My Way (with Ivan Buric)

I had a very different experience at Virgin to others. And the reason for that is the way that Branson works, I've got immense respect for Richard Branson. And, you know, he's ruthless, but nobody who's that successful isn't ruthless, you know. But he understanding how his franchising model works will is is really key.

Welcome to MyWay, the podcast where we shape our path in business and life. I'm your host, Ivan, former pro athlete and physiotherapist, turned product marketer. Whether you're looking to inspire change, drive growth, or simply find your way, you are in the right place. Welcome aboard. Harvey, welcome.

Hello. How are you? Nice to be here.

I'm very good. Thanks. How are you doing?

Yeah. No. Good. Thank you. Good.

And, thanks for having me on the podcast.

It's my pleasure, and I'm so much looking forward to this chat.

Great. Let's go. Let's dig in.

Alright, Harvey. Let's kick it off by, you sharing a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you're doing for the people that don't know you yet.

Right. Sure. Well, my name is Harvey Lee. I've I've probably been in product marketing for longer than product marketing almost existed. So I've been in product marketing for 25, 30 years.

What I that a lot of what I've know I'm known for in the marketing community is being a recognizable figure in the product marketing community specifically. But those people who know me, and those people who are getting to know me also know that my background is in rock and roll. I started my career off as a teenager in the rock and roll business and, then moved into video games. I suppose, the the unavoidable topic of my involvement with Xbox has to come up because, I'm probably most well known for being on the original Xbox launch team. And more recently, in the past 10 years, working in tech and specifically in product marketing in tech and and more recently, being a leading figure in the product marketing community.

And now I'm an author. I've got a book coming out. So, you know, the the journey continues.

And we'll talk more about it later. I'm super curious, you know, about this transition from from music into technology, into marketing and product marketing. What were your learnings there, and what have you been able to apply from the overall music industry into something that seems apparently totally different?

Yeah. It does it does seem to not correlate, doesn't it? But, actually, when you interrogate it a little bit, actually, the the the lines of connection start start to appear. If you think about music today, music today is technology. I mean, the way that music has been going for years years years has has has moved from what is and and, you know, to a large degree, still a very creative, topic.

But it was always it was always delivered in formats, and they were physical formats. And you could argue that they were the technology of the day, vinyl records, tape cassettes, or even back in my day, super 8 cassettes. I don't go so far back as, as cylinders, but, you know, it's it's not far off. And and today being, you know, the Internet and the Internet the Internet technology changed the music business structurally. So from that point of view, maybe it's not such a surprise because the format, the delivery, and the distribution of music has been determined by technology pretty much forever.

But nobody really thought of it as technology until the technology happened to just be empowered by the Internet. From my point of view, yeah, it it seems illogical. It seems a bit haphazard. However, from being on the road as a teenager in in my early twenties into artist and business and label management, into marketing, and then into video games, and then into tech. Well, the the funny thing is that when I was working, I probably say I was never anywhere close to tech, and I wasn't technically minded when I was on the road.

But when I was on the road, there was no mobile phones. There was no GPS. You know, technology of its day was very analog. It was you know, if you need if you were out and about and you needed to phone someone, you had to find a call box and put physical coins in it. That I mean, we're talking about that era.

That was the technology. So tech didn't really exist in in that way. Where I got introduced to tech was still in the music industry. It was around 90 about 93, 94. And I started using I had a fax machine at home, and then I had an electric typewriter, not a manual one.

And then that moved to a computer of sorts that I really didn't get on with. It was a 386 or 286. I can't remember. I think it was work it was running Windows 3.11 for work groups. I mean, that was my first contact with technology as we know it, today.

Within 2 years, I was working in a record label in London, and I had my own laptop. We're running Windows 3. We upgraded to Windows 95. And I think for everybody in the world, the Windows 95 was the pivot, really, where technology became accessible for everybody. Even though we computers been around for ages, we had dock pictures, printers, we had 286, we had DOS, and, you know, work could happen.

It was very manual, and there was no there was no keyboard and mouse. It was all keystrokes. So I got introduced to technology or tech, if you wanna call it that, while I was at the record label, and all their accounting was done on IBM 286 computers, blue screens, all that kind of stuff. And then the whole company and it wasn't a very big company, but the whole company upgraded to Windows 95. And then, really, nothing was the same ever since.

