Miracle is the Head of Search at John Lewis Finance, with over a decade of experience helping global and national brands increase their visibility.
This is the first episode in the 2024 Black History Month mini series.
Listen on Spotify, Apple or YouTube.
In this episode we discuss:
- Organic and paid search playing nicely together
- The importance of brands in search
- Working for the darling of the British high street
- Building effective teams
- The difference between Nigerian and British education
- A future career for Miracle
Miracle Inameti-Archibong
Miracle is the Head of Search at John Lewis Finance, with over a decade of experience helping global and national brands increase their visibility.
She brings strong commercial acumen, a natural drive, and passion for working with people to her role. Miracle has contributed to events, webinars, and publications for organizations such as Brighton SEO, MOZCON, SMX, Search Engine Land, and Women in Tech SEO, among others.
Find Miracle on LinkedIn, Twitter or her website.
Recommendations
- Every Family Has A Story by Julia Samuel
- The First 90 Days by Michael D Watkins
- Esther Parel’s podcast
- My Therapist Ghosted Me podcast
Strategy Sessions Host – Andi Jarvis
If you have any questions or want to talk about anything that was discussed in the show, the best place to get me is on LinkedIn or Instagram.
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Interview Transcription
This transcript has been done automagically using Happy Scribe and hasn’t been checked by a real person, so there may be some hilarious mistakes where the AI can’t work out our accents – I’m sure they’re trained on just the American accent.
[00:00:00.000] – Andi J
Miracle Inameti-Archibong. Tell me, what is the one thing you wish you would have known 10 years ago?
[00:00:08.440] – Miracle I-A
I guess a lot of people are just faking it. I think probably down to my upbringing and a lot very cultural, isn’t it? We are taught that people in authority are very knowledgeable. You listen to them, they know. So I grew up always believing if someone was in higher position, you don’t question them, you don’t challenge them, and they know what they’re doing, and you feel like they had some sip of knowledge. And then I learned everyone’s just blagging it, not in a literal sense, but Nobody has 100% answers. And I learned to be like, Oh, I… And that used to fill me with such insecurity. If I go into a meeting, I felt like I had to know everything. I had to know all the answers because I’m a manager now, and I’m just going to learn that I don’t have I can be like, Well, I don’t know that. I need to go and check, or can we defer that? That has given me a lot of… Because I just used to think I had to know all the answers, and I don’t.
[00:01:10.710] – Andi J
It’s a really great bit of insight, isn’t it? When you work out that you’re not there to know everything. Sometimes just knowing how to find something out is actually just enough, isn’t it?
[00:01:21.380] – Miracle I-A
Yeah. It fills you with a lot of confidence because you’re like… When you see job descriptions and you’re like, Oh, I need to have all… You don’t. Yeah, I think it’s really filled me a lot of confidence, freeing up myself to be like, Well, I don’t have to do everything.
[00:01:35.440] – Andi J
No, no. Really good point. I think if you’re listening to this, knowing that not having to know everything, it becomes a superpower, doesn’t it? Becoming that. Just the person who goes, I don’t know. Let me come back to you. There’s degrees to this, isn’t there? If it’s something you absolutely should know the answer to. What does SEO mean? Let me just go. Let me come back to you on that one.
[00:01:55.730] – Miracle I-A
It depends. How much do I need to know?
[00:01:58.630] – Andi J
Well, that is what SEO means, isn’t it? It depends. But yes, no. Brilliant. Excellent. No, I love that. What an opening. Thank you. Eyup and welcome to the Strategy Sessions. My name is Andi Jarvis. I’m the host of your show, and you could hear me just a moment ago talking to Miracle. She is the guest this week. This is episode 2, season 5, but that’s not important right now. What is important is this is the first episode in a Black History Month mini-series. What’s that? Why are you doing it? Well, I did it last year for the first time, and it was five episodes, season 5, but that’s not important right now. What is important is this is the first episode in a Black History Month mini-series. What’s that? Why are you doing it? Well, I did it last year for the first time, and it was five weeks throughout October for Black History Month. If you’re in the US, we do it in October. You do it, I think, in February. Don’t worry. Don’t hate it. Let’s just celebrate twice, right? Why not? So do a mini-series, a lot more episodes, weekly releases to celebrate the best of Black Marketing Talent.
[00:02:46.200] – Andi J
So there’s an episode of Miracle, which you’re listening to right now. And there’s a few more to be released throughout October, which includes the very first live podcast of the Strategy Sessions. I’m working with Ulster Bank and Nat West, and we’re going to host a Live podcast on the… Let me think. I think it’s the seventh of October. We’re going to record it in their headquarters in Belfast. It is Monday, the seventh of October. So keep listening. Every week we’ll be releasing a new podcast. After that, we’ll go back to the fortnightly release schedule. And before I go, I just want to do the thing that all podcast hosts say. Thanks for listening. If you like this, please subscribe, like it, give it a five-star rating, whatever it is on the platform you’re on, please do that and share it with a friend as well. It It does make the world a difference to me and to the guests. So thanks very much for listening. Any problems, any questions, let me know. My details are in the show notes. Let’s go back to the interview with Miracle. So Miracle, welcome to the strategy sessions. Thank you for joining me.
[00:03:45.140] – Andi J
How are you?
