Struggling to find your place at the business table can feel like showing up to a gourmet feast with a bagged lunch. Yet, it's this very underdog perspective that Charles Young and I dissect, recounting our turbulent journey of breaking into the industry—helping students land coveted spots in elite graduate programs—without the backing of a big name. Buckle in as we candidly spill our trials and epiphanies, shifting the lens from our own self-doubt to the real potency of our service, and revealing how we turned our unique experiences into an entrepreneurial advantage.
This isn't just another tale of rags to business riches; it's an intimate map through the maze of self-doubt that plagues many creators. Together with Charles, we peel back the layers of imposter syndrome and lay bare the transformative power of genuine market research and the art of the pitch. You'll walk away with a fresh perspective on how to trust the value you bring to the table, even when your name isn't up in lights—yet. Join us for an episode that looks impostor syndrome in the eye and says, "Not today.
Struggling to find your place at the business table can feel like showing up to a gourmet feast with a bagged lunch. Yet, it's this very underdog perspective that Charles Young and I dissect, recounting our turbulent journey of breaking into the industry—helping students land coveted spots in elite graduate programs—without the backing of a big name. Buckle in as we candidly spill our trials and epiphanies, shifting the lens from our own self-doubt to the real potency of our service, and revealing how we turned our unique experiences into an entrepreneurial advantage.
This isn't just another tale of rags to business riches; it's an intimate map through the maze of self-doubt that plagues many creators. Together with Charles, we peel back the layers of imposter syndrome and lay bare the transformative power of genuine market research and the art of the pitch. You'll walk away with a fresh perspective on how to trust the value you bring to the table, even when your name isn't up in lights—yet. Join us for an episode that looks impostor syndrome in the eye and says, "Not today.
Check us out and send us a message on our instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube platforms @the.needle.movers www.theneedlemovers.xyz
Speaker 1:
So our topic for today? I think our topic is so we spoke about. We spoke about teams last week, right, and how? Three of the same people? Quality doesn't make quality. Yeah, Does that make sense? Like you know, you got three people that are exactly the same. You come together, you think you got multiple skills, but you already don't.
Speaker 2:
We would basically say in three squared doesn't equal like nine.
Speaker 1:
It's like three times one.
Speaker 2:
It's three times one, but then three times three.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's perfect, right, like it's not three squared, it's actually three times one. I would even say it's actually three to the power of zero, which makes one. And I think today another great topic is selling when you have no status. You have obviously got three people that have got a series of skills and got a network, and actually that's questionable, right, because you're all hanging out together. You probably have quite a similar network, but how do you go about selling when you really haven't got that element of status? So you know, thinking about back to us, mr Charles Young.
Speaker 1:
We're trying to sell to students a product or a service, I should say, whereby we're promising them that we're going to get them into their top choice for the graduate program of the internship. Yeah, okay, yeah, we've got something really good on our backs in terms of like. We were good at answering SHL questions, numerical, verbal. We did quite well in assessment centers as well. We got good job offers, but we're not recruiters. We don't work in the recruitment process of big companies. We don't have the years of experience of being on the side of the recruiting team, even as managers. So how do you go about selling it when you don't have that status? And I think that that's quite a relatable topic in some way, because I think there's a lot of people that get into the entrepreneurial business. They think they've got a great product or service and then they realize that they are imposters.
Speaker 2:
I think imposter syndrome plays a big part in it, but also I'd go on top of that to add it's not just selling when you don't have status, but it's also avoiding or stopping not having status from holding you back. Because I think a big part of what we did was acknowledge we didn't have status and therefore do the most to mitigate or like which is funny because the solution is still the solution and we weren't focusing on this is a great solution. It was more what is the merit of what we bring? Who are we to the table? And that meant that we would keep trying to hate or avoid or fix that issue before someone has called it out as an issue. Like, of course it's still as relevant, but it's still. But the way you go about it, where it's become tunnel, like we need to fix this, like no one said anything, what's the solution you offer? Well, this is the solution. That's a great solution. But who are we? It doesn't matter. That's a great solution If it's the thing, and that's where it's like, if we'd focused in on this is the offering and then make sure, okay, how do we frame it in a way that is delivered to the audience in a way that they know it will solve for them. Then the people don't matter as much. Of course it does Like I see, if you've seen any Kickstarter's or was it Indigo or something Indigo or something where they'd say, hey, I'm a Cambridge graduate and I'm from MIT, and then here's what we're making backpacks.
