Chris & Shelley
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[00:00:52] Today we head virtually to the UK, where we welcome Chris Sands, the creative force behind [00:01:00] Totally Locally. Chris has dedicated his career to helping communities and small businesses thrive with grassroots marketing strategies that truly work. From Scarborough to towns across the globe, his innovative approach has breathed new life into local economies.
[00:01:16] and strengthened connections between businesses and their communities. We'll chat with Chris about how small businesses can create simple, yet powerful marketing plans, the magic of collaboration, and how you can adapt these proven strategies to your own community. It's all about keeping it real, local, and impactful.
[00:01:35] So let's dive in and learn from one of the best.
[00:01:39] hey, Chris, how are you?
[00:01:42] Good, thank you. Good. It's very early in the morning in the UK.
[00:01:46] and what's the temperature there?
[00:01:49] It's minus two degrees outside and about four inches of snow.
[00:01:53] Yeah, so we're just sort of starting to get into that, you know, hot spring, start of summer. So we're about [00:02:00] 31 degrees today, I think it was.
[00:02:01] That's
[00:02:02] great. That's quite a big difference isn't it? I'd rather, I'd rather be in the 31 degrees if I'm honest.
[00:02:09] Yeah and we're going to do something very typically Aussie this afternoon and have a barbie for dinner.
[00:02:16] I was sat, I sat last night, And I'm thinking I might have to put a blanket on my knee here, it's so cold.
[00:02:23] And we've got a really insulated house as well. But anyway, anyway, beside the point, yeah. Right.
[00:02:29] But no, thank you for joining us, from afar. and great to chat with you again. We met when you were in the Barossa, maybe a year or two ago, I think it was. and talking about, the, marketing brand, or the brand Totally Locally.
[00:02:43] Can you just maybe introduce, you know, even though it's 10 years, young, but introduce the concept behind it. and how, yeah, what is impact has been, in the UK and also further afield.
[00:02:57] Yeah. So it's, so my background is [00:03:00] marketing and branding and I worked with some sort of fairly Big organizations and stuff and a lot of corporate stuff and a lot of art stuff.
[00:03:09] And then, I got, I got asked by the council in Calderdale, which is the area where I did live. I don't live there anymore. But, to, to do a sort of shop local campaign. And I just basically took all the stuff that all the sort of concepts and the strategy that you would do for a big organization and apply it.
[00:03:28] So I wanted to help work to it. A high street, back street, as you call it, in, in six small towns, which is the area that we had. So, the population, I think altogether in the whole area is about 120, 000, over six towns. So I just wondered if it would work. And, I tried it and it just went, it went really, really successful, really fast, a bit more than I expected.
[00:03:55] And, I remember that the press coverage in the first week, the media coverage in the [00:04:00] first week, valued out more than they paid for for the whole campaign. It was quite, it was really, and and what followed that really was sort of two years of, the council funded it for another year, and We've, it was a big learning curve and, you know, like you say, it was 20, sort of 2011, 2012, 12 years ago, yeah, 2011.
[00:04:25] And it's a different world really, I suppose. But it sort of, over the two years, we just, I sort of learned what people, how it works and what makes a good, what makes a good thing. What makes a good campaign and how it works and how you get the biggest part was how you get businesses to look at. the town or high street as, as a collective rather, rather than, rather than loads of businesses being in competition with [00:05:00] each other.
[00:05:00] It was about how do you promote this whole place as one thing for people to come and wants to get that. Isn't
[00:05:07] it? Because a lot of the time, and I think during COVID we saw as well, there's a bit of that let's come together, but then there's also let's survive and we're in it for ourselves. So we've got to protect ourselves and really make sure.
[00:05:20] that we're successful alone, but really it's, the trick is to make sure that everybody comes along with you for the, for the journeys and that to be successful as a town or as a community.
[00:05:32] Yeah. Yeah. And we, we had the. We have lots of little phrases that make sort of explain it more, but one of them was like, you know, if the town gets busy, we all, we all win.
[00:05:42] You know, it's as simple as that, really. So if people turn up to shop, they're not just going to go to one place and leave. Or if they're thinking of doing that, all of all the stuff that we did was around actually, you know, promoting other things. So we, you know, asking people to promote [00:06:00] other shops in their shop window and also.
[00:06:04] You know, we have a post that says we recommend, which, which we saw on Amazon, really, you know, if you like this job, we think you'll like this one and all those sorts of things.
