Summer Special #4

0:02Ben Hanlin: Welcome back to What's the Trick? I am your host Ben Hanlin and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people and try and understand their creative process. And it's another one of our summer specials. So if you're a brand new listener, this is not a normal episode. We're on a bit of a summer break or as I guess as Americans say, a hiatus. and uh i thought during this this break it's great time to go into the vault into our archives and hand pick some of the best bits from some of our best guests so this episode has got three guests that i think you're going to love so if you're one of the ogs and you've been here before you've probably heard this episode but you might have forgotten this great bit of gold so it's a great reminder so you're going to enjoy and relearn what maybe you've forgotten or if you're a newish listener and you think what should I go and listen to next this is great because it will give you three little sizzles on who you might want to go and have a full listen to later on so let's start with my first guest of this episode the fantastic Andy Nyman so Andy Nyman is an actor he is a writer and as a hobby he's a magician and not just any magician he is one of the greatest magicians in the world and he co-writes with derren brown as an actor he's had a fantastically long career he's been in things like peaky blinders he's recently been in the film wicked he's been in other films and he co and he's co-written the amazing show ghost stories which toured the world in the theaters and then got turned into a film so i really want to sit down with andy because i wanted to understand how when 99 of actors aren't working how he's managed to do this what is his secret source.

1:47Ben Hanlin: And it was really interesting. We got a glimpse into his mindset, which was really clear, could be applied to anything. And it's almost like his secret source for success in anything. It was so applicable to every one of us. So I thought it was really interesting. And also I wanted him to tell me how he writes and his process was so clear. He told me where the ideas came from, what problem he was solving. He's also very commercially minded he knows he there's no point just coming up with ideas with loads of cast and loads of expense because you'll never get the budget for it all of that and then the way he brainstormed and turned essentially this this like brain dump of loads of ideas into a fully formed show anyway it's really really good so um and obviously we talk a little bit about how he worked with derren brown as well so i think it's really great if you've ever wondered how an actor or successful actor and writer in theater and films really goes about their day-to-day business this episode is for you so without further ado oh oh sorry sorry one thing i did say um to give you context as well he's currently in the producers in the west end and we went to watch the show and then after the show go backstage and record in the theater late at night and they kept the theater open for us just for this recording so it's a real special energy and I'd love to do more of them, actually, where I go and watch somebody's thing they're in and then talk about it afterwards.

3:11Ben Hanlin: But anyway, so this was live at the West End Theatre at late at night. And it's me and Andy Nyman. Enjoy. I went to see Vagina Monologues. Yeah, I didn't really enjoy it. And I sat there watching this show and thinking this is on all over the world. there are three women sitting on three stools reading from folders the business model of this is incredible because this thing is making a lot of money and the outlay of it is not big at about the same time i'm obsessed with horror and have been forever about the same time i was walking past the woman in black which is an absolutely brilliant play um i'd been in the tv film of it in 1989 it was the first telly i ever did um i'd seen the play which was incredible i'd seen it a few times and it was at that point it had been on in the west end for 20 years and i walked past that play and i thought this is insane there isn't another horror play and hasn't been for 20 years that's a bit like saying oh we can't have another musical because there's phantom of the opera and i phoned jeremy i just had this lightning bolt moment and i phoned jeremy and i said you know i've been talking for years about we should write something together i've had an idea and it's the vagina monologues with ghost stories three men sitting on three stools telling ghost stories and it's got to be as scary as any modern horror film that's not what ghost stories turned into no but that was the kernel of the idea um and about the same time i was doing that play moonlight and magnolias which is the first the play where i had a was very nervous and started telling myself i'm excited right not nervous and the director of that loved working with me and said what do you want to do next whatever whatever you want to do i'll do let's just work together again and i said well me and jeremy dyson have had a couple of ideas for writing these plays and it was one idea and then i said and then there's this thing that is the vagina monologues with ghost stories and he went oh oh what's that because i was going to ask you how do you know an idea has got legs and is it when you get responses like that are you going uh well i knew it did right i just knew it did and i said to jeremy if we can make this work this could be a pension now of course that's a very naive thing to say however it has been on for on and off for 16 years it's on as we speak it's on as we speak in the west end um and but you also just have to again it goes back to that thing where you just have to trust yourself as an artist and i don't say that as a wanky term i mean as someone who works in the arts or a show business and that's ultimately it boils down to you to think i like that idea and of the 500 ideas that you think let's do that let's do that that's going to work 487 of them will die in their ass 13 of them will get a bit of life in them and three of them might actually go but it's interesting what you if you take the three the nuggets right you've gone um vagina monologues so business wise it's an easy thing to sell because it's cheap and then you've looked at something you're passionate about and you compared it to something that already exists so you've hit like your passion but as an artist you haven't gone i'm doing a a horror thing and the budget's this you you've you've kept the business side at the same time right well there's also you know there's a real thing about art and commerce and how that they butt heads but they're actually very useful if you can get your head around it to sort of you know there's no point when jeremy and i was sort of writing the rules of what ghost stories was you look at the woman in black which is amazing and at that point had been on for 20 years and you go there is no point us doing a victorian ghost story play because we can only be not as good as the woman in black yeah so So our play should be utterly contemporary.

