NDIS Provider Marketing: Why Authentic Relationships Beat Algorithms Every Time | Solomon

0:00Hi everyone, It's Sarah from Sarah. No support workers today. I've got Solomon and we've been dancing in the same circles, but I finally got to you our fellow podcast. So let's just do you want to get just dive, get straight into it. Yeah, let's do it, Let's do it. All right, that's good. All right. Someone can you tell us something a little bit about yourself? Yeah, what can I say about myself? So as you know me, I'm Solomon. I work at like mini Cam. We've just started a podcast for Shift Dancer, which is, has been very, very far.

0:31A little bit about myself. Look, I, I love what I do for work. I've been working as a district for about 15 years, primarily with psychosocial participants. Outside of work though, I'm a lot of people would think that I'm introvert, like I'm an extrovert because I get a lot of events and I'm really chatting and and stuff like that, but I'm actually an introvert. I have really struggle when I see big crowds, a kind of bead line to like the most quietest part of the room outside of yeah, I'll just, I'm kind of a Lone Ranger a little bit sometimes, not all the time, but I turn it on when I need to work.

1:15I'm more out of events. Other than that, I love footy. Rugby fan in Australia. I was born in Rosa, Australia. My background is Fiji, yeah, we love rugby league in Australia, but our sort of rugby league I'm, I'm more messy than rugby unit then. So we're a small minority in Sydney, but our sort of rugby union, I'm not just feeding motor enthusiasts. Love Baptist 1000 a lot. Anything to do with cars. If you talk to me about cars, we'll be here all day. Lucky you are knowing nothing.

1:54Yeah. I, I needed to take you back on one part because he said something that like, I'm like, yeah, it's called androvert. So it's where you're in between a introvert and an extrovert. I feel that because I will, like, I, I recall like there's times where I'm like, this crowd is really big. Like if there's a music festival, I I'd rather stand or I at the back, like I'm not the person in front of the crowd or I get what you mean because then you've got to like charge yourself back up again to attend. Yeah, yeah.

2:25So besides that, you've got kids as well. Yes, yes, yes. I've been married for 13. I mean, it's 13 years now. Should get this started. My wife is probably going to watch this later. Yeah, I've been married for 13 years now. We have 3 kids, one in year 7 to start of high school. And we were debating the whole like, does he have a phone or not? Like it's, yeah, well, we gave in. We gave him fun because we needed to make sure that he can contact us.

2:57So he's in high school, just started year 7, and then I have a middle child who's in year 4, and then I'll have one that's just so funny. We're very similar. I've got 3 kids too so I remember when we were doing the pre show stuff I was like oh wow we've got so much in common and the more you talk the more you find out about people. And the the best thing about it at the moment is so my daughter, my my youngest has two days of prep and the best 2 days of the school drop because it means that I get to drop them all at the same vacation. At the moment I'm having to do 2 different drops and I get stuck in traffic and it's just a nightmare. So I'm hoping we're on the waiting list for more days, but I can't wait for next year.

3:42Next year is just one complete drop. I can't wait. So I keep. Yeah, I'm counting down for my son like 3 years ago. I've got this. I'm nearly close. So what got you into the disability sector? Yeah, you know what? Great question. Yeah, let me answer that a long way. I'll give you short later. To be to be very honest, I stumbled into it, but I get I sit down with a lot of people. A lot of people are saying like, you know, I was just called for this. He was just calling me my name.

4:14This is yeah. And fortunately I didn't have that. I didn't have that experience, but I just heard an audible voice say this is where you need to be. I kind of, I can't. I stumbled into this sector and and you know, I've kind of never looked back. But as soon as I thought, once I stumbled into the sector, I've realized that I really enjoy this place. Like I really enjoy being able to be on the frontline. I started as a support worker back in the day. There's a company in Sydney or DSA Disability Services Australia.

4:48Later. I wonder if they merged this later on a couple years ago. But my years started there, started off as a support worker working with participants. They used to have a program called CJP Criminal Justice Program, and I just loved it. Yeah, the participants we worked with were very like high complex. So like any given day, it was just like, you didn't know what you were going to get in for. You didn't hear whether you were to walk at the door or participants going to intimidate you, or you didn't know family member was going to be screaming at you or something like that. And I don't know, just that kind of diversity was just like, oh, I think that kind of just appealed to me. And then as I, as I kind of got into it, found my feet realized, well, there's a little good that I can do here, you know, being able to have the small conversations, being able to walk families through was support a few clients that passed away.

5:42So I was able to walk our families through that time and I realized that I got to walk the way I got to 5:00 finished work, I walked the impact that I've had was supporting the I guess families lost on participants. It outlived the hour shifts I worked with. That means that's, yeah, the impact that we've got to make. I don't know, like it just just resonated with me and I just couldn't walk away. I tried actually. So I've been in decision for about 15 years and there was a steep day where I like just before COVID, I kind of just thought, I just said, and I tried a year and a bit outside of the decision sector.

6:25I went into workers on and I realized once I I left and then I realized, oh gosh, I missed the sector, I came back. So yeah, I came back and I've been here since. They look like, yeah, as I said, my stomach a little bit into this sector and then really found my feet when I realized the impact that I was able to make. So what did the early years teach you about real support on the ground? Yeah. New Years of support, I guess this is pretty NDIS as well.

7:02So it was a lot, it was a lot different. But I think just being able, there wasn't support when I was back in the days during that time. So support workers, we, we did a lot as support workers. You know, we, we advocated, we did, we did all the paperwork, you know, we, we, we spoke to always. There were so many times where Ivan, I would go to support clients to court and the climate opportunity is like, can you can you speak on my behalf? Like what I'm like, so, so like having to quickly like Google it.