[00:06:13] And you sort of came up with a bit of that kind of collateral that people could use, couldn't you, being from a marketing and design background, so that they didn't have to come up with it themselves.
[00:06:23] They're stopping a bit of those barriers to actually advertise and tell their, share their story. So free tools for people to use.
[00:06:33] Yeah, there's loads of it, loads and loads and loads of stuff like that. And there's, there's a, and there's a whole kit of everything and, and the strategy thing that, that basically we did on that.
[00:06:46] So over the two years, I suppose, which is we're jumping ahead, I suppose that way, but over those two years, we Made lots of things and tried lots of things, some worked, some didn't, and anything that did work, we just kept, and anything that didn't, we just kicked away, [00:07:00] and the whole idea, I mean, I still, I do this in all the work that I do, it's like, just fail, fail fast.
[00:07:06] Yeah,
[00:07:06] move on, you know, and don't don't beat yourself up and
[00:07:09] yeah
[00:07:10] and then after a while I've got loads of other. We've got loads of emails and phone calls from other towns going, how much would it be to for you to come and do it here and come and do it here so I wasn't sure if it would work in other places.
[00:07:24] So, because obviously the area around there is really unique. I mean, there's lots of, I think a lot of Aussies have seen Happy Valley and stuff over there. And it's quite a unique place. Industrial, but in the middle of the countryside and lots of things into, so, and you also
[00:07:43] had a willing, you know, the council you had a willing, you know, local government as well to sort of help boost and lead the way as well.
[00:07:52] But yeah, they were willing, but in a way, I think this went when it went big, they didn't expect it to, I think it was just a bit [00:08:00] tick box exercise, you know, we need a shop local campaign. And then it was like, oh, and then they looked at it and just went, just get on with it, you know, it was, and they were great.
[00:08:09] It was a bit of a shock at first, I think, because it was, like I said, I think it was really ahead of its time. And the way that people, the way that the support we got was incredible, really. So, I mean, and that area is specifically like that as well, there's lots of things that happen there, like the first cooperative came from there.
[00:08:30] There was lots of They're a bit of I don't know what the word is, they're quite anti establishment, they're quite,
[00:08:37] you know. Okay, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:38] Yeah, so there's a real, and it's sort of well known in that area.
[00:08:43] Yeah.
[00:08:43] so it was quite, so loads of people saying, can we have it? And I decided to trial with my friend, me and my friend Nigel at the time, said let's trial it and see.
[00:08:53] And then we ended up going, first one was up in Scotland, and it was like miles away. Yeah. And it was like, I'm not sure they could [00:09:00] do this. So we did a few and one of them was leaking Staffordshire. and, and it worked in some and not in others, which I thought it would do. but, but again, learned more and more.
[00:09:09] And then in the end, I thought this is too hard. I just want to get on with my, my day job as I called it. So I, so Nigel, who worked in, software just said, why don't we put it open source? We stuck it all online and I thought that would be the end of it, and just you can go and download
[00:09:27] everything.
[00:09:28] I think the beauty of it was it was, and I think what you were alluding to really is, you, when, when groups get together and say we need to promote our town, the first three or four meetings are all about what should we call it and what colour should the logo be.
[00:09:46] I don't like orange, and I don't like, well, and how are we
[00:09:51] going to do this? And they follow Nancy themselves as a designer, then they're taking, you know, all of the, creativity there.
[00:09:57] And just following, and just following what other people have done. So, [00:10:00] so it was basically the whole kit goes, here's how you start your first meeting.
[00:10:05] Here's the invite for it.
[00:10:07] Yeah,
[00:10:07] here's the name stick your time name underneath it. Here's the, and we even have some house rules as well, which is like
[00:10:13] 10
[00:10:14] rules. They're all a bit tongue in cheek. And there's a post on your wall. I think, they used it over in Eden Valley. And it just says, be nice or leave.
[00:10:24] And that's the number one rule.
[00:10:27] And that's it. That's really, you know, really stuck with that community as well. And I think. By having those there, it means that, like you said, they can just get on with the task at hand, rather than recreating the wheel.
[00:10:41] Yeah, but the idea was then it was like, it would go away and people would just get on with it, and then it just ended up going crazy.
