No degree, no contacts, and plenty of grit

Dave Heywood (00:25)
This is Marketing Careers Uncovered and I’m Dave Heywood. One of the reasons I started this podcast was really to shine a light on

The sort of career stories you don’t usually hear. Not just the ones with neat titles and LinkedIn perfect timelines, but the ones a little bit messier, where people had to really fight to get in, prove they belonged, and build their credibility often from scratch. And thankfully today’s conversation is exactly that. We’re going to hear from someone who didn’t go to uni, didn’t have the contacts all ready to go, and nearly didn’t get the job.

but still found a way to succeed through sheer persistence, adaptability and a healthy supply of post-it notes, as we’ll find. joined by Brooke Pinkney and she’s now managing director at a sales and marketing consultancy called Broadly Speaking and I will try and keep my puns to an absolute minimum. But the path to that role itself didn’t necessarily follow any neat traditional routes and that’s exactly why I was itching to speak to her today.

So from those early setbacks to carving out a leadership role in our own terms, it’s quite a lot for us to unpack and get into here. But Brooke, why don’t we kick off with a little bit of a look at where you are now and what you’re up to.

Brooke Pinkney (01:30)
Thanks Dave. Thank you so much for having me as well. so what do I do now? So as you said, rightly, I’m the managing director of a sales and marketing agency called Broadly Speaking. And I’ve been in the MD role for just over 18 months, taking over from our founder and directors who grew the business from, I think,

in 1997, no pressure. So I have the pleasure of running the business, leading an incredible team. So my role is pretty much everything from new customer acquisition, client retention, supporting the teams in exceptional campaign delivery and pushing our

voice as the trusted advisor in the space for all things sales and marketing. So I roll my sleeves up, get my hands dirty, do the doings still. I think it’s really important to keep your finger on the pulse, your ear on the ground so you resonate with your teams. And we’ve got some fantastic clients who really… The dominant part of what we do is that we… Any business that’s looking to grow…

We help them identify high value profitable new business opportunities through a sophisticated approach to sales and sales led marketing. So that’s what I do in a snapshot.

Dave Heywood (02:47)
Lots of different hats here. If you had to pick out any particular areas that you were focused on more, what would they be? yes, the clue is into why as well. Why they’re important.

Brooke Pinkney (02:59)
if I was to pick two key hats, would say firstly is leading and motivating and keeping up the energy within a sales within an agency. It’s not an easy job. It takes a lot of drive, commitment, energy from the team. And we are, you we do have targets. We have

huge campaigns that we need to deliver on. So one of my core focus areas is to give the team support, key leadership. So I don’t, I’ve had some really awful managers in the past, don’t really like the word managing. I think you manage process, you lead people. So whenever I talk about the team, it’s about leading them, it’s about trying to inspire them, support them, and also give them the freedom to do what they love.

alongside their roles. So lot of our key team sales like me, I’m a salesperson by trade, but they’ll have other interests growth, innovation, so it’s allowing them to be freer in their roles. So I the first hat is to really support the team and help them grow. And as a leader, I think you have to be, you know,

You have to set them free. And if somebody is doing so well and they want to move on and to take a step out of the business and they want to do something else with their career, amazing. Like take that as a win because you’ve helped them grow to where they are. They want to now go and do something else. You’ve given them that kind of stepping stone to do that. And the other one I would say is always remaining relevant for clients and businesses out there.

it’s, you we’ve got to constantly be pushing ourselves, pushing our capabilities, pushing our skills and how we do what we do to constantly innovate, constantly develop these campaigns to make sure they’re leading edge, they’re supporting clients with their key challenges. So I say client retention is really critical for us because partnerships and collaboration is so important for us for

just the success of any campaign, where they treat us like part of their team and we collaborate with them, that is where it works really, really well. I don’t know if that answered your question.

Dave Heywood (05:04)
Yeah, think with those two pieces together, that can make for quite a stressful life. What fills up your cup and keeps your energy levels and enthusiasm from waning?

Brooke Pinkney (05:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it’s interesting. I did a recent post about this because I think sometimes and when I was growing my kind of leadership role in my career, I used to think that showing frustration and that you’re drained and you’re tired was like, I can’t show that because they’ll think I’m not up to the task. I’m not resilient enough. You know, that goes round. I’m, you know, was a bit more fearful of showing that vulnerability and showing that real

that these things take on. can’t be positive and energetic all the time. That’s not what being a leader or running a business or being a colleague or a partner or anything is. That’s not reality. And what fills up my cut, I think it’s really hard to maintain the energy of being that person who’s driving the energy, driving the motivation, the…

you know, being, when you’re building everyone up around you and you’re focusing on getting them to feel good and getting them energized and motivated, you can kind of forget that that is so draining. And it’s, it’s okay to say that, you know, it’s, does take out of you, you know, you have sleepless nights, it’s tiring, it’s frustrating, things aren’t always going well, you might have a couple of good days and high and then some bad news comes up that I don’t know, a client wants to pause a campaign or

someone’s one of our champions is leaving internally or one of the team is, you know, all these things are going on all the time. And that for me, it was a big moment in my career to think I can’t be 100 % happy all the time. And that’s not giving the right, like,

perspective for other people around me. I don’t want my team thinking they have to be happy and energized and on it all the time. There are days where you just feel crap and you just think, god, know, today’s going to be a slog, it’s going to be tough, I can’t maintain that. So I think it’s about just being authentically yourself and being okay with not being okay and knowing what’s going to help. So I know my, I kind of visualise it as a pint glass.

