Dave Hayward has changed industry and discipline more times than most people change jobs. This is what all that jumping taught him, and what it cost.

In his first solo episode of Slideshow, recorded from a talk at Revved's Write-Offs event, Dave works through four lessons from a career spent jumping off the deep end: sinking before you swim, treating optimism as a tactic rather than a default, surviving bad bosses and impossible targets, and the dream job that fell apart and led him to revive Europa Creative Partners.

Along the way, he gets into forgetting the coffee for a coffee tasting and closing the deal anyway, a sales target that was doubled and then tripled with no extra resource, and the dream job that fell apart and pushed him to quit with a fresh mortgage and no plan, the write-off that became Europa Creative Partners.

He also lands on why 2026 might be the best time in years to be a generalist, and why the self-doubt never really goes away. Worth a watch if you have ever taken on a job you had no business taking, and made it work anyway.

Links:

Dave Hayward, LinkedIn

Europa Creative Partners

This episode was recorded from content that was part of Dave's talk at Revved's Write-Offs event.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:50 A first solo edition: the Write-Offs talk

01:40 Imposter syndrome and the 84 percent

02:50 Breadth, depth, and optimism as a tactic

04:00 The welding job he wasn't ready for

05:20 Birmingham: a coffee tasting with no coffee

06:10 Bad bosses and a target that doubled then tripled

08:10 The dream job and the scandal that followed

09:20 Quitting with no plan, and how Europa came back

11:50 Why 2026 is a good time to be a generalist

12:40 Still jumping, just picking better watersFind full show notes, links, and transcript at europa.nz/podcasts.Produced by Europa Creative Partners.

A funnel is just the journey a customer takes from not knowing you exist to paying you money. That's it. Today’s Slideshow with Dave Hayward, we’re going to explain it clearly. Most small business owners want a viral reel. Stu Lees wants to know if they've mapped what their customers are actually afraid of. One of those will grow a business. The other is just noise.Produced by Europa Creative Partners (europa.nz).In this episode of Slideshow, host Dave Hayward speaks with Stu Lees, a marketing advisor, strategist, and founder of the Shoestring Marketer, about the three fundamentals that keep disappearing from the marketing of businesses (large and small).The conversation covers Stu's customer persona framework — built around fears, frustrations, and motivations rather than two paragraphs of demographics — and why marketing works on emotion first, with logic arriving only to validate a decision already made. Stu also shares the email nurture strategy behind $ 2 million in sales in 18 months with no cold calling, and why he believes personal brand has never mattered more for both businesses and the people who work inside them.Links:Stu Lees, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartlees/The Shoestring Marketer: https://shoestringmarketer.co/Dave Hayward, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haywarddave/Chapters 00:00 Introduction01:00 Stu's background: the SF startup and the marketing academy05:00 Learning by osmosis: how Stu learns anything new07:30 Public speaking as a superpower09:00 The Shoestring Marketer and what it's for14:00 Setting up the three neglected things15:00 Neglected thing 1: deep customer personas17:00 Emotion first, logic second19:30 The persona framework: fears, frustrations, aspirations, context22:00 Frustrations as a cheat code for writing content24:00 Case study: "not on my watch" and a backup software campaign26:00 System 1 and system 2 in marketing27:30 Neglected thing 2: the full funnel and email nurture30:00 People don't buy from ads. They buy from relationships.32:00 The $2M case study: 40,000 emails a week, no cold calling35:00 Neglected thing 3: personal brand in the age of AI36:00 It's never been more unsafe to be an employee38:00 The daily LinkedIn connection habit (started 2014, 28,000 connections)40:30 Get out from behind your desk43:30 Being unapologetically human45:00 Public speaking and community as brand builders51:00 Real rooms beat digital channels for trust55:00 Why a monthly newsletter proves you're a reliable business58:00 Wrap up

Your community wants impact, not your slides

Laz Csite has spent decades in high-end consulting. He chose to walk away from that and spend the next 10 years on something that actually matters to him: helping charities, social enterprises, and B corps use digital tools to deliver the change they exist for.

Produced by Europa Creative Partners (europa.nz).

In this episode of Slideshow, host Dave Hayward speaks with Laz Csite, founder of 360tuned, about why digital transformation keeps failing in mission-led organisations, and what it actually takes to get it right. Laz brings a rare combination: the rigour of a career at KPMG and PwC, and a philosophy shaped more by rice terraces and bamboo than by tech roadmaps.

The conversation covers the gap between board-approved strategy and the people who have to deliver it, why most nonprofits are nowhere near ready for AI and what to do first, the spaghetti problem hiding in almost every nonprofit back office, and the pizza framework for thinking about digital architecture. Laz also shares the "black Toyota Corolla" approach to choosing tools, a story about donor lifetime value that stopped a 15-year-old nonprofit in its tracks, and why boring, reliable systems beat shiny ones every time.

Links:

Laszlo Csite, LinkedIn

360tuned

Dave Hayward