The Weatherman of Marketing and Why He's Always One Step Ahead | Behind The Growth w/ Joel Mallinson

0:00At the beginning, you just say yes to everything. I mean, you're just so grateful to be in the room. But then you reach this invisible ceiling of where opportunities start looking like distractions. And with distractions becomes an invisible cost to your business, to your energy. I've learned that the hard way.

0:14Laura Donadio: Did you always have that entrepreneurial brain then? Because if you start your first business at 12, this is incredible. Did you always know you wanted to like build something? I even think if you're not building a business, to have a personal brand is essentially to become a magnet to opportunities that you wouldn't be able to access on your own. have people that already know what you're about the second you walk into a room. Do you think your personal brand could ever be the thing that is stopping your business from growing beyond you? Sometimes one of the biggest mistakes of founder-led marketing and content is that they create content for other founders instead of the actual customer.

0:48Here's what I'm doing as a founder today, but your customer doesn't care about that. Hi, I'm Joelle Marlon-Arson. I'm a creator, social media strategist and founder of Coldest Creative. I'm known as the weatherman of marketing and this is Behind the Growth.

1:02Laura Donadio: We always start by asking our guests to introduce themselves and to tell us what they're known for. So my name is Joel Marlonarsson. I'm a creator, social media strategist, and founder of Coldest Creative. I'm known online as the weatherman of marketing, in that I advise brands and creators on social media trends and forecast what's coming next. but I've had a very windy path across social media behind the scenes and now building my business as a commentator and thought leader in the social media space. I heard through the grapevine that you reached out to Emilia de Moldenberg when you were in high school and that's how your whole career started.

1:42Laura Donadio: Can you tell us about the story? Definitely I mean when I tell the story now it sounds pretty insane but to give a bit of context to that when I was 12 I started my first business quote-unquote which was a clothing brand called Coldest Clothing and the idea came from the fact that I was always looking for a cap but I couldn't find anything that was cool and that wasn't a cartoon or some kind of silly character on it so I thought why don't I make my own I started selling hats on the weekends and in the local market and I was originally using social media to market it so I would just take pictures of it put it on Instagram and like hope that it would sell.

2:19There was one time I went to a market in Iceland where I was able to get the hat onto Justin Bieber. And then I started to realize, oh, okay, when people were tagging me in the images of Justin Bieber wearing the hat, that, okay, maybe social media has some legs. Maybe there's something in this marketing thing. Yeah. And this was quite a while back. So that was the point at which I realized I enjoyed the social media side more than I did having a clothing brand and stocking hats in my mum's house. So to connect that to Chicken Shop Date, the reason I reached out to her is because I was trying to get the hats on rappers and people in the music space.

3:01So I sent a cold pitch to Amelia when I was doing my A-levels. I think I was around 17 initially and said, I've been starting this clothing brand. I've been doing it for the last few years. Here is what I've been doing on social media. I would love to at least be on set and learn how you're marketing the whole empire that is chicken shop date and just be a fly on the wall and she actually responded i thought she responded about three weeks later i was almost planning to yeah no i was actually going to chase which maybe says a lot about me as a person and she responded and said actually i'm in the process

3:35Laura Donadio: of hiring can't guarantee you a job but i mean love your initiative and just apply then so this I sent the email in around December. Then January, I had interviews. I got through to the final round. And then she said, unfortunately, we've gone with somebody that has more experience that isn't in college, but we really loved you and would love to work with you in the future. Then six months later, after I kept being persistent and like, hi, still here, she and the team got in touch and said that they had an opportunity for me to assist on the, I think it was the Matty Healy episode of Chicken Shop Date.

4:11and the rest is history. I was, that was my first freelance social media client.

