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Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom Rudnai (00:02.917)
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Demand Geniuses. I'm gonna get straight in and introduce my guest for today, which is one that I've been very excited about. I've Sophie Logan. So Sophie runs community and editorial at Rough Agenda, which for those of you who don't know, which is also me a couple of weeks ago, Rough Agenda is the business behind a lot of conferences that you do know. So Brighton SEO, Hero Conference, various others. I Measure Fest is another one in there.
I'm sure Sophie will say that there's others that I've forgotten, but before I go on butchering her introduction, I will say hello to Sophie. Hey, and give you an opportunity maybe to introduce yourself a little bit in your own words.
Sophie Logan (00:37.262)
Sorry.
Sophie Logan (00:42.55)
You've got it pretty spot on to be fair. I am Community and Editorial Manager at Rough Agenda. And you are correct. We run Brighton SEO, HeroConf, and MeasureFest. And that is both in the UK and US. So yes, we are international now. Quite exciting. But my background is PPC. Been doing PPC for coming up to 12 years now. I'm still quite new to Rough Agenda. So I'm still exploring and getting used to it all as well.
Tom Rudnai (01:07.953)
Yeah, well, and I want to get into that shift a little bit. I know where we are in the calendar now, we're coming up pretty close to Brighton SEO. So thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I'm sure it's a slightly chaotic time. I guess, Rough Agenda has probably got this home to a pretty fine art by this point and you've got a pretty clear process. it, or are we getting into the stressful time or is it all pretty composed?
Sophie Logan (01:31.114)
It's pretty composed but we are two weeks out when we're recording this and people get poorly, people can't speak so like there's a lot of switching and swapping around near the end but we are very close now. But yeah lots of caffeine that's why I'm constantly re-drinking this caffeine just to keep you going with these next few weeks.
Tom Rudnai (01:47.505)
or for those listening on podcasts and not watching on YouTube, Sophie's, her mouth said that it's all fine, but her eyes said, help me. Yeah. Take me one of like, those I wanna talk about, take me behind the scenes a little bit of like what goes into putting on a conference like that. So I know like Brighton SEO is a pretty big thing at this point, like huge conference hall, multiple stages.
Sophie Logan (01:59.264)
It's good, it'll be alright on the night.
Tom Rudnai (02:16.273)
how many people do you have coming to it? yeah, help me understand the process that you go through to make that all run smoothly.
Sophie Logan (02:23.244)
Yeah, I've spoken at Brighton SEO events five times. I've seen it from the speaker side, which was kind of gave me a little bit of an insight into it. But coming and working on the agenda and trying to manage 180 speakers. That's how over two days, that's how many speakers we have for the UK event. That is their decks, their hotel.
their tickets, their guest tickets, mentoring them, deck reviewing. It's just the full scope of what goes on to get people onto stage is probably what's been the biggest learning curve for me. And I think a lot of people don't realize just how much time and effort these speakers are putting into their decks and rehearsing and practicing. Like it can become like a little part-time job for them to prepare. So.
I think that's the biggest thing that people don't really realise about these events is that the speakers are putting a graft in.
Tom Rudnai (03:21.317)
Yeah, well, and one thing I learned last year actually at the event and just in talking to a couple of the speakers was the level, well, the level of work that goes into crafting a presentation, but also the level of support that they get. Cause I know it's something that you take quite, you put quite a lot of emphasis on is not, I guess from your perspective, not taking any chances with the quality of content that comes on stage, but I guess you could put a slightly nicer spin on it and saying like trying to help the.
trying to really help the speakers and grow into it. Cause it's a nerve wracking thing to do, right? It's a big stage with a lot of people and a lot of lights.
Sophie Logan (03:51.534)
Yeah, it works both ways. So again, because I've seen it as a speaker, I always say that Brighton SEO was probably the best event I've ever spoken in terms of being a speaker. We do speaker training, we have speaker guides, we do deck reviews, we have WhatsApp groups where all the speakers chat to each other and give each other advice. We have mentors on hand. We do really support speakers. Yes, because we want good quality content. We want our audience to go away and be happy.
But we really want the speakers to enjoy the process as well and have YouTube videos that they can share with their friends and family and be like, look at me on this stage. We want them to be able to show off. So it works both ways, but yeah, we do offer as much support as possible.
Tom Rudnai (04:35.035)
Yeah, I it's a powerful thing, If you can show that you've been doing that, but also, mean, one of the things, the hardest thing about starting a business at the moment, I think, is just getting a message in front of people in market that's this noisy. So if there's a kind of operator, you can build up some level of clout and authority and audience, that's a super valuable thing, especially as we all worry about our jobs going. It's hugely valuable, right? It gives you job security for life. Is that something that you've noticed, like, I don't know, over the...
the past few years has become more more prominent in people's thinking. Do you have people wanting to build themselves into a brand and is that a key motivator?
Sophie Logan (05:14.165)
Yeah, think years ago, like pre-COVID, I hate having to refer to that, but pre-COVID, know, events were usually kind of like agencies promoting, you know, their staff. And it was kind of like a pitch, you know, people would just try and like get clients on board where there's definitely been a shift where people, especially freelancers, are just, they just want to show people what they can do and, you know, put their personal branding together and get in front of people and just say, hey,
Tom Rudnai (05:27.365)
Yeah.
Sophie Logan (05:41.163)
notice me this is the insights I've got this is the work that I do so we've kind of moved away from being like really agency focused to one-man band freelancers and still agencies of course getting involved but it's nice to see that diversity of the type of speakers that we're getting because yeah again selfishly for me public speaking has helped me get the job that I've got at the moment so it can be really beneficial if you want to do certain roles and and progressing to certain directions.
