Why Watson's Daily Commercial Awareness Separates Great Lawyers from the Good: Peter Watson - S10E32

0:00Peter Watson:There are shifts that are going on now that we have never seen before. You don't know what you know and what you don't know until you try and talk about it. If you've ever been in a position where you start talking about something, thinking, yes, I know about this. And as you get further into it, you think, actually, do you know what? No, I don't. You don't want to be in that position when you're in an interview or an important client meeting. So you really need to talk about this with other people. understand yourself. If you don't do that, you are setting yourself up to fail. If you don't understand yourself and your motivations, you are not going to be able to convince anyone else.

0:38Andrew McFarlane:On today's Legally Speaking podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by Peter Watson. Peter is the CEO of Watson's Daily, one of the UK's leading commercial awareness and business news platforms. After building a successful career spanning stockbroking, financial markets, and recruitment, Peter launched Watson's Daily in 2014. He had a simple mission, helping people understand what is happening in the world of business and why it matters. Today, Watson's Daily is supporting thousands of students, professionals, lawyers, and business leaders by making complex economic developments accessible, practical, and easy to understand.

1:16Andrew McFarlane:Peter's financial markets expertise, recruitment experience, and passion for education has made him a trusted voice on commercial awareness, career development, and the future of business. Today, we're exploring why commercial awareness has become one of the most valuable professional skills in an increasingly complex world. We will discuss how business news shapes decision making, what employers are looking for when they assess commercial awareness, and how lawyers can stand out in a competitive market, and why understanding business has never been more important. so finally a very big warm welcome to the show peter hello there i'm very excited by this very excited i'm equally excited we've known each other for years and years and the last sort of few episodes it's been really a nice full circle moment for me as a host getting to see people that we've collaborated with over the years and all the great stuff that you're doing before i spoil too much we have a couple of icebreaker questions before we get into you your journey and all the good stuff you're doing so first one what's your favorite beverage and what's your preferred choice of footwear on a typical work day so favorite beverage is um

2:25Peter Watson:brew dog elvis juice because it's and i justify that by saying that it's sort of grapefruit flavor so it kind of counts as your one of your five a day so that's that's my favorite beverage the um in terms of um uh footwear um birkins i've got these birkenstocks which i uh you know i do like a birken well i do well two two birkenstocks to be precise but yeah uh there we go and a piece

2:54Andrew McFarlane:of tech that you use every day that you now rely on that would have seemed unthinkable when you

3:00Peter Watson:first started out your career um well well if technically that would be the mobile phone because i'm quite old so i think so that's that's that's quite a good one so yeah probably the mobile phone

3:15Andrew McFarlane:good stuff all right well let's talk a bit about you peter would you mind telling our listeners a

3:20Peter Watson:bit about your background and career journey let's start the so university um i went to cardiff university um best you know best university in the whole world so i hear um so yeah i went there i did law and japanese for my for my degree uh part that's all right two years in cardiff i went off to uh tokyo to university over there for two years which was amazing and then i came back did the final year in cardiff and then was released into the world um my first job out of uni was i I was an interpreter for a£1 billion Japanese project. So basically, it was a big Japanese company who were building a European headquarters.

4:10Peter Watson:And basically, I was the interpreter for the head architect of the project, which was quite scary. So I did that for a bit. Then I got a phone call from someone I knew at university. And to cut a long story short, they actually recommended me to become a stockbroker in London. So again, long story short, got the job, had an amazing time. And so I was a stockbroker 13 years, four different investment banks, London and Tokyo. and I advised clients so all big you know they're all institute all big institutions you know banks insurance companies on what stops to buy and sell in the UK European and Japanese stock markets and I either did it I either did it in English or Japanese depending on what they wanted and how much they're going to pay me and yeah it was it was you know it was really good um after that i i've also been a stock uh i mean obviously a stockbroker but a headhunter for about five years a few different institutions all finance mainly investment banking i've recruited people from junior you know juniors right through to heads of m &a ceos and all sorts of things so so there was that so there's that part of my career as well um and in terms of what uh you know what the the you know what's leading to now um is that i i now write a uh newsletter which the sole purpose of this newsletter is to try to help people to understand remember and use um business and financial markets news because i think it's kind of the scary news i i often say that people see it as the boring news but it's the boring news that can earn you a lot of money So that's why I'm trying to help people to understand it, make it less scary.