my stress levels and I can see when it’s filling up and filling up and filling up and I think right I’m gonna really have to do something to help me here so then I have my kind of coping things which is like right go out for a long walk with the dog do less socializing structure my day better which gives me an hour in the morning to go out for a run and clear my head or go and see my mum or something like that so it’s about trying to do what

helps you in those situations because it’s not always fun and games and positive energy all the time.

Dave Heywood (07:56)
only human and if only someone had told me that before I stepped into my first leadership role I probably would have had a far smoother, smoother ride of it.

Brooke Pinkney (08:04)
It is, but no one tells you that, do they? No one says when you’re starting off, it’s like you see all these amazing, I was inspired by everyone around me, all those leaders, I thought, and then all the ones that I didn’t want to be like, you know, I thought I don’t really want to be that type of manager. But those leaders always seemed like, wow, they never have a bad day. They’re always, you know, happy, they’re strong, and that’s a sign of strength. It’s just to get on with it. Don’t moan, don’t admit.

failure, don’t admit when you’re tired and you just need a day to yourself to recharge and thankfully the leaders, know, when I did open up they’re like, course we have bad days, you know, that’s fine but I think it’s more accepted now and it’s better because it’s more talked about that show your team that, not all the time obviously but they need to know that it’s okay to have those days and everybody does.

It’s not a sign of strength, never being, you know, always being happy and never being open about how you’re really feeling.

Dave Heywood (09:00)
You just, you don’t become resilient, you just become brittle.

Brooke Pinkney (09:03)
Exactly, exactly.

Dave Heywood (09:15)
this is where you are now, but what I wanted to do today is just have a little bit of a whimer clock back and get a sense of what earlier, younger Brooke was like. What were you like when leaving school? Was this trajectory and career always on the cards? Did you fancy doing something else? Paint a bit of a picture for us if you could.

Brooke Pinkney (09:36)
Yes, well, I had a, I don’t know, a colourful younger Brooke was, I would say, if I look at when I left school. I didn’t really get on with school. I didn’t have a great time at school and didn’t do very well in my GCSEs, not through lack of, I just didn’t try because it just didn’t suit me. I could have tried much harder and got better grades, but like kind of the environment, I won’t go

much into it but it wasn’t a nice environment at the time. So left school confused, not knowing what I wanted to do. I didn’t really have parents that like really pushed me down a path and went right you’re to go to university. Really back then university was for the people who wanted to be a doctor or they wanted to be a lawyer or it was very clear cut and you know the people who wanted to go and do apprenticeships were seen as the ones who

didn’t have a very big break. That is just how it was back then. It was just like, you’re going to go to go and do an apprenticeship. Wow, you must, what, you’re to go and do a labourer, you know, or do travel and tourism or something that’s not very ambitious or bright. So I left school not knowing what I was doing at 16. Just went straight into the world of work. I thought, well, I’ve got to make money. My parents have always been, you know, you’ve got to make it for yourself. You know, we’re not going to

will support you through school kind of thing, but then you just got to make it on your own. My dad was, he is a radiographer and my sister was at university doing nursing. So there’s quite a lot of like healthcare in my family. So I went to do a couple of different jobs, worked in a dry cleaners. worked in, I was really, I had always had a good work ethic. So I always put in the hours, put in the effort, did as well as I could in every job I had. Went to work in a pub and then started.

working as the assistant manager after about six months, really enjoyed that love the people element of it, was working 18 hour split shifts. Then I thought I don’t really want to do this anymore. Maybe I’ll do healthcare and you can do a diploma if you go into being a carer for nursing. So I did that for a few years and then soon realized that wasn’t really for me. It’s a tough, tough job. I mean, some of these jobs are, you know, not for the faint hearted, what we used to have to do.

So have lot of respect for anyone who is in any of those roles. But I just knew it wasn’t, I knew there was more for me. You know, I had more to give and I really wanted a career in something. So I was a little bit.

Dave Heywood (11:55)
But you’re

still sort of feeling around here, aren’t you? going, well, do I go here? Do I go there? There’s no real plan for me yet, is there?