Tom Rudnai (06:09.027)
How do you keep the bar high? Because you just touched on it. It's something I felt a little bit with this podcast, as you never quite know, going when a guest comes on, some of them come on. And within like two minutes, I'm like, this person is just going to sell and sell and sell. And I'm trying to ask questions that don't give them any opportunity to. And it just keeps coming back to like a talk track that clearly leads to their product. like, it's difficult to guarantee the quality of content. And I've had some that I just haven't put out. This guy just didn't shut up about his product the whole time.
Sophie Logan (06:38.382)
you
Tom Rudnai (06:38.961)
out that's not what I'm here to do I wanted to be valuable content but you don't get that luxury because you don't it's not it's live
Sophie Logan (06:45.634)
Yes, we do a lot of deck reviews to help that. So it starts with selection. is obviously, if you pitch, it doesn't mean you're going to get a spot. We spend a lot of time building the agenda. So that's kind of like helps us in that sense. But then we have a deck review process where we see each deck for every speakers. That's 180 decks, at least twice. And we review them twice, at least twice. So we're talking of hundreds of deck checks.
Tom Rudnai (06:51.793)
Mm.
Sophie Logan (07:14.05)
So we go through each deck, look at what they're going to be speaking about, make sure it's not too salesy. Obviously we want people to show off their agency or their brand or their software, but we've all been in audiences where it's really obvious that it's a hard sell. So we are quite strict on that. And it's those deck reviews which really help us kind of make sure we can keep an eye on things like that.
Tom Rudnai (07:36.817)
And what kind of things are you looking for? Cause I guess some people probably listening to this, it's more of a kind of marketing operator type audience and they're probably like, well, look, we've done events like this and it's a bit hit and miss. Like are there clear signals that you can get when you're talking to a speaker that are like, this is going to be a bit salesy. Where do you draw the line and how do you get us, how can you tell if one's going to go over?
Sophie Logan (07:58.745)
That is the, like you said a moment ago, there is that element of we are only seeing their decks, right? A deck is a deck. Doesn't mean that you're gonna say anything that's on the deck. You could completely freestyle and go like and do your own thing. But what we're looking for is the content. So I'm looking at the content. We have Carmen who looks at like design. So like making sure that you've got the right font and that, you know, the design looks right. And then I look at the content. So I will go through as if I'm an audience member.
Tom Rudnai (08:04.432)
Yeah.
Sophie Logan (08:27.906)
and just making sure that I'm being informed, because we all want to learn stuff. But then I'm also looking to make sure it's actionable as well. And that the action, if you want to do this, then you have to get this tool. Like I want, you know, I'm looking for people to guide and just signpost people to be able to do it themselves, not necessarily just going, and to do that, you have to use our tool. There's other ways to get there. So that's what I'm looking out for. And sometimes I do have to push back. But I think that's the difference between.
maybe more of a boardroom presentation or like sales pitch and a conference talk. They're so different and it's tricky for people to get that balance.
Tom Rudnai (09:08.325)
Yeah, and I've spoken to a lot of, I've seen a lot of these kind of talks. I'm like, you have literally just gone through your sales deck and it's not even a very good sales deck.
Sophie Logan (09:15.746)
Yeah, yeah, it's hard because again, making a presentation is a skill, like just the deck itself is a skill, presenting it is a skill and then the skills to talk about what you're talking about, like it's a lot. So again, we do try and give people a lot of guidance on that, show them examples of previous years, you if you've been there, you can see what to expect. But yeah, we do offer a lot of support and as much as possible to help people remember we're not.
You're not doing a pitch, you're not in a boardroom, you're in a massive hall, a massive stage, you know, the screen is bigger than my living room. Just making sure that it looks right and is right for the audience.
Tom Rudnai (09:55.484)
that might not be quite as comforting as you think it is.
Sophie Logan (09:58.048)
That does not sound very comforting, it? I mean, Auditorium One, I mean, the screen has probably got more space than my house. It's huge and it's just kind of making sure that people are keeping that in mind when they're creating their deck.
Tom Rudnai (10:12.593)
Yeah, I mean, I've been in there and yeah, I mean, it would be very, it's gotta be intimidating and I'm always pretty impressed by the standard of people that are up there and seem very calm as they go through what seems to be a very well rehearsed pitch. Do you get a lot of like, I've kind got two questions in my head that I can't choose between. Do you get a lot of really clear like feedback or data on which pitches are good and which are bad? So I guess that's the other challenge about an in-person live event. If we do a webinar, I can see who dropped off who.
was how like the level of engagement at each point. Live, it's a little bit harder to gauge. I'm sure you've got people scanning badges and doing their best. Like is there clear data and would you be able to, would you have any data in terms of like what tends to produce a really high performing talk?
Sophie Logan (10:57.806)
We do survey people after the event. Obviously not everybody's gonna fill that out because not everybody wants to fill out a survey. But that is where we get the juiciest information. That is where people will say, hey, these talks were too basic or they didn't go in depth enough or they felt too sales pitchy. And we always take that on board and we keep that in mind. But we do also, which will be one of my jobs this year round.
Tom Rudnai (11:05.869)
in.
Sophie Logan (11:26.574)
is to keep an eye on talks and just see what's going on, get the feel of the room. You know, is the room standing room only like some of the stages that I saw last year and thinking, okay, people actually like this topic or want to know this topic to keep an eye on it. And we also do a poll. So we do, we say like a few months before we build the agenda, like what kind of talks are you looking for? So we put that out on like socials and just try and get an idea of what people want to see. Because for example,
I was quite surprised at how many people wanted to hear talks about Amazon ads. It was like right up there that people wanted to hear about and I was like, I didn't think people would be that interested. So we made sure that the agenda reflects that and we've got talks that cover that and they're on the larger stages. It's giving people what they want rather than doing what you want.
Tom Rudnai (12:16.177)
Yeah, which I can imagine must be quite difficult sometimes. I mean, I know in my own business, it's hard sometimes to listen to the data rather than your kind of intuition. It's very tempting to think that we know the answers. You must get a pretty interesting picture, especially across. So obviously we've got Brighton SEO in the SEO world, Measure Fest, then help me out with the one in your paid advertising thing. HeroConf, HeroConf, the one in paid advertising. So you must get quite a decent idea of like...
