Episode 24 - Change Rebellion with Mark Green

Music. The New Yorker Charged Change O'Crims podcast. I'm Chris Bradley.

I'm back with Pete Hodges and today we are with Mark Green. And I cannot lie, this is one of those podcast episodes I've been really looking forward to recording. Mark is the CEO and founder of the Change Rebellion and we're going to hear a bit more about what that is later. But we're going to crack on. We're going to get things started and we're going to hand over to Pete over in Barcelona. Good afternoon, Mark. It's nice to meet you. Good to see you.

So we really want to find out more about who you are, what you do seen lots of your stuff on the internet so looking forward to to uncovering a bit about the rebellion i think actually i'm gonna shut up and let you talk a bit about who you are and what you're doing yeah what where what's your background so all i know really is change management that's all i've done for 20 to 30 years i've always loved it just being involved with people

and helping people and get to know people i'm quite a sociable animal and then yeah Yeah, only about a year and a half ago now, I think it is.

I decided that I wasn't happy with the status quo of change management, how things are, things that you see on the internet about change management. I just found it all very dull, boring, drab, the same, basically. And yeah, after a long conversation with the boss, my other half at home, I launched Change Rebellion and not looked back since really. It's been fantastic. The reception, I think, has been incredible. So Change Rebellion is essentially a change management service.

So rather than saying consultancy, because actually I know from years of working with people on the ground, they actually don't really like the word consultant and they don't like consultancies. So it's a change management service and we provide change professionals, communication professionals.

L&D professionals, and we've just moved to another couple of models, which is around fixed deliverables and the change evolution engine, which is my, I think of crazy things, which we're going to talk more about later, but one of them was that, and that's around introducing AI into a package. Selling that package, making an organization fit for the future, have everything it needs, own internal change capability, higher level of maturity than anybody else typically.

And then we walk away and it's done, job done. Because a lot of big corporates hiring, hiring, hiring every year. Actually, a lot of these people that hire would like to have steady jobs, steady employment. So it helps them. And also we provide them with a level of maturity that is exceptional. We're working in the mergers and acquisitions space at the moment.

Really enjoying it different kind of change completely to what i'm used to so my background was working contracting with things like utilities nhs local government this the m&a space is just we're onboarding new companies every couple of months and it's three systems we've got to integrate as well at the same time and you've got to do it and then move on to your next one so it's incredibly fast-paced but fun good fun i like that i'm getting people plenty

of energy in that isn't there that's the thing oh yeah you're not static on a waterfall delivery you just yeah yeah always something whether that's your tech yeah yeah you call those waterfall what's that waterfall sorry i've upset all the linkedin people again haven't i sorry sorry yeah no i haven't done that for a long time so i wanted to ask you as how because i think you come across as someone who definitely wants to make change engaging and and a bit different and not not dry right i think

i've got that correct yeah but i wonder if you've got some just examples of things you've done in your career that like stand out as like kind of upsetting or doing things a bit differently you know yeah well i mean i mean linkedin and so i don't want to go back to linkedin i always i always like to make friends wherever i go it's really important to be friendly and make work enjoyable not just for me but everyone i'm working

with that is like one of my top priorities and if i was going to be really dry i'd say it's like a mission statement so the The thing was. Before this, I was looking at LinkedIn and where I really changed and how things significantly changed for me. So I've had an account since 2017, haven't really used it until the past two and a half years, two, two and a half years. And what I found was I, when I was in my industry, just like you guys, and I'm doing the day job and I'm enjoying it.

I always like to be a bit quirky. I mean, I used to do things like, you know, bake-offs and, oh, there was one time I got people blindfolded to make cheesecakes. That was awesome.

Why? it was all about so somebody was helping direct them so it's about working together communicating team building also placing people to work together who wouldn't typically work together because i'm a great believer you should just get everybody mixing from the top of you know c-suite all the way through to the bottom you should really get people mingling that's the only way to make make it work so that's why we did the cheesecake thing that was great fun but yeah same with LinkedIn,

it was when I decided to do what I wanted to do.

