How Empath Marketing let Joe's Genie out of the bottle
Joe Glover recently departed Genie Goals to set up Empath Marketing.
You may have heard of Joe because he was marketing manager at the digital marketing specialist for three years. During that time he also founded The Marketing MeetUp, which offers “the opportunity to meet and learn from some nice people”.
“Empath started as a series of values,” says Joe of his new venture. “I’m not interested in being the biggest in the world, but I am interested in being the most helpful. If I can make a positive difference then I’m doing my job right.”
Having two organisations to run might seem a bit ask but, three years after launch, The Marketing MeetUp is fully grown up and earning its keep. The Cambridge model has now been exported to 10 locations around the UK - Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Colchester, Birmingham, Norwich, London, Torbay, Bedford and Milton Keynes.
“The events are held the first Tuesday of every month at the Bradfield Centre,” explains Joe. “The next one is in September as we take a break in August. There are two speakers at each meet up, usually the focus is on a tactical level - SEO, pay-per-click - or it can be more tangental: mental health awareness, for instance. We have authors come in and talk about simplicity, and journalists talking about PR, but the most important thing is that people come in and have a chilled-out time.
“There are 104 events a year spread out across the 8,000 UK members - there’s 2,500 in Cambridge, 1,500 in London, 1,000 in Norwich, 700 in Birmingham…it’s about informal relationships. The great thing about networking events is that the relationships you make in those circumstances are so much more meaningful.”
The organisation is now starting its own workshops. The first is on August 22, at Redgate Software and is “focusing on how to create websites to convert into meet-ups success”.
Empath Marketing, meanwhile, is just three weeks old.
“It’s been a natural step in my own journey,” says Joe. “Even though it’s a separate entity, it will join up with Marketing MeetUp for the fulfilment of specific projects.” Empath’s own trajectory will be “more strategic” than most marketing agencies, while always putting its own principles forward - summarised by three bullet points: 'Listen, say hello, and be positively lovely'.
“Being far more introverted than extroverted, I wanted to create an environment where people can say hello to one another, and it’s amazing how conversations can flow from that.
“The ‘be lovely’ one sounds twee but basically it means give more than you take," adds Joe. "If you do good things for people it invariably comes around, so you’re giving a type of ethos.”
Joe’s positivity has not gone unnoticed. He’s been selected as one of the Founding 50 for the School of Marketing – a programme supported by Marketing Week, Learning et al, and Person College London. He’s also a bit of a star on LinkedIn for his positivity and generosity to colleagues. And while he’s got a great sense of adventure - “I decide early on that I wanted to live life in a way that can help people” - he understands that there are other factors at play.
“You do have to crack a couple of eggs to achieve success,” he concludes, “and there’s a danger that we work ourselves to point where we’re all saying the same thing, and having a viewpoint is the way change happens.”
Genie Goals agency director Luca Senatore said: "We supported Joe in his exit from Genie Goals. and seeing him going from strength to strength makes us genuinely happy.
"Helping young, talented people like Joe and others who learn with us and go on to do remarkable things is one the reasons why we so what we do: good luck Joe and thank you for the contribution you made at Genie Goals and continue to make in your own ventures."