Brooke Pinkney (12:04)
no plan. I was just like, okay, maybe I’ll try this. I’ll put 100 % into that. And, you know, it was long days, still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. There wasn’t like a forum that I could, you know, I didn’t have big networks of people who were in working for loads of different businesses. I knew people who worked in the pub and in healthcare. And then there was like options. You could go and do your diploma in this and you could do that.

It never really felt right. So I was literally lost until I was about 23.

Dave Heywood (12:38)
What changed when you were 23? What happened at that point?

Brooke Pinkney (12:43)
Well, I remember being sat in my partner at time, his mum worked somewhere called, broadly speaking, which I didn’t really know much about and she used to come home from work and so on. And I was just sat there just around the table just saying, God, surely there’s something else I can do. But I just, I used to go down the job centre at the time to go and print out jobs because there was no, was either in the Tavistock Times.

in the newspaper, I didn’t have social media, there wasn’t like LinkedIn to go and look at jobs or anything like that. Yeah, yeah, it’s very busy out there now. So she said, Oh, well, I think, broadly speaking, you’re going to be recruiting soon, maybe I could get you an application form. She said, I can’t like, help you, you know, I said, I don’t want any foot in the door from, you know, anyone, I want to do this on my own. So

Dave Heywood (13:14)
think that’s a blessing these days.

Brooke Pinkney (13:34)
got me an application form and I filled out the application form and I thought there’s no way I’m gonna get this but I’m gonna I’m just gonna go in thinking I’m gonna so filled out the application form took it in in person my parents always said if you’re gonna apply for a job you should print out your CV and you should write a cover letter and you should take it in hand in face to face I don’t know if that ever happens anymore and I had my had a telephone interview with one of the directors at the time and I

done so much prep for this telephone interview. I had read the website top to bottom, getting an understanding of what they’re doing and then I heard back from the telephone interview that I had a face-to-face interview. So that was the moment that changed my whole life I would say.

Dave Heywood (14:22)
And what was the role that you were going for at the time?

Brooke Pinkney (14:24)
It was a business development executive, I think, and across sales and marketing.

Dave Heywood (14:32)
So that’s quite different from everything else that you’ve done before. Going into that, did you have the sense, did you feel like an outsider? Did you have a sense of how fierce the competition would have been? And you perhaps being a little bit of an underdog here?

Brooke Pinkney (14:33)
you

Yeah, it was, I did feel like an outsider and I felt like, I always felt, but in post-synchrom I thought, there’s no way, I’ve got no experience whatsoever in business, in working, even in an office. And what they say, you know, what we look for, it wasn’t necessarily like we need a degree in this, that and the other, but it was, you know, experience in the professional kind of world and business world and I just thought, I’m just gonna have to just…

keep going, believe in myself and go for it. And I knew that when I, I really wanted to sit down with them face to face, because that’s really where I can try and bring my persuasive skills, which I think being in sales is good. I’ve always tried to be, I think naturally persuasive. But yeah, I think I was really worried that I wasn’t going to get it because I had no experience. They didn’t know me. And

I mean, the moment I walked through the door, was like, I’m way out of my comfort zone in here. This big office with loads of desks. It was very professional. Lots of people on the phone and speaking to clients and it just looked amazing. The first time I walked through and I thought, I’m probably not going to get this, but what have I got to lose?

Dave Heywood (15:52)
what happened in that interview then? How did that unfold?

Brooke Pinkney (15:53)
Yeah.

So, sat there like a bag of nerves and I was like, right, you’ve got to channel this nerves into positive energy. You know, that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? I still get nervous now. I think it’s normal and shows you care as well about big things that happen. So, went into the room with two of the senior leadership team, not the lady that had interviewed me, Isabel. So, I went in with David and Jenny. So,

They had my CV printed off in front of them and we had a little bit of a chat and David said, I’m a bit confused because who I’m talking to, it doesn’t reflect your CV and your grades and the jobs you’ve done. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I get the feeling that you’ve, you know, you’ve got more to give more to offer, but why has that not happened? You know, why tell me a bit about

why you didn’t do very well at school and everything like that. So I explained that I just got in with the wrong crowd. I was bullied and then got in with the wrong crowd because I really know what to do. I didn’t really fit in. I wasn’t like part of the cool gang or the emos or the, you know, all those different stereotypical groups at school, which still happen. I just like floated in between all of them. So it really fit in. So I explained that and I said, I am absolutely committed to

giving everything to an opportunity. So then the other lady said to me, well, you’ve got no experience at all. What makes you, you know, it takes so much to train you up. This is why we look for people experience. I said, well, this is your opportunity. You can mold me into your perfect sales and marketing person. So it was a tough interview because I could tell that they, I wasn’t like the typical person that walked through the door.

with the polished CV, with the experience in X, Y and Z. And I just had GCSEs, didn’t even do A levels, hadn’t gone to university like a lot of people did. So David then went out and went to the bookshelf and got me a book and said, go home, read this book and we’ll have another conversation. And I was like, oh well, at least it wasn’t a no. Straight off.