Sophie Logan (12:38.554)
We've got hero camp. We've got hero camp.
Tom Rudnai (12:45.199)
the ebbs and flows of all of those industries. They're clear trends in terms of topics that have really come to the fore over the last few years and maybe ones where interest has waned a little bit.
Sophie Logan (12:55.203)
You know what I'm going to say, right, is AI. It's a tricky one because we are very aware that there is a fatigue about AI topics. I've experienced it. You go through blogs and it's like, another AI blog. You kind of get a bit tired about it. So we are conscious of that. But we also know that people want to know about it and learn about it and future-proof their roles. So we also do need to include it.
So AI is a really tricky one that we're trying to balance in terms of making sure that we cover it enough for the people that want it, but also keeping in mind that there are still some very traditional practices that go on and still need to go on and making sure that we're not just completely AI focused because yeah, we've all got that fatigue, but also at the same time, no, we need to keep up on it.
Tom Rudnai (13:45.372)
Yeah, well, it's also, I get quite frustrated with people referring to AI as a topic, because it's not, it's the topic is how do you like, how do you reach people? Like, there is, well, I should stop because of what we do as a business, right? AI as a channel, that is a thing, right? It's a way to reach people. And that's the kind of new topic, but everything else, it's it's steroids for things that you might already do. And I get there's an obsession with the hacks that it enables.
But at the end of the day, it's still a new way to do the same stuff. And you still have to think about that stuff and learn the fundamentals and focus on that.
Sophie Logan (14:20.387)
Yeah, I think I'm big on the fundamentals. I've been doing PBC for a very long time now. And I am always surprised at how much people still focus on the new shiny things and, you know, AI and the new, you know, new platforms and stuff and just neglect the foundations. So we do try to make sure our agenda has that as well of just, hey, that new shiny thing is exciting, but please make sure that you're still focusing on, you know, the foundations and the backbone of what your discipline is actually about. So.
But yeah, AI is the one which people love and people hate and we get a lot of feedback on both of those.
Tom Rudnai (14:57.199)
Yeah, I guess the challenge is also you can easily build an event agenda around the thing that people most say they love, but then I bet by day three they don't just want more of that, right? So it's trying to create variety, must be quite difficult. I know you said before you don't like talking about post-COVID as if it's like a Jesus Christ level event.
Sophie Logan (15:18.319)
It was though, right? was.
Tom Rudnai (15:23.001)
Well, I sometimes wonder how we're going to look back at that. always think my granddad, he would me talk about COVID as if it was the war, must be like, come on, Tom. Like, have to stay inside for a month or two. But has it changed the events industry a lot? And is it starting to reset or like, what are the sustained changes that you've seen? And what are the ones that are starting to normalize a little bit more? Like, I guess what I'm getting at is what makes a really good event?
Sophie Logan (15:29.807)
You
Tom Rudnai (15:52.589)
in 2026.
Sophie Logan (15:54.448)
I've always been a massive fan of in-person events. As soon as I started working in marketing, I was always at events. COVID changed that big time because we, again, like you said, we weren't allowed to go out. So we definitely weren't allowed to be thousands of people in one room together listening to somebody present. And unfortunately, I know a lot of smaller events, lot of, you know, I'm in Nottingham, a lot of events around here, they lost the momentum that they'd spent a long time to build up with COVID.
People then didn't really want to go to events in the same way. There was one in Nottingham called Drink Digital and it was on a Thursday and that was when we were in the office every day. It was normal. So we would go to the office and then we'd work and then we'd go and have a pint in the pub and then we'd go to the event. Like it was a religious thing that we did every time it was on. It was just what we did. But after COVID, the events were struggling because of the time off.
People aren't in the office. People are so remote now that they're not necessarily all together to go to events. I mean, I think people's interest had like dipped a little bit, but I've noticed over the past, I'd say two years, it's starting to pick back up. I feel like there's a lot more events, especially here in the UK, picking up, which is good to see, because I think people want to see people in person and network and have a drink in the sunshine and.
Just that kind of lovely side that comes with actually going to events. And the learning, of course, and the learning.
Tom Rudnai (17:22.395)
But do you find then that what people actually look for out of the event has evolved a little bit or is it still largely the same? No one really wants to
Sophie Logan (17:34.271)
I think there is a mix. I think there is a mix. I know people that will go to an event and as soon as it's finished, they have a nice time, see you later, they go home. And then there'll be people like me who will get there super early, talk to people, stay for the event and then be like, oh, why don't we go for this coffee after? Why don't we go here? And then it becomes a whole day thing. So I think there is a balance of what people are looking for. And I think people are more...
more comfortable with being like, okay, my social batteries ran out now, I need to leave, where I think back in the day, we just felt like you had to go to events, you had to network, whereas now people do know that's even not for me, or I've had enough, I wanna go home, I've had enough of talking to everybody, and they wanna slide out, and then sometimes people are like me, they'll be there until they're turning the lights on and they're telling everybody to go home, so a bit of a mix.
Tom Rudnai (18:23.525)
Yeah, I do always think there's an opportunity for like doing introvert friendly after parties at these kinds of things because everything is always the whole world is geared towards extroverts. I'm sure there's plenty of people that would love to go and like to know do something that's something a lot more relaxed and laid back that isn't dependent on drinking. And I think that a lot of the after party world at these events is not catered for that. Have you seen anyone? So have you seen people start to get a bit more creative with how they do all of the fringe events? I noticed there was yoga, for example, at Brighton SEO last year.
Sophie Logan (18:52.347)
Yeah, we do. We try and offer that as well. We're very aware that, you know, I think like old school marketing, not completely madman style, madman style, but it's like, let's go and have a cocktail and stuff. But we are very conscious that people do just have different lifestyles. So we do have yoga. I've not done it yet because it's really early in the morning and I'm usually really tired when I'm at Brighton. But we have like a 5k run on the beach, which is my idea of a nightmare. I hate running.
