Matt, welcome to the Siroc Faye podcast.

And, of course, we'd first like to know a bit more about, you and your background and why on earth you got started at Siro.

Yeah.

So my name is Matt Scaysbrook.

I'm director of optimization at We Teach CRO.

I guess, like many people, I kind of fell into, fell into CRO.

So my first, my first role, the company that I joined had just installed Google Analytics on their website, and no one in the team knew how to use it, because because I was the new guy.

I was I was the burden on everyone, you know, because I knew nothing.

So when we realized nobody knew it, I put my hand up and said, okay.

Well, let let me learn, so that I had something that I could actually be useful with, rather than just, you know, sort of sucking the life out of everyone else constantly asking questions.

So, yeah, it it started it started there.

But I think for me, you know, it sits CRO sits so neatly, on the sort of the intersection between creative, analytical, and and technical.

So I've never I've never felt pigeonholed in that, in that way.

I think also as a person, I I judge the value of a lot of things based on the the size of the opportunity rather than exactly on its value right now.

I think just that that natural mindset makes, makes CRO a perfect, a perfect industry for me to be in.

Yeah.

And, Keito, tell us a bit about more about, the company you founded.

To me, it seems at least fully based on the name.

It's it's quite a unique approach, already because, many agencies will will say, okay.

Give us your, access to to your your clients' data, and, we'll help you improve your your conversion rates.

But, we teach hero implies that you don't do that, approach, but I'd rather, teach the clients how to do.

So what is that?

I think there's a couple of there's a couple of parts to it.

So when when I first started the business, 5 years ago, there was the the original sort of proposition, was that we would, over time, teach, teach our clients to take over the various bits of work that that we were doing.

And that's that's sort of how we how we settled on the name.

And what what we found was that, that that proposition opened a lot of doors for us.

We could talk to we could talk to clients that we may not otherwise have have got a chance to speak to, given our our size.

And it was it was it was met really, really positively.

Like, yeah.

This is a great idea.

When it then got down to to signing contracts, what you found was that, unfortunately, most of the, most of the stakeholders who would sign those contracts, they just wanted someone to do it for them.

They frankly didn't want to invest that much in upskilling their teams

Yeah.

Which is a tad sad.

But I don't think that's I don't think it's changed all that much, over the last over the last 5 years.

So, yeah, initially, it was, it it was to have a a different approach.

But what we found over over time as we've worked through is that the more that you the more that you share about what you know, it has multiple benefits.

So firstly, any anyone who works, agency side in any in any kind of role knows that the the more that a client knows about your subject, the easier it is to work together and the better work that you do.

You know, if there are 5 or 6, assumptions or or, deductions that you've made along a path before you you get to the discussion that you're currently on, The fewer of those that you have to explain in detail, the easier it is, and the faster you you get to the, you get to the outputs.

So for us, explaining to our clients how we how we reach certain, how we reach certain conclusions is hugely important.

It helps us all be more efficient.

That means that the service that the client receives is is better.

And, you know, from a a business side as an agency, that that keeps our our retention rates up.

You know, we have happy clients who know more today than they knew, than they knew yesterday.

I think the other side of it, the more that you the more that you give away about how to how to execute programs at scale, the more it solidifies why you're necessary.

So we we've seen this, we've seen this recently with, with a large client of ours where, you know, another another area of their, of their team, has started running tests, as well, most of them server side, rather than rather than client side.

And, initially, they did not believe that our input, you know, as a as a third party was necessary.

Our main contact there, who we've worked with side by side for, well, for over 3 years now, he was insistent that we had oversight of what was being done.

And as those first sort of few tests started to get rolled out, they became to realize why we were there.

So it seems like, okay.

Well, test entry isn't being logged properly.

So, you know, the data that you're passing into GA, that's starting at the wrong point.

So you're not seeing a full picture.

You're only seeing people who complete what you've changed, not people who see what you've changed.

And there was a there was a string of other of other elements to it.

So I think the the, the view there is that by giving away and sharing what you know, it doesn't it doesn't devalue, it doesn't devalue the agency.

It only increases the value of the agency.

The more the client knows, the more they see the work that goes into into having a program running at scale.

Yeah.

