Where would you tell me to start? And how would you change their headspace from thinking, I'm going to struggle to run for a few minutes to bridge in the gap to actually me crossing the finish line at a 5 or a 10K? What would you say to me? Pitch to

5K.

Okay.

100%.

That is like, I could sit and go, oh, I would get you to do this, this, this, and this.

See if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Couch to 5K is an amazing app.

Yeah.

What was your reason? Was it just 'cause it's, like, such a juxtaposition between a serial killer? What, why did you make her an artist?

Well, originally in the first book, You'd Look Better As A Ghost, Claire was a writer.

And how the book started, and obviously when I wrote You'd Look Better As A Ghost, I didn't have an agent, I didn't, I didn't think I was ever gonna get published because, like most writers, I'd been sending out my writing for well over a decade and just, you know, getting rejected by agents all the time.

So you kind of get to a point where you're, I was writing in my spare time because I just love writing.

I'd get, got to the point thinking I was never gonna get published.

And I think there's a kind of a freedom that comes with that actually, where you just think, "Well, I'm just doing this for fun, and I'm gonna be really bold, and I'm just gonna do whatever I want." And Claire was a writer, and in the beginning of the book she actually gets an email from someone saying, "You've got a place on this very prestigious writing course," and she's really excited because she's been, you know, kind of been rejected as a writer a lot, and then she gets a follow-up email saying, "Actually, we sent that email to the wrong Claire, and you haven't got the place." And obviously in the book, Claire being a serial killer does not take this news very well and, and she hunts down the, the, the guy who sent the email, and that was what she was in the first b- in the first draft.

And when I sent it out, and actually I, I, I got an agent, publishers and agents don't really like reading about, you know, aspiring writers [laughs] so much.

Can you just tell them a little bit more about Claire?

I don't like

you now.

I'm sorry.

I'm sure there's plenty of people who are delightful who do that.

Maybe you guys do.

But so there's a few places that you can find them.

And I think the I think why like some recruiting people struggle is that like you're saying there's it's it's.

But like, how do you tell if they're full of shit? How do you evaluate them?

So can you tell us the reason you feel most brands should go in-house?

Um, I don't think most brands.

I think it truly depends on where you are with your scaling, and, like, what, and what kind of brand you are.

So I think, like, there's, it's v- it's very hard for companies to find an agency that truly matches and understands their brand, but I think if you can find one, um, that truly gets you and is truly a longterm partner, that's phenomenal, and I really think that smaller brands, if you can find that, stick with it.

Um, I do think, though, that it's hard to find a match with agencies, and I see all these brands go, "We've, we've used so many agencies.

You know, we haven't found one we like.

Ugh, we're so frustrated.

Yeah.