7:35There hasn't been a contemporary horror play. It will be utterly contemporary. It will be an hour and a half, no interval. It will have jump scares as bold and as big as any modern horror film. And that means you're automatically a completely different thing from The Woman in Black that is this brilliant period. piece slow burn mr jamesy style ghost story so did you start so you had these ideas and then you

8:07Ben Hanlin: have rules did you start with these plus the rules and then eventually plot started it's not like you were one day and went i've got a great idea for a story and then that well no then we just met up but then he came to me and he stayed at mine for we live in different parts of the country he came and stayed at mine and we spewed out what are the moments in horror films that we love what do we love what do we love what do we love what are the what are the bits in plays you've seen that you love that can be anything from the school play of dracula that jeremy saw when he was nine the teachers put on through to oh god there's this bit in this theme park ride that i love that is anything that excites you and inspires you and you put it all we put it on post-its on the wall great and then you just start looking at it and think oh could that go with that and that with that and that with that just put that to the side that's the discard bit for a minute yeah and then you just it's just one step at a time so you're just mining you're asking yourselves the right questions essentially it's just so once you've got the the idea of the the parameters and then you've asked yourselves well question one what are the rules bang and then question two is right what do we know on this subject and then just throwing it all down before even putting the pressure on we need to get a script we need to do this it's just like mind what we've got but ben what what's interesting is you know you talk about magic yeah writing plays subtext it all boils down to the same stuff which is if you pour into it you're the things that fascinate you so there we go that was the fantastic andy niman and i referenced in that episode a little book that he wrote called the golden rules of acting and he's since written another little book called more golden rules of acting everybody should buy this book you can get it off amazon it's like 10 quid it's a little pocket book you'll read it in about an hour or two and every page is just a piece of info like golden information from his career and it says golden rules of acting but actually it applies to every performer and anybody that's trying to grow a business about how he thinks, honestly, do yourself a favor, go and buy Golden Rules of Acting, give a little read, let me know what you think.

10:28Ben Hanlin: So there you go. So let's move on to our next guest. And that is romantic writer, Callie Hart. So she's written the book Quicksilver, which is a huge, huge romantic book. Let me bring you up to speed. So for those that don't know, romantic is one of the biggest book genres in the world right now. This is romance meets fantasy. So it is mythical and magical, et cetera. And it is booming. There are romantic bookshops opening up. And what was amazing about Callie Hart is her book, Quicksilver, became huge. And it was her 42nd book release. And it took 42 books, 41 books, until she really went big time.

11:13Ben Hanlin: And this book's so big, it's getting made now into a film on Netflix. so I wanted to know how did this happen and the amazing thing about her story and her journey is it was self-published she came up with this idea herself she got it printed herself and then you'll hear in this episode how when she thought it had failed and it didn't hit the charts how she turned to TikTok and Instagram and got TikTok to essentially promote her book and because of TikTok this went global so it really is that hashtag book talk an insight into how all of that works which is amazing so we recorded this I was in my house in Birmingham and she was I think in her house in San Diego and she told us every really honest about her process how she writes a book comes up with ideas and also when it's written how she used social media to make it a global bestseller really interesting insight enjoy this one it's Callie Hart.