Speaker 2:
Okay, great. Also, we like outdoors. Okay, fine, thanks for giving me the accolades, so I can trust you, but is the backpack good? And if I saw a functional backpack, I don't really care who they were and it's never really in the pitch what I've said. Oh, by the way, they're from MIT.
Speaker 2:
I'm like, look at this bag, Val. This bag is amazing. You know what I mean. Does it work? The bag works. And then afterwards. So I think it's to me it's that bell curve right about the early adopters and then the ones in the middle and the ones in the end, and in that way we were focusing in maybe not the early adopters, but probably that last tail of the bell curve about the specific and again, it's trying to appeal to too much, like it's a very broad thing. We're like we want to be experts. It's Charles Jung, I don't know any of our names, he just he has to be this level and I'm not trying to say it's not important, of course it is but the scale and importance that we put on it, I think, was way more than it needed to be, which, of course, was another part of why Charles Jung fell down, like what held us back, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:
I think you got it right. Right, we try to appeal to the masses way too quickly. Yeah, and by trying to appeal to the masses, what we ended up doing was looking at yourself and saying, okay, we haven't got X, we haven't got Y, so we haven't got the experience, we haven't got the industry backing, we haven't got like the case study of us being able to do this, and what we decided to do was to over index. We over indexed like shit, like honestly over index.
Speaker 1:
So much from we spoke about this previously from the, the website Almost look looking like a professional recruitment agency website, which didn't have to be to that level, to the point where we were thinking about the process of how we will get people on board. We were thinking about the details we're thinking about like policies and procedures. We were actually writing documents because we thought that if we had the documents, then we could compensate for the lack of experience and a compensate for the lack of experience. Then people that will see us on the street or in the market they'll be like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know they got a good product, so you know we should get on board with them. But actually that's not really how it works at all.
Speaker 2:
It's the insecurity. It's the insecurity coupled with the fear of of of like competition, being able to offer that Like. If we come in, we offer this thing and then oh, but someone else can come from Oxford, Cambridge, like a big, and do the same thing, and that namesake is going to destroy us, which, just being who we were, that's going to be a circumstance for God. And so it's like what's our USP? What do we offer? That's different, and if we'd had that down and focused in on, this is what we offer and this is why it stands out. It's like yeah, I think that's it If you look at what your unique selling point is versus like what's not your unique selling point.
Speaker 2:
It's a different conversation and we made it so much focused on but what is in ours? What can't we do? Where isn't it that we can't fulfill? And it did take a lot of time energy, just away from us, and that's where it's like. I know we discussed like deciding your niche, but that's where it's like we really did write off opportunities based on what we thought was important. Like, oh no, if we're not experts in this, oh no, if it doesn't appeal to us, oh no, and like, and it just held us back and it can hold you back in that sense, and I think it's.
Speaker 2:
I think it's interesting because I always use this podcast as an example. Right, we know we're not experts in like all the books we've read or all the frameworks or concepts that we provide, and that's why it's a learning opportunity and we'll say, oh, this book is about this, or this expert says this, or research is this and of course, that's subject to change but at least we acknowledge like, hey, this is very interesting, Something I've read, this is a research we've done, this is this is things to share. And it's like here's we're not giving legal financial advice, but it's something great that I tend to do, and I think that's the like. It could have been as easy as saying, hey, to our knowledge, this is the best thing, and it helped us and it might help you, and that could have been enough, but we didn't give it that opportunity. We just went straight, for you've got to be the best. And here's where we're lacking.
