The Most Ridiculous Business Interview You'll Ever Listen To - James Martin

We asked James Martin every weird and wonderful question we could think of. He answered all of them. James Martin started cutting grass as a boy, moved into tree surgery, and has been building, buying and selling companies ever since. Today he owns Baddow Park House in Essex, runs a group of businesses and a property portfolio, hosts the Entrepreneur Conversations podcast, and mentors owners through the Baddow Park Mastermind. He is also severely dyslexic. He does not read. He has turned down free lessons more than once. He built a team around the gap instead of spending thirty years trying to close it. We caught him at Ideas Fest and decided not to do the normal interview. No origin story questions. No "so what's next for you". Instead we threw the brutal, the strange and the flat out ridiculous at him and waited for something to break. Nothing broke. That is the problem with James. You go in looking for a wobble and come out with a business plan. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet James Martin, Problem Solver for Entrepreneurs 00:00:25 Snog Marry Avoid: The Royal Family Edition 00:01:17 The Pigeon Poo Property Disaster: When Garden Centres Go Wrong 00:01:35 The 17 Grand HR Nightmare: Firing Someone for Smoking Weed 00:02:20 Robust and Forthright Software: The James Martin Operating System 00:02:37 Da Vinci and Evita's Wedding: The Ultimate Power Couple 00:03:01 Dry Hire Terminology: When Business Jargon Sounds Completely Wrong 00:03:20 Kung Fu Fighting and Row Dancing: The 90s Networking Event 00:04:16 All the Isms: ADHD, Dyslexia, and Throwing Labels in the Bin 00:05:21 The Drowning Question: Why Jack Gets Saved and Zach Doesn't 00:05:42 Michael Bolton at My Funeral: How Am I Supposed to Live Without You 00:06:32 Sexual Innuendo and Paul King: How Do They Get Away With This What should we have asked him? Stick it in the comments. Best question gets sent to James and we will make him answer it. #JamesMartinEntrepreneur #IdeasFest #BaddowPark #EntrepreneurConversations #BusinessPodcast #UKBusiness #SmallBusinessUK #FounderMindset #BusinessOwner #Leadership #DyslexicEntrepreneur #EssexBusiness #BusinessMentor #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with James Martin: Website: https://www.jamesmartinentrepreneur.com Baddow Park Mastermind: https://www.baddowpark.com Podcast: Entrepreneur Conversations LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-martin-entrepreneur Instagram: @jamesmartinentrepreneur Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

James Martin started cutting grass as a boy, moved into tree surgery, and has built, bought and sold companies ever since. Today he owns Baddow Park House in Essex, runs a group of businesses and a property portfolio, hosts the Entrepreneur Conversations podcast, and mentors business owners through the Baddow Park Mastermind. He is also severely dyslexic. He does not read, he has turned down free lessons more than once, and he built a team around the gap instead of spending thirty years trying to close it. James Martin joins hosts Jack Frimston and Zac Thompson at Baddow Park to give the least polished answers anyone has given on this show. He explains why he has zero tolerance for what he calls an atmosphere vampire, why he refuses to hand out warning letters, and why he would rather double someone's severance, end it the same day and invite them to sue him than let one bad hire flatten the team around them. He breaks down the gardener he took from £650,000 turnover and an 11% margin to multi-million turnover and a 32% margin in eighteen months, and what actually changed to do it. He gets into the client with twenty five products who was quietly losing money on most of them, why cutting to six raised the margin and dropped the promotion spend, and why he is never the cheapest and says so out loud instead of discounting. He explains how a mistake that cost one of his companies half a million pounds got logged as a free lesson and closed down in one meeting, because your team copies how you frame the bad news rather than the news itself. Along the way: why he told two best friends who run a business together that he would never go into business with a friend or a family member, the Felix Dennis book he keeps coming back to, the jobs he thinks AI is never touching because nobody is crawling under there to mend the leak, what he actually spends in a year and why it is nothing like people assume, the three holidays and the Range Rover he mistook for success, why he has no intention of ever retiring, and the fact that he cannot get through his own gates because he does not know the codes. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet James Martin, Multi-Million Pound Entrepreneur 00:05:53 The Dyslexia Superpower: Turning a Disability Into a Business Advantage 00:09:48 The Van Man Origin Story: From Trees to Multi-Million Pound Empire 00:12:15 The Entrepreneur Apprenticeship: Why Working for Free Beats Business School 00:13:32 AI-Proof Industries: Where to Build Your Business in the Next Decade 00:18:38 Social Skills Over Degrees: The Real Talent Hiring Strategy 00:24:38 The Price Point Philosophy: Why Being the Most Expensive Wins 00:27:19 The Devil Is in the Detail: Why Small Stuff Equals Big Success 00:29:33 No Friends, No Family: The Partnership Warning Every Founder Needs 00:39:54 Commercial Property Over Houses: The Real Estate Strategy That Builds Wealth 00:42:46 The Madness Weirdo Journey: Are You Really Ready to Be an Entrepreneur? #JamesMartinEntrepreneur #BaddowPark #EntrepreneurConversations #BusinessPodcast #UKBusiness #SmallBusinessUK #HiringAndFiring #HowToFireSomeone #BusinessGrowth #ProfitMargin #FounderMindset #BusinessOwner #Leadership #DyslexicEntrepreneur #EssexBusiness #BusinessMentor #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with James Martin: Website: https://www.jamesmartinentrepreneur.com Baddow Park Mastermind: https://www.baddowpark.com Podcast: Entrepreneur Conversations LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-martin-entrepreneur Instagram: @jamesmartinentrepreneur Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Michael Aaron Flicker started his first company, ZenoSci, at 14 years old, and 28 years later he's built nine operating companies around a single idea: understanding why people actually believe and behave the way they do gives you an unfair advantage in any market. He's the author of Hacking the Human Mind and founder of the Consumer Behavior Lab, where he helps brands use behavioural science instead of guesswork. Michael Aaron Flicker joins host Jack Frimston to break down why humans make decisions with the laziest possible amount of brainpower, and what that means for anyone trying to sell, price or name something. He explains why you instinctively order the second cheapest bottle of wine on a menu, why Red Bull deliberately shrank its can and charged more for it, and why Nespresso built its entire pricing strategy around comparing itself to a Starbucks latte instead of a cup of ground coffee. He gets into the psychology of loss aversion and why fear of missing out beats the promise of gaining something, why rhyming slogans are proven to be more believable, and the real science behind why "Chilean sea bass" outsold "Patagonian toothfish" thirty to one. He also explains the illusion of effort, the reason James Dyson opens his own autobiography by mentioning 5,127 failed prototypes, and why that same trick works for a ramen shop or a plumber with zero marketing budget. Along the way: the study that proves even doctors prescribe whatever drug sits highest in a dropdown menu, the "regret lottery" that got office workers cycling to work, why Five Guys deliberately refuses to sell chicken or salad, and the one-word swap in a police study that changed how fast people remembered a car crash happening. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Michael Aaron Flicker, Behavioral Science Expert 00:01:35 The Irrationality Problem: Why Humans Aren't as Rational as They Think 00:07:16 The Red Bull Pricing Hack: Breaking Comparison Points to Win 00:12:05 The Apple Watch Anchor: How Premium Options Make Everything Seem Reasonable 00:14:10 Pain vs Pleasure: The Psychology of Loss Aversion in Sales 00:18:14 The Pringles Rhyme Effect: Why Simple Phrases Build More Trust 00:20:47 The Illusion of Effort: How James Dyson Built Trust with 5,127 Prototypes 00:25:36 The Chilean Sea Bass Story: How the Right Name Changes Everything 00:29:53 The Five Guys Focus Strategy: Why Doing One Thing Beats Doing Everything 00:34:02 The Ethics Question: Are These Tactics Manipulation or Marketing 00:41:55 The Amazon Prime Trap: How Past Behavior Defines Future Choices 00:45:42 The AI and Effort Connection: How to Use AI Without Losing Credibility 00:47:46 The Test and Learn Philosophy: The One Question Every Business Owner Should Ask #MichaelAaronFlicker #HackingTheHumanMind #BehavioralScience #ConsumerPsychology #MarketingPsychology #SalesPsychology #PricingStrategy #Branding #Neuromarketing #CognitiveBias #LossAversion #B2BSales #ConsumerBehaviorLab #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Michael Aaron: Book: https://www.hackingthehumanmind.com Consumer Behavior Lab: https://www.consumerbehaviorlab.com Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Andy Coleman has spent the last 21 years starting things, breaking things and fixing them, on rinse and repeat. He became the youngest landlord in the Greene King estate in his early twenties, went on to build and run pubs, bars, a roofing business, a women's clothing chain, an events company and a content creation agency, and most recently launched BizzFest, a festival-style business event that went from an idea on a retreat to 1,000 people, three stages and 40 speakers in a field within seven months. Andy Coleman joins hosts Jack Frimston to talk about what actually happens when you build a career out of jumping into things other people would call reckless. He explains why he never learned to delegate until a manager called Ben forced the issue, why the smoking ban was the moment he learned to "jump before you're pushed" in business, and why the businesses that failed for him were never killed by some outside disaster, they just got dragged on too long after he already knew. He breaks down the exact framework he uses to decide whether to pivot or shut something down, why he refuses to call it quitting, and why giving someone terrible food poisoning taught him more about customer trust than almost anything else in hospitality. Then he gets into how BizzFest actually got built: why he spent money before the brand had any trust to spend it on, why ticket sales for a first-time event barely move until the final 48 hours, and what it was like hosting a fireside chat with Andy Coulson and Jamie Laing having never done one before in his life. Along the way: the ChatGPT prompt Andy wrote in the bath the night before interviewing Jamie Laing on stage, the "burn the boats" story that talked him into doing it anyway, why he thinks most business failure feels like getting cut from the school basketball team, and the charity worker who told him a single day at BizzFest changed his life. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Andy Coleman, Serial Entrepreneur 00:01:37 The Youngest Landlord: Starting a Business at 21 00:04:51 The Resilience Factor: Why Andy Didn't Fail 00:06:09 Learning to Delegate: The Seven-Year Struggle 00:07:20 The Smoking Ban Pivot: Knowing When to Jump or Be Pushed 00:07:55 Building an Ecosystem: From Pubs to Bars to Clothing Shops 00:10:15 Customer Experience Masterclass: The Power of Fixing Mistakes 00:15:12 Defining Success: Happiness Over Everything 00:19:56 The Month Off Challenge: Working Yourself Out of the Business 00:26:59 The BizFest Origin Story: Born in a Bath in Portugal 00:31:01 The Only Real Risk: What If Nobody Shows Up? 00:33:16 Sales and Marketing Lessons: Throw Money at the Problem 00:35:11 The Ticket Sales Spike: Why Events Come Together Last Minute 00:41:30 First Time on Stage: The Andy Coulson and Jamie Lang Interviews 00:46:36 The Future of BizFest: Scaling Across the UK and Beyond 00:47:33 The Life-Changing Moment: When BizFest Led to an Adoption #AndyColeman #BizzFest #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #Hospitality #EventsIndustry #PersonalBranding #FounderStory #SmallBusiness #BusinessLessons #SalesAndMarketing #CustomerExperience #StartupFailure #Resilience #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Andy: BizzFest: https://www.bizzfest.co.uk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theandycoleman/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-coleman-6343aa49/ Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Mark Bowden has spent his career reading the eight seconds before anyone says a word. He's the founder of Truth Plane, and he's coached leaders at the G7, elite athletes and Fortune 500 executives on how to win trust and credibility the moment they walk into a room, long before their content, their numbers or their pitch ever gets heard. Mark Bowden and hosts Jack Frimston and Zac Thompson get into why your brain decides whether to trust someone in seconds, and why that decision has almost nothing to do with what's actually being said. Mark delivers the same five-million-pound pitch twice, live, with two completely different sets of body language, to prove that identical words land completely differently depending on how predictable your movement is. He breaks down why "you can never change a first impression" is a myth, and gives the exact script for rebuilding trust once it's broken. He explains why the brain isn't a computer but a chemical system that changes its own thresholds day to day, why a nervous read and a lying read can look almost identical, and why Donald Trump's handshake theatre with world leaders is a deliberate performance for an audience, not an instinct. Along the way: why one person's charisma is another person's arrogance, the exact question to ask at any networking event instead of pitching yourself, how to build real rapport without turning someone else's story into your own, the cold call line that stops a "no" before it starts, and the story of how Zac's brother accidentally avoided being mugged by his trousers falling down. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Mark Bowden, Body Language Expert 00:00:30 The Trust and Credibility Problem: Why Everyone Needs Help 00:01:25 The Anxiety Factor: Who Mark Helps and Why 00:02:57 First Impressions in the Boardroom: The Predictability Principle 00:07:38 The Likeability Paradox: When Being Difficult Still Works 00:11:13 Can You Change a First Impression: The Real Answer 00:13:40 The Persuasion Transparency Technique: Telling Them You're Persuading Them 00:20:44 The Brain Is Not a Computer: Why Complex Systems Need Simple Tools 00:26:20 Trump's Handshake Strategy: Performing for Your Audience 00:30:47 The Networking Event Masterclass: How to Win Without Selling 00:38:27 The Hierarchical Evaluative Question: Finding What People Really Value 00:47:52 The Cold Call Pattern Interrupt: When They Say No, Say Thank You 00:50:33 The Duty to Persuade: Why Letting People Go Is Failing Them 00:51:51 The Closing Question: What Will You Do Immediately and What's in Your Way #MarkBowden #TruthPlane #BodyLanguage #BodyLanguageExpert #NonverbalCommunication #TrustAndCredibility #FirstImpressions #Charisma #Persuasion #SalesPsychology #ColdCalling #Networking #PublicSpeaking #ExecutivePresence #CommunicationSkills #SalesTraining #B2BSales #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Mark: Truth Plane: https://www.truthplane.com Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Will Perez is the lead filmmaker and editor behind Behind The Diary, the documentary series following Steven Bartlett's day to day running Flight Story and hosting The Diary of a CEO. His work on the channel has passed 12 million views and helped build an audience of over 400,000 subscribers, and in 2025 Forbes named him to its 30 Under 30 list for Media and Marketing at just 24. Will Perez joins hosts Jack Frimston and Zac Thompson for an honest conversation about what it's actually like working that close to one of the UK's most recognisable entrepreneurs. They get into ego, his own and the ego that comes with being permanently embedded inside someone else's brand, the parts of working for a high-profile founder that never make it into the polished footage, and the reality behind building a career off the back of someone else's fame. #StevenBartlett #DiaryOfACEO #FlightStory #BehindTheDiary #WillPerez #Ego #Filmmaking #ContentCreation #CreatorEconomy #PersonalBranding #WorkingForACelebrity #PodcastProduction #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Will: Website: https://www.willperez.co.uk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btswithwill Substack: https://btswithwill.substack.com Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Anna Cairns and Kerry Collinge are the co-founders of Illuminari, the marketing collective they launched in 2026 alongside Rory Sutherland, Les Binet, Karen Nelson-Field, Orlando Wood, Richard Shotton, Margaret Heffernan, Tom Goodwin and Adam Morgan. Anna spent 22 years agency-side. She ran Nudgestock, the behavioural science festival, for a decade, and spent eight years building Rory Sutherland's fame and stage presence around the world. Kerry spent 25 years in marketing at Carlsberg, AB InBev and Mondelez, then ran marketing at System1 and took Uncensored CMO to Marketing Week's B2B Brand of the Year as its Managing Director. Between them they have sat in most of the rooms where marketing decides what it thinks. Their view is that the industry has hidden behind measurement. Everyone uses the same dashboards and the same frameworks, so everyone gets the same answers, and nobody is accountable for whether any of it worked. Along the way: why Anna's daughter believes Elvis is still alive, the Joe Rogan cat litter story and who gets paid when misinformation spreads, why you can line up ten beers blind and nobody can tell the difference, why a CEO will believe a stranger with a slide deck over the team he already employs, and why marketing still gets treated as the colouring in department. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Kerry and Anna, The Founders of Illuminari 00:01:41 The Data and Fear Problem: Why Marketing Lost Its Humanity 00:09:21 The Cannes Dinner Party: How Illuminari Was Born 00:14:52 The TikTok Generation: Misinformation and the Need for Real Conversations 00:23:50 The Three Martini Lunch: Bringing Back Joy and Connection 00:39:11 The Organ Transplant: Moving from B2C to B2B Marketing 00:55:08 The Rory Effect: Why Simplification Beats Complication 00:56:50 The Wall of Shame: Why Great Work Comes from Shaking the Tree 00:59:07 The Avengers of Marketing: How to Work with Illuminari 00:59:53 The Closing Question: Are You Bringing Your Whole Self to Work? #RorySutherland #Illuminari #UncensoredCMO #Nudgestock #System1 #Marketing #BrandBuilding #MarketingStrategy #CMO #B2BMarketing #MarketingEffectiveness #BehaviouralScience #Advertising #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Anna and Kerry: Illuminari: https://www.theilluminari.com Anna Cairns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-cairns-70284220 Kerry Collinge: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-collinge Uncensored CMO: https://system1group.com/uncensored-cmo Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Will Perez is the filmmaker who spent three years documenting Steven Bartlett from inches away. As lead filmmaker and editor at FlightStory, he built Behind The Diary, the behind-the-scenes channel following The Diary Of A CEO, from zero to 400,000 subscribers and more than 12 million views. In April 2026 he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for Media and Marketing, at 24. He got there by dropping out. At 21, in his second year at Edinburgh University, Will texted his mum to say he was leaving to take a job with Steven Bartlett. Her reply, in Spanish, was blunt: are you crazy? He'd stolen his dad's camera at 16, shot weddings in Velcro Spider-Man shoes, and sent close to a thousand cold pitches that went nowhere. Gymshark said no. HBO said no. Then a referral put him on a call with Jack Sylvester, co-founder of Diary Of A CEO, and four days later he'd quit his degree and moved to London. What followed was three years inside one of the biggest media operations on the planet. Last year alone that meant 54 flights in 54 weeks. He has since left to build his own studio, telling stories for founders, artists and brands. He joins Jack and Zac for an unusually honest conversation about storytelling, YouTube strategy and what it actually costs to work at that level. Why nobody cares about your story, how a DOAC video gets packaged before a single frame is cut, the two hours after you hit publish that decide everything, and what Steven Bartlett does backstage that nobody films. What you'll learn in this episode: Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Will Perez, The Man Behind Diary of a CEO 00:01:55 Nobody Cares About Your Story: The Three Assumptions That Kill Content 00:04:00 Brand vs Founder Storytelling: The Red Bull Strategy 00:07:08 The Story Seller Framework: How Real Estate Agents Hack Your Brain 00:11:09 The Dropout Decision: Texting Your Way Into Your Dream Job 00:17:34 Data Before Creative: The Title Testing Process That Changes Everything 00:22:15 The First Two Hours: What Happens After You Hit Publish 00:26:13 54 Flights in 54 Weeks: The Reality of Working for Stephen Bartlett 00:33:21 The Steve Jobs Headphone Jack Story: How Much You Care Equals How Much You Win 00:52:39 Going Full-Time: The Bet on Himself and What Comes Next #StevenBartlett #DiaryOfACEO #DOAC #YouTubeStrategy #VideoEditing #Storytelling #ContentStrategy #ContentCreation #Filmmaking #PersonalBranding #YouTubeGrowth #BehindTheDiary #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Will: Website: https://www.willperez.co.uk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btswithwill Substack: https://btswithwill.substack.com LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/will-lindsay-perez Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have A Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, says empathy is the hardest skill to learn, and the one that matters most. In this clip, Jack and Zac break down why empathy is the single most underrated sales skill in B2B, and how it changes everything about the way you cold call, handle objections and close deals. Most salespeople think empathy is soft. It isn't. It's the difference between a prospect hanging up in four seconds and a prospect actually telling you the truth about their situation. Empathy is what turns a cold call into a conversation, a pitch into a diagnosis, and a "not interested" into a real objection you can actually work with. If you're learning how to sell, how to cold call, or how to build a sales career that doesn't rely on being pushy, this is the skill to start with. Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: The One Skill Every Salesperson Needs 00:00:36 The Microsoft CEO Quote: Why Empathy is the Hardest Skill 00:01:48 Can Empathy Be Taught: Nature vs Nurture 00:02:42 The Home Test: When Problem Solving Kills Connection 00:04:01 Beyond the Transcript: Reading Tone and Body Language 00:04:47 The Ten Out of Ten Problem: Testing Real Empathy 00:05:49 The Summary Technique: Your First Empathy Skill 00:07:49 Nooks Ad: Stop Cold Calling on Your Mobile 00:08:21 Labeling and Mirroring Masterclass: The Theory 00:10:21 Live Role Play: Empathy Skills in Action 00:13:41 Common Mistakes: Mirroring the Wrong Phrases 00:15:03 The Low Stakes Practice Game: Try This at Home 00:15:47 Active Listening: The Foundation of Empathy 00:16:44 Secret Mission: The Wham Challenge for 850 Pounds What you'll learn in this clip: Why Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calls empathy the hardest skill to learn How empathy actually works on a cold call, and what fake empathy sounds like to a prospect The difference between empathy and being "nice" in sales, and why nice salespeople lose deals How to use empathy to handle objections instead of fighting them Why empathy is the fastest way to build trust with a stranger on the phone How to train empathy as a sales skill, not a personality trait Whether you're in cold calling, SDR work, account executive sales, recruitment, or you're a founder doing your own outbound, this is the skill that compounds. #Sales #ColdCalling #Empathy #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesTips #SatyaNadella #Microsoft #HowToSell #SalesSkills #ObjectionHandling #SDR #Prospecting #WeHaveAMeeting Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have a Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.

Tom Hunt is the founder and CEO of Fame, the B2B podcast agency he's bootstrapped to around $4.5m ARR with 70+ full-time staff and $0 raised. Fame now starts and grows 300+ B2B podcasts around the world. Before Fame, Tom quit management consulting in 2014 and, by his own count, tried and failed with 17 businesses before one finally stuck. Those failures taught him more about attention, distribution and demand than any of the wins ever did. Today he's one of the most-watched voices in B2B marketing. A LinkedIn Top Voice, host of Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur and Cash Machines, and the founder most other founders quietly copy the day they decide to start posting. He joins Jack and Zac for an honest, tactical chat about how to become impossible to ignore online. How to build a personal brand that actually generates pipeline instead of vanity likes, why most founder content gets scrolled past, what B2B podcasting really does for a sales team, and how he built a 70-person company without a penny of outside money. What you'll learn in this episode: Chapters 00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Tom Hunt, Founder of Fame 00:02:25 The Fame Formula: How Taylor Swift Built Her Brand Twice 00:03:29 The Three Ways People Mess Up Their Podcast Launch 00:05:32 The Top Podcast Lists Strategy: Free Organic Traffic 00:09:53 The Intercom Deal: How One Guest Paid for the Podcast 9X Over 00:18:05 The Rollercoaster Years: 15 Failed Businesses Before Fame 00:24:44 The SaaS Hacker Newsletter: Building the Audience First 00:29:16 The Anatomy of a Viral LinkedIn Post: Face, Hook, and Rage 00:33:43 The HR Content Switch: Trading Relevance for Numbers 00:39:46 Building Culture Remotely: The Four Values That Drive Fame #B2BMarketing #PersonalBranding #FounderLedMarketing #LinkedInGrowth #ContentMarketing #Podcasting #Bootstrapping #Entrepreneurship #B2BSales #WeHaveAMeeting Connect with Tom: LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tomhuntio X: https://x.com/tomhuntio Fame: https://www.fame.so Cash Machines newsletter & podcast: https://www.tomhunt.io Hear more from the hosts: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b Brought to you by Nooks: the AI-powered platform helping teams automate outbound sales and book more qualified meetings. Learn more at https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting Subscribe to We Have a Meeting: new episodes every week with founders, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who've built it from the ground up.