Dave Heywood (17:56)
What a conversation all the same. You must have felt bit battered and bruised after that, surely.

Brooke Pinkney (18:02)
I did. was, you know, when you have that adrenaline rush that keeps you going in the moment. And I think I did cry after I left. I took the book and I got out and I just like cried because I was so full of emotion and I thought there’s so much riding on this. And I just felt like I had just been rubbish. And we talk about being our own worst critic, but I just thought, gosh, you could have said this. You could have done that. You know, you’re never going to get the job.

So I thought, well, I’ve still got an opportunity because I can go back, read the book. And I read that book, Dave. I read it back to front four or five times and I post it noted, like every single page of what my learning was in my own words. then. Rang Dave and said, right, I’m ready for another session. Let’s meet up.

Dave Heywood (18:48)
What book did he give you? Have you still got

it?

Brooke Pinkney (18:52)
It was like the principles of sales. was something core around sales. I’ve so many books now. I can’t remember the exact specific book, but it was all centered around sales and the skills and the behaviors that you need to sell and all things sales and marketing as well.

offered me back in and then I sat down and I put the book in front of Dave and I was like ask me any question about this book and I think at that moment he realised that she’s serious about this and he saw something in me and I think this is so important is that one person’s belief in my what I could bring to the table and that they saw past all of the you know

what was on paper and they saw the person and the drive and the want to do it, that changed my life forever. And it still wasn’t easy after that because they said, okay, we’ll have a think about it. I was like, okay, you can have another think about it. I’ll go to school for another two weeks somewhere. And then they offered me an apprenticeship. So they said, well, we can’t offer you a full BD and

marketing role, what we can do is ease you in and do an apprenticeship. So I was like, fine, I’ll take a pay cut. You know, so took a massive pay cut of what I was getting paid and wasn’t getting paid loads, but I was doing all the hours, know, within healthcare and retail. So I just thought this is my opportunity to change my life. So yeah, I got taken on as an apprentice at 23, I was.

Dave Heywood (20:22)
And how has that now influenced and shaped how you go about hiring and leading others?

Brooke Pinkney (20:29)
Great question.

I it’s, I look past what’s on paper. I think still these days people hire based on CVs and experience. don’t think it’s a true reflection of who somebody is. Cause actually someone could look really good on a CV and then not have the right behavior attitude to be able to fit in culturally, to be able to do the role. So in terms of hiring, we,

and I specifically look for behaviors, so attitude, what somebody’s like, I always like to meet them face to face, have a chat with them about general stuff, not just about the role, but just to find out who they are and what drives them as a person rather than, you’ve done this on your CV, tell me more about this, you know, I just think it’s so, it’s so kind of black and white and it doesn’t work like that.

Some of our best hires, so we’ve got some great people who’ve done, to university, done management and business degrees, fantastic. But then some of our other best hires are from people who’ve never done sales and marketing, but they’ve got the right attitude, they’ve got the right behaviour, they’re inquisitive, they’re curious, they culturally fit in really well. We’re a very tight-knit team who collaborate closely and we support each other.

So I think it’s literally rewriting the book on questions. I really have any questions that I ask. It’s all in the moment of getting to know someone. And I think with leading the team is letting people be individuals. So if you just wrote a job spec and a job role and went, right, okay, you’ve got to do all of this and you’ve got to do it this way and you’re super, you know, corporate and micromanage-y.

I don’t think you get the best out of people. You get the best out of people with like David going, go and read this book. He didn’t tell me what to look for. He didn’t talk, you know, give me much direction at all. He let me personally interpret that and then come back to him with ideas. So yeah, I think it’s giving people the freedom and just don’t do things black and white and not one person is the same either.

Dave Heywood (22:33)
Yeah, one of my favorite things I used to do when particularly hiring junior marketers was running assessment centers for half a day. Because what I find is most people, and more so now in the age of AI, someone can present really well on paper. Someone can turn up and have a half an hour conversation and put on, I could put on a pretty good show for half an hour. Anyone could do that.

Brooke Pinkney (22:42)
Mm-hmm.

system.

Dave Heywood (22:57)
And what I found really interesting was these people that I had half an hour conversations with, I already had a mental hierarchy in my head of going, okay, well, I’ve got two or three of my favorites here, a few I’m not sure of. Put them in a room for three hours running various exercises and the mask starts to slip. You can’t keep up conscious or subconscious deception for that long.

Brooke Pinkney (23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dave Heywood (23:21)
and I found there were people who I was absolutely bowled over with. I wanted to strangle them after three hours. You can’t work with others. Actually, you’re really arrogant or you’re not really listening to what’s being said. And it was remarkable how this true real sense of who someone is and how they would interact within a business was completely different.

Brooke Pinkney (23:29)
No.

Mm-hmm.