We we got plugged into the Internet in a meaningful way, always on connections. I bought my own laptop, and I just taught myself how to do things like mail merge mailing lists for the bands that we were working with,

you

know, mail outs from the computer. And this sense of empowerment and the ability to multiply your impact by touching one button rather than sending multiple messages manually, really, was my introduction to technology. I mean, my fur the first benefit I remember was, you know, when we used to send a press release out to radio stations in the in the record label, I would have our receptionist sit by the fax machine for an entire day with a pile of 200 pieces of paper as you had to manually fax each one of them to a different number. Right? That was our mail out.

Right? And then when I got when I got my laptop and I had the email addresses, it was a push of a button. And I was like, we just saved a whole day and a whole person's time. So that was like, wow. This tech thing really is empowering, and I can multiply my effect over.

And so I got interested from that point on. I never really looked back after that.

It's interesting, Harvey, how you mentioned emails. So looks like you already understood the value of it so many years ago. Well, today, in some businesses, it's still not taken for granted, you know, owing the customers, their data, and being able to, connect to them without relying on external platforms, social media, and so on. How did you understood this value early on when nobody was talking about it?

I don't know. I I just think being an early adopter, being having a curious growth mindset, even though, you know, back in those days, I didn't recognize that was what it was. It was just, well, this is how I work. This is how I am, was was really the key of it. I mean, there's a story in my book where where I meet my first fax machine in 198 oh god.

What's the year? 1984, 85, something like that. Anyway and I meet my first fax machine, and it's the size of a wardrobe. But I was curious. I was like, I'm I'm just naturally curious.

I want to know how things work. I want to know what the benefit is. And, you know, over the years, that that personal natural curiosity has has stood me in good stead, to be honest, because I'm still, you know, even my my ripe old age, I'm still naturally curious about how things work. Right? And to make them work, and I'm still a bit of a techie geek, if I'm perfectly honest, you know, even on a personal level.

So that transpires. But, yeah, you're right. Ivan, if if organizations don't take it for granted. Right? They or so should I say, they take it for granted, but they're they're not always right.

Because their focus maybe their focus isn't on the customer, the natural curiosity to really understand the customer, they may well be thinking too much about themselves. Right? And from that point of view, I call that into orientation. They're orientated too much looking at themselves rather than taking a walk and putting themselves in the shoes of their own customer. That's that's just the starting point.

If you can't get that part right, you're you're in for a struggle.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm gonna ask you some follow-up questions later on.

That's right. No problem.

I'm just curious. You've been sharing a lot recently on LinkedIn about branding, and, it looks like a literally like a mini marketing MBA, what what you shared on on social media.

Yeah.

Talking about branding, one of the key brands, I guess, at least from my perspective that you work for is is Virgin, and we talked a little bit, in the backstage about it. But I'm curious, you know, about this called Richard Branson personality and working really being hands on into this this company. What was it like, and what have you learned there?

Yeah. So the the interesting thing about Virgin is is his is kind of is his his investment vehicle. Some of the businesses he owns outright. Some of them are joint ventures. Like, I don't think most people know that Virgin Airlines, he doesn't wholly own Virgin Airlines.

He he probably did at the very beginning, or he was a majority. But now it's it's a joint venture. I think it's with Malaysia Airlines. But they use the Virgin brand because of its equity. Virgin I worked at Virgin Interactive.

Now now Virgin Interactive used to be called Bustotronic, and in the in the days Branson was, involved with it. But what a lot of people don't know about Virgin Interactive is that Branson was already gone. He'd already sold out. There's already been a management buyout, but they kept the name. And this this happens quite a bit in in his business franchising business models.

And what he does is he licenses the brand back to the company. So they're still Virgin. Right?

Alright.

And he makes money passively. So Virgin Interactive was no different. So by the time I got there, he was already gone. However, we had to live all the as as a franchisee of the brand, we had to live the brand values as if he was sitting next to me. So that part doesn't change.

You know, they they review the brand every year. You know, are you on track? Are are you looking after it? Are you not looking after it? Measuring brand health, etcetera, etcetera.

And, you know, you then you can renew for another year or not. So it was a very, very interesting exercise. So we lived the Virgin brand values, but by that point, Richard was gone. And but that's also true for many of his businesses that are, using the the Virgin brand. But, oh my, we live the Virgin brand to its fullest.

I mean, in the book, I it's the big the the the story about Virgin in my book, Backstage Pass, is the biggest chapter in the book. It takes an hour to read it. Most of them only take 20 minutes, but it's massive. And it spans 3 years. And and it's real it's real rock and roll stuff.