7:35What do I do import? Like you've got a bow. You gotta say you were on a so like a learning all this stuff. And I think what it what it what it taught me. So the question was what it taught me, right? Yeah. Yeah, I guess what? Yeah, I guess what it taught me was the profound, the profound impact we had in our job, people that we support. What I what I found was like a lot of these people and, and also during that time and perhaps a little bit today, people with disabilities are frowned upon.

8:12Like there is there is a there is a unspoken, maybe not in my experience, I don't know, speaking about everyone else's experience, but in my experience, what I'm saying is that there has almost been silence spoken, whatever it is kind of something in the air where this is like it's frowned upon and it's all the worse stuff then, right. So being able to standard again and advocate for those that didn't have a voice behavior to support them, right.

8:37And see the difference in me. And it wasn't always, you know, we didn't always have wins. Some days we'd have wins and some days we'd have massive crashes of the winds. We lived for the winds and we born in the trashes with them. So yeah, that that that was massive for me. I think you you brought up something that like like you pulled my hatstrings because I remember there were points for Sabine and Setter for 17 years. We used to write the behaviour support plans. Yeah, yeah.

9:07Like we used to write like create the communication aids. They that was an expectation of our jobs and it's completely different now. But like we had to do that. So we've got all these highly skilled people that were support workers now working in offices, not expecting to do what we used to do that that's somebody else now. You absolutely, absolutely. For me, you know, it really put me on a trajectory and kind of set the platform to where I am today, because in that time you, like you said, we had to do everything that's we were almost running BSD means I mean, I hope the only are not listening. Well, we're talking nearly 20 years ago. But yeah, 20 years ago, like we, we had to write them, we had to help we, well, we had to also help the BSP come up with that as well.

9:57I mean, there weren't these fees there like. We read the strategies, the triggers. The triggers or the triggers or trying to figure everything out. And, and, and really our approach, what I really loved about that time, like there was, there was no set, like there was no, there was rules of how you were to operate and how you were to behave and, and how you were supposed to do things. But everything else in between, you have to use your creativity, right? You have to, you have to use, you have to be, you have to use your initiative.

10:28You have to show and drive your initiative. And the ones that did, the ones that did, the ones that showed drives, the ones that showed initiative, the ones that showed creativity in that space during that time, free NDIS. Look at where they are now. A lot of them, I mean, look at yourself. I mean, Microsoft, for example, and a lot of other people are seeing you today as CEOs, managers, Coos, BDMS, because, you know, a lot of salad support workers bought everything. All the skill sets that we learned put us, put us on a projection that set us up for when the ADI is kicked off. But we're like, yeah, I can do this. I don't have a do that.

11:04Yeah, I can. I can write that easy. You know, second, I said this to, I was at AI was at an event today, a kismet event in Liverpool. And while I was talking, having a chat with one of the guys and I said, man, look, no offense to and and I say this not to generalize things, but I said, jeez, like back then when we were support workers, we'll feel different. Yeah. And and that's not that's I'm making a slap for that because there are a lot of great support workers today. There are, but the expectations are different. The expectations are different.

11:35We were expected to do not not, I mean not expected to do everything, but you know, we did the roles of spoken notice, we did the roles of implementing PSPS and stuff like that. And our T's were a lot, our T's were a lot more, but we just, we were a lot more robust this part of the word. I'm looking for. Yeah, I, I agree. And you know what the interesting part is? Because you wore this many hats as a support worker, what you see for work now, you treat it very differently, like, like some like, I'll see a plan that comes through and I'll be like, yeah, just you do that again. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

12:12You know what the the expectations are, We'll have to network. Like you said, support coordinators didn't exist as support workers. My job was to network people within the community and the aim was to leave service. And it was really brought out like, you know, you have to work to this point for them to be as independent as possible. That messaging I feel sometimes has been lost because it feels like we just, we don't assist somebody to be as independent as possible.

12:40We just assist them to to be around like I, I don't know, there's no exit plan. I find that part really hard to take in our sector because there should be that thing that we are working towards somebody to be an independent as possible. And if you're not the service, that's fine. Network along. I, Gary. Yeah, that part, that part stops me. That is, that is a pet hate for me in this sector. I think like if if we break it down international, OK, it's previous fun. This is, it has goals and a participant has goals and we provide funding in order to achieve their goals. With the buzzword or the LDI access capacity building, we we need to be building the capacity. When I started as a support worker, one of the very things that was taught to me was you're not there to work for them, you're there to work with them.

13:37We don't say what I and you're 100% right, boys said like we we support them just to be around. We don't support them to move forward. And I remember back there on us for work. You know, we would like, no, I'm not going to cook for you. No, we're cooking together. We're cooking together like no, another. We're cooking together. Come on, let's do it. And we didn't see that back in this year. I mean, and not to say that's that's not happening. We need to see more of it happening across.

14:10It needs to be happening for second, because that's how we get outcomes. Like we need to also ensure that this is this set that remains sustainable, right? Because it is, you know, it's a, it's a tax paid insurance scheme and the tax paid funds it at the moment we're getting a lot of budget content and it is what it is. Like we won't dive into that because that's the whole nother base, but we have a responsibility to play as people that work in the sector. And you know, you know, we need to be pushing it. We need to be making sure that this sector is sustainable. I put a post out the other day and it was for $70.00. I think 23 is what a NDIS participant pays for a 1 to 1 to come into their home.

