Episode 25 – Matthew Knight

Our guest today Matthew Knight from KOTN Media. He chats with Simone about relationships, local news, and his approach to sports reporting.

Special guest: Matthew Knight

You can connect with Matthew here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-knight-5a399812a/

For more information about KOTN Media, visit their website: https://kotnmedia.com/

Check out our page for updates and teasers about upcoming episodes, links, and details about Simone’s best-selling books.

https://digitalmarketingaok.com.au/podcast 

Hosted by Simone Douglas

Videography by Marie Carbone

Audio by Chris Irving

Music used in this episode is “Alte Herren” by KieLoKaz, used with permission under a Creative Commons Licence

This production is protected by a creative commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

Chris Irving  0:00  

Welcome to the seriously social podcast with your host, Simone Douglas. Our guest today is Matthew Knight from Kotn media. He chats with Simone about relationships, local news, and his approach to sports reporting.

Simone Douglas  0:14  

So welcome to this episode of seriously social podcast, I’m joined by Matt today from Kotn. Otherwise, all kotn media, otherwise known as King of the North, which I meant to tell you is a little bit ironic, because in one of my other businesses, they called me the Queen of the North. So we’ve got the king and the queen today. But but maybe you can just give us a brief overview about what is current media all about? What do you guys do?

Matthew Knight  0:39  

Yeah, thanks for having us, Simone. It’s been a bit of a journey and something that we probably didn’t expect to happen. But essentially, what we do now is, we work in the sports media space. So what we want to provide to local sporting organisations and sort of that next that next level is social media content that they can really engage with their supporters and their fan base, obviously, you see it, the way they do it in the AFL and cricket, that sort of thing, how that how they operate in terms of engaged fan engagement, and that so we want to do with a lot of local clubs getting on social media, and that being their main tool of communication, we wanted to try and bring in an affordable way for them to be able to use media in their in their club and sort of the idea stem from there. And we’ve been doing it ever since.

Simone Douglas  1:34  

Yeah. So we were saying before we got started that you guys have been around for about two years now. What has been the most surprising thing from a growth perspective that you’ve found, like, in terms of building your networks?

Matthew Knight  1:48  

Yeah, I think one thing that I’ve always been pretty big on, and probably one of my strengths has been building and network and having having a large network. But I think from where we when we first sort of pitch the business and where we thought it might work where I’m in tied up in the bras of footy league and it was you know, maybe just a bit of a side hobby, a bit of fun, just focusing, talking about local footy. And pretty quickly from there, we got a call from a sample footy club. So asking us if we can, we can come in and do their media. And I know at the time, we’d probably been going three weeks. And I think our goals was to approach the sample club in the next in 12 months time and see if we could do something there. And it happened in three weeks. So I know our goals on where we thought would be we’re then pretty quickly out and yeah, that was probably the surprising thing. And we did two years of work with the central district, footy club. That sort of really where it kick started from sort of three weeks in the the structure of the business, we’re already going right on what are we going to do now?

Simone Douglas  3:00  

Yeah, this has turned into some serious stuff. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I do think that part of your success is because you have that local level knowledge and so it’s real, it’s authentic. And that’s what the fan base connects with.

Matthew Knight  3:17  

Yeah, it is and that’s what we really have honed in on is with a crop up in Kotn and the way that all come about is you know, just it’s all a bit of a laugh and that’s what we wanted to be as a media company we wanted to be Yeah, we’ll report news and be serious but we’re not there to rip people down that sort of media probably doesn’t sit well with me and something that we see a lot of in journalism may they get paid to do a job but yeah, they’re pumping someone out one week and the next week they were going to do and so that probably doesn’t sit well so as was let’s have a bit of light hearted fun more banter. You know, if we’re going to take have a crack at someone that’s more taking the Mickey out of then actually torn trying to tear shreds off him and we find a lot of engagement through that but also our base being in Gawler and in the Barossa and that northern real northern suburbs areas. It was making sure let’s hone in on that area. And I think I use the term pick the low hanging fruit is probably one that always got told us you know, before you branch out, use your market where it started. And that’s been probably a real focus in the first two years and we’re at that stage now where we’re really looking to branch out from there. Yeah,

Simone Douglas  4:37  

so if if your dream next level client fell from the sky into your lap, what would that look like? Who would