And, but then how much time roughly would say you you still be you're still able to spend on teaching those people?

I

don't I don't see it as separate to what we do on a day to day basis.

It is what we do

You're learning on a job.

On a

day to day basis.

Yeah.

And that that applies both for, both for our clients, and for and for our team members.

We have one one of our, one of our hires earlier this year, he described our hiring strategy as, as gathering the waifs and strays.

We don't we've hired people with very abnormal backgrounds, you know, people who haven't come from a CRO background or even an analytics background or even a digital background, for for that matter.

And we can do that because we have, you know, we have a core group of people who, who know their work inside out, And we have the I guess I I've described it as we are big enough to support them, and to get to get intelligent bright people to understand our work, but, but we're also, small enough that their work actually matters, on a day to day basis.

So, yeah, I think the the teaching part, as I said, it started it started as a proposition that frankly never worked, but it's now become the core of what we do.

And if we if we didn't do that on a daily basis, we wouldn't be where we are now.

And, the hiring nondigital people, did did that come about, with, the the shortage of of people to to hire, or is this was it already there from the beginning?

A mixture.

So when I first started the agency, you know, my my background is is as a consultant.

So I did all of the all of the consulting myself as as most of us do.

And what I decided was that, at a certain point, the right thing to do was bring in, bring in someone at a trainee level rather than, rather than an experience level.

One of the, one of the team members at the time, his brother was looking for for a change.

He he was a police officer at the time, in London.

Had just had done that for for a good few years, decided, you know, that that was done for him, and he was looking for something new.

And, yeah, my my team member asked me, would I speak to him?

And I said, yeah.

Sure.

I don't have any I don't have any other, like, you know, sort of standout options at the moment.

So, yeah, sure.

I'll I'll speak to him.

We we met a few times.

It was clear that he was very bright, driven, and really wanted to to make a new career, for himself.

So how how did you get him up to speed to to the work that you're doing?

A mixture of a lot of time, a lot of my time, and and getting him involved in in live things as as soon as we could.

To the my belief has always been the best way to learn is to do.

You need to have a base level of understanding, sure, to know what you're doing.

But if you have the oversight from from someone who has done this work day in, day out for for years, you can get bright, driven people to a good standard very quickly.

And because they're in an because they're in an agency, in a specialist agency, that only does one thing.

You're not asking them to become a master of, you know, of of all different disciplines.

You are focusing them on one particular thing.

And we we did that for the first time, that'll be almost 4 years ago now.

And at that point, it seemed where he's so he he's since moved on, from my agency.

He now works, he now works at conversion.com, so one of the largest CRO agencies, in the UK.

And that has shown us that we can develop people with no with no meaningful background in our work into into really, really strong practitioners.

I I I was it was it was, a sad moment in some ways to see him leave, that happened earlier this year.

But, also, I'm immensely proud of what we've helped him to achieve and and, and what he's then been able to do, since he left us.

Yeah.

And I can imagine that, when you when you talk to a lot of people and and, hire people, you you rather yeah.

You you figure out start figuring out, what kind of, traits people need to have for this this job and what what things are that that are, not working for this job.

So, any any ideas around that?

Yeah.

I think the attitude matters, a huge amount.

You can teach, skills.

You can you can provide experience in in doing the work, but you cannot make somebody good to work with.

That that isn't that isn't a teachable that isn't a teachable trait.

You cannot make someone diligent.

You cannot make someone care about the the the little details, in things.

And those when we, when we put out, sort of job roles, now, we when we're getting to the section about, you know, what what you will need, we lead we lead with those things.

We don't lead with what your experience is in terms of, you know, have you used this tool or have you used this tool?

You know, it is we care about the person and the character that you are more than those things.

If you've got gaps in those skills, that's fine.

We we we've got those skills already.

We can we can pass that on, but we cannot we cannot make you we cannot make you diligent.

We cannot make you the sort of person who will do the right thing when no one is watching.

And those settings take

too much time.

I think I think a lot of it's inherent Yeah.

In people.

It is it's either who you are or or it isn't.

Yeah.

You know, that's a self discipline thing.