12:11I kind of knew that it wasn't going to perform the way that a lot of my other books have performed. And I was okay with that because I had spent so much time with this story and I was really proud of it. And even if it didn't do anything, I was still so proud of it. So I pulled the trigger, released it, and it did not do well. It died a death immediately, you know, and I was devastated. I'll be honest, you know, it's never easy when you kind of like throw something that means so much. to you out into the world and it doesn't do well um with nearly all of my books that i'd put out before nearly every single one of them had broken into the top 100 on amazon which was always such a huge mark of success as an independent author you know um and this one got to 101 and i was

13:00Ben Hanlin: devastated i was absolutely gutted well well not for long yeah i know well you know six weeks then followed where it kind of languished. And those were the longest six weeks of my life because, you know, I went through every emotion under the sun that you can think of thinking about, okay, well, you know, I'm going to, I'm absolutely going to write the sequel, but it's going to be on my own time. I'm going to have to get a job. I'm going to have to like, you know, I need money to pay my bills and support my family. So, you know, all these things had to be taken into consideration and it got, it really, you know, disappeared into the thousands on Amazon.

13:33And I I was just like, okay, well, this is it, I guess, you know. Which must be weird for you as well.

13:39Ben Hanlin: It seems like the thing you feel is probably your best piece of work in that sense that you were super proud of it. You're like, this is brilliant. I know good literature and this is great. Why? What is going? That must be so frustrating when you know you're sitting on something that is brilliant, you know. Well, that's the thing as well. Unfortunately, there are so many amazing, brilliant self-published books out there. that are just, you know, potentially, you know, award winning worthy books, but they just don't reach the market, you know. And it's so hard for people to find an audience these days because the market is so saturated.

14:18So let's talk about what changed there and book talk, right? Yeah, I was laying in bed and I was very like, you know, I was I was in my 11th hour. I was having my existential crisis moment. And I was like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going to give it one last chance, the social media thing, because it's not my wheelhouse. It's not something that I've ever like, you know, properly focused on or developed, you know, into something productive or successful for myself because I just I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it. And I was like, screw it. I'm going to do it. And I had a couple of friends who, you know, TikTok had changed their careers, the trajectory of their careers just, you know, on a dime because it was such a powerful tool.

15:03And I was like, well, you know, I doubt it's going to happen for me, but I can damn well try. And I was, I threw back my covers and I got up out of bed and I went and sat on the couch and I researched 30 odd people who are on TikTok, had BookTok accounts, were talking about books like mine in this genre, who had engagement on their platforms and were like, you know, interesting platforms. And I reached out to them. I did some sleuthing and I found some email addresses and I reached out and I said, this is my book. You know, you don't know me, but I've written this book. I think you might like it.

15:38I think it's up your street. Would you be interested in receiving a special edition copy, a physical copy? And the physical copy in the indie world is a, you know, it's a real selling point to a lot of it was so and I was like you know it's got foiling and it's pretty and this is the cover and half of them got back to me and said yes absolutely and about three or four of them said feel free to send the digital copy first if you like I'll get reading right away it sounds great um and I was blown away by that and I did and with like you know I think I sent that on like a Wednesday to those three or four people and by Monday they were posting about it and talking about it and and it was going viral and I was just like you know I was truly one of those moments where I was you know opening my phone and going what's happening you know um it was crazy to witness it was really remarkable and then all of a sudden I've got publishing houses in my dms on instagram saying oh we would love to publish your book and I'm like this is not real life this can't be this isn't how it how it happens you know um yeah so people so i've heard of i've heard of

16:51Ben Hanlin: book talk and i hear it but i didn't really but essentially it's people who are in your genre who have got an audience that are into that you if you can get them to review your book like you traditionally would get reviews and this is the new way of doing it and like you say it's instant and they've got their their audience that go out and buy it and that's how we can get out it it's amazing the beautiful thing about book talk is that there's a real sense of community there too which is great you know it's not just people who um have large platforms who you know are talking about books like it's everyone you know it's it's like a mom a three who like you know has a day job and does it because she just has such joy and passion for reading and she loves you know talking to people and that about books you know and and and you've got like the smallest accounts and then these huge monster like monolithic things that have got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers and huge huge huge engagement um but at the root of it all is this you know sense that books bring us together which is so lovely yeah and it's great that you could you know i guess previously you'd have had to get a publisher they would have had to convince the big uh you know bookshops to stock it and and you're you know you're in the hands of these giants right but now actually the communities can essentially find and choose their next artist which is pretty cool it's all the time that way now it's lovely it's really really cool um and from a business perspective from the publisher's perspective it's like proof of concept too you know what i mean like they know that they're they're gonna publish a story that that is people are clamoring for you know and it's happened a whole bunch on on from tiktok You know what I mean?

