Bobbi Mahlab is the Founder and Managing Director at Mahlab and is one of the two business executives who bought the Mentor Walks program from Asia to Australia. She discusses how the Mentor Walks program started and why they decided to bring the program home to Australia and shares some of the main issues for women working in media that have been shared during these mentor walks with a wide range of women working in the media industry.
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Transcription:
Darren:
Welcome to Managing Marketing and today I’m sitting down to have a chat with Bobbi Mahlab, founder and managing director at Mahlab. Welcome, Bobbi.
Bobbi:
Nice to be here.
Darren:
Well, thank you for making the time; I know you’re busy. You’re a well-known name in the Australian marketplace for your media marketing, PR, and also content creation. Mahlab is doing an amazing job at producing really high quality content for your clients aren’t you?
Bobbi:
We are. We were one of the first companies in Australia that came out of custom publishing to really embrace and understand content marketing, which is how you use content for marketing purposes in a digital-first age.
And it’s been a fantastic trajectory and a story of transformation of taking a company over 20 years from what was a print environment to now, which is very firmly a digital-first environment that works with global companies and major associations.
Darren:
It’s a big transformation. It’s not as simple as going from print to digital because people do consume content differently, don’t they?
Bobbi:
They really do and so in our business the core of what we do is similar. But how we do it is worlds apart. And so the skill sets in the business are very different to when I founded the business in 1997.
Darren:
I’m coming up for my 20th anniversary in January and that seems like a long period of time. But I think it’s because the world keeps changing and I find myself changing the business to suit the world. Have you found the same thing?
Bobbi:
Totally. I am amazed at the longevity. But it has always been and continues to be a really fascinating business to be involved with and that’s because the change is constant, exponential. And I’ve got to say, over that 20 odd years, I feel like I’ve run 5 different businesses.
I think that that constant reinvention and constantly asking ‘what is the marketplace looking for? What does it need? Where is the leadership needed?’ Has been one of the things that has really kept us alive.
Darren:
It’s interesting that you say 5 different business so that’s one every 4 years. I know it doesn’t fall exactly like that but I have a process of getting the team together and spending a few days focusing on it. We do that annually but if I look back it’s every 3 to 4 years we’ve had a major pivot (I think they call it).
Isn’t that the term they use for technology start-ups? They pivot. So we pivot every 3 to 4 years, which is a similar experience.
Bobbi:
I think, in the language of our business, it’s not so much that we pivot but that we add offerings that make sense and that make the content we produce work even harder for our clients.
So, for example, 18 months ago the business expanded into PR because earned media is a distribution channel for content and our belief is that the best PR these days is content-led. And that’s been a really successful initiative.
If I took us back 4 years ago we really built the company up in terms of paid amplification and distribution because it wasn’t enough just to be producing great content that had great content strategy, you have to actually make sure it’s getting to the right people and the right places in the right time.
That content performance becomes a key part of what we do. So, it’s not so much for us pivoting; rather expanding the offering and to just get better and better at delivering the results.
Darren:
We’re slightly different in that we always feel if we add something, we have to drop something out because otherwise you just end up getting (from our perspective) bigger and more unwieldy.
I remember our first office was sharing some space at 63 South Bank Boulevard and your office was just around the corner on, was it City Road?
Bobbi:
That was actually my mother’s business; it wasn’t my office. It was a different business but the same family name.
Darren:
So, it was a family connection but not actually your business
Bobbi:
Yes, so I started this business in Sydney. I’d come from Melbourne, a Melbourne girl at heart but very much a Sydney transplant, and I’ve been up here for more than 20 years.
Darren:
Same here but mine’s only been 10 or 11 years so far. But do you have your walking shoes on?
Bobbi:
I always have my walking shoes on.
Darren:
The reason I say that is because you are one of two people who brought Mentor Walks to Australia from overseas.
Bobbi:
I did. So, Mentor Walks is a venture that the co-founder, Adina Jacobs, and I brought to Sydney in October 2016. Mentor Walks is a walk and talk speed mentoring programme for career women. And interestingly there is a large cohort of women in media and marketing who come to our walks.