Dave Heywood (23:46)
You don’t get that in these formal structures,

Brooke Pinkney (23:49)
Yeah, no, completely. think and that’s one of the, think most or least talked about skills is like listening. So if someone has good listening skills and they can read a room, now you can’t put that on a CV, I can read a room. That’s a skill that intuitively you build with life experience, with confidence and so on.

And I would much prefer to hire someone that hasn’t got a degree in marketing or never done anything in marketing, but they’ve got great listening skills. They ask questions, they lean in when you talk to them. They respect others around you. So I love those videos where interviewees go in to have their interview and they’re being interviewed the second the…

forum with the reception staff and they’re instantly being judged and looked at for how they treat others in the business. So whether your reception is, whether you’re the MD, everyone needs to be treated equally. And I think it’s quite good actually if you take someone to a cafe, see how they treat the staff, it’s things like that that shows quite a lot about somebody and who they are and how they would fit in with the business.

Dave Heywood (25:07)
from that moment where you secure that apprenticeship through to being managing director now, was that a straight shot to the top? Was it a little bit more squiggly? How did you go about building your career broadly speaking? What are the things that you learned?

Brooke Pinkney (25:23)
Yes, if you ever played snakes and ladders, that’s probably more about more what it was like. And I think it’s such a good question because a lot of people on the surface, it will just think, that was easy. Just go apprentice to MD in 10 years and just you’d obviously got everything you went for. That’s not the case. So it was quite a colorful journey.

that didn’t take any one particular route. And I didn’t know it was gonna take that route. But there was one thing that I kept with me all the time is I just wanted to take, as soon as I stepped foot through that business and I felt the amazing opportunity that it could give me and give others, I think I just thought to myself, I really wanna be involved in growing this business in whatever realm. So I did my…

first apprenticeship, that was 18 months of a marketing apprenticeship. So learn all things marketing, had to learn how to, I had to do my key skills again to start off with my IT, maths and English. That was a bit of a shock to the system. So did all of that. And then I thought, okay, I can do another diploma. So I did that diploma. I thought I’m going to have to build credibility by doing it, learning on the job and getting some qualifications under my belt.

So I did another qualification, so a diploma in, that was the Institute of Leadership and Management, I think. So I really wanted to find out more about leadership and management. And at the time in the business, was quite, it was a relatively flat structure, but there was leaders. So there was like business development leaders who have been in place for quite a long time. So I did basically, I think, gosh.

I would say eight of my 12 years in my role, I’ve been doing extracurricular learning. So outside of work, but linked to the role. So did my business development manager role, did my diplomas on the side. So I was doing all of that. And then I was like, right, I really want to be a leader. So I went after about three or four years, I think it was, there was a position that came up to

do an embedded role, so actually to work with one of our clients in their offices in London. So each week I would go up and be embedded within their offices. So I went for that and thought that would be fantastic. So we built that with the client. Also, I’d never lived in the city. I’m quite like a country girl. So I thought that would be great exposure, work with them there. Now that was a tough going from.

you know, working in the office of a small business to a huge corporate business, one of the footsie 50 businesses. And I remember stepping foot into the office and I was like, whoa, this is serious corporate world. How am going to survive this? I remember the first night I stayed in a travel lodge. I hated it. It was noisy. It smelled like marijuana everywhere. And I remember, and I got told by

one of the clients to be quiet on the phone because I was too loud in their office but I was meant to be doing prospecting so being on the phone speaking to prospects so I remember ringing David crying saying I just don’t want to be here I hate it it’s awful I just don’t like it he was like just calm down just talk to me what’s going on and that’s what a great relationship we had because I could go to him and be like like what is this all about because I do not feel comfortable so

I, he was like, firstly, we’ll get you out of a travel lodge. We’ll put you in a premier in. So that’s probably better. And he was like, just stick at it. It will be different. Just learn, just keep your head down, collaborate with the client. Anyway, so I did that for 18 months driving up on a Tuesday morning at 3 AM to get into London for a nine o’clock start, and then driving home on a Thursday evening every week. So that was tough.

Dave Heywood (29:01)
And do think if you hadn’t had that relationship with your leader where you couldn’t pick up the phone and go, look, do you know what, I’m really struggling here. Do you think you would have folded and packed it in and gone, do you know what, I’m not in for this.

Brooke Pinkney (29:07)
Thank

I think potentially, know, because his support and their support was huge in keeping me going, you know, and I think what’s lovely about it is they kept my, they helped me kept my belief in myself and that it would get better. I just needed to be adaptable and learn as I take the positives out of it. It’s not going to be easy. Nothing’s easy ever. So it was just quite a

way out of my comfort zone. But yeah, think I could have definitely probably said, do know what, this is not for me without their support and just them listening to me and being there for me massively helped.

Dave Heywood (29:56)
Yeah, that comes back to present day, doesn’t it, in terms of that leadership style and having an open door, I think it’s okay not to be okay. And that makes a difference between somebody getting over a tough moment and absolutely flying versus feeling like, well, everyone else seems to be absolutely smashing it except me. Am I cut out for it?

