's kind of scratching [00:52:00] their head. They can't make sense of what they've written and. You know, it it's one of the best is as to what you have done and whether it's any good. And I don't think a lot of people ever have that pressure to read it out loud.

And when they comes to the pitch, they've got, they've nailed their name, although I'm Nigel best. But after that garbage. How do we get people to practice? What's a good way of getting people to practice out loud, their pitch, agile you, by the way, guys, I'm nearly out powered on my Mac. It's gone from full to red lines.

So I either need to go find a power plug or we're going to need to wrap this up. I totally agree with you, but the way, the way you do it is by literally telling them to read out loud. Cause that's a technique I use with every single client. I totally agree. I'm glad you brought up my job, whether it's just a little story piece they need to do for an interview or whether it's a full-on commercial pitch, the sooner you can get it on its feet and get them actually saying [00:53:00] out loud, as soon as they hear how awesome or shit it is.

And that's fine, there'll be some bits that are great. And some bits that are terrible. Absolutely fine. But as soon as we get on its feet and get saying out loud, cause yeah, people say, Oh, I've run it through a few times in my head. I'm thinking, Oh dear. Because people write differently. To how they speak for the staff.

It was almost certainly a written script, which sounds like a university, a school essay. No, that's not how you want to come across. So yeah. I love that. Get on his feet as soon as possible. I, as soon as we got any kind of rough draft of anything, I get people saying out loud. Cause that's where the magic happens.

Yeah. First 10 seconds as well. I always, I always say to people just, yeah, Look, if you're going to do a however long, it will be five minutes, six minutes or whatever. It was just get the first 10 seconds over and get that drilled into your head because once they stand up, you know, people that have this.

Fear of freezing and not remembering what to see. So the first 10 seconds, I think that's probably why a lot of people see their name first because they know it there's software. I get people to know that first 30 seconds to a minute minimum, [00:54:00] you know that off by heart, 10 seconds on it. And then the rest will fall from there because it just gets off of that initial nervousness of, Oh, this crowd, they're not going to attack me.

They're not going to boot me. They're not going to heckle me. They're not going to tell me to get off or whatever it is, you know, we're coming towards the end. Cool. How would you end a pitch? I would, one of my favorite ways is to get the most challenging question that, you know, you're going to get asked anyway, where you could get asked and take that challenge and question and turn it into your intro to the Q and a.

So let's say it's a really difficult financial question about the budget. So you might end. This by saying, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking that our budgets are realistic because we are, we're betting on 300,000 EBITDA, whatever it is. Well, here's how I would answer that. And so you literally take that toughest question.

You give an answer to it, and then you say, Have you got anything else that you'd like to challenge me on? So what you're doing is you're just building a lot of trust with them and you're going into Q and a animal interesting manner rather than just saying questions, [00:55:00] which is what you usually get. Well, I didn't do his pitch.

I didn't pitch for the it businesses that I want to get in touch with me because I'm putting together a group, anyone with a turnover of over 350 K. With an it business, anywhere in the UK would love to have a chat with you. Just say, this is the goal. This is the goal. This is what always happens. When people walk out, they are of a presentation and they think, Oh, I should've said that.

And I should have said that, Oh, what was I thinking? Feel free to get your power line. If you wish. I've got no, I've got two, two different groups that I'm apart of trying to build one's , which has a CEO or already in place, big investor behind them. And they're looking for 500 grand turnover businesses in either renewables or oil and gas, energy businesses.

And then on the other side, the group that I'm putting together is it businesses, it service businesses. Anything turnover of 350 K or larger. [00:56:00] So these, these are people that are wanting to invest in those sorts of businesses. I know these I'm looking to speak to those businesses. Just to see if you'd like to become potentially part of a group because you way, wait, wait, built.

It's already got number of companies in it. The it businesses are fledgling stage and we've got a few potentials. So thanks guys. This red lines lasted longer than the red line does in my Ford ranger pickup truck. That's for sure

for that machine, I can tell you a lot. Yeah. And you can also tell you, you live up there. Uh, if you drive in a pickup, I live out in the sticks. It's the future and all the wealthy dudes, like you, who live in the big city, in the big smoke, you would all desperate to live out in the country once, once the COVID hit.

Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm in Yorkshire. So where else is there? Are you up in the Dales? No. No I'm in between Leeds and Wakefield, but, um, up [00:57:00] until recently, I might as well have been because I had no broadband basically. Uh, but now, now I'm on fiber. I'm on fiber

game-changer game-changer but there we go. So, cool. What's your typical day? What are you going to do now? Yeah, I've got a number of coaching. I've got coaching, a group CEO, it's time on some pitch stuff that they've got going on. So it'll be a team pitch session. I'll have another dog walk. Cause dog walking is a crucial part of my existence.

I've got a call with my foundation trainer, Maura. She is awesome. She's helped me fix my back. I've got like a nerve issue and a problem in my back. So we did foundation training, look it up. Anyone that's got bad backs. Well-worth the look, look up mortar foundation in the UK. What is that thought? Is that where you were plunging yourself into a freezing cold Scottish river?

Like I'm going to loosen the heat. I told him I do what I was going to do. I just said, don't do that. Don't do it. And you know, and I said, don't worry, I'm taking the dog. She'll look after me. So if anyone had found that video and I [00:58:00] drowned, it would have been just. You know, three or four minutes of me doing my silliness and then just drifting off downstream and the dog standing, looking at you like, is that a spaniel Cocker spaniel?

That definitely needs exercise. What's that definitely needs exercise. Then she's with puppies now. So, um, Yeah. She's a lot, a lot slower and kind of taking it easy, but yeah, typically she's super energetic and gets me out for probably an hour, an hour and a half every day. Fantastic. Pre-sold uh, I was going to say puppies are worth more than gold at the moment.

Pre-sold twice over so far and that's without telling anyone about it. That's just off the record conversations. So we never wouldn't advertise or anything like that. So absolutely. They seem. Hot cakes, as they say, Oh, low battery. Your Mac will sleep soon and less plugged into a power outlet. Well, thanks for the heads up.

Yeah, we'll just do it just suddenly go and that's it. And then you'll have to reboot [00:59:00] it again for 40 minutes time for your next conversation. You better go and get elite. I'll be on my iPhone for that. I tend to coach on my iPhone because I'm always walking around. I don't, I don't sit on my feet more energetic that way, but I didn't want to do that for you guys.

Cause I could have been too hyper. Do you use the iPhone like a phone or do you have a headset? Yeah. Typically a headset, but also sometimes you use it like a phone that coaching tends to be headset and video. Cool. I use a headset as well, a better way then you can type and write and do all sorts of things.

Okay. Well, I think that has been fantastic. I'm conscious that you're a red lining there. Um, how can people get in touch with you? Thor? Uh, LinkedIn, I create content most days on LinkedIn or Instagram. So I'm Thor underscore Holt on Instagram, which I'm using a lot more now. And LinkedIn just plugged my name's Thor Holt, H O L T halt the Holt into LinkedIn and connect with me there.

Check out the career goldmine, a site career goldmine.com. And yeah, I'd love to hear from. Anyone who [01:00:00] enjoyed our conversation? Just connect with me, say hello. Uh, yeah. Cool. Excellent. Okay. It's been fascinating. Great fun. And, uh, yeah, you were quite right. Um, Ray needs to hit record sooner. He was, he was much funnier in the first 15 minutes.

It was

look at my shoulders. They are quite soggy because to carry in quite a lot.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. Next time you see you passing by do pop into the queen and say a big hello from us as well before guy says hello. Do you remember it? She'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely on that. Then we'll leave it there. Thanks very much. We've just heard from Thor halt.

Interest in going. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. I think. Right. What did you get from that? I, I was scribbling notes. So anyone watching [01:01:00] the YouTube, we'll see, you know, me looking, looking down all the time. That's cause I'm busy, frantically, right. In a way on my notepad here. Yeah. What did you, um, what did you take from that?

Well, there's always gems and every interviews, uh, I liked, I liked his, uh, his introduction, his opening, when you're doing a pitch, not to say your name and everything like that, because I want people do that. They introduce themselves, but it's one of those things. When you think about it, they've already been introduced, you know?