Matthew Knight  4:45  

they be? Yeah, I think we’re pretty lucky already in the sense that obviously, we cover all try to cover as much sport as we can interview people from all sports, but we massive footy and cricket fans So it’s probably already fallen in terms of who we want to work with, from a stake point of view. So we’re already working with the sand for producing a weekly show a footy show for them, which, if you told me I was doing that 12 months ago, I wouldn’t believe you. And so that’s been incredible to be able to work with them. But I think as well, we’ve done some work with the sackers. So I think moving on, if we can get to AFL team and come in and run their media or something like that, it would be that would be amazing. But I think with what we do, it’s, it’s more probs, that sort of stuff probably gets contracted out. Yeah. So if we can, or it’s more in house, someone doing the role. So I think we’re already in terms of sport, we’re working with sort of our, our dream client in the sample for but there’s definitely that next level we’re looking is, you know, is it doing some stuff with an AFL club or, I mean, Crikcet Australia would be amazing as well. But and I think for us, it’s, it’s producing some products that can go to Fox Sports, channel 7, 9, or 10. So, so we’re in a space at the moment where we’ve got a couple of options to produce some stuff that can end up getting to them. So I think that if we can, if we can get something on one of those programs, then I think I’ll be very happy.

Simone Douglas  6:29  

Because I often have conversations with people in Melbourne or Sydney or elsewhere. And there’s always something well, not always sometimes there’s a bit of an attitude or you’re in sleepy little Adelaide, nothing exciting happens over there. Um, what would you say to people, you know, who go Gawler? Borossa, you know, where’s that? And yet here you are doing all this amazing stuff?

Matthew Knight  6:53  

Yeah, it’s people don’t not many people know Gawler, obviously Borrousa pretty famous around the world, but it’s you do and you know, things are being told, and you look at media jobs, and getting into AFL law, all that sort of thing. And a lot of them tell you, you got to move to Melbourne, or you got to move to Sydney to do it. So even with reporting and the news and that sort of thing. They they tell you, you got to go to Melbourne or Sydney. But I think because of that stigma as well, I think there’s so much opportunity in Adelaide. Yeah. So that’s what we look at is that, you know, everyone’s already going to Melbourne in Melbourne, they already live streaming local free games, all this sort of stuff, Adelaide, we’ve only picked that up over the last year or two. Yeah, so we see we see massive room in Adelaide to move and really hit that market. And I think there’s a few few other people in terms of competitors for us as a few other people that do interviews and that sort of thing. But there’s no one that provides a complete package like we do. So, you know, we can, we can interview sports stars, but then we can come out and we can produce a coach’s interview for you your local club or a show for your local club or some content around that as well. So there’s no one out there in Adelaide that’s doing well the only one is crop media who are working with so so that’s where we see the market from a local point of view is where we’ve got people that do stuff in different areas of our business. Yeah, but not people that provide the whole package.

Simone Douglas  8:33  

Yeah, and that’s a really strong place to be absolutely. I you know, certainly for us as a social media agency one of the things that we found was we had to add on service offerings outside of like what used to be our core offering because some of our clients wanted an end to end provider and there’s nothing more painful than losing a client you’ve been doing really good work for just because they only want to speak to one person a month they’re not full so yeah it’s a great spot to be in

Matthew Knight  9:03  

yeah and that’s what we’ve and that’s what we found is if we can provide a one stop solution for a lot of these businesses that we deal with in sporting clubs and yeah makes one it makes my life easier because I’m not having to chase new business all the time as much as we are but you then yeah, it makes my life easier and then they comfortable because we’ve built that relationship as well I think relation one on one relationships with people that probably we social media and phone news and that these days probably something that’s a forgotten trait, but I don’t think there’s anything that can beats going and sitting one on one with someone and building that relationship. Yeah.

Simone Douglas  9:46  

Do you think you have an unfair advantage from that perspective? You know, school, I call it suburbia these days, but it’s really it’s used to be country. It’s just that Adelaide and gold agree together. But you know, there’s a certain Why, and I grew up in the country, there’s a certain way you go about doing business and forming relationships where the person matters.