[00:10:48] And then it's led on to other things. It's led on to lots of other projects. Still make very, very, very little money out of totally. Locally. [00:11:00] But the, but you know, I got to
[00:11:03] Yeah,
[00:11:04] yeah. But got to be, visit Adelaide and Barossa. I got, I invited to the Adelaide of Festival ideas through, through Craig Gro.
[00:11:13] He's introduction.
[00:11:14] Oh, awesome. Yeah.
[00:11:16] So, and then. Then Anne Maroon, as part of the Adelaide Festival Ideas, they said, Oh, do you mind going up to Barossa? I was like, because I'd visited when I was a kid, because I used to live in Melbourne. So I went and did a little speech and a little talk in the art gallery there.
[00:11:35] And then Anne was in the audience and she said, we really like this, which, and then my favorite one. I just like those things,
[00:11:41] you know, when that, that rolls into so many things and you and I wouldn't have met if we hadn't. I think
[00:11:49] it's, we, I wrote a book about it and it's called The Economics of Being Nice.
[00:11:53] And it's like, and it has,
[00:11:54] I have it
[00:11:55] back here. Have
[00:11:58] you?
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] Is it holding the table up?
[00:12:04] It is on my list of to read.
[00:12:08] Yeah, but it's sort of that and that's what it is. It's like, just by doing things you don't know where it leads you and you know, it sometimes feels like a burden and it does feel like a burden as you yourself know.
[00:12:21] You do these things that you and you end up thinking, Oh, my goodness, what am I doing here? What because it's it's crazy and you end up doing the talk. Yeah, can you come and talk here? And but it but like you say, you know, led on to other things. It's led on to loads of awards. We've just won one recently, like out of the blue through through the government.
[00:12:43] And, you know, it sort of, And, you know, I got to visit Barossa and have, like, loads of friends over there, you know. Seven times I've been there now.
[00:12:54] Yeah, wow. It's
[00:12:56] crazy. You know, and I feel like that's part of my [00:13:00] life now, which
[00:13:00] Yeah, and also because it's, you know, it's one of those things that's probably, you know, it's bigger than you, which you always, you know, by having an open source that was never about You know, your ego, it was about, you know, and even if you do step away because you're allowed to evolve in your business, you know, and what you do in your career, you know, that'll still continue on.
[00:13:24] That's the legacy that will continue on. So, you know, you should be very proud of, you know, putting that together and bringing people together and challenging, I think what I like is that it does challenge what, you know, What's traditional marketing tactics that people think of because you keep it really simple and like the Fiverr Fest.
[00:13:44] Do you want to explain that?so we were talking about the spend 10 because that's about the equivalent of five pounds.
[00:13:51] It doesn't go very far anymore, does it? We did it. So the Fiverr Fest was very simple. We, you may have seen [00:14:00] it. So you're listening on the Internet. If every adult in so and so spent.
[00:14:06] Five pounds or 10. It's worth going to local economy with your independent shops. So I wrote that. And so like it's become this thing where I just saw one in America the other day who got all the mastery and someone put it over
[00:14:21] there.
[00:14:26] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
[00:14:29] So
[00:14:31] it's like, if every adult in the UK, if every adult in Colordale spent, five pound a week in their local shops instead of online or at the supermarket, it's worth, it was worth, you know, 60, 65 million pounds.
[00:14:42] Pounds a year going straight to the local economy, which if you multiply effect on and all that, it's worth a lot of money. And then we did one for the UK and then it's, I've never seen, you know, for me, it was at the time, particularly, it was just a Facebook [00:15:00] post and yeah, it, it reached 1. 5 million people and, and then, then people have gone, gone, it's really strange, but people have gone and rewritten it.
[00:15:10] And taking off the totally locally thing and everything and then sort of followed all the colors and schemes and everything. It's really strange and you'd see it over and over and over. But, you know, that, that concept, that was the concept. It's like, just spend five quid.
[00:15:24] Yeah.
[00:15:24] And, and your high street will, you know, keep going.
[00:15:27] Whereas if it had such
[00:15:28] an impact on me, that I'll use hashtag Totally Locally and at Totally Locally even when I'm not doing anything. Because I want to keep spreading the, spreading the word.
[00:15:40] Yeah, and so like as a strategy, the, The idea is like, people say, Oh yeah, I could do that. I can spend five pounds.
[00:15:47] That's easy enough to do. And then, and there's, you know, I said there's a strategy, there's a plan and then it goes, okay, well, we're all going to put five pounds special offers on.
[00:15:55] Yeah.