I did fall out of love with change management for a while and I didn't like it. And I did think it was boring and dry. And I went to look at other industries and one of the ones I looked at was marketing. And I'm not, I've got no qualifications in marketing. I don't know. But I used to know that there were certain things that engaged me. If it made me laugh, I'm there. I want to read that post. If it visually, it looked good. Oh, what's that? Again, it interested me.

So I just thought, surely we work in a people industry.

Surely I can bring that you know what I enjoy what makes me laugh and entertains me and draws me in and bring that into the change world and yeah I went back to my very first post where I was going to go right this is my sense of humor if it's going to work or it's not and I always try and include something about you know relevance to change management it's just very rare it's complete randomness and there was a picture of a man at a podium with a chicken or a cockerel

and he had a trophy and it said man wins first prize with cock and and and that was like that was my sense of humor and actually it went down okay and i thought okay so people like that so people obviously are bored like i am we've seen the same drivel on linkedin so i did it again and again and again and it's kind of just escalated from there how do you do you find that works in the workplace as well because i imagine some people are really like dry and want a professional approach

right i'm not saying it's not professional yeah well that that's that's a really good point because actually even some of my peers now wouldn't class me as being professional despite owning my own company because i i don't i'm not scared of the word fun you know i'm not scared of introducing things that actually make it better for people and people have a laugh but yeah i think in the workplace i think most of them are quite accepting most people want that.

Something that will take them away from the boredom and not me at the day job so when i suggest things like you know blindfold cheesecake making or like i said naked twister but i've never done that people noted yeah yeah yeah people tend to be you know accept it you're always going to have people at a certain level go that's not professional that's not you know what it should be like but they're typically the same people that have an expectation around what we deliver that is

usually wrong you know you can't win hearts and minds by an excel spreadsheet you just can't and they're the people that kind of expect that so it's like you go to organizations and this well that's not what we do here i'm kind of thinking yeah but that's the reason why you've called us in then because what you've always done hasn't necessarily always worked and they've worked like the first 50 of the time and then of course that's worn away so if you

you punch somebody on the arm long enough, it stops hurting, right? It's got to the same price. You keep doing the same things and become less effective. But now I completely get that. You make me think actually about what my first LinkedIn post was. I've literally just had to scroll back, I think I had LinkedIn really early because my unique URL on there is like cbradley01. I mean, I must have had that pretty early days to get that one.

And a long time ago, I didn't even have 01 on it. So obviously, a few more of me have come about. Yeah, mine was actually eight years ago. And it was a post. I don't know why I shared it, but I was working at Nationwide Building Society at the time. I think they're still not building society. They're mutual anyway. And it was about using behavioral ID and verification prototypes in their innovation. Hey, it's always been AI. What can I say? Right from the beginning.

No wonder you are so obsessed with it. I know. I mean, I'm looking at my next year's worth of work as well. And that's looking like a lot like AI. I think, you know, we had, who did we have last week? We were talking to Dan Locke. Dan Locke, we were talking about, oh, I've lost the thread now. Where was I going with that? You can cut this bit out, Pete.

He's a good guy, Dan. Good guy. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking to Dan Locke about a few things, weren't we? And I can't remember where I was going with that, but it was to do with, I don't know, I'll come back to it. I thought there's this slight hope, Mark, that because of your posts on LinkedIn, they have actually had to create a role to code it out of their work.

I like to think that you've actually created an economy for them where they are actually having to employ people to code out your posts. It's funny you should say that. So they changed the algorithms a few months back on LinkedIn. And all of a sudden, my reach just dropped. Really? Well, actually, it went through different phases. So, and I know I'm not the only one experiencing this because I commented on somebody else's post about this.

When they changed their algorithms, all of a sudden we got loads of bots. I was getting people like who were third connection commenting on stuff that I'd never heard of. Don't know how they were seeing my stuff. And I kind of went, oh, right, I don't like any of this. You know, we complained, we've moaned. And so I stopped doing it. And then I came back and I was like, okay, I'll put something in that I used to would. Virtually any sort of engagement. I'm like, whoa, that's scary.