Darren:
I have to say, when I first saw people sharing that on LinkedIn I was really jealous because there is nothing like going for walk and having a chat is there?
Bobbi:
It is fantastic. We are currently running it in 7 cities. We started it in Sydney and it’s a really high-growth start-up. It went to Brisbane, then Wollongong, Melbourne and this year, Canberra, Warringal, Baw Baw Shire and Geelong in regional Victoria.
And in each case we have really incredible groups of senior women from all sorts of disciplines who believe in the principle that good women help good women and that there are so many women that need to have conversations about their careers but don’t know where to have them.
So what we’re about is making mentoring accessible but also accelerating the change for women. We want them to be able to have the conversations that are helpful when they need it. And we have a mentor group now of about 260 extraordinary women from every discipline.
And we have just surpassed our 1700th mentee who has taken part in the programme.
Darren:
That’s quick growth over 3 years.
Bobbi:
Yes, not even 3 years. So our plan is to take it to even more regional cities, more capital cities and grow it out. And really with the agenda that we want to be able to support more women and give them access to mentors.
Darren:
But this not an idea invented here is it?
Bobbi:
It was very happy circumstances that it happened. I was an alumni at Ernst & Young’s entrepreneurial Winning Women programme and that’s where each year they ask about 15 women from the Asia Pacific region to take part in the programme and it’s to help women make businesses scale and grow.
I was in Shanghai speaking at their conference (annual conference) and met a fantastic woman whose name is Michelle Garnaut. She comes from Melbourne but has lived in China for the last 30 years and she introduced fine dining to China.
M on the Bund is a restaurant a lot of people who go to Shanghai would know. She also runs the Shanghai Literary Festival. And in Beijing probably about 5 years ago she started Mentor Walks in which the local Chambers of Commerce come together a handful of times and collaborate and get together some mentors and mentees and they’d walk and talk.
I happened to be at this conference where Adina Jacobs was as well and it happened to be on a week where Michelle was running a mentor walk. So early one morning we get in this rickety old cab and go to this park in the middle of Shanghai with all these people doing tai chi, and tinny radios and everything you’d expect.
And we went on this walk and got to the gates at the end and Adina and I looked at each other and said, ‘this is such as simple, effective, high impact idea we’ve got to bring it to Australia’. And 3 months later we launched here.
Darren:
That’s one of the things I think really appeals, is that in some ways it’s such a simple idea; just getting mentors and mentees together and going for a walk. All you need is your walking shoes and an introduction.
Bobbi:
You do.
Darren:
But I imagine it’s a little more complex than that?
Bobbi:
It is. The way it works is that it’s an event programme. In Melbourne and Sydney it’s running every month. In Sydney, mentees have to apply to come, for a spot. We charge them only $25, which is a showup fee.
Darren:
To make sure you don’t get too many no-shows? There’s a commitment.
Bobbi:
That’s right because we’ve got all these incredible senior women, people like Michelle Guthrie from the ABC, who is one of the finest social entrepreneurs in the country, the leaders of the various accounting firms, the diversity of the mentors.
They are all there because they believe in investing in other women. So when you have such extraordinary talent there waiting to help you, the last thing you want to do is have women who don’t turn up to make the most of the event.
Thankfully, women do pretty much always show up. We ask them to tell us what the issue they want to discuss is before they come. And we will put them with the mentor who we think they’ll have the best conversation with on that issue.
Women are welcome to come back as many times as they like and they often do. We put up to 3 mentees with a mentor and they walk and talk for that hour. They help each other with their issues. So what happens is at the end of the walk you realise you’ve not only received help with what your issue is but you realise that you’ve got a contribution to make to other people and their issues regardless of what points of their career they’re in.
An example of that is I’ve taken groups where someone who is 25, in their first job, will ask one question that is so clever and insightful that it just changes the whole direction of the answer for the individual who asked it.
Darren:
A little like these podcasts. Because it’s great to have a conversation where you don’t have a plan but you just interact with each other.
