When you are sitting on the couch mastering your Netflix and hill watching show after show, do you ever consider the thousands of scripts that never even made it off the ground, the hours of work that will never ever be seen. How did the big TV execs know which ideas to back and which ideas to scrap and which ideas were going to be the ones keeping you on that couch while you binge your night away. A man who does just that, who knows what you're going to
enjoy before you do, is Chris Oliver Taylor. He's the CEO of Asia Pacific for production and entertainment company Freemantle. Fremantle has produced shows including Farmer Wants a Wife, Australia's Got Talent, Family Feud, Restoration Australia Wentworth and Neighbors, to name just a few. Chris has worked in production roles for the BBC, AB, NBC Universal and played a hand in Australian comedy classics like Kath and Kim and Summer Heights High. So how can Chris tell if an idea
is worth backing? And what are the big TV execs looking for when commissioning new ideas? And when should you follow your gut over process when making big decisions. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy invent Him. And this is how I work, a show about how to help you do your best work. So Chris is based in Melbourne where I am, but Fremantle's head officers are in Sydney.
So I wanted to know how will Chris be working now that borders are opening back up in Australia, given that he used to fly to Sydney every single week pre COVID.
Well, I used to do it every week pretty much, and I think that will clearly change or change.
I think for two reasons.
One, there's not quite the same demand for it to manage people and to be around people. I think people are much more you know that includes networks, CHALL seven, ABC, CHALL nine etc. I think they all are very happy working at home as well and working remotely. And then the other thing, which I think also is not just restricted to the job I do or to the business I work in.
Is budgets.
It costs me lots of money to jump on a plane, lots of time, and yet I can.
Be much more efficient.
I think for the most part working out of home, working in one place, using whatever technology that might be be at Zoom or Google, hangouts or teams or whatever we use. And I think we'll find that will be the new norm for many, many meetings. And what I probably plan to do is once a month, say is go to Sydney and try and do a number of drinks or dinners or lunches or breakfasts and just keep their physical connection going. But for general meetings I think I would do in them remomently.
Now I've heard that you try to keep your meetings to thirty minutes. How do you manage to achieve that?
Well? I fail often, of course.
But the plan is that so I have a couple of rules on the meetings where possible, so one is half an hour and then some time either side of the meeting. That doesn't always work, but if possible, just so you can prepare, and also so you can action whatever you've agreed to action. And what it was finding, particularly in the first part of the pandemic, for all those benefits I've just outlined around efficiency and ability not to spend my life on planes, but actually we do some work.
What happened in the first on Melbourne, so many many months of.
Lockdown we had was that I would then my DARI would then become so forth with meetings because it was easy to do that. I could have the meetings but do no work, and so certainly through all through twenty one we've changed that. So half an hour meetings allows one to be a bit more efficient. I think people do get zoom tired as well and just need a bit of a relaxation and change, And I think secondly allows the work to be done. So I'm quite pretty
focused on that. There's a couple of meetings we go longer,
but for the most part that's what we do. And then the other rule I have is no meetings where possible on a Friday, So we just try and keep that clear as day, so that day as clear as we can, because I think this that allows the things you didn't think about that we turn up that you've got time, and also the work that you need to do, the thinking work, be that strategic or be that looking at budgets or selling operational plans, whatever it might be, that gives you at least one day a week to
get your head down and do some of the thinking.
I've heard that you categorize meetings into three different types. Can you talk about how you got to that categorization and what it consists of.
So broadly I trying to live by this.
We have a lot of internal stakeholders, so operational meetings that are important, you know, so that with our drama team, or be that with our entertainment team, or finance or legal and et cetera, et cetera. They're half of our meetings that are always about continued touch points and making sure the business is moving now in a pandemic, really important because obviously we couldn't get around to be on the ground, so we had to keep on those touch points.