[00:15:56] Same day, or the same weekend, or the same week, and [00:16:00] the whole town is going to do it. So all of a sudden, you're High Street.
[00:16:04] I
[00:16:04] can't say high street is worth visiting
[00:16:06] coming and coming together because it is quite a challenge to and I think even even without a lot of coordination like you've been able to sort of put together again just get started you don't need to have an association of traders if you haven't done all of that it can just be as simple as everyone's in a group.
[00:16:26] Here's a post, here's what we should share, and then that multiplying out into their own networks gets the word out.
[00:16:33] There's bits in there, like all the posters and everything, but then there's also ones that says here's someone else's offer.
[00:16:40] Yeah.
[00:16:41] We'd, one, one that we did, one of the places in Leeds, They printed out extra posters for each other and then they swapped them so they were putting other people's offers in their shops and then people were like following it around and
[00:16:52] yeah yeah
[00:16:54] and we take all the best bits the thing is I always say that the people that use it sometimes come up [00:17:00] with a lot better ideas than we've had but we ask that in the spirit of everything that they put those up share those ideas with everybody else and
[00:17:07] yeah
[00:17:08] that's gone you know we and I think it's been
[00:17:10] a starting point for people hasn't it because there's so yeah
[00:17:16] you know, ways to go about it. And like you said, you can get stuck in thinking about it and stuck in the process without actually doing the activity.
[00:17:24] Exactly. And it's really simple. And, and that, and that, that was part of the kit. So there's loads of things in the kit like that, but, but then we decided to do a national one.
[00:17:34] And I knew that it would go crazy, and we've done about, I think we've done about seven national ones in the UK, and the most we've had, we had 134 towns.
[00:17:43] Oh my God.
[00:17:44] All doing Fiverr Fest all over two weeks.
[00:17:47] Yeah, wow.
[00:17:48] It's just, to see it, and it was done on, you know, it's me and, my friend Simon Waldron, so he's like the, he's Mr.
[00:17:57] Organization, I'm Mr. [00:18:00] Big ideas thing. So it works really well. I think he gets frustrated with me, but he sort of, he organizes it all and it just, and we've got it down. So, you know, we don't get paid for it. We've had a couple of sponsors sometimes, and we worked with Visa on one of them, which was, they just provided with loads of PR and everything.
[00:18:20] But it was insane. It was like, you can create something because it's so simple. It's like, you don't have to get involved in the whole town kit thing. The town kit strategy is two years
[00:18:31] and a
[00:18:32] lot of work for people and I think this is the thing we've just been reassessing is if you were to take it further what would you do and I think that the idea of bite sized chunks for a town that just You can, instead of going, you know, here's a thing, it's going to take you two years, but guess what?
[00:18:50] It'll work. Instead we're going, we're just looking and going, well, we can, it's really easy to run these things nationally.if you [00:19:00] said we're going to do four campaigns a year.and yeah, yeah. And, and, and we always do them in the quiet times of the year as well. but the interesting thing, I suppose, is it does work.
[00:19:14] I mean, it has, it has, footfall goes up. Yeah. So we always do them in the quiet times of the year as well. So people were saying, we had a few people have said, this is one of our busiest times when you do one of
[00:19:27] Yeah,
[00:19:27] you know, outside of Christmas. So it's sort of, it's just simple stuff, really. But I think, and again, I think, you know, we overcomplicate things.
[00:19:36] Yeah.
[00:19:37] And, and I, and I myself have guilty of overcomplicating it. And so our whole thing has been like, actually, Maybe just a few things that everyone can go. Yeah, I can do that by just doing half an hour's work and that will work rather than being a volunteer that's going to bleed my heart across the pavement, you know.
[00:19:59] And it's also that [00:20:00] kind of, you know, what's the, not what's the bare minimum, but what's good enough. Like good enough will be good enough. That's my approach to parenting as well. Perfectionism and what I, how I used to be pre kids. Now it's like, eh, she'll be fine.
[00:20:15] yeah, yeah.
[00:20:16] It's also
[00:20:17] something's better than nothing because nothing or being frozen in activity doesn't get anyone anywhere.
[00:20:24] Whereas, you know, like you said, if you've got, oh, I wonder what so and so is doing, then you can start building connections with the shop next door, with the shop across the street, with the other businesses around you. That starts to form that knit of understanding and community, which then will start to make, you know, that high street or that main street or that community feel more authentic and connected.