But I know that people love that. So they start their day off, they network with people, they run, they get their exercise, they get the fresh air. Over for our US event, I think we're doing basketball. And I think paddle, because paddle is becoming like, that's the new networking event, isn't it? Paddle is the new thing. And yeah, the fringe events that go on outside of Rough Agenda, there are a lot of more kind of like dinners and just kind of like casual catch-ups or...
live podcast recordings and stuff like that. So yeah, it's kind of offering people a different option to do different things, but still be involved, which is nice. That's what we really encourage and love to say. And we have karaoke on the Thursday night. So, you know.
Tom Rudnai (19:48.944)
Mm.
Tom Rudnai (20:03.545)
Yeah, you won't be seeing me at that. I love karaoke, but I have to have had at least like seven beers before that. Well, that love really starts to show itself.
Sophie Logan (20:05.807)
Yeah.
Sophie Logan (20:11.405)
Yeah, it's... It could go one way. It could be amazing and blow everyone away or you could be really bad and everyone will remember it forever.
Tom Rudnai (20:21.625)
I can promise you it will be the second one. The other thing I wanted to ask about, so one thing I'm always very conscious, it's always been a thing of like the learning events and I think that must be a really, really difficult part of putting on an event now. I can go for a walk after we've recorded this. I can take my phone out and I can listen to the CEO of HubSpot. I can listen to the CEO of OpenAI. The content side is...
Sophie Logan (20:23.894)
This is
Tom Rudnai (20:48.245)
very available and I can very easily get access to the absolute best names out there in a way that is really convenient to me, doesn't require me to go travel somewhere and stay there for three days. Like, how do you think about competing with that? Do you think about competing with that? Has it changed the way that you approach what makes good content at your events?
Sophie Logan (21:13.583)
I remember last year, Kelvin started Rough Agenda. He's our big boss. He put something out on LinkedIn and he was like, what do people like about Brighton SEO events? And I said, what I like about Brighton SEO events is that it doesn't matter if you are a CEO of a big company or have got a fancy title. Your insights can be super valuable to everybody. Everybody is interested in relatable content.
actions that they can implement, budgets which are realistic to their budgets, that's always a big one. So as we can't compete against some of, know, that are having the big boss of all these huge companies, a lot of our audience wants relatable content, relatable people, case studies that they can go, oh, what happened to me? Or, you know, I know exactly, you know, I've been through that situation myself. So whilst we can't compete with them, we offer
that type of relatability that sometimes some of the larger names in the industry don't really have for the average marketer.
Tom Rudnai (22:20.899)
interesting because then what you're describing is that that actually fills a very different need because the need isn't really learning it's connection right and I think if we say that people go to these events for connection we think of the networking but I guess what you're saying is you've kind of learned there's a sweet spot where the content actually can provide a sense of connection sharing challenges sharing it's like a like let's all get together and show them yeah it's nice knowing that people experience the same problems from you as well as just getting solutions and that
feels like something you're actually consciously optimizing for.
Sophie Logan (22:54.521)
That's why I'm here, the community and editorial manager. makes sense. Yeah, and I think that's it. It's like, I feel so much better when I have a good moan about a PPC account or situation and someone goes, my gosh, that's exactly happened to me. Let's have a good moan about it. Let's knock our heads together and come up with a solution or this is what I did. Or if you spoke to this person, like,
Tom Rudnai (22:58.085)
Hahaha
Sophie Logan (23:20.515)
Those are such valuable moments that you can have like at an event or after a talk. So yeah, it's like community, it's learning from each other because yeah, we're all in it together really, aren't we?
Tom Rudnai (23:34.834)
Yeah, well is that something that it sounds like is quite a conscious thing then is evolving all of your different conferences and events, kind of away from events and towards communities. Is that something like you think we're gonna start to see across a lot of these big events is that they're like, are you deliberately trying to create more of a year round connection with that community and what does that look like? Like what can we expect to kind of see from these big event providers over the next however many years?
Sophie Logan (24:02.701)
I think it's continuing the connection after the event. You know, we facilitate a lot of communities that already exist, like women in tech SEO, for example, we give them a stand and they come together and they have a photo on the stage and like we give them the space. And that's an example of just how we want people to meet at our events, but then share profiles, share numbers, join WhatsApp groups together and continue that relationship on.
the next week, for the next month, maybe forever, become a business partner, becomes a new employee, like it's those connections that continue on and it's yeah that's pretty much what my role is to bring in is to help facilitate that for people because I know from experience that I've gone down to events, I've made friends, I've made connections, I've had job opportunities that have come up so it is more as cheesy as it sounds, it's more than just the event of what it is, it's the...
everything around it, which is often the people and it's all these people coming together in the same room in a good mood. Hopefully sunshine, fingers crossed, who knows, and ice cream and just kind of just bringing everybody together. It's like our little holiday. That's how I used to describe Brighton. It's like a holiday for marketers.
Tom Rudnai (25:18.245)
Yeah, I mean the weather part must be a little bit easier on the one in the States than it is in Britain, but we'll see how we do. remember last time it was horrible.
Sophie Logan (25:22.895)
No, I'm ready. I just want it be dry. Dry and sunny, but just dry. Thank you.
Tom Rudnai (25:29.947)
Fingers crossed for you, fingers crossed for you. What's the best, what's the absolute dream bit of feedback that you could get after an event?
Sophie Logan (25:40.112)
You what the worst feedback, and I think this in everything, is that there is no, like it was perfect. You know when people, when you ask somebody something like, what did you think of my talk? And they go, nothing, it was perfect. Because you can't do anything with perfect. Also, I don't believe that there is anything that is perfect. If someone would say, you know what, it was awful, I didn't enjoy it because, I don't know, your content was too basic or you spoke too fast. There's something that you can do with that.