But we've continued that work. So that's the first one operational internal. The second one is external, and we have less control of those meetings. We are a production company, a producer, and so fundamentally our job is thinking of good ideas and then trying to get Netflix or Amazon or the ABC or Foxtail or CHANL nine to buy that idea. And that's effectively what we do in the first part, and then we if we in success, we
then get to produce it. So the external meetings are driven by firstly the idea, the idea of Pipelin, how many do we have when we're going to go and talk to networks, And then secondly by of course the enthusiasm by the networks and how long.
They would like to talk to us.
So the second one we have less control over, but they're really really important. They are the key way of
generating work. And the third one is the kind of the bit why I don't apply the half an hour role where possible to it, which is the strategic set of meetings that are hold and that might well be with my colleagues in London in International freem International, or with my leadership team domestically, where we just carve our time to monitor the external environment, to ensure that our plans are in place, to ensure that we're delivering as we think we should be, and to understand what's going
on with a very very fast moving market. So they're the three ways that I categorize internal which I kind of generally call operational networks or external meetings, and then strategic meetings.
Interested in the external meetings which are essentially sales meetings where you're pitching an idea, So what are the strategies that you use to get companies that are receiving pictures ad nauseum excited about the stuff that you're working on at Fremantle.
If only I knew the answer. I think it comes down to two or three things, right.
So One, it does come down to friendships, and I don't mean that facetiously. I mean that people do like to buy from people they know. I think that's again not just unique to the television business. And so we have long, long friendships with many networks who have been former colleagues or.
Former employees.
And so we then look at the company and figure out who is the best person to make the initial approach. Is it me is the CEO, or is it someone else who has just left Amazon for the sake of an example, who knows that team well. So we strategize who's the best person to make the connection, who is going to find a way to cut through. Secondly, it's all about the idea, of course. So we can probably get most meetings that we would like because I think we tend to going with very good ideas and people
do want to hear from us. But that doesn't mean we win every commission, of course, And so we have to make sure the idea is just absolutely fantastic. And so to do that you need to know the market
that you're dealing with. And then we try and tease the buyer with that we've got this amazing idea with this talent or with this location or with this whatever I be, and that's going to work for your core audience because of and it's a simple, a simple way of trying to get them to engage with us, to say, you know what, that sounds like quite a good idea.
Let's have that conversation.
And then when in of course, when it's over to the cell and we don't always get them, of course, but we like to think we're quite good at pitching and selling, but it's trying to get that first conversation. So using your connections is fundamental. You know, whatsapping, texts, teams or so signal, all those kind of things are great saying hey, got this great idea, we think it's for you. Would you take a pitch? Yep, love to
hear more and then you can go more formally. We use all those kind of tactics and strategies to stand out for the crowd.
So with presenting the actual idea. How are you doing that? Like what communication tools are you using? Is it like a one minute pitch, like it's this meets that, or is it a half hour you know, in depth discussion about the idea? What does that look like?
We were going to a pitch normally with two or three of our own people, so myself plus two other people normally on the other side, there's probably two or three people from the network as well, so it's probably five or sex of us on the call. Could be in person, could be via tech. And then we will present what we would have rehearsed it two or three
times beforehand going in. We all know what we're going to say, and we try and lead off, So I'll try and lead the pitch off and then throw to whoever's going to lead the pitch, might be the producer or director or a writer, depending on what we're pitching. We would normally show a reel, so we'd normally cut a little sissle reel if we've got the if we've got the footage that we need, so we'd normally try and show that to bring some life and color and
movement to the conversation. And we will always have a pitch deck, so we'll always have a document that might be between seven and fifteen pages long that tells the buyer what the show is, and that will take you through everything from the format of the show, how many episodes, who we think should be in it, or who's writing it.
The story is a little different between the genres that the key points the same, and we will try and get through all of that in fifteen minutes and then allow the last fifteen minutes for conversation and questions. That's how it should work, or how we like to make
it work. I have pitched to a network before with a color of my colleagues, and you could tell within about fifteen second of starting that they hated the idea and we're not going to buy the show, to such a point that after probably a minute thirty I wrapped it up and just said, hey, this is it for you guys, let's call it. And they were very good.