4:16Laura Donadio: Oh my God, that's incredible. Did you always have that entrepreneurial brain then? Because if you start your first business at 12, this is incredible. Like, did you always know you wanted to like build something? I think the word build is pretty dramatic when I was 12, but I've always been very creative. And I remember when I was eight, I got my first camcorder and it was at that stage, I just kind of fell in love with content creation. whenever there was a family wedding or any kind of event I would be the one with the camcorder and just filming things so I guess I've always had an initiative to create things not initially with the intention of selling them but it was around 12 when I wanted to have a clothing brand that I kind of just said to my parents like can we like find a I don't know manufacturer and we like made 10 hats and then sold them to my friends and then it was like a snowball from there but I guess I've always had this innate feeling that I've been destined to create things but certainly didn't imagine that I would be creating in the creator economy or that the fact that I was selling hats and got Justin Bieber pictured in them on social media would then lead me to what I'm doing now no I can't imagine that I am I can also imagine that like as the social media industry evolved and world evolved so much over the last couple of years you kind of never sort of like actually this is a great question did you ever think it would get this big and that it would take you in this sort of like direction in the long run certainly not because i remember when i had coldest clothing that was a brand i still have the coldest name so that's one thing that stuck around but when i had the coldest clothing page there were these people who we now call influencers who were like can you send me a hoodie and i'll take a photo in it and that will be good for you guys and i didn't realize that that would become what it is now and essentially i'd be on the other side of that now as a creator and somebody that has visibility in the industry.

6:07Laura Donadio: Always a tie to the weather. Is there a story there? The reason why I came up with the weatherman of marketing is because it actually links with coldest. So cold and weather and also if you kind of view my content I always do green screen framed analysis of marketing and social media trends and a weatherman also stands in front of a green screen. So there was that just innate feeling that it connected and also I think that what I've been really intentional about with my business and me as a creator is being somebody that predicts and doesn't just summarize so I think the weatherman just encapsulates that all obviously having built like your career on the back of those predictions do you find that it's a fine line between predicting you know what you feel is going to happen and then sometimes getting it really wrong and did you get it really wrong at times like was there things that you thought would happen that ended up not happening yeah there are definitely things that I've been challenged on.

7:01I think one of the beauties of creating content, especially in the marketing space, is that I'm not just speaking to marketeers. So sometimes non-industry people will say, oh, well, I don't agree because I've seen somebody else do this. One example would be that I kind of thought two years ago that we would start seeing musicians creating short form first music videos instead of just the typical YouTube vivo style music video remember those uh but i think instead of that we've now seen clipping and that kind of economy so there are occasions where you get it wrong but you're not completely

7:35Laura Donadio: wrong because you have like clips on like spotify and stuff so i would say like i mean it's an interpretation how do you feel obviously you use your channel as um an inbound for client leads and you know something to obviously like use a thought leadership to get new clients how do you find talking about brands and sometimes obviously telling them like they could have done better or you know there's an opportunity that they missed and feeling like at the same time you're not alienating those brands from wanting to work with you yeah there's a real challenge and it's something that as my business has changed shape so many times I've had to navigate because you want to maintain credibility you don't want to just say everything's brilliant for the sake of saying it's brilliant but then you have the algorithm to please your audience to please potential buyers to please and people that already work with you to please so there's like multiple different stakeholders and we talk a lot about at least on social media quitting the nine to five and being your own boss but my audience is my boss uh my clients are my bosses so yeah it's been something that i've had to navigate but i also try to make sure that within my content i'm not publicly slating anyone or that if i'm creating a video about a marketing campaign that's controversial i've let the dust settle so that i'm not just adding to the flame when it's hottest that makes sense and speaking of that glamorization of quitting the nine-to-five did you ever want to work for like a bigger company or like you know sort of like park it and take a nine-to-five is that something that ever sort of like tickle your curiosity or were you always sort of like happy with like building your own thing and wanting to sort of like continue on that journey?

9:15It's an interesting one because I've always, I've had so many dreams in life. My parents are both quite entrepreneurial. So my mum, she runs a business selling fish. My dad runs a property business. So I think indirectly, I've always seen that it's possible to run your own thing. And I mean, my parents are not running multi-person empires. My mum is a solo founder. But I think even just seeing your parents get out of bed and build their own thing, even if it's on a smaller scale I think that definitely inspired me but I mean throughout the years like I think when I was younger I thought I was going to be a film director because there was no creator economy I just enjoyed filming on my camcorder at home but I mean there was a point in time where I thought my future was at Google or working a big corporate and having the nice office having the big corporate team but I think my the red thread of my career is I've always thought let's just see how far we can take this and I'm still living up to that.