Speaker 1:
It makes me think of the unfair advantage and thinking about the, the mouse framework that they use, right, so I'm from money, I for intelligent and insights, l for location and luck, e for education and expertise and S for status. And I think, retrospectively, probably looking at this mouse framework which, you know, I came across probably a couple of years ago, certainly not 10 years ago, I think. Personally, I was specifically focused around, okay, what's our education and expertise and what's our status? I wasn't thinking around location and luck, intelligence and insight. I mean, money was never really there, still isn't, and but I guess what I'm trying to get to is if I had thought about it more holistically.
Speaker 1:
There was actually a beautiful niche that we were at, which was we had placements and we had offers from top notch industries and we and we were from a university that wasn't actually standing out in the ranking, and that is not actually an advantage. That is an advantage. Sorry, that's not this advantage. That's an advantage I almost screwed that up and it's an advantage because other people from our peer group could see us as a possibility to get into those places where we got to, whereas we were seeing it as a oh, we are not from one of the best universities, so that means that we can't appeal to them, to the masses. And again this goes back to niches. Right, figure out your niche and suddenly it becomes a lot easier to talk about pain points, talk about issues to be able to, to differentiate yourself from the, from the rest of the market. And I think we had a beautiful niche. We missed it. Because we missed it, we were going down and backing at the wrong tree.
Speaker 2:
It's also that tunnel vision, seeing that we all manage to do placements and then all manage to get jobs. I think we all got offers from our placements as well. Yeah, of course, yeah. And then for some, like myself, I managed to reject that and go for an even more lucrative option. And that story feels generic when that's your baseline. So, like I said, it's three times one. We all have that. So it just seems like that's not more. How do you give more? We want to sell more.
Speaker 2:
We're trying to appeal to more and, to be honest, not everyone gets placements. We took it for granted because we all did. But it's like you have to actually apply and just try to get an actual job where they'll take you and, because it's so standard, in like your peers, but that's then it's like who are you trying to appeal to? And then it's like, okay, it's not just doing the placement, it's what did you do during it? And then at that time I'm pretty sure I had to do charge ship reports and all these things that were like tracking to make sure I'd grow or develop. And then, once I graduated, it was also like what's the course?
Speaker 2:
And part of what Charles Young was offering was, of course, not just graduation, but it was like the first two years within, like your, the company and stuff. So it was all these these aspects that were normal and we'd gone through. And because of our I think, our joint mindset, we all had a similar mindset where it was forward advance. It became like the base foundation, but that foundation could have been sold. We just ignored it, like that's too easy, what's the one above this, the one we're not at, and that's what we need to sell? And suddenly it's much more tricky. I guess it's like you want to have a challenge, but the challenge you're doing is like why you could actually get from just doing what you're doing. That could be enough. It could actually just be enough.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we fell into the trap of thinking that, because we had placements and because we had crowd offers, that everyone else would do it as well or would have had it as well, and we thought, because everyone else does it then, or because everyone else has got that thing under the belt, then we shouldn't sell to help those people perhaps get an internship or perhaps get a graduate job. We should be catering for those that are already in that position and perhaps want to get something better, which was completely the wrong way of going about it, because that assumption that everyone else is on the same level, has got the same experience, the same knowledge, etc. Is very, very wrong and can lead to make the bad decisions. That's why you know the say to go do a little bit of market research is not just to validate the product and whether it's good or bad, but it's also to recalibrate what your knowledge level is around the people that you're trying to sell to.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I do think, like going back to the imposter syndrome, you can have that in full effect because you're going in and no matter what you're in, you want to. You feel like for at least for myself, speaking for myself there you feel like you need to be an expert in something like what are you selling? You need to know this fully, in and out, and I'm not disagreeing with that and what we knew we didn't appreciate that we were experts in, but that makes sense. And also, you always can keep learning, like no matter what industry you go in, you are always able to keep learning. I used to love this show called Mythbusters and they had Jamie Heineman and Adam Savage and they make props and do experiments and engineering and all this stuff, but they kept learning as they go along. They were never like done, it was never a finished thing, and that's the same with any industry you go into. So you're able to offer it and say yes, for now, this is it, but we're planning to improve, we're planning to grow and that's the journey you take. I think the customers, clients, whatever with you. To be like this is the basis. We're going to make sure this is perfect for you, which is something we could have done. And then this is the journey. We're going to keep growing.