Brooke Pinkney (30:02)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yep, yep, absolutely. And I loved sales. So I knew the, I love the sales and marketing part of the role. So I was, you know, on the phone setting appointments. I love that. And I, I thought to myself, I think it was about, it wasn’t for a year or so into doing the role. And I thought, God, I love what I do. Like I love this side of the business. You know, I love sales, marketing, growth. And that was just really, I was never wanting to finance or procurement or.

you know, other areas of the business operations. I was always like this creative. I love talking to people. So yeah, I think now I would always say to my team, if you have a problem, pick the phone up they do, they pick the phone up, drop me a message and we have a chat about it because they know I’ve got their best interests at heart. And usually the prop, you can help them through problems and challenges and

I think if you’re open as well, like David was like, don’t worry, I’ve been in similar situations when I was younger, when I started my career out and he would share things he had been in, in, you know, scenarios he had experienced, which really helped comfort me. And also sometimes he was like, look, you just need to get on with it. You just need to suck it up and see basically, which I think is good. Sometimes I remember once, I mean, you’d never get away with this now.

I went in to go for my first ever client meeting. I think it was about only a couple months into role in the apprenticeship. And I went in and I was wearing this big floaty skirt thing and you know, thought I’d really dressed up for the occasion. He was like, you can’t wear that to a business meeting, go home and get changed. So I’ve had tough love as well, but that has been good, but in the right way. And that’s cause we had a really good relationship and I knew he had my best interest at heart. He wanted me to succeed.

Dave Heywood (32:01)
Yeah, I think that’s the core of it, really, isn’t it? And you talked about your career being snakes and ladders, and think one of things I’ve had to learn as well, sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don’t get what you want as much as you feel you may deserve it. How do you typically respond to those moments where…

Brooke Pinkney (32:11)
Yeah.

Dave Heywood (32:20)
things don’t go your way. Has that changed over time as you’ve developed?

Brooke Pinkney (32:24)
I think yes and no. I think part of my personality is I just want to do the right thing all the time. So part of me is if I do something, I want to do it really, really well. And I never feel like I have done it well. I want to push myself constantly. So I remember a significant moment when a promotion opportunity came up internally. I was about four or five years into the business and a business development leader role came up.

And they always within our business will, we will give into the internal team the opportunity to go for any given role before we advertise it externally. So this came up and I applied for it and we were going to get interviewed by an external interview and it was myself and two or three other colleagues and they were much more senior than me. So I was like,

know what what have I got to lose I may as well go for it I think I’m there you know it’ll be fine so went through this went through an internal presentation and then I got interviewed by an external interviewer that they brought in and then I didn’t get it and I was initially like how dare they

You know, and I went home upset and frustrated and I was like, oh man, this is just the end of my career. If I can’t get this and I think I’m here. But actually, after a day or so of cooling down and realising, doing some introspection and thinking, okay, this is what have I learned? This is why I haven’t, I’m not really there. I think I knew I wasn’t really there, but I had to take away what I learned. I thought this has just made me want to get there.

quicker and made me want it even more. So it was a bit of a blow to suck up, know, internally, because all my colleagues knew I didn’t get it. So I was a bit embarrassed, thought they didn’t think I was ready. But actually, it’s made me learn that if I put someone internally into a role they’re not ready for, then it’s not going to be probably a success. So they did me a favour.

Dave Heywood (34:20)
That’s resilience to a T, really, isn’t it? Taking that knock back. Actually taking the time to really think it through and dust yourself off and come back again. How do you keep the levels of resilience up? Because they are quite crushing blows, aren’t they?

Brooke Pinkney (34:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think this is you’ve hit on a really good point because the word resilience is completely misinterpreted I think these days so when they go you need to be resilient they you know people think that’s I have to work 18 hours a day do I and work myself into the ground and be resilient well no resilience is about like you say not getting something you’ve gone for or not getting the result you wanted

and being able to get over the feelings, negative, the instant negative feelings, and then going, okay, I’ve got enough self-awareness and enough drive to want to improve and better myself or better the situation or better the business to go, I’m gonna take this failure, I’m gonna learn from it, I’m gonna strip it back and go, okay, why didn’t I? What can I do next time to get me there then? What are my gaps?

because that awareness is the only way you’re going to move forward. So for me, that resilience comes down to self-awareness. And I really think it’s letting go of your ego a bit as well, because I know we all start with bit of an ego. I started with an ego and it’s going, I’m not going to be great at everything. I’m not going to get everything I go for and that’s okay. That’s fine.