10:12Laura Donadio: With Coldest Creative do you still have like a big vision of like where you want to take it is it still like a bigger dream ahead and is that something that you're still wanting to build um drastically bigger? Definitely it's such a challenge because I've always had such massive dreams but then there's also the operational challenge of like great you want to do x y and z but then how do we make it happen so I see the future of Coldest Creative as a business being more so towards trend forecasting I'd say three years ago I was really in the trenches of filming content and producing content editing it but now I find it really interesting focusing on the insights piece and I think there's something to be said in your career about how you might try one thing and think that's your dream and then two years later you've changed in a different direction or the industry has changed in a completely different direction.

11:04I definitely thought when I was younger, I'd be doing like movies or TV because that was the media I consumed. But now I find what's most rewarding is actually the keynotes, the workshops and working with businesses on like bigger scale projects. So there's definitely a vision to take it beyond just me.

11:22Laura Donadio: I feel like I came to the same conclusion when I left fashion. Like I had this big dream of working in fashion and having this amazing fashion career. And then I think sometimes you start and you realize that maybe there's more to it. It's like the devil wears Prada. Yes. I think there's definitely something in fashion. The allure, the first class to Paris, the fashion parties, the drinks, but then the 99.9%. Yeah, yeah. And it will be, right? Like you can absolutely make it look and sound that way. Like I remember I've had some amazing experience. We were talking about this earlier. You know, I think I've done every single big red carpet event that you could have done.

11:59Laura Donadio: and I've enjoyed every single one of them but no one shows you the fittings and the dress emergencies and all of the things that happen in the background that make it way less glamorous than it sounds. The 1am emails, the fashion weeks. The agency I was working at had an LA office so it was always like quite late into the evening and I was still very young so I was going out a lot it was still in the era where younger people were drinking a lot and partying a lot doesn't happen anymore apparently um but i remember i had a work phone and i mastered the email of being really tipsy but writing like a perfectly written email with like full punctuation because i was getting emails until like 1 2 a.m and i would be out on a night out yeah it's crazy days like this doesn't happen anymore this isn't acceptable now but definitely it's and i think also in fashion and in the social media space as well it's not a nine-to-five gig but especially when you've got clients in america in australia i always say there's never nothing to do so that's something that I've really had to learn and especially as I've grown in my career and opportunities have come that have been dreams the dream opportunity often comes with the operational challenges that you didn't realize you'd need absolutely you've obviously worked with Amelia and on chicken shop dates we unfortunately saw that this is coming to an end would love to get your take on how do you feel about it did you see that coming was that something that you ever predicted can't talk about predictions specifically but i think there's something so powerful about when you have i mean i think it's really inspirational to watch but when you've built something that's so iconic and knowing actually i'm gonna let this die on my own terms uh and knowing what's next and when's the right time to change the chapter i think that's something that i've kind of learned now like leaving chapters of my career in the past there was a point in time where i wanted to be a director there was a point in time where i thought i was going to do the big corporate google youtube meta job and now being in this chapter of my career i look at somebody like her who really gave me an opportunity uh on that show i mean it's bittersweet to watch and also to know that uh that was kind of how i started my career and built my network and my uh experience in social media but i think there's something really powerful in just saying i'm going to close this door even when it seems to still be really successful you've talked a lot about obviously all of the people that you have to please and people pleasing limited I really love that how do you navigate this today and how do you find like have you built a system that kind of like tells you when something is going to be something that helps you grow versus something that is going to be almost like you know taking you back from growing yeah there's never like one size answer but one founder told me something really incredible which was that is it going to make you rich, happy or famous.