[00:03:46.430] – Miracle I-A
I’m fine. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:49.020] – Andi J
Well, tell us a little bit for the half a dozen people who listen who don’t know who you are, because everybody else does know who you are. So for a few people who don’t know who you are, just tell us, where do you work, what do you do? Just give us that little bit of background to you.
[00:04:02.070] – Miracle I-A
Currently, I work in John Lewis, the finance services. So we sell car insurance, credit cards, and things like that as the head of search. And that just means I manage both the SEO and the PPC team. Before that, I’d always… Before that, I worked at Money Supermarkets, again, doing a similar thing, just SEO. And before that, I worked agency-side for so long. So if you name any sector, industry, whatever, Over 10 years, I worked agency side. I’ve probably done it, seen there at some point in my career.
[00:04:36.760] – Andi J
Now, I think anyone who is of a certain vintage, me included, and possibly you, will remember the olden days When the paid team and the SEO team sat in different rooms, maybe at the very nearest they might sit is the opposite end of the same table and throw stuff at each other, complaining that, No, we’re doing better, they’re doing better. And all these bits just brick bats being thrown at each other because they paid and SEO hated each other. But now they all report into one person. What’s driving that change in how organisations are set up and how have things evolved so that that is now the better way to do it?
[00:05:16.540] – Miracle I-A
Because there is a lot of dependency, isn’t it? And measurement, attribution, those are all the things that are driving. I’ve seen such a massive correlation between ads and SEO. If those teams didn’t sit on the one acquisition team. I never would have realised how much impact people have performance had on SEO in this industry. I think it’s the measurement, the attribution part. We Google, chlorine loads of the information back. We had to find new ways to understand how do we spend our budget impactfully. Having everybody, having that central reporting, speaking together, I think those meetings are very insightful because you’re like, Oh, wow, you did this and had this impact. Or maybe you should take budget. Maybe we should spend this more. It’s having that smart attribution where it’s like, If we can’t get all the data, how do we use our own internal data to make better decisions? And it’s just aiding better decision making.
[00:06:12.300] – Andi J
And in financial services, that is a cutthroat industry online, isn’t it? So FS is… It’s a tough world to me. It’s also an exciting world. It’s one of those worlds like travel and possibly gambling as well, that if you are in search at your side of the steering wheel, it’s where all the action happens, isn’t it? Because it’s a busy market. There’s lots of people at it. The benefits of being page one or having good ads are huge, and you can see that fairly quickly, can’t you? But it’s also, as I said, it’s cut through. What did you learn when you moved into the FS world, coming from agency side and moving through? What did you find was a bit different when you landed in FS compared to any of the other sectors you’d worked in? Patience. You say that with the patience of someone who has earned that. Oh my God. Patience.
[00:07:09.540] – Miracle I-A
Just patience. I was so used to agency side where everything happens immediately, isn’t it? If you put out a strategy, it’s due yesterday, and you’re literally the speed turnaround. And in FS, it’s a whole compliance world. And really, you need patience to understand the product and understand the regulations, the regulations and the expectation of the regulators and all of those things and integrating that into your strategy. I think it’s the complex world of what a brand can say and a comparison site can say, and a Joe public that’s just running a financial block can get away with and being like, Oh, why can’t we? But this is what So it’s all of those things. I think just understanding the compliance will be if you’re getting into this industry, the compliance will be the biggest bog bear. And then understanding that the brand reputation as well is one of the biggest sellers of a lot of products. There are loads of products that are price sensitive, like car insurance, isn’t it? You need a car insurance. It’s something that people just get grumbly because they know that either which way has to pay out. But things like home and pets, where people have more of an emotional pull, they want brand that they feel will be there in 20 years.
[00:08:31.770] – Miracle I-A
A pet is like a second child. It’s understanding the sentiment behind all of those core products and understanding the regulatory bit behind all of it and how you can walk. There is a new regulation that just, well, I think it’s been here for a year now plus. It’s called consumer duty, where you have to show you have done the best effort possible to make sure that the consumer understands the information you’re giving it and you’re giving the right person the right information You’re just like, How do I say anything? I can’t say we provide really good services because I have to substantiate that. I need to find, go and do a research and explain to the compliance officer how our service is really good in comparison with other people’s service. I would have thought that was ludicrous some years ago, writing an article, I would need to substantiate every single thing. So it’s been a good learning curve.
[00:09:26.670] – Andi J
So about 20% of this podcast listenership comes America. And just to explain what Miracle said. So when we talk about regulation, that’s what governments do to stop companies exploiting customers. I don’t think it really exists in America regulation like that. It’s just the Wild West. So in the UK, there are a number of bodies that authorise how brands work, especially in financial markets. Plus, you’ve then got Google regulations. I don’t think they call them regulations, but your money, your life, applied over the top of national regulation. So you have a very small box to operating compared to if you’re selling clothing, for example. But does that actually help you? Because I was reading a quote this morning from the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, where it talks about, Use restrictions to fire creativity. Don’t see them as constraints. Once the box is drawn around, at least you know where the rules of the game start and finish, so you can just operate within those. Or do you find it quite restrictive to be able to operate that way?