18:37Because people find something, it catches steam and it's and then suddenly it's got this army of readers who are already engaged and want the book. So there you go.

18:47Ben Hanlin: That is Callie Hart, one of our earlier episodes. You can go back, listen to that in full. And before I dive into our final guest of this episode, a little ad break from me. What do I do outside of the podcast? Some of you will know if you see me on Instagram. if you also see me on linkedin i do a lot of posts on linkedin which is an area that i actually really enjoy talking about another side of the business um because i do a lot of keynote speaking and performing at corporate events so for all of that information go to benhanlon.com i don't know why i do it in that voice but i do um and you can see the types of keynotes i do which are all about human connection and how as a performer i stand on stage and try and get an entire audience to engage connect and how i hopefully am remembered so uh have a look at that if you know anyone that does corporate events or conferences i'd love to uh have a conversation with you about that all on benhanlin.com now back to the podcast uh as i mentioned where are we right so i'm in portugal right now it's our last day of the holiday i'm recording this in in my bedroom and uh what's got what we got planned for the pod coming up so as we get back i'm into guests I'm booking guests and I'm trying to record some more guests I've got some exciting ones lined up but I'll be honest with you totally honest with you and I think a few of you if you talk to me in Instagram DM me I'll be really transparent about this whole thing booking guests is the hardest part of this job so if you know anyone that you think is relevant for this podcast and you think gosh I know so-and-so or so-and-so be an amazing conversation send me a DM on Instagram or and let me know who you're thinking or if you've got an intro and you all as a community can help keep this thing going and build our next pipeline of guests.

20:26Ben Hanlin: Speaking of Instagram, it's Ben Hamlin on Instagram, but we've also got What's The Trick pod is on Instagram. And some of the vids are doing really well. I think we've got over 1 ,000 followers now in a couple of weeks, which is really lovely. So if you're one of them, thank you very much. And as always, my biggest request, I know everyone says, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. But my two requests are always drop me a DM and say hi. If you've been listening to a few of these, say hi to me. And even some of you have done it again this week. And I've honestly appreciated it.

20:56Ben Hanlin: And it really does. It's lovely to know that you're out there. And second thing is, if you know somebody or a group of people that are into this kind of vibe as well, please share it with them. If you're a performer and you're on some WhatsApp groups or if you're in Facebook groups, whatever it is, the more you can share these or my Instagram reels, you hit share on your stories. it gets the word out and we find a new listener each week and we grow and we grow and we grow so that's the idea that's what i'm trying to do that's the mission but let's uh get back to my third and final guest of this episode quite a recent one actually but i wanted to put this back in because not everybody would listen to this one and i think he's really special as a guest so what have we had we've had an actor a writer slash magician we've had an author and now we've got an entrepreneur, which is Dominic McGregor, co-founder of Social Chain with Stephen Bartlett.

21:49Ben Hanlin: And Social Chain and Stephen Bartlett is things that maybe you've heard, but actually people don't quite understand what it did. So Dominic and Stephen were at university and they found this idea that if you create Facebook pages and communities, like a community about food or a community about sport and you have millions of people that follow that page you are then a powerful channel that brands will want to spend their money on your channel so social chain built all of these communities 10 or so years ago and they built to hundreds of million dollar valuation and dominic and steven sold that and they completely disrupted the way marketing was done and we take these kind of things for granted now influencer marketing and marketing on facebook pages but they pioneered this stuff so it was a really interesting insight into how they did it how they built it how they built this hundred and odd million dollar company and how they could claim they could make anything trend in the uk within half an hour and he tells a great story about that i found it fascinating as somebody who's been in social media for 15 years what they did and how he thinks and i think if you're especially if you're trying to build a business yourself or you're an entrepreneur this guy was um really interesting to listen to so without further ado enjoy this one with dom mcgregor how did that happen so take the food page example yeah okay so what you what you got from just posting on social and you still get it today is you get like a reference point of what works what doesn't work yeah so we really through trial and error posted tons and you got me back then it was just this is just images it's not even video videos are not even on instagram yet okay it's just you're just posting nice photos so we were posting um we realized that like maltesers always banged nutella was something people always love so we would find and source the images of gorgeous pancakes with nutella all over it and people would like it something you said before is you guys quite very confidently said you could make almost anything go viral right yep how does something back then go viral what was the secret so yeah we said we could make anything trending in the uk in half an hour that was like our party trick and tell me the buzzfeed story then we're jumping ahead of time yeah so this this is this is probably like one of the craziest moments of like probably the closest i've ever come to experience in something live like tv or anything so we're in the office and i'm no joke knock on the door comes guy from buzzfeed guy called luke bailey um he he we don't know why he's here okay and then he takes us into this little meeting room and he's like you guys said you can make anything trend within half an hour he got his phone out and he pressed start on his timer yeah and he went go on then right that was literally it so we're there sat there being like this is a hit job like he's trying to discredit us because we've said we can do this yeah prove it yeah prove it basically so we're like sat there okay and my brain's going okay i'm like the creative one here so i've got to like think of something we can get trending it's i think it's like a Wednesday at 10.