Bobbi:
It’s great also because we’re walking so the outdoor element of it is really important. So, in every location we are somewhere that’s green or beautiful. So, in Sydney we walk through the Botanical Gardens. In Melbourne, it’s along the Tan. In Brisbane it’s the Botanical Gardens along the river. In Wollongong it’s along the beach.
So the combination of walking and talking and being outdoors is really important. And the other thing that’s important is that we walk regardless of weather. Even if it’s pouring the meeting will take place.
Darren:
Come rain, hail or shine?
Bobbi:
Because if you’re really serious about getting ahead and about accessing the best minds in the country you turn up. And I think it really says something about someone if they’re willing to get out of bed on a grim morning because they know the upside if they show up.
Darren:
So, there’s an anthropological reason for walking as well because when we’re walking or exercising it apparently makes our cognitive function in our brain kick into gear.
Bobbi:
It does.
Darren:
When you sit down and chat your brain goes more into relax mode, more like recounting stories or things like that so not necessarily processing, which is really weird because in the modern office era we do all our business sitting down.
And yet, in actual fact, Mentor Walks has tapped into the fact that going for a walk is going to make those interactions more powerful and leave a greater impression on participants because you’re physically walking along together.
Bobbi:
That’s right so the science absolutely supports it and in my Mahlab business there are a lot of walking meetings taking place for all those good reasons but there is another characteristic of it, which is about building intimacy.
For people who have teenage children they know the best conversations are in the car when no one is looking each other in the eye and you can have the kind of conversations that don’t happen anywhere else.
So there is an element of that at Mentor Walks too because you’re walking and you can’t look everyone in the eye all the time but you know that you’re in an atmosphere where you know it’s 100% confidential and very safe and there’s immediate trust. So you have particularly good conversations because of that environment.
Darren:
You said there are usually up to 3 mentees so there is also a sense of being a group; there’s the bonding of the group. I imagine that’s part of the process.
Bobbi:
We measure impact really carefully and some of the things that are happening after we go on a walk or a number of walks is 1) a number of mentees continue to meet and continue helping each other.
So, for example, in a group I lead last month there was a woman who had great financial and business planning skills and a woman who was trained in training people how to present. So, they had a meeting to help each other; they bartered their skills.
One’s helping the other write her business plan and the other is teaching her colleague how to present. So that’s just one example.
Darren:
Fantastic.
Bobbi:
That’s happening time and time again. We get a lot of mentees coming on the walk who are very senior; this is not just a starting out in your career gig. We’ve got a couple of mentees who should be mentors but they’re getting so much out of being a mentee and the conversations and connections they make.
One just accepted a role on a board that she was going to say ‘no’ to. But because the mentor she walked with said ‘you’re not leading a big enough life; you can do it’, she has and she’s really pleased.
Darren:
That’s great. And I think, because you match people up, it’s quite different to what people usually think of as mentor roles where it’s two people and they have this ongoing relationship because that can quite easily fall into a pattern or a rut. Whereas this is actually quite dynamic isn’t it?
Bobbi:
It’s really dynamic. Sometimes I describe it as we’re bringing a start-up mentality to mentoring, which is; it’s fast and furious and what’s your issue and let’s help you with it now and move on quickly.
So, it’s that test and learn and pivot or whatever it is. But it’s a much more immediate way of discussing issues.
Darren:
You mentioned Sydney, Melbourne—capital cities, Canberra maybe but regional Australia as well. That’s quite interesting.
Bobbi:
We’ve been fortunate to get the support of the Victorian government to try a couple of pilots in Victoria. So, we’ve launched in Geelong and Warringal, which is the Baw Baw Shire and they both have been really different experiences and equally successful.
So, for example, two of the people leading it for us in the Warringal area; one is the local mayor and the other is a dairy farmer who is the most switched on social media person you could ever imagine.
Darren:
Wow.
Bobbi:
It’s a very geographically dispersed area so people travel a long way to come to a walk. So that in itself has got a different quality. Geelong, which is now growing a lot—regional area—it’s got a lot of government businesses and transport accident commissioners there.
Deakin University is there so you have a lot of employed women there as opposed to Sydney where you have such a mix of women who are working for corporates or government or universities and the whole self-employed start-up community.