14:53Is it bang for buck? Because I, I look at it like if you're like a support worker, I'm entering somebody's home, this is the amount that we're charging this person. Do they get what they ordered? Like is it what they wanted? Do they get the fullness? Because $70.23 in my world is a lot of money. Like that's a lot like for service. Yeah, it's interesting. It is because then if you put it on this perspective of the person we serve there in my sense, is it am I going to get what I want? Is it going to still build me?

15:25Am I getting banned for that? So when we talk about these things, it's very easy to forget that there's a toss a figure behind it that pays somebody to enter in and out of your house. Yeah, it's crazy. I. Mean that's someone shopping for the week. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right. So you've had a few different roles before you got to now. Yeah. So at the moment, not at the moment, I should say. So now you're in the operations and marketing. What is it called?

15:56Hold on one moment. Your role is head of marketing and community. Yeah, community engagement. So I'm seeing some of your content and it's really good content. But I noticed the content that you have is quite person centered and focus on that individual that's in your service. How do you keep that continuously in your marketing for the for the search you work for? Yeah. Well, you. Thank you so much. That is a great question. I've actually never been asked that question before answer friendly because of it. Also, we had a marketing strategy and and in the back of my mind, what you're saying and how I do that is like sitting here, but noise of arts.

16:35No, I don't have to take like that, But I think the most important thing is then get this out is so that it's I can do it justice for I think most important thing. There's a few things, right And it's, and it's not just a, there's a few things to, there's a few things to consider is number one, we work with people, yes, people. Our primary service, the we work for services, we work for services that work with people. Yeah, I think there was, what I said there was about there is from somebody that's probably about 2500 or maybe plus three close to 3000 service providers in New South Wales alone. I work for an accommodation provider. I don't know how many, there's probably maybe 1000 or 1500 silk provider accommodation providers in Sydney. They don't like us.

17:24So number one, it's important when we're marketing, how do we, It's important to be able to articulate the point of difference #1 #2 it's important to keep the main thing. The main thing. The main thing is people. We support people. And in terms of marketing, the ugly side of the other side of, I guess what we do is it's a business and we need to grow the business. So we need to be able to show people what we do with people, what we do with participants. I say it's a good sort of business because I mean, that sort of business has to do with none of those. And, and it has to do with KPI's. And, you know, when we're working with people, we don't want to think about, you know, we want to think about relationships.

18:05I think the, the, the, the most important thing else remember those that the other thing to consider as well for me when I'm, when I'm credit content is how do I add value to the sector? So when I, when I'm credit content, I'm also thinking about who's doing my content. I'm thinking about it's a support coordinator. So I wanted to add as well is different. I wanted to add as well is that a lot of providers are doing a lot of providers are doing a lot of great work that nobody knows about. Yeah.

18:36Any of these spaces that I mentioned earlier, like we're in this space saturated with providers and you and if you're doing great work and nobody knows about it, like at the end of the day, that's all great. We can do all the great work you want, but at the end of the day, you have to realize like you're also a business. How do you grow that business? So at the back of my mind, when I'm creating a concept, I'm thinking, how do I do that? How do I show we are the best at this? If you want to talk about talking about a combination, we're the best at this.

19:08We're the experts at that. And it's about placing. So what I try to do is when I create content, I try to do it so that I place us as subject experts, if so to say. But at the same time, bringing it back to the participant, it's important that when you're creating content that you're also creating content. You're not just because a lot of people just create content. One of the actually, and going back to this sector, one of the, one of the things that we don't do really well in this sector is we don't do marketing well in this sector. Because tell me, because, because at the end of the day, like this is a, this is a, this is a sector that's that, that this is a sector that that prioritizes relationships over marketing as one of the very few sectors where you can, that you can collaborate with your competitors, right? That's one of the various.

19:58So like, for example, if we worked in the tech sector or if we were, I don't know, in the banking sector, it's very rare that BDMS from different organizations get together and just sit down and have a chat in this. It's almost, it's just a normal Monday thing. We're going to all meet up and have a coffee for an hour and then. Whatever, we'll do that every day. So it's all it's so important to know who your audiences. A lot of guys actually, I won't even go down there because I'm an open account of words and I must say it's something controversial that people are going to hate me or but but I think it's important to know who your market is. So when I got confident in the back of mind, I'm always remembering that OK.

20:36My my view is that I want looking at my content is support mom and dad. I'm a guardian this POT and just maybe anyone because ultimately they're the guys that are the gatekeepers. They're the guys that are going to be talking about or looking about the services that I have to offer and what are they looking for, right? Because I think a lot of people when, when we create our content, what we do as providers is we, we create a lot, a lot. And I'm talking to people, I already get angry.

21:10They're like, well, no one's doing your content and do this and that, that and that. And yeah, you can pay ads and I'll pay a few ads sometimes as well to push content. And I'm also learning in this space as well. But I think what we have to understand is that you need a random right for people to do your content. Yeah. Creating content in itself is a creative art and it's a, it's a it's a science as fault. Like it is a science as well. Like you can't just create content and think like you could probably master the like edit the best content ever and normally look at it.

21:43Yeah. Yeah, because, because, because we walk into thinking that people are going to look at it and really they always know right to look at their content, where to be able to create content, we we have to earn the right to look at their content. So, so a lot of that, what I'm trying now at the moment is what I call content marketing, where I will try to show you something at the start. And it could be like, I don't know, this is how I was able to get this cloud 2 to 1 funding. And if you like it, like message me or something like that, I don't know.

22:20But automatically that it trades, that it trades you and I want to click and have a look or, and it has to be person centric, right? Because at the end of the day, people prefer to deal with people. We don't want to deal with systems and processes. I'm a Hoy from you. I'm a this guy because I know you have a relationship with you. So being able to articulate that online as well is is what I'm constantly trying to figure out when I'm busting onto it is tiring. It is tiring.