They were very very I think they appreciated that because they get so many different pictures. But we just haven't got it right. We just haven't got it right. And that was fine, that was okay, a good learning for us. But we just called it early and didn't waste their time or our time. More so, hopefully you get half an hour, sometimes you get twenty seconds.
Have you got any rules of thumb for how you I guess initially describe an idea like in a nutshell to hook people in.
So there's a few ways you can do it, of course, so you can in drama. The way that many people do it is it's a bit like succession, but it's a bit like.
Total control or whatever to get an idea like that, and you're trying to put a sense of what it feels like in tone to the room. There's a risk of that, of course, is that maybe someone doesn't like succession, or maybe someone's already got succession on their network, in which case why they need another one. So you've got
to be carefulbout that. I think we try and do it so that if you can't pitch the show in one line or half a sentence and let the person understand what it is you are struggling to cut through. And so we work very very hard on that log line to really make sure that the buyer, who's probably know who might have ten meetings that day with ten
different producers trying to sell things. We want them to walk away at the end of the day with Jesus A good pitch and God, I really understood that it was a drama setting the Northern Territory.
And a boy fell in love with a girl. Great, get it, love it.
Now you're also on the receiving end of pitches. I would imagine that that is a significant part of what you do and what you have done in your career. What are the things that you're listening for when someone is pitching you an idea?
So almost the same things we just discussed on enough, the three things I look for, particularly in drama, and the idea, Funnily enough, is not necessarily the most important bit. And the reason for that, which might sound strange to your listeners. Why do we not came about the idea? We do? But ideas are so ubiquitous and bluntly, I don't know what Netflix wants in the UK or what Amazon might want in the US.
We don't know. And we used to know all that.
We used to know the Australian market inside out and back to front. We would know exactly what an ABC should look like or exactly what a Channel seven sheld look like. But the world's moved on, and now we're dealing with multiple networks all over the world and trying to work out their commissioning strategy. So the idea actually is kind of on the page but not necessarily the most important part in drama. For me, it's three things. The first thing goes to IP intellectual property. Is the
story based on something? Is it a book? Is it a play? Is it a true story? Is it someone's deep recollections about their childhood, etcetera, etcetera.
Is that a magazine article? Is it a podcast? Because what we.
Find buyers are looking for at the moment is something that has depth to it. So not always as a rule, but I think often. And a show that we are working on now, we'd set in the surfing industries, is based loosely on something that happened back in the seventies.
We've been inspired by that and we'll.
Moving forward in the storylining. But that was the initial pitch that came in. So we're looking for IP in the first instance, where is the depth? If it hasn't got there, Okay, not the end of the world. But the next thing we're looking for is who's going to write it? And this might again seem astranging to say, but there's so there's only so many amazing writers in the world. Networks are always looking to want to work with the best writers that they can.
Writers often have their own ideas, and so it can be quite hard to attract a writer to somebody else's idea. So somebody walks in there with I've optioned this book, I've got this great writer on board to adapt it for me. I'm very very interested. It means that we can start to move forward with development because the third part of my the way I assess is is there a market, Is there a financing plan? Does it kind
of make sense to take this out? And a simple way looking at it that way is if we had an amazing, amazing science fiction show that comes in with a great writer, but the budget is ten million dollars an episode. Now I cannot pitch that to the ABC or SBS, or for me, any of our networks locally, it's impossible. The only way you.
Can pitch that is into the national spods and therefore you then need.
Significant international talent to come forward.
So we're looking at the feasibility in that last section, what do we think the market might want is it worth our time, money effort to push this show if we don't believe we can.
Get it there?
How about for people, because I imagine I'm sure that there'd be listeners going I've got a great idea for a TV show. Chris like, how do you like? What advice do you have for almost coaching people that do have dreams of pitching a TV idea and getting it onto screens? What do you say to people?