6:14Peter Watson:And to be honest, have a bit of fun because I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously in this kind of world. So I try my best to make it fun as well.

6:25Andrew McFarlane:And you've been doing a fantastic job. And you're obviously referencing the Watson's Daily, which is phenomenal. And I know you get up with a crack of dawn every day and you've been committed to doing it for many years, providing tons of value particularly in the legal space as well to aspiring lawyers lawyers etc but was there a particular moment you realized there was a gap in the market for a platform like Watson's Daily?

6:45Peter Watson:Well I mean it started by the so when I was a headhunter I remember I started off something called Watson's Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi stood for what I found interesting which I thought was hilarious at the time. That is brilliant by the way just going to interject there and say that's brilliant thank you and so we started doing that and and basically the um had a lot of um people for the company that i worked for at the time when they had management coming in they would do they would come into this meeting so i started off doing a doing a note because everyone kept asking me stuff when i was at work and i said listen why don't i just do something on a friday and what i do is i'm going to tell you what which businesses you should be calling to to make some money right So that kind of got quite popular.

7:32Peter Watson:And managers used to come in from different offices to this to this. So I thought it was pretty good. There was some need there. And then when I was a headhunter, I was interviewing people. And I thought a lot of them, there were a lot of people that I met that I thought, you should know this. you know and and in theory like your degree is this you know all the theory but you don't know how to apply it in a practical situation so i thought actually maybe i could use my um you know my experience um and and help people to do that and it basically did the the initially the um the idea of the newsletter was really to help people to prepare for interviews really um and that's kind of how it started off and then it got you know momentum uh you know there was a bit more momentum and it went from being a sort of word you know slash pdf document that i sent out to you know my mom and a couple of friends um to something a bit bigger um and then uh yeah then you know in 2018 I thought you know what actually I want to go all in on this and so did a complete rebrand I was told by the the agency that Watson's Wi-Fi sounded like a broadband magazine so reluctantly I had to change it and I thought well what shall I call it and I thought well my name is Watson it's my surname by the way so my name is Watson and it comes out daily so why not watson's daily so so there we go um that's that's basically what happens um and then after that yeah a few a few there were a few interesting um moments that really suddenly catapulted it out of nowhere and uh yeah so that's it but yeah a lot of fun yeah and obviously you've had your own show

9:34Andrew McFarlane:as well and that's been hugely successful you know chart topping no less but i want to talk about commercial awareness because i know it's something you're really passionate about and again want to educate our audience we've got a whole spectrum of listeners from those trying to break into profession in the profession and i think your definition of this and how you come at this will be really helpful so it's a buzzword everyone's talking about commercial awareness law finance consulting you name it but how do you define it and why do so many professionals misunderstand it in terms of what it means there are loads of definitions out there um but i mean

10:06Peter Watson:my i have a one sentence definition um so uh it's the appreciation and understanding of how companies and industries interact with the wider environment and how they make money. That's it. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, I know that there are various definitions floating out around there, but I just think that really you're trying to understand how companies think, how they interact with themselves, with the environment, with the industry, but but also how does it apply to you and your, you know, and your business or your company or whatever. And I think that what is difficult, I think the main difficulty is there is a, is a big gap between knowing what the news is and then thinking, and then actually applying it to you and or your career and or, you know, and or company because you never really get asked to do that until you get into the world of work properly and i think that that's what people find difficult because i think many people in a way start off by thinking that it's they always treat it like a revising for a pub quiz you know they they'll read things up but the classic classic um advice is how do i go so how do i improve my commercial awareness the classic advice is read the ft now the problem with that is is that the ft is actually really hard to read if you don't know what you're doing and pretty much everyone starts off and i'm not including myself in this by the way and you start off thinking right i'm going to read the ft and you start from page one and you desperately try to get to the end and you just can't because it's such a i mean i think it's the best by the way i'm not sponsored by the way i just think it is the best newspaper in the world i've read so many well in english anyway um i mean i i've read it for so long now and it's just so well written so densely packed But the problem is that because it's densely packed and sort of assumes at least a bit of knowledge, I think that makes it intimidating for people.