Tom Rudnai (25:43.217)
Well that's way more interesting actually, yeah.
Sophie Logan (26:08.289)
If someone says it's perfect and there's no feedback, then you can't go anywhere with that. So, worst feedback to me would be, it was perfect, I wouldn't change anything because where's the fun in that? Every year we wanna go bigger and better. not negative feedback is welcome, because that sounds like open the door for negative feedback. Constructive feedback is always welcome because it gives you something to actually work on and make sure you're giving people what they expect.
Tom Rudnai (26:27.089)
You
Tom Rudnai (26:35.493)
Yeah, okay, which makes sense. Another question I had, which is maybe zipping around a little bit, but it's a thought that I was having when I was kind of thinking about this and I wanted to talk to kind of go into depth on the event industry.
One thing I noticed is your events certainly and most events are very kind of vertically organized. So you talk about SEO, you talk about measurement, you talk about paper, kind paid. Is that increasingly becoming a bit of a challenge? Because I think more and more what we're seeing is generalist marketers who are expected to have broad knowledge across all of those things. And actually those disciplines becoming very interwoven anyway, right? Like your...
Overall search strategy is probably going to bridge paid and organic and it's often about how you kind of intertwine those things How do you is that changing and how do you kind of cater for that?
Sophie Logan (27:30.265)
For us in particular, the way we cater for it is by our Brighton SEO ticket, which confuses people, also gets you into Herokonf, vice versa. If you buy a Herokonf ticket, it means you can go into either. We do encourage people to go into a PR talk, or for PPC, go into an SEO talk, or go into a GA4 talk, for example. Yes, for example, I'm PPC specialist, but I could learn so much by sitting in and hearing someone whose full-time job.
is GA4, because I hate GA4 and I'm still struggling with it. So by sitting in that talk, I'm going to get better at my job. So we do encourage people to make sure they mingle and, you know, sit in a talk that they know nothing about just to keep, you know, it's nice to learn continuously. But I am noticing that events are doing that a little bit more in terms of adding multiple tracks. More often than not, an event now will have multiple tracks unless it's like a little local event.
they'll have like an SEO talk, PPC talk or something else going on at the same time so that people can choose what suits them and hopefully try something different. But whether the audience decides to do that is up to them. But I think go and sit in a talk which you have no idea even what it means and just learn something new. Whether you use that in your job or not, it's so interesting to learn something that's different and that's out of your remit.
Tom Rudnai (28:55.761)
I just thought of a good little AI talk, actually, as you were saying that, which is like an event curator. So you can like put it in and you can be like, okay, I want to come out of this event knowing these things and it kind of curates your schedule for you a little bit. Because otherwise I always find, yeah, you get, there's such a thing as FOMO, because you kind of, I've been to, so for us, we're an AEO, I've been to three AEO talks, because it's obviously, I'm interested in what people are saying about that, but by the fourth, Jesus Christ, am I bored? And I spend all day thinking about it. But did you hear a lot of the same stuff? Like you kind of want...
Sophie Logan (29:19.117)
Yes.
Tom Rudnai (29:24.625)
something to help you create something which has a bit of balance and directs you around it. Like have you found any exciting, like are there ways that you yourselves are using AI to actually enhance the event experience?
Sophie Logan (29:37.997)
No, maybe I can pretend that I came up with that idea and tell Kelvin about it.
Tom Rudnai (29:41.061)
You can have that one. You can have that one for free. For a very reasonable price, I will get VibeCoding for you. That's my new favourite thing. Yeah, well, we'll talk.
Sophie Logan (29:47.156)
No, it's mine now. I'm going to write it down. But the thing is people do come. They're like, you know, I only do PPC, so why do need to learn about SEO? But, you know, I think it's really important that we learn different things, try different things. And even if you don't use it, it might mean that you can understand a different person, somebody else in your team and what they're going through a little bit more. So I'm big on encouraging them.
I always try and encourage people to do it. You never know, you might find something completely fascinating and want to change your whole career path and flip and do a 180 and do something different. Like it could be something like that that changes everything for you.
Tom Rudnai (30:30.309)
Yeah, well, you do need that exposure. I'm gonna get a bit nerdy here, but one of the last things that humans are better at than AI actually is breadth of context. AI is better than me just about everything, if I point it in a clear direction, but I can retain a lot broader context than it can. That's the problem that hasn't really been solved. So you've got this emergence, people often talk about like the T-shaped marketer, where you have like a baseline level of expertise in lots of things, and then you do go deep in one. But I always think there's so many obstacles to...
consistently developing T-shaped marketers or whatever kind of cringeworthy mental model you want to use. Because everything is structured around it. The way that our teams are built, even, I've kind of realized over the course of this conversation, even filtering through to the way that the industry events are created. So if you want to become that, well, you need to go to Brighton SEO, you need to go to MeasureFresh, you need go to like, that's now three conferences that require so much more budget. it's gonna be quite interesting as that takes shape.
to see the trickle down effects. And I guess you're probably quite far down that chain, because teams need to reorganise and then they kind of think, well, actually I want an event that I can send my junior person to one event, not three. Maybe that's a little less of, that's a prediction for you, but it's interesting to see how much it's on your radar already.
Sophie Logan (31:39.716)
Yeah.
Sophie Logan (31:47.184)
Yeah. And also, I mean, I've worked at PPC for nearly 12 years. My job was completely different when I started doing PPC. So even just to future proof your job and look at other, you know, how it might progress or change, or like I said, do a 180, it's really important because if you only stick into talks and blogs and articles and podcasts, exactly what you know, then what is the point? You're just, you're just in a little circle going round and round and round and round.
I can't imagine anything more boring in marketing than just staying in that circle. There's so much out there. Just give it a go. Worst case, you didn't enjoy a talk for 20 minutes. It's not the end of the world.