So, it’s much more of a mix in Sydney whereas in Geelong it’s more women who are employed by other organisations.
Darren:
And at all sorts of levels within those organisations.
Bobbi:
All sorts of levels.
Darren:
To very senior positions as well.
Bobbi:
It is. And so that’s really a great thing because to walk in a group with someone who has got 30 years’ experience and someone who has 7 years’ experience—and I think what happens in our careers is you tend to spend time with people at similar levels as you.
So to walk in those groups where you’re interacting with people at all different levels of their careers is a really fantastic learning thing. We know that empathy is a characteristic of successful employees increasingly going forward. So that ability to understand what other people’s lives look like and particularly in the workplace in this context is actually really useful.
Darren:
I can imagine it’s as rewarding or often more rewarding for the mentors as it is for the mentees?
Bobbi:
Yeah, it is. All the mentors say that. They’re all there because, as I’ve said before, they believe in helping other people succeed. That’s the mantra of the whole programme. But all of them get joy out of seeing other people flourish, and they learn from the questions and perspectives of the other people in the group.
So I think it attracts a very open-minded and kind of curious person who really wants to learn from as many different people as they can. So, it’s absolutely a two-way street.
Darren:
But you’re a busy person. You’re running a successful business and you’ve got a life. How do you make the time for this?
Bobbi:
We joke and call it our after 8pm business. We run the whole business virtually. We’ve got one and a half full-time employees now. It’s something that I make time for because I really believe in it and I couldn’t be happier with the impact it’s having and, as I said, we’re here to accelerate the change.
It’s always been really important to me, to my ethos, that you contribute to your community in whatever way that looks like for you. Whether that’s helping out with the school barbecue or working to get a poli elected or whatever it is. And at different points in our life we have different time that we can devote to those sorts of things.
But I think really as a value set for me, being able to contribute to a better world (whatever that looks like for you) is really important so I make time for it. It’s a joyous thing for me.
Darren:
It’s interesting, my mother always used to say if you want something done give it to a busy person.
Bobbi:
Yeah, that’s true isn’t it?
Darren:
So even though you’re busy you’ve made time because this is so important. So what do you personally get out of it? You’ve told me you’re committed to making a contribution; can you share something that you’ve particularly felt rewarded about?
Bobbi:
Yes. Last week I met a woman who had come on a walk. She was the one who had accepted a position on the board and was going to say no to it and that was directly a result of the conversation she had on that walk with her mentor.
I’ve had other people who will write to me over LinkedIn that the promotion I went for I got it. Or I see someone who on their LinkedIn profile says that they are a Mentor Walks mentor and that it’s something of pride for them to be involved with.
There are all sorts of ways that I’m seeing it. I think the nice thing for me is I’m not expecting any of it. I’m just putting it out there and when you do that you see this fantastic stuff happen.
Darren:
It’s not a transaction is it?
Bobbi:
It’s not a transaction.
Darren:
It’s a contribution.
Bobbi:
Yeah, and I think my role if I can enable other people then my work is done. That’s really what I want to do.
Darren:
So just to pivot. There are a lot of issues for women in business generally but particularly in media marketing and advertising. We’ve seen the impact of the MeToo and all of the discussions and activities about getting gender balance and representation right.
Obviously, without giving away any confidences, because as you said these mentor walks are a safe, confidential environment; what are some of the conversations or issues that are coming up regularly in the mentor walks that reflect on this?
Bobbi:
A lot is an exploration of how to get to the next step. What are the conversations I need to have, the training I need to do to go to the next step in my career? What are the paths open to me? What are the questions I need to be asking and exploring to know what to do next?
A lot of them are about how you have constructive conversations with your manager to find those things out or to get what you need. We just had someone post on Insta, someone who worked in Warringal who came on our walk, asked for a promotion and got it. She was ecstatic. So those conversations happen.
Darren:
Sorry, sometimes it really is just getting permission from your peer group, your support group to stand up and ask; it can be all that it takes isn’t it?
Bobbi:
It can be. Often for all of us you feel messy in your head about an issue. You’re just not sure how to frame it. What happens when you have a conversation on a walk is it helps you get clarity. You don’t have to have your head straight to come on a walk.