22:51Like when I'm doing stuff, I'm like thinking, OK, what do you, how do I, how do I earn trust? Also? Yeah, it's important to be able to earn trust online. What people don't realize is trust can be earned. Trust can be given. For example, if I go to an event and you go around and say, oh, let's just let's just I'll paint this actually, sorry. We go in an event, I walk in the door on my so we had like, obviously we've just started podcast shift there so I can walk in the door and no one will know me. And I would probably get pissed off because I mean, like everyone should know who I am.

23:29Like, you know, like I just done this and I just started out. Why isn't why isn't no one showing me? And there is like, yeah, we're not yeah. And because no one knows me. No, no, no, no. I haven't taken the time to build trust for rapport. So often what we do as providers is we post contact just aimlessly thinking like, hey, guys, I'm here. Like and we walk in the room and like, who are you? We don't know you and then we get annoyed and we get angry.

23:55So that's a bad way to build trust. There are two other good ways to build trust. Another good ways to trust is by earning doing. But the other other way to build trust is sometimes you need to build your own platform, have people like yourself beverage of this type of people. Because when you're also working with other people, they also can endorse you in a way not in AI. Guess I don't know if I'm offering you. No, no, no, no, no. Almost in a dosing, almost in a dosing way. And where, for example, I walk in the room and and you, we were there together and you said, oh God, same Tina Solomon's thing. This is Solomon's thing.

24:32That's someone's to do that. I might not know the person, but what you've done is you've you've you've set up platforms for me so that people trust them. Yeah. So when are we creating? People need to see it. Yeah. So when are we creating trust that? We need to do that and that's probably podcast. Yeah, actually. Kind of accidental podcast, but that's a story for another time. But podcasting has definitely opened plenty of doors that people that I wouldn't normally would speak to or know of because they're in different states or we're just in different places.

25:05I can't always go to networking meetings in Frankston, let's say that yeah, like I'm on the other side of town. So this year gives you a platform to push it out, push like the content. And then I also get to like interview people, which is cool. So it means that I develop instead of having like that coffee date that you want to catch up after, you know, like you go to your networking meeting or have a coffee or a virtual coffee, cut all that out and just go straight for the podcast because yeah, I didn't stuff around. Yeah, that's right.

25:37That's right. And you and you, you're giving yourself a, a voice where you know you can hand down it to the to the community. It's the coolest thing is I get to hear your stories and when I hear you get no, I do. And I learn so much from it. So when people go podcast, I'm like, well, actually, yeah, you create content at the end of it. But I'm having a one to one conversation with somebody and I'm understanding like they're wires. They've gotten business What what you know, makes them feel good. Like why they do what they do in this sector because it is very niche, like why people are here and what they do and what they deliver.

26:14The podcasting stuff. Just pretty much I was like, well, that's for everybody else. But today I've learned something. Yeah. 100% yeah, so. You can. Oh, we haven't even talked about the name of your podcast. What's the name of your podcast? How'd you get tonight? You know, it's so funny, you're on the honest trip or you won't look at a lie. I can tell you. Oh, you know, I just kind of just, you know, just came to me to dream that the real the real reality is. I was felt like the beautiful thing about AI. I was sitting there and I'm like, I, I literally said I want to do this.

26:52And I was thinking about these and me and my colleague. So Omar, if you watch this, big shout out to you. So with just me and him, we're the marketing team and the laundry. Yeah. Well, literally we came up with the idea. Obviously, it's not a new idea. It's done in America by someone really famous. Then he gets to do all of this stuff with celebrities, with the Hollings and stuff like that. Yeah. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

27:18It works. It's a proven concept. So I'm just going to, I'm sure I don't know that we hadn't seen anything like this in the sector. I thought. And then so I started, you know, putting on my ideas and chatting with tea and just kind of throwing ideas and I was asking it to kind of cancel my ideas. And then we and then we kind of came out and we fine trained it and we're like, OK, we're happy with this. And I said, wait, what are we going to call it?

27:40And then I said this shit, I said to I said to change everything. I said this, I said, I said a little like, what did I say? I said this podcast is about spotlighting, spotlighting people in the sector. So the first three questions or two questions is about them, who they are, what they do. And then the recipes are about the sector. But this is not a serious podcast. This is not a podcast where we just talk about boring shoes shit. This is a podcast where we have fun and the entertainment of it is eating hot wings beautiful. AR my mate, best mate at the moment. That helps me a lot at work ChatGPT said. Lauren, I think they should call a shift banter. I saw, I saw it and I said that's the word shift banter. Yeah, because I think, I think when I said in the when I was writing the thing, I said I'm thinking of like this is a place where we can banter and stuff like that one one of the so we should better.

28:33So that's how we basically that's how we came up with the name in terms of what the people that we have on our podcast. Look, this is not just people who who I guess, you know, hold titles in this sector, support workers, it's people with disabilities as well, it's parents. And obviously you've been EMCO support clinics and all that kind of stuff. So it's literally anybody and everybody in the sector, well that has to do that has has to deal with the sector and it's just a place where we can just have fun. We can eat some wings, we can do it, and we can talk. What is one thing that you've learned from podcasting if you're I think I've.

29:13Learned one thing I've learned from podcasting. Yeah. Is that you, you, you can learn a lot about people by having just intentional conversations. Like I I learned, I learned a lot about why people are in this sector, what they do and it and it gave me a different respect. Like I often see them and I shake their hand. Now when I see them and I shake their hand, my my handshake and my conversation with them are followed come from a deeper respect because I know I not only know how far they have to travel to do things or how far they have to travel to even come to work and why they travel so hard to come to work.