12:37Peter Watson:So when they start reading it, they think, what is this? And then they kind of give up. So, yeah, so I think there's a definite gap between what people think commercial awareness is and then how they apply the knowledge to their circumstances.

12:55Andrew McFarlane:And let's bring it forward then, you know, in terms of the world we're operating today, which is heavily shaped by AI, economic volatility, rapid tech change. Why is it perhaps more important than ever to understand commercial awareness, perhaps from years gone past?

13:13Peter Watson:I think the thing is, it's quite interesting how, so I mean, I, you know, I do a lot of presentations of things, either companies or universities and things like that. and it's very interesting how the subject of what I'm talking about changes and so for instance I remember quite quite back I do remember going to I think it was Manchester University five ages I mean pre-COVID and stuff and I remember talking about GDPR and I remember you know standing in front of them saying hey do you know what GDPR is and no one knew what it was and I said listen you need to know this because this is really important you know so explained about you explained what it was what the impact is going to be all that kind of stuff so at that point gdpr was one big thing um i mean i think that it would be fair to say that especially since covid russia invading ukraine um you know president trump you know causing a bit of a stir should we say um suddenly all these things that kind of seem to be oh it's out there you know i i don't

14:23Andrew McFarlane:it doesn't really apply to me they really apply to you i mean this is i mean another example was um

14:30Peter Watson:i used to talk you know you sort of bang on about interest rates right i said listen i know that you're going to think interest rates who cares and the fact of the matter is they're actually quite important you know so actually what i'm trying to do is to try to maybe guide people who you know you might be sitting there watching the news you listen they always stick it in at the end um you know the nick a did this the f the footsie did that the s and put you know he'll sit in there and he's all just going you know and and then you know they might talk about the interest rate and I would say most people just don't really think about it in terms of how does it apply to me some people might think about it in terms of what it does to their mortgage but there are so many more you know there's so many more impacts and that's what I'm trying to do is yeah even taking something like that and then trying to explain it to people in a way that they can apply it to themselves and what the implications might mean so let's keep it specific then obviously we've

15:35Andrew McFarlane:got a large legal audience and sort of thinking about lawyers advantage you know law firms are ranking commercial awareness obviously I see it from recruiting side as well as one of the top attributes that they're looking for in prospective candidates so why do you think commercial

15:47Peter Watson:awareness has become a critical skill for young lawyers because at least one of the reasons is because I think it distinguishes a great candidate from a good candidate because I get the impression that law firms will say, they'll kind of say, well, we expect you to know the law and understand the law. I mean, after all, that's what you've been studying for quite some time until this point. However, we need you to understand where this applies within the real world. And, you know, I mean, I think another kind of brutal way of looking at it is law firms aren't charities. they have to pay money and actually some of them pay a lot of money um and so really they want you to apply what is you know your knowledge to what is going on in the real world so they can make some money so you know that's what it that is i sounds very mercenary but that is what it is and uh and i think that you know that's why it's not because they think oh we want a well-rounded I mean, you know, there is a bit of that.

17:01Peter Watson:But really, I think what it's all about is can this person sitting in front of me use their knowledge to make us money?

17:10Andrew McFarlane:And I know that sounds brutal. No, but I think it's important, you know, for profit businesses. That's why they're in business. Otherwise, there'd be a charity. You mentioned at the top around your recruitment background. And obviously, you spent years recruiting candidates from junior analysts to CEOs. you know what's been the biggest difference you've noticed between candidates who actually stand out and those who continue their skills and i think you've also done or got a book or

17:34Peter Watson:something around this as well which you can tell us yeah yeah yeah so so i think really in terms of standing out i think it's people who have the ability i'm not going to say the cliche but they We have the ability to think flexibly.

17:53Andrew McFarlane:Like you just did.

