How to Create Powerful Brand Stories, with Suds Singh

Suds grew up in an entrepreneurial family and through our discussion he covers:

• How his early years shaped his business mindset

• What a background in sales taught him

• The realities of building a business on your own

• Why storytelling is a powerful tool

• How he kept his business running during the pandemic

Wes Rashid:

In this first episode we have content production expert and business owner of Interesting Content, Suds Singh, let's start off by exploring what his life was like growing up.

On his early years…

Suds Singh:

My family moved here when I was 11, I started high school then went on to six form and then university. One of the things about London, is it has a way of welcoming you, wherever you’re from, just because everyone else in my school was almost in the same position. You know, where they’re from somewhere else and they've made a life for themselves here. Or they've had to move because of whatever reason, for employment, or they came in as refugees. But of course, that doesn't mean it was easy, but it was just like one kind of hurdle that I had to kind of overcome.

Wes Rashid:

So, is there anyone in your family that has that entrepreneurial spirit?

Suds Singh:

My Grandfather, so he passed away several years ago, but he is my entrepreneurial inspiration in a way. He had several businesses, a portfolio of real estate and all sorts of shops and also, he had his fingers in lots of different pies. I could tell that he was quite used to telling people what to do and kind of ordering people about. There’d be people coming in and asking him for advice, asking him for favours, paying him or maybe he owes them money or whatever, so that kind of thing was not something that I was aware of at that time, but it was kind of ingrained. When that happens, you tend to normalise it in a way, and think “oh this is how most people are,” so from a very early age I could see this was a natural way to do things.

Wes Rashid:

You know what, it’s a really interesting point, because in some cultures it's very much you have a route to follow, education, or accountant, or lawyer, or doctor or something else...

Suds Singh:

Whether you're a doctor, engineer, accountant or a failure...

Wes Rashid:

Exactly!

Suds Singh:

Whereas in my family it was more like entrepreneurship was a route that was accepted, and also a lot of people followed that path, so I grew up with that ingrained, and I grew up with that in mind.

On the realities of starting a business

Wes Rashid:

You probably had a bit of a perspective on what entrepreneurship is all about, seeing Grandfather run all these businesses and telling people what to do, I'm guessing you being an entrepreneur of almost eight years, that that view has changed.

Suds Singh:

There's this kind of romanticised idea of entrepreneurship, this way of doing things where you hustle hard, you work hard, and things will happen. The reality is, when you’re day one, when you're by yourself, or starting with the team, reality has a way of slapping you in the face. In previous corporate roles where everything was done for you, you come in, here is your desk, your computer, here’s your login, now just go sell or go and talk to people... whereas on day one when I started Interesting Content it was just like, now I've got to come up with a logo, and which e-mail server should I go use? And I don't have anyone to talk to, the reality is when you're actually there on the spot, you have to do everything by yourself, which is odd because it's quite isolating sometimes as well. And I think what doesn't really get talked about much is the kind of mental health attack that you go through sometimes, where you do struggle and you may not have a community or people that you can talk to or bounce ideas with. You’re not making any money in the first 2-3 years, that was quite hard too.

Wes Rashid:

I totally get that point about mental health and the struggles; I think any founder will admit that they struggle with mental health. Not many people do though, but you’re quite different and you’re quite open about that, like on LinkedIn.

Suds Singh:

The way I talk about LinkedIn, it is to be reflective, it’s almost like a diary for me and if I’m open and honest and if someone can connect with that and identify with what I’m saying then that’s a bonus. Your LinkedIn is amazing too.

Wes Rashid:

Well, it’s all new to me, I suffer a bit of imposter syndrome there if I’m honest. I think everyone suffers from the spotlight effect, so when you post, nobody really cares.

Suds Singh:

When you’re doing things like podcasts, inherently, nobody really cares if your business succeeds or not, except you. And this is part of your job, to share what you’re going through, and highlight your successes and failures. Not only will you learn, but you’re reaching out to others who might identify with it.