So it's hard not to kill dreams, right, So we don't really do that because great ideas come from anywhere, and this is the problem. They can come from anywhere, and you don't have to be an inverted commerce TV producer or writer to bring up a new TV idea. We're lucky in Australia. Every single state and territory has a funding body. So in Victoria that's Film Victoria. In
useth Wales that's Create newseth Wales. And these are government funded professional screen bodies and one of their key jobs is to develop the next level of talent to come through into the system, and so they are always looking for ideas, They are always looking at how they develop people to pitch. They will fund things as well and that's offered a very very good way to get my attention.
If a show comes in which has been developed with one of those.
Funding bodies and then they're looking for a producer, it instantly puts them towards the top of the queue because of one or two things. Firstly, a government body who ultimately may even end up helping us a finance the show has thought the idea is strong enough to warrant funding, so that's good, someone's done some work and assessment on it. And then secondly the idea is further developed professionally then it would have been if they came straight into me.
So some of the work that we would have to do has already been done by the means. So if one of the keep its advices, look at your local funding body, and again that all over the world as well. Different states in America and the UK, Screen Yorkshire, all these things as many of similar bodies all over the world. But Australia has everyone in every state and territory, and we also have a federal funding body called Screen Australia,
which again does something similar. So I would encourage people to look into those spaces, and I'll also encourage people to look at particularly SBS, Netflix and the ABC, all of which are doing things at the emerging is not quite the right work that would suggest very young.
It doesn't mean that, it just means less experienced.
I guess so people who are less experienced or people who have not got credits, they're always looking for short form ideas or online ideas and often will look there as well to see what can we turn into a long form TV show. So use the system in Australia to put your idea above everyone else's.
And remember this is a competition.
So there's so many ideas and so many people pitching things in how do you stand out? Use the funding bodies, use the networks at a junior level, and then listen maybe to something I've said, and know that others would say, what do I look for IP, talent and feasibility? Other Flushing companies might have slightly different ways of looking, but they'll broadly be the same. I would think, how does your idea fit into that pathway?
Chris will be back very soon talking about how the head of one of the country's biggest production houses decides what to watch on TV and also what is he looking for in that very first episode to decide if
a show is worth committing to. Now, if you're looking for more tips to improve the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better, which range from interesting research findings through the gadgets and software that I'm loving. You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. That's how I Work dot co. That's something I'm curious about is the head of one of
the country's biggest production houses. What's your approach to consuming content?
So I skim content as much as I can. You know, one of the things you hear for networks often is please don't picture shows that we already have on our schedule,
which does happen more than you might think. It's probably more likely to happen now because with the you know, the rise of the espots with Disney and Netflix, Amazon, Apple, it's impossible to watch everything, and so you are trying to get a center of what's on their platforms and trying to get a center of what's resonating Frustralian audiences. So I will watch the first episode of everything that I can be Entertainment factual, documentary, drama, film, whatever I can.
I'll travel with the first episode.
Hard to watch every episode because I'll never get anything else done. But try on the first one and then now and again. I find things that I absolutely love and want to watch for fun. But from a work point of you watch the first of everything you possibly can that's made out of Australia.
So what are you looking for in that first episode.
I'm looking to work out why they got the commission that I didn't. I'm looking to see who they've cast. I'm looking to see the degree of originality that's on a particular show. It's different for entertainment or factual or drama, but you fundamentally the same.
I'm looking to see.
We're in a wonderful business where all of my competitors work is completely public. We can see it all and so that if you use it rightly hopefully can help your work get better. Can also help you identify great talent that's out there. I wonder who the writer of that episode was. I really enjoyed it. I wonder who that you know more Junior character is a wonderful actor, but they haven't on a main role.
I wonder who they are, what's their name? Where are they?
And then also looking for how they're telling stories, how they connect, and then that allows me to have an opinion, not necessarily right, but an opinion of why that series was brought by the network, and that hopefully helps me then start to work out what do we do next to make sure we get the next one.