So what's going on here? And then just in the past couple of weeks, I've gone back to how I started in the very beginning, which is be risky. Take risks, do something that hopefully will get me noticed and people will get on board with again.

So i've really had to the past couple of weeks i've really had to work hard at getting it back to how it was it's original content isn't it that's the stuff that i think it's what you know it's almost like they're trying to eradicate that a little bit i think and i you know it's interesting when you think about original content you're trying to create a podcast which is you know relatively interesting i hope of talking to different people and i hope in some ways is if it's any

purpose is validation that you're doing things right or you're doing the same as everyone else which could be perceived to be right then i think that's a great thing but actually i original content in the workplace i see is quite a challenge where people are always trying to do something new and different and i quite like it because it's it's trying to be a little bit edgier but you can kind of sit back and and you don't want to be that guy but you're going that's gonna

hurt yeah yeah and it you know it does it's it's weird because you know people go oh well you know why do you want so many likes or why do you want that engagement and it's not just an ego thing it generally sometimes can lead to an interaction where a potential.

Client goes actually i love your content yeah you know i've had directors call me and say do you know what i love how just genuine you are there's no bs it doesn't come across corporate but there's a message i get it and i've had those conversations so that's in that instance it is important to me to get lights get numbers up and get everything else but then again i do so much that i am an idiot i just do it to entertain myself and it makes

me have to you have to do those things you do because you've got no.

Yeah yeah absolutely have you tell us a bit because we we started at the beginning um talking about the change evolution engine yes can you tell us a bit about it yeah so so obviously there was the whole ai bandwagon and i get it and it is great i stayed away from it for a while possibly to age resistance to change could be who knows but i just i didn't dive in and then it just It just occurred to me, right, as change managers,

there's one thing that really, what used to frustrate me when I was working for contracts. And that was, as I mentioned earlier, around C-Suite and Aborvin project managers wanting deliverables. They didn't see tangible items, whereas having worked in change for 25, 30 years, I know that a difference can be made over a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Because that's what we do. That's how we interact that, you know, we shape things through conversations.

So I was like, okay, so maybe I can just produce some deliverables for me. That's where I started. It evolved from there and very much changed from there. I went to a couple of road shows. I talked to a few people that were really into it and really engaged and enthusiastic and start to see its potential. And its potential was way more than just doing a few deliverables far, far greater than that.

So it was around, but again, it's only as good as the person using it and the data that goes into it. So my idea basically was I came up with kind of like six core elements that, that became a package really. And AI is just an element of that. So AI is useful in terms of, you know, looking at data, statistics, analysis, all that kind of stuff, pretty much the stuff that bores most change managers, because we're people people.

But AI can do that analysis you know it can report back on what it finds look for trends that kind of thing that's where it's integrated and then you've got things like developing a change management office alongside of it so they'd use it you've got some resourcing so we'd put resourcing and bring in really good change people as well and there's some strategic stuff and some benefit stuff and that the usual things you'd like to see that make a program

look good and make an organisation look good. It's just in a, it's just in a package. And as I say, AI is not the dominant, but you mention it, it's like with everything, everybody's ears perks up, you know, so it's not the dominant, but it's a critical part of this package. So is it similar to what things like ProSight are doing with their Gaia bot? No, no, no. So, and that's funny you mentioned that. So, so ProSight, beautiful bunch of people.

No, because their AI is constrained by their methodology and framework. I do not have a methodology or framework like that.

And I wouldn't want one like that. Again, a good change manager knows that you have to have an understanding of a multitude of frameworks and methodologies, but actually you adapt to your client and you use what works best. I would never be, and this is why I perhaps don't always see eye to eye with the browser guys, because they are very fixed in terms of it's our methodology, our way, this is how you deliver. And this AI, this new AI is very much, in fact, I'm going to be really honest

right now. I wrote a post purely taking the mic. I don't know if they got it. I don't know, but it entertained me. And it was around Clarissa, Clarissa, the sassy AI. And instead of using the Adkar acronym, I use Karen.