29:53Well, the reason why they ended up in the sector and how they did it. Like, I mean like, I don't like myself. We just accidentally stumbled in this sector. But there are others that have real limbed experience. You know, like, for example, one of their first guests was Gigi and she was talking about how, you know, they were at a birthday event and well, Christmas party. And her dad went, walked out to the car to get some presents. And all of a sudden they were inside and they were screaming and shouting.

30:26And they came out and her dad was left on the ground like hit by a car as he was crossing the road with the prisons. And from that moment on, she had to become a full time carer. We did another podcast with another guy named Jack and the amount of traveling that he has to do just to come to events so that he can connect with us. He's traveling, he's driving like 2. And it's so funny because up until I thought this started Lincoln City, like just around us. Yeah, because he was done literally at every event I would go to and I'll shake his hand.

30:53I was OK, mate, and this will walk off. And not only did I learn about his why, but when I learned about how far he had to travel this, I was like traveling like 2 hours every single day just so that he can build rapport, build relationships, and just so that he could be able to add to the sector and help other people and, and, and, and many more, but there's so many more people. Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest things I learned, you know, podcasting. And then there's the bad stuff that we learned about podcasting as well.

31:26If you want to talk about. I think like, it's so funny. Like I remember and I look like whether this goes up as a real or not, I just don't know. But like, I it's so funny because, you know, it's good to know. It's like, I remember that. Like, so ever since I started the podcast, you know, up until the point, I would walk into spaces and there'll be like a group of people that will always walk with me, always talk to me, that we're a group, not a group.

31:52I mean people that I don't even know. And I'm like, it's so hard to even have a conversation with them. I know that they are a conversation. I want to say hello. They're just like just kind of obviously normally walk away and that's fine. I think. Yeah, that's asking. And you know what not it's not a very hypothetical. I don't think it personal. It's just a sector. There's like how many people that work in this sector it's from. But then the moment you do something out-of-the-box and you create a bit of noise, all of a sudden all these people that didn't have the tough, they didn't want to talk to you.

32:25You'd be messaging them. They leave you on red or whatever. All of a sudden turn around. They're like, hey, how did you do this? Can we can I can I, can I jump on And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I was talking to my mate about. I'm like, yeah, no, I mean, I know that sounds bad. I know that sounds bad. Only I said that as a joke just to, again, the banter part of the. Yeah. But look like, hey, a lot of people that know is that I have new sorts of like, I'll just say it is that it is.

32:53I can be a bit insensitive sometimes. But yeah, I think the most important thing is that I've learned in this sector is that it's like we have our KPI's. Yes, we can. Yeah, we have our roles and what we do in our roles and for our companies. Yes, that's all important. Like again, like this is we don't work in the corporate sector. In this sector, relationship building is so important. So, you know, don't be that guy. Don't be the guy that just walks in and you only want to talk to the people that you perceive that can only give you value. You know, say hello to the people that you wouldn't probably go the way I say hello to because you don't know. Yeah.

33:32I was watching out and this is probably a really dumb example but it's one of my favorite movies. Intune. I don't know the internship, the Google One. Have you just watched that intern? Yes, I have. Yeah, OK, so you were there. So there's a scene there was that guy that's he's going to set those like mine and he's constantly typing on his keyboard. And then the guy that's supposed to be the guy that's going to get the Java at Google and he's kind of like the hot job or stuff, whatever. And, and he's constantly mean to this guy and, and he's constantly mean to everyone else around. Anyway, Long story short, so it turns out that that that guy that everyone's just kind of ignoring is actually kind of a big deal and doesn't reveal it to the end of the movie where the guys that had no mobile guys that were kind of our task people ended up getting a job.

34:15And I say that because it's important in this sector. It's important to value people. It's important. It's important to value people in value people, value relationships. Like this is not just a transactional space. Yeah, like there's so many. I can't even count family times where I've gone from maybe company to company. I've gone from different job to different job. And I've seen this person move from here to here to here to here, and they're constantly moving up. And as we move up there, everyone's moving up. And yeah, and maybe the guy that you were ignoring might be your boss tomorrow.

34:50Do you know the interesting part, like when I podcasted, there's been a few people that have podcasted at the start of their career and you're right, because I see them now and I'm like, Oh my God, look at all the cool things have done a long way. I'm so glad that I didn't put them to the side. I'm really glad that I still went ahead and pursued them because they, you know, like I, I feel like I'm a part of their story because I've got their, their time in the sun. Like they can talk about what they did and where they are. And I like there's a few of them that I want to catch up with and podcast and do like a live update because I feel like they need it because like where they started to where they are now completely different.

35:28I agree with you, but you know, also I was just thinking, so I'm totally off my script. Totally. We're we're off, yes. Yeah, that's all good. Well. You know, but I was just thinking like, there have been times that I've been to Expos and all that stuff and I'm terrible with that. So I would turn up to the Expo or turn up to the meet and greets and the networking and somebody would talk to me and they'd say, Sarah, I saw this, I watch this, but I realized that I can't put all of them together.

35:55The like a lot of what I'm trying to say is a lot of people watch your content and you don't realize they're watching your content. They're watching it from afar and they may never say anything to you. I think sometimes I'm might give. I think people might be intimidated to come near me or to talk to me. Yeah, yeah. I see. And absolutely. And I I also agree with you that like that's happened to me as well. Yeah. I mean, I just think, yeah, it's tough.

36:23Like we can't be all things everybody. We can't remember everybody. We can't. But it's important to be intentional. I think, You know, I mean like it's and you're in a space and, you know, you have a certain level of influence. You know, don't be that guy. Don't be that guy. You know, be, be the person. It's important to be the likable person. And I didn't say that because, you know, we we want to be likable, but because we want to work with people in this, the more if if we set ourselves up for success, then we we put us as we, we set ourselves up to position ourselves to be able to have a greater influence and be able to help people. Yeah.

