Peter Cobley 12/13/24 Peter Cobley 12/13/24

A December’s working week in photos.

And what a fine place to live and work - Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Oban.

found us

Peter Cobley 12/8/24 Peter Cobley 12/8/24

Nice “Ad People” and the reality

*Mad Men (and Women.) But as I discovered mostly men.*

I pen, well type, from Tobermory as Storm Darragh lashes against the patio windows. Claire is in Killin to be with old school friends enduring a drive that saw a trapped jack knifed lorry and VW car in snow; and I can now breath a sigh of relief after speaking to her.

I looked briefly at LinkedIn, which I now lump under the category of “time wasting social media” and rued my doing so as I saw a post by an individual who I don’t have a great deal of respect for. I did in the olden days but watched him corrupted over time by what he believed in himself to the point of his becoming detached from reality and sadly his empathy and love for people, with career and Mamon becoming his Gods.

I was also tasted bile as he was sat at my old University in Lancaster??!!

I bemoaned his being there as it is one of my sacred places, but I recognised he was there for one of his children who I realised is studying there, which is fair enough.

The emotion passed but I learnt from it. I remembered anger is a natural emotion to be welcomed and it is a question of what you do with it. I cannot change the fact I came across on LinkedIn a person who is a not so nice person, and more so when they dress themselves up as being a) nice, b) God’s gift to digital advertising.

All I can do is keep my side of the street clean. He has to live with himself and his “dirty hands”.

Please note that I have not provided hypertext links to external content to encourage people to have a good root around as to what’s on the Web.

People, Places, Things

In the life I have had with a career in advertising I have come across people who have “worked me over”, “taken advantage”, and less politely “screwed me over”. (One of which I just refered to having seen a post on LinkedIn.)

It was and is the nature of working in the advertising, marketing, and media trades.

It is the nature of working in senior leadership roles.

It is the nature of an exponential career rise, as was the case for me.

And it’s not just people who go drive you insane, hurt you, stitch you up, lie and the rest. Places and things can also bring out strong emotions in you; maybe a place you worked at, or something like a project for example you were involved in, or an event and happening that still stings.

Advice on the Past, the Future, the Present. (People, Places, Things.)

People, places, and things can drive you nuts if you let them. And what can often be forgotten is where they sit contextually in time, be it past, present, future. And this is important for the generation of emotions, of how we react, our very mental wellbeing.

The first thing you must always do is look only to yourself and what you are thinking, feeling, and therefore behaving. You only have control over yourself.
In having control over yourself you focus on your side of the street. Using whatever method of goal (dreaming) and plan setting to achieve what you want out of life.
Perform a SWOT analysis and also look at how you function (point 7.) With SWOT you want to get an idea of who you are, where you’ve been, and where you are currently going.
Also look at the Johari Window.
There are four core or recognised self evaluation maintenance models, for example Gibbs or Tesser. Best bet if you want to evaluate yourself is to read up on them.
Bring all you observations as to self together in one consummate reading. This way you’ll have a feel for where you sit as a person.
How you function or act must also be examined as well. This was touched on at point 3. A good way to look at how you function is to read from Stephen Covey and learn about his Quadrants of Time Management. Are you in Quadrant 2 and being effective with your time? The point simplistically is to ask, “am I working smart?”, “am I working effectively?”
You NOW HAVE a full evaluation of who you are and how you act. This is your side of the street that you can work on.

Back now to people, places, and things. Through working on self you are able to indirectly control how external people, places, and things (events included) affect you. You can never control them directly and this is a bridge of understanding and awareness you have to cross, and yet so few of us do, and waste time focusing on other people and things as we try to control them. Imagine yourself as the theatre director putting on the show; do you actually control all, or merely exist within the show guiding where necessary? Do you really control your actors for example? Really and truly? Well the answer is no.

Yon only really control your fate via control of your own mindset and action; and from the past work you have put into self.

The plain old fact of life is you cannot control other things including people, but you can influence via self-management. And this is a crucial learning that I only recently accepted and implemented. I wish I’d done this sooner. But high achievers and driven people achieve up to a point through control, but the truly successful ones are those actually let go of trying to control and work on self - it is counter intuitive.

And that my friends is the trick. And with it comes serenity because one is not burdened down by other people, places, and things. You only have to focus on number one. This does not mean you travel through life in isolation. You have to interact. But paradoxically you gain more control by letting go of concerns, whether past, present, or yet to come (maybe.)

With this learning I was able to leave a certain person to his own fate and not worry about his popping up at Lancaster University. I am able to know who I am, am comfortable and happy with myself, and make amends where necessary. I have achieved in my own way. I wonder if he is really happy at all what he has done in his life. But that is not my worry any longer.

Don’t waste your time on other people, places, and things.

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.”

Seneca in his letter to Paulinus.