[00:20:48] Yeah, I mean, and it's interesting is that, you know, quite often I'll get people say, ah, You've worked come across a town like ours and I probably have actually in most places I have got the same [00:21:00] problems and you know, when I'm over there, I stay, stay in Tanunda. And, you know, Tanunda's got the same problems as someone in Yorkshire, really.
[00:21:11] They, you know, everyone's very busy. They all go to work at the same time. They all go home at the same time. They don't really have much to do. And, you know, part of our. to do with each other. Part of our thing is like, why don't you all go up together and you know, have your meetings there, but just actually just go and start making friends and things.
[00:21:31] And you
[00:21:33] don't have to, and like you said, you've got a bit of a, an agenda, haven't you as well for the, you know, to help people move through what to talk about as well. So like I said, I think you've, you've removed some of the barriers. Which then leaves a few egos at the door then, so then you can just start to have some honest conversations.
[00:21:52] Yeah, yeah, we have, again, our little phrases, one of them is like, it's not about you. Yeah. You know, and [00:22:00] it's in the house rules, which, yeah, there's ten rules, one of them says it's not about you, it's about everyone. Nice. Yeah, we do. And one of the things I found, because I, you know, the the British sort of view of Aussies is that there's no rules and they just, you know, they're all like that.
[00:22:17] And like, I couldn't believe how rule bound a lot of Australian places are. I saw a comedian, an Australian comedian says, how do you, how do you stop Australians walking on the grass? Because you put a sign saying don't walk on the grass.
[00:22:34] It's
[00:22:34] pretty laid back and a lot of things, but it's like, well, it says you can't do that.
[00:22:38] Yeah.
[00:22:39] And our whole thing was like, The whole thing about totally local was like, was it a friend of mine, Mary clear, who started incredible edible, which is like growing food anywhere. And she has a friend, she says, rules are there to be examined and got around. Yeah. And that's how we've gone about it.
[00:22:58] You know, there's a lot of things [00:23:00] you can do that you don't need to ask permission for and
[00:23:03] wait for someone else to say you're allowed to do this. You know, I think that's, you know, yeah,
[00:23:08] don't have permission. Yeah.
[00:23:09] Giving, yeah, giving smaller businesses and business owners who are obviously creative and passionate, giving them permission to just take, take the lead, take the lead, put themselves, you know, out there and say, well, we're going to do this and let other others follow along.
[00:23:26] cause I think, yeah, cause that, you know, Your phrase of love your town, because you might just make it a bit better. Is that what it is?
[00:23:36] Yeah, it's just love where you live because you might just make it better. Yeah.
[00:23:39] And it's about empowering them to make something happen. Like, you don't have to wait.
[00:23:45] Yeah, it's
[00:23:46] really, it's really simple. It's, but it, but, you know, places. When, when you see it happening, you, it does make a difference. And, but what, you know, I moved [00:24:00] to the area where I'm at in the moment about two and a half years ago. And I look at the place where I'm actually living and I can't see how this could do it here.
[00:24:08] Cause there's just no concept of working together. It's really quite simple. When you talk to people about it, they're just like. So it's, so yeah, but that's Yorkshire, you know, so parts of Yorkshire are like, really, like, we can just go and do things. And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's interesting.
[00:24:28] It's like I said, there's lots of commonalities in every way you go, but there's also like I said, there's a few. Places that you come across and you know,
[00:24:38] that would be a more of a challenge Than your proposal. Yeah,
[00:24:42] that's basically it isn't it? It's more of a challenge.
[00:24:44] Yeah.
[00:24:44] yeah, I think yeah, so
[00:24:47] Oh, but thank you for your time chris.
[00:24:49] we'll wrap it up there because my zoom is going to finish upso much for sharing. about totally locally and also, you know excited about where the next Chapter goes [00:25:00] for you because it's 12 years. It's a long time for something to keep, you know,
[00:25:03] where
[00:25:04] it
[00:25:06] may lead
[00:25:08] in
[00:25:10] the
[00:25:11] sunny, Seaside of Spain.
[00:25:15] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's where, that's my escape next week. So, I say minus two here, 23 degrees the two hours on, two hours on a plane. So that's, that's where I'm headed for a couple of weeks.
[00:25:30] I hope you have a good time over there, but also thank you for your time and sharing your story today.
[00:25:37] That's great to speak to you Shelley. Thanks, thanks for inviting me. Cheers.
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