[00:10:29.630] – Miracle I-A
I think it’s advantageous in the way that the parameters are clear, isn’t it? You’re like, Okay, I can’t do this. I can’t do that. These are the rules, and I can think, I don’t need to worry about that. And it makes you hyper-focused. And then you’re thinking, Okay, how can I get creative? And also because of the approval change, you think, Okay, how can I work cross-functionally to my advantage? How can I take something CRM is doing? How can I take something… How can I use one asset in multiple ways that we don’t have to go back to compliance and say this and that? I think it really helps you think out of the box, and you’re like, Okay, how can we do things in a way that fits the regulatory box, is creative, and then you’re like, less is more. You’re not just thinking about churn, churn, churn. You’re like, less is more because we have to do it. Because when you think of all these guardrails, you’re like, less is more. I think it helps in that way where you’re not just thinking about churn, churn, churn. You’re like, Okay, we need Less is more.
[00:11:31.420] – Miracle I-A
We need to do fewer but better and think about multiple ways we can use it.
[00:11:36.720] – Andi J
No, I find regulated industries fascinating. I’ve got some friends who work in pharmaceuticals and things like that, and Regulation, you just can’t escape it. You can’t complain about it because it’s there and you just have to understand what the rules are because that can be career-ending, getting stuff like that wrong, can’t it? Yes. Or limiting at the very least.
[00:11:59.550] – Miracle I-A
Yeah, It can be. I mean, well, there are serious consequences for directors. They can get banned from working in financial services. And then even you, as whoever’s putting out that thing, you’re liable. So if the company gets fined and it’s not small amount, it’s large amount of money. It makes sense for you to lose your job if the company gets fined, if you don’t follow the company. Because we have to report incidences. You can’t just hide and like, Oh, you have to report incidences. So yeah.
[00:12:31.990] – Andi J
And that also, I think, ties in back to what you said earlier about the brand you work for. So again, for people outside the UK, John Lewis is, I suppose, the darling of the British high street. It’s one of the two or three big pillars of Britain’s high street, isn’t it? Marks & Spencers are one, John Lewis, another. John Lewis also on Weteros, which is a fairly upmarket supermarket. You might not describe it that way. It’s really posh. Yeah, it’s posh. If somebody’s shopping at Weteros, you know they’re doing well. But John Lewis is, and they change the British advertising landscape with their TV ads at Christmas. So the John Lewis TV ad is now a seminal moment in British TV and British advertising and marketing culture of what John Lewis is going to drop this year. It’s a major brand that people know and trust. You’re working effectively in the extensions team and financial services using that to sell additional services as another revenue line. You mentioned things like credit cards, insurance, and things like that. How does brand impact what you do in the search team? Does it help? Does it hinder? Do people think, Oh, John Lewis, why are they trying to sell me credit cards?
[00:13:49.220] – Andi J
How does it all work?
[00:13:50.320] – Miracle I-A
I think it really helps, I have to say. We’ve seen all the Google League documents and Google confirming what everyone’s suspected, isn’t it? With information overload, it’s so difficult for Google to philtre out the weed from the… A well-established brand is a very easy way of establishing authority and trust. I think that’s one of the advantages that we have, is that we have that brand authority piggybacking off the larger brand. However, that brand authority is for retail. It’s not for financial services, and that’s what we’re then trying to build With that brand as well comes an expectation because it’s a very loved brand. People expect us to do better. When I say better, they expect us to do 150% more than anybody else in the industry is doing. I think we have that pressure of the brand reputation lifting us up and almost like, Oh, my God, we have to be squicked and squicked, whited and white. Customers expect us to us to be there for them, picking up calls, servicing them, because we are known for great customer services. In any way, outside of the digital space, they expect to see us in person.
[00:15:12.570] – Miracle I-A
It’s a two-fold thing. Yes, it does help. I’m not going to deny that it helps. It does help, but with it comes a lot of expectation. We all know now that reviews on what people are saying about you offline really impacts your ranking. We have to be very careful because whereas other Other brands can get away with things like that, we can’t. Customers will go and complain. That’s where it gets a bit tricky. But it’s a good place to be in because we have that trust and we have the authority to say we are John And the changes that Google have made over the last number of years, the direction of travel that they’ve gone, seemingly from the Google leaks and some of the analysis I’ve seen from it, I’m not going to say I’ve trolled through them myself.
[00:15:58.700] – Andi J
I didn’t really understand most of it, if I’m honest. But from the analysis I’ve seen, it seems to favour… Current results in search seem to favour bigger brands. It’s hard for you to say if you’ve seen that philtre through, but in terms of how financial services, especially where the problems, if Google get that wrong and start listing unscrupulous providers at the top of the search, it’s quite high for them to do. So they’re leaning more into brands. So coming piggybacking off the back of a major high street brand like John Lewis must give you a starting point that’s way above, I say, a startup or somebody new coming into the sector.
[00:16:40.100] – Miracle I-A
I wouldn’t say that. I would say the advantage we have is that because people know the brand, we have brand search. And so we have that brand demand where people search and become aware of our other products. But in terms of financial service, we are on the same playing field because part of the things that was in that document, whether Google’s not confirmed or denied, but part of the things that was in that document was the topical authority, which, again, we have for retail, and we are built up for financial services. It’s that, yes, you have brand, and so we will have brand search, and from there we’ll get more brand awareness, but we still have to fight really hard for those generic keywords in a very competitive market because that topical authority is something that we are building up for financial services.
[00:17:35.100] – Andi J
We started off by saying how hugely competitive financial services is. That then takes me through to something you mentioned right at the very beginning. You talked about attribution and how that’s getting harder and you’re using your own data and things like that to be able to do it. But more a generic point rather than how you do it at John Lewis, things have changed over the last number of years in terms of attribution. So what are you looking for in your heading up search? How are you attributing success? Is it still last click or are you using something much more scientific than that now?