Now something I experienced Chris, and I was actually talking to a friend yesterday. I feel like when I watched TV, I often experience TV guilt, where I feel like I could be doing something more productive in inverted commas with my time, like reading, for example, as opposed to actually
doing work at my computer. And I want to know, like, what's it like for you when you watch TV, because that's part of your job, Like is it easy for you to just relax into it or are you actually in a kind of hypercritical analytical state sort of you know, analyzing things.
Somewhere between the two? I think.
So, I think if I really want to watch something for work and really probably analyze it, I will watch it at work and just take the time and sit down, press pause and look at the credits and figure that stuff out. And I do. I did that today on the show. I actually I just said, look at what
was going on. But I think for the most part, you know, once you get to the evening sit down with your family or watching things for different reasons, so you know, I'm thoroughly enjoying watching One Division with my daughter who is fifteen, But that's a different that's not work in any central form apart from marveling though punintended at the brilliance of it and the cleverness of it, but beyond that's that's just a.
Different level to where we sit.
So I can sit back and enjoy that without being guilty or without working O years ago.
Wow, that is a great piece of television.
Where do you go to for recommendations? Because I imagine that there are probably people listening that you know, maybe they've binge watched something and they're looking for what should they consume next? And sometimes I feel that way. And also for my daughter who's seven and a half, I'm like, what should I be putting into her brain? TV wise? So we're like, where are the go to sources of inspiration and knowing what we should watch.
I think that's tricky for me because I'm not one of the cool kids that I don't know any social media, so I don't get pushed it from that way in any sense, but I do.
I mean, I think there's a professional recommendation.
So you get people in and around our business that obviously a lot of your.
Listeners won't be able to get. But you know, we get people.
Saying grant riders saying, hey, you see this, this is amazing, and if they recommend it, you think, wow, I better watch this. But I also find there are semi professional websites that I take a lot of insight from.
A great one that I would recommend.
Called TV Tonight, which is completely free and TV Tonight is run by a general all Adobe Knox, and he will do reviews of things, but he'll also talk about the industry as a whole, said lots of great If anyone's interested in TV in Australia, it's a great place to go because it just summarizes what's happening every single day. It also publicizes things like the TV ratings and you know who's moving from A to B and who got
commissioned and who didn't. But it almost has a section and the show that I watched so sorry it was, but the show was this morning was based off a recommendation from that website that I saw yesterday, but I must check that out, and I did today. So TV Tonight is something I go to. It's semi professional in terms of your listeners, but it's somewhere that I like to go to because I think it cuts through a lot of the high purposely you can sometimes get with reviewers.
It actually goes into a more professional way of looking at TV, but still very much more enjoyment point of view.
You mentioned that one of the one of the things that make sales easier is selling to friends, and people want to buy from people that they like. So what's been your approach to networking and building relationships over the many years that you've been in the industry.
There's a few ways of doing it.
We're lucky in our industry that there are a number of big social events at award nights or be that, big conferences that probably pre pandemic, of course, happened four or five times a year, and most of the sector would go along, and so you'd always attend those things, and you then build those connections, and you build those through social events and through dinners and through meetings and
through tending things together. That's very important and becomes very important in twenty two as they all start to come online again. I think the other thing is always to remember that people move up and down and sideways. It isn't always a linear model or a linear environment, and
so you want people to be a good person. Respect everyone, be authentic and truthful to who you are, but also respect who they are, and hopefully not just use connections and friendships to get the next commission, because it doesn't work that way. I think it comes down to trust, and it comes down to being someone who accepts rejection a lot, because on this side of the fence you get lots of rejection. Accept it well, and then the
other thing you must do is deliver well. And so for all of the connections being fundamentally important, they are if your work isn't good enough, you won't get the next show. So your work has to always be as world class as it can be.
Budget is the key thing there, and.
Certainly it must hit the objectives of your buyer a friend or not. And then getting through the front door, I think is about a trust in the first place.