37:02So, you know, be, be the people, be a person of the people. Yeah, I know, I know it sounds really dumb. And I'm saying probably, I'm, I'm probably showing you my intrusive thoughts at the moment. Well, you know, I, I feel that because we've had support worker backgrounds in our careers, we've had to go into situations where we didn't know somebody or we'd have to work very quickly to get to know as much as we could to make sure we could support somebody really well. I sort of think that's, that's probably had a helping hand when it comes to networking because you are put in for situations and you're going to see your people that you may never have met before and you've got to put yourself out in the station. And this is where support work like this is where I find we don't make support work sounds as professional as it really does does deserve to be because these are the skills that we got because of support work.

37:55Yeah, yeah, and, and, and, and you're right. And just to stem off that, I think, you know, for me personally, a lot of what I do is I love to help people. I don't care if you, I don't care if you are a competitor. Like today I was an event and this guy was a new provider. He comes up to me and he's just like, yeah, the worst thing. So before I even say that, the worst thing is when you're in an event, right? You're in a pain event and you want to be the guy that do you pay for crap and you come in and you want to push your content and be like, And the worst thing is like when you're we're a super provider and then another super provider is this like we're a new business.

38:30Can you send us some participants? OK, so that happens to me a lot, but I mean, I, I will still entertain the conversation, but I but because of, because of my support work background, I won't shut, I won't shut down a conversation. I will, I will go out to talk the person. So in that time, So what actually happened was I said I set them down. So we had them for 6 minutes and 6 minutes. OK, quickly tell me exactly what to do. A rather piece of technology you need to XYZ.

38:58This is I can't give you participants, but man, like this, this is my number. You need help, Just give me a buzz. Yeah. And again, like in this sector, like this is, it's not just about us. It's not yes, we work for companies, but it's not about us. It's about the people that we support. The sector actually want better outcomes and we need to. Then we need to have more collaborative conversations because there's a piece of pie for everybody in this sector.

39:24Collaboration is a lot easier than what we make, and I feel like sometimes we put the sock on things and we don't need to. Like, you're a podcaster. I'm a podcaster. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You get, you got the edit, I get the edit. That doesn't, doesn't bother me at all because at the end of the day, it's making sure that we've got this message out there to the people that we serve. But you know, we can collaborate, we can work together because we need a whole life approach.

39:49And I think that there has been my, I think my, it is if you're going to work with providers that don't see somebody with a full life approach, from support workers to Stock 1 and suppliers to OTS to ally young people, we can't all work together. The person doesn't achieve the goal that they really want. They get to be as independent as they need to be because we've become human bollards. A lot worse for support workers listening today. What do you wish more people understood about their roles? Now, what they're doing, it's it's not what yeah, what they what they're doing is it's more than just a job. What you're doing as a support, It's more than just a job. And you need to be able to see your role as a person who is a champion, is a champion for, for people that he would call. You need to be able to see your role as a capacity builder and see yourself as a support worker. Often you can, I think there are negative connotations today, like when you think of like support work and a lot of people kind of like, oh, just a support worker and, and it's kind of lost.

41:00It's, it's kind of lost it's, I don't know, like it's what's the word? It's lost it's and it's lost its professionalism and a bit yeah, as lost its professionalism because a lot of people just think like, yeah, it's just a job or whatever. Like I'm just, I'm just a support, I'm just a support worker. But you're not you're, you're a capacity builder, a capacity builder. You're when you look after work, your focus should be OK. For example, if on a scale of 1 to 10, if my client, if my client, OK, look, we're not even going to look at a week to week. Let's just look at it first of January to the to the end of December.

41:42All right, So if my client on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of cooking is ranked at a is ranked at a two or three and your goal should be at the end of the year. This guy should be able should be sitting at a 5 or 6. And I think like that's if you're a support worker and you're listening. I heard a professionalism of support worker again and understand that your role holds so much importance. It might not mean anything, it might not. It might just be a job for you, but to the person you're supporting, it's everything to the IT may mean that they're able to get up.

42:23It may mean that they're able to have community. If you've never, never, ever experienced not having community, so and you may not, you may be very primitive and not be able to relate to any of the things that the people that we support go through, but empathize, have some empathy, you know, try and and put yourself in their shoes, see what they're going through. And that requires a lot of intentionality coming into work as a support worker. It requires intentionality. You need to physically be there, nurse yourself in your job thinking, OK, like I'm going to marry this person from A2 start a letter two this year.

43:02And by the end of the end of the year, I want to see this start as a three or four or A5. And maybe his only capacity, his his greatest capacity will only ever be a three. But if you get in there, that might, that might mean, OK, I got him to a three. Like it might just mean like that to you, like, well, OK, I got him to a three. But to him, you've just given him something. You've given him or her something. So I think I'm here. I think, you know, if you're a supporter, can you listen to this, understand the importance of your role, you know? Yeah, understand the importance of the role, like you, in terms of the role that you play in society and the community. You're keeping, you're keeping these people safe. You're keeping them safe.

43:44They're vulnerable. They're vulnerable people left alone. So it's I've seen so many participants who families are not there and they've had to, they've had to die alone. You know, you might, but it's a blessing to be able to be in that situation, to be able to be like, OK, like you're not. As long as you're long enough, I get it to be with you. I'm going to be with you. We do. And I think it's important to realize as well, like, like, since you get to do this, like if, if, if you do this, if everything kind of runs out of your head made me understand this.