And it's a LinkedIn post. If anybody's listening, they want to laugh, go and have a look at it it is absolute mickey take of what they were doing with their ai because like i say i don't i don't like the fact that people are being told you have to follow this in change management you don't change when you've got to be open-minded.

And yeah and flexible so yeah it's one of those interesting points isn't it where you can find where there's a very strong direction towards a methodology you tend to find there's also a very strong direction towards I own this and like you know I own the training plan but we've got an L&D team, doesn't matter i own a cobs one but you've got an internal comms team or you've got to change that company you know what i mean and i find

that that's almost because that's the circular nature of what the that's not just that but lots of methodologies do they just kind of keep it like i get it you box it you you drop it in you give someone a reference and the way they go but yeah it doesn't it doesn't bend and flex if you're in a pretty small tightly contained piece bit probably It's nice. You get into a portfolio-led type change.

Yeah. And not only that, but you can have Janet who sat in accounts and three years ago she decided to take a pro-site exam, really enjoyed it, didn't do anything with it. They've got a project on, let's ask Janet. No, let's not ask Janet. Right? She's an accountant. That's her thing. She just did it because she liked it.

Janet's answering her questions on LinkedIn. what but so what's different with what you're offering from say something like copilot or something just out of the box because because again it's exactly comes back to that thing around methodology and framework has to be flexible has to be adaptable so and i'm not an ai specialist and i will put my hands up and say that so what i do is i go right i've got this client with this need and i speak to one of the

guys that i work closely with using an external advisor who does know all about this kind of stuff and i'll probably go with a whisper list of about 20 things and if we can do 10, awesome. You know, that's how it works. It's not, yeah, it's just not, it shouldn't be fixed and rigid.

Anything about what we do should not be fixed and rigid until we understand clearly what the requirements are and where they want to go. And then we go right now we know how to fix this yeah and get the people get the people on board so which is always a tricky bit so i love i don't know about you but i find when i, if i use ai am i using it for inspiration and then to run it through what i know and so so true story sorry to interrupt true story this will blow your mind i'm 50.

My best mate came over at the weekend he's 50.

Never had anything to do with ai ever didn't know how it worked didn't really understand it so everybody else is at the house so i'm going to show you something this is how incredible it is so i asked it to create cv for me as a nuclear physicist i'm applying for a job i want qualifications i want references some examples of the work i've done and it just did it all and it and it just blew him away i then also did it just purely for the other side of the coin that

i wanted to be an adult entertainer and it did a cv for that as well and it was and yeah So he's gone away and he's looking at what he can do and playing with it. I've been getting it all wrong. I keep making animated pictures of my dog. I've been using it wrong. Yeah. I don't like the same industry. That's where you want to be with AI. I do find it good stuff though. I've used it to be able to speed up things. We had a guest on last year.

I can't remember who. It might have been Jenny, actually, Jenny Field. And she said, your job doesn't change. It's just how you do your job that changes. I thought that's so right. I use that a lot because I use CodePilot. If I've got an awful lot to try and read or someone sent me a 57-page document, I'd like, cheers for that, right? I'd pump that straight into CodePilot. Tell me the most 10 top points in this document.

They might not be bang on, but I mean, it doesn't have to save me 57 pages of reading. I can happily go into a meeting. Companies like Amazon, iOS, they're really good at how they prepare for meetings. You don't issue a 57-page document 10 minutes before you rock up. They give you reading time and they give you a summary and they're too long, didn't read. That's really great. We just use Copilot, right? But it's the same principle. And then there's a lot more ready to rock and roll.

You know, that ability. It's also a great tool to check as well. Have you done that with it? Have you guys tried Pi? Nope. Pi. I want it.

Okay. Carry on. Sorry. What kind of Pi? Yeah. So please continue and I'll tell you about Pi.