[00:18:09.440] – Miracle I-A
At the end of the day, last click is so easy to explain, isn’t it? And so it will still form a major part of reporting as much as we want to stare away from it. But then I think a good thing about having your acquisition channels on the one bucket is that you can then look at correlations, and then you can test it out. And so that will give you a better indication of how, okay, where you should spend your budget. And I think that’s where a lot of companies are moving into in terms of looking at that correlation or getting information from first-party data and actually asking your customers and seeing their behaviour. So there are loads of data sources now apart from last click, but I think I’m very much focused on trends and correlations and then finding those things, isolating it out, testing it, and then rolling it out on a bigger scale.
[00:19:06.620] – Andi J
Are you finding then as you’re progressing through your career and coming out of agencies and moving in-house into roles like that, that Being able to interrogate that data maybe even more than you used to do, is that a bigger skill set now that you need in your role to be more in tune with the data? I know SEO unpaid has always been data heavy, but do you feel it’s getting more that way as we try and understand because we don’t have the full picture anymore?
[00:19:35.050] – Miracle I-A
I think interrogating what it means, but not at a granular level. I think at agency, we focus so much at the granular level, breaking things down. I can’t remember where I head, but I was listening to a podcast about a CEO when he was doing a presentation and he said the mistake, If you give people Excel-level data, you’ll get Excel-level questions, and then People will focus on, Is raw 5, 6, 7, and they forget the overall meaning. I think what I’m interrogating is, what does this mean? What’s the overall meaning? And does this metric, the way we’re interpreting this metric, is it the Wait, things like that less than the granular data. I’m looking more at trends and get a holistic picture and get that one line that I can tell a stakeholder that they’ll understand. That’s where I’m going more with the data. If the data is saying too many things, people get confused and I’m like, Let’s pause. Let’s say, what is the one, two, three lessons we want people to take away from this? Can those lessons be interrogated? If I ask you questions around it, can you answer it? How true is that?
[00:20:44.170] – Miracle I-A
And that’s more of what I’m focusing on, what is the story and how can this story hold up to scrutiny?
[00:20:50.840] – Andi J
That’s brilliant. I think this time last year, I had Thierry Ngotagore on the podcast. He works in an agency, but he’s a data guy, and he made the point. He was saying that he hates giving people access to dashboards. It’s not because I don’t want them to see the data, but it’s effectively delegating the data problem to them. I’m I got, Oh, here’s a few things you can look at. I’d much rather someone comes and say, not tell me what data you need, but tell me what question you’re answering, and I’ll come and add my value or my team’s value to you for that. I think that’s almost what you’re saying. It’s not about the number, it’s about the story the number tells, isn’t it?
[00:21:31.800] – Miracle I-A
That’s exactly what I keep telling my team. I say, What are you working on? Someone say, I’ve been pulling this, that, and I’m like, What is the person trying to say? What’s the question? What are they trying to solve for? I think always start from there. What are you trying to answer? Then you decide what data to put because you find that you spend two days working on something and they’re like, Oh, that’s not… I was trying to… Festivals start from, What are we trying to answer? Then I decide what data points you need. I keep saying, Nobody’s going to look through five pages of Excel. We don’t work at an agency where you have to justify your hourly rate or where you had to do time tracking and you had to present this bit. Nobody is thinking about that. You can link to the full Excel spreadsheet, but always, always create a PowerPoint or a slight with the top three takeaways and why those three takeaways can be open to interrogation. Anticipate any questions and then answer them right from the start.
[00:22:32.840] – Andi J
I remember one of the first strategies I ever delivered. Now, it’s a digital strategy, and I could bore you with why I don’t think you should ever have a digital strategy, but that’s a different thing. Not in marketing, but anyway, it was a It was a little marketing strategy, and I think there was something like a 66-page PowerPoint presentation and about a 90-page document. We battered the clients into submission with this presentation for 2 hours and then left them a document and then went, We’ll be back in touch if you got any questions. And weirdly, no one had any questions and nobody read the document that we left. Amazing, that wasn’t it? That was a decade ago. Now my strategy documents are about six or seven pages, and the real bit that you need is mostly on the first two pages. That’s it. And I could probably get that on one if I just condense some of the formats in. But It takes a little bit of experience to understand that and to realise that the strength isn’t in the volume of stuff you present. It’s in just giving them the three things they need to know.
[00:23:40.100] – Andi J
That takes a little bit of time and expertise and skill. That’s probably the one thing I wish I’d known 10 years ago. Stop giving people 400 pages when three will do.
[00:23:48.040] – Miracle I-A
Simplicity is key, and that’s one of the… I love that. Simplicity is key because I had some stats on the average CEO spends five days of their week going through PowerPoint, and they don’t need any more. And I realise if people don’t understand what you’re saying, especially in a massive meeting, they’re not going to ask questions because nobody wants to look stupid, isn’t it? And if they don’t understand, you’re not going to get buy-in. If they own the budget, you’re just not going to get buy-in, and everyone will just keep coming like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, thank you so much. And that will be it. The more engaged your audience are, if you keep it simple, make sure everyone understands. That way, they ask questions, they’re engaged, you’re more likely to get buy-in.