44:25Like this is something that you get to do. You get to be a part of someone's life. You get to help. And I think in all of us, there's this, there's this, there's this. There's something built in all us where we want to keep back, where we want to help. Yeah. And you get to do this. You get to wake up in the morning and not have to worry about, you know, not like, I don't know, adding to the system, you know, or adding to the man or the guy sitting at the top of the ladder.

44:53That's not your safe, though. You're working in a sector where you're dealing with people and you get you get to help them, you get to add value to their life. You get to bring sunshine into their life. You get to bring joy, happiness into their life and like. Do you get jealous? Like do you get jealous when you see people out and about? Now, God damn, I love to be a support worker right now. Look who you get to work with. Look at the fun you get to do. Look at all the experiences you get. And you would not have got this experience unless you were a support worker.

45:23I often think that and then especially in office, you know, you know, I want to be out and about with you. Like I don't I don't really want to be in office. I thoroughly enjoy being with you. That part as well. Like I know sometimes people go we support with all they do. They go into the movies and they go bowling. It's more than that. Like the people that. We see it's moving funny. I know you talk about shift banter, but my God, the banter that I ever had with the people that we've served, it's Trump Notch. I don't think anyone compete with that. Like if you want to like a day where there's big times where I was thinking, wet myself out of laughter just purely because it's just so damn funny.

46:05Yeah, one of the one of the things I got to do as a support worker was I used to support this part years ago and he never got to say goodbye to us that his dad passed away, never got to say goodbye to us. That. And I was honored to be able to drive him from Sydney to Jesus. I can't remember the best. I was behind Newcastle. It was about a four hour drive. We drove there and I took him to the grave and he got to say goodbye to his dad and, and, and and driving back. But being able to be part of that movement, like man, like I'm not seeing that.

46:40I guess I get to drive, I get to have these funny conversations. We're reliving all, the all the memories that he had with his father, being able to witness that and being able to be a part of that environment that was just between him and his dad. But yeah, I, I was given the, I got the opportunity to be a part of that. And yes, like it was only driving him and, and, and making sure that he got his safety and showing back. But if I didn't do it, like he wouldn't have had that opportunity.

47:10I also want to, I also want to say as well, on the flip side, if this is a job for you and you know, you, you, you know, you just see the cash and the check. This is not the sector, if you will support that and you're thinking this is on this. I heard on the Facebook, what is it like one of the group things that this was a great job or you get to go to the football and go to the movies. Not the jump for you. It is. I've had people go, I have to do personal care. I was like, yes, it's a part of being a support worker. These are the things that, you know, like it's not, it can be sold as something that's quite delightful and, you know, it looks like fun.

47:51But there is the flip side of responsibility for somebody vulnerable assisting somebody to to support them to eat. There is personal care. There is following the support plans in place for behaviours of concern. Like there is all that stuff. Yeah, I there is the fun stuff. But it you, like you said, you have to kind of, you have to love it, you have to allow people. Absolutely. And and if and if you're listening to this and this is just a job and this is just a paycheck for you, you're in the wrong sector to be as, as, as, as that is. You're in the wrong sector and you're doing yourself a disjustice while staying here.

48:27You're doing the clients you support and disjustice while staying here. Because our clients know, I can't say when we're just rocket when we're there because it's just a paycheck. I mean, when, when, when, when body, soul, spirit or or whatever makeup is. And, you know, you don't have to tell me. Like you can walk in a room and you sit with someone and you don't have to tell me whether I don't have to. You don't have to say anything to me if you don't like me.

48:49Like I don't know that you don't like me. I don't know if we're having a chat and you don't want to talk to me because your body will just radiate that energy. I mean, just in like your participants will learn. The participants will learn, Yeah, that you don't want to be there. They have already kicked you before you walked in the room, they have looked you up and down, they read your body language, then they can understand your tone, everything that you say and how you present yourself. So when you are your very first time you turn up to support somebody, the way you turn up is so important because I reckon it's probably the first, Probably the 10 seconds you walk in that room never already made the judgement about you. Absolutely.

49:28And if you want to say this sector, then then do everything you need to do to learn how to be a great support worker and understand what capacity building is and what that would look like for working with your participant. So what do you see, do you see or predict in the NDIS space for the next couple of years? Here you're the big work. I think you kicked the ball out. It's out of my pay grade. Yeah, jeez, look, I think what do I put? What? What do?

50:02What do you, what do you predict? Yeah, that's right. You're in Seals. There's a lot going on there. Yeah, look, I think I see in the next, I think, I think they'll be wedding out of bad providers. I anticipate more funding cuts. So that's only to ensure the stability of the of the spin. I anticipate that a lot of people will also drop off the spin as well because, you know, I think there's lots to do at the moment. They're doing like a reassessment of participants that are currently on this thing and that's coming shortly.

50:35So I think I think in terms of whether it's going to be here or not, I see here, I think that in say the NDIS is good or for us here and for all the participants, it's great. It's a great initiative, it's a great steam. I think that providers need to be working together to ensure that this scheme is sustainable. The whole sector needs to work together to ensure that the NDIS. I think what we often do is we often pass the life again. We will put all the pressure on the NDI to come up with the answers, but the reality is, is that they don't necessarily have all the answers. Yeah.

51:16I think the in the near future there'll be more of a collaborative space between providers and the NDI. Yep, I know that they're, they do already talk. But I see in the near future that, that there's been more of a streamline of collaborative talks between providers and the NDIS and how they can work together to make the scheme more sustainable because, because and, and I think there is sorry and the reason why I, I just sort of know not the reason why, but by doing so, it will just produce better outcomes for the participants. And ultimately, that's what.