Tom Rudnai (32:27.249)
Yeah, but you probably even by mistake, you learn something new instead of kind of having what you already feel like you know, reinforced to you, which I guess there's something quite comforting about. I wanna further kind of last a little bit before we get into some quick fires. I wanna just kind of think a bit more, quite intensely talked a lot about Brighton SEO, because I'm really interested in those like big conferences. I'm quite interested in what lessons maybe a listener who is running slightly smaller events could take from your experience running Brighton SEO.
I guess is sort of all of your conferences. I guess that's more of a thought and probably going to need a question from me at some point. like maybe an easy place to start is like, what's the, what are the key things that you would give to someone as a piece of advice? If I want to run a great event next week, what are the like most important ingredients to think about? And what are some of the stuff that I wouldn't naturally think about, but it's really, really critical to it going smoothly.
Sophie Logan (33:24.343)
I think you've always got to start with your speakers, Like without your speakers, you have nothing. You've got an empty venue. No one's going to come and just sit in an empty venue and look at a wall. So I think, I think events really needs to the focus on bringing in quality speakers, but also bringing in different speakers. You know, we can't, I'm guilty of it. Like you go all PPC, a woman in PPC, let's speak to Sophie.
There is so many other people out there who either haven't spoken at events or don't speak very often. So I think a little goldmine for events is to actually try and reach those untapped speakers, those new people, help give them their break. I think that's great for them in terms of they can be like, we gave them the first public speaking opportunity. But also that opens up that person's network and a new fresh speaker will
Tom Rudnai (34:03.525)
Hmm.
Sophie Logan (34:18.767)
promote your event a lot more than somebody who goes around and tours the world every single day and does lots of events because it means so much to them. So I think the speakers is one which I think sometimes events overlook. They want a nice branding or a logo or a cool venue, but without your speakers and good speakers, you have nothing. Because then comes the audience and then comes the ticket sales and then comes the sponsors and it all goes back from there. But without your speakers, again, like I said, just an empty venue with nothing in it.
Tom Rudnai (34:46.075)
Yeah, well, I mean, we just think in the experience of building this podcast up, that's something that we've noticed is you, it's nice to have a mix, but the big names I often find when you get them, they often have a lot more of like a talk track or a pre-existing talk track. And it's very polished, there's a little bit, it's a little bit less real. And I think some, yeah, there's different things that different people bring, but I can see completely that an element of variety is important. What about like, I don't know, more operationally, cause I think.
So let's take that example that I gave you again of me running an event next week. That terrifies me very, very deeply. I feel like I could go and get some speakers. That's kind of what I know. Yeah, so I've got some speakers lined up. Now it's a question of get everyone in the room, make everything run smoothly, make everyone have a good time, not be starving, hungry at the end of it. Yeah, in the details, what other stuff that you found really separates good from bad?
Sophie Logan (35:23.375)
Okay, we'll take that one. That's good.
Sophie Logan (35:43.098)
would say this is a really boring one but I think Brian SEO from experience does it perfectly is the AV side of it as well because I've gone to events and they've kind of overlooked that and again if your speakers got a banging presentation but it doesn't work or you can't hear them then your event means nothing as well because you haven't got the value from the speaker so audiovisual I think a lot of events skip out on that.
Tom Rudnai (35:57.467)
Hmm.
Sophie Logan (36:11.599)
Reasons why it's damn expensive to do well or you need a specialist on hand. And as marketers, we're probably not the best people to be doing audio visual. So for those events, I'd say speak to a specialist because you want to make sure that you've got the right sound people can hear and that the presentations look good. I think that's unfortunately something I see at smaller events they miss. And just promotion. I think...
Of course you want ticket sales, but you also want to reach the community that are relevant for you. You don't just want 50 people who have turned up for free pizza, right? Like, because people will. You want people who are going to be valuable for whatever you want to run events for. Something that's tapping into the communities that are relevant for your event and inviting them. That might be giving them a 50 % discount or a free ticket or whatever it may be.
But if you start building partnerships and relationships with those communities and those regulars and the people that you can rely on, every time you have an event, you'll fill some of your tickets with, they'll be there. if, before you've even got your speakers, they're gonna be like, I'm gonna buy a ticket. They'll become your core audience and then they speak to people, then they invite people and then they share their code. And it's like, those people can make such a huge difference to your event. You don't wanna be reaching everybody and just getting anybody in.
for reaching communities that are relevant to what you are doing. For example, PPC, I'm always going to use PPC. Reaching out to PPC, Slack communities, or even universities. Do you have some students that are doing digital marketing? We can give them some tickets and they could do a blog post for us or a TikTok because they're young and they can do cool things. You can get so much value from those types of communities and you can really build a core audience that you can always rely on to turn up. It just takes time to build them.
Tom Rudnai (37:59.708)
Yeah, but I guess it gets you over that intimidate. I think everyone's probably one of the biggest fears is just what if we don't sell the tickets and we've got all these costs. So it's a nice way to kind of feel like you've got a baseline number of tickets sold and it's not gonna be an empty room and then you can kind of build from there. That makes sense. Do you think it's possible to do like a B2B event on a budget? you said the AV side is expensive. You've done people there with their stomachs grumbling like, is it?
And I think it's particularly difficult in the B2B world because people often do have an expectation of a certain amount of polish and things like that. Yeah, can you do one on a budget or do you think it is something that you need to be able to put the money behind it and invest heavily in it in order for it to succeed as a kind of strategy?