No, no. I was just saying, I would just literally, like if i draft something i will just put that draft into it and go right tell me what the three key points of this are for example as a prompt and then you get that back and you kind of know whether you've you've hit the mark on it or not don't you whether or not those were the three key things you wanted to say oh you know you look at the sentiment you know is is this suitable for

an audience that's about to be told x y or z i think for that type of stuff it's a real real time saver because you you stop sweating over it a little bit yeah 100 so i i i'll be quite honest my spelling and grammar is atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. I'm full of bonkers ideas in my head and craziness and randomness and surrealness. But my spelling, so I always get my stuff checked. I always check it because otherwise, you know, God knows what I could be putting out.

Yeah, people wouldn't take me seriously at all. Not that they often do, but yeah. But no, Pi, try Pi. So I've got Pi, I've got a MacBook Air. Sorry, not a MacBook, iPad Pro. I put a Pi on, you talk to it. So it's a new function. I've never tried this function. So I've always used it like chat GPT. And then I saw this little button. I went, oh, press that. And it was like, hi. And then I talked to him and it's weird. It's really Pi. P-I. Try it. Really good. I don't know.

I'll be doing that. I'll be doing that. We've probably got time for one more question. Okie dokie. So let me just, I'm just checking back what else we'd written before. Oh yeah. Yeah.

So what are your places? Where do you go to find valuable information or resources about change? So typically I'd look at things on LinkedIn. I tend not to because the whole principle around change rebellion is about taking change management back to its basics.

So rather than going forward and over-complicating things, and don't get me wrong, I speak to so many change professionals all the time and quite often we disagree on a number of things, but our core essence of us is always the same, that changes about people in the workplace. So actually, I haven't jumped on things and started discussing psychology, neuroscience, other elements, all really useful things. And for people who want to develop themselves, fantastic.

We're about actually pulling it back from that because when you meet Joe in IT, he doesn't give a flying fig what you're called, what your qualifications are, where you're from, certainly doesn't want to hear the word consultant.

So it's kind of, okay, we need to bring it back to what matters for them and that's the whole premise around rebellion and yeah you know for obvious legal reasons i'm probably declared or we're declared as like a consultancy or service project because it wasn't a other option but actually i try and steer away from it i did an acmp gig that douglas got me involved in and when i said that the room went quite quiet for a minute because most of the people do refer to themselves it's

just something we do and most of us come from an industry like that you know so but yeah i try and steer clear of it because i just know that it's not it's not so bad when you talk to people in the c-suite and management and ceos they don't quite like it but actually anybody that's been impacted they really don't want to hear it they want a friend in the room right yeah exactly exactly yeah shoulder to cry on usually yeah and you know what i'm a great believer

that one of the biggest skills we can have is empathy has changed professionals. And actually, there are other books that I've looked at. Crikey, I don't know if I'm going to be able to remember this. A guy, an FBI guy, Joe, and I can't remember the name of the book. I did a post on it not so long back, but it's around watching signals and understanding people, reading people. That for me is like, you know, that's leagues ahead of giving me, you know, a procedure manual or anything else.

It's like understand triggers. Because if you're talking to someone, you know, I spoke to a change manager yesterday. He said one thing wrong. Just one thing wrong. And he was just devastated because he knew that he'd just blown it. That person was now, you know, wasn't on board, wasn't interested, didn't want to get anywhere near the program. So being able to read people and body language, those are the kind of books that I go, that's what you should read.

Because that's the empathy thing's important though because it's quite likely we might not have realized it we end up in the field doing the things we do because we were probably influenced by either a good or a bad change and the person who was leading that change and we might not have known it at the time but we probably anchor ourselves back to that moment and then drag ourselves back into the future but subconsciously

that empathy piece is because i remember how they spoke to me and then you said you make sure that you know in your future self you don't you don't do the things you saw or the converse is that yeah that guy or that girl was absolutely epic.