Matthew Knight  10:07  

Yeah, it’s different for me because I’m not actually a Gawler of local, originally in Melbourne city boy. So I moved over when I was 11-12 years old for dad’s work, and he just so happened to move to Gawler. And I think I think I’ve learned a lot of my dad. So he’s been a CFO and CEO of big business. So I think it’s just been something that I look back on now. I mean, I look back, I’m 25. Now, but I look back on and, you know, if you had a guest over, he was always the first one to go, we got me going and introduce yourself. And you said, good. I, from a young age, I think that was the traits that I’ve picked up from him over the years and watching how he goes about business that I just, it was just normal to me. Yeah. And I know now I get a lot of mates and blokes in my business that do different roles. And they sort of take the piss out of me a little bit saying, How do you like you just know everyone? Yeah, you walked in. And supermodel girlfriend hates it, because you walk in the supermarket, and you stop and talk to five people. But yeah, but I think if you just if you just waved if you just gave him a nod, or, or, or that sometimes, although it’d be easy, and you’d get things done quicker. But I think there’s a time where that relationship comes around to a point where you need it. Yeah. And those common little conversations and stopping and calls and speaking to someone for two minutes. Although the people we’ve been probably don’t understand it’s important. It’s something that I think is important for, to keep that relationship going. And it’s just been something that I’ve learned over the

Simone Douglas  11:49  

over the years, sounds like your dad taught you some really good advice to my kids to make them introduce themselves to anyone that comes in the house. So it but there are a lot of people, you know, and particularly, you know, in your age, right, there are heaps of people now, you know, 20 to 25, who have their own businesses, they’re, you know, they the startup or well established like yours. What advice would you give to, not to the 20 to 25 years, because they to a degree, they know what they’re doing at this point, to the 40 plus year olds, who perhaps, you know, cutting off their nose to spite their face, or, or discounting the value of having those relationships. You know, what advice would you give to the older people?

Matthew Knight  12:35  

Yeah, it’s, it’s an interesting one. But I just think that, yeah, I think it matters is the big one. And every, every interaction matters. So it’s how you, it might be a beer down at the pub, and I think some of the best business deals get done at the pub. So I think I think it’s Yeah, just be open to it. And sometimes what you do find has, as a 25 year old going to meet with someone that’s ran their own business for 30 years or 40 years is that level of you don’t know you’re talking about I’m talking about and we’re in 2021, things are different to have a started and yeah, it’s so good. It’s how you approach that conversation. I was having this conversation with someone yesterday, the way you gotta go about that conversation is, you’re not telling them what they need, you almost got to make him think themselves that that’s what they’re telling you what you need. But you know, they’ve never had Facebook they’ve never had internet, they don’t, but they’re probably you got to make them work out that they know that they need it. So I think the relationships is is a big one, and building that rapport when maybe later in life. It’s something that you take a little bit for granted, but I think just yeah, you just keep they matter. So yeah, keep making them happen.

Simone Douglas  13:59  

Absolutely. I think you know, my radio show this morning was all about no cup of coffee is a waste of time. Because sometimes some people get to a certain stage in their career or their life and you don’t have my phone number, then you’re not meant to have a really, really, you might really want me to have your phone number you just don’t know that you want me to have your phone number. And I think it’s that thing of, yeah, relationships come in swings around about so I think that’s a really good spot to end on. I really look forward to seeing your company continue to grow, and hopefully you do get that AFL team or something to do with it. I think, you know, the idea that a local company, you know, that’s two years old is ticking all the boxes and can produce something that will happily go on Fox or somewhere else is phenomenal. So you must be incredibly proud of what you’ve been able to achieve in the business.

Matthew Knight  14:50  

Yeah, we are at some it’s still a bit of a whirlwind and still got to sit down and beat yourself up of what you’re doing before to where you are now. It’s amazing I love it. It’s It’s hard work, especially with the pandemic and what was going through at the moment. It’s hard work. And it’s a lot of hours, the time you put in for the return at the moment, probably not great. But it’s it’s what you, you know where it is in 10 years. And I think that’s when I’m really gonna sit back and was it a pass or a fail? But yeah, at this stage, it’s amazing to be involved in and we’re just gonna take any an asteroid and see what happens.

Simone Douglas  15:28  

I think you raised a really good point. My thing was always so long as I’m enjoying what I’m doing, so long as I get a buzz out of like, doing what I do, then it’s fine. The day that that stops happening, I’m gonna look to sell it. We can have a bad day. We just don’t want to live there. Matt, thanks very much for joining me today. It’s been great having a chat, and you’ll find all of Matt’s social media links and his LinkedIn links in the bio for the podcast, so look him up. And if you’re in sports, anyone talk to a media company that can make you guys look good and allow you to connect with them, your local market and your fan base in a way that’s authentic and honest. Sounds like Matt is the guy. Thanks very much.

Matthew Knight  16:13  

Thanks for having us.

Chris Irving  16:16  

We hope you enjoyed this episode of seriously social. Check our website for the latest news show notes and for details about Simone’s latest book, confident networker.