Sophie Logan (38:42.383)
I think it's kind of like PPC. If people say to me, I've only got a hundred pound, can I run a campaign? Of course you can run a campaign or an event with a hundred pound. It's the expectations of what you were expecting to come from it. And I think it's, if you want 500 people there, for example, you're going to have to have a big budget. If you're looking at a 50, let's say you want 50 people, then maybe you could speak to a local agency, for example, if they've got a nice hall, you know, a lot of these agencies have nice hall spaces.
and ask if you can hire that and you put their name on the newsletter or something. There you go, you've a free venue hire. Work in to try and get a sponsor in. Obviously you're not gonna ring up Google and be like, can you sponsor my event? But again, more relevant, you know, local businesses or smaller software companies that are relevant to what you're gonna be talking about. So I think it can be done on a budget, but it's just having realistic expectations because it's getting very expensive. know, then you hire in particular, AV.
catering, you're feeding people, your imaginary event is feeding people, even I would say unless you've got a bit of good money behind you that's tricky now. So just kind of being realistic with what you've got and what you can do and leaning on your partnerships, your relationships, potential sponsors to kind of bridge those gaps of you know bringing pizza in or giving you their office to hold your event in.
Tom Rudnai (40:05.201)
Yeah, and I guess it comes back a little bit to being clear on what you want out of the event, right? Because I think a lot of people have approached things like that as a bit of a vanity project. I remember one of my old CEOs used to say that the brand that owns the event owns the space, which I think is probably not completely wrong, but obviously that puts it into a different category because it's like you're not looking for an ROI on the event or anything like that. It's about something different.
And obviously that is good if you want it to have that kind of brand, your chest out, vanity kind of exposure type impact, then yeah, it's probably not gonna make you any money. But I think if you're focused on what you want out of it, you can find scrappy ways to get a good audience in the room and give them, deliver some kind of value to them,
Sophie Logan (40:52.399)
Yeah, and I think again, that's it. It's kind of, I talk about it all the time. I'm to get it tattooed on me. It's quality over quantity, right? If I had 10 people in maybe I've got two, can have two. Just quality over quantity, because I do say that at PPC all the time as well. If I got 10 people in my event, but they were 10 people who wanted my services after all, you know, had a partnership or
Tom Rudnai (41:00.753)
I thought you were going to say it's just like PPC.
Sophie Logan (41:22.607)
the value of those 10 people compared to 10,000 people who were like took the pizza and was like, see you later then. Like what's the real value gained? But sometimes it is vanity of like, I want a big event, I want everybody there, I it to look really cool on photos. But it's why are you even running an event in the first place? And what do you need to get there? Forget all the cool pictures and tens of thousands of bums on seats.
It's what are you doing it for and what value are you getting from it and kind of dropping the ego a little bit.
Tom Rudnai (41:55.964)
Yeah, well I think marketers in general, it's very easy to get distracted as you try, because your goal when you put, like the first goal that you think of when you put on an event or something like that is I need to fill out a room. It's like, right, how can I fill out a room? Pizza, people love pizza. But it's like a half empty room or half full room, depending on what kind of person you are, where people were actually there to speak to you and get value from it was probably gonna have a bigger impact. just is a bit, you feel a bit, like no one likes the idea of throwing a party and half as many people turned up as they did. And there's something very innate around that, right?
Sophie Logan (42:07.555)
People love people.
Sophie Logan (42:25.785)
I think we've all got like childhood trauma of like running it like having a party and nobody turning up from school. I think maybe that's where it comes from. But same as speaking, I've had times when I've had a full room and I've had times when I've been at the same time as like a really big speaker and like not many people have turned up and your heart sinks like it really does. you stand there and you can see the back of the room and you're just kind of like, no. But I've had some amazing conversations and literally have
relationships years later after speaking to people in those smaller crowds. So quality not quantity, quality not quantity guys.
Tom Rudnai (43:00.657)
Yeah, I can imagine. If it makes anyone listening to this feel better, it's not nearly as bad as webinars. Like I feel like when you do, if you do an in-person speech and it's empty, it's like, okay, the hook wasn't good enough. Or it's not, that's not really about the quality of what you did. That was all of the stuff that came before it. On a webinar, you can often literally see like how many people are on there. And I've had that experience. You say something and you just see it tick from like 50 to 48 and you're like, well, okay, not my best point then, was it?
Sophie Logan (43:21.684)
And they leave, and they leave.
Sophie Logan (43:29.167)
I'm going to miss
Tom Rudnai (43:31.793)
It's so destroying. And the worst thing is the trend is people drop off over time. So you almost certainly will see gradually people drop off and it's very hard not to think that that's about you a little bit. The other thing that I thought of as you were talking was I have a memory of having a party when I was a kid and it's to your point around the AV, I kind of suddenly realized once people got there, they don't have any speakers. So I had a musicless party and that was not good.
Sophie Logan (43:43.535)
you
Sophie Logan (43:59.148)
No, no. We on OXCable back in the day because we didn't have like wireless things like you've got to have all those things it's boring but they they are again foundations for a reason get the foundations right and your events will be fine.
Tom Rudnai (44:12.153)
Yeah, well maybe that's why I find the idea of putting on an event quite so intimidating. It's deep childhood trauma. Anyway, moving on. Let's get into some quick fires and then I should let you go before I start opening up too many of my childhood traumas. Always want to ask, yeah, a few that we always rattle through. So the first one is an AI use case that you absolutely love. So something you've seen AI do, either at all or a way that you've used it that kind of blew your mind.
Sophie Logan (44:42.297)
Well, I'm quite dyslexic. So for me to write like long form content takes me a while. And like this sentence is going to sound, I don't always get the structure right. Like I know what I need to say. I just can't get it in the right structure. So for me, AI has helped me do that. Not do the work for me, just kind of like sense check it. So like as a self pers like a personal selfish reason, that's been the best thing for me. I know that's so boring because there's much cooler things, but on my day to day, it helps me out so much.
and it will help me not spend like two hours proofreading a blog. It might take me an hour, for example, because it just gives me that extra. I was going to say eye on the account, but it's not an eye on account. It's just kind of like double checking.