I wouldn't do that yeah yeah exactly i'm conscious i bet yeah and you do you get you know as long as you can go in with that frame of mind where you go if it was me in their shoes how would i want to be treated yeah right that if you go in with that you you know for me you're on a winner and there's always going to be political challenges internally and you know the problems i mentioned earlier around expectations of what we deliver but

if you can kind of navigate around that and get around that focus on you know like saying what would you want if you were going through this yeah yeah we can all we can all refer back and reference Gilbert here but we've all been on the end of bad change right we have yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it happened yeah definitely I've started blending some product methodology into change recently just to help people particularly and stakeholders, like with impact mapping as an example.

I mean, if you've done your product owner course, they do this thing about pizza delivery and other bits of that. And it was very fun. I figured it's just a really good way to describe to someone in the organisation.

How they can get from a to b and the role different people play in there with your set of essentially your your epics at the end yeah those are the epics are the things we need you to do so by that definition you're the product so if you think of it like that so if you've got your goals and your actors eventually your epics and your stories then actually you start having i say this works i've tried it a couple of times and it's quite interesting to see

particularly when you're trying not to turn out the usual yeah change impact assessments or yeah yeah yeah Yeah. How do you make those exciting? Yeah. Yeah. They're so complicated, right? They never used to be. When I started out doing this, we were assessing pretty much three things, you know, behavior, process, and tools.

And that's how it started. And suddenly this long list of 10, 20 criteria, and you take those three objective things and then turn it into an as-is and 2B, and you're pretty much rocking and rolling. You can do most things off that.

You don't need to get into the nuts and the bolts of no you know hr processes that's their gig right i genuinely think there are boundaries oh yeah i totally agree i think the reason why it is over complicated and the reason why it's been you know change management has been bastardized over the years is because it's been done to sell those changes in change management you know very simple concept you know industrial age type era right if your people are on board them stand and

they're involved more chance of success really simple concept and what's happened is that just got taken and then completely bastardized by big corporates who are going we'll take away the risk yeah we'll talk to your people we'll sort it out for you and it's just been over-engineered over the years and now it is the way it is and that's as i said before that for me is the key driver and i think there's a number of us now who are going that's not the right way that's

not how to change production.

With the conversation we had last week, we started talking about bringing the user right into the problem statement, not waiting for the line that says awareness. It's like, that's too late. That means we've made the decision. If we're telling you and giving you awareness of what's coming, it means we've kind of made the decision about what's changing and how we're going to change it. You're not involved in that process. So that must mean that it's going to be

twice as hard for me, right? Am I wrong? You're absolutely right, mate. Absolutely right. Yeah, I could not agree more.

It's you know the thing if they really want to if people really want to make change stick and work it's around getting rid of barriers not putting barriers in place and by going we've already decided you're immediately putting a barrier in place yeah and you know that is a fundamental for me why the people with the name p doesn't work for me because it's immediately going there's a presumption and we're presuming that we've determined the right course of action you have to abide

by it okay and it's like yeah and it just doesn't work doesn't work for me i think because i think back over maybe during covid or leading up to it i think the big obsession on linkedin or others like that at the time was around resistance management and i was thinking why are you wasting so much time focusing on resistance that i don't just just just don't cause it right i thought we've got all these debates and forums and questions

all right well if you don't cause it i mean you're gonna have it i'm not i'm not stupid right you're gonna get people want to change, but, but that's, there's not always a huge amount of those types of people that that number swells when we start telling them what we're going to do to them and when we're going to do it and how we're going to do it. And we don't actually ask for them and engage them and involve them in those things.

That's kind of right. As I was saying that, yeah, I totally agree. And those people that are resistors, typically it's because they've been through crap change.