Um, so that, that one, and I liked the closing part as well of the question, you know, answering the question, going into questions. Yeah, I liked that. I thought that that's at the end. I also finish because, um, I know I've, I've told my eldest when he was, uh, he had to stand up and pitch to try and get elected for something or other.

I said, if you start welling and dwell the bit in the middle, no one really remembers anyway, but they'll remember your opening in your ending. So I like that. Take. So what Thor said was take your most challenging [01:02:00] question that you think you're going to be grilled on, answer it and then offer people.

Right? I've nailed that one. So anyone got any other questions? Oh, I like it. I like that. The other one, I had two others. Um, one was the power of questions. So he was talking about the fact that we don't ask questions and questions can be so powerful and we need to get good at that and understand the power of questions.

But the one that I really loved was his phrase where he said, you know, you've got to frame the picture in an interesting way, but you've got to earn someone's attention. I like that your whole purpose of this is to earn someone's attention because if you've got someone's attention, You're onto a winner there because they're listening to you now.

A lot of people, when they start off, you can tell can't you, right. You can start a [01:03:00] presentation and you can see them and you just go, ah, it's gotta to be terrible. That's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. When you see the bottom of the screen on the PowerPoint and it says 612 for the number of pages that are coming up, I mean, right, right.

How about this? In all the Corona virus, every time they came out in number 10 into that paneled room and they stood behind those light fence, they were effectively pitching to us and they were effectively, you know, pitching an idea. We want you to stay at home. We want you to do this. We want to do that.

They were pitching all the time and. You know what those scientists, the chief medical officer, the chief Droner the chief boring person, whatever they are, as soon as they went to the screen and you saw a graph with maybe, uh, enough information on there to spend a week analyzing it. And you realize that he had [01:04:00] 20 or 30 of these slides, I don't know about anyone else.

But he could have said anything because I wasn't the whole, the country switched off at that point in there not listening. And that was a classic case of watch those guys. Cause they're pitching, you know, ideas about how we should behave. That was it. Good? I don't know. Yeah. So it's ironic when you think about it, because politicians spend a lot of time talking, we spend a lot of time trying to convince people, um, and it's amazing how.

When, when one of them becomes any good to them, how much they stand out, but you know, the rest of the board, I mean, we have 650 MPS. I don't, I don't know if I could name more than 20. Um, I could probably, I could probably name the politicians of the late seventies, early eighties when I was kind of, you know, not even a teenager.

I could probably name more of them than I can. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like I could, I can name most of the Scottish football or rugby team [01:05:00] from 20 years ago from today. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know my theory on why the Scottish teams, uh, have been doing so badly over the years? And he was quite simply.

If you pick a Scottish team and there's no monk, this or that in there, you ain't got a price. You you've got to, I don't care if they comply or not. You need a, you need some McDonald's, but Duffs whatever you need them in. You can't have a Scottish team without that. It's crazy. But anyway, there you go.

That's a different thing. Um, I think the key thing from that then is pitching is not easy. Um, it's easy to get it wrong. It's not easy to get it right. And you need to work on it. And, uh, there's some good stuff in that I know. Right. We've got some, that's coming out on our, um, revamped website where we're going to be, uh, you know, sharing with people, how they can get an, um, I'm pointing to that, the how to raise money mug that you can, you'll be able to get your own, how to raise money mug.

[01:06:00] Um, but we'll also be doing, you know, Uh, good pitches, perfect pitch information about that. So there'd be lots of information out there to help you. And are we ever going to get Robert on this podcast? We're going to get we ever gonna get him on here. I think we ought to ask him, but he's such a perfectionist that he would want this completely scripted before he was, come on, wants to do it.

I don't think he'd want to do it off the cuff. Well, I think, well, we could record it and see what happens. Yeah. We need to get him on because you know what he was talking about, that his mentor, Bob Kayla public speaker. He found that very, very useful, you know, to, to get those, that teaching, that mentoring, that coaching and, uh, you know, we know Robert is very good and, uh, I think we should get him on to help people from the, on the podcast, uh, public speaking.

Definitely. Definitely. All right. Okay. Let us go [01:07:00] do something less boring instead. All right. Take care. Cheers. Bye bye.

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