14:48That doesn't mean quite literally. So whether it's an opportunity, whether it's a client, am I going to go to this event? Is this the right opportunity? Rich as in fee, I mean, businesses exist to make money. Is this going to keep us profitable? Famous, is this going to make me more credible or the business more credible to the next five potential buyers? Is it going to make the sell easier? And happy meaning, is this something I genuinely love doing would I honestly get out of bed for this for free it's very rare that all three are hit at the same time but I've tried to assess different opportunities through that framework because what I found is at the beginning you just say yes to everything because that's the default I mean you're just so grateful to be in the room but then you reach this invisible scening of where opportunities start looking like distractions and with distractions becomes an invisible cost to your business to your energy i've learned that the hard way and so i think rich happy famous ideally all three but try your best i think you can always

15:52Laura Donadio: have at least two out of the three yeah with call this creative because obviously you've built this at the same time as you sort of like build your personal brand do you feel like you can separate one from the other do you feel like they're both completely interlinked how do you feel about your personal brand versus like your business? I think they're definitely interlinked so when I think about how brands work with me whether it's on the personal brand side or consulting behind the scenes my content has always been a lead generation tool to actually work with people behind the scenes so I always say I never set out to become an influencer or to become a full-time content creator content has always been a vehicle to actually build beyond the platforms so I think that's been really important for me I don't want to just as much as we all know brand deals are incredible and the glitz and the glamour is fun uh having some having a business that kind of outlives the algorithm is something that i'm looking towards and something eventually that outlives me i'm quickly going to interrupt this episode to remind you to please hit subscribe if you're listening on youtube and for those listening on apple or spotify to not forget to hit the follow button it only take a second it's free but it will mean the world to us we've been having this conversation a lot on the podcast do you feel like nowadays you have to have a personal brand or do you still think that people can build a really strong social first business without one I think it's incredibly tempting to build a personal brand because it's a shortcut to trust to building community I even think if you're not building a business to have a personal brand is essentially to become a magnet to opportunities that you wouldn't be able to access on your own to be spoken about in rooms that you haven't entered, to have people that already know what you're about the second you walk into a room, not needing to sell as hard because your values, your philosophy, your ideas are already out there.

17:44I think that's a massive benefit. But then also we have to talk about the fact that for most founders, your job is not to be on camera. Your job is to actually develop the product that gets people buying. I think, I mean, there's been a lot of conversation from Emma Greed and Chrissy Cheller about building a personal brand after you've actually built the business. For me, the fact that I'd already worked behind the scenes for other people that had personal brands made it a lot easier for me to then build my own. And I think building my personal brand and building my business at the same time has been mutually beneficial.

18:17But I don't think, again, if you are a very successful, I mean, I think about my mum's business. She does not have social media. She never has to be on social media. Her customers are not on social media. So why would she bother? because Emma Greed's on a red carpet. That is just not feasible. And I would also say it's about the customer. Sometimes one of the biggest mistakes of founder-led marketing and content is that they create content for other founders instead of the actual customer. So it's, here's what I'm doing as a founder today, but your customer doesn't care about that. So yeah, I think that's a consideration that has to go into it.

18:52Laura Donadio: I think it's a really interesting debate and I really enjoy it because I think I almost have built my business like in spite of having a personal brand rather than having one um and i think it's we're really like you know i saw the same video from from emma and i think it's really interesting because i feel like we're really being pushed this narrative of you have to build a personal brand if you want to be like if you're on a business to almost exist um but i would agree with you that you know there's so many ways of doing it yeah and it's like reputation and also i see personal branding such an icky term, but just an extension of word of mouth.

19:28Laura Donadio: Yes. Do you think your personal brand continuing on that topic could ever be the thing that is stopping your business from growing beyond you? Absolutely. I do know that as with any personal brand, great at the beginning, great to introduce people to you. But then when your personal brand is essentially smoke and mirrors, that's where I think the dial clicks. And I think for me, again being I see myself being very early in what I want to build and the scale of where I want to take hold as creative there will be eventually a point in time where I don't ideally need to show up on camera I don't do sponsorships on social anymore the machine runs itself but I think at this stage especially if like an early stage founder was watching or if you've got an idea you've got proven track record but you're still at that testing and building your operational load I think personal branding is very important but it's something I think about every day because I know I'm not going to want to do content forever I didn't set out to be some influencer forever so and I do think there's an unspoken shelf life to influencers and creators which we don't speak about not everybody gets to the Alex L and Mr Beast stage if that's what they ever want so what happens to the other 50 % and we also have I don't know if shelf life is the right thing but they will have the moment of glory like almost like the peak time and then it will come back down because it will be the next big thing right or worse they will get cancelled because something happened um i think alex cooper is a prime example of that in right in this moment right um speaking of expansion i've heard rumors about the u.s a book um a weatherman as a media brand can we hear a little bit more about this definitely so there's some exciting stuff in the pipeline uh particularly u.s side uh i'm i mean as of recording i'm actually heading to the u.s next week to speak at the inaugural jupiter festival in miami so super excited for that as a creator i don't want to just exist on the platforms and i really believe as a social media voice there's so much power in having influence outside of social media uh but yeah u.s and ip book tbc that's exciting um so you already know what you would write a book about i'm assuming you do i mean it wouldn't be about the weather because i'm not a literal meteorologist fair enough i think if i was to ever write a book about social media i wouldn't want to just write a book about yesterday's trends it would really my goal with a book something that's being physically printed on paper would be that it has to feel timeless yeah so i'll leave you with that interesting Awesome, thank you so much.