It's not their first gig not the first rodeo and they're like oh god here we go again you know i've i mean i i one of the things that is really important to me as well so i i was working it when i was working grid and i was asked by more than one person we met a dozen people like you what's the difference and i'm like oh that's a bit challenging i said well obviously i can't say anything there's nothing i can say right now i can go i'm like do this and i do that and i do nothing so

you have to show them and you have to demonstrate it and that's the only way you can turn these people who are resistors around by going yeah i'm not you know i could say i'm not going to be like that person you had before but and they'll just go yeah well i've heard that 20 times so you really do have to approach every change program project etc as if right i know you're not going to necessarily believe what i'm saying but i will show

you as we go along and build that yeah yeah it's amazing and i guess that's a nice segue to the franchise it's not a franchise oh yeah so yeah yeah another one of my mad ideas so as a byproduct of setting up change rebellion i.

Was asked by a number of people all over the world when i'm networking do anything and put yourself in in in front of people would i open up change rebellion and i couldn't wasn't going to i'm not you know we're not big enough in any way shape or form but i don't like to be defeated and there was enough people that had asked for me to think well there's got to be a solution to this so anyway it hit me over the head like two golden arches and i thought right.

Franchising. And then what I did was, before I'd said anything to anyone, because it seemed a little bit bonkers at the time when I was sat on the sofa thinking about it, I thought, right, I need some professional advice on this. So I contacted some great people, some international lawyers. We had a number of meetings and yeah, they said, you're not as mad as you think you are. A, because you've got a strong brand and B, because it's perfectly legally doable, but it is not a franchise.

And I went, well, why is it not a franchise? And then they explained the whole franchise thing to me. So franchising is by territory. And what I want to do is by person. So, yeah, so that's why it's the franchise that isn't a franchise. Because the concept is the same. The concept is, yeah, you can buy Interchange Rebellion, we provide a load of stuff, and then, yeah, you are running as an independent, but with all the branding and marketing. And a whole load of support behind you.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just a simple business agreement that has to be drawn up contractually by the lawyers. So, yeah, I put it out there trying to explain this concept to everyone. I was amazed with the response. We had around about 80, 90 people come back, all interested. I knew that was going to drop when I sent back the price structure. I'm still waiting for another 20, 30 to come back to me after seeing that. But in the meantime, another 10 have already re-registered their interest.

It's amazing. So, yeah, I couldn't believe that. I only saw that today. So I've sent the emails out, got everything, waiting for me to come back. And in that space of time, just two weeks, another 10 have logged in and registered for the opportunity. So we'll see how it goes. I need a certain amount because otherwise, financially, it's not worth it for me because I've got to invest in the lawyers and their time and drafting up documents and things like that.

But, you know, the fact that people... Resonate with the approach what they see the website all the rest of it is incredibly humbling also validating for me yeah it would be exciting to wake up one morning and go we're all over the world you know with in a weird way yeah yeah like mcdonald's but without the cheeseburgers yeah it just who knows so i think a lot of people with the person though i generally do i think because like we've talked a lot today already about you know the style on

linkedin i think it's just engaging and endearing and i think it's not so corporately stilted and i think it creates a sense that there is i can still be me and do the things well but i know i've got some security and some safety through the sense that there's a brand behind me there's a guy there it's approachable he's not going to shout at me because i'm not doing it a certain way it's just more along as i interpret this correct me if

i'm wrong but it was lined up you know some coaching and some support some help guidance and advice when you want it yeah as opposed to a dictated it's this way, all the way. Am I right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So one of the things obviously that I do is I'm not bound by a corporate pressures in terms of what I can post, what I can write. I've got no constraints around me and I would never want to do that to other people.

So what you get is you get the branding, you get an email address, you get a change management tool by one of our partners. That's typically a monthly thing, but you get it free through us. You get all your marketing material.

We hook you up with connections if you don't have them. all that kind of really good stuff that's important for an individual's career but there's no no pressure on me to be an employee employer or them to be an employee it just we've got a relationship it's as simple as that so yeah yeah i think yeah it'd be great if it if it goes how i wanted to go yeah and i'm you know i'm not dick dastardly i don't want to take over the world but it's it would just

be a beautiful thing if there were people with the banner with the same sort of style and approach. I think it's really great.