Let's just let's leave it leave it leave it there. And it's probably one of my most favorite chapters. It's certainly one of the most debauched, deranged, rock and roll chapters in the book. But working for them working for that brand was fantastic. I it wasn't the only contact I had with Branson or Branson's Empire because before I went there a few year just a handful of years earlier, I worked for a record label.

Again, it's in the book called EG Records. And EG Records were a Virgin franchisee or a licensee. My boss, or my bosses at the time had a direct hotline to Richard Branson. So EG Records in their final, I wanna say, 3 to 5 years of being a major label licensee, they had Brian Ferry and Roxy Music and Killin' Jack. I mean, they're a big roster, especially for an independent.

So they licensed it through Virgin before that, Polydor, before that, Ireland. And so they sell a lot of records for Virgin when Branson actually still owned Virgin Records. But they sold their portfolio to Richard Branson, Richard Branson's Virgin Records at the time. I can't remember how long ago. This is a long time ago because it was before Virgin Airlines.

And Branson was selling Virgin Records to EMI, and he was buying up catalogs to fatten up the goose to take it to market, so to speak. And we were we were we were one of the meals that we're getting that we're getting sold in. And so I used to hear stories about Richard Branson from my bosses. So there's lots of different stories about him. I think it very much depends on the experience you have working with him or in in contact with his organization.

But, you know, by and large, my my own personal experiences have have never been anything but but positive, you know, at Reddy's book, while I was working at Virgin Interactive, actually. And, it's just a very, very inspiring kind of if anybody ever wants to know what the about the power and the equity and brand, you just need to do a case study on Virgin. Mhmm. Because they can make money without without getting out of bed. For that if in the licensee model.

You know? And, you know, they've had their you know, they've been they've had the humility to admit that they've had their failures as well. I don't know if you remember Virgin Clothing. Mhmm. And if you remember virgin

Virgin cola as well.

Virgin cola was the biggest disaster they've ever had. And and and Branson's the first one to hold his hand up and go, yeah. We got that one wrong. You know, we should not have entered that category, whatsoever. We got it all wrong.

But it's a fantastic MBA case study. Maybe, actually, in my in one of my newsletters, I'll do a case study on Virgin Carla because I there's plenty of material about it, and it is a fantastic educational lesson for people who want to learn more about marketing and learn more about, you know, not Kona, but brands.

Yeah. And it's interesting how you mentioned then on one side, there were lots of failures. On the other side, even if the person who was embodying the the values of the brand was not next to you, you were feeling this this presence. Sometimes it feels in lots of companies that the further or the more distant you are for from the person who embodies brand values, this just gets diluted. So why this didn't happen at Virgil?

What were some strategies that were taking in place to make sure that the branding was still the highest priorities in the company?

Well, I mean, there's there's 2 things. Right? There's there's there's the founder model, which, you know, Richard Branson understands clearer than anybody else, that Virgin is Richard Branson. You cannot separate the 2. Without Richard Branson, there is no Virgin.

And when Richard Branson, in in, you know, years to come, hopefully, lives to a 120 and all of that, but when Richard Branson is no more, then Virgin will be another corporate brand. So it'll be interesting. It might even be a little sad to see what happens to the court, to the Virgin brand after Richard Branson himself is gone. So he is the embodiment of that brand. Number 1.

As with as some founders always are in you know, you cannot separate Tesla from Elon Musk, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's a it's an interesting topic for the future to have and sort of what would happen when they're gone and maybe have a look at some case studies. The second part is what what happens how is, you know, how is the brand brands are man brands are created and brands are managed. So Richard obviously created a brand, whether he knew it or not, back in the early days. And whether you're working in a company that he's already got a business interest in, I know a couple of people who still work there, who directly work for him, or you work in one of his investment companies that license his brand, the brand still has to be managed, and you still need great brand managers to manage the brand.

Think about it. Think about it like a like a garden. It's like you reap what you sow. So creating a brand is creating the conditions to grow and to grow the right thing. Brand management is maintaining it in the right way so that it can do what it so it can grow in the best possible way.

So brand managers have 2 jobs. There's creation and there's management. It it splits into 2 parts. And the management part of it, you could have a great brand and manage it badly, or you could have a very average ban brand and manage it brilliantly. The outcomes, I I would argue that an average brand managed well will do better than a brilliant brand managed poorly.

So Interesting.

You have

to be able to do both. Right? And as a brand, that's the challenge for a good brand manager. If you're a brand manager and you go into a new job, let's say you go to P&G or Unilever. You go to a big consumer package company.