24:54I'm like, what are we going to get trending? There's nothing going on in the world. How can we just come up with a hashtag that we know is going to work? So I think the logic was it was like a time when there was like a presidential election and there was a US kind of trend in the UK. So I was like, let's go for, you know, you're British when. So let's go nostalgia. Let's go like proper like patronism. Let's like show all the things that you know when you're

25:19Ben Hanlin: british so hold on so just so the time has started yeah how long has it taken you to go that's the hashtag i mean a minute a minute my brain's working i'm like what should we do i'm like hey thinking about all the things that go down in the world at the moment all the reference points i'm like what could what is going to bang okay so you've got 29 minutes left what happens so then we load up laptop opens i'm out the room tweet decks loaded we get the team around we're like okay this is what we're going to do we're going to pull out content from areas you know let's go nostalgia you know you know you're british when this was your primary school it It was a picture of the chairs you had at primary school, which everyone knows.

25:50Yes. More like the benches. The benches, yeah. Yeah. When your PE lessons looked like this and it was plimsolls. Yeah. Like pull out all that content. So that was like the pages there in nostalgia. We had a page called British Logic and a page called UK Banter. And it was like when, you know, your biggest debate on is how you have tea. Yeah. All these kind of like very British things. We were trying to create a little bit of patriotism. and we also knew because it was early in the morning that the u.s went up yeah yeah if we go heavily british in the uk it was going to be very easy to concentrate and and get people to share it yeah so once people start we start posting it and then people start joining in and once people start joining in we retreat their posts as well so it becomes this whole like spiral where it feels like everyone's talking about this and then yeah 20 minutes later it's trending so how long did it

26:38Ben Hanlin: take so from the moment he pressed his stopwatch to it going how long it took about i think it took 24 minutes he references that in his article 24 minutes he took wow and what did he say after that he went yeah i'll get back in my box a little bit yeah and then then he kind of he went away and then he wrote his article and it was um ridiculously positive and that was our springboard moment that was like the moment where you know when someone buzzfeed at the time which was one of the coolest new trend media pages says these are the kids which are controlling what other kids talk about that becomes a very powerful line to then go and reference in to brands so then i suppose just before we do we're going to talk about the brand and i want to talk about how you would creatively come up with something when a brand does that but before that so you've got these i'm going to totally just paraphrase you've got these two lads who've dropped out of university that have seen something are doing something that the whole of the rest of the marketing industry that is worth billions have not seen what is it or how is it do you think that you found this and no one else did we were like addicted to doing this and then like you said the unlock came when we realized there was an intrinsic value in the audience because we could make the audience do things and that was the great unlock where it's like oh where we can influence people yeah and i think tell me if i'm wrong but with social chain you then still more that's fast forward towards start working with brands you would then sit with the brand come up with a campaign come up with the creative make the and then it would go on your pages rather than maybe the other brands that are just being monetized for for putting content on a page exactly and i think coming back to that fashion brand i mentioned when they had no instagram account well the pitch became well run your instagram account for you so we we we were you know we were two or three steps ahead of the industry so we had to bring the industry along with us so when a brand was saying what we do on social we were like well you do this okay so that's it for another summer social hopefully you enjoyed that so you can go back and listen to andy nyman cali hart or dom mcgregor and uh if you did enjoy this drop me a dm at ben hanlin or on the what's the trick pod i look at both pages let me know what you think share this around and i'll see you all make sure you hit subscribe as well so i'll see you all next week on what's the trick