Thank you. When I started contracting, I was... I was influenced by a great contractor, a lady called Susanna Jones. I think her name is Susanna Smith, the marriage. Yeah. I don't think it was great. She was probably the first proper contractor I worked with. And I was just like, every day was great. And we were working alongside Accenture. So I was learning all of this different stuff all the time. And then when the project ended, I left the organization.

And obviously, Susanna went off to a new contract and Accenture just did Accenture things elsewhere. And I was like, I'm going to be a contractor. I'm going to do that.

But boy, was that scary i mean yeah yeah i was eight years at this company and i was you know yeah i was i didn't have to go anywhere and i like go and i'm going to do this and i was like yeah we moly this is yeah yeah yeah actually having this opportunity particularly you know if you if you're presented with an opportunity where you're leaving a company and perhaps you're going with a bit of a package, this is like a halfway house this is like going contracting

but you've got an awful lot behind you to help you get on your feet and go right yeah exactly exactly that exactly that and not only that it's kind of imagine being part of a global network without you know without having to drive for it find it push for it it's like you just automatically part the family you know and you can talk to people in france in america australia new zealand you know that for me as well that community of

people that are like-minded in the chain space is is that drives me that's one of the things that drives the whole thing for me so when you have your end of year party with your new collective but you have your interview party with the gang well then I'll call me and Pete but we'll come along and we'll just cover it for you.

That'd be great do you know there's one bit in the proposal that I was starting to regret because I did say annually we'd host something but I think hang on a minute if we've got people in New Zealand South Africa, America how am I going to bring all this together but yeah that's part of the package a party.

Sounds great look it's been great we'll do this again in the new year we're gonna run a season three this is just a mini season just because me and pete got excited and couldn't wait any longer so um we're gonna we're gonna go again in the in the new year yeah we're gonna get you and some of the other gang back together for it i did say to pete it'd be great if we could get like seven or eight of us on it but i think it would just be carnage because we're all people who like to talk,

yeah yeah we all talk if you get the key you know you get the right number we all like to talk we're all quite binnated so yeah just a poor soul driving down the boat when he listens it's going will you just shut up and let him talk yeah no i've really enjoyed it it's really nice to meet you guys really enjoyed it would happily do this again great and good luck with with you know the the startup of the franchise it's not a franchise and we'll stick some links on the on our

socials we'll see if we can fix the algorithms of linkedin and and and we'll see if we can disrupt them a little bit further too it's been great thank you so much mark that's great time pleasure. Right, well, I'm set at 99%, which is usually good enough. So as long as you're about there, you should be fine. Yeah. I'm using an iPad Pro for this. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Does your camera follow you? Yeah, I had to turn that off.

Yeah. It's so much. This thing was making me feel like I was on a plate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like it. I mean, I've got rid of the laptop. So I'm just, yeah, I'm just purely this now. It meets my knees. The only thing is not as people are set off and look.

But yeah, no, it's handy, handy. and the wife's jealous i have an mod laptop for being at the mat office at the moment and that's all microsoft is a microsoft house but i'm working with a company called rainmaker rainmaker solutions so they're like an external group they're super cool really great stuff they've got a really nice way of doing stuff but they use google so i've had to learn how to work in both like simultaneously that is such a hard skill it may

be not to a youngster but i tell you what i've got one machine over there doing my ipad i'm using google for because yeah and on my laptop i'm using microsoft for and then when you export and move it over between google to powerpoint everything shifts yeah yeah yeah it's like it reminds me of the olden days where you used to do like a process map in microsoft that he said is the apple and everything was like squinting yeah all over the place but yeah we're using a provider we're working

with they just use google and it's all new to me so i'm like okay gotta learn all this now it took me in just to work out how to put a comment on something so it's the comment button yeah yeah it's crazy right have a great christmas you too mate have a lovely christmas thank you mark it was really good to meet you and i look forward to seeing you again soon and i will i shall see you about on the internet as well likewise thank you thank you man thank you yeah speak to you in the new year

yeah i'll look out for your life cheers mark cheers cheers buddy bye. Music.