On why storytelling is important

Suds Singh:

The reason storytelling works is that it’s hardwired into our survival instincts. We’ve got a 2-million-year-old brain in our heads. For humans to survive, we have to be able to communicate with each other about where to go and where not to go. The reason we love storytelling is there are facts, right? With storytelling, you can hack into that part of the brain that helps you survive and remember something so you don’t make the same mistakes someone else has made.

Wes Rashid:

I read somewhere that Pixar has a certain formula that helps directors tell stories. There’s this great book by Charles Vogal I think that’s called ‘Storytelling for Leaders’ so obviously in the corporate setting. It was a really great book, and there’s this quote “a picture tells a thousand words, but a motion picture shows a thousand pictures.”

Suds Singh:

There was this experiment done on babies in an MRI. They showed the babies text and that did nothing, but when they showed images, they started to get excited. What really got the baby's eyes interested was videos. When we break it down with adults, when people see other faces, they tend to see what mood they’re in and see what emotion they’re feeling. As well as is this a threat or is this someone who can help me.

So images and videos stimulate your brain in a way that no other piece of content can.

Wes Rashid:

Being able to utilise that for brands is really powerful.

Suds Singh:

What happens with storytelling is that before writing was invented, people would pass down lessons by this like oral tradition where, for it to be memorable, you have to be able to identify with the character.

You want to be able to see yourself as the person you can see on the screen. Like in Star Wars, maybe the greatest story of all time, what it tends to do is, in a story of good and evil, depending how you feel and who you identify with, you see yourself as the hero or the villain.

On what a background in sales taught him

Wes Rashid:

Looking at your career, you did some roles within sales, how do you think those skills helped you as an Entrepreneur?

Suds Singh:

The number one thing sales helps you with, it helps you build resilience. A customer can give you a yes or no answer, so you’re being paid to get rejected in a way. One of the most important things in life is if you’re able to get rejected, and be ok to continue, then you know, you’ll grow as a person, because you’re not completely outcome dependent. Yes or no, my life doesn’t change. What sales taught me was to look deep down in myself and say, how can I keep going, when everyone is saying no.

Wes Rashid:

How many years did you do sales for?

Suds Singh:

Overall, I was in sales for roughly about 5 or 6 years. Through doing the role while at university and by studying psychology in the library it kind of taught me that I love being in front of people and talking to people.

Wes Rashid:

With a career so far in sales, how did you get into content production?

Suds Singh:

Interesting Content started off because I’d just finished at my previous role, where I’d closed the biggest deal in the company’s history, I had this kind of arrogance where I thought, “I can do it for these guys so I can do it for myself,” and then day one hits and it’s like “my God what am I doing? I’ve left the safety of my role!”

Wes Rashid:

So before, you’re thinking about the perception of your grandfather and then things hit on day one?

Suds Singh:

Yeah, exactly. My previous company would send me to loads and loads of these conferences because that’s where you do business development and learn things and network. Then one day at a conference there was this guy and he’s saying that the future of SEO is content and creating interesting content. And sparks were going off in my head. I got home, went on GoDaddy and started searching all different domain names that I could come up with, luckily InterestingContent.co.uk was just there and I thought, “you know what, let’s just do it.”

First off I started by going to my previous contacts that I had, mainly in fashion or retail, and I approached them like “hey, want to make content?” And I knew they were thinking “this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing” but I just knew there was something in there.

On Lockdown

Wes Rashid:

The work dried up because predominantly you need to have people on site with equipment to go ahead and deliver the services you offer?

Suds Singh:

Yeah, it dried up because a lot of the people we were talking to were furloughed, or asked to move away or even the companies closed down, sadly. So marketing spends went down to almost zero, unfortunately. For the best part of 8/9 months I didn’t want to get rid of my team so I said look, I’ll cover this and let's keep you engaged. During this time, we actually ended up creating these podcasts that you could do at home and someone had a bright spark that we’re actually going to be launching in a few months. This kept the team engaged so when we eventually did get out of the lockdown situation, they were able to come in and do other projects straightaway.