Product marketers in consumer package companies generally tend to be brand managers. They do a lot of the product marketing function as well. And those brand managers, they have p and l responsibility, and it's their job. They are custodians of the brand. They didn't create the brand.

They go in, and it's like, okay. Your brand portfolio is this. And they're allocated a brand or a brand portfolio, and their job their job is merely not to f it up. That's their job. Go f it up.

And, and you are a custodian of the brand. You don't own it. It's just you're holding it. It's, you know, you're holding the baby for a while. Don't drop it.

Right? And if you can nurture it, great. At some point, you're gonna pass it onto another brand manager, pass it on in as good as or better health than you received it. Right? Brand management.

And, I I did an MBA in brand management with Mark Ritzer, which is one of the best courses I ever, ever did. So I, you know, I learned I really learned the essence of, what it really takes, and and Virgin do it brilliantly. CPG companies do it brilliantly. I don't think b to b companies do it well at all.

Alright. Let's talk a little bit about that because I'm super curious. So we talked about brand at the moment. Considering your background and your experience, what are the other elements that make a company or a business successful?

Well, outside of brand?

Yes.

Do you know what? I I think that there's there's 2 elements to this. There's an external element and, you know, in in the interest of time, an ex there's an external element and an internal element. The external element is the most important one in the short term, and that is being in the right category. Right?

It's not about the brand. It's about being in the right category. At the end of the day, the category comes first. The bank the brand comes later. Right?

Nobody was ever successful purely on the fact that they had a great brand. They're successful because they won the category. Right? The category leader soaks ups 2 thirds, 3 quarters of the sales in most categories based on data. So being in the right category is absolutely table stakes.

And understanding your segment, the market, how you segment it, choosing where you play in the right category is really the biggest decision you're gonna make at the beginning. You get that wrong, everything else will be wrong. Right? It's a house of cards. Right?

Everything else will just fall over. So for me, number 1, category is the most important deciding factor, and how you manage how you manage your entry into that category or how you manage your existing presence in that category. That's the most important part. The second part is internal, and that's culture. Right?

If you haven't got the if you don't create the right conditions internally with your greatest asset and what is your greatest asset? Your people. If you don't create the right conditions with your people inside the building, you will not be able to nurture the category that you have entered into or that you are already, a part of. So for me, those are the 2 big ones. Get either one of those wrongs.

It's failure. You need both. From there, if you make good headway with both, then you've got a chance of building something meaningful. Right? But it's not about brand.

It's not about having the best product. It's not about the shiny features or the the exciting tech road map that we all, you know, many many companies get wrapped up in. It's got nothing to do with it whatsoever. That's just minute detail as far as the customer is concerned. Right?

Do

you mind sharing some specific examples? So for instance, you brought with your team the Product Marketing Alliance to some amazing results. Do you mind talking a little bit about, first of all, what's Product Marketing Alliance, and then how did you apply those principles to get it from something very early stage into a very successful educational platform? I'm not sure what, category do you fit in, but can you walk us through this process? Because it would be super interesting.

Yeah.

The category thing, we'll have to leave that. That's a massive topic, especially when you span multiple categories. Right. Well, first of all, I've gotta give credit to Richard King. So Richard King's the founder of the the Alliance and Product Marketing Alliance, and, you know, the Alliance has more than one community, but the Product Marketing Alliance is probably the biggest and most well known one.

Rich started the Alliance, just before, lockdown, actually. None of his new lockdown was coming. His his partner in crime, Josie, ran Sequel Media. They ran events very successfully. It was an events company.

So so the business per se actually started off as an as an events business, but it wasn't known as the product marketing lights at the time. And they started running what was called product marketing world. It was called product marketing world at the time. They did San Francisco, New York, London before lockdown. It was called product marketing.

Well, in fact, when I spoke to Epson, I sent my team to the London one. They all came back raving about it. Still wasn't really known as the product marketing alliance by then. Rich started literally handing out leaflets and slices of pizza at these events. As with all great companies, they start somewhere extremely modestly.

You know, Marks and Spencer started off as a as a small stall bazaar in a market in Leeds. I mean, this is Leeds UK. This is how these companies start. Right? Same with Procter and Gamble.

It was 2 2 Irish immigrants getting off the boat in America and started decided to do what they did, etcetera, etcetera. So PMA is no different. So he started building the community. He started building a community. He didn't really know where he was gonna go.