So, yeah, we we focus a lot more on on who somebody is, knowing because we've done it repeatedly that we can we can teach you all the skills that you don't currently have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you're interested in the in the field, then, of course, that that definitely helps with your attitude towards it.

Right?

I mean, if you're working in a job that you don't like or not interested in, then

Yeah.

We we've had people who who I would describe as as being underutilized in the roles that they're that they're currently doing.

You know, frankly, roles that aren't going anywhere for them, for various reasons, and that gives them I think that gives them a a kind of steel that other people don't necessarily have.

You know, those those who are switching careers you know, I've never done it.

You know, I've never done that career switch in in the way that some of my team members have.

That takes a lot of bravery and a lot of self belief to say, you know what?

This section where I've got, you know, 5, 6 years experience in that, I'm gonna put that to one side, and I'm gonna start again with something completely new.

And that that takes a lot of bravery, and it tells you a lot about, about a person's attitude to work and to their career.

Well and specifically for us, that that's, shows that they're open to experimentation.

Right?

Yeah.

Exactly.

It shows that they they are willing to look beyond what a natural path, for them might be, and to see where where somewhere else might take them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really cool that you're, you're doing this.

And, I guess a lot of people can or a lot of agencies can learn there that, something from this approach and then opening it up.

And then, yeah, maybe not leading with, Yeah.

You're you're skilled in Google Analytics or, or the tools that we use, but, rather, rather the attitude towards experimentation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Can you tell us a bit about, the projects that, that you're doing?

What what are the new gems that you're working on?

Yeah.

A little bit.

Yeah.

I guess, recently, helping NANDOS launch their, their latest version of their ordering process, has been a has been a big one.

We helped them with their first ever online ordering process, which would have been 3 years, 3 years ago now.

They've since had various iterations of that.

And then, like, for those not for that meal, that that's like a fast food chicken piri piri style?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I forget.

They are they're enormous, an enormous household name here, in the UK.

I'm not sure what their what their global reach is, in other in other places.

I haven't seen them in the Netherlands yet.

But yeah.

I know I I know they're not particularly, well known in the US.

But, yes, in they're on many, many high streets in the in the UK.

We've also been able to to expand the number of GoDaddy brands that we work across as well.

They they've been a client of ours since, pretty much since day 1, which we were very fortunate to pick to pick up work with those guys, but we we've now got brands that we work on with them across US, Germany, and the UK as well.

And I guess as an organization, their belief in CRO and experimentation is without doubt.

There's no question for them that it is the right thing to do regardless of whether you're working on some of the the bigger brands or some of the smaller ones that they own because they own 100 across the across the world.

So it's good to see especially some of those some of those smaller brands for whom, for whom we may be their their first experience of of running a program.

I think that, you know, we we've had a we've had a few clients over the last few months for whom we are, we are the first agency they've ever worked with.

We are responsible for the first tests, that they've ever run.

And I think for for me, that that's probably the most exciting part.

It's not it's not working necessarily with the, you know, the big household names.

It's it's nice in a way.

You know?

It's nice to be able to tell people you work with, you work with big brands.

But seeing someone go from doing very little or even nothing into the, call it, the excitement that they get from seeing new things coming, you know, every every few weeks is I think that that means a lot to me, to to see those.

So, yeah, getting people started, is, is is thoroughly rewarding.

Yeah.

I mean, to go from 0 to anything is is, is already a big step, for most.

Right?

And and do you then often are are you working with with purse with people in in those companies that already have, like, a job title, something's like 0, or is it is it more broader than that?

Yeah.

Often not.

So some some of the businesses, you might be working with the you know, with one of the directors of the company.

You know, there there are some businesses that we work with who are you know, whose revenues are 5, 10,000,000.

But their their core team, you know, sort of as a as an office team might only be 10 people.

Yeah.

You know, so they're a lot of their a lot of their focus is obviously in the the manufacture of their products and the fulfillment of their products, and that's where the the bulk of their team may sit.

But, yeah, some sometimes we've, we've worked, as I said, with directors.

Sometimes you're working with marketeers.

We've even had, one one client, who changed the job focus of of one of their team, not long after starting work with us because they realized that this was an area that they needed internally to dedicate more, more resource to as well.