51:51That's what we're here for. That's what we all want and that's what we're here for. So, you know, I think that's what they'll probably do in general. So what excites you the most about the future of marketing in the NDIS community sector? You know, I love this. I what excites me most, I think what excites me most is at the moment, there's a lot of movement around AI. AI has been really slow to roll out in our sector again, because we tend to prioritize relationships and face to face value conversations and meetings.

52:32A lot of marketing is face to face value. The way the world is moving, it's moving online. It's it was already online years ago. The disability sector is as being very, very slow again, coming back to the way we way we work in this sector, we work face to face. Yeah, but it really excites me because I think what we're going to see is a lot more innovation around marketing. Marketing this sector is so, so boring. And in this, in this, I was actually saying this to to a business, I had an event.

53:04And I'm saying I think what we'll see is we'll see a lot of the great, a lot of what we see outside of this sector of all of the great modeling concepts that we see that's on the sector. We'll see that stuff coming into this sector. What we'll see is we'll see a lot of people, Yeah, we're already doing, we'll see a lot of people finally understanding a lot of people like will see a lot more high quality marketers see. I also think we'll also see a high increase in outsourcing the marketing, which, which will also be which, which will also be great on below businesses because it means that they'll get a lot of, you know, quality productions talk, quality ads and stuff like that.

53:57I think yeah, what we will see in the future is more high quality as people begin to understand how people buy, how people consume, how people research. Because there's there's, there seems to be a, there's a better understanding now and there'll just be a flown effect from there because at the moment, as I said, marketing this sector suck. So. I, it just feels really like it. I, I just, I, I get why we use AI. I get why we use stock images, but I feel like we could use the people that we've got in our own services, their pictures and what they're achieving and, and show you that more than somebody that's not even gonna use your service. I find that hard and drawn to that. I'm yet to see you might be the first one. You're ready for this.

54:44I am yet to see anyone advertise a seal house where the person that we serve and actually lived in that house, one of the residents hold a camera, go through the house, say I need a roommate. I'd love to see that. It'd be one of those things that I would love to see because that ownership of this is my house. This is, you know, I live with someone's Frank and blah, blah, blah. And this is a like, you know, this year is a room that we haven't got a roommate yet. We're looking for somebody to live with. I would love to, but they're holding the camera. They've got all control or even like a walkthrough of the sale house.

55:18So they've got the camera and they're like, yeah, and I've got this in the kitchen. I've got this, this and this. And what's important to that person that lives there, not us, because what you and I see is completely different to somebody that actually wants to live there. I would just die for that type of constant. I'm waiting. Well, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of the marketing and look, and I say this because when I start, I was probably really guilty of it as well as I've kind of found my feet in this space and, and done research and trying to understand how, how, how people in this sector are purchasing and how they're buying and what are they're looking for.

55:56You know, a lot of a lot of the stuff that I see in the market today where marketing has just been traffic shooting, to be honest, you know, just people just boosting their own egos and, and stuff like that and look like whenever like it is what it is. You know, like we see that across all sectors because, because, because we often talk about personal branding, right? Like you know, you know people, you know, you have to tie personal branding, you know, to and I guess you yourself are a personal brand and then you know, you kind of have to your business gets the leverage off that. Yeah.

56:32But, and that is true, the flying dance is how to do it well without treating your everyone and do it in a way how? To do it ethically in here in this center, how do we do it ethically? Yeah, How do we do it ethically? That puts the participant first because yes, people buy from people, people deal with people. So if your face is tied and you know, we see like, for example, we see it in the NRL, like like every single and a real player athlete is it is its own personal brand. And usually when different teams will increase, I guess they're increase, they hope they will go out and they'll buy like the best, the best person, the best brand, you know what I mean? They'll they'll go and pull that person on that tag because he's got a big personal brand and the skill set that they can bring. So I guess similar concept, but we don't do it well. And I think things will begin to change as we begin to educate. And actually was thinking about this the other day. Something that I want to take on as a personal project this year, once I went automatic, maybe this year or next year is I'd like to start helping, start

57:40helping providers, maybe even putting on a workshop or something if I can get it past my team. Because there might be like, dude, we can't. They don't have see things out of the bag. I you know, there's, I think there's something in it like how do you personal brand and how do you market in a sector that is not always very sexy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, exactly, Exactly. How do you do it? Because the reality is we're not going to create content that's going to go viral. I mean, we're creating content for the people that consume their brands or consume in the sector. So, you know, yeah, it's a tricky one. But what I'm hoping for and what I'm predicting is better quality, better content and a better understanding of how we leverage personal branding and also be able to be respectful to the companies we wait for.

58:30Yeah. So just to where you're at the company, how does anyone contact you in regards to the company that you work for? What is the best? Contact yes and best contact for me is you can contact me or contact me directly or my e-mail address. I don't know if I should say that over here or put it in the. Description. Is it one of those ones that like LinkedIn or is it an e-mail? Yeah, Yeah. So it's just e-mail or LinkedIn. LinkedIn. I'm always on LinkedIn.

59:02I'm not LinkedIn more than I am on Instagram or actually because I do manage all of our socials. Yeah. So you can contact me on on social media. So allowing community care on Instagram, shift banter on Instagram, shift under score banter or Stallman Raptor on LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah. Or we can just contact me directly. And you listen to Shift Banter. What platforms is your podcast on? And so we're on YouTube, we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok. So I don't even know how to use TikTok. To me, I'm so, yeah, I have no idea. So we're on TikTok, we're on Instagram, we're on YouTube and. Spotify, thank you so much for being on the podcast you're a thrilled to talk to.

59:51Thank you so much. Cheers. Cheers.