Speaker 2:
But the imposter syndrome comes where it's like am I even trustworthy enough to offer you the basis, like I know I really want to. I've got something, but would you trust me? I wouldn't trust me. Who would trust me? Why would you trust me? Can you spiral into just a stalemate, really? And then you'd also bring it up Like I don't think I did this, but it was like the things I think would happen where, oh, but then it would be brought up. No, I'm mentioning it, no, no, no, but someone's going to bring it up. And then we got to have our robust argument as to why and it's like okay, have a reason. No, no, no, you need to make sure. That means we have to do 17 things to make sure, just in case this happens. They were like yeah, okay, which is yeah. This is why framing is important as well.
Speaker 1:
I'd say and I think it's quite funny, right, because if you don't actually get out there on the field and you play the game, then you don't get the feedback, Whereas we were stopping yourself at the hypothetical thought of getting on the field and playing the game and the hypothetical pushbacks that we might get from the market, which is, I mean, it's funny.
Speaker 1:
It's laughable right now because obviously way back then I've had another, less industry experience. We're probably still screwing up left, right and center where possible now, but it's, it's funny to have this perspective. And I think another topic which I would love to talk about maybe not today, maybe the next episode is the concept about pricing and how it all fits in here. Right, because we thought, okay, we haven't got that status and the best way to appeal to our market because we were broke, will be to make this service as cheap as possible to student so that we can appeal to the masses. The more people you get in, the more that you can make out of it. But what's interesting is that we saw that as a way to enter the market. But actually, if I were to undersell now, my only reason for underselling wouldn't be to enter the market, but it would primarily be to build social proof, but I think this is a whole discussion for another episode, which would be quite interesting to dive into.
Speaker 2:
I've got a lot to say on that and it's very true and it does really influence your pricing. I think that's where we'll leave it, but I think I'll culminate in this. The impact of the imposter syndrome and the need and expertise in it is beyond just I'd say that, one stream. So it could be like oh, it feels like it slows me down and I have to do way more research. If you, if you get in this path, for us anyways, we got in the path of, oh, we have to do way more research and it slows you down.
Speaker 2:
But the domino effects where it's like, suddenly your pricing is too low and you're not considering the market, suddenly your research is too narrow and you're not considering the market, suddenly your pool is too low, suddenly you're not even, like you say, playing the game, you're just watching from afar and saying, okay, let me just keep practicing how the kicker ball, with no ball in my fucking foot, it's a. All of these things are being impacted by that. There's one nagging thoughts, and I it's true that if we had, of course, taken it back to team diversified, our team, where we had more different ears, it potentially would have branched out, but again, the loudest voice might have just overshadowed whatever that person says, like hey, maybe you're good enough, shut up. You don't understand where we're off, so it's just getting that, that in, and I think that's the main thing. Test the concept, get it out there, talk to people, find out the truth and then don't don't be your own biggest critic is what I'd learn from it anyway.
Speaker 1:
And also no need to appeal to the masses, absolutely no need to a server.
Speaker 2:
I feel the money. Yeah, nisha's is where the money are, but I think that will take us to the end of this episode.
Speaker 1:
Right, yes, and as always I've been your host. The editor must join my core horse, Mark Jissens. Yep, that's me, and until next time, adios.
