Why Josh chose to spend a week with the Codebreak Crew

We’ve got a special guest today. Josh Walters is joining us to talk about changing lanes. Josh has joined Codebreak for essentially grown-up work experience. He’s been in his job for 18 years and has no plans to move on, but sometimes it’s good to switch lanes for a while.

Here at Codebreak, when people get very stressed, I say to them: “Take a second. It’s not life and death.”

But in Josh’s job, it literally is.

He works for Network Rail’s control centre in the team responsible for power signalling. Basically, it’s his job to warn drivers about issues and make sure trains don’t accidentally crash into each other.

When you hear your train’s delayed because of signalling issues, Josh will be looking into it somewhere.

Josh wanted to spend some time with Codebreak to get a taste of something different. He collects NFTs, among other things, and has always had a background interest in marketing. Which is how we met; we’re both in Vee Friends, an NFT project run by the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk.

“We ended up at a party with Ice Cube”

After briefly meeting at Vee Con, Josh and I crossed paths again at a basketball game in London, which Gary had given us courtside tickets to. We ended up at a party with Ice Cube afterwards, which sounds like a fever dream, but Josh’s Whatsapp picture is literally him and Ice Cube.

Not bad for a lad from Nottingham who works for Network Rail.

But it wasn’t until the third Vee Con that we really bonded. After that, Josh asked if he could come and do work experience with me and the team at Codebreak. Which was a pretty brave and odd thing to ask. But as he probably knew by then, I love it when people do random stuff like that.

The reason I asked Josh to come on today’s podcast is to give people a taste of what goes on behind the scenes at a marketing agency. That’s something our listeners and customers very rarely get to see.

So, over to Josh; as a fly on the wall, how’s it been so far?

“Behind the scenes is an eye-opener”

“It’s been interesting because I’m getting to see what goes into an actual marketing campaign – learning about landing pages, websites, creative, ads, client research, events. Looking at how AI can help with all those things,” says Josh.

“But the stuff behind the scenes has been the biggest eye-opener. Codebreak is small, and you’re obviously looking to develop people.

But I work in a massive, almost nationalized company, and I think staff development tends to be back of mind in a big company where it’s more about box ticking.”

“The other thing I’ve noticed is that you encourage people to do the job they have, but with one eye on the job they want. You can give them that opportunity to expand their horizons because, like you say, the consequences are quite low.

“There could be a train crash”

“As long as you’re looking after your clients and protecting their ad budgets, you’re happy.

“Whereas for me, the consequences are high because safety is so critical. If I do signalling wrong, there could be a train crash. So I never get the chance to think about what I want to do next, because I have to be so focussed on what I need to do right now.

“That’s been really fascinating for me, seeing the team development side of things – and also seeing what goes into running a marketing agency, because obviously it’s about a lot more than just actual marketing.”

Longtime listeners will remember that when we have guests on the Stay Hungry podcast, we always ask them two questions at the end. Their favourite film, and the best mistake they’ve ever made.

So, Josh?

“Well Martha told me to say I don’t like films so that you’d just say: “What? Go f**k yourself. Get off the podcast.” But seriously, I find that a hard one to answer. I do like The Last Samurai.

“It’s just so silly and funny”

But I’d probably have to say Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“It’s a tremendous film. Me and my brother watched it on repeat as kids. We would literally just call each other, like, Tim the Enchanter and Roger the Shrubber. It’s just so silly and so funny.

“The best mistake I’ve ever made? Probably not selling my V Friends thing. Everything on paper said I should have sold. I paid $3,000 for mine, but pretty much the day I landed in Minneapolis, it was worth $157,000.

“I’m into NFTs and cryptocurrency, and I remember some of my colleagues on the railway being in complete disbelief that I’d paid a grand for this a cartoon picture of a gnome. They were like: “Why would you do that?”

“And then it doubled in price to like $3,000. Then it went up to $9,000.

“I was like: “Well, yeah.”

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.