[00:24:33.390] – Andi J
I hate acronyms as well. Absolutely hate. I use them occasionally, but so many times people talk in just three letters, SEOs, PPC, CTAs, whatever. You’re like, Are you 100% sure everybody knows what all of these terms mean? Sometimes you might be sat in a room where you know that is the case. But the number of times I’ve been sat, especially when you get people from slightly outside of your team come into a meeting, don’t assume that. Just get back to this and say, This is what that… At least explain it if you’re going to carry on using it. It just drives me wild that. I think that boiling it down to its simplest point is where we need to get to much more.
[00:25:11.220] – Miracle I-A
I say to my team, I was like, If you send that slide, you need to be there to present it before anyone understands it. You need either a summary slide or you need to rethink the information you’re sending out because you’re not going to be there to represent it. Somebody else is going to be passed on is passed on. So you need to make sure that your own interpretation of those numbers is stamped on that slide.
[00:25:38.210] – Andi J
It sounds like you spend an awful lot of your time on the people in the coaching side of the job as much as you do on the technical side of the job.
[00:25:47.180] – Miracle I-A
Yes, I do. I think that’s the side I enjoy the most. I enjoy building confidence in people. I enjoy seeing people grow. I enjoy the mentorship side of it. I really enjoy that. And I guess I’m also learning, isn’t it? I’m doing a Level 7, which is like the equivalent of a master’s strategic leadership course in Imperial College. I shouldn’t know where I’m sitting. But anyway, I think the key things I’m learning is understanding your value as a leader, and it’s not in the implementation. I know sometimes if you have a small team, I don’t. I have a big team and I have capable people. I’m learning to delegate and understand my value and the fact that it It boils down to me understanding that I don’t have to have all the answers. The CEO doesn’t know a CEO, and he or she is the CEO. So it’s all of those things. And Lenny, my value is in training up people, giving them the skills, and that way I can expand, I can do more things rather than everything being funnelled through me.
[00:26:55.240] – Andi J
You mentioned that you’re studying at Imperial College. You think it’s Imperial College, isn’t it?
[00:27:00.080] – Miracle I-A
Imperial Business College, I think.
[00:27:02.800] – Andi J
But you’re studying in strategic leadership. And prior to that, you studied for an MA in digital media at London Met University. And before that, you did a BA in Theatre Arts at the University of Calibar, which is a new one to me. Let’s just take it step by step, going backwards. So you’ve told us a bit about the strategic leadership, your MA in Digital Media. So London Met University. Why did you think, I’m going back to get a postgrad? What took you that way?
[00:27:33.970] – Miracle I-A
I have to go a step back and say, go back to my first degree, which was Theatre Arts. I’m so far from what I originally started out as. I wanted to be a producer. I wanted to make documentary. I wanted to make films. And then I wanted to be an actress. And then I thought, no, it’s more interesting to be in charge and be the one directing people So I’m going to go into postproduction. And then I started looking for a course that wasn’t film-filmed, but had a bit of editing and marketing and stuff like that. And that was why I chose the MA in digital media. And I came here and then fell into marketing and then stayed there.
[00:28:19.330] – Andi J
That’s it. And you crushed all your dreams. So 18-year-old Miracle still in there somewhere going, I just want to be a star. I know.
[00:28:26.680] – Miracle I-A
That’s why I do public speaking. Never mind. Show me the rowas. That’s why I public speaking. I’m just like, Look at me.
[00:28:35.520] – Andi J
Listen, my wife refers to how I behave in the hour after I’ve been on stage as my show, Pony Stage. She’d go on stage, she’d be like, Oh, look at you, you show pony, galloping around, talking to everybody. Such is life, right? Such is life. If someone’s got to be the star, I’m not a miracle, so it might as well be you.
[00:28:54.570] – Miracle I-A
I mean, it might as well be me, hey.
[00:28:58.370] – Andi J
So we’ll come to the public speaking Give me a minute. And the stage show that you have, Theatre Arts in Nigeria. Tell us, first of all, Calabar, I had to Google it because I was like, Oh, I’ve never heard of this. Just give us a geographical sense of where it is in Nigeria.
[00:29:14.560] – Miracle I-A
It’s in the south of Nigeria. I come from one of the minority states in Nigeria. So it’s in the south.
[00:29:20.970] – Andi J
Got you. And it’s coastal, isn’t it? It’s not far from the Coast anyway. It’s very coastal. So you studied there and your first university experience was in the great Nigerian educational system. You then flipped and did your postgrad and MA in London, London Met University. What’s the difference between how the the Nigerian experience is in Nigeria studying compared to in London? Is it a university that’s broadly the same? Is there a very different ethos to them?
[00:29:56.790] – Miracle I-A
Oh, there is a very different ethos to them. They’re very yin and yang. As I alluded to when we started the podcast about the way authority is a big thing, and that also goes into our learning system. It’s a rote system of learning where whatever your lecturer tells you, they expect you to give them back. They’re not really big on critical thinking, isn’t it? It was like, a lecturer sold handbooks, they expected you to respond the question exactly with what they told you and not add your own into it. And I think coming here, when I migrated to the UK, I found I did struggle because then I will go to class and I’m like, Okay, Yeah, this is what the lecturer said about blah, blah, blah. And I would just literally pour that out and be like, Yeah, I should get an E. And we’re like, No, what do you think about this? You need to challenge it more. And I think that’s one of the reasons I think I then struggle to go into management, isn’t it? Because I will come in, do exactly what I was told, and be like, Why are the people who I consider the disruptors getting promoted above me?
