Building Confidence, Industry Speaking, Navigating Covid and Setting Pull Goals: What My First Webinar Highlighted

Wednesday the 3rd of February at approximately 3.50 pm I was absolutely shi**ing it.

Why? Well, after 15 years of working in the digital marketing industry and 12 years of running Absolute Digital Media, I’ve never fully put myself out there and show the true Ben to the world. But in 10 minutes’ time, this would completely change as I tuned in to my first ever live webinar and took a leap into being a more active face in the world of SEO and digital marketing.

I started 2021 with a goal to face my fear of public speaking and challenge myself to commit to speaking at industry events and contribute to the industry conversations happening around me. After all, with 15 years of experience, I’ve got a lot to contribute and my comfort zone was holding me back.

For anyone who knows the Absolute team, you’ll know that we don’t do things by halves. As soon as I let my goal for becoming a more vocal force in the industry known, the A-team ran with it, taking the plan one step further to create our very own digital marketing webinar series WTF WFH.

With the help of Kirsty’s Roar Training confidence program, I was able to take a dive into the deep end and combat my fear of public speaking by sharing some digital marketing insights to over 50 webinar viewers.

If you told me a few months ago that I would be speaking at a public event, I’d have run for the hills. But the energy for 2021 is different. I’ve taken the time to revaluate what I want for myself and for the Absolute team, and a big part of this was taking time to work on me, build the confidence to get out there, and invest in the agency’s story to help drive our performance even further.

I spoke about this in the webinar when discussing how to put yourself out there. “Lockdown has given me the opportunity to put myself out there a bit more and start to build my name”, I told Kirsty, as we discussed moving forward in the face of adversity.

“I made a conscious decision to change a lot of things through the pandemic. Life changed dramatically, so we had to change with it and keep the agency thriving. Part of our pivot strategy involved sharing our experiences more, and not just the good things.

Let’s face it, we’ve had a tough year as an agency and the pandemic saw us lose 44% of our book as we went into the initial lockdown and that was devastating. After building an agency for 12 years, it’s awful to see the business take that hit. But we’ve got through it and grown from it. And people should hear that.”

Despite the impact of Covid-19, the agency managed to stay strong and turn 2020 into a year of development and growth, and this is something I’m immensely proud of. Across the agency we’ve grown all our service teams, hiring 12 new staff members over the lockdown period and committing to investing in our teams and client campaigns.

Knowing how to pivot your business and change in the face of adversity is a skill that should be shared with other business owners during this difficult time, and this was a huge point of motivation for me to share my experience and going on to develop The Absolute Thrive Guide.

“As an agency, we’ve had to completely adapt. We’ve moved from an office-based agency to a completely wfh set-up. Investing in our staff was crucial to keep this working and our team support has been the driving force behind our client campaigns continuing to deliver results.

For example, we set up our new Digital PR department in October, and I often think would we have done this outside of the pandemic? A huge silver lining of being forced to re-evaluate and push the business forward. Our Digital PR team is great, I’m so proud of what they’ve become and the new service we can offer our clients. This has allowed us to move forward to something new. But this also wouldn’t have been possible without the reliability of the other service teams supporting this agency move.

With a new service offering and our other digital marketing teams pulling out the stops to deliver for their client campaigns we managed to turn 2020 into a success and we saw 58% agency growth since March, and this margin just keeps growing.”

Ultimately, the A-team is the driving force behind the agency and a huge motivator for me stepping outside of my comfort zone. Together, we are pushing the agency to the next level and able to grow into new digital marketing opportunities.

So, despite my nerves, engaging in the webinar discussion was hugely beneficial for myself and hopefully the viewers too! And, most importantly it was a necessary step towards 2021 being Absolute’s best year yet and a force for full-service digital marketing. This is my 2021 pull goal.

Kirsty Hulse, my WTF WFH webinar guest and confidence coach left us all with the challenge to set our own pull goals to move forward in the face of difficulty, she said:

“Pull goals are the magnates that draw us forward, and we all need to think about exciting and expansive goals to drive us forward. These pull goals will give us hope and direction to push us through the adversity. They are f**king transformative!

Yes, goals are ultimately us working towards getting there, but it’s the actions you take to get to this goal that are the truly important things. The win is you doing something that you didn’t think you could do so you can get to your goal.”

So, here I am having smashed my fear of public speaking spurred by the motivation of my pull goal and this is what we all need to implement in 2021 to turn this year into one of success.

Are you ready to put this goal into action and digitally transform your business? Well, we’ve got the perfect resource to help guide your pull goal intentions – The Absolute Thrive Guide is a fully comprehensive guide to all things digital marketing and how to navigate your business through a jungle of restrictions and difficulties. Get your hands on this free resource next week!

Absolute’s WTF WFH webinar will be back for episode two in March, more details to follow soon.