So, yeah, I think work working with businesses, bigger ones who have been running CRO or experimentation programs for a for a long period is there it's a different experience to working with those who are effectively building from from the, from the ground up.

Yeah.

I think that's an interesting, role that you're describing.

So that that's, interesting for, companies that are hiring a CRO agency.

So what kind of resources do they need to have?

What kind of, is is that person then, like, the the main communication channel between you and and what the company is doing, or what's their role?

Yeah.

It's, I think it's it's it's a multifaceted one.

So, yes, they are they are important as our conduit to understand more broadly what's going on, in the in the business.

And if you're if you are dealing day to day with with a director, that has its benefits, because that that person generally knows virtually everything, that that's going on, in there.

Also, they

have the can sign things?

Yes.

They have the authority.

So if if you say, we wanna do this, and they don't say, oh, well, I'll take that away, and we'll have a committee meeting in 2 weeks, and we'll let you know.

They just go, yeah.

I like that.

And off you go.

You can, you know, you can you can move ahead.

I think, also, having access to those those people at the higher levels, they can see daily the the difference that this makes, to the to the business, not just, not just in terms of, you know, the the changes they may see going through the site.

But because they've got more of a finger on the pulse of of the overall business health, they really understand the direct impact that the changes that we're testing make.

So, yeah, it is a big help.

Can we pause for a sec?

Because someone is knocking on my door.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

Go ahead.

We'll have a short break here.

The joys of working from home, mate.

Did you just tell them to to stop knocking?

Or

Yeah.

It was just a delivery.

But sometimes they just knock and leave it.

Other times, they knock.

And if you don't answer, they keep knocking.

You're like, I'll just go and answer the door.

You hear that sometimes that that just don't even bother to knock.

They just, I leave her as a package in front of the door door or I I also have this sometimes that, we we have one car, which actually my my girlfriend's car.

I I usually use trains or whatever and you use, I work from home for mostly, most of the time.

So sometimes when she takes the car, then the delivery guy just say, oh, the the car is gone.

There's probably no one home.

And then it just doesn't deliver and then just drops it at the post office.

Like

They they

just scared all day.

They throw they throw things over our fence.

Or over our back gate is the other thing.

If it's like they I think they must all, like, squeeze and go, oh, it's clothes or whatever, and then just throw it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then and then they leave you a card that says, oh, we've left it in a safe place.

Like, no.

You haven't left it anyway.

You've You've thrown it over a fence.

So helpful of them.

So Yes.

Very.

So helpful.

K.

Let's, let's continue.

Hey.

Some time ago, you, you posted on LinkedIn, to change things up.

You you wanted to start posting more about, Siro.

So first, I want to know what what what triggered this, and, how has it been going, so far?

Yeah.

So what triggered it is is probably a mixture of things.

Firstly, so we we hired an in house marketeer, about 6 months before that point who'd been banging on at me about, Matt, you have to you have to start doing something.

Yeah.

Use your network, Matt.

Yeah.

Pre pretty much.

Yeah.

I think also it was I've gotten to the point where I'd started to understand, I'd started to understand what I believe to be important and and sort of starting to form some rules, I guess, for myself, about how I how I wanted to talk, and the message that that I wanted to to get across.

And I think, you know, similar to to what we discussed earlier about, you know, the the teaching element, where that where that started and and where it and and where it is now, you know, it took it took time.

It took experience to understand really what what that meant to to me and and to us as a business.

And I think it was the same thing with, you know, with, with talking about CRO publicly and and more frequently is that it's taken me time to really understand what it is that I consider to be important.

And, how's that been going so far?

What have you posted about?

Quite quite a lot

of stuff.

I started in the debates.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I I started with with setting out the rules for myself.

So I wrote them down, and then and then I posted those.

So, I had 3 dos and and 3 don'ts.

So my 3 dos were, provoke debate, hence, what I have on occasion, Support all practitioners regardless of level and champion doing something over nothing.

You know, as we as we talked about earlier on that front, you have to start somewhere.

You know, and that means choosing to do something rather than do nothing.

It won't be perfect.

It may not even be good, to begin with, but you you get nowhere if you do nothing.

So so how do you go about with, the first one, like, provoke debate?