17:56Peter Watson:So I think, you know, obviously we live in the real world. We don't live in a laboratory. And so things happen that aren't foreseen. I mean, just ask Boris Johnson, for instance. I mean, all those things happen and you have to react because you can't just do it. Let's have a time out. things have to things have to happen so you have so I think um for me I would say that the for the for the roles that I recruited I think yes you kind of you want to tick all the boxes with it with regard to the skills that are needed but in an ideal world you're kind of looking for someone with a bit of a bit of an x-factor a bit of um you know a bit of an appreciation a bit of a flexibility of thoughts in an ideal world but it's not but the i would also say by the way that not every job at every company requires that and a type a personality you know some jobs are you know some people just want to go they want to do their job they you know ideally bit maybe a bit of mental stimulation and go home and that that's fine as well but i'm just saying that i think that you know from the for the people that i interviewed um that's that's what i did i also actually i would just quickly add that um i for the first time um when i was at uh you know it was a robert half that was you know accountants and stuff like that um i covered the interim market as well as the permanent market and i found that fascinating because i had never even thought of doing something on an interim basis and because I thought why would you I mean if you're really good why wouldn't you stay in a company you know get the pension and the holidays and all that but it was fascinating speaking to them and and I think that they had a different they have a really different view of work and quite an interesting outlet because it's almost like they get parachuted in to to address a specific issue they use all the experience that they gained to sort of sort it all out and ideally then you know bring someone in permanent to replace them and then they ride off into the sunset i mean i think that's a very i didn't really it didn't really occur to me but actually meeting these people was amazing so yeah i mean i you know i mean there's there's also as i say different strokes different folks and i think that you know it it's not for everyone that kind of thing and it can be quite stressful but it was very interesting to meet these types of people

20:38Andrew McFarlane:yeah and you've had a wealth of experience across different sectors and you've probably this leads nicely to where i want to go next and see a wealth of interviews what are the most common mistakes students and indeed professionals make when discussing commercial awareness during their

20:50Peter Watson:interviews well i think the worst one is not doing enough not doing your research i mean there's nothing i obviously i i've been i've interviewed people to join my teams and um there's nothing as an as a as an interviewer there's nothing quite as galling to be sat opposite someone and they don't know much about the company or the and or the role you kind of think let's just pack up now and just go home that used to really get me and especially these days i mean there's no excuse there's so much you know there's so much stuff out there and i think that's you know there's materials i think that you know websites and things they have improved i mean i would say though that actually and i suppose this might be a bit controversial but um i actually think that the best way to research a company is not really their website.

21:53Peter Watson:It's actually LinkedIn. And ideally, not the official stuff that you still meet in. So I'm sure you'll probably appreciate this, but given your background. But when I was a headhunter, I was constantly trying to find people. I was trying to find people with certain set of skills. And it was very hard because quite often, it's the people that don't want to be found are actually the gold that you're looking for. And so, you know, I actually was going on there to look for people. And I think that's uh you know what i learned by doing that is there are ways so i was also trying to map out companies as well so i would look at a company i would go on linkedin i would by the way i'm not sponsored by them either um they go on linkedin and i would map out you know what their their trading team or something like that so then have a you know sort of try and get my own market map and then I would look at that and then I would think you know is this team is it a revolving door do loads of people leave do do they all leave and they go to the same place do they are there certain people that stay there in you know in position so what that would imply for instance is that you've got two senior people and they are very hard to dislodge people stay there for three years or something, realize that this is going to be impossible to move on.

23:32Peter Watson:So they go somewhere else. So I mean, I'm just giving you an example. This is a way, I mean, I always say this is, I always describe this as to candidates as using LinkedIn backwards because most people see LinkedIn as basically, I write my CV, stick it on LinkedIn and just, you know, and watch the good times roll. It's not quite like that. And if you understand, the more you understand how recruiters actually use it i think the more effective you'll be in terms of the way that actually you express yourself um on there and and you know and make sure that you've got the skills that they are actually looking for couldn't agree more i think

24:12Andrew McFarlane:it's bang on the money one thing you talked a lot about is is is lots of information and ai and information overload you know it's said many times we're drowning in information but actually craving wisdom so we have all this information available on every llm on every website on every source has ai made commercial awareness easier to develop or has it made it harder to distinguish meaningful insights from all the noise it's very difficult i think i think so on the one hand

24:41Peter Watson:you know anyone can put in you know please can you find me the top stories of today or something I mean, I don't know. I think that there is a delay. So you can't, I don't think you can actually do that. But I've tried, tried, because the thing is, is that, you know, I, I don't want to get up. Yeah. I don't want it to, I would like to spend a little bit more time in bed. And I did try to sort of at one point to use AI. I so I went through so I so just as a, you know, people don't know. So I get up at 4am. I in order to write Watson's Daily I read the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Times, Telegraph and Guardian.