In fact, we can deliver a lot of help. When you’re unsure and you don’t know it can help you find your path through. We often get people who are thinking about going out on their own or they have a side hustle. When’s the right time to do that? How do I get customers? Should I go out on my own? Or I already have this organisation, do I take this product to Singapore or not?
Other things that come up a lot are about the juggle between work and family. How do you manage to further your career but have a successful home life? How do you do that trade-off? That’s always an interesting one and I have a particular hobbyhorse here because I think the whole discussion about balance is so misguided and so useless.
Darren:
My personal view about balance is I’m like a tightrope walker who is tilting one way too long and then finally goes back the other way. And I keep saying to people, ‘as long as I don’t fall off the line then I’m in balance’.
Bobbi:
That’s right.
Darren:
But you find yourself investing in one or the other way too much but overall there should be balance.
Bobbi:
I think men and women everywhere need to have that conversation a lot more because it’s a bit like the concept of happiness. Happiness is a fleeting moment, right? Contentedness is the more general state so balance is more like those unusual (or hopefully more usual) moments of happiness but that general contented state is what you’re looking for and what does that that look like.
And that really is about flexibility because you need different things at different times in your working life and you need different things at different times in your home life and so being able to switch things up and down is actually what we all need.
That is more useful than talking about balance. I think the conversation about balance sets us all up to fail because I don’t think it exists.
Darren:
It sets unrealistic expectations. It’s that old line about having it all. The fact is I don’t think anyone can have it all. Everything comes with compromise and it just comes down to what level are you comfortable with the compromise.
I think probably the biggest issue for all of us is compromise in the short-term but what’s the consequence in the long-term? But what you said before about happiness is in the moment but contentment is longer term, really understanding what’s important for you.
The other one that resonated for me personally was when do you go out? When does the side hustle turn into the hustle? It took me until I was 39 years of age of working for someone else to go out and set up my own business.
And it really is a sense of leaping off the edge into the unknown. But you need a certain level of bravado, confidence and willingness to ‘suck it and see’. That’s literally it isn’t it?
Bobbi:
Yes, it is. And I like the conversation around the word ‘courage’ because I think that confidence is much more difficult to define and harder to get but courage is that moment where you hold your breath and you do something. And usually, what you’ve described, that’s what it takes.
It takes courage to take the leap and make the changes and those sorts of things. When you think about courage it actually sits in a different place in your body. It sits in your chest. You take hold of your breath.
Darren:
You feel a weight.
Bobbi:
I think it’s a more useful conversation to talk about courage than confidence.
Darren:
Well, confidence can be something that people put on. Imposter syndrome affects most people; pushing the boundaries or trying something that they’re not completely confident they can do. So they often ‘fake it until you make it’.
Bobbi:
That’s right. And one of the things we find with Mentor Walks is that it’s hard for people to have certain conversations in their own workplace or industry and it’s really important to have other places where you can safely have conversations and get different perspectives.
What we’re trying to do with Mentor Walks is help people get out of their sector bubble and get diverse experience and diverse views that will help them think differently. And that we’re finding is also really successful.
Without question, industry knowledge is sometimes really what you need for a great conversation but diverse thinking, if you look at the whole argument now for diverse boards, companies, and it’s proven that that contributes to the bottom line, particularly in a world that is increasingly non-linear where all our careers are going to be like macramé and all over the place, having access to different ways of thinking and having those conversations is really important.
Darren:
I think that applies to most of our formal relationships in that even our friends are inclined to be fitting into a certain pattern which attracts like-minded people. Yet, often, all of those relationships that we trust and have built up over time, we forget that they come with a particular perspective or position that that person takes.
You turn to your closest friends and say, ‘I’m thinking of applying for a job overseas’. It could be that they have a sense of potential loss so they’ll tell you not to do it and all the reasons why not.
Getting advice from a trusted but nevertheless independent source is unbelievable. It’s such a great opportunity. So, what are the big issues facing women?