It sounds sounds like a bit malicious.

Like, it doesn't really matter, if it's good or not or if it's true or not, but at least it should

Yeah.

But it it marries it marries with the first of my don'ts, which is don't sit on the fence.

You know, if you have an opinion, voice it.

You know?

It it doesn't mean that you have to be rude to people, and it doesn't mean that you can't, you can't, appreciate somebody else's perspective.

But I think in in the UK in in particular, we we tend to shy away from confrontation, and we we tend to see confrontation as a negative word.

Whereas, so, one of my team is is French.

And she has been telling me for years we've known each other a long time.

She has been telling me for years that in France, confrontation is not seen as a negative.

It's seen as a positive.

You know, you should you should engage in, in differences of opinion.

You know, if somebody says something that you don't believe to be true, you don't just nod.

You know?

You you say, oh, well, you know, actually, my my opinion is this, or I believe this.

And I think that, that debate is is important.

You know?

We're we're never all gonna see eye to eye on everything.

We're never all gonna believe that the right way to do things, whatever that even is, the right way is is the same.

And it won't be the same, for everyone.

It's all clouded and and and shaped by our own, by our own experiences.

But talking about those and almost celebrating those in a way is is important.

And how do you go, about doing this and and then introducing or helping, new people.

I think you also mentioned that it might be a bit scary for newcomers to to Ciro, to see people talking about Ciro in general.

And then it feels okay.

Yeah.

That it's that's it's a high bar before I can can join the Ciro club.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It it is.

And I I think a lot of that stems from there's been a lot of discourse in our in our industry over recent years that everyone's doing everything wrong.

And, yeah, some some of that may be correct.

That's yeah.

Yes.

And and and maybe it's it's true.

And but that, to me, isn't really the point.

You know, if you want to if you want to bring people on on a journey with you, you don't tell them they're wrong all the time.

You know, you recognize that what they're doing right now is they're doing the best that they can.

Yes.

Okay.

They may be missing certain information.

But, you know, if you as I mentioned earlier around bringing, you know, new people into our team, like, I've I've seen some things that they've done and gone, oh, no.

Probably don't wanna do that.

But you don't you don't just shout you're doing it wrong at them out the door.

You know?

You sit down with them and go, okay.

How did you get to that point?

Okay.

Well, you got to that.

Yep.

3 years ago, I did the same thing.

You know?

Until somebody else pointed out to me that this you know?

So you you recognize your own flaws.

I guess, you you you bear those flaws to people.

And then if you tell them, okay.

Well, that that thing, you know, you need to do that in this way, They understand that that isn't just you saying this is you know, I know more than you.

I was where you were, you know, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, whatever it is, because each and every one of us has you know, if if you look back at some of the, some of the things you did 5 years ago, would you do them the same way now?

I highly doubt it.

I certainly wouldn't.

Yeah.

And I don't think there is one of us, in in in our industry who wouldn't say that.

And in another 5 years, we will do the same thing.

We will look back at what we're doing today and probably think, yeah, I wouldn't have wouldn't do that that way now.

There there are a lot of things I did yesterday that I already did.

So

It a common a common, my mother made to me, a few years ago.

So I I was telling her it was not long after my 30th birthday, and I was telling her about some of the decisions I'd made in my early twenties and said, oh, just I can't believe that, you know, that that that I thought that that was a good idea.

And she, she would have been in her fifties at the time, and she said to me, oh, don't worry.

There are things I look back on that I did in my forties, and I still feel the same way.

So in some senses, it was it was a relief to know that it never gets any it never changes.

In other ways, it's a little disappointing knowing that you will always look back, on things and and think I would do it differently.

But yeah.

So I think that the the engagement of those who are newer into, newer into the industry, you don't get that engagement, with people.

You don't bring them along a journey by telling them they're wrong all the time.

Yeah.

You you do it by recognizing that you too, were there and that we're all on a we're all on the same we're all on the same path.

It's just about at what point in time did you start on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and I don't think that's anything specific to CRO.

Right?

I mean, that that it's all about getting new people in and trying to keep them motivated, throughout their journey.

Yeah.

Because they they they are the the future of the industry sits with sits with people who are newer in.