And I love that. It's like he chose a path and just the path revealed itself, as he started. I remember being at a community event in London. Actually, the last time I saw you in person, which was at a fora in London a couple of months back, was the place that the PMA for me really started in 2,000 late 2019, early 2020. Rich was there with a foldout table from Costco handing out slices of pizza and bottles of beer and leaflets, getting people to sign up to the Slack group.

And it you know, a 100 turned into 500 turned into a 1000 turned into 4000 turned into 5000. And then what happened was, you know, he would deliver value, build a website online, and then lockdown happened. And he discovered this shared pain, with with this community, and it just really grew from there. And it grew on Slack. I mean, they've got 40,000 people on Slack now, on the free Slack.

But this sense of community, this sense of, not foreboding, but this sense of shared pain and the power in the community to help each other and soothe that pain was was really quite unexpected, but it was phenomenal it drove a phenomenal growth. And, of course, I don't wanna say lucky because it's not a lucky event, but, you know, because of lockdown, everything got driven online and could be built easier. Right? So the growth happened quicker. So, of course, everything went digital.

The events got canceled. And Rich is a fantastic technician when it comes to sort of building digital stuff. And the community grew, the offerings grew. I left my job and and started consulting, and and as a founding first 5000 founding members, started teaching, coaching, hosting podcasts, you're doing the whole thing. And it just it just grew and grew and grew and grew very organically, very organically.

And and that's where it really started. So I did that. So for 2 years, it was during lockdown. It was mostly online. And then, of course, when lockdown finished and things started opening up, the events came back, the courses in all the in person stuff started happening.

It just carried it just carried on growing. The the the the orbit, carried it to the next stage of growth. Back to your question about which category is it in, essentially, the alliance or the product marketing alliance is a community. So that's what it is, but it plays in multiple subcategories or multiple categories, because a community has lots of different branches or lots of different tenants. Right?

And, you know, the big 2 the the big 2 or 3 probably would be number 1 is events. So they run fantastic summits and events all around the world on an annual basis, and and and the events team in the alliance is just bunch of rock stars. Fantastic. Been to plenty, hosted plenty, spoken at plenty, and they're they're just a great team. And they they've got it down pat.

The the L and D part is also great at a community level, so for product marketing alliance, they, you know, they do great courses for new product marketers, existing product marketers, and they have a really, really real depth and breadth in in their offering. And then the 3rd part is memberships, so, you know, paid memberships. So you can get a lot of value out of the PMA for free, but you can get exponential value if you're a paying customer. So their their new their latest subscription offering has proven really popular, which is the all you can eat offering.

What would you say is now the ratio of, paid value against the free value for the product marketing alliance?

That would I can't share that number. Sorry. You're gonna have to edit that one out.

No no worries. We'll do that.

Yeah. But it it I think it's about 90.10 or majority of it is, you know, for free. But what's interesting is the pro package, which is, I think, starts about $2,000 a year where you get a free event, all the courses, all the pro membership stuff thrown in has proven to be the most popular, developed commercial development in the past 12 months, because it's just the best value. It's just actually quite that simple. It's just the best value.

So, you know, an event alone is gonna cost you 1400 to go to an event. Well, for 2,000, you can have $8,000 worth of courses thrown in unlimited, you know, plus all the membership stuff and all the call ins and hosted meetings. And so it is really worth it. But, of course, you wanna get out of it what you put in. So, anyhow, let's leave that one there.

Let's move to another question.

Yeah. Sure. Sure. Now after, you know, having a community of 40,000 members and teaching so many courses, what what's the best way to define product marketing?

Well, I I think that the starting point listen, I'll be clear. I don't think there is a definition for product marketing because there's it's just too varied. So everybody will have their own point of view, and guess what? Everyone is more likely gonna be right in their own context. Mhmm.

Reality of pro the reality of defining product marketing is, first of all, to understand what it is rather than how to define it. And defining what it is is also not quite straightforward as many people would appreciate. The reality of the matter for product marketing is it's not a marketing job. Right? This is the cut this is this is the, I don't know, would you call it a paradox?

This is, this is the the tension in the role and and the title is that the title is a little bit misleading. Right? Because we're not product people and we're not marketing people. Right? But we're we're product marketing.

So that's confusing. However, I tell you what what my my definition of the role of product marketing is in terms of what it delivers to a business is that it's a role that defines strategic growth for an organization. It is a strategic product marketing is a strategic growth function. It is not a product function. It is not a marketing function.

