Talked About Marketing

Talked About Marketing Adelaide marketing consultancy est. 2019. Steve Davis and David Olney help businesses find the language to describe their genuine value. Zoom and Australia-wide.

Strategic Clarity Sessions, GEO Ready, websites, mentoring, and planning.

07/10/2026

Steve and David examined what a business name actually needs to do, and it is less than most owners assume. Steve put it plainly: a name needs to be memorable, spellable, and not actively misleading. The tagline and the website carry the explanation. That last point matters because business owners regularly burn weeks trying to compress an entire value proposition into two words, which treats the name as though it has to do a job it was never designed for. The name opens the door. Everything else does the actual work of communicating value, and the website is where that work belongs.

05/10/2026

Steve and David worked through the principles of business naming this episode, drawing on a field test of Mini Steve, a TAM AI tool built on Steve's consulting archive. One point came through clearly on clever spellings. When a business drops vowels or swaps a C for a K to secure a domain, the short-term logic is usually that the variation was available, or that it looked fresh and different. The problem, as Steve described it, is that the decision becomes a permanent tax. Everyone types the correct spelling first. David added the detail that sharpens the cost: people who cannot find you don't simply try harder, they assume something is wrong with you. That is a harder problem to fix than a domain registration.

03/10/2026

Steve and David spent time in this episode examining the Australian Lamb ad, which has built a long reputation for finding the one thing that draws disagreeing people together. Working through what made it effective, David drew out a principle that travels beyond advertising. A redirection, he said, does not need to be huge, deep, or meaningful. It just needs to be better than the dumb thing people are currently doing. For business owners who have been waiting for the perfect campaign before doing anything, that shifts the question from "what is the best possible move" to "what is a better move than the current gap."

01/10/2026

The standard response to cash flow pressure in small business is to push for more sales. David examined why that answer consistently fails: more sales bring more expenses to service those customers, and if the unit economics are wrong, the problem scales up, not away. The real question, he said, is either pricing or efficiency. Either the product cannot be sold at a price that leaves room to breathe, or the cost of delivering it has not been examined honestly. More sales is never the solution to an expense problem, unless there are no sales at all, and in that case the business has a far larger problem to solve first.

Your good hires keep leaving after six months. What's wrong with them?Probably nothing.Dr Angela Duckworth spent years t...
30/09/2026

Your good hires keep leaving after six months. What's wrong with them?

Probably nothing.

Dr Angela Duckworth spent years telling us to stick at it. Now she says the situation you stick at it in matters more than your willpower. If talented people keep walking out the door, look at the space, the peer relationships, the mentoring and the culture before you look at the people.

In the latest Talking About Marketing, David and I also cover a water project sunk by a photocopier, why we only hear from the entrepreneurs who took a risk and won, and a w**e label from 1663 that sold for more than three times the going price. Plus my run-in with Claude Code, an intern who has read a lot but never done anything.

Season 9, Episode 5: The Hidden Half Of Business Success

29/09/2026

This is absolute gold. Meta decides to come out with glasses that allow people to film you secretly. There is money to be made. But when they get a taste of their own medicine, they don't like it.

I know that David Olney finds them very helpful as a blind person but it seems many people are using them as "pervert" glasses: Sydney Uni, BBC, CBC.

This story illustrates the disconnect that occurs when people work for poisonous organisations but don't want to drink the poison.

PS Addressing the irony of covering this story on Facebook. We have stated our policy of minimising our use of Meta properties, while acknowledging that currently it is a dominant channel for connecting with people. Say cheese!

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1783267639667655

28/09/2026

Steve drew a line between Mike Michalowicz's expense advice and the Stoics: both ask you to practise restraint before necessity forces it. The specific rule of thumb Michalowicz offers is to run operating expenses at 10 to 15 per cent below target, not because the business needs to now, but so the capacity is there when a softer month arrives. David called it simply practice for bad times. The other half of the advice is precision: cut costs, not capability. What Profit First argues for is pruning the spending accumulated out of habit or status, not the things that actually keep the business moving.

25/09/2026

Steve recently queried SA Water publicly about toxin levels in the Port River. A stranger with a locked profile responded by suggesting he stick to playing snooker, apparently because Steve shares a name with the famous player. He could have replied. Instead, he recognised what was actually being asked of him: react, generate heat, help Mark Zuckerberg sell more advertising. Every social media platform is designed to produce that reaction, and every business owner who has ever been baited online knows the feeling. Steve and David talked through why leaving that particular game unplayed is the adult move, and why it matters more to your business than any clever comeback ever could.

I finished a truly yay-worthy evening with Regional Development Australia Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island b...
24/09/2026

I finished a truly yay-worthy evening with Regional Development Australia Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island by having an after dinner chocolate conversation with two legends of the field: Tom Foristal from Melba's Chocolates and Marcus Booth-Remmers from Red Cacao Chocolatier.

I now know more about praline and chocolate melting points than I thought was possible.

Steve is gathering his thoughts ahead of MCing for Regional Development Australia Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaro...
24/09/2026

Steve is gathering his thoughts ahead of MCing for Regional Development Australia Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island. Wonder if the people at Lloyd Brothers W**e & Olive Company ever get sick of this view?

Address

PO Box 3021, Rostrevor
Adelaide, SA
5073

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+61403022077

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Talked About Marketing posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category