Bobbi:
I think what comes up a lot is how can I make sure I get heard? That’s a conversation that has been going on for a long, long time. Particularly in environments where women are vastly outnumbered sometimes it is very difficult to be heard.
So, questions not just about how do you get a seat at the table but how you are heard—that comes up a lot.
Darren:
Is there a generational change do you think (from the conversations you have)?
Bobbi:
I’m really not sure about that. I’m not sure that there is a generational change around it. What has happened is that it is recognised particularly around digital skills that it is the younger generations that have those skills and so older generations know they have to listen and be guided by people who understand things they don’t. They have to learn them.
I think that reverse sense of mentoring over generations—that’s a really great opportunity and that’s understood. But still for many women, being heard in corporate environments when they’re vastly outnumbered is still very much an issue.
Darren:
A core of our business is running agency selection programmes. One of the things that still amazes me is the way that there are still agencies that are primarily managed by groups of men. But also where they’ve actively tried to get gender balance and promoted women, the interactions during the pitch is still the men are in the leadership role and the women are automatically repositioned into support roles even though they’re supposedly all management team.
Bobbi:
Wow.
Darren:
It’s interesting to watch because you can almost see that it’s unconscious. They’ve consciously made a decision to have a more gender representative management team but the people almost fall into stereotypical roles. And you wonder when are we going to get to the point where this is just natural especially in an unnatural environment such as a pitch process?
Bobbi:
It is interesting.
Darren:
So when you talk about being heard I can really see that happening because one of my favourite observations is that when there’s a mixed gender team doing a presentation and we’ll walk them out of the room at the end of the presentation, the men will often say ‘that was a great presentation’. And what they’re saying is, ‘didn’t I do well?’
And the women will be going, ‘I’m not sure that we actually resonated with these people’ because they have a different perspective. It’s not about them; it’s about the room. Some may say, ‘Darren you’re being stereotypical’ but it’s an observation I’ve made.
One of the things about diversity of the team, even if it’s gender diversity, before we get into race and economic diversity and things like that, is that you’ve got different people observing the same event and often having quite different perspectives on it which is incredibly valuable.
Bobbi:
Unbelievably valuable. A moment of great pride for me was when a prospective client said to me that she’d been to the Mahlab website and seen what a diverse mob we were in age, gender and every way shape and form, and I was so delighted by that.
For me, diversity breeds great work, but also because the audiences we are producing content for are so diverse and our clients are so diverse that that diversity is needed in terms of really understanding the audiences and the clients.
That feeds into what you’re saying, which is really thinking very carefully about who you’re talking to and what’s important to them. And that really is the essence of content marketing. How can we be helpful and useful to our customers is all the mindset. I’m really fascinated by what you’ve said about pitches.
Darren:
We always make sure we position ourselves in the rooms separate from the interaction so you can observe it. You don’t want to be drawn into the interaction because then you’re a participant and not an observer whereas it’s much more insightful to be the observer.
Bobbi:
Indeed. And do you find from the client’s point of view in a pitch that diversity is increasingly important to them? Does it come up or not at all?
Darren:
If you deliberately raise it people have a mixed reaction to it but I think subconsciously it’s present. If it appears that someone is trying to be diverse and it comes across a little bit tokenism, it works against you.
Whereas if it’s clearly natural to the culture and the values of the organisation that’s a strength. And that’s really a great direction for the industry to take because while we talk about closing the gap and wanting to get gender balance in organisations it’s not enough.
We should consciously do it because otherwise it may never happen but then the next step is to actually normalise it and then just go, ‘o.k. we’ve got to that point, now let’s get on with the job’. That it’s not about having to think about being diverse; it just is diverse.
And clearly that’s what you have achieved with your company—Mahlab—because that’s the reaction you’re getting from your clients. Bobbi, we’ve run out of time. It’s been fantastic, it’s just flown by. The Mentor Walks is such a great idea and clearly it’s been incredibly successful already.
Can I ask before we finish up, where to next for Mentor Walks? Can you ever see the Australian parliament going for walks together?
Ideal for marketers, advertisers, media and commercial communications professionals, Managing Marketing is a podcast hosted by Darren Woolley and special guests. Find all the episodes here