But the core part of that is, no, I didn’t get that, but tell you what, a year later I got that because I took that from it and I learned and I pushed myself and that’s resilience is being able to pick yourself back up. Also use others. So I sat down with them and said, right, where were my gaps then? Be honest. think also resilience is about taking feedback because I have witnessed people who can’t take feedback and they don’t succeed in a role. And that’s because

everyone can improve I think there’s always improvements I mean you don’t always have to be constantly improving all the time but resilience comes down to the fact of learning from failure and saying do you know what I’m gonna do better next time otherwise there’d be no innovations in the world because I’m telling you it probably took them 50 iterations to design the first iPhone before they got it right and if they gave up and didn’t do anything about it

It’ll be a different, well, Apple would be a different business today, wouldn’t it?

Dave Heywood (36:42)
Yeah, yeah, if everyone just crowded through the toys at the Pram every time Steve Jobs kicked off, which by all accounts is quite often, then… well, we’d still be walking around with Blackberries.

Brooke Pinkney (36:45)
No.

Yep.

I know, and weren’t they fun?

Dave Heywood (36:54)
My

fingers are too fat for that by far.

Brooke Pinkney (36:56)
They were tiny

little buttons, weren’t they? I can’t believe I even used anything like that.

Dave Heywood (37:01)
I know, try and pick one up now and see how fast you can text. No comparison. So now I want to look at your trajectory from a slightly different angle. There’s quite a big difference from being an apprentice, taking those steps up the rung to managing director. I want to get a little bit into the mindset shift that that demands really.

Brooke Pinkney (37:23)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Heywood (37:23)
How did you find the way you had to think about things and articulate what you were doing and why you were doing it? How conscious were you that that had to evolve as well as just having experience in doing and delivering a good job?

Brooke Pinkney (37:31)
.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah, I think there’s a combination of impacting factors that supported the shift in my mindset and how I came about decision making, came about learning, came about looking at what was possible, what the future, know, how I worked with others, how I worked with businesses. Firstly, I think it goes back to feedback. I remember sitting in when I first joined the leadership team.

And I was like, oh yes, I’ve got a platform to make change, you know, I’m in the leadership team. And I would go in there and just bulldoze, because I’m flamboyant, get so excited if I have an idea and I think it’s great and everyone would benefit from it and the business would do great. And I used to go to those meetings and just be like, why aren’t we doing this? This is amazing. And then Hillary, founder of Broadley Speaking and former MD.

sat me down and was like, yeah, you need to stop saying I all the time. And I was like, yeah, but I thought of it. But so I said, okay, what do you mean? You know, and I said, and I’d never really thought about how I was perceived or the impact I had from someone else’s perspective, someone who wasn’t, we use insights internally. So I don’t know if you’ve heard of like disc profiling insights is around your personality type. I’m very yellow and warm and friendly and fuzzy and

love building relationships, I’m happy to talk in public, I get nervous but I’m excited by it, it drives me. Other people aren’t like that, know, not everyone’s like me. So I was inadvertently rubbing people up the wrong way, who are more analytical, who are more precision led in their thought process, needed to have an idea brought to them and take it away and think about it. It was a massive learning for me and I thought

wow, actually, I haven’t put myself in other people’s shoes enough to think about what does this mean to them? How do I get buy-in from my audience? And that goes through all walks of life. If you’re going for a promotion, if you’re going on a date, all these things is thinking about, okay, let me put myself in their shoes on what this means to them, how it’s gonna impact them, how it’s gonna benefit them or not benefit them, what are they gonna be thinking? How can I?

resonate more effectively and successfully with people around me. And that was massive, I think, in a mindset shift of, I really need to be thinking about this from a wider perspective and how other people are perceiving my actions. And that really helped me then. I saw a huge change in sitting back, listening, asking questions.

thinking about, I’ve got this idea, maybe let’s get a group together, let’s have a chat about it, see what other people are thinking, what are your views, how would this impact your role? And then, wow, I was getting buy-in, I was seeing more traction on ideas that I was bringing to the table, and I just had other people more motivated. So I think that was moving, again, getting rid of my ego a bit, of thinking every idea, because I was so excited.

I just think, why aren’t you excited about this? And of course, someone in process was thinking, I’ve got to implement all this. Everything you’re bringing to me, you’re going, this is great. But I’m thinking, God, this is going to be a pain in the ass for me to implement and mobilize. So that was one of them was putting myself in other people’s shoes.

Dave Heywood (40:51)
Yeah, and getting that balance right between ambition and empathy as well. It’s a bit of a tight rep. You need to push things forward, but bring people along for the ride as well.

Brooke Pinkney (40:58)
Yes.

Yeah, definitely. And I’d say the biggest one. So I did in the end just before we were talking about so when we talked about the succession plan, and then how I would love to be the one that took business forward. I did go to I did get in to do an MBA with Exter university. So I hadn’t obviously done university when I was younger.

Dave Heywood (41:31)
I think what we’ve learned so far, and it’s been really loud and clear that nobody and nothing is ever perfect, are still parts of you that you’re still working on.

Brooke Pinkney (41:41)
Yes, absolutely I would say. So I’m probably never ever going to be where I need to be. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I always want to improve. always, it’s really weird actually because I don’t know, some people think this is unhealthy, some people think it’s healthy. I think it’s just who I am. I go away from every day and think, I could have done better today.