[00:31:14.200] – Miracle I-A
I’m doing exactly What I’m doing what I’ve been told to do. I’m not- I’m doing what I’m told. Yeah, I’m not rocking the boat. I’m a good girl. I did, but then going to school here, starting to learn about critical thinking, thinking outside the box, interrogating the system and thinking, How can I do things differently? What else can I add to this? I think that is the core difference between learning in Nigeria and learning here. I think we have the Chinese system as well, which is also a rotor system. We have a rotor system of learning.
[00:31:51.830] – Andi J
It’s fascinating because I lecture at Liverpool John Moores University on the postgrad programme. There’s a lot of international students there, and you do notice the cultural differences coming in. So there’s a lot of students from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, a lot of students from North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, mostly. Egypt, mostly Moroccan and Tunisian, and then a smattering of people from all sorts of places around the world. But noticeably, the students from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh refer to me exclusively as professor. And I was like, No, no. First, I’m not a I’m a lecturer because professor is a protected title. I was like, I’m not a professor. I’m like, Yes, no problem, professor. I’m like, No, I’m not a professor. You can’t call me that. Yes, professor. Whatever. But also when my whole sessions are workshops I run at work where I value your input and what I’m saying is not right. I am posing a question for you to come back at me. I’m making a statement that I might know to be incorrect because I want you to be able to rip it to pieces. Sometimes, certainly the Southeast Asian students just don’t do it.
[00:33:04.660] – Andi J
They don’t want to do it because they’re not used to being able to tell the professor that he’s wrong. I’m like, No, this is incorrect. I need you to tell me why this is incorrect. And you could just see a lot of the North African students are fine doing it. And the home students, they’re like, Yeah, this is rubbish. I’ll tell you why it’s rubbish. And you could almost see the look on the faces of some of the kids, especially the Pakistani kids, actually. They start looking at you going like, Why are you doing it this way? But different systems, isn’t it?
[00:33:35.310] – Miracle I-A
Yeah, different systems. But I think a lot of things are evolving. I can certainly see when I go home and interact with my sister’s kids and stuff, I think the system is evolving and people are learning to ask questions a lot more in terms of the educational system and understanding that just because someone is older, it doesn’t mean they know it better or their new ways of doing things and kids have been empowered to challenge a bit more.
[00:34:05.850] – Andi J
As somebody who is now officially old, I think what you find is old people do know better, especially this one. I know everything, right? I just pretend I don’t. Tell me, you’re born in Nigeria, studied in Nigeria, then you migrated to the UK. We’re here in Black History Month, and I’m doing a lot of talking about my family’s migration pattern or throughout this month. But was the UK the place you thought it was when you arrived here? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh when I asked that question.
[00:34:38.570] – Miracle I-A
I don’t know. I never had any ambitions to live in the UK. I honestly never did. For a long time, I convinced myself that I would go back until family life took over and I gave up on that notion because I think most feminists will scorn at me when I say I moved here for my husband, he didn’t want to go back. This was his dream. So I didn’t really have any… I don’t know. Yeah, it was a lot of my family, especially my mom’s family, lives in the US. So I was more in tune with like, oh, if I was ever going to, that would have been the place. But I didn’t really have any ambition. So I just wanted to travel and go around the world. So I didn’t really… I don’t know. I don’t think I had any expectations about the UK. I was very surprised about how rigid it was and how everyone lost rules and stuff, which is a stark contrast to where I was coming from.
[00:35:46.370] – Andi J
I don’t know if the British invented queuing, but we certainly made it an Olympic sport.
[00:35:50.810] – Miracle I-A
And cutting people who won’t stand in the queue. I think the indirectness of it all It’s something I still struggle with because I come from a culture that is very direct.
[00:36:06.830] – Andi J
So the passive aggressiveness- I still struggle with that at work.
[00:36:11.480] – Miracle I-A
I see… I miss I’ve worked in companies where one person does something. We all know that it’s this person. But then the rule is then circulated by Hedra, Can we stop doing… I’m like, No, it’s this person. Can’t we just say, This person stop doing this?
[00:36:32.990] – Andi J
Can Andrew Jarvis please stop urinating in the kitchen sink? And that’s it, dude. We don’t need to put a policy out there. We just need to tell that one person to stop weeing in the kitchen.
[00:36:42.300] – Miracle I-A
Yeah, and then you’re like- Sorry, can I just clarify?
[00:36:46.060] – Andi J
I’ve never weed in the kitchen sink at work. That was just an example. I’ve never had a pain in the kitchen sink at work.
[00:36:54.170] – Miracle I-A
Yeah, I think that was something that I probably still struggle with, to bite my tongue and be like, Oh, can we not just say it as it is? I think that is one of the things that people struggle with. Even I see managers struggle to give people feedback, and then you see people being feeling blindsided when they’re like, actually someone stands up to them for the first time. I’m like, really? Nobody’s ever told you that. I think that is one of the things that I probably still struggle with, the fact that people are not direct and people can be very passive-aggressive when they can just say what they actually think.
[00:37:38.630] – Andi J
Welcome to Britain, where we never say what we think, but we like to tut loudly and give you the side eye. And also we’re experts in deep breathing.
[00:37:49.420] – Miracle I-A
Yeah.