25:24Peter Watson:I pick out the stories that I think are going to be most impactful and that comes from basically my time as a stockbroker because I used to have to do that all the time all day all the time and then you know I'd come up with where I got the story from a bit of a synopsis and then I say why is that important and that that is the a lot of people called the so what section um where i say you know what the impact is on the uh uh you know on on the company on the industry on the region and things like that so um so yeah so i so um i don't want to necessarily get up before am all the time it ain't natural it's certainly not natural for me um but i tried using ai and initially and i found this a lot with ai initially i'm like oh my god this is amazing.

26:15Peter Watson:This is amazing. You know, I'm going to, this is going to change my life. I'm going to be able to get, get up at 5am or maybe even 6am, you know, and, you know, really, really live it up. And, and the more I looked at it, the less good it was. And I, and this is from someone that wanted it to work, right? I wanted it to work, but I just thought actually I spent more time correcting, editing, making it sound like me, but actually I'll just do it myself as always. And that's what basically what happened. So, um, I, that's, that's, that's, that's what's happened. I do, however, think it is very useful for things like, um, uh, you know, summaries and stuff like that, which can be very useful.

27:07Peter Watson:I mean, I think, uh, what's it called it? Oh, I forgot the name of it now, but there is one where you kind of put in an article and it's completely, it's absolutely wild. It, you know, it makes a podcast out of it. It makes a, you know, it makes a video out of it. It makes a presentation out of it, you know, all in a matter of minutes. Now, whether those things are actually any good, I would say they're 80 % good. But the problem is, I mean, and for some people that's good enough. You know, if you're revising for an exam or something and maybe you like to hear things you know a podcast version then that's probably quite good you know you might do it on the yeah you might do it on the commute and stuff you might find that useful but if you're actually properly using it yeah you really want a 100 outcome it's not going to do it for you it's almost going to do it but it's not quite

28:01Andrew McFarlane:yeah no okay fair comment and you know it'll be interesting to see how that that plays out as time goes on of course law firms are investing heavily in training on the technical skills how are law firms investing in helping their lawyers develop commercial understanding and business acumen and perhaps what can more could be done to assist them i'm working with um at the

28:22Peter Watson:moment at least one law firm um and basically i uh i train their lawyers so all the way from their juniors right through to their senior partners on commercial awareness and what they have done is they give me their you know did they say look here here are the areas that we cover here are the clients within those areas we want to see the news from that you know from that point of view and you know i i really enjoy that because it's actually it's kind of like when i was when i was stockbroking because you know i would know let's say i had 20 to 30 clients each of those clients would have um different investment horizons you know um the the pension funds guy would would say he'd buy and hold for five years so he'd be interested in certain types and certain aspects of stories you have the hedge fund guys who you know they've got the concentration span of the goldfish uh and they'd want to you know they'd want they'd want results by the end of this week they want to know you know stories that all earn the money by the end of this week in two weeks in one month you know all that sort of thing but you you know so you knew all the different things and you just presented the stories that you had to give in the way that they're looking for them you know because it's no good giving them a story that is interesting but they can't do anything with so similarly with this um you know the way i i coach now um is i'm trying to give them what they need in order to make the money now i can't i mean i i can't do loads of this because there's only one of me and it does take quite yeah it does eat up considerable time but it is fun and that's

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30:55Andrew McFarlane:Visit clio.com forward slash UK to find out why thousands of UK solicitors trust Clio. Now back to the show. At the moment, let's look forward then. Future. In the coming years, five years, I know it's so hard to tell, but what skills do you believe will separate the highest performing professionals from everyone else being human as in so emotional intelligence knowing how people work and react i think that