22:03Laura Donadio: We'll move on to our quick fire. What is the least glamorous part of growth in one word? Least glamorous part of growth in one word? Operations. Every single level of your business, whether it's financial, hitting another zero or landing a great client, that comes with how do we actually get this project off the ground? Am I going to have to work more hours to make this happen? Who do I bring in? How do I know they're the right person? I think part of the growing pain is actually not knowing which shoe fits best next. So that's kind of the phase I'm in right now of being so grateful for the growth and knowing that we've grown significantly as a business, but then thinking, okay, so what do we bring in to make it easier to sell to get to the next level?

22:47Laura Donadio: Side question. Amelia obviously saw something in you and the way that you outreach and the way that, you know, you got in, yeah, you got in touch with her. Have you found how to hire your talent yet? I have not yet. I think what's been really, really incredible about that story is it's really inspired me to pay it forward to others. So when I get young people that are pitching me to say they would love to work in social media or love to learn, I'm really all it is. And so whilst I've had people that have been on set with me, I don't have anyone full-time that I've hired. I do work with my younger sister who supports on some of my content and socials.

23:24She will actually be with me in the US next week. But hiring is a beast in itself.

23:30Laura Donadio: It is. And it's something I'm really having to teach myself. I think at the beginning, I was really of the belief that this would just be like a freelance consulting career. But then as to my point, let's just see how far we can take this. Now the ceiling, I've realized, can get a lot higher. And so I am thinking what that first big hire is going to be. Hiring is a beast, absolutely. I've hired quite a lot over the years and um I've now developed this like it's a good thing and a bad thing is this gut feeling that I can tell within the first three minutes whether someone is going to be good or bad but I cannot explain it so it's very unhelpful when I have to explain to someone why they're not getting the job but equally if someone is getting the job I can tell in two minutes but they do say sometimes the best interviews are like the best actors I think sometimes people are really good talkers but um we want doers especially in this stage of the business it's not it's not a nine-to-five gig at the moment and i know that's a bit controversial to say as a like gotta shut the laptop off at five but i think we have to respect that people want what they want out of their own lives there will be people that want a nine-to-five and i think there are a plethora of jobs out there that are a nine-to-five and there will be people that want to work around the clock because that's what drives them like I'm one of these people I never you know not think about work and never not think about what I'm building or I mean we're here at 8 p.m.