[00:37:50.010] – Andi J
And that explains… A British person listening to that will know exactly the emotion I’ve just expelled by that deep breath. Someone who’s come from another country will be like, Why is he just deep breathing? What’s wrong with him? But feedback is a really important place to drill into a little bit. So I ask a lot of people for feedback, either when I’m presenting, running workshops or client work. And I always ask for two things. Tell me one thing you really, really liked, and tell me one area you think I can improve. So I was like, give me the good bit and give me the bad bit. Because I found if I just ask for the negative, the area of improvement, nobody gave me anything. So then I said, give me one bit you really liked and one area improvement. And do you know what I hear mostly when I ask that question? And I don’t stand for it, but the thing I hear most is, Oh, the good thing was ABC. And there weren’t really any bad bits. But there were. I know there were because I do this session fairly regularly, and I know there was a bit that was actually really bad today because I delivered it badly.
[00:38:50.730] – Andi J
No, no. And you have to really push, two minutes, push, push, push. And then someone will finally go, There was maybe just this little bit. And I’m not saying it’s a problem. And they just couch it and try and… We don’t want to hurt your feelings, and here’s a bit, and it’s not a problem, and don’t worry about this. But you were swearing too much. And you’re like, Brilliant. Why couldn’t you just told me that three minutes ago without all the pain before? Because that’s feedback I need to know. And it’s an interesting psychological flaw that we have, certainly in Britain, that we find it really difficult to tell people things they need to improve on. And worse than that, when someone does tell you those things directly, we then wait until that person’s left the room and then go, Well, they’re a bit direct, aren’t they? As if they’re the one with the problem.
[00:39:37.410] – Miracle I-A
They’re impressive. They’re much. I always tell people that if you don’t give people feedback, you’re preventing them from developing because they don’t know which areas to work on and how they can improve.
[00:39:52.400] – Andi J
I know it’s the old cliché, feedback is a gift, but it really is. If you don’t tell people the areas they need to improve, how are you ever going to know that? I think where I spend most of my life in Northern Ireland, it’s a very small pond, very small. I call it the world’s biggest village. Lots of people know lots of other people. I think one of the things that holds it back is the lack of direct feedback. Nobody gives you it because they’re worried about upsetting you or you know someone and you know their family or your dad golfs with their dad, so you don’t want to rock the boat and all that stuff. I think people miss out on that direct feedback of That wasn’t good enough. You need to improve that. Because if nobody tells you that… So I’m going to put you on the spot now. We’re talking about feedback. What’s the best bit of feedback you’ve ever been given that has helped you improve?
[00:40:46.410] – Miracle I-A
I don’t know if I would say feedback or advice, but it was someone who mentored me, told me that meetings are not the best place to get buy-in. And why I say that as feedback was it was after a particularly… Oh, God. Devastating. I still have PTSD when I think about that meeting.
[00:41:08.370] – Andi J
If you’re not watching the video, get the video on now to have a look at Miracle’s face while she’s talking about this meeting. The pain is real.
[00:41:16.720] – Miracle I-A
Oh, God. I was like, I’ve gone so many bridges. There are places because there were so many very senior stakeholders in that meeting, some of whom have gone on to be CEOs in in different companies, and we were having a meet. And I was saying the right thing, but I hadn’t done the work in, in the face of what I like to use, in circulating the problem and making it visible and understood before that meeting and getting the buy and adoption. And I came into that meeting organs blazing. I hadn’t done a good work of socialising the problem, getting people’s questions and understand before we got into that meeting. I got into that meeting like organs blazing, be like, I’m right, I’m right. And everyone else is like, yeah, that did not go that well. I think it’s why I still struggle with that, the etiquettes of being in being indirect was still saying exactly, conveying your point.
[00:42:19.030] – Andi J
It’s a very- Being direct while you’re being indirect.
[00:42:23.380] – Miracle I-A
It’s a very fine balance that I am still learning. But that was And he was just like, How did that go? And I was terrible. He was like, Yeah, you need to know that this is not the place, especially with such senior stakeholders who they don’t want to look like. So you have to be really careful in terms of socialising the problem, speaking to them one on one, understanding their pain points and where they… And then bringing that all in together in your presentation so that you have identified where everyone can identify what their problem is. You’re solving the problem for everyone rather than just solving the problem for yourself.
[00:43:10.560] – Andi J
Can you even get to being senior in an organisation if you haven’t had a meeting that has been an absolute disaster in your earlier days? I remember a meeting with a new chairman of an organisation I worked at where I’d blasellely written off about 30% of our income has been in permanent decline. Therefore, let’s not worry about it and just talk about something else that was more interesting and exciting. When he wanted to really focus on why that 30% was in decline, I was like, No, don’t worry about it. It’s declining. Let’s focus on this. At which point, all I remember from that meeting was just thinking, I just want to die and I want the world to open up and swallow me whole and never have to see this person again because he just went through me. Just explained, not personally, but just in a really direct way, why my whole approach to this was incorrect, why I was underprepared for that meeting, and why I should never, ever turn up to a board meeting again, that poorly prepared. Maybe I should leave and go and prepare for the next one and come back in a month’s time.
[00:44:07.340] – Andi J
I don’t think I’ve ever worked as much in that following month. At the end of the following board meeting, I did actually get a note from him saying, Well done. But that experience, I don’t go places unprepared now. And that all comes from that one experience because I used to wing a lot of stuff. Now I just look like I wing it. I don’t. And there’s a load of preparation goes making it look like I’m making it up as I go along, I promise you. But that meeting is still paining me now. I still wake up every now and again, I don’t like climb up.
