What'cha Drinkin'? with Lucy Davison

Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.

Dan Quirk:

Hello, welcome to another episode of What’cha Drinkin’? from Quirk's Media. I'm Dan Quirk, VP, Marketing. Today we're interviewing Lucy Davison, founder and managing director of Keen as Mustard. Hi there Lucy. How are you doing?

Lucy Davison:

Hi Dan. How are you?

Dan Quirk:

What you drinking?

Lucy Davison:

I have a Negroni made for me, because my daughter used to work as a mixologist in a Japanese restaurant in London. She's actually an art student but I particularly like Negro because I love that kind of Campari flavor, that bitter flavor. And I'm very fond of Italy and it reminds me of Italian holidays. So I'm escaping at the moment with a Negroni. What are you drinking?

Dan Quirk:

Well, I love that. It's in a different time zone here. It's still morning. So what I have, I have my orange O mug and I am drinking a tea. It's tea from a local company here called Good Earth Sweet and Spicy Tea, and it ooh, an orange and cinnamon tea. And this was a local restaurant but they now sell the tea I think maybe nationally but it's one of my favorite teas. Later this afternoon I'll have a cocktail, but not right now.

Lucy Davison:

So, well, it's a little early for a cocktail and I'm actually an extremely big tea fan, so I'm fully supportive of you in your tea consumption.

Dan Quirk:

I will send you some of this tea, or maybe next time we see each other at an event, I can bring you some tea, which hopefully won't be too long.

Lucy Davison:

That would be what they call Coals to Newcastle, I think given the amount of tea in the U.K.

Dan Quirk:

Yes.

Lucy Davison:

National drink and all that. Right.

Dan Quirk:

Well moving on, I know that you are a communication guru and expert, and I wanted to ask you, these are trying times right now. What should companies be doing right now in terms of communications?

Lucy Davison:

That's an interesting question. I think that overall, all the rules of good communications still apply, but the one thing that I think people should do right now is ensure that they are being really authentic and human in terms of their voice. And I think the only way we can actually make connections with people is by giving ourselves to what we're doing and what we're saying. And so, be more human would be my No. 1 rule for how better to communicate in this kind of a crisis.

Dan Quirk:

Okay. Do you think that means then is it admitting mistakes? Is it just being more empathetic in how you communicate?

Lucy Davison:

I think it's always in particular acknowledging that we don't know what's going to happen. I heard a really good analogy the other day. Everyone keeps saying, we're all in the same boat, we're not all in the same boat, we're all in the same hurricane and we are all in different vessels. So, I think it's acknowledging the fact that we don’t know what's going to happen. We have no idea what the outcome's going to be. There could be an enormously wide range of experiences and situations that your audiences are in. And I think it's really, really important to address people on a kind of really human level. So when it comes to business communications, I would argue we need to ensure that we're both living our brand and ensuring that we're being our brand and living our values, but that we're articulating that in terms of our tone of voice. So we're really, really being real and being authentic, giving real examples telling our own anecdotes and stories, keeping it short, but keeping it really real.

Dan Quirk:

Well. And I think it, it's real. Where you're coming from is real. That's your home, right? Yeah. So automatically that makes it sort of a little more real. I'm in my office, as you see, I have some of the mascots behind me that we've used at our events in the past. Keeps me from getting lonely because the office is pretty empty right now. Most of us aren't coming in. So moving on to something a little more fun. I'm kind of curious, what are you binge watching these days on your own?

Lucy Davison:

Well, actually I'm like many people, I find it quite hard to do too much screen time. And so I'm not binge watching. I am watching TV and I'm reading, but I'm not binging anything in terms of that kind of consumption. What I am doing is binge gardening. So I have a really lovely plot here where I live in the country in England and I have my veg plot and it doesn't know what hit it, honestly. It's got everything going and we've got the peas and the beans. And I had asparagus today for lunch, which I picked about five minutes before I ate it. And I don't feel, I think it's the way that I keep creative and sane is keeping my hands in the soil and getting on with my garden.

Dan Quirk:

I think that's great. I heard somebody say they said we're going to have the best tended gardens ever because people have time on their hands, but the worst tended hair.

Lucy Davison:

So I feel very sorry for hairdressers. I have been trying to get my usual hair done. It's really difficult.

Dan Quirk:

I know I have a lot of gray coming in now, for sure. Well, I want to thank you so much for giving us some communication, sharing your home with us as well, and I can't wait to see you again in person.

Lucy Davison:

Yeah, I can't wait to see you too, Dan. Take care. Bye.