Most organizations think that and and to some degree, it's right, and it's not right that it's a go to market motion for most, and there is a huge a huge part of that. But the question is, should product marketing own go to market? Well, there's 2 ways to look at go to market. There's go to market strategy, and there's go to market execution. And the we should not own the execution part.

There are other at the end of the day, that all the other teams are the ones that are actually doing the work. Product marketing, by definition, of the kind of work we do, is very much below the waterline. And my news newsletter is called below the waterline for that very reason that most of the work we do, you you won't see, but it forms the majority of the work, just like an iceberg below the waterline. So whether, you know, that's, segmentation work, competitor insight, decision making, working into, you know, the back channels with executives in the c suite or, you know, business case hypothesis, insight work, deep insight work, all of that, managing the short, medium, and long term horizons for the business as well is a strategic function. And, you know, in my world for product marketing, product marketing is a strategic growth function.

I don't go I don't do go to market execution per se. And I think that over time, we're gonna see product marketing breakout as a strategic growth function, not a not a go to market function, which lots of organizations have. And and the the the the challenge here lies that is is the misattribution of what people think product marketing actually is. And and if there's a lot of change coming, so, you know, the way that Airbnb are combining their product management and their product marketing function into 1, Apple already app it's already been said that Apple do it, but they actually have separate product marketing as well. I know plenty of people at Apple.

So they have they have do they do have a separate function, but they work together as if they were 1. Mhmm. For for me, that is nava that is Nirvana. And, again, every organization will continue to do it differently. I don't ever see a scenario where all companies are aligned and do it the same, and that sales means the same thing to everyone.

Product marketing will never be that. But the kind of product marketing that I specialize in is very much just the strategic growth engine.

Thank you. We'll turn this part definitely into a clip or something to based on a on a lots of walls so

that you can Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There'll be plenty of people come running going, I agree or don't agree, but that's good. We want a reaction.

For sure. Shifting gears, Harvey, Backstage Pass.

Hey. Hey.

What what what is, what made you decide to write a book? And also it's it's a pretty unique title. Just by reading it, you're not supposed to connect it anyhow to business. But, ultimately, as you said, it's 50% business and 50% music or rock. So tell me more about it.

Yeah. So my book Backstage Pass there was no you know what? There was never a day I woke up one day, and I thought, you know what? I'm gonna write a book today. That that actually never happened.

It was just a very gradual thing over time. I was doing an interview yesterday for a website, and they asked me a similar question. And I and I said, look. The origin of the book is is it came from many, many years of telling all these rock and roll war stories from my from my past at the water cooler, at the coffee machine, in the staff restaurant across multiple companies, all big companies, you know, Microsoft, Kaspersky, Seiko, you I mean, Virgin. All the companies that I worked at, I used to tell these stories.

People used to lean in. I and and from my point of view, I always just took it for I've always taken my background for granted, and and I always thought it was normal. I'm like, well, who didn't go on the road and tour with a rock band when they were 19? Because for me, that was normal. That was my normal.

But, of course, over time, it revealed itself to be actually completely unnormal or untypical. Let's put it that way, unconventional. And, so people would lean in or tell these stories as people we would get to know each other over time. And they would go, you did what? You worked with what?

You worked with ACDC. Oh, you you did this. You went where when you were 90? And all of this and all these crazy stories. And, you know, cars getting driven into swimming pools and TVs getting.

It's all in there. And so I lived it. This is is not not these are real stories. And then a few people said to me I don't know. It was probably about 10 years ago now.

Said to me, Harvey, you should you really you should write these down. Like, one day, you're gonna be gone, and these stories will be gone forever. When you're gone, the stories are gone. You should write them down. That's a bit of a morbid thought to think.

Okay. One day it won't be. Anyhow, different different podcast. And I thought, you know what? You're you're right.

One day, I'll I'll get around to it. And I can't remember, in all honesty, I I can't remember the moment. I turned around, okay. I'm gonna do it. But I do remember the moment that I built out I fleshed out a framework of what it would look like.

I remember toiling with myself about how to position the book and what category it should be in, back to the point about being the category is so important. It's biggest decision ever made on this book. It's what category should it be. And, and then I've got a great editor, Sarah Oliver. She's brilliant.

And we we I just set about writing it. And as, you know, with writing, it was about creating small habits that are repeatable. So because it was such a huge body of work. If I knew how much work it was gonna be it was gonna be, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I think that that's true for everything that I've ever done that's big in my life.