[00:44:41.110] – Miracle I-A
I think it does build on the importance of stakeholder management and building those stakeholder relationship as a massive, massive skill, especially when you get into senior management. It’s something you can’t escape from, isn’t it?
[00:44:56.520] – Andi J
So before we finish, I want to move on to the other thing that you mentioned, and I said we’d come back to, which is about your public speaking. We met initially, maybe in 2017, about Search Love on the community speakers thing. And then since then, you’ve gone around the world to speak at events and talk about search and stuff like that. But you love it by the sounds of it. And from watching you, you can see that you love it. Is it just the stage bit of it that you love, or do you love the art of putting the presentations together? What is it that you really get a kick from?
[00:45:31.070] – Miracle I-A
I love the adoration. I love people saying you’re smart.
[00:45:35.910] – Andi J
It’s why we all do it, really.
[00:45:40.510] – Miracle I-A
I think for me, it’s about making information simple That’s really, really, to be honest, because as you can see from my history, I came from Tia Tharats, and I came into the industry. Now the industry is all about AI, isn’t it? But I came into the industry when everyone was saying, You need to be a developer, you need to learn how to code, you I talked to a lot of people that made me feel very small because they shared information in the way, not to make you understand, but just to sound intelligent and to make you feel like this is something that’s way out of your league. That really got to me. That to me, felt like a challenge. I was like, No. I am going to make it that everyone feels that this is accessible and everyone can digest this information. You don’t need to be You don’t need to have an IQ of… Now I don’t know what IQ measures are.
[00:46:35.520] – Andi J
I think over 100 is a good one. I don’t really know, but yeah, over 100.
[00:46:41.330] – Miracle I-A
But yeah.
[00:46:43.000] – Andi J
That’s what Google’s for. What is a high IQ. Google says 130 or more is considered. Okay. Very superior intelligence is 120 to 140.
[00:46:56.440] – Miracle I-A
There you go. Okay, cool. And that’s why I thought That’s why I just started giving talks. I think I used to give technical talks back in the day because I just wanted to show people that you didn’t need to be a developer or know how to code. I think the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten is someone reach out to me and say, I need you to deliver a training because you took a complex topic and you broke it down so easily that everybody in the room got it. And that was the first time I’ve seen that everyone gets so excited about SEO. And to me, that was better than anything anyone’s ever said to me Because that’s my goal.
[00:47:31.840] – Andi J
I still maybe have to question that. I mean, do people really get excited about SEO? And if they are, are they people you want to be in a room with? I don’t know.
[00:47:40.520] – Miracle I-A
It depends on how you put it.
[00:47:41.970] – Andi J
I’m only kidding, SEO fans. I’m only kidding. Sorry. Big up the SEO. Love the community. Big up SEO fans. Sorry. I’m probably going to get death threats in my answer. That’s okay. That’s all right. Cancelled in the SEO community. It’s okay. Very cool. Quick. Let’s move this on. Right, before I do get cancelled. Tell me, what are you reading right now? What would you recommend people read or a podcast they listen to, people who’ve stayed this far in the show, what resource would you recommend for them?
[00:48:15.730] – Miracle I-A
In another life, or as my second wave, when that second wave comes, I would love to be a therapist, especially a walk therapist who understands the relationship. Because one of the things I see a lot of is people will say, Oh, you bring a separate self to work. But a lot of the ways that we receive feedback and take feedback is all about how we grew up, what part were we in the family. That transference is always transference is saying that everything that’s going to happen to you along the way, you bring it into your understanding of what’s happening now. And so I am fascinated by that. And I have a level four qualification in counselling. And so I’m obsessed with it. But my dream is to finish my qualification and become a full therapist instead of seeing patients. I’m literally knee-dipping so many therapy books. My favourite now that I just finished reading is Every family has a story. You probably have to Google who wrote that because as you can see, my brain drops all the information.
[00:49:24.650] – Andi J
I shall find the link.
[00:49:25.300] – Miracle I-A
That’s okay. All the information you can Google doesn’t sit with me. But I’m obsessed with that because it goes through several families and the things that are happening now. Then once you pick it, you’ll find out how they grew up, what position someone is in the family, and how that’s affected the outcome of their lives. I love that. That’s what my latest read. But a lot of things on my list are therapy books and counselling books. I think I’m also doing a lot of talks on mentorship and leadership, and I think for new managers. The Fest 90 Days is a book I really recommend because it talks about getting started. I think overwhelmingly, the impact you make on your first three months, it’s all about first impression, follows you the rest of your stay there, and it takes a long time to onpick people’s idea of you. It’s easy to build that up in the first 90 days. That’s the book I recommend, and I listen to all Esther Pareil’s podcasts. I recommend people listen to The The one about work, which is housework, where she unpicks different founders or just people having a problem at work.
[00:50:37.410] – Miracle I-A
Then you’ll soon see it has to do with family upbringing. I’m fascinated by things like that, and that’s the things I listen to. I also listen to comedy. I just wanted to shout this out because I’m sure you have a lot of Irish listeners, but I’m obsessed with Joanne Mcnally. I listen to her podcast with Vogue Williams. That’s my weekly go to to unwind.
[00:51:02.840] – Andi J
Well, I should put links to the show notes for all of those things. Miracle, thank you very much for your time this morning.