Now you mentioned events is being important for maintaining networks, And I'd love to know how you approach an event because I mean, it would be really easy to just get stuck talking to one person for the whole night if you see it next to them. So what's your approach for really making the most of them?
Well, look, it can happen, and I'm you know, I'm reasonbly well known. So if I go into a conference, people and I'm also six foot three tool with a big bald head, so people can normally find me. And I think I'm approachable and I like to think that people can and should come and talk to me and say gooday, and vice versa. But I've also going to be pragmatic that and it's the same for that person
I'm talking to. Often if you go to there's a big conference called Screen Forever, which is run by the Screen Producers of Australia, which will run I think in March next year. It's normally November, and you might get twelve hundred people going to that event, and it costs a fair bit of money to attend, so I'm very clear that I'm attending what I'm often speaking of those things that.
I can't afford to get stuck for an hour with someone.
I've got a few minutes here and there to kind of meet people who have not booked in meetings, and I kind of owe it to them to do the same thing. So what I say to people is this is, you know, this might sound old fashioned, but it's the best way of doing I find. Bring a business card, say good day, you know, interrupt me if I'm having a cup of tea with someone, you know, as you want to, and then give me a card and I'll
send you a note afterwards. I mean connect up in a slightly more quieter time where I'm not stuck in a.
Corner and i can't get out out.
But more importantly, they're not start wasting time and effort on me where they could use that time to make better connections or make more connections. So I'm quite keen on that to say, hey, let's we've got time now, great to meet you. Give me a card, or maybe we can exchange via the iPhone or whatever. But give me a card and then we'll know. We'll connect up
in the next week or two. And then I always say them, you've got to send me a note, you know, You've got to kind of you've got to force this because I will get lots and lots of requests, which is good as they would as well. But you must make sure that you drop me a line and I'll get straight back to you. And I'm pretty good at doing that and meeting up with people.
What I don't like.
To receive lots of these conferences is pitches for ideas, So I try and stress that don't pitch met at conferences.
One.
I can't give you my full attention until I know that if you're pitching it to me at the conference, you're also pitch it to no doubt fifty other people. So make me feel a bit special and make this feel like this is for you as opposed to I'm at a conference, I'm just going to scatter gun an idea all over the So make a connection, make it quick, leave a business card, and then follow that up with me in the week following and we'll get a cup of TV.
Now, I imagine that you would have received a lot of career advice over your illustrious career. I'd love to know what are some pieces of advice that have stuck with you and really served you well.
There's two bits. One's facetious and funny maybe, but important. Other ones maybe more serious. So the first one was come from a wonderful former colleague of mine called Sandra Levy. And Sandra used to with the direction of TV at the ABC and a esteemed media leader, wonderful, wonderful person who gained my break at the ABC when she didn't need to, and she offered me the job as head
of production, probably years before I was ready. And I came up to Sydney for Melbourne and I was in my jeans and T shirt and bounded into the office ready for this meeting with Sandra. That sound was quite formidable and a very I didn't know her at all well, so thinking, oh, okay, fine, So I went in there and we had the contentment of the job.
Do you want the job? Yes, I'd love the job. Good, go and buy yourself a suit.
With her advice, and I think what that meant to mean, I took it kind of heart, was smart enough, you know, be professional. This is this is important, and you've got to have an image to some degree that you know the chords with the organization you work for or the role that you hold, or of course the image you.
Want to project.
And that even though you may not quite meant it in that way.
I took that away.
Actually advice around Remember you're always on show, you're always auditioning, you're always performing, you're always pitching, and so make sure that how you're projecting yourself matches who you are working with. And so I've always get that very front center. And the second one, which is really I think for producers to take heed of. You know people on this side
offense that I am. As I was leaving the ABC to join match Box, they were owned by NBC, and my NBC boss said to me, the name as Michael Michael Edlston and have a really amazing leader who I learned so much from. Michael said, now, remember at the ABC, you can do nothing. You can send no emails, make no phone calls, never leave your office if you like,
and the work will pile up outside your door. You'll open your door and there'll be a thousand people wanting you to sign something and answer this and do that, because you're in a broadcaster and work just happens. Once you leave that and you join the other side where you have to generate everything. If you do nothing, nothing happens. You have to generate everything, Generate momentum, generate those phone calls,
generate relationships, and generate a culture. And I've always kept that really front and center, that if you do nothing outside of a most jobs, if you do nothing, nothing happens. You have to generate everything and make it happen. And so I've kept that really close to me as i've my career has continued on.