And that that applies for everyone. If you actually know how much hard it how much hard work it's gonna be, you wouldn't do anything. So, you know, ignorance was bliss from that point of view. But to your point about, yeah, it's a business book. It's a rock and roll book.

From a business point of view, I positioned it as an unconventional business book, not as a memoir, even though it reads a little bit like a memoir.

Mhmm.

And the reason for that is, it's not a memoir because who the hell knows who Harvey Lee is. Right? Number and I did some research through you, Garvin. Like, only 40% of people would buy a book from someone they've never heard of. I'm like, okay, that's not great.

And and then I thought, well, on the flip side, I don't want to write a marketing manual or or a how to how to do marketing book because you know what? There was 6,000 on the last time I looked, a few years ago, there was 6,000 listed on Amazon. I'm like, I'm not competing in that category either. It's just like the Martech landscape is like 20,000 companies in the Martech landscape is just suicide. So commercial suicide.

So I'm like, no. Can't be. So what what am I gonna do? I thought, well, I'll play in both. Mhmm.

I'll have a I'll have a foot in both, but the unique thing about my book is it's written as a memoir, but it gives you the business insight as well. So it's very much like a movie script that educates, you know, it educates as much as it inform it entertains as much as it informed. So that from that point of view, I, you know, I positioned it as an unconventional business book. And then then I had to work out, okay, how am I gonna how am I gonna convey what it is on the front cover? And there was 2 ways that I did that through the brand codes, through the brand assets, the visual assets, which I just did a a series of mini videos on.

And the strap line, and the strap line is 50% rock and roll, 50% business, a 100% true. And that's the thing that sort of seems to grab people. They're just like, oh, that sound that sounds like something different. And it is. And it's come it's exactly what the book is.

It's it's actually probably 66.6% rock and roll, but that doesn't really ring as well as 50%. Yeah. So I had to dial it down a bit. But, so the so the strap line really does the work for me, which which site which is the signpost to the category, the signpost of what the book's about. Right?

But I also and then, obviously, the subtitle, which is a business book that's far from conventional. I didn't wanna be so explicitly clear about what you're gonna get out of the book like other business books do. It's like how to go read this and do that. Mhmm. Because there's there's so much in the book that's different.

There's so much texture in the book. There's so many different things that people take away from it. It's impossible for me to actually say what you're gonna get out of it. But what you will get out of it is inspired lessons in life that you can action the next day in your job or in life, and you're gonna have a hell of a ride reading it. Right?

So you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll learn. So and the reaction to the book from the media has actually just really blown me away. Re I mean, it's won 3 awards so far. I've just been invited to an awards dinner in New York in June for a 4th one. It went to number 1 on the Amazon chart hot list.

It's been on BBC twice in the past month. National BBC on the Craig Charles Show sets it to number 1 after I did my interview on that. The people in my family phoning me up, going, I just heard you on the radio. And I'm like, wow, it's having an impact. So clearly, it's resonating with people.

And of course, the the name of the book, Backstage Past, really, it it suggest correctly suggests what you get, Aida, is an insider view of the music industry as to how it really works, and the video games industry, and the tech industry, and my move into marketing and and product marketing. Is how it really works. But, of course, I've been working for 40 years, so you you get this really you get the long view. Mhmm. There's 23 chapters.

Every chapter is a milestone in chronological order, and I talk you through it. It'll take you back to a time and a place in, like, 19 eighties Britain that most people won't of a certain age, certainly will remember, but most people reading the book, especially those in outside of the UK, will never will know well, won't know. But because it's written so narratively, you'll feel like you're in it. So he once told me I read the book, and he's about my age, actually, as a vice president in tech. He read the book early, and he I did a call down with him, and he says, this book is a historical record of a time and a time and place that most people never really lived through, but people of, let's say, 45 years and older will will remember.

Right? But it doesn't matter. I mean, the feedback I'm getting from younger readers is the same. They're like, wow. I I I didn't know the place I lived in was like that.

You know, pre Internet, pre tech, analog. How work got done in those days. You know, I I I lay it all out. And you know what? You're gonna have a laugh at the same time.

Nice. Where can people get this book?

So it's available what's my my my spiel is, it's available everywhere. They sell good books. Right? So, it's available on Amazon everywhere, all around the world. It's available in the States, in Barnes and Noble, Walmart, in the UK.

It's, of course, Amazon everywhere. Waterstones, Black Wells, Booktopia in Australia. So it's it's available, everywhere. And I I I made the decision again, back to the topic about category. Mhmm.