Tom Rudnai (45:25.009)
Yeah, no, but that's good. like first of all, your sentence structure is excellent. I was listening for any little mistake. I thought you could have checked in an ironic one on purpose, but my structure sentence. But no, I think I like that. using it's a personal tool. So I think people often look for other people to come up with great AI tools that can solve their problem. But if you kind of think about it, it's amazing how much you can learn by using AI. Like the example for me is I'm
someone who the way I learn is really annoying. I like to kind of grill people probably why I ended up running a podcast. I kind of like to just be able to pick their brains and like ask loads of questions. Well, AI is fantastic for that. So for me, that's the most valuable thing. It's nothing shiny. It's just the ability to be annoying in a way that humans don't have patience for.
Sophie Logan (46:08.047)
That's a unique one, I like that.
Tom Rudnai (46:13.519)
Yeah. For you more personally, there like a, I'm always curious, like, is there a skill or a trait that you have that you think has really, really helped you in your career?
Sophie Logan (46:28.138)
I have learned over the years to drop my ego of like not asking for help or thinking that I can do everything and everything always every single time being perfectly. I think that's a character trait that I've built up for work but also in life as well of just kind of like letting things slip a little bit and kind of being like I don't need to be perfect all the time. I feel like as soon as I started to do that with PPC work in particular I learned so much more.
And I made so many better connections and so many more opportunities came, but it was kind of like a personality switch of like, you don't have to be strong, independent woman. I know everything. I don't need any help. You can actually kind of drop that ego and just let people in and ask for help. And that has changed my life and my marketing and my career completely.
Tom Rudnai (47:16.305)
I love that. think people like helping people, but they wanna see a little bit of vulnerability in how it's asked, otherwise it doesn't make you particularly want to help. Yeah, exactly, so that's really good. And then the flip side, we've kind of built you up with what you're good at, and I'm just gonna back you back down. What was the biggest screw up in your career? Like the oh my god moment.
Sophie Logan (47:24.035)
Be human. Be human.
Sophie Logan (47:36.976)
I always go back to this. My specialism is advertising software brands. Don't know how I managed to get into that. B2B SaaS brands, that's what I love. And I managed to put software as a negative keyword in a campaign. So it completely tanks their performance for a long time. And I had like my manager, everybody looked at the account, like my manager at the time looked at the account, our like pod, our like team of people looked at the account.
Tom Rudnai (47:57.425)
You
Sophie Logan (48:04.257)
No one could understand what it was because it was so stupid and so obvious but not obvious at the same time. And I remember finding it one day and I was like, yeah, we're not getting any leads through because I put software as a negative keyword. So it just tanked everything. That was great. That was really good.
Tom Rudnai (48:18.743)
funny. Yeah normally when I ask that people are like there's this thing that I did and there wasn't any real impact so it wasn't too bad but I like no it was catastrophic it went awfully.
Sophie Logan (48:26.809)
Well, this is bad.
Sophie Logan (48:30.543)
Leeds just like dried up completely. The client, this was when I was agency, client wasn't happy. Client was like, they had, they were full service as well. So like if we lost them, we would lose a lot of money. And yeah, I one day I just found it and had to obviously admit my mistake. They appreciated the honesty and just kind of moved on. But yeah, that was bad.
Tom Rudnai (48:52.081)
That made me laugh. And then last one before I let you go, it's just one recommendation that you have for people listening to this, whether it is a book, a podcast, a thought leader that you love, something people should check out.
Sophie Logan (49:07.243)
it's gonna look, this is gonna look real fake for anybody who's not listening. I have a new book. It's not my book. I'm I wrote a book. It's Frederick Valley's new book. It came in the post on Sunday. It's got that new book smell. And it's actually about AI for marketing and like how marketers can use AI in terms of their job and just kind of use it. Cause I'm a bit of a slow adapt adapter. I'll be honest.
Tom Rudnai (49:23.217)
Cool.
Sophie Logan (49:36.685)
Like I don't think to, I would go, I'd still use paint. I wouldn't use like an image generator. I'd go to paint if I could. So I'm trying to now make sure that I'm future-proofing my career and my approach. And I knew that Fred's new book was coming out, so I got it, stuck it on Amazon and here it is. I just need to read it now.
Tom Rudnai (49:55.979)
That's the easy bit. You've ordered it on Amazon. My bookshelf is full of books that I've ordered on Amazon and they're never read.
Sophie Logan (49:58.435)
I'm in.
Sophie Logan (50:02.147)
I'm an audio book kind of girl. I walk the dog and I have it. So yeah, but it's nice to actually have a physical book and just smell it. like, feels so, throw me back to childhood. Go smell a book everyone. Whatever book it is, go smell a book. That's my recommendation.
Tom Rudnai (50:10.383)
There we go, you don't even need to read it. Thanks.
Yeah, think of all the money you'll save on air fresheners. And what was the book called? don't think me actually got that.
Sophie Logan (50:22.415)
is the AI amplified marketer digital marketing in a J.I. gen AI world? I'm not paid to I'm not paid to promote that at all. I just think we don't really get many books nowadays, like books. It's all ebooks and webinars, so I kind of like an old again show. I'm quite old school. I like a book.
Tom Rudnai (50:29.848)
Accident.
Tom Rudnai (50:44.997)
No, I'd say something tactile about it. I wouldn't say I'm a slow adopter. I absolutely love AI. love my vibe coding is a sad percentage of my weekends now. But the other percentage, I love reading a book and I always want a proper book. Like if I'm gonna do that, I want that to be one thing that isn't digital.
Sophie Logan (51:00.057)
physical media. I have DVDs. I'm admitting too much here. have DVDs. My friends laughing at me. have DVDs. know. Cut the podcast.
Tom Rudnai (51:04.963)
Okay, that's too far. That's too far. I'm going cut you off. No, too much, too much. We're cutting off now. Cool. Right on that note, very quickly, we've to talk over Sophie. So I've had a great time. Thank you very much for joining us. I hope if you're listening at home, this has been a good use of 51 minutes and 20 seconds for you.
Sophie Logan (51:23.184)
Thank you very much. Bye.
Tom Rudnai (51:26.171)
Thank you, bye bye.