*Sunday morning after Storm Darragh passed through.*

Peter Cobley 11/17/24 Peter Cobley 11/17/24

what found us offers its clients

*Wednesday 13th November - Oban harbour, the town, McCaig’s Tower at night*

I am enjoying exploring Oban, where I have now been a handful of times since landing properly on the Isle of Mull. This is my 4th full week on the island and I am thoroughly enjoying it, and being with my wife Claire makes me happy.

With found us I now turn my attention to work; so think it useful to drill down in a post and explain what it is I do for people and businesses.

my full profile - linkedIn

Have a look to who, what, where I am. You’ll see that there is a huge wealth of experience, qualifications, hard work and effort, some luck and being in the right place at the right time, and help from good people; but most of all results and success.

linkedin.com/in/petercobley

found us - peter cobley - locations

I work across the United Kingdom, and internationally, and I am now located in Tobermory and Oban. I would love to hear from companies based in Tobermory, or for that matter the Isle of Mull, Oban, and Argyll and Bute.

The good news is found us has always worked remotely. I’ve dealt with people and business in China, South Korea, New York and other locations.

So please be aware that being in the Hebrides means nothing to working with people. I’ve always worked this way, enjoy it, and am successful. Face to face meetings can happen quite easily as well, travel not being an issue.

So that’s that one wrapped up.

found us - tobermory - a synopsis

found us can easily work with smaller businesses (or larger) to help grow and utilise their offline and online marketing. This could for example be digitally led using search marketing in the form of PPC and SEO, with the supporting data analysis as to a business’s eCommerce performance. Programmatic forms a core as well, thus allowing for above the line marketing, in addition to below the line.

Offline can incorporate traditional media as based on a cost per thousand (CPT), whether press, print, magazine, broadcast, radio, or ambient for example.

Audio visual (AV) work goes without saying, and we are skilled in this area.

Anyway just read below.

*Looking out into the Sound of Mull from Tobermory*

services - a by no means definitive list

What I wanted to do here was list, also for basic SEO purposes, what it is I do. This will inform in a somewhat simplistic way what I do.

I’ve never need to optimise for non-brand terms; should be interesting to see how I fare as an example!

services - consultancy - non-executive

I’ve sat on a board of directors since the first such role in 2001 when made a director at a Carlton TV (ITV), which was my first board director role. That I had to learn fast, encounter pain, encounter joy, and think very hard is an understatement.

I built on this first role with further such roles across different businesses, and learnt a lot, was successful, and delivered results.

I suppose if I were to condense the experience I have it would be my being able to start a business, grow it, and sell it. Or join a growing business and grow it further. Or work with a more mature business to make it more efficient or profitable.

Ultimately it all depends on what people want to achieve as their life goals. Something I excel in.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-consulting

services - consultancy - acting as a director

I can act as a stop gap director if you need one, with a commercial, sales or marketing bias.

services - sales director

I am a good sales director both offline and online. I’ve sold agency, media owner, and client side working on standardised volume sales across to bespoke pitches for a company’s advertising budget. I’ve built sales teams from scratch, managed them, and delivered results.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-business-development-and-sales

services - executive search and headhunting

found us was initially created in 2014 to focus on executive search and head hunting, based upon the extensive experience, connections, and the knowledge of Peter Cobley.

Senior roles have been placed within a number of known blue chip businesses and smaller independents. Senior roles have been created in businesses where Peter Cobley has applied his board level commercial knowledge.

Have a read to find out more:

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-executive-search-and-headhunting

services - marketing

I come from both online and offline media, with above and below the line experience, helping market my client’s business to customers. Both consumer and trade.

I also partner with friends who act as data specialists across to fractional CMO’s. They can bring a breadth of experience and knowledge to your business.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-marketing

services - PPC

In 2002 I first came across search marketing at the start of the market when working for GoTo.com/Overture. I am very familiar with utilising search and pay per click marketing to achieve results.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-search-marketing

services - SEO

A big area for all companies and in the UK very Google centric. An area I am familiar with, where I partner with some of the best SEO techies in the business.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-search-marketing

services - Programmatic

Arguably the buzz word of digital advertising presently, maybe even the darling child. It has its pros and cons as does any medium. Point is I am very familiar with this area of display, having been around with Blue Lithium or Struq at the very start of it all.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-and-programmatic-advertising

services - web

I’ve been involved in many web builds and launches and can dig deep into this area, as can the partners I use.

my partners - the hidden ingredient to success

I know a ridiculous amount of people in advertising, marketing, and media, and utilise a number of them in my business as transparent partners. Why?

One man cannot do all, and these friends are at the top of their game whether SEO, eCommerce, web builds, strategy, and the rest.

They are tried and tested friends who have repeatedly delivered for me. Could be a marketing strategy piece, a Shopify build, a media buy - it does not matter.