I made the decision to launch it simultaneously on all formats on launch day. So it's out on 14th February, purely because there's a memorable date that no one will forget. Again, look more launch lessons. The whole book. The whole book.

And I and I called the I called the the launch plan for the book built in public because I'm sharing everything that I'm doing, all the insights, all the thinking, all the research of what went into making this book, launching this book, all the marketing that went behind it. I'm sharing it all online because that's my target audience, and I I want people to join me for the ride. So it's out 14th February. It's available at all good retailers. It's available on all formats.

So my point about category, I've already some more research on this. Most books only come out on 1 or 2 formats on their launch. The other formats come out later if there are other formats. So, you know, the minimum minimum format requirement is paperback and ebook or paperback and Kindle, whichever kind of ebook you have. But I've I've done paperback, ebook, hardback, and audio book all on the same day.

And even major publishers don't usually do that, for commercial reasons that we can talk about another time. I decided because I've got I'm only one person. You know? I've got constraint over how much how much work I can carry on doing. I'd say, oh, well, I'm just gonna go big, and I'm just gonna do it all at the same time.

So it'll all formats will launch at the same time. At the moment, prelaunch is pre they're all available for preorder except audiobook. The audiobook will just appear on 14th. But, again, again, great feedback on the audio, but I had a lot of fun doing the audiobook. I was in the studio, and I recorded the whole thing in here.

Yeah. And I did it myself. So it might be the first and only time I ever record an audiobook, but it was it was a lot of fun. Interesting process. Publishing business is a very interesting business.

It's very much like the the record business or the video games business. Any creative business that has a publishing model, whether a Mhmm. Publishing format is a book, CD, a video game, they all have artists, and they all they all have published releases. And the business is those creative industries are generally they all have a similar vein, a similar thread running through them about how they operate. Right?

You have artists, and you have commercial people. Right? The artists are either singers and rock bands or coders making video games or writers, but they're all artists. Mhmm. And then the publishers and the record labels, the book publishers, the video games companies, they're the publishers.

So, you know, the the essence of the business models all all all work the same.

And I'm sure after

Moved across all of them during my career.

Yeah. After so many product launches, I'm sure this is gonna be another successful launch that you will handle. So fingers crossed for that. Racking up, Harvey, you've been into so many interesting career paths, so many big brands, led product marketers, in the past couple of years, into this journey. Where can people find you, and what's what's next for you if they want if somebody wants to engage with you?

Yeah. So, as you mentioned earlier, Ivan, I'm very active on LinkedIn almost daily, sharing lessons and insights that are usable and actionable. So I would say, first of all, connect with me on LinkedIn or follow at least follow me on LinkedIn, but all connect send me a connection request. As a starting point, my website, harveydashlee.com. Harveydashlee.com, has just been updated and is continuing to be updated because I'm actually going solo.

So, I am doing a lot of external work right now. So the product marketing alliance have moved from being an employer to being a client. So, I'm now freelance, and, I'm doing a lot of fractional product marketing and CMO work. I'm doing a lot of speaking engagements and a lot of private coaching. So for people who want mentorship in their careers or looking for coaching for specific outcomes, so there's a lot of I'm doing a lot of career and interview coaching at the moment.

Got about 2 new clients a week coming coming in for that. So I'm quite excited about doing doing that. And, of course, got the book coming out as well, which is creating a lot of interest and and opportunity. So my website is a is a really good one stop shop to sort of get into each one of those. So coaching, speaking, fractional work, etcetera, etcetera.

And, so that's harveydashlee.com. And then, of course, the last part is and it's all linked from both of those websites, is I've got a brand new newsletter starting. It's called below the waterline I alluded to earlier. And you it links from the front page of my website, so I don't need to give you an address for that. So, and that is basically a mini MBA, literally a mini MBA in marketing every 2 weeks in your inbox.

I do a case study every 2 weeks, pull out the actionable insights, whether it be brand, product, careers, whatever it would be, but it's it's meaning it's meaningful deep insight that that you can action. And, so I'm building building my tribe around that, so I invite you to join my newsletter as well. That's it. Is that enough is that enough direct plugging?

I think it is. And, I'm part of most of these. I can definitely, prove that, everything that you're saying, especially about the the nuggets, through the emails. Harvey, thank you so much for being with me today, and I look forward to speaking with you again.

My pleasure. Keep on rocking.

Thank you for joining me today. Remember to follow the podcast. And if you liked it, please leave a review. Until next time, keep forging your own path.