24:56Laura Donadio: yes that's a great job um but you know ultimately you also have to cater to those people and if someone wants to work around the clock because they're passionate about it who are you to say that it's not right I think they need to be compensated right and well and you know be obviously like taken care of in the right way if someone wants to work more because they really enjoy it i don't think we should be allowed to judge that um and i think there's more than enough jobs that are nine to five if someone wants to find that my two pens completely agree um okay next one i felt most out of my depth when when i delivered my first international workshop i wouldn't say i was out of depth when i was actually delivering the work because i i know my stuff i prepare really hard for these talks but i do remember very vividly being sat in i mean i'll specifically i was in the business class lounge i don't travel business at least at that stage and i remember thinking gosh i've really bitten off more than i can chew here but as i walked in and i like delivered that talk and got feedback from the team it really silenced my imposter syndrome at that stage and got me to think you know what you've really worked your way here feels weird talking about myself in third person but i um really realized okay i've i've done the work to get here i've delivered the talk the team were happy the client was happy why are you still doubting yourself and i've really carried that through now so i don't really walk into scenarios with imposter syndrome anymore although i do think it's quite healthy to be still a little bit nervous about absolutely oh i think it will always have like a couple of like nerves on the day and stuff like i still get them as well but yeah you should trust yourself absolutely always um what was your most expensive lesson and how much did it cost you gosh my most expensive lesson was that you cannot do everything yourself and it's something that i've i now know and i am actively training myself out of and it's probably cost me tens of thousands of pounds yeah at this stage yeah okay yeah it's the first set of delegation isn't it it's like accepting that you have to give it to someone else even if at first it takes longer down the line is gonna take so much off definitely And it's the slight error that you made at 1am because you'd had loads of things to do that day, which then bites you in the back three months later.

27:15One of those ones. But I always say the money's coming back tenfold.

27:20Laura Donadio: Absolutely. It will be. You've already touched on one, so I'm hoping you have a second one. But what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received and who was it from? I think my parents always told me that no one is thinking about you as much as you think about yourself. and I think that's really important in this age of personal branding where everyone's expected to be visible, where everyone's expected to have something to say all the time. Nobody is thinking about you as much as you think about yourself and I think you can get so caught up even if you have a successful business and you're thinking let me become a front-facing founder, you're thinking oh I wonder what Sarah from secondary school is thinking oh that colleague that I had from five years ago at work, they're gone.

27:59They don't care about it. When did you last think about them? that's always what i think when i i don't know maybe i spot something like a spot that i have in a video or i don't know like a minor mistake in a video time's passing the world is just spinning

28:15Laura Donadio: do you want to hear something funny that has been like something on my mind a lot recently and this is going to be like really oversharing but we're here for oversharing absolutely every time i have to put a piece of content out i'm single and i'm still on like dating apps and stuff. And whenever like a piece of content has to go out, and then I'm like going on a date or something, and someone asked for my Instagram, and I have to send my Instagram. And there's like all of the like founder content, all the podcast stuff. And I'm like, oh, they're gonna think I'm an influencer. And then I'm like, it's okay.

28:46Laura Donadio: Like, I'm a business founder. I'm not an also influencer is not a dirty word. Like, it's actually a great thing. But I don't know why I still feel so like for a minute i'm like yeah like can i send my instagram like and then yeah it just goes in my head like it's a bit of a loop i think there's something psychological there because it's like we feel exposed by sharing our passions absolutely whereas like we're kind of conditioned at least in dating to play it cool and like oh no i'm just like you know i just yeah i have this really cool feed like i travel all the time which is not wrong but you know it's like it's different when you have to put like you found a lot of content on social and stuff it's like i found it really really different since um i had the podcast at least um okay next one no audience no network and a thousand pound in the bank what is your first move i'm gonna go out on the streets with a cardboard box that's been folded out um with a sharpie and i'm gonna put a really good piece of copy together on that and i'm gonna get my friend i'm gonna pay them 20 pounds an hour to film me uh going up to people and interviewing them and that's going to be a content series that i'm going to start what's the content series about uh depending on what my goals are let's say my goal is to build a i'm gonna say a florist company because we've got some incredible plants around here i am going to uh see how many people i can get to speak to on the day and create a call out to any florists that are nearby that want to invest in my business almost like simon squibb his kind of content style because if you can't pay people to be in your content then you might as well get the public to be in it i like that if you lose everything tomorrow what who's your first call other than the platforms to beg for my accounts back first call would be probably my parents tell them i'm going to start again i'll find a way to pick back up i'm sounding pretty optimistic now but i do really believe that as a person i'll just always find a way even if i'll i'll be low for like maybe a month but then i'll find a way to oh i think people are always allowed to have like a little bit of like a moany period you know like you get like five minutes of like okay self-pity go but then pick yourself back up i'll have my moan but then i'm gonna get back on my feet yeah i love that all right we always start by asking you what you're known for and we end by what do you want to be known for proving that social media is a legitimate business.