Now for people that want to connect with the work that you're pretty seeing your good self, Chris, what is the best way for listeners to do that?
I use LinkedIn quite a lot. That's the only social media that I'm on, and people can find me. There is a simple way of doing it. It's reasonably easy to find me because I've got a very unique name, so I can't hide, which is good.
And again I'm very.
Happy to take unswers of emails, but too they want advice. I'm very happy to kind of give you my two penage worth of how I see the world, really happy to And there's an advice I gave to a group the other day I was talking to. I won't name who the organization was, becauld it'd be unfair, but talking about sixty people on a zoom call and as myself another very senior producer from a different company. And at the end of it, I said, and they're all emerging
filmmakers in their own way. At the end of it, I said, I think the most important thing in our business is being connected.
And it's a competition. There are thousands of.
People who would love to be in our business and there are not that many opportunities, and so the best way to do is connect to people. Connect on me, connect to my colleague who's on the pound as well, and others. Go and find out where they are. You can find people. You just have to figure it out. And there are six or so people I think on this call, and I said, I bet you're on a few only a handful.
Contact mate.
Even though I've said could do it, four people did of that, meaning that's my consistent it. Maybe it's just me and man, maybe it's me, but I don't think of it. I think it's kind of one of those things that people don't do it. They don't reach out enough because they feel I don't know if they feel rejectioned.
I fear that I won't respond. I fear that they're going to be you know that it's a silly thing that they I don't know, but I do know that people have got breaks by just contacting me and being in and around the business and starting at the bottom off and working the way up, or just being opportunistic and sending in a CV or having a cup of tea, or just saying, hey, who do you know? You know I want to work in this part of the business. Do you know anyone at Amazon?
Yeah? I do, I do.
Actually, I think canec you someone? Or do you know it's on the AB said yeah, sure, where you want to go. People need to reach out, and if they don't reach out, they're on their own, and it's just much harder on their own. So I found this in my career that many people in rooms they don't reach out, they don't connect, and I feel that people should try. And it not just with Mate, but in the industry.
People are very giving because we've all got our own journey to get to where we are, and it's nearly always started by someone like me reaching out to someone more senior and having that first cup of tea. And once you do that, you started, You started the game, and you never know where to start workstop. So I fully encourage people track me down. I'm on LinkedIn. You can message me and we'll go for there. People do and it works.
That's awesome famous last words. And I can so relate to that. I was actually giving this evening presentation a few days ago to about four hundred people online. And you know, and I always invite people when I'm doing virtual keynotes or real real can it's face to face keynotes, to please reach out if you have any questions or if there's anything I can do to help. And it's like one or two people, but then they say, you're probably inundated with emails, so hopefully you'll have time to
read this, and it's like, yeah, I've got time. So I think that's such good advice for people, Chris, just to reach out. And I hope that you are inundated with messages on LinkedIn as a result of this chat. So thank you so much for your time. I've loved getting this amazing view into an industry that I know very little about.
So thank you. Thanks you for having bying me. It's been fantastic. And yeah, I hope listens enjoy a conversation.
Yes, reach out, Hey there, I hope you liked my chat with Chris. Now, if you are not a subscriber or follower of How I Work, you might want to hit that subscribe or follow button right now, because over the next few weeks, I'm going to be releasing some of my absolute favorite interviews and episodes that I have done in the last year while I take a little bit of a break over the summer holidays, So stay
tuned for those starting from next week. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was Jenna Koder, and thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.