You know?

We will we will, at some point, you know, pack this in and retire and you know?

But other people need to need to be there to, you know, to carry it on.

You know, we all we all agree that it is an essential part of, of of businesses growing, developing, prospering, to have this, to have this experimentation mindset.

I just it it it pained me.

I actually had a after I posted that initially, I got a few messages from people, people I'd I'd never met before, who told me that they felt that they are relatively new to the industry and that everything that they were reading was telling them that they would never be good enough.

And that that hurt a little bit because, to some extent, we all end up being tarred with the same brush.

Yeah.

I mean, if you if you just, only look at the the c xl.com, list of courses you can follow for a Siro specialist.

I mean, that's that's that's quite the list.

Right?

I mean and I I love them.

But if if you're if that's the start of your journey, you see that list.

I can imagine that's that's not necessarily

more than being

It's pretty intimidating.

List of of stuff you need to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's it's pretty it's pretty intimidating.

And and it and it ends up going back to to one of my other dos, which is champion something over nothing.

If you think that you're going to before you do absolutely anything, you're gonna do all of those courses and learn all of that stuff and then start, you'll probably never start.

You know?

Learning by doing and is is, in my opinion, the most effective, the most effective form of learning.

And in the end, one of the the core tenants of what we do is about test and learn.

You know, that should apply to us as individuals as much as it, as much as it does to the work that we do.

The assumption is you're gonna be wrong more often than you're gonna be right, and that's okay.

And that that that idea needs to needs to move over into people's development as much as it does in the the day to day practice of our

work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And one of the things, that you also, mentioned that, I think related is that, 0 or experimentation, does not have to be all encompassing, to be valuable.

Right?

The those elements already contribute to the whole.

Yeah.

I think this this was one of the debates I sparked at one stage.

And I I used the I used the comparison with communism, which I'm I'm not sure.

Maybe I shouldn't have used it.

But

Oh, if you wanna stir some debate, then that's a good start.

Well, I I do have a history degree as well, you know, perfectly relevant to my profession, obviously.

But, yeah, it was basically in, there there were 2 different strands of of communism at one point, one where they believed that you could skip stages in Marx and Engels' idea of the progression of society, and a and a and a contrary view that said you could not.

If you did, the whole thing would break.

Obviously, what happens in history is they do try and skip stages, and the whole thing falls apart.

My belief is that, from a CRO perspective at least, is that trying to skip stages isn't isn't gonna be effective.

People have to have gone through each sort of phase of that maturity to understand it in order to know where the next stage is and how, how they're gonna be able to operate that that effectively.

So trying to move people from doing nothing to or or a business even from doing nothing to saying everyone in this company has an experimentation mindset, in my view, is it's it's never gonna happen.

It's never gonna happen that quickly.

You know?

They they can't just skip the, you know, they can't skip the call it the dabbling stages, that come in between.

And, we're almost out of time, unfortunately.

I really really loving this, this talk.

And, definitely with, regards to the LinkedIn post, definitely keep keep doing that.

Keep stirring that, debate.

Hey.

And, maybe for future, podcast, who do you think we should, interview for that?

So I mentioned, I mentioned someone earlier that that we hired who went from being a police officer to, to a CRO.

His name is Sam Irvine.

He's a consultant at conversion.com.

Mhmm.

For me, his story is a brilliant one, of, like I said, of of taking risk, of of testing something new.

And as I said, he has he has gone from he has gone from a public servant, to to someone who has become a a really, a really impressive practitioner.

And I think it it it just it's it's a perfect illustration.

Yeah.

Let let's see if he's, he's as positive, of you as he as you are.

I only spoke to him last night just to see how things were getting on.

So, yeah, I I hope so.

I hope so.

But, yeah, well worth talking to.

A a very, a very different story, I guess, to to most, that people would have heard.

Nice.

Yeah.

And I'll, Yeah.

If you can get us introduced, then, I would love, hearing, his story.

Matt, thank you so much for, for taking the time out of your busy schedule, to, to talk to us, and I hope to talk to you soon.

And I hope to see a lot of, LinkedIn discussions.

Perhaps so.

Good.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks.

Bye bye.