And that’s just who I am. just, I put a lot of pressure on myself. It’s funny, I put more pressure on myself than others around me to better myself, to do more, but that’s just what keeps me going. I’m never content with or complacent with, I’m great now. I’ll just keep going. Like I ran a webinar this week, first time ever. And I was so nervous because I care. I want it to go well for the business, the team, to show the team that we’ve

know we can do this we can do webinars and it’s such a great platform but I was so nervous and I went away from that and I thought god I was rubbish was I good enough so I think for me it’s about yeah I think it’s about celebrating the wins though and that’s what I’ve learned is really critical to be able to grow and move forward and improve you have to look at no do you know what I did do a good job there

And I think I’ve listened to Chris Williamson interview Matthew McConaughey and he said, don’t celebrate ourselves enough. know, people go, well, God, you sound a bit big headed when you say I did a really good job there. Well, no one else is going to, I can’t rely on other people to celebrate my wins. You know, you have to look at what you’ve achieved. And so I’m trying to get better at that. I’m not amazing, but I do try and think what am I grateful for today? Where did I do well and what?

Can I do better next time?

Dave Heywood (43:20)
Yeah, I’m being less British about it as well. Take a leaf from the Americans book. They know how to celebrate success.

Brooke Pinkney (43:22)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yes. Very polite English way of being quieter about success, isn’t it? I can’t brag.

Dave Heywood (43:33)
I bet you-

Yes, but we can and we should, where appropriate. So that’s you. So that’s you. What about the business? What’s next for, broadly speaking, broadly speaking? I had to get it in. I had to get in a plan.

Brooke Pinkney (43:35)
Yeah, definitely.

That’s

fine. I’m amazed you lasted this long. What’s next for the business? I just think we’ve got such an amazing business where we deliver amazing results for businesses globally from Singapore, Europe, America. I think we’ve got to keep pushing. I want us to be the global leader or global

partner of choice for anything sales and sales led marketing because I think I’ve got the belief in our amazing team and it’s such a fantastic business and we help.

Businesses grow, know, businesses who turn over over a billion to startups. It’s amazing. It really is. And I think we’ve got so much to offer businesses out there that I just want to keep growing our voice as that trusted advisor in the space for sales and sales led marketing. So I think just keep pushing what we’re doing, delivering great results. And I think we’ve got a huge opportunity to keep growing as a business.

and that whilst having fun and having a good time and smiling and celebrating the lows as well.

Dave Heywood (44:51)
Yeah,

there’s this and dance but on the whole, up, up, up and up.

Brooke Pinkney (44:55)
Definitely.

Dave Heywood (44:55)
So finally, if you had to choose one piece of advice for someone who might be feeling perhaps a little bit stuck or doubting themselves, what would that be?

Brooke Pinkney (45:06)
Don’t lose belief in what you can do for you. I think that comes down to don’t let others take you down or influence what you want to do. If you feel like you are really good at something or you really want something, it may not be easy, maybe quite hard to get there, but you have the power to carve out.

whether it’s a career or whatever you’re doing in life, you hold the power over what you can achieve. And I would say don’t give up, keep going. Because failure isn’t a sign to stop, it is a sign to keep going and keep pushing yourself.

Dave Heywood (45:42)
Definitely and keep those listening ears on as well. I would take that as don’t get dragged down, also if people are giving you feedback and pointers and are highlighting areas for you to work on. Treat that as a gift.

Brooke Pinkney (45:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, be open to that. And I think really, well, if you’ve got some self-awareness and emotional intelligence, you will know where your gaps are and where you need to improve. So I think it’s about embracing that, embracing where the things you’re really good at and the things you’re not so good at and going, OK, I need to focus in on them, take feedback, listen.

take it the right way as you say because it will help there will be people in your life like my the leaders around me and my family who’ve helped you know get me out of some sticky situations and keep that belief in myself.

Dave Heywood (46:33)
Because if you hadn’t, at that point of which walking in for the interview having The Gauntlet, which is a book literally thrown down in front of you, how different things could have been?

Brooke Pinkney (46:44)
I know I could have just bottled it there and then and thought I can’t do this but I did it and those around me said bloody go for it go for it if you have a good feeling go for it so I did

Dave Heywood (46:57)
Brilliant. Okay, well, thanks so much for spending some time with me today. Loads and loads to really think about and really valuable for anyone who is starting out trying to chart a path and a course and just some helpful words to keep yourself sane as well.

Brooke Pinkney (47:13)
Definitely. Thank you, Dave. It’s been lovely chatting to you.

Dave Heywood (47:16)
Brilliant, and thanks to you as well for listening. If you’ve enjoyed today’s conversation, don’t forget to subscribe for future episodes, leave a review or